Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-03-19 00:00:00

several correspondents among the officers of the
Austrian army in Italy,speaks with confidence of
the promptitude nith which that Power can brin
all its resource 4 to bear upon the present comedca-
tion. Venice is secured from any attack by sea,
owing the completion of the military works upon
_ _

the Lido. An army of 130,000 men with 300 field
1;1ms can be put upon Italian ground at fourteen
days' notice. Austria has succeeded in rekindling
the smouldering fire of Teutonic patriotism, which
forty years of peace had not extinguished." Such is
the position of Austria, in readiness for the threat-
ened conflict.

The feeling of " Young Italy," again, does not
seem to have been daunted in any wise by the symp-
toms of drawing back which have been displayed in
the Paris Moniteur. "The Italians," we read, "do
not seem in any corresponding degree depressed by
the pacific language of the French official journal.
They consider that the Emperor has gone too far to
recede, and that the consequences of a change of
policy, after all that has been said and done, would
be too terrible to contemplate ; that although the
Emperor himself has kept silence, or, if he spoke,
has never exceeded the bounds of diplomatic reserve,
yet his vague, half-expressed hints in reference to
the state of Italy, his toleration of, nay, his alleged
participation in, the authorship of certain pamphlets
couched in the most significant terms, clearly indi-
cate the large and comprehensive nature of his views,
and his full determination to stop at nothing short
of their complete realisation." All this is, no doubt,
quite true. The French Emperor has excited hopes
which will not be very readily abandoned, and the
realisation of which the influences he has aroused
will not soon give up. The head quarters of the
excited party is Piedmont. This is the Power behind
which France is to strike her deadliest blow at
Austria, not only for Italian conquest, but for the
acquisition of territory which will make- the Rhine,
as it has long been eagerly desired, the boundary of
the French Empire in that direction. This has long
been an anxious object of French ambition ; and
Louis NAPOLEON knows well how it would raise
him in popular favour to accomplish it.
Yes,—Piedmont is the rallying point ; and Italian
patriotism is centreing there. The whole youth of
Italy, heaving and panting, if we are to believe them,
for "nationality," has gone to Piedmont. " Every
young man of moderately independent means, and
under the age of 26 years, has taken his departure.
Many youths employed in counting-houses have
thrown up or temporarily resigned their posts ; nay,
many of those whose fathers hold Government
situations have hastened to associate their names
with those of the Viscontis, the Crivellis, Del Vermis,
the Carcanos, the Vitalis, the Tavernas, the Turatis,
the Guicciardis, the Ciconias, the Belgiosios, the
Caccias, and the Furnis, who have taken service in
Piedmont." Such are the accounts. And if they be
anything like true, they show that a spirit has been
evoked which will never be set at rest but through
the issues of a campaign—and one, the like of which
for ardour and energy Europe will not have
witnessed since the palmy days of NAPOLEON LE
GRAND.

Such, then, is the war question in its latest as-
pects. One's greatest consolation still is, that Eng-
land remains detached from it in any of its operations,
save in the character of a peace-promoter, though
with the faintest hopes of success.