The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-09 00:00:00

which has so long boasted of its universal education
and cheap newspapers, should be as deplorably
ignorant of the first principles of free trade as if
they were not of the same generation as Sir ROBERT
PEEL and RICHARD COBDEN. We excuse a nation
whose chief intellectual aliment is penny and half-
penny newspapers, for knowing little or nothing of
ADAM SMITH and his successors in plain English,
but we might have supposed that their daily papers
would by this time have biought them up to the
current public knowledge of the day. Yet it is
a fact that there is not one, we believe,
of the old monarchies of Europe on which
the Americans look with such supreme con-
tempt, which does not show itself more enlightened,
commercially, than they are. Turkey itself could
teach them a lesson, and Austria give them a
twelvemonth's schooling, greatly to their advantage.
For ourselves, we need not, we trust, trouble
ourselves much about their tariff. The last cut us
off half our trade with them ; and if the
other half follow, we are sorry for it, but
we must look elsewhere. India and China
must be opened more thoroughly. We do not
despair at all of our merchants finding out fresh
markets in which to exchange their commodities
with those of other countries. English merchants
are not Government routinists ; their enterprise
soon seeks out new channels when old ones are
choked up. India must sooner or later become our
chief source of cotton supply, and she will take
goods back in proportion to our purchases ; and it is
evident that China will become a good market,
since, notwithstanding the Taeping disturbances,
our trade is largely developing itself there.
What is as deplorable as anything is the temper
in which all this is done. The "
native
an public
really seems less concerned for manufac-
tures,"ublic commercially blundering as the notion is,
than to spite England. What appears to give them
most pleasure is, the thought of cramping British
trade, as if that did not mean cramping their own.
They seem to quite forget that even if they can raise
the same revenue on a million's worth of British
goods at a high duty, as on five millions' worth at a
low one, that they themselves must lose the use and
enjoyment of the excluded four millions' worth.
They must, however, calculate very surely on our
extraordinary forbearance and patience. Hitherto
England alone has saved them from the recognition
of the South by France, soon to be followed by all
European powers. If we held up a finger of en-
couragement the EMPEROR would gladly acknow-
ledge the South as a de facto Government ; so that
to please the North, we have almost given France
occasion to think we are willing to displease her;
and that too at a time when France is opening her
ports to us, and America closing them ! Already
we are told that the Western States of America,
those which sell us our corn, and need our cheap
and good productions in exchange, are kicking at
some parts of the Tax Bill ; their displeasure once
awakened, they may resent equally the Tariff part.
What has California to gain by excluding English
and French articles of commerce, and how will
Illinois like her corn carried to England, by ships
arriving in ballast, and purchasing corn at prices
which will pay for freight both ways. We hope there-
fore that -very shortly the resentment of England,
France, and their own corn-growing States will
bring the Gentlemen at Washington to their
senses. If they do not regain them it will really
become a serious question whether we and France
should not recognise the South at once, and break
the Cotton Blockade at Charleston, Savannah, and
Mobile.

During the Russian War we remember per-
fectly well beginning an article in these columns

of The Sun with these words—" The King of SAR-
DINIA is earning Lombardy." Events proved not
long afterwards that he really had then earned
it. Season at first followed season, and the posi-

tion of things in Italy remained unaltered. The
loyal participation of the little kingdom of Sardinia
in the Crimean enterprise undertaken by the two
great Powers of Western Europe, of the eastern
hemisphere, of the world, appeared almost to be for-
gotten. Suddenly—all Europe was startled by the
detonation of a succession of hand-grenades in the
Rue Lepelletier. The diabolical attempt at assas-
sination by that "grand gentleman" (as the
Kentish-town servant-of-all-work described him
to be at any rate in appearance) ORSINI
came abruptly (to the proposed victim of
that assassination) as a reminder of the
forlorn condition of Italy and of the Italians ! And
of the imminent advisability there was of reward-
ing the good services done in the interests of the
Balance of Power in Europe (through the medium
of the Crimean campaign) by VICTOR EMMANUEL.
The political emancipation of Italy was known
years before to have been the daydream of the pre-
sent ruler of France from the period almost of his
earliest boyhood. While he was yet a younger
brother, consequently before he had succeeded to
the headship of the BONAPARTE Family, Louis
NAPOLEON had been in arms—side by side with his
elder brother NAPOLEON LOUIS—in vindication
of that cherished cause of Italian Liberation !
It was at the period of the accession to power
in Central Italy of Pope GREGORY XVI. that this
occurred. Prince NAPOLEON Louis died soon after-
wards—very prematurely. Prince Louis NAPOLEON
succeeded to the dynastic possessions and to the
Italian policy (hardly less to that, indeed, than to
the French) policy of his elder brother, then de-
ceased. A lengthened exile from the land of his
birth, an imprisonment of six years' duration in
the fortress of Ham, only served to confirm the
future Ruler of France and the eventual Liberator
of Lombardy (for that latter title is not one jot less
NAPOLEON lll.'s, by right, than the former)—re-
flection, time, experience, observation, all served
only to confirm him in his early resolve As the event
proved—though the years fled past,during which no-
thing was done in behalf of Italy or the Italians—the
reigning Emperor of FRANCE only bided his time,
Only waited for his opportunity. But for the goad
of ORSINI'S attempt, NAPOLEON 111. might have
waited longer. Whatever may have been the sting
of the
invective, at the very least, that all but success-
ful attempt
at assassination appeared to have pre-
cipitated matters. For it was very soon afterwards
that the die was cast, that the gage of battle was
flung down before
A EMPEROR
might
have
oat! ia •. and the French
" mud, not only alia jacta
est, but also, and with a profounder emotion, in the
words liberavi animam mean".
As the actual re-
sult, before very many weeks had
elapsed, the long-
cherished
ecaylioz Austrians were
of
Louis .
The NAPOLEON was
at
tan yrate
Italian
partially policy
at length driven out of Lombardy. That fair and
fertile province was as last liberated. The con-
querorover bodily to VICTOR Extm
queror handed it aNnt.L.
had earned Lombardy.
The King of SARDINI.
If the date of those events marked a period of
partial satisfaction, it marked also, none the less
distinctly,an epoch of immense disappointment. So
very brief a while before, the campaign of Alagenta
.
had been completed by the crowning victory f
an ant:-
Solferino, the latter had suddenly led by
climax to the treaty of Villafranca ! The hopes
that bad been so resplendently kindled by
the proclamation from Milan, were immediately
afterwards dashed to the dust and abruptly
extinguished. Italy, which was to have been
free from the Alps to the Adriatic—ltaly, Which