The Sun.
London, England, 1851-11-12 00:00:00

THE

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ki

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS D.Y.
lIERALD.—Tee enthusiasm that has marked the
reception of Kossuth in this country is an indication of
national feeling not lightly to be esteemed. The trium-
phal procesdon of the outlawed Hungarian through the
streets of " the metropolis of the world," to the building
where he was formally to receive the congratulations of
its constituted authorities, was a scene of equal interest
and instruction. Foreigners cannot understand this. In
England the exile is received with the acclamations of
the populace, and honoured by the municipalities of our
chief cities. With this popular demonstration our Go-
vernment has nothing to do. The Sovereign of England
has no right and no power to intercept or repress this
exhibition of the feelings of her people. All the power
of the Court, were it exerted for the purpose, could net
prevent the municipality of the metropolitan city from
honouring the man whom the ally of our Sovereign would
gibbet if tie could catch him. Whatever men may think
of liossuth or his cause, every Englishman ought to feel
proud at this practical proof of the freedom of our insti-
tutions. The Austrian Cabinet complained a year ago
that our Government did not execute summary punish-
ment upon those who insulted Haynau. They could not
understand the explanation that Englishmen could only
be punished by regular process of law. Were they to
complain of the sympathy which this country has shown
for the " rebel," they probably could as little under-
stand the reply that it Englishmen choose to exhibit that
sympathy there is nu law and no power on earth that
can prevent them. It were to mistake the nature of the
popular feeling in favour of the Hungarian chief to
suppose that it is merely an expression of sympathy
with the cause of the Hungarians. So far, indeed, as
that cause is understood, we believe the verdict of the
people of England is on the side of the Magyure. But
the popular feeling that has welcomed the champion of
Hungarian independence has not waited to examine the
provisions of charters, or determine the privileges
granted by constitutions. It were an utter libel upon
those manifestations to attribute to them any sympathy
with the cause of revolution. It was the misfortune of
the events of 1848 that they tended to confound a
struggle like that of the Magyars with the revolutionary
spirit which then shook the nations of Europe. With
the enemies of social order the people of England have
no sympathy. The very men that cheered the Magyar
chieftain in our streets were the special constables of the
memorable 10th of April, 1848. Feargus O'Connor
could not gain even a momentary popularity by pressing
to Kossuth's side. The Hungarian proved that he tho-
roughly understood the nature of the feeling that
welcomed him when he asked the first crowd that
cheered him at Southampton to testify their loyalty,
and affection for the Qieen. Had he come as the cham-
pion of democracy or republicanism to our shores, he
would have been probably as unnoticed, certainly as un-
honoured, as Muzzle' or Louis Blanc. The spontaneous
outburst of enthusiasm that has greeted him is the voice
of the English nation giving utterance to its hatred of
arbitrary power. By wnatever disguises the truth may
be concealed, under whatever varying forms the contest
may appear, the people of this country believe that there
is now an organised conspiracy to crush the liberties of
Europe. Of that conspiracy Jesuits are the contrivers,
bigots the instruments, and despotic Sovereigns the
tools. Terrified from his brief attempt to ally the
Church with the cause of democracy and revolution, the
Pope has been driven back to a confederacy with tyranny.
Different as are the instruments and apparently oppo-
site the policy, the end that is aimed at is the same.
Ancient privileges, whither of kings, or churches, or
peoples, are the strongest barriers against the encroach-
ments of the Papacy, which it is the one object of the
Jesuist faction to carry out. No constitution, or sem-
blance of a constitution in Christendom made rocm for
the absolute power of the Pope. All ancient customs
protested against it—all old privileges resist it. To
clear the way for the establishment of Papal despot-
ism all old constitutions must be broken down.
The reign of Pope Pius commenced by an attempt to
effect this by placing the Church at the head of a popular
and revolutionary movement. The game was, fortunately
for the peace of the world, weakly and feebly played.
Nevertheless it was persevered in until the very exist-
ence of the Papal Government was perilled. That which
the Jesuits failed to do by directing the rebellion of sub-
jects against their Kings they are now setting themselves
to accomplish by controlling the treason of Kings against
their subjects. They are now the advocates in every
Court of Europe of reaction. They want but Govern-
ment uncontrolled by laws or constitutions, in which
nothing can claim the authority of prescription but the
power of' the Church; and this they are now essaying
to effect by reducing all the Governments of Europe
to pure absolutism. The abrogation of constitutions is
now become the favourite amusement of the despotic Cabi-
nets of Europe; and, as none are given in room of those
abrogated, constitutional government is no longer to
exist. The people of England have instinctively per-
ceived the workings of that absolutist alliance which
is to divide the civil and religious liberties of Christen-
dom between the despots of Europe and the Pope. It
is their hatred of that conspiracy which has given its
fervour to their welcome of Kossuth. We do not desire
to detract from the sympathy that may abstractedly be
felt for the cause of the Hungarian nation ; neither do
we take anything from the admiration that may be en-
tertained personally for the Magyar chief ; but yet we
do not believe that either of those sentiments would
have found so universal or. so enthusiastic an expres-
sion, if Englishmen had not the conviction that the de-
sign has been formed to crush before arbitrary power
whatever is left of European privilege and freedom.
The shouts with which they hail the man who comes to
them as the defender of the ancient Hungarian constitu-
tion, proclaim in truth their hatred and defiance of that
absolutist re-action which wages mortal warfare against
all constitutions, and the civil and religious liberty which
only constitutions can protect.
DAILY NE WS.—The reception given to Kossuth in
our great cities and in the districts of England most
replete with intelligence, wealth, and population, gives to
the universal sentiment in his favour the character of a
national adhesion. No man and no cause have awakened
the admiring voices of so many millions. We know not
when Englishmen were so unanimous. They have been
tried of late years on many a domestic question, on some
connected with religion, or with taxation, with reform,
or cheap victuals, yet the pure and disinterested feelings
evoked by the coming of Kossuth are more enthusiastic,
more overpowering than either the political or material
interests of the most household questions could produce
is Englishmen. It is seldom that contemporaneous his-
tory presents in action, in events, in cause, and in cha-
racters, a spectacle of such noble dramatic interest as the
Hungarian struggle. Shakspeate never drew a picture
of greater perfidy, meanness, and tyranny than Austria
displayed, or of more generosity of sentiment and noble-
ness
of courage than Hungary evinced. In the develop-
ment we have seen two campaigns, the injured and me-
naced country gallantly resisting and defeating
Austria, and then making a noble fight against
Austria and Russia combined, and only succumb-
ing to an ascendancy, bought even then more
by igold and treachery than by
manly fighting
iu the open field. The great features of this epic, for it
is the great epic of the age, have been placed before the
popular view, with the characters who figure in it all
brought out in the boldest relief. Windischgratz, the
bombarder of Vienna, the slaughterer of Blum, driven
ignominiously out of Hungary, and disgraced in conse-
quence by his Court—opposed to him the dauntless
courage and cool defensive policy of Kossuth. Haynau,
and his women-flogging, Sell warzenberg and his edict
for the hanging of Louis Bathyani, with the tragical
circumstances of that execution, the struggle round Co-
morn, the flight of Gorgey, and his simulated defence,
toe heroic battle of Temesvar fought by the rash but in-
domitable Bem, and that occasion seized as a pretext
by the traitor Gorgey to deliver up his soldiers to the
Russian general, and his officers to the Austrian hang-
Man: —all these are events that have penetrated into
every English worshop and every English cottage, until,
as we have said, they have become the great popular
epic of our time. What vain folly is it, what puerile
malignity, to strive against this great, this generous,
and honest expression of national sentiment, by ex-
amining, as some of our journals do, with critical
scalpel, into the exact shade of political opinions pro-
fessed by the great chief of the Hungarian struggle, by
Kossuth himself. What on earth cares the English
public in its devotion, that Kossuth be a little more or a
little less republican? What care they whether he has
thought with Washington or with Jefferson, with Ed-
ward Hyde or with Algernon Sydney? If in these days
the English people have learned to be profoundly indif-
ferent to shades of religious difference, they have also
learned to be so in respect of political theory. By a
singular mistake, it is assumed that Englishmen award
their praise and mete out their enthusiastic attachments
according to the political opinions of their hero. And
they are told what a great error they make in worship- '
ping Kossuth, and in not worshipping Louis Blanc, be-
cause both have despaired of the re-establishment f the
royal races in their respective countries. But the poli-
tical
theories of these men have nothing to do with the
different degrees of popular appreciation which they
meet in this country. The struggles in Hungary and
the struggles in France have both been pourtrayed before
the British public. It leas looked with interest and ad-
miration upon the one, but turned with disgust and
aversion from the other. Need we say why? Need we
spend words and employ arguments to show how the
broad, common sense of the English public at once
discerns the difference betweenthe honest struggle forth.
rightful!and traditional claims of Hungary and the inexpli-
cable and aimless Parisian revolution of 1846? It may
be, however, that our Conservatives and their organs
dread this enthusiasm for Kossuth, as likely to ultra-
liberalise the English public; and therefore that it is but
prudent to abate the fever even by the antidote of
slander and sophism. We see nothing dangerous in this
Kossuth enthusiasm, except the fact of the industrious
and frankly thinking classes all joining it, whilst the
idle and the gentle hold aloof. On this latter group of
persons the Conservative press no doubt has effect. It
warns them to beware of Kossuth as a mad dog that is
to infect them with some deadly poison. It beseeches
themnot to be vulgar, or Jacobin, or to allow their na-
tural sentiment to Hungary to escape their lips, lest
Austria might take offence, and the affairs of Europe
become complicated. What is the result of such puerili-
ties as these being listened to by the upper class of so-
ciety, whilst all beneath them indulge in the natural
tinbealuintf sla,hnedroeusutpiteuwriiiili
will learn to mistrust the gentry
be, that the peopleof this country
gs of_ generous and liberal Benue
but false lovers of liberty, and theupper class as
hesitating and lukewarm
admirers of patriotism, a/L'a
in the manly and honest eutthhesiar'
to their own interests and own prejudices to join
class too selfishly alive
of the people. We hag© before signalised et.
the
bol of that fatal malady which society
as
seignalised these deep great body
di-
visions between the classes of se-
France. Should a similar schism take the worst sym-
ermines and destroys
loaehnet here, when suet: massesplace
wa
en d becomeQfshudder
the
. industrious popu-
,ation are gathered together as those which thronged round
Kossuth in Birmingham and Manchester,
i"
the "InciLlQlloee, za• 9 gor
ef the
oeitenemies