Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-07-27 00:00:00

THE Ministerial journals plead that the objection
raised by anticipators to our taking any part in the
ensuing Conference on the affairs of Italy, is prema-
We admit a certain validity both in the plea

and in the objection. In a Parliamentary system,

premature objections are almost the only mode by
which any control can be exercised, in matters of

this sort, on the conduct of the QUEEN'S Ministers

and, in the present instance, they are a commendable
example of the vigilance of our public men. If, at a

juncture of this nature, the only opinion competent
for Parliament to pronounce were one of approval or
disapproval of what had been already irrevocably
done, then the foreign policy of this country would
vary with too marked a difference on the accession of

every new Minister, and would bear the stamp of

individual peculiarities to the exclusion of national
characteristics. The ordinary expression of public

,ufficient, as a rule, to modify

the prejudices and partialities of a Minister; and,
even in a popular Government, the least that can be
expected is that the free management of the details

of their office should be left to those whom it

delegates

But there are exceptions;- and the

present is one of them. When one act of a Minister

may consign his country for ages to dangerous and

inextricable complications, Parliament may fairly
demand some more effective security than the

tive of holding over him the menace

of an ex post facto deprivation of power. On

we hail Lord ELcHo's resolutiOn

as an admirable fruit of our constitutional

system, even in its most anomarous features. It has

Ministers on their guard

and it is possible that their

recent proposition of disarmament may have been a,
concession to a vigilant House of Commons. For

this we have to thank Mr. DISRAELI, .the first who

raised the question

sow, there is no doubt, that the chief reason for

objecting to our, sending, a representative to a Con-
gress is the impression that the arrangement of Italy

is a foregone conclusion. There is no doubt that the
hurried peace of Villafranca, whether the result of a

dpep design, or an improvised expedient for escaping
from a sudden difficulty, was a slight to Europe.

We are no admirers of the " Continental System

cognised, two of its individual members can scarcely
be allowed to play fast and loose with its .engage-
ments and its precedents, consistently with the

dignity or security of the other powers.

We are

no admirers of the Treaty of 1815; but even good

faith and common honesty demand that there should

be some protest lodged against the arbitrary freak of
two Emperors, who, meet at a breakfast-table and

toss it as waste paper into a basket. Upon the face
of matters the inference is reasonable, that the only

motive of the invitation offered to England, is to drag

her. as a party into a somewhat nefarious arrange-
ment which she has had no voice in originating, and
which was privately come to for the very purpose of
excluding her. It is, however, admitted by the
Min isterialists, that on these terms England cannot con-

It is implied that the elumsi

patch-w

is to be pulled to pieces, in order tha

or two.

But this notion is entirely at variance with the motive

publicly alleged by the two Emperors for their

strange outrage on di

.ecedent and public

law. The alternative of diplomacy was expressly

sede the meddling of the other powers, and made a

demonstration to Europe that they could dispose of

should Ihey.now call in

e contracting powers to a defunct treaty, to disinter

two imperial fiats have

consigned it ? Is England to pronounce an opinion
upon the peace of Villafranca, and is it all to depend
on her concurrence ? Are France and Austria about
to cat humble-pie, and, through _their

Ambassadors,

bring in their accoun,ts for examination? Are we to

revise the Italian arrangement, revoke, if
_necessary,

the generous grant of. NAPOLEON; And weigh 'the

It is clearly not on any such understanding as this
that'.we are invited ,to the Imperial Conference, We
arc wanted to throw the cloak of decency over an

outrage on international vustom. We are asked, as a

disagreeable necessity, to lend something of the sanc-

tion' of public la\V to an act' of 'private convenience

to impart the appearance of order to irregularity.
Perhaps Loris NAPOLEON desires to absolve himself

after the Italian abortion by a congress unable to

withhold its concurrence, as he did after the. coup
,cl' etat,

Perhaps he wishes to retain his friend and admirer
Lord PALAiE4STON, ,his adviser on the occasion

gland is intended to 'enter such a confer-

enee with her hands free and untied, what is to be

the result if she giows rusty, and refuses ltert 0u.7:

currence in the imperial propositions, or, we suppose
decisions ? Will the measures already concluded of

proceed to completion without her

This is a