The Sun.
London, England, 1848-07-14 00:00:00

Imo vut

1 fi

LONDON, FRIDAY, JULY 14, 1848.

Wed-
The Committee of the House of Lords on
nesday decided that the preamble of the Chester and
Holyhead Railway Company (Power to Purchase
Steam-boats) Bill was proved, the several clauses were
agreed to, and the Bill was ordered to be reported.
Some time since when the present Bill was brought
under the notice of the House of Commons, in con-
sequence of the variation from the usual rule which
prohibited railway companies from becoming steam-
boat proprietors, we pointed out the reasons why an
exception should be made in favour of the Chester
and Holyhead Company. In truth, the principal
terminus of their line is on the other side of St. George's
Channel, and the great object of their undertaking is
to connect the capitals of England and Ireland together,
so that the most speedy communication may be
established between them. This would at all times
be a matter of national importance, with which no
trifling difficulty should interfere. It is more espe-
cially so at the present moment, when the apostles of
sedition have succeeded in exciting so much disaffec-
tion in Ireland, and when the exertions of the loyal
and peaceable inhabitants of both countries should be
directed to cement more closely the bonds by which
they
are united, so as to render them really indis-
soluble. Any disruption of these ties would be deeply
injurious to this country, but it would be incompa-
rably more so to the sister kingdom. There, indeed,
the most fearful calamities would inevitably result
from the separation, and even if England, for-
getful of the ingratitude with which ier former
disinterested and gigantic exertions were requited,
were again disposed to attempt the relief of the
misery and destitution that would ,reicrn: supreme
throughout the entire land, her powers would be so
greatly curtailed that she could not hope for equal
success to attend her benevolent efforts.
But how is the union' to be maintained when so
many misguided men, erroneously supposing that
they would be benefited by a change, lend their voices
to swell the clamour which a few interested dema-
gogues, aided and assisted by a still more limited
number of half-mad enthusiasts,' have set up, and
which has thus arisen to such a pitch as " to fright
the isle from its propriety ?" Simply by elevating
the social condition of the great body of the people ;
by increasing their comfort; ; improving the agricul-
ture, §ncl developing 411. the resources of their Magai"
•d/

scent country. Making them really part and • parcel of •
the empire, assimilating them so far as practicable to
the English peasantry, and letting them enj,oy equal
rights and privileges, civil and religious, v ,ith those
which belong to our own people.
The first step towards the attainment of tthis great
result is to shorten the time within which .communi-
cations can be effected, and travellers mriy pass from
one country to the other—making them, ir,fact,integral
portions of the same kingdom. By the construction
of railways, and the adoption of steam navigation,
time and space have been practically annihilated,
and the journey from London to Dublin, or
vice versa, may now be effected in a shorter time,
and with less labour, danger,land exriense, than a
transit from one provincial town to :another, could
have been performed a little more than, half a century
ago. Ireland is now, to all intents and purposes, as
close to the English metropolis as some of our more
distant counties, such as Durham, Northumberland,
Cumberland, &c. &c., and those who introduce still
further improvements in this respect may be regarded
as public benefactors. This is the object of the
Chester and Holyhead Railway Company. Their line
will, when completed, form the highway between the
islands, and eventually a portion of the regular route
between all parts of Europe and America. Why
should any general rules, whatever might be their
abstract propriety, be permitted to impede so
beneficial a design ? If those rules were so
irrevocable that they could not be suspended or
varied when occasion required they would become the
masters and not the creatures of the Legislature* in
place of being useful and valuable servants, they
would be most rigid andainexorable superiors. Well
might the President of the Board of Trade exclaim, that
" if ever the rule should be dispensed with, it was in the
present instance," and well might the Right Hon.
Baronet the Member for Tamworth urge in the
House the propriety of sanctioning the application
that had been made, with the merits of which he, in
his capacity as Chairman of the Committee before
whom it was investigated, had peculiar opportunities
of making himself thoroughly acquainted. To these
appeals the Legislature has responded nobly ; and we
can now congratulate the country in general that
Parliament has sanctioned the great undertaking in
its integrity, without any alteration that could
diminish its utility. We have ourselves,' from] the
earliest period been amongst the warmest advocates
for its adoption, and we have reason to rejoice that
the arguments we have from time to time . put
' forward have thus at length received the imprimatur
of both Houses of Parliament.

An article in the Quarterly Review, just published,
having immediate reference to the Italian peninsula,
is so delightfully argumentative, that, in spite of the
extravagance of its tendency, we must perforce give
it some small share of our attention. According to
the opinion of the writer—Lombardy is as legiti-
mately a portion of the Austrian empire as Alsace,
Franche-Comte, Lorraine, and Brittany are integral
portions of the French territory. According to his
idea—the character of Pio Norio is only remarkable
for its " imbecile vanity." According to him—the
lazzaroni and the soldiers of Naples were right in
massacreing the population in defence of the King of
the Two SICILIES. According to him—RADISTZKY
acted in the first instance with leniency towards the
insurgent Lombards. According to him—the
institution of National Guards is inconsistent
with the system of representative govern-
ment. According to him a rigid censor-
ship is preferable to a complete liberty of the
prees. According to him—the Grand Duke LEOPOLD
has been frightened into concessions to the democrats
of Tuscany. 0 wonderful reviewer I The thesis
which he endeavours to expound is simply that Black
is White and White Black:; and, from the singu-
larly complacent tone in which the whole is argued,
he is evidently under the agreeable delusion that he
carries his point triumphantly. From what we have
already enumerated, we fancy that it must be appa-
rent to every one that we are not very much mistaken
in calling the article delightfully argumentative.

From the first line to the last, however, we can
recognise the blunder in which the whole of these
ridiculous positions of the Quarterly Review have
originated. Instead of beholding in the recent out-
burst of the Italian multitude the spontaneous move-
ment of an entire people to reclaim a nationality which
has been long abused by divisions and by aggressors ;.
the reviewer only sees the rancourous brawling of a
disaffected race, stimulated to rebellion by the
mezzoceto, goaded to frensy by the voices of their
demagogues, and tempted to civic insurrection, to
intestine war, and to universal anarchy by the in-
sidious and inflamatory propagandism of France.
Why, the Italian movement had commenced long be-
fore
the Orleans dynasty was threatened with destruct
tion, before the dinner on the Champs Elysies was
dreamt of, before the .Parisians had begun to think
seriously of expatriating the son of Egalite, or of j
broaching the hogsheads of claret in the cellars of,
the Tuileries. The Revolution of February only gave,
a fresh impetus to what was already in a fair way for its
accomplishment. And when, in addition to the fore-
going misstatement, the reviewer maintains that the
French Charter of 1830 is the most dangerous model
upon which the new governments of Italy could be
based—because (so he argues) the iouleversellunt of
February proved that Charter to be radically wrong
in itself—he caps the absurdity of his former blunder
by one never surpassed by Sir BOYLE ROCHE or the
Baron MUNCHA.USEN. Every blockhead in Europe
knows perfectly well that the catastrophe which
destroyed the throne on the boulevards was caused
not by the continuance of the Charter of 1830, but
by the non-continuance of that Charter, the viola-
tion of its most important provisions, by the
diminution of the power of the people and
the concentration of an undue amount of authority
in the hands of the Sovereign. Had LOUIS PHILIPPE,
indeed, but listened to the warning voice of the
Prince DE JOINYILLE, instead of banishing him
honourably to Algeria because he dared to recom-
mend a more lenient and popular policy—the
Orleans charlatan might still be in the palace of the
Tuileries, strong in the affections of his people. But
GOD had willed it otherwise. The Charter was vio-
lated in a dozen flagrant particulars—the people of
France were sick of the farce of royalty—they
yearned for the economy, the security, and the justice
of a more liberal and democratic Government—and
so was the Revolution evoked and the Republic
founded.

It must be sufficiently manifest therefore that there
is not necessarily danger to Italy in the adoption of a
charter similar to that of the last French Monarchy,
as the Quarterly Review would lead the ignorant to
imagine. On the contrary, there is a peculiar
security to the Italians in the acceptation of such con-
stitutions in every instance at least where the cha-
racter of the monarch is a direct contrast to the cha-
racter of Louis PIIILIPPE—that character notorious
forits duplicity. Besides, the tremendous downfal of
Louis PumierE must act as a solemn warning to
the Italian Princes, telling them always in a
tone of thunder that the stipulations of their
charter must be fulfilled, or that their crowns must
be forfeited. There is one other fallacy, moreover,
in the arguments of the Quarterly Review we must
at once deny and controvert. The writer insists that
the municipal jealousies which have distracted the
Roman peninsula so frequently and deplorably have
only been quelled by the interference of foreigners,
and that the interposition of those foreigners has
invariably been regarded by the Italians themselves
as a great blessing, or rather as a lesser curse
than that arising from the dissensions of
one principality with another. Never was any
egotistical assertion so plainly denied by the
records of history. History tells us, on the contrary,
that foreign aggression has been the great cause, if
not the only one, of the prolonged calamities of Italy.
What, indeed, is the fact? 'Why, that foreign ag-
gression did not originate in the intestine divisions of
Italy, but that Louis XII. was first lured into Lom-
bardy by the Regent LUDOVICO SFORZA—from an
insidious wish on the part of the latter to aggrandise
his own dominions during the confusion caused by
the incursion through Savoy and Piedmont. If any
one circumstance, in short, were wanting to display
the dilemma into which Conservatism has been
driven, it would be found in this extraordinary con-
tribution to the Quarterly Reiiew.

The Queen has subscribed 101. towards the fund
now being raised for the family of Thom, the Inverury
poet, whom: death, together with that of his wife, has
pinged his children Saw the greAtest distress.