The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-03 00:00:00

T.FIE ANAEXATION OF SAVOY.

We extract from " Part IV. of further Corre-
spondence relative to the Affairs of Italy," which
reached us last night, the reply of the British Cabi-
net to the despatch of M. Thouvenel :
No. 2.
LORD J. RUSSELL TO EARL COWLEY.
Foreign-office, March 22.

My Lord,—l transmit to your Excellency here-
with copy of a despatch addressed by M. de Thou-
venel to the Comte de Persigny, which was placed
in my hands by the latter on the 15th inst.•
The Emperor of the French pledged himself, in
his Imperial Majesty's speech to the Legislative
Chambers, that he would submit the question of
the annexation of Savoy and the county of Nice
to France to the wisdom and equity of Europe ; and
the accompanying despatch—communications simi-
lar to which have, no doubt, been made to the other
great Powers—purports to have been written in
redemption of that pledge.
M. Thouvenel's despatch explains the reasons on
account of which the Imperial Government makes
claim to the cession of Savoy and Nice, and it states
the principles upon which the French Government
considers itself justified in making that claim.

It is with great regret that her Majesty's Govern•
men t feels obliged to say that they cannot admit
the force of those reasons, and that they are unable
to subscribe to the justice of those principles.
M. Thouvenel adverts to the events of the last 12
months in support of his arguments. Her Majesty's
Government would wish shortly to advert also to
those events.
The immediate cause of the war which broke out
in Northern Italy in the spring of last year was the
invasion of the Piedmontese territory by the Aus-
trian army.
The Emperor of the French marched a large force
to the assistance and support of his ally, the King
of Sardinia.

The declarations which his Imperial Majesty,
upon several •ccasions, made as to his intentions,
and as to the objects of the war, led the Powers of
Europe to believe that the war was undertaken
without any view to acquisition of territory by
France, and that its object was to restore Italy to
herself, and to solve, in favour of Italy, that ques-
tion which it was alleged the conduct of the Aus-
trian Government had brought to an issue, namely,
whether Austria should have dominion up to the
foot of the Alps, or whether Italy should be free
from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic.

M. Thouvenel says that solemn acts, freely con-
cluded after a campaign which had been successful
for the arms of France, are an irrefragable proof
that the French Government had not for its object
any territorial aggrandizement when it was led by
the force of events to interfere in the affairs of
Italy. But he adds that though the French Go-
vernment could not but foresee hypothetical circum-
stances in which disinterestedness would have to
give way to prudence, the treaties- of Villafranca
and.of Zurich entirely shut out such a contingency.
This statement seems
,to explain the assurance
given to your Excellency by Count Walewski in
July, 1859, when the Count, being asked as to the
truth of rumours that, notwithstanding the declara-
tions and proclamations of the Emperor, there was
a negotiation on foot for the cession of Savoy to
France, asserted that, if such a scheme had ever
been entertained, it had been then entirely aban-
doned,

Her Majesty's Government are led to infer from
M. Thouvenel's despatch that the hypothetical con-
tingency to which he alludes was the conquest of
Venetia by France, and its transfer to Piedmont,
and that in such caseit had been contemplated that
Savoy should be demanded by France ; but that,
the agreement of Villafranca and the Treaty of
Zurich having left to Austria the possession of
Venetia, the idea of a cession of Savoy to France,
which it now appears has been entertained, was
given up, as stated by Count Walowski.

M. Thouvenel, however, goes on to say that com-
binations in Central Italy, different from those
which the French Government had fruitlessly la-
boured to bring about, compelled the French Go-
vernment to consider the injury which new arrange-
ments in Italy might carry with them to the in-
terests of France; and he proceeds to argue that
when Sardinia, by acquisitions of territory in Cen-
tral Italy, was about to increase her population from
4,000,000 to three times that amount, it became ne-
cessary, for the security of France, that Savoy
should be ceded to her, in order that she might have
in her own hands the northern slopes of the Alps.
The new danger to which M. Thouvenel alleges
that France would thus be exposed would be inva-
sion from Sardinia alone, yr from Sardinia acting as
a member of a confederation of hostile Powers.

But her Majesty's Government would beg to ob-
serv3 that to imagine that Sardinia, even with a
population of 12,000,000, would ever think of in-
vading France with a population of 36,000,000, is
to suppose that which amounts to a moral impos-
sibility. Sardinia, so augmented, will become a
respectable State, capable of attaining a great de-
gree of internal prosperity, and sufficiently strong
to defend herself against any other Italian Power;
but that the Fre;ch Empire, the first military
Power of the Continent, with a vast, compact ter-
ritory, full of natural resources, and with a popula-
tion characteristically warlike, should be in danger
of being attacked by her far weaker neighbour, is
not in the nature of things. There are, besides,
many political considerations which go to show
that the tendency of Sardinia must always be to-
wards maintaining the most friendly relations
with France.

We may, then, at once dismiss the notion that
Fraefff Call require any other guarantee than her
own inherent strength affords her against 'any
attack from Sardinia, acting alone.

But M. Thouvenel conceives that Sardinia might

* No, 1,