The Sun.
London, England, 1833-10-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Of all the rumours which have of late been
thrown into circulation on the Continent, relative
to the deliberations and resolves of the three
Allied Sovereigns who lately met in Bohemia,
the announcement that the Emperor of Austria
is about to assume the title of " Protector of
Italy" is at once the most probable and the
most alarming. Ever since the House of
Austria, by the Orrritorial partition at the Con-
gress of Vienna, obtained the Lombardo-
Venetian kingdom, the Austrian Government
has 'shown that the Alps form no barrier to its
oppressions or ambition, and that it looks upon
the whole Italian Peninsula as a collection of
subject or subsidiary states, some of which it
overwhelms with its military tyranny, and others
curses with its leaden protection. The small
King of Sardinia is obliged to consider Pied-
mont and Genoa as an Austrian outpost against
France; the minute principalities of Modena,
Parma, and Lucca, interposed between the
Milanese and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany,
or Piedmont, have either, for their Sovereigns,
branches of the Austrian family, or are go-
verned under the dictation of Austrian agents.
The Grand Duke of Tuscany holds his
estates nearly as a fief of the Austrian empire.
The Pope is more dependant on the Austrians
than he was on the Franks in the time of Char-
lemagne; and from the Roman frontier to the
southernmost point of Sicily the kingdom of
Naples feels that it can only stir or breathe—
regulate its troops, or model its institutions, by
a permission or a command from Vienna. A
revolution breaks out in 1821 in Naples, with-
out, of course, asking the leave of Prince Met-
ternich. Immediaately the imperial guardian
of Italian peace sets his armies in motion,
and pours his troops through the defiles of the
Alps, to crush the new institutions under the
hoofs of his Hungarian or Croatian cavalry. The
King of Naples is summoned to appear before
his imperial master, assisted by two or three
other Holy Alliance assessors, at Laybach, and
commanded to break his oath by sending
orders to his people to abolish the constitution,
which he, along with them, had sworn to
maintain. In their triumphant march along the
whole extent of Italy, from the Po to the bay of
Naples, the Austrians find as ready a submission,
and as prompt a service from the intervening
states, as if they were on their own territory.
Piedmont had likewise its mimic revolution
when Naples was about to fall—a revolution
produced more by a dislike of Austria than by
dissatisfaetion with the Sardinian Government ;
but a corps of the Austrian army from the
Milanese soon set to rights the rebellious sub-
jects of the King of Sardinia. After the sword
had been sheathed by the submission or exile of
the Italian patriots, the work of the tribunals or
of vengeance began ; and Austria ruled as much
in directing the persecution of the Carbonari as
in subduing the troops of the Constitutionalists.
In 1830 the people of Italy again hailed the de-
ceitful dawn of freedom. The inhabitants of
the Modenese and of the Papal Legations again
rose to assert their freedom, and were again put
down by Austrian bayonets. Twice within these
three years has Austria entered the Papal pro-
vinces to crush resistance against the Pope, as if it
were resistance to her own authority, and her influ-
ence in the councils of the Vatican is as great as in
the military police of Bologna or Ferrara. It is
thus quite evident that the Government of Aus-
tria is at present nearly as absolute in Naples,
Rome, or Florence, as in Milan or Venice ;
and that the only question is, shall such an
influence be systematized and reduced to rule—
shall its action have more the sanction of a re-
cognized law—and shall it be publicly exercised
without giving a right of interference on the part
of other Powers ? At present neither the Pope
nor the King of Naples are disposed to dispute
the orders sent from Vienna ; but in the case of
marching armies into their states, the alarm or
the pride of France might be excited, and an
expedition like that of Ancona might insist
upon landing in Italy to survey the game
of Austrian intervention. The protectorship
of Austria, should it be admitted, would settle
all those matters in a very decided and summary
way. Should the Pope be annoyed by the po-
litical pretensions of his northern provinces, or
his troops he driven, as in 1831 and 1832,
from his cities and towns by the patriots, his
Holiness would only have to announce his
misfortune to his Austrian high protector, and
order would be soon restored by Croatian
soldiers. Should the Grand Duke of Tus-
cany complain, that though living under his
mild sway, his people are happy enough, vet
that they insist on the right to a partial self-
government, an order from Vienna would quiet
their agitation, and render them satisfied with
their present measure of freedom, on the pain
cf suffering a more severe degree of coercion.
It is needless to say that a new liberal constitu-
tion in Naples would share the fate (and by the
same hands) of the constitution of 1821. But
whether this protectorship shall be established or
not in regular form, and with an external sanc-
tion, it cannot be doubted nor denied that it now
presses upon Italy with its iron weight and be-
numbing influence. It fetters the operations of
the press—it interrupts the free communication
of thought in private society—it arrests every pro-
ject of public amelioration—it covers the land
with spies and troops, to prevent or to punish any
expression of opinion—it corrupts and poisons
the fountain of justice in the tribunals—it de-
grades literature and the arts, by preventing their
development or misdirecting their force, and
it is in perpetual hostility to every sentiment of
national glory—to every idea of patriotic inde-
pendence. We published on Tuesday last a
letter of a correspondent at Bologna, commu-
nicating some curious details of the state of
terror in which Austria holds the north of Italy,
and of the deep-rooted dissatisfaction and
antipathy felt by the great body of enlightened
Italians towards the galling thraldom under which
they suffer. Between them and their German
oppressors there can never exist any feeling of
cordiality, or any movement of sympathy. Their
rulers are mercenary strangers or military occu-
pants, abusing at once the rights of hospitality
and privileges of conquest. They have chased
learning from its shrine—they have shut up the
most celebrated institutions of science—they
have driven into exile its most renowned pro-
fessors, and they have made everythin. g. subser-
vient to their own stupid caprices, sordid interests
or barbarous tyranny. With respect to the
Government of the Lombardo Venetian king.-
dam itself, where the sway of the Austrians l.s
undisguised, absolute, and undisputed, we may
remark that there never, perhaps, existed a more
cold, heartless, and repulsive despotism. Ever
since the award of the Congress of Vienna,

Which subjected this fair region of Europe to
the most stupid people, perhaps, north of the
Alps, the latter have shown no desire ordisposi-
tion to reconcile the interests of the vanquished
with those of the victors. Their detestable Go-
vernment, therefore—the enemy of knowledge
and of liberty—the oppressor of genius and
of the arts—the jealous inquisitor into the
heresies of political thought and of national
predilections—the cold-blooded persecutor of
patriotic indiscretion—the gaoler of invention
and talent—and the antagonist of every itn-
provement—has had a most baneful influence on
the social happiness and intellectual progress of
the people. Everything shows that it rules the
provinces by its troops, and its troops by the
canes of its corporals. A leaden dulness is
spread over the land, never varied, except by
the stirring activity of the police, the brutal
violence of the soldiery, or the unjust exactions
of the tax-gatherer. The expression of a liberal
idea is prohibited under the most severe pe-
nalties, while the trial of the alleged culprit is
made secret, as if justice were a crime to be
concealed—evidence an accomplice of the pri-
soner—and a judicial sentence of guilty a con-
scious assassination. Such is the spirit and
character of the Government which sheds its
blighting influence over the northern parts of
Italy, and which, according to the continental
journals, is about to be invested with the
protectorate of the whole Italian Confederation.
It is to be hoped that such a project will not in
the present state of Europe be even attempted,
and that, if it were, France would " forbid the
bans" of so inauspicious an alliance between
Austria and Italy. In the next European war
that shall occur (and the erection of this hateful
protectorate would soon lead to a war), Italy
must shake off the yoke of a foreign despotism,
and become mistress of her own land within her
own eternal boundaries of the Alps and the
Ocean.— Times.

The observations which we yesterday made,
on the associations to resist the payment of the
assessed taxes, have attracted the attention of
some of our contemporaries. The Standard,
in an article of great length, in effect admits
that the Ministries which preceded the present
sanctioned by their proceedings the anti-social
practices of which we complained, but, by way
of justification, urges that they had been reduced
to the alternative of either proposing what they
themselves deemed bad measures, or losing their
places. However, before adverting to this part
of our contemporary's observations, we have a
few words to say, with regard to his doctrine of
unqualified obedience to the law, in all times,
and all cases—

" The principle (he says), that men professing to live
under a Government of law have a right to determine
when they will obey and when they will disobey the laws,
what laws deserve respect, and what may properly be
treated with contempt—this establishment in every man's
breast of a Court of Appeal from the Legislature, is, we
repeat it, as sure to introduce anarchy as any lesson left
by the Tory Administration of 1828—or, indeed, more
properly speaking, it is anarchy itself. The Morning
Chronicle, referring to this secret arbiter, may say, that
during the struggle for Reform it was justifiable to disobey
the law. Lord George Gordon, by authority of the
Court of the same kind in his breast, said, more than 50
years ago, that it was justifiable to disobey the law, when
the law afforded encouragement to Popery."

As a general proposition, few will refuse to '
admit the necessity imposed on all persons of
obeying the laws of their country. But this
general doctrine may be admitted, and yet we
may not be one whit the nearer our object. The
history of the world is a history of changes and
revolutions, physical and moral. We may lay
down what general propositions we please—we
may subscribe to the doctrine which one of the
ablest writers of this or any other country,
Hobbs, laid down, and illustrated at such length
in a variety of works ; but, in spite of our doc-
trines, laws will be obeyed at one time, and
disobeyed at another, and governments will
give way to other governments. When they
who happen to be in the possession of the
power of making laws for_ a people do not
consult the interests and the wishes of that
people, or such a portion of the people as have
the chief influence, they create a disposition to
disobey the laws, and a desire of revolution. It
is well that the depositaries of authority should
be aware of the foundations on which it rests,
for one of the best securities against abuse of
power is the knowledge that abuse will be fol-
lowed by resistance. Even in the most absolute
governments of Europe, history, teaching by
examples, has led the ruling families to adopt
precautions to avoid the consequences of abuse
of power. The death of the Czars Peter and
Paul led to the setting aside of Constantine ;
and Peter the Great took even the precaution of
executing his own son. Some jurists have gone
so far as to say that, so far from allowing every
man " to establish in his breast a Court
of Appeal from the Legislature," the slave, even
in a country in which slavery is the law, is bound
in conscience not to attempt to obtain his
liberty through any other means than the con-
sent of his master. And yet we know that
where the majority are slaves, and the masters
are cut off from foreign aid to maintain the sub-
jection of the slaves, the common calamity will
infallibly lead the latter to attempt their liberty
without the consent of their masters. No Go-
vernment can be durable which trusts for obedi-
ence to any other source than the opinion of the
majority of the influential classes, that the Go-
vernment is conducted in their interest and for
their good. The question of obedience, like
most other questions, must be determined by
circumstances. If the boroughmongers resisted
the wishes of the great body of the people of
this country to have such a reform in the con-
stitution of Parliament as should identify the
proceedings of the Legislature with the interests
of the people, then we have no doubt in saying
that it was merely a question of prudence,
whether the boroughmongers should have been
obeyed or resisted. Wise men will always be
averse to having recourse to physical resistance,
if it can possibly be dispensed with ; and they
endeavour to impress on those who possess
irresponsible power, that as all power is with the
people, an obstinate resistance to their just de-
mands would inevitably lead to the overcoming
that resistance by physical force. But when
they who are in possession of power obstinately
refuse to listen to the voice of reason, there is
no disguising the truth that other means must be
employed. When the means have been success-
fully employed, the result is revolution ; when
these means have been unsuccessfully employed,
the law retains its force,and the attempt is termed
sedition, riot, revolt, rebellion, and so forth.
Hence, it is said that every revolution carries with;
it its own justification ; for the success proves that
;he depositaries of power lost sight of the principle
that government should always be conducted
for the interest of the body of the people. But

we shall now, return to the peculiar justification
of the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert
Peel, to which we alluded
We should be the last to palliate (says our contem-
porary) the fatal error committed by the Duke of Welling.
ton and Sir Robert Peel in yielding the Bill of 1829 ; but
let the blame fall where it is due. The Bill was not
yielded to the Irish Papists. Had the Duke of Wellington
and Sir Robert Peel any ground to hope for the support
of the House of Commons in preserving the peace of Ire-
land, we have the evidence of their previous and subse-
quent conduct—we have their own declarations at the
time, in proof that the fatal concession would never have
been made. They were the successful arts of the Whig
faction that forced the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert
Peel to the alternative of resigning the Government into
Whig hands, or themselves adopting a measure which has
proved the pirent of so much evil. We thought, five
years ago, and every day that has since passed has hut cor-
roborated the conviction, that the Ministers of 1828 ought
to have thrown themselves upon the Protestant people, by
a dissolution of the Parliament, packed by Mr. Canning
and his poor servant, Lord Liverpool ; and if that failed,
adopted the manly course of resigning. It were long i
here to tell, however, how the then Administra-
tion were entangled by the effect of George IV.'s
miserable household intrigues—by a connexion with the
rump of the Canning apostacy, the Grants, and the
Palmerstons, and others who have passed to their account.
It were long, too, to tell the malignant bearing of other
political questions, especially of those affecting the
interest,
upon interest and the boroughmongering
upon the question of the Protestant Constitution ; suffice
it to say that the Whigs expected place—that they taught
the moneyed interest to expect a preservation of their
usury, and the boroughmongers the security of their bo-
roughs, from yielding to the demands of the Irish Papists.
They created the majority in the House of Commons
against the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel ; and
to them, therefore, must be ascribed the establishment of
the principle which, as the Morning Chronicle truly ob-
serves, was quite sufficient to introduce universal
anarchy.' Without stopping to remonstrate against the
want of candour and generosity manifested by a Whig
Journal, in arraigning a Tory Government because it was
a Tory Government acting in submission to Whig man-
dates, or, as the phrase of the time was, a Tory Go-
vernment acting upon Whig principles,' we may remark
that the principle upon which the Morning Chronicle
itself reasons, is fully as sufficient to introduce universal
anarchy.' "
We do not well see how the boroughmonger-
ing policy, and the conduct of the Duke of
Wellington and Sir Robert Peel is justified by
our contemporary. The boroughmongers knew
that their government was condemned in the
opinion of the people of this country ; they
knew that the 'people were fully impressed with
this truth, that the laws made in boroughmonger
Parliaments had for object the interest of the
ruling few, at the expense of the subject many ;
that the people attributed the burdens to which
they were subjected to unnecessary wars, under-
taken for the sake of cramming the aristocracy,
to wasteful colonial expenditure, to provide
places for their children, their hangers-on, and
the instruments by which the domestic misrule
was carried. They persisted, however, in resist-
ing all demands for reform—they persisted in
treating the great body of the Irish nation as slaves
tolerated merely as drudges for the ascendancy.
The Whigs were consistent in condemning this
system. The Whigs knew that the welfare
of both England and Ireland demanded that the
people of Ireland should be admitted to the
full privilege of citizens, that in tune they might
attain to the conviction that it would be for their
interest to yield obedience to the laws. The
Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, how-
ever, were perhaps hypocrites in refusing to
emancipate the Catholics, on the ground that to
admit them within the pale of the Constitution
would be ruinous to the country ; but they
were worse than hypocrites in pretending that
they retained all their opinions with regard to
the effect which would be produced by Catholic
Emancipation, and yet that they consented to it
because they had no alternative. When our
contemporary talks of the difficulty in which
they were placed by majorities of the House of
Commons, he admits that the Government must
have strangely forgot its duty to the people,when,
in spite of the power of the Oligarchy over the
representation, the influence of the people made
itself so felt in the House of Commons as to de-
prive the Government of majorities. The Whigs
were able to dictate to the Duke of Wellington
and Sir R. Peel, merely because the nation had
become dissatisfied with the Tory policy ; and the
only means by which the Tories could stave off
a change was to adopt the principles of their
opponents. But now that the country has ob-
tained such a change in the representation as
must identify the Government with the people,
the people are cutting their own throats in en-
deavouring to obtain that by resistance to the
law which they might obtain through a change
in the law. They have in their own hands the
return of those by whom the laws are made, and
if the law be not changed one year, it must be
changed the next. When the people have no
control over those who make the laws—and laws
are made not in their interest—one can under-
stand why they should feel inclined to act by
themselves instead of through their representa-
tives. But if they have a control, it is absurd
to seek to effect their object through any
other than constitutional means. No per-
son will pretend that Parliament, as now
constituted, can resist the demands of the
constituencies. To admit that the representatives
of the people can be controlled by their consti-
tuencies, and must attend to their wishes, and,
at the same time, to attempt to resist the
collection of a tax levied by law, is, in fact to
admit, that there should be no law whatever, but
that every man should do whatever seemeth good
in his own eyes. The conduct of Lord George
Gordon, who, according to the Standard, "said
more than fifty years ago that it was justifiable
to disobey the law when the law afforded encou-
ragement to Popery," was less irrational than
the conduct of the London Associators, because
he and his adherents could have no hope of
changing the law, whereas the London As-
sociators know that the assessed taxes will be
repealed. We have not left ourselves space to
advert to the arguments of some of our other
contemporaries on the danger of resistance to
taxes. We continue of opinion that the danger
of tolerating these practices is very great. It is
so pleasant to refuse to pay money, that asso-
ciations of this kind have a tendency like snow
balls, to gather force rapidly. They must be
stopped. However,we shall return to the subject.
—itforning Chronicle.
Our sentiments upon the subject of the as-
sessed taxes have been too frequently and un-
equivocally expressed to render it possible that
we can be suspected of anything like double
dealing upon the subject ; but we consider it
one thing to bring about their repeal by consti-
tutional means, anti quite another to resist their
payment, and thus, were the attempt successful,
to benefit one, and that a small class of the
community, at the expense of the rest. That
the Government richly deserves the dilemma in
which it is placed by these proceedings, we do
not deny ; and, if that were all, we should be
inclined to leave it to its fate. With its own
faith broken on the subject, and members almost
of its own body setting the example of this re-
sistance, little can or ought to be felt in the way

of sympathy towards those who can thus unad
visedly, yet knowingly, draw upon themselves
the very evil of which they complain. That the
house and window taxes will be ultimately
repealed, we entertain no doubt ; but our hope
all along has been, that they would be repealed
by the strength of the remonstrance which has
been everywhere shown to their inequality and
injustice. But how does the matter stand in re-
ference to the proceedings which are now going
on to resist their payment, but that the Govern-
ment,whenever the repeal does take place, subjects
itself again to the imputation of yielding that to
clamour which cannot be extorted from its sense
of justice and propriety ? But there is one ob-
jection to the present mode taken by persons to
resist the payment of these taxes which strikes
us with peculiar force ; and that is the eagerness
with which the details are caught at and circu-
lated by the Tory press. It is not at all difficult
to comprehend what this means. Its evident
object is to bring disrepute upon the cause of
reform, by giving publicity to the indiscretion of
its advocates, as well as to induce the people to
believe (if any one is credulous enough to do so)
that in the hands of the Tories, those tried
friends of economy and retrenchment, the point
contended for would have been granted without
bringing things to their present issue. We do
not believe the people weak enough to be gulled
by this weak display of the enemy. But the
very fact that what is going on appears agreeable
to the latter ought of itself to be sufficient to
put the former on their guard. Thank God !
we are not arrived at such a state of things as
renders resistance to the law the only mode of
effecting its reform. On the contrary, the real
danger is, that, by the very act of resistance the
chain may become rivetted, which is now ready
to be thrown open by means of the regular key.
—Morning Herald.