The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-12 00:00:00

NELLI.

We can join, however, with Lord PALMEIIBTON
hi complimenting personally the worthy baronet
for his zealous advocacy of such a falling cause as
that of the POPE'S temporal rule. It does require
a eegree of courage to oppose both facts, and reason,
and the sympathy of Englishmen for freedom, in
the interest of an antiquated and detested despotism,
which nothing but a faith totally different from
that of most men could furnis.b. It is impossible,
however, that our respect for Sir G. BOWYER'S
motives should modify our judgment of the worth
of his statements or opinions ; they will be to all
other men as valuable as the opinions about colours
of a gentleman who looks abroad with tinted spec-
tacles. The nature of his impressions we cannot
doubt ; their correspondence with facts we more
than doubt. And Sir G. BOWYER does not conceal
that he looks on Italy through the spectacles of
1
passionate attachment to the rule of Popes and
ex-monarchs.

Sir G. BOWYER has, therefore, only succeeded in
two things. One in showing how entirely the
British House of Commons fails to sympathise with
trie"; the other in calling forth from Nr. LAYARD,
e Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Lord PAL-
MERsToN
such a picture of the truth of the case,
and such a
declaration of English policy, as will
equally encourage the Italians, rebuke their ene-
mies, and aid, poa far as the expression of opinions
by some of thetrst of
European statesmen can do it,
in obtaining for Italians their complete liberties—
liberty from Papal thraldom included. The POPE'S
Irish Brigade will see, too,
that our veteran Pre-
wiier is in no way dauntedby the imperative orders
issued from the Vatican,
*- is
4Asted of by the
O'REILLYS, and acted on by I:4)roun Catholics gene-
rally, whether electors or others—to
vote against
and turn out by any means the Present Govern-
ment for its sympathy with Italian liberty, Lord
PA.I.MERSTON told them plainly, though in court,
ens language, that the Government not only never
denied sympathy with the cause of Italiqn freedom,
but gloried in it; that they understood non-interven_
ton to mean abstinence from action only, certainly
not from interest in the affairs of another country ;
that so far from being "angrsv at the charges made
by the honourable baronet, thew were proud of the
eh.arge"—they were "proud to be thought to have
contributed in the way the honourable baronet says
we have done, to an event which every person may
consider a happy cne." Lord PALMERSTO,N gave
no 013Portunity for mistake; if you like, he virtually

said to the Irish members—Unite with the Tories

on any division. and turn us out: you may do that,
but you will not deprive us of our own satisfaction
with our course, nor, we believe, of the approbation

of the country.

But how, meantime, do the Tories behave on oc-
casions like that of last night, when the liberties of
Italy, or indeed of any foreign country, are the
subject of discussion. Why, their leader could
I leave the House, and the Pakingtons, the White•

sides, and the Walpoles, and all the subordinate
officers of the Opposition could be perfectly silent,
as if it were no business of Tory members to evince
their sympathy with the cause of Italian liberty. Mr.
LocKE very properly called attention to this sneak-
ing, shabby reticence. He demanded of them if a
general election came whether they would behave,in
regard to Italian freedom, as they had in reference
to Free-trade in 1852—and promise to bow to the
decision of the people. It may be a politic silence
cti the part of Mr. DISRAELI, but we are certain
that it is not a very honourable one. For him and
other ex-Ministers to sit by and shirk a debate so
interesting to the country, can but be regarded as
political cowardice. If they lean, as so many of
them do, to the temporal Pope—the spiritual one
also for aught we know—and to the ex-despots, then,
if they are, like Lord PALMERSTON, proud of their
policy, let them get up and say so. They are pur-
chasing Ultramontane votes all over Ireland, and
in England, too, by taking the side of the POPE,
and the banished rulers; why not avow their side
in the House of Commons ? The country per-
fectly well knows the reason why all Roman Catho-
lc electors are ordered to vote for Lord DERBY;
, and it would therefore be mole creditable to the
Tories to imitate the courage of Sir G. BOWYER, and
to proclaim themselves in favour of a falling cause.
With regard to the facts of the case, the reply
of Mr. LAYARD was triumphant. To the tales and
fictions with which the credulous member for
Dundalk had been crammed for the occasion,
the Foreign-office could reply by authorised
documents and vouchers. It would have been
almost absurd to expect that a whole
country of twenty-two millions could re-
volutionise itself, and pass from the borders of
slavery to complete constitutional freedom with no
causes of disturbance left. We know well enough
that the expulsion of the Stuarts from our own
country was followed, to the very memory of our
grandfathers, by serious disturbances ; and France
has never yet been able to retain constitutional
liberty for any length of time. The Italians, on
the contrary, show the most perfect aptitude for
it. Representatives from all the parts, said to be
disaffected, meet, and cordially co-operate with
those of other parts at Turin. Even a national
guard can be everywhere formed and trusted with
arms. Throughout all the provinces once sub-
ject to the Pope, order is preserved without a
single regiment, and those provinces are not only
quiet but prosperous. It is only in the Neapolitan
territories, and in the parts of them adjacent to the
residuary States of the Church that there is any
pretence of disturbance, and there the cause is
notorious. Brigands, chiefly hired from foreign
countries, paid and equipped by FRANCIS 11.,
lodged and countenanced by the POPE and ANTO-
NELLI, are the sole cause of the trouble. This
is placed beyond all doubt, not only by the lettere
we read from day to day, written by known, we
may say public, correspondents, but by the more
important corroborative statements of our own con-
suls and diplomatists:
But we may hope that the most important part
of the debate will prove to be the statement by
Lord PALMERSTON of his views in regard to the
French occupation. That is, of course, the answer
to Sir G. BOWYER, and all the Irish Ultramontane
clique. It proves that they are crazed by a phan-
tom. There exists no such thing as an indepen-
dent Papacy—temporally independent, we mean.
The French EMPEROR holds the POPE in his hands.
He allows him to be saucy within certain limits,
but the old gentleman and his Cardinals quite well
know that if they venture on any step seriously
displeasing to Louis NAPOLEON, they are ruined at
once. He has but any moment to withdraw his
army, and bid the Romans do as they please, and
in a day Italian troops would be welcomed by accla-
mation into the capital of Italy, and all would be
up. To talk of the POPE, indeed, as anything but
a Prince mediatised to France is an absurdity. To
talk of him as independent, when twenty thousand
foreign troops hold his capital is simply unmeaning.
But, Lord PALMERSTON openly says that such
a state of things cannot be permanent. The POPE'
Irish Brigade prophecy eternity for the temporal
power of the POPE, but events prophecy to ordi-
nary mortals something very different. The French
army is there—first, in violation of the non-inter-
vention policy on which France and England have
agreed—next, in contravention of the EMPEROR'S
own avowed purpose in entering Italy, that
is, to free it from the Mediterranean to
\
the Adriatic—thirdly, it is there to be abused
Iby the POPE for the encouragement ofa
most frightful system of brigandage, which
hardly be longer allowed to contiuue. By the re-
tention of Rome the EMPEROR is dishonourably
vio!ating his own profession, he is gradually
alienating from France, the Italy which would
otherwise be naturally her best friend; he is both
committing a great wrong against the Romans,
and making their city and its little territory the
centre of disturbance and bloodshed to the adjacent
territory ; and what does he gain by it ?—the re-
lentless ill-will of Ultramontanists in France, who
would collapse into insignificance, if he had but the
courage to leave Rome and Italy to the Italians.
Can he long persist in such a policy ? Lord PAL-
MERSTON seems to think not.

Finding himself incapacitated from any attempt
even to distinguish his Budget for 1862.63 by
sweeping fiscal changes like the abolition of the
Paper Duties, or the remission of a penny upon the
Income Tax—Mr. GLADSTONE has ingeniously
contrived to elaborate his financial policy this year
by a variety of minor innovations. As Chancellor
of the Exchequer it was incumbent upon him to
do Something. The recollection of that seems of
itself to account for the activity he has shown in
changing the position of the pegs struck here and
there about that great cypheriDg table the National
Board of ex-Chequer. Moving this round one
from the square hole into the circular, and so
on vice versa, according to the dictates of
his own sound sense and of his rational
appreciation of what may be called the congruities.
First and foremost—not less in magnitude than in
adroitness—among these clever moves of our
Financier there is that dexterous scattering to the
winds at last of an old, old grievance—the lamenta-
tions over which have been so wearisomely dinned
into the ears of su;cessive Chancellors of the Exche-
\
"" I There is, in fact, the admirably well-contrived
m on
Cornutati
of the ?Top Duties ! Mr. GLADSTONE'S
commutation
of
the Hop Duties—by imposing on
brewers in respect to each barrel of beer 3d. as an
equivalent for that duty on hops now to be remitted.
Why 3d. is readily enough
representing explained. A duty to
that amount
21b. of hops, and 21b. of
_
hops—(i. e., the very t quantity used in com-
bination with 2 bushels
°I malt)—representing
with 2 bushels of malt whet
Zoe; according