The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-22 00:00:00

211 E VENETIAN QUESTION

The good old-fashioned Christmas has come back,
" frosty, but kindly ;" and it comes with all the
messages of peace and mercy, all the traditions of
charity and goodwill, all the memories of Divine
compassion, which for eighteen centuries have
thrilled like the joy of a single household the
warring and divided worshippers of the Cross. If
the snow storm lends a keener zest and a richer
glow to the comfort of the family fireside, it must
awaken a more poignant pity for the homeless and
the destitute, and inspire a more awful tenderness
for the starving and the outcast. Indeed to all
noble natures the " happiness" of Christmas is
dimmed with tears, not only of private and per-
sonal sorrow for the absent and the dead, but of
a troubled and yearning wonder at the immense
mystery of mortal destinies. " The whole creation
groaneth and travaileth until now;" and to two-
thirds of the civilised human race life is, at best, a
blind chance, a battle in the dark, a penalty with-
out judgment or reprieve. When we look at a drop
of water through the microscope we see an epitome
of the life of millions of mankind. Whether the
spread of education, the growth of political free-
dom, the energy of religious proselytism, the con-
quests of science, or the electric forces of opinion,
are to result in the deliverance of multitudes from
this helpless state of bondage to the lust of glory,
the disordered ambition, or the pride ;of power, of
half a dozen rulers of armies and their parasites,
the next half century will show. To clever people
the question seems ridiculous. The many will
always be the many, and the few will always be
the few; the few rich and the many poor, the few
wise and the many ignorant, the few leaders and
the many led. Poverty is necessary for the dis-
play of Christian virtue, and war is occasionally
beneficial in promoting a chivalrous spirit and in
weeding surplus populations. Such is the philo-
sophy of clever people. Any other doctrine is silly
sentimentality. And yet—silly sentimentalists or
not—at this particular moment we cannot help
observing that even Monarchs and Ministers of
State spend their Christmas like the rest of their
fellow-creatures, and celebrate in many solemn,
festive, and homely ways the good old tidings of
peace on earth and goodwill to man. For a little
while there is a lull all Europe over, except, per-
haps at Gaeta, where Francis IL is desirous of
burying himself under the) patronage of a French
Emperor and the casemates of a fortress. By
common consent the annual armistice is tacitly in-
augurated in every hostile camp of home and
foreign politics, and for all the European " ques-
tions," upon the issue of which hangs the fate of
nations and of Empires, there:is one month's am-
nesty and oblivion. The stillness of the snow-clad
earth is scarcely more intense than the stillness of
the world of public affairs at Christmas. And like
the stillness of nature laid to winter sleep, this
political stillness is tremulous and thrilling, for
beneath it is the unknown promise of the coming
year. Shall it be health, plenty, and prospe-
rity, or plague, pestilence, and famine ? Shall
it be peace, freedom, and international reconcilia-
tion, or war with all its miseries and follies, for the
satisfaction of a young headstrong Emperor's self-
love ? We were saying some weeks since that within
five months the peace of Europe must be made
securer far than any Congress of the Powers has
ever made it, or a war must break out in which
principals would soon be seconds, and Venetia but
a spark in the devouring conflagration. Time
moves silently and relentlessly on, while ministers
and diplomatists are making Christmas holiday. A
month after the British Parliament has met it will
be too late to talk of special envoys to Vienna : of
equivalents, and guarantees. Too late, we know, is
a favourite phrase with monarchy in these latter
days. It may be that the Emperor Francis Joseph
has chosen it for the epitaph of his house and reign.
But the English public has not forgotten the miser-
able makeshifts and delusions of statesmanship in
the first months of the year before last, the abortive
missions, the impotent negotiations, the reckless
romancing of Mr, Disraeli in the House. The war
came which everybody out of Downing-street knew
must come, and Europe had to thank Austria once
more not only for her obstinate refusal to prevent,
but for her headstrong precipitation in provoking
the conflict. Austria did not drift but drive into
war ; it is a triumph of statesmanship when a war
takes Europe by surprise ; and this is the sort of
triumph which the diplomatic art of " drifting" is
not unlikely to celebrate next year.
Never assuredly will the saving wisdom of
Governments and the farsighted beneficence of
diplomacy have achieved a more remarkable sue-

cess. Perhaps it may be argued in excuse that
diplomacy can only deal with secrets ; and that the
war announced for the spring of 1861 is beyond the
pale of diplomacy precisely because it is announced
beforehand by vulgar lookers on. This excuse
may serve in some degree for the brilliant
failure at Vienna in the spring of 1859, but it will
be far more apposite on the coming occasion ;
since the Liberator of the Two Sicilies has named
the very hour for the anal struggle, and sum-
moned a nation to his standards. There is really
nothing left for diplomacy to do, except indeed to
preserve the peace of Europe in the only possible
way it can be preserved : by persuading the young
Emperor of Austria to be content with one great
defeat, with an insolvent treasury, with disaffection
in all his provinces ; and to consider a little the
convenience and comfort of his friends and neigh-
bours, before he resolves upon a
,second and more
complete catastrophe.
It is nothing that France adds a battalion to all
her regiments; this time, at least, we know that
the Emperor wants peace—it is nothing that Sar-
dinia is arming to the teeth, for we are certain that
Count Cavour would be rejoiced to settle the Vene-
tian question without striking a blow. But the
honour of France is doubly engaged towards Vene-
tia; first by the treachery of Campo Formio not
yet redeemed ; secondly, by the words " from the
Alps to the Adriatic" not yet fulfilled. And as to
the Sardinian Government, it must win Venetia or

ose Italy. Nor is this Venetian question a qu-es-
ion of military ambition or political intrigue,
though by exasperation it may become an instru-
ment of both. It is in its present aspect such a
question as any simple family making holiday at
this happy season can appreciate as well as the
astutest Cabinet. It is before and above all, a
question of life and death, of home and household,
and property, for two millions and a half of human
beings. Doubtless it is part of the Italian "idea,"
and of the political programme of Italian patriotism,
that the independence of the Peninsula must pre-
cede its unity. To talk of the unity and indepen-
dence of the Peninsula 'is absurd while Austria
holds the Quadrilateral. But for the people of
Venetia it is something more than an idea, how-
ever grand, or an aspiration, however exalted ; it is
the question of living the life of freemen, or of
enjoying Austrian taxation, conscription, silence,
solitude, - dungeons enlivened with fusillades, and
violent death escaped by exile. Surely this is a
question which any Englishman who knows what
it is to have a country and a home, public freedom,
domestic security, and equal laws, can answer
without consulting the diplomatic augurs.
The rumours which reach us of attempts at
an amicable settlement, and the pamphlets which
are coming out in Paris, are not altogether reas-
suring. It is of little avail, we fear, to impress
upon the mind of the Emperor Francis Joseph the
extreme imprudence of an Emperor, notoriously in-
solvent, making or sustaining war. To young
Emperors, wars, in which hecatombs of human
lives are sacrificed, are ,so much " wild oats."
,Enterprising spendthrifts don't renounce the stud
or the yacht because they are "hard up." Insol-
vency is sometimes an irresistible temptation to
extravagance. It is a precipice over which the
giddy climber must go. The pamphlet lately pub-
lished at Paris, attributed to an eminent capitalist,
and even to Imperial revision, is admirably rea-
soned, and would convince any capitalist, perhaps
even any Emperor alive, except the one to whom it
is
,addressed, Its only fault is that it is written
by
in aapralni
o man in his senses toa man insolvent and
whom with much provoking coolness
it recommes;d:
to.
e
give up in time and for a consi-
deration what heannot keep. Of course, it is
obvious to everybody out of Austria, or rather out
of the Court of Vienna, that Austria has everything
to gain by parting with Venetia for a handsome
sum. But the Emperor Francis Joseph's blood is
up, and his army is full of fight. The threat of
capitalists to Europeanwithdraw their credit from
the Austrian Government is lightly felt in those
Indeed the Austrian quarters. Government will
be agreeably surprised to learn that it has any
credit to lose in any money market in the world.
It remains, therefore, to be seen whether there are
in Austria itself influences strong enough to curb an
to
Emperor's temper, and control the policy of the
State; or whether among the rest of the so-called
Great Powers there is energy enough to ave Aus-
tria in spite of herself, by binding her over to keep