The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-02 00:00:00

LO.."1)0N, SATURDAY, AUGUST 2, 185

Lord PALMERSTON receives with complacent
self-satisfaction the conveafietial cemplimenta be-
stowed by the Chairman at the Fishmongers'
BinTiet. He seeme to accept them as a right—
to think that they have been fully and completely
merited, and that they are in no degree ascribable
to the ordinary courtesy that induces every hest
to speak inthe most flittering terms of those who
are at the momeut enjoying his hospitality. It
may seem harsh to shock the amoar propre of
which the Noble Viscount possesses so abundant
a stock—to dispel the illusion so pleasing to the
" First Lord of the Jekery." Bat although to a
certain extent a painful, it becomes an imperative)
duty to tell some homely truths, so as to convince
the Noble L-nel that the tine for indulgence is
rapidly slipping away, and that if he hopes
to retain the important situation he now
occupies he must do s weething more thin
he has hitherto accomplished. A neat and
well-timed address will not always satisfy even
the most easy-going House of Commons, and the
people will certainly req'iire not merely "sayings,"
butareasenable proportion of "doings;" and what-
ever the Premier may affect to think, the unsatis-
factory and inglorious termination of the Var, the
shortceinings of the past session, and "the un-
bounded toadying of Germanism, have occasioned
very painful impressions oa the public mind, which
can only be eradicated by a very different course
next session, when the opportunity for decided
action shall again arise.
Lord PALMERSTON alluded with much felicity'
to the proceedings at the Banquet being so much
more agreeable than those in which he had
recently been engaged : the House of Commons.
He might have added that they were to all in-
tents and purposes fully as useful to the country.
The Government might take a useful hint from
the members of the liberal and wealthy guild by
whom they were regaled, and learn to provide a
better class of entertainment when they again
undertake to dispense the national hospitality to
the hereditary and representative branches of the
Legislature. The magnificent Banquet provided
by the Fishmongers Company afforded a striking
contrast to the refreshment allowed to both
Houses at the Naval Review. The profuse Jibe
ralii of the company merited. the great success
.y
which it achieved ; while, on the other hand, the
parsimony of the Government, while it insured
" cheapness," the only point apparently aimed
at, made it almost' certain that there would be a
more than proportional amount of " nastiness?'
It is theref ore scarcely surprising that the natural
results should have followed in each case.
Th'or hTo.We'Lord spoke ~of the task that had
fallen ew•the Goiertirnent daring the late War, as
- •
"a peifeetly easy 71f. that, were. indeed the
case it is tip be regretted 'tli IA it Was not. better.
Performed, and that such terrible disasters as
occurred in the Crimea, and which occasioned such
an awful-destructien of human life, had not been
averted. It may be said that the Noble Viennrif
could npt.he held respensrele for the blunders,
.ind more than blunders, of the Aberdeenites
during the first year of the War. But during
that time he occupied an influential and impor-
tant position in the Cabinet, and. might stimulate
his colleagues to the more efficient discharge of
their easy tasks.
But allo.wing, for the sake of argument, the
Aberdeenite failures to sink into oblivion, and re-
garding Lord PAWSERSTON as only responsiblefrom
the time when he. assumed
.the chief seat in the Cabi-
net, what can be said to the abortive negotiations
at Vienne, and the Prec!ous FCa'.!:3 subsequently

concluded at Paris ? In every instance the same
slavish subserviency to Germanism and Imperial:
ism, the twin curses of Great Britain, were dis-
played. Our honour and interests were altogether
disregarded. Our Government suffered itself to
be made the tool of the French EMPEROR—ready
to patch up a peace whenever it suited his pur-
pose to do so. Our enormous sacrifices of melt
and money were rendered fruitless and unavail-
ing. The blood of our brethren, uselessly shed,
cried in vain fromthe earth. The honourand power
of the AUTOCRAT was preserved intact, although
he was, at the moment, comparatively at our
mercy. He was left at liberty to pursue the tra-
ditional policy of his House, and the nefarious
designs against Turkey, by which his father was
actuated when he ordered his cohorts to cross the
Pruth, and invade the territories of a friendly
neighbour. And this is what the Noble Lord
facetiously terms " accomplishing all the legiti-
mate objects for which the War was undertaken !"
Credat Judcrus Apella 1 He must have thought
that he was addressing a company of that gallant,
but proverbially credulous, corps, whose very
names have passed into a proverb for gullibility.
The only matter apparently accomplished was the
tame and unnecessary surrender, at the dictation
of France, of the principles on which our mari-
time supremacy was founded, and which a true-
hearted and high-minded Englishman declared
that we would expend our last man, our last ship,
and our last. shilling, rather that} t4ee in any de-
gree impaired or forfeited.
Was an alteration of the Maritime Law respect-
ing neutral flags and neutral goods one of the
"legitimate objects of the War" ? If so, we must
indeed have suffered greatly to concede the utmost
that could be demanded by a triumphant foe
Let Lord PALMERSTON, if he wishes to pre-
serve his position, look more to populAr support
and less to Court favour. He must be well
aware that he is only tolerated by an influential
person, who once before achieved his ignominiouS
dismissal from office on account of his manly der
claration that "England had no cousins." A similar
experiment may again be tried when he has no
longer the voice of public opinion in his favour.
A bold and manly, as well as an active and ener4
getic policy can alone sustain him. He will re,
ceive the support of the people if ho merit it ;
but if, blind to the signs of the times, ho perm its,
himself to be made the instrument of Germanism,
he may rest assured that he himself will be one
of its earliest victims, and compelled to,-give way
to more accommodating Ministers.

Seven years ago, on the testimony of Lora.
PALMERSTON, " Order" reigned in Rome. Suciety
was content, and crime W 33 almost unknown, but

in the eyes of the aspirant to the autocracy of
France, that was not order. The inhabitant
there had chosen a republic, just aR, if the Ballot'.
boxes spoke truth, France in 1853 chose an
Empire. They kept such a civil order as was
never known before, certainly not within livingme-
mory, but they kept it without, indeed by getting,
rid of, Pope and Cardinals, to whom, however,
they were willing co leave all their spiritual func-
tions intact. But the triumvirs, with JosErn Mitz-
MI at their head, showed a capacity for civil ad-
ministration fully equal to anything seen in
France since the coup d'etat. This was doubtless
their great crime. They proved thereby the
capability of Italians for Republican, or self-
government, an example odious at the Tuileries,
at Vienna, and, we are sorry to say, at certain
places nearer home. The French PRESIDENT
needed, moreover, the help of his Catholic clergy,
who only a year or two before had been busy
planting trees of liberty ; they might be pur-
chased, and the noxious example of a well

governed republic annihilated, if the POPE could
but be restored ; while French vanity would be'
flattered by placing au army at Rome as a
'counterpoise to an Austrian one at Ancona. Lord
0-olinr RUSSELL was quite content, for a republic
was not his pet " Constitution." Prince ALBERT
Was content, for though ho could not hinder
Constitutional Government" from being "on its
tlrial" in England, yet the idea of trying a repub-
lic in the face of Europe must have been nauseous
indeed to a Coburg. Our secret diplomatists here,
therefore, were but too glad to use the PRESIDENT
as a willing tool for what they dared
riot have done themselves, and with the
heart and good-will of English Autocrats
the POPE was again, by French cannon and bayo-
nets, made Lord both of the bodies and the souls
of the unfortunate Romans. Mezzuri fled ; the
reign of misrule began afresh ; the prisons were
crammed, brigands ruled outside the gates and
Cardinals within. Had a spark of genuine no-
bility and love of freedom been in Lord JOHN'S
breast, he would have told the French President
—if you intervene, we shall intervene too ; we
will see Rome fairly polled ; we acknowledge the
de facto Government of Rome, as we acknowledged
the de facto Government of France, and allow
neither Austrian nor Gaul to disturb it.

MAZZINI appealed to LOUIS NAPOLEON, in a
letter which history will preserve ; of course, in
vain. Seven years have passed away, and Francs
still supports despotic anarchy and brigacdage in
Rome, while the Austrians and King BOMBA do the
same all over the Peninsula; Piedmont stands alone,
a proof that constitutional government main-
tains liberty and order as well there as a Republic
did at Rome. Elsewhere, from one end of Italy
tic:, the other, life and property are at the mercy
of! spies and informers, of civil and ecclesiastical
despotism. It is under these circumstances that
Ml, MANTN, the admirable administrator of the
Venetian Republic, for the short time it lasted,
writes to warn the Liberal Italian party against
the use of the dagger, and to advise their accept-
ante of the leadership of the KING of Piedmont,
and M. MAZZINI writes, not to justify dagger war-
faze, but to show who is accountable for it, and
to
taffirm his abiding conviction that a Republic
is the true solution of Italian difficulties, because
best adapted to the genius of the Italian people.
On the latter point, both the patriots ought
to be good judges. They both administered
their respective republics with consummate
ability and moderation ; they both tested the
capabilities of their countrymen for conduct-

in One; or the contrary. Their experience
was Probably equally satisfactory, and
the difference' 'between them lies, no I doubt,
rather in their.view- of the best means of .excluding
foreign interftiteneelhan in their opinion of what
is Teally beSt for their countrymen. MAZZINI bo-
lieves that the hope of complete self2governMent
will alone be sufficient to rouse the Italians to
an ant, sufficiently united and vigorous to eject
the Austrians, and to overpower the traitor FEE-
DINA.ND.
M. MANILA conceives that all the
Monarchs of E
„rope would band together to sup-
press a republic, unable to brook the- exposure
of 'their own incapacity alongside the liberty,

oriler, and prosperity which would immediately
follow. Hence, M. MANILA counsels adhesion to
Piedmont, which, no doubt, aspires to the,lead
of Ittly ; after the part Sardinia took in :the
:E"4FII -War, he thinks ihe Allies, England espe-
ciatlY, tOnld •but- afford hearty support to Pied-
/
!mut, and all Italians who united with her, but
,

that, stepping beyond merely constitutional
freedom, would insure the desortion of our
Court and Aristocracy. M. MA:mx knows that
while the English people would exult in defending

a Federal Italian Republic, our ruling caste,
with our German Prince at their head, ~would

rather fight agaiEst it than for it. What Lovis
NAPOLEON and FRANCIS JOSEPH would do, and

our Court permit then to do, is MANIN's fear.

We fear with him. We believe with MAzzr&l
that the Italians could nobly govern themselves

as a republic. The past has 'taught them the
danger and folly of domestic feuds, •they want
but an opportunity of free expression of thought
and of free voting to prove themselves one of the
most powerful of nations. All that Americans can

do the far more cultivated Italians could do ;
and it may well be remembered, that, to them we
owe the civil law and the municipal institutions
of Europe. They are by nature a legislative and
a law-loving race, and no people under the sun
would better sustain the majesty of the law.

Still, however annoying to be dominated in their
form of Government from without, we fear there
is little hope but in submitting to circumstances.

We feel the force of MAzzun's friendly re-
monstrances with MAIcIN, which appeared
in Friday's Sun, and yet, cursed as the Con-
tinent is with despots who can scarcely
endure the Sardinian Constitutional Government

itself—who could hardly be kept in their own ter.
ritories, if more of Italy made even that approach
towards liberty, is it not hopeless to'expest that
their madness could be restrained if the
country acquired complete Freedom ? Would
England—we mean England's masters—declare
themselves determined at any cost to allow no
more interventions in Italy or elsewhere we should
not despair ; but Mazzurr should know that our
Royal Matrimonial policy has sold the foreign
policy of this country to the despots of Germany.
On the dagger question MAzzINI gives utter-
ance to noble sentiments. While neither he nor
any sane man would plead for assassination, yet
the prevalence of it, much exaggerated by the
sentimental friends of tyrants, is due to their own
tyranny. The assassin is not the only coward,
nor always a coward at all. The brutal foreign
despots and soldiers who oppress him are the real
cowards. What courage do they show ? That
of disarming others, arming themselves, and then
goading the disarmed to resistance. There exists
not on earth a more bullying, degraded, beaten,
and thoroughly coward soldiery than that
of Austria ; the white uniform and the white
feather are now for ever associated. Beaten by
NAPOLEON L, beaten by Hungarians, beaten, for
they dared not attack them, by Russians in the
Principalities,—against such armed cowards and
bullies assassination is rot cowardice. We can-
not in every case tell even that it is wrong. The
assassin may be the vindicator of his wife's or,
daughter's honour, or may even, like the destroyers
of Domitian, have found that his own name was
on the proscribed list. Lord CLARENDON him-
self declared the State of Naples, and the remark
applies to all Italy, exceptional. Is it t• be we',
dared at that the exceptional state of " dagger
vengeance" should exist there also ? " GOD
forbid," as Mr. MONCKTON MILNES told Mr.
DISRAELI ; " that where no man may speak or
publish his opinions, that there should not be
secret associations." Let not tyrants enjoy both
their accursed tyranny and immunity from fear
also. As we have said, we do not for a moment
plead for assassination, but we do not think it
more cowardly or more guilty than despotism.
Indeed the latter has the greater guilt of being►
the tempter.