The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-08 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TiItURSDAY,

duuhle s,ceplred king!lont like that of -the two SiCilie
—Piedmont has had only to do and dare, or rather to
dare and do. Calling to her aid now a powerful.and
chivalrous ally, now a resolute and heroic adven-
turer, using at one 'moment the sword of the
Emperor NAPOLEON, and at auother the sword of
General GARIBALDI—the Piedmontese King has
won his way steadily from capital *to capital, from
Turin to Milan, from Milan to Florence and
to Naples, and now from- Naples and
Florence intermediately to Rome, until the
dominion grappled into his own keeping embraces
within its circumference the whole of the Italian
Peninsula. Everything has been condoned in con-
sideration of the completeness of the success achieved
here by King WILLIAM, here by VICTOR EMMANUEL.
Under ordinary circumstancss it might have been
'expected, for example, that England, in the centre of
whose escutchion until the close of the last reign
(that of his late-Majesty King WILLIAM IV.), ap-
.peared the white horse of Hanover, might have re-
sented the seizure of the Hanoverian Crown by the
Prussian Sovereign simply because the latter
had set his heart upon having it. Prussia
was strong and bold, however ; Hanover was
weak and helpless : the Unification of Germany was
the one object aimed at—England contented her-
self with looking on, and the work of absorption
was accomplished. Hanover was effaced from the
map of Europe. The boundary of the kingdom of
Prussia was enlarged. Again, under ordinary cir-
cumstances, it might have appeared to be a dastardly
act of ingratitude on the part of the Italian Sove-
reign, who had received the kingdom of Naples as a
present from Geninesza, and the viceroyalty of
Lombardy as a present from NAPOLEON
111.--
leaving the latter unaided in the least,
' down to the fatal clay of Sedan, and
causing the former to be shot down by a bullet
in the ankle upon the heights of Aspromonte.
Considerations of this kind are swept out of view
with disdain as of really no account, as of no
moment whatever, in the presence of the great work
carried to a successful issue, the great work, that is,
of Italian Unification. Whenever an advance in the
direction of territorial aggrandisement has been
made in a half-hearted manner it has been re-
sented and denounced. When the Conqueror
of Solferino, for instance, not immediately after
that crushing victory, sword in hand, but
on the morrow of the Treaty of Villefraiica,
pen in hand, through the medium of diplomatic
finesse instead of through that of warlike strategy,
arranged foe the transfer of Nice and Savoy from
Piedmont to France, all Europe rang with indigna-
tion. The acquisition of territory thus, in that
instance, was declared to be an act of truckling.
Lombardy might be absorbel into the dominion of
VICTOR EMMANUEL, Hanover might be absorbed
into the dominion of WILLIAM ainat acquisi-
tions like those carved out by the sword, nothing
was said above a whisper. The encroachments made in
these instances were male so boldly and daringly and
consistently that they were readily connived at.
Only when the attempt was made exceptionally, that
is, just once in a way, and not as part and parcel of a',
comprehensive and pre-arranged system, was it
scouted by surrounding nations as something altoge-
ther monstrous and abnormal. There was .a talk at
one time of the French Emperor having an eye to
Luxembourg, and it seemed as if we should never hear
the last of it—the bid in that direction was regarded
as so audacious and so utterly unjustifiable. Prussia
another while had something more than an eye to a
good slice of Denmark, daringly seized upon it with a
strong hand, and tore it away, her sword dripping with
blood to the hilt. The deed was meekly assented to,
as all Europe has just now meekly assented to the
bombarding of Rome without a previous declaration
of war by the bornbarder.: No—Might is now-a-days
regarded as a synonym of Right, if only its pro-
gramme be boldly enough announced, and its goal be
Unification.

TOPICS OF THE DAY.