The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-12 00:00:00

combined. It may be meant, like the famous pam-
phlets, to see what Europe will say about it ;—it
may be meant to afford a pretext for saying to his
Roman Catholic bishops and priests, I did what I
could to save the Holy Father ; or it may be
really intended to place an obstacle in the
way of VICTOR EMANUEL. It shews at least, as
we have just said, that he considers himself still
the proper Dictator of Italy, and if he dare not
compel VICTOR EMANUEL to remain still, or dare
not publicly threaten him, it is just because he would
thereby throw Italy into the arms of England—and
because England—with such a fleet as manoeuvred
the other day out of Milford Haven, and such
another as has its rendezvous at Malta and Gibral-
tar—says, " Italy belongs to herself and must set-
tle her own affairs."

No doubt the Ring of SARDINIA is sadly too
dependent, yet, upon France, still his position is
very different from what it would be, if England did
not cordially encourage him in every move towards
Italian liberties. It enables him to hold a very
different tone to what he otherwise could towards
his Imperial Ally. In the present case he has
persisted in his avowed policy. It may be that he
secretly obtained the EMPEROR'S consent to it,
but if so the known opinions of our Govern-
ment had much to do with that. VICTOR
EMMANUEL demanded of ANTONELLI, that
the foreign mercenaries now in the pay of the
POPE should be disbanded, or he would himself
march his troops into the Papal territories, to see
that towns were not sacked and pillaged by the
brutal Algerine and his brigands merely for re-
fusing, as their brethren had done, longer subjec-
tion to the temporal reign of the POPE. ANTO-
NELLI has, we may presume, refused ; for to-day
we have a telegram from Turin containing the
KING'S reply to deputations from Umbria and the
Marches asking his protection. The KING pro-
mises to give it, and publishes a spin ited proclamation
to his soldiers. It completely " takes the wind out
of" the Imperial warning. The soldiers are to entgr
to establish civil order, to allow the people freely
to express their wishes, not to fight against the
armies of any of the Powers, but to rid the provinces
of the foreign adventurers which infest them. He
preserves peace with all the Great Powers, offers
provocation to none, but will rid Central Italy of a
constant cause of trouble and discord. He
will respect the seat of the Chief of the
Church, and give him any necessary guarantees
for independence—and as to ambition—he con-
fesses one ambition—" to reestablish the principles
of Papal order in Italy, and to preserve Europe
from the continual danger of revolution and war."
We suppose, therefore, now, his pacific MAJESTY
will be magnanimous by necessity. He will let all
the POPE'S subjects take their freedom, but the poor
Romans themselves. They are to be the city of
his HOLINESS, if not a very holy city; and French
bayonets are, for the present, to keep the old gen-
tleman on his seat. For the present—for this
cannot last long. Rome will be needed
as the capital of regenerated Italy. To
no other city could all the local capi-
tals be expected to yield the post of honour.
The Catholic Powers must cease to bluster about
an " independent POPE"—they can never have one
—they never have had one. The ecclesiastical
independence of the POPE can be as complete as
it now is, with VICTOR EMMANUEL ruling Italy
from Rome. To that it must come; so the sooner
they agree to it, the sooner will a permanent
settlement be reached.

The Syrian massacres rendered one thing inevit-
able—namely, an European occupation! Upon that
we were all immediately agreed—English, French,
Austrian, Prussian, and Russian, indiscriminately.
For once the Five Great Powers were of one accord
upon the instant, almost one might say instinctively.
And they concurred thus unanimously upon a ques-
tion affecting the very existence of Turkey as an
European sovereignty—the identical question which
had led to the last great warlike convulsion of
Christendom. The " situation " was indeed extra-
ordinary. The crime which had been perpetrated
was one in itself characterised by a peculiar com-
bination of the most heinous ingratitude and the
most ruthless bloodguiltiness. It was an atrocity
so startling and monstrous in its way as to kindle
throughout the whole of Europe at the flash of the
electric telegraph one spontaneous flame of popular
indignation. ller Britannic MAJESTY, in her
vicarious address to the Lords and Commons of
England upon the prorogation of Parliament by the
Royal Commissioners, alluded in burning words, in
words expressive of horror and of stern and unmea-
sured reprobation, to those wholesale butcheries
by which the lawless Druses of the Lebanon had
dyed their scimitars to the hilt in the life-blood of
the Maronite population. Her MAJESTY'S Imperial
ally across the Channel, at the head of a steam fleet
second only to our own, and of a disciplined army
of 600,000 Frenchmen, had already avowed himself
to be transported with indignation at the dreadful
tidings coming to Europe from the opposite shores
of the Mediterranean. The Government of St.
Petersburg had fully one quarter of a year pre-
viously called the attention of the other leading
States of Christendom, through a diplomatic circular
penned by the Foreign Secretary of the Czar
ALEXANDER, to the imminent contingency which
(argued this significantly prophetic circular !) was
rendering, every successive day almost, more and
more obviously inevitable the necessity for some
collective interposition on the part of the Chief
Powers of Europe, between the demoralised
authority of the Ottoman Porte and the un-
happy Christian population a Turkey upon
it
either side of the Bosphorus. Austria and
Prussia in this among other vexatee qucestiones found
only new reasons for the more intricate blending
of their long estranged but now amicable policies
for the readier advancement of the common inte-
rests of the German fatherland. The Five Powers,
in fact, thought alike in regard to Syria—and they
have in that direction acted together in conse-
quence. All this is, no doubt, so far good. It will
convince even the
pagan fanatics of the Lebanon
that the forbearance of Christendom is no longer
to be counted upon. It will satisfy even the obtuse
judgment of the Divan that Europe is no longer to
be outraged with impunity through those unfor-
tunate Christian inhabitants of Turkey whom the
rulers of Turkey have so long " delighted to dis-
honour." The varied pennants flying from that
motley throng of vessels now anchored off Bey-
rout—vessels representing every navy of Christen-
dom, English, French, Austrian, Dutch, Greek
Russian, and Sardinian—illustrate at this -very
moment visibly and effectively off those Syrian
shores recently stained with the blood of our mur-
dered fellow-Christians, illustrate vividly and un-
mistakeably the fixed determination of the Euro•
peans to put an end at last, for once and for all, to
the barbarous and insensate course hitherto pur-
sued in regard to the co-religionists of the Euro.
peans by the Mussulman sovereignty.
'While we
are, nevertheless, not unnaturally,
exulting in
the fact of the heretofore unexampled
unanimity thus manifested on the part of the chief
Powers of Christendom—it is, to our thinking,
more than ever advisable that we should yet con-
tinue to observe with unwinking vigilance a policy