The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-10 00:00:00

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THE SUN.

LONDON, SATURDAY, NOV. 10, 1860,

If any one was looking forward to the Mansion
Rouse Banquet yesterday in the expectation that
the convivial and complimentary speeches there
delivered would possess the smallest atom of politi-
cal significance, he must certainly have found him-
self doomed to disappointment. All the customary
courtesies were exchanged across the fruit and
flowers—the Loving Cup having, as usual, to all
appearance, circulated round the hospitable board
of the great Civic Potentate with such good effect
as to have flavoured appreciably all the honied
words passing to and fro 4between the illustrious
guests and their lordly entertainer. If there
was any one suave ingredient that predominated
over the rest appreciably in this saccharine elo •
quence, it may be expressed in the one suggary mo-
nosyllable—Peace. To the concert of harmonious
sounds, in which it was remarkable that that
particular " theme" was the one played upon
with variations by almost all the performers
in. succession —to that charming concord of
sweet sounds the French Ambassador, of all
the men in the world, may be said to have
contributed the dulcet tones of the most pastoral
of flageolets. It was like the warbling of the angelic
song pax hominibas bone voluntatis. Insomuch that
listening to its mellifluous cadences even the noble
lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
could not but remark that " the sentiments which
the French Ambassador had expressed tended to
Peace and amity among the nations of the earth
end," said Lord JOHN RUSSELL, " which we
all ardently hoped for." Yes—truly—" the senti-
ments of the French Ambassador !" But—the
policy of the
French So VEREIGN ? Ah, that in-
deed is a very different matter ! Did it not occur
to many of those who were hearkening last night
to the duleißaous sentences of M. le Comte de
PERSlGNY—sentences expressive, as Lord JOHN
says, of sentiments tending to promote " peace
and unity among the nations of the earth"—did it
not occur to many of those who " listened delighted"
to the trilling of the Count de PERSIGNY'S pastoral
flageolet—that other sounds were audible across
the Channel (in the camps and. seaports, in the
arsenals and dockyards), nay even across the
waters of the Mediterranean (in the Eternal City
and its outport of Civita. Vecchia) the sinister sounds
of the working of the grand and complex and iron
mechanism of the despotic Napoleonian Govern-
ment. The French. Ambassador is talking of peace,
peace, peace—to th e sound of the tread of the
armed legions own:irg allegiance to his Majesty the
EMPEROR, and going hither and thither at the Im-
perial bidding wit 11 an obedience as implicit as that
evidenced by the E nrvants of the Centurion. While
the gentle words of the Count DE PERSIGNY are
still ringing in on r recollection—",Chaque jour les
esprit soat plus cl airement, plus nettement frappes
de cette consideration capitale, qu'ayant tout a
perdre et rien a g. zgner a de nouvelles luttes, les
deux peuples peuyei at se faire autant de hien pour
la pair qu'ils pour raient se faire de mal par la
gnere"—while theft most gentle and harmonious
words are still rii aging in our recollection, we still

------,—.-.----.......------
seem to hear through them the trail of those light-
limbered brass -rifle cannon, that did such
deadly work upon the glorious battlefields of Ma-
genta and Solferino, within a few weeks from the
utterance—af words as prophetic of " peace and
amity among the nations"—through other lips than
M. le Comte DE PERSIGNY'S, though, it should be
added, yet more directly (for that very reason), in
the name and on behalf of the same Im-
perial Government. There is much more sig-
nificance, we do seriously believe, in the
thunder of the guns of La Gloire than in all
the bleating of the Count DE PERSIGNY'S flageolet.
That we are firmly peruaded is—to employ
phis
own euphuistic emphasis—the " true truth,"
verite vraie." That at least it is which impelled our
veteran Premier to the utterance, even in the midst of
the convivialities of the Lord Mayor's Banquet yes-
terday, of words in every way so entirely worthy of '
himself as the representative before Europe—as the
ministerial chief and parliamentary champion—of
the fair fame and the noblest interests of all the
millions of freeborn Englishmen ! We allude to
that part of Lord PALMERSTON'S admirable speech
in which the noble Viscount said, speaking of the
QUEEN'S troops as (after the Royal Navy) our
most prominent defenders
in should not attempt
in the numerical strength of that army to rival our
Continental neighbours, but we must make up the
difference by other means. We must redress the
balance by our admirable militia—by our noble
volunteers—which will henceforward consti-
tute a permanent institution of the country,
and by fortifying important and vulnerable points;
but, above all, we must redress the balance by
maintaining, as we always must maintain, a strong
and powerful navy. 1 say this in the presence of
the representatives of foreign and allied powers. I
say it in a spirit of frankness, of cordiality, offriend-
ship, of alliance, and of peace." So acting—let us
still repeat, let us still hope for, let us still pray for
PEACE-but only so acting. Let us still keep in
view the old Puritan wisdom, as expressed in the
rallying cry of the Covenanters. Let us, in a word,
while putting our trust in GoD, still attend sedu-
ously to the drying of our gunpowder.

Two facts we mentioned on Thursday should be
put beside each other. The fact that, on Wednes-
day, VICTOR EMMANUEL entered Naples amidst
universal rejoining—rejoicing which even torrents
of rain could not damp ; and the fact of the enor-
mous army which Austria has accumulated in the
Quadrilateral.
The King of ITALY now rules in his Southiern
capital—the capital so recently of one of the HAPS-
BURG lieutenants, and one who was in all respects
a worthy lieutenant of that brutal, benighted, and
cruel dynasty. The King of ITALY now takes his
position as the impersonation of all that Austria
desired to prevent. Ever since Waterloo delivered
her from fear of the First NAPOLEON, she has been
labouring, directly and indirectly, to be the Sove-
reign of Italy. VICTOR EMMANUEL at Naples
proclaims her rule utterly gone. No ill-organised
patriots stand ready to become her victims ; but a
patriot army, which has already aided in her defeat
at Solferino, stands ready to defend Italian liberties
against her to the uttermost.
And the King of ITALY must complete his NtfOrk.
GARIBALDI proposed to do it in a very summary
fashion ; and, but for the Emperor of the FREN CH
violating all equity and reason by his shabby
occupation of Rome, Rome, even by this time, would
have offered itself as a capital for Italy, and have
gladly applauded GARIBALDI'S " proclamation from
the Quirinal." The French must be shamed out of
Rome. The Piedmontese and the liberated Italians
cannot, if they would, drive them out ; neither could
they with decency attack the soldiers whose blood
flowed so copiously in Northern Italy for their
liberation. But, so strong is the case against a
continued occupation of Rome, and continued en-
slavement of the Romans by the French, that we
can almost feel confident, that a people, certainly
not insensible to generous sentiments, will soon feel
ashamed to mar the unity and freedom of Italy, and
desire rather to boast of having aided to restore a
great nation to independence. France has only to
act with tborough generosity to Italy, and she will
have done more for her defences on that side, more
to insure an ever willing ally, than she can possibly

effect by the shortsighted expedient of holding in
her own hands what should be the capital of the

country.

Perhaps some may read with a feeling of sadness
the announcement that "GARIBALDI left yesterday
morning for Caprera." We can hardly say we do.
A grateful Italy should, it may be said, do for
GARIBALDI something like what a grateful Eng-
land did for her great Captain. But GARIBALDI
was born one of nature's aristocracy, and we may
well question whether the titular honours of the
Heralds' College would not have been rather out of
keeping with the severe patriotism and nobly gene-
rous impulses of the greatest man Europe has pro-
duced of late years. The Italians will, they must,
in some way, express their sense of what they owe
to him; but if true of any man it is true of GARI-
BALDI, that his work is reward. His monument is
all around him while he quietly tills his island
farm. And for himself he is greatest in following
the example of his two great predecessors, CINCIN-
NATUS and WASHINGTON. Besides, GARIBALDI
may yet be wanted again, and the less encumbered
his position the better.
But when Rome has taken her old and proper
position in Italy, there will remain that dark corner
in the North. The hated old oppressor lurks there
still, preparing to make his slast onslaught on the
fair land he has long defiled. A German paper—
the Augsburg Gazette—" learns from Vienna" the
numbers of the Austrian soldiers congregated in
that little province of Italy called Venetia. The
main army amounts to 105,000 men, the Jagers to
17,000 more ;, then there are 30 batteries, six of
them rifled guns, and cavalry in proportion. In
addition to all this, another corps d'armee is about
to enter the country. Already the advanced posts
of the Piedmontese and of the Austrians frequently
exchange shots at a harmless distance, but who
shall say how soon such challenges may not grow
into something serious. .

What will be the issue of all this ? Were Aus-
tria but sane and amenable to reason, we might
find an answer; but, if in her senses, she would
not do what she is now doing. She cannot afford
the enormous cost of thus occupying a small pro-
vince. She is in difficulties she cannot yet over-
come, not only with Hungary, but with most of
the provinces of the Empire; and yet she madly
pours into a little province an army as large as
might suffice for the whole Empire, were she but
disposed to rely on just and liberal government.
All looks as if she meant to take one more plunge
into war, and to do it before the Italian army was
organised sufficiently to attack her. That she will
be attacked in Venetia, unless she gives to the
Italians " quiet and peaceable possession" of that
part of their country, there can be little doubt.
There is not ono solitary moral or equitable reason
for her retaining her hold on Venetia ;`'and the
Italians, when strong enough, will not allow her
to do it. Does she mean to make the attempt this
year, or to wait till the spring ? Unquestionably
if she means to move, now is her tine'; in six

months more the Italian army will be far more for
midable than at present. But she has had one
recent lesson on beginning a quarrel, and will
probably rather shrink from taking another.

The ablest speaker amongst the Lords Spiritual
has been enlightening his clergy, in a charge, on
some points of interest. As the Bishop of OXFORD I
sat on the Church-rate Committee of the House of
Lords he may be presumed to be well informed on
that topic ; his advice is certainly crafty enough,
though we do not much care for the consequences of
its adoption. lie professes great alarm because, be
says, Dissenters demand Church-rate abolition now,
not because it is a grievance to pay towards wor-
ship from which we dissent, but because Church-
rates are an outwork of the national establishment.
And his advice to the clergy, in consequence, is to
make no offer of compromise to such ill-conditioned
beings, " lest they should precipitate by a doubtful
solution the settlement of so great a question."
We beg to inform the Bishop, as indeed he might
have learned abundantly from the committee's in-

quiries, that the opposition to Church-rates, like
that to all unjust laws which have been abolished,
proceeds from a variety of motives. The more ex-
treme Dissenters, are, as every one knows, opposed
to the existence of a State Endowed Church ; and
would have religion trust entirely, as, in fact, it
does for much more than half the worship carried
on in the British Isles, to voluntary support alone •
In regarding the abolition of Church-rates as look-
ing in the direction of throwing the support of the
Church of the Thirty-nine articles on the love of
its admirers, the Dissenters of the Liberation
Society take precisely the view of Lord STANLEY;
who, both in speaking and writing, has stated that
he thinks abolition desirable, just because it would
be a step in training the State Church to that en-
tire dependence on voluntary support, which he
affirms must be the case in the next gene-
ration. It is certainly surpassingly strange that
a man who knows public facts so well as the Bishop
of OXFORD is supposed to do, should not have
been aware, till the close of last year, that Lord
STANLEY and the more energetic, we might say
the more consistent, Dissenters viewed Church-
rates in this light.
But we must inform the Bishop further that
statesmen and legislators cannot take account of
the motives with which the individuals and sections
of any considerable party advocate a measure. If
so, they might have enough indeed to do. The
intelligent part of the nation, when it demanded
the repeal of Catholic disabilities, heard abun-
dantly of the motive which actuated Catholics. It
was nothing less than to restore the authority of
the Vatican in these realms, and to make Popery
the State Church; and trembling old maidens and
old wives, too, were frightened with exposure to
the fate of ANNE ASKEW. But the Legislature
paid no attention to motives. It dealt with the
demands. It thought they were fair. It conceded
them. More than that, many Catholics have by
their intemperate zeal justified, almost, the vaticina-
tions of the NEWDEGATE and SPOONER School ; and
yet but a small minority, indeed, now doubts the
propriety, the duty, of Catholic Emancipation.
The Protestant intelligence of the nation is at this
moment prepared to defend it, not merely as a
necessity of the hour, but as a simply righteous act.
So of Church-rate abolition. What some Dis-
senters may think the best reason for it, may well
be thought by others the worst, or even an argu-
ment, as far it goes, against it. But men of the true
legislatorial spirit regard the question from quite
another point of view. They have only to ask—ls the
demand fair; is it made by a very large portion
of the nation ; does the existence of the law cause
more evil, practically, than good ; have not those
' who would uphold the rate ample facilities
for raising the money as dissenters do; does not
the law work ill for parish peace ; and would not
its abolition, like the abolition of bounties to many
trades, result in stimulating the energies, and in
improving the condition of those who ask for its
retention. Even the Bishop of OXFORD would, we
believe, in his heart, give the same answer to these
practical and legislatorial questions, as Mr.
SAMUEL MORLEY, or Dr. FOSTER. Whether the
Church of England should be separated from the
State, is, as yet, a question as purely theoretical, as
whether England would be better governed as a
Republic, with an elective President. The separa-
tion may be right or wrong, but it is certain, that
Church-rates are wrong. Bad as a coercion of con-
science, bad as a perennial cause of parish disputes
over a religious question, bad as setting class
against class, bad as making clergymen and high
Churchmen haughty, Dissenters angry, and libe-
ral Churchmen ashamed of their Church. As a
social nuisance, and injury to religion they ought
to be abolished, and theoretical consequences must
be left to extreme Churchmen and extreme Dis-
senters.

But our worthy Bishop is not content with de-
nouncing Church-rates Abolition, he is, if possible,
still more incensed at the prospect of alteration of
the Marriage Law. He expatiates on the extent to
which his predictions of the consequence of making
divorce equally accessible and equally difficult for
all classes have been verified. It is but a stiff Church-
man's view after all; for surely all reasonable laymen
think the new Divorce Court has been a blessing
indeed to hundreds of sufferers ; and, that to re-
lease the miserable couples from legal bonds, was
an act both of justice and of mercy. His own ful-
filled prophecies, therefore, if such they be, are
rather an argument for the alteration of
the Marriage Law than against it. We
expect the more benefit from it, because the bishop
objects to it. We desire the very things as a social
good which he thinks anti-canonical evils.
The bishop has no doubt received, as well as
other peers, the astounding report of the com-
mittee on petitions, which shows such an array of
petitions from corporations and other official
bodies, with such a list of first class signa-
tures, as must push almost any measure
through the Legislature. He also finds that
Lord BURY is likely again to resume his place
in Parliament, so that the year 1561 may very
probably see the Legislature perpetrate the awful
crime of allowing persons to marry whom the laws
of GOD and Nature do not forbid ; but to whom
a musty old canon of the Church—a mere frag-
ment of ancient superstition, or of something worse
—refuses a Church marriage. We give his state-
ment entire. Having reviewed the arguments on
the subject, his lordship said :—" That should the
State acknowledge the marriage of a person with
a deceased wife's sister to be legal, the law of the
State and the law of the Church must necessarily
be at variance ; for, by her essential constitution,
the Church could make no such alteration in her
laws. To her, incest must remain incest, whatever
the State might decree. The law of the Church
and the law of the State would then be hopelessly
at variance ; and the least evil that could result
would be, that the State, abandoning its present
religious ground, must, for the future, leave every
spiritual body to settle their own rules and condi-
tions as to the celebration of the religious rite of
marriage, and, for the future, provide simply for
the ratification of a civil contract between any of
its subjects. Against such an alteration of the law