The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-29 00:00:00

GARIBALDI AND COUNT CA'VOUR.

In a few days the Sardinian Parliament will
meet to listen to the expositions of Count Cavour
with regard to the position of affairs in the South of
Italy. The question will then probably be put,
whether the present Premier in Sardinia is to con- '
tinue at the head of the Government, or whether a
Minister is to succeed him with whom the Dictator
of the Two Sicilies is better able to co-opc a-te. That
this, and nothing else, must be the upshot of this
extraordinary meeting of the Sardinian Parliament,
every one will be convinced who has given of late
any attention to Italian affairs. The struggle to be
fought out at Turin on the 2d of October is the
struggle between Cavour and Garibaldi. There
are many, no doubt, who will deplore the necessity
for any such occurrence. But still the fact remains,
and we must confess there are even substactial rea-
sons for it, It is all very well to assert that both
Garibaldi and Cavour represent the tendency of
Italy towards union, and that while the one is the
personification of the martial genius of the country,
the other represents the depth and wisdom of its
diplomacy.. The image, we apprehend, is some-
what strained—it gives but an oblique view of the
real state of things. Diplomatic wisdom and craft
we certainly arc the last to deny to the Piedmontese
Premier. But it is erroneous to pretend that that
craft is employed to bring about the objects which
the gallant Nizzard has at heart.
Count Cavour from the beginning has scarcely
aimed at anything else than an aggrandisement of
Piedmont in the North, leaving the remainder of
the Peninsula to Louis Napoleon to deal with as
he deemed meet. The programme of Plombieres,
as adopted by the Sardinian Premier, and
which we often have detailed, was :—" Annexa-
tion of Lombardy and Venice to the dominions of
Victor Emmanuel—Tuscany for the son of Jerome
Napoleon—the States of the Church to continue
under French protectorate—Naples for Murat."
The authenticity of this programme has sometimes
been doubted, that is, doubted by those who
simply do not believe in a thing because they do
not know it. There are, however, proofs positive
as well as negative enough, which show that
Cavour, to say the least, has never contemplated a
full and thorough union of Italy such as Garibaldi
understands it ; and that Louis Napoleon, on his
part, has reckoned on Sardinia checking the uni-
tarian tendency of which the lion-hearted General
is the armed exponent.
Or is it no moral proof of the authenticity of the
Plombieres programme that Plon-Plon, during the
Franco-Sardinian war, was landed in Tuscany, and
there tried his best, though unsuccessfully, to form
a party ? Is the further fact that Tuscany, after
it had rejected Plon-plon, was not acknowledged
by France as a 'Part of the Sardinian dOminions,
although the population had expressed its wish for
annexation by formal vote,, no proof of certain
secret understandings and a continued Bonapartist
ambition ? Is there no evidence of the authenticity
of the Plombieres programme in the fact that
Cavour has done his ,worst to prevent Garibaldi
from going to Sicily—that when, notwithstanding,
Garibaldi landed there, Cavour tried everything
in his power to wrench authority from the General
as quickly as possible—that he sent La Farina to
Sicily to excite rebellion against the Dictator at a
time when the armies of the Bourbon were still in
the field, and a great part of the islands had still to
be conquered—that he then laboured with feverish
excitement to prevent Garibaldi's expedition to the
mainland—that when, in spite of all, the deliver-
ance of Naples had been accomplished, he
hastened to send Sardinian troops across the Roman
territory, with the avowed object of pressing back
the legions of Garibaldi so that they might not
attack priestcraft in its lair, and that at this
moment he keeps the organised forces of Southern
Italy in inactivity by placing the army of King
Victor Emmanuel, so to say, as a shield before the
Papal and French garrison at Rome ? If we re-
member, moreover, that all these deeds are those of
the man who, down to the last moment, denied all
idea of ceding Savoy and Nice, whereas he had for
years past promised that cession to the French
Government—must we not then come to the con-
clusion that Cavour has objects in view different
from those of Garibaldi, and that he rather is the
trusty confidant of the Man of December than the
diplomatic representative of Italy's aspiration to
unity ?

We have in the above only rapidly alluded to
some of the worst features in Cavour's opposition to
the plans of Garibaldi. There are, however—and
we know something of them—many other ugly facts
in the background, facts fully warranting the Dic-
tator of the Two Sicilies in his conviction that it is
unsafe, nay, highly dangerous, to accomplish im-
mediate annexation to PiedmOnt so long as the pre-
sent Premier rules it in the Council Chamber ; but
of this hereafter. For to-day we will only direct
the attention of our readers to a circumstance which
shows once more how the very defenders of the
Franco-Sardinian policy themselves daily contri-
bute to blacken the character for veracity of the
Sardinian Cabinet in the affair of Savoy and Nice.
We must preface here that during the recent
general assembly of the National Verein at Coburg,
apprehensions had been uttered by German Liberals
that the Sardinian Government should again erndeer
the path of territorial cessions to France.
nlron,Coasoe:t.
to do away with this unpleasant impression,
Cavour, by the voice of Chevalier Nigra'..A °
ti rumours
dor at Paris, has given a flat denial to.ae
_tune in_
on that subject—a denial couched in tnto"the ces-
flated style as those formerly referring
sion of Nice and Savoy.
Unfortunately the Chevalier ,Nig onl ra, when com-
posing his diplomatic conimuntiiqe, y
framed view,h and therefore
unguardedly soas had the
question of future cessions h
i is
language as to render it
a retrospective charge
,rgeo, n the very Minister whom
defend.. he sought to d
In my former position in
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Turin," he says,
" and in my capacity as the Ambassador of King
Victor Emmanuel to the Emperor Napoleon,
to ta have
been called upon
sine the Crimean
part
in all negotiations referring to the IN a
Italian question.
assert most positively that in those -
I now negotia-
tions the question has never concerned any other
cession than that of Savoy
and Nice. Whoever as-
serts the contrary, calumniates alike the Emperor
Napoleon, the King Victor Emmanuel and his
highly-esteemed Minister, Count Cavour l"
It results from this pretty display of offended
virtue that negotiations for the cession of Savoy
and Nice had been carried on ever since the Crimean
war ! How, after this admission, the Honourable
Chevalier Nigra can still talk of " calumny,/
against the Emperor Napoleont Count Cavour, and
so forth, is a mystery to 116 ; for it would seem to
us that he himself has contributed powerfully by
this coinnzunique to show forth the hypocrisy of
Napoleon and Cavour in the blackest colours. In
fact, did not both the Emperor and the Pied-
inontase Minister persist in denying, even after the
actual cession, that there had been any previous
understanding on the subject of Nice and Savoy ?
And now the very Ambassador of Piedmont at,
Paris lets out the secret, and after all talks of ca-
lumnies against innocent victims ! Why, wlio else
but Chevalier Nigra has given the best evidence
that Cavour and apoleon are the most arrant as-
serters of " the thing that is not ?"
We may well understand, with such facts before
us, that the Dictator of the Two Sicilies declares,
as he has done a few days ago in a letter published
in his own official journal, that Cavour " is not his
friend ;" and that, " whatever sacrifice he (Garii
baldi) may be disposed to make of all his per sou
resentments on the altar of hie country,