The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-30 00:00:00

THE _PAPAL STATES.

The following letter has been rceei-ved from
Rome, dated the 21st inst. : -

" I must inform you that the moral influence at-
tached to the mane of Lamoriciere has produced an
immense effect in Rome. The King of Piedmont is,
in consequence of the General's appointment, it is
said, to form two armies of observation—one in the
Romagna and the other in Tuscany. As to Rome,
where hitherto everybody kept away from the Go-
vernment, we see an emulation among the young
men of the wealthier• classes to offer their services
in the new army. The Pope's gardes nobles demand
to be employed on active service, and nobody re-
fuses to obey the orders given by the General in
his well-known energetic manner. He has declared
to the Government that the personnel of the Roman
army is capable of as much efficiency as that of any
other, but on condition that it be commanded by
skilful and courageous officers. He proposes to or-
ganise an army of 40,000 men, of which 15,000 are
to remain in the garrison towns, and 25,000 to be
employed in active service. His object is t 9
establish his head-quarters at Ancona, whence he
can prevent any invasion of the Papal territory
by an enemy's army, and at the same time prevent
any insurrection iu the Marches or in Umbria,
There is no deficiency of fire-arms, and the general
is occupied in organising three batteries of rifled
cannon. If the general can overcome the habitual in-
ertness of the Government, and succeed in obtaining
an energetic assistance from those who should sup-
port him he will accomplish the noble object he
has proposed to himself. But that is more difficult
than anybody can imagine. It is useless to deceive
ourselves, the greatest blot on our Government is
inertness. It is to that failing that we haVe to at-
tribute our backward.ness in material civilisation.
If the necessary energy bad been displayed for the
last 11 years to organise a good army we should
not now be in the sad situation in which we are.
If during the same interval our legislation had been
reformed and placed in harmony with the just re-
quirements of the age we should have less to repent
of, and the revolted inhabitants would have no
excuse. If within the last 25 years the Govern-
ment had accepted the offers of various public com-
panies who proposed to construct railways we
should have had an element of prosperity already
developed without adding to the charges of the
Treasury. If the Government had had sufficient
' forethought to place native troops instpsd of Aus-
trians at Bologna we should not have so shamefully
lost the Romagnas. In fine, if a loan had been
negotiated in the course of last year, our finances
would not now be in such a deplorable position,
' and we should not be speaking of an issue of paper
money or of mortgaging the church property.
Unfortunately for us I do not see any mode of
escaping from one or other of these expedients.
Notwithstanding reports to the. contrary, the
Chevalier Neri has scarcely obtained anything
either in Belgium or France, or the Chevalier Guidi
at Naples. Of the two expedients proposed the
last would be the least dangerous. Paper-money has
left too disagreeable a recollection—the expedient
of mortgaging the Church property might enable
the Government to contract a loan on less
onerous terms. To conclude, if General de Lamo-
riciere finds the Government energetic he may suc-
ceed, and even now his name is sufficient to prevent
a popular movement in case the French troops
should be withdrawn. In the meantime the party

opposed to Cardinal Antonelli is more compact than
ever. That party rejoices in having appointed
Monsignor Merode Minister of War provisionally.

UGLY SYMPTOMS.

We have drawn upon ourselves piteous remon-
strances by venturing to liken this halting Reform ,
Bill to a sickly innocent. We are told that, so tar
from being innocent, it is the cause of all the
troubles that afflict the country. Just so. It is the
nature of an innocent to turn the house topsyturvy,
interrupt the common household course of things,
expel its progenitor from his own room, and very
often to go off in a convulsion when all the mischief
is done. If innocence could exist only under the
condition of being the cause of no evil, we should
'apologise and retract it at once. This Reform Bill
stops everything itself, and does not move itself.
Allthe public business is in arrear. We are nearly
half way through the session, and nothing has
been accomplished. Half the Treaty business has
yet to be worked off. There are the Wine Licences,
when, as the Ministers will have to meet a curious
alliance of knaves and fools, they will have to fight
a hard fight. There are the Paper Duties to be
taken off, and some measure to be adopted to pre-
vent the' Emperor of the French putting them on
again for his own bene6t. The Stamp Duties are
still unsettled. The wild notions of the Post-office
Secrettry, who forgets that he is managing a mono-
poly, and fancies that he is only collecting a re-
venue, have to be corrected at the cost of much
public time. There is not yet a vote passed in
the Committee of Supply. Law Reform, which
stood out so large in the sessional programme,
has had so little chance Qf hearing that, even
the Bankruptcy Bill cannot find an hour
for its discussion; and that Bankruptcy Bill is
more practically important than a thousand Reform
Bills. There is a complete legislative block. So
far as we can perceive, August might find us in the
same position. The debate on the second reading
has now gone on for almost more nights than we
can count, and if nothing be done it may go on for
as many more. To-night Mr. Bentinck takes up
the wondrous talc, and some great fixed star—per-
haps Mr. Gladstone—will rain his light upon the
evening. There is no symptom, however, that to-
night, or even Thursday night, will see the end
of it.

We believe the bill will be withdrawn. It has
long been determined that it shall not pass. The
plain common-sense of the matter is, that the House
of Commons is not inclined to commit suicide. This
eighth Parliament of Queen Victoria is ydung yet.
It has a right to consider that it has a long life be-
fore it. It is not a year old. It is full of youth and
ambition and vigour. It does not want to be cut up
and boiled in the bubbling pot of a general election,
in order to be rejuvenated. It must be a very fas-
cinating Reform Bill which would receive the sup-
port of a House of . Commons under such circum-
stances. But this is not a fascinating Reform
Bill. Its very endurance by the Bright party is a
confession of utter defeat, and is suggestive of some
secret compact, .perhaps rather tacit and implied
than declared and absolute. To the Derby party
it must be odious, and its only chance of pass-
ing is its becoming under the plastic infiu-
enee of a committee just what their Reform Bill
would have become if it had been suffered to
be put under the same process. Decidedly this is
not a fascinating bill. It is not likely to excite
any English Parliament to any deed of heroism.
There aro certain gentlemen' in the house whose
seats are secure, and whose elections cost them
nothing, and whose nature it is to make hustings
speeches, who would just as soon it passed as not.
There, are also a few Conservative leaders who have
never ceased to regret their own folly in commit-
ting themselves to any reform and who would per-
haps buy a release from this most disagreeable
pledge, even at the expense of an interview with
their constituents, But, with these exceptions, the
passing of this Reform Bill means money out of
pocket, a month of hard, disagreeable work, and
possibly a fall from the Parliamentary firmament.
Perhaps it might have facilitated the progress of
the bill if a public announcement had been made
that a Reform Act should not be followed by a dis-
solution. The idea, we believe, has occurred to
many, but perhaps it has been thought so candid
as to verge upon indecorum. A maiden may be
very anxious for a husband, a barrister for a brief,
or a politician for a seat, and each may tremble at
the thought of losing the object of his solicitude ;
but it is part of the respectable hypocrisy of social
life that a perfect and stoical indifference shall
always be assumed in such matters. We believe
that if such an assurance had been volunteered
even Mr. Horsman would have indignantly repu-
diated any suggestion of an unwillingness to test
the confidence of the electors of Stroud. But still
it might have helped the bill.
If the house will not move this bill on or throw
it out, it may be better to withdraw it than to waste
the session. But the worst of this course is that we
shall have the same difficulty over again next session.
The office of leader of the House of Commons will
come to have but one duty—that of advancing a
Reform Bill to a certain stage, and then letting it
drop. There may be a new Sisyphus each session,
but there will be always the same stone: Toalay
Lord John is enduring this purgatory. We do not
pity him. It is the Nemesis which pursues him for
his mistakes in that other world of opposition. We
told him last year, prosy preachers as we were then
thought, how it would be. Day by day, six days
a-week, we tried to induce him to let Lord Derby's
Bill go into committee, and there to mould it. He
would not do so, and here he is, in his own turn, at
the same hopeless work. Not one step has the cause
of Reform moved since Lord John carried his reso-
lutions. Lord John now, as Mr. Disraeli then, is
laboriously rolling up the stone to the second read-
ing point. Lord John now, as Mr. Disraeli then,
is out of breath, and is giving up the hope of pre-
venting it from slipping down again.
We recur to the advice we gave last year—,, Pass
something !" Better for all purposes, public and
private, to pass something. For the conduct of public
business it is absolutely necessary to get this ob-
stacle out of the way, and to pass something . For the
sake of our position with foreign Powers, wich, if it
is not at this moment very threatening, at least
renders it important that we Ahould be able to'