The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-17 00:00:00

SYMPATHY WITH GARIBA

A letter from Turiu says :—The importance of
the present moment is so great, that I regard it as
a duty not to allow a day to pass without writing
to you. As you know, the treaty for the cession
of Savoy and the county of Nice has been now sub-
mitted to Parliament for its sanction, and Parlia-
ment finding that necessity is law, will not with-
hold its ratification ; of course, the opposition will
make an outcry, and there will be several adverse
votes. This state of things was predicted by Count
Cavour to Baron Talleyrand, the French Minister
here, in a diplomatic conversation they had together
on the subject of Garibaldi's expedition. The Count
spoke to him, if I have been correctly informed,
pretty much as follows :—" Monsieur le Baron, you
are intimately acquainted with this country, you
knew it before the war, and have known it since
the peace of Villafranca, both after I left the mi-
nistry and since my return to it. You know how
great my popularity was on receiving back the port-
folio, and that my Cabinet was strengthed by *the
aeces.siOn:of M. Parini. Well, confess if lam not
now, after all this, less popular and strong than
before. You are too clear-sighted not to have
perceived it, and detected the reason. I have be-
come weakened in the eyes of Italy because I, have
endeavoured to please you and show myself grateful
to the Emperor, to France. I should have been re-
signed had I alone been"weakened, but .the halo
round, the head of my august sovereign has also
paled. But we do not complain, or even regret
what we have done. The King felt deeply his debt
of gratitude, and he would do over again what
he has done; but I ask you, M. le Baron, if at this
moment it can be rationally or reasonably expected
that we should act with any great energy against
the national sentiment in favour, as it were, of the
King of Naples, who, in common with the Pope, is
persecuting this sentiment. Can we treat harshly
a man like Garibaldi, whom we. have, so to say,
deprived of his native city, a man who repre-
sents Italy's strong desire of emancipation, and
who braves every danger to obtain it ? Let us
not give way to illusion : this emancipation
must come either from above or below. If you
suffer the high and the low to coalesce for this end,
we shall avoid revolutionary disasters ; if you do
not, the emancipation will be brought about all the
same by means of slaughter dangerous to the whole
of Europe. If you leave our hands free we may be
able to temper, to regulate this outbreak, but we
are neither willing nor able to stifle our own wishes,
to put down our own friends, to sacrifice our own
interests for those of others, which, to speak plainly,
are not the interests of your Emperor either. He
is assuredly not ignorant that no warm prayers are
put up at Vienna, Naples, or Rome for the duration
of the Napoleonic empire, and that if General La-
Daoriciere is organising an army near our frontiers,
he is not filling its ranks with the Emperor's
friends." I believe the Baron sent a report of this
conversation t 6 Paris.

Our city was crowded this morning with Lom-
bards, Parmesans, Modenese, Romagnols, and
Tuscans, who have all come here to enjoy the
three festive days commemorative of the twelfth
anniversary of our constitution. The religious
ceremony was solemn, and the King was received
with great cheering both on proceeding to church
and on reviewing the regulars and national guard.
The hereditary prince, at the head of the first
legion of the national guard, was rapturously
cheered. Unfortunately the weather is not dry
enough, and will probably spoil a little the effect
of the horse-racing on the Piazza d'Armi this after-
noon at four o'clock.

The Opinione Nattonale of Paris, evidently with
the connivance of the French Government, an-
nounces the opening in France of a subscription for
Garibaldi. The editor, Mr. Gueroult, writes :

"The struggle between liberty and despotism,
between the champions of national independence
and the instruments of foreign oppression, has
recommenced in Italy. It was inevitable. There
is no room in the Peninsula for two contradictory
principles; one or the other must prevail. De-
voted friends of the Italian cause may have
wished at first to see the struggle delayed.
But now the time for deliberation and regret is
past, Henceforth there is but one course
to be followed—to maintain by influence, arms, and
money the cause of Italian independence, the cause
which last year triumphed by the deeds .of our
armies at Magenta and Solfermo, as it will soon,
we hope, triumph in the plains of Naples and
Sicily. The manly accents of Garibaldi, which
have raised all the youth of Italy, now echo through
Europe. England abounds in meetings and sub-
scriptions. Shall France be behindhand ? Will
France forget what she formerly did for America,
Greece, Belgium, and for Italy itself ? May she
not now renew the subscriptions which she made
three years ago for guns for Alessandria ? When
governments cannot act, it behoves individuals to
take the initiative. A subscription is opened at
the office of the Opinione Nationale for the defen-
ders of Italian independence."
The Opinione Nationale heads the above sub-
scription with 500 f., to which its editorial staffand
printers add 3051. 30c. AM. Rouille Besnard
sends I,ooof. M. Petit, a discharged sergeant of
the Zouavcs, contributes 1001., with the following
remarkable letter :
" Paris, May 13, 1860.
"Since the Faubourg St. Germain enlists under
the banner of Lamoriciere, it is only just and logi-
cal that the Faubourg St. Antoine should emigrate
cu masse to join Garibaldi. Will you, then, inform
me through your journal, of which I am a daily
reader; whether a request to be allowed to go out
to Garibaldi would be favourably received by the
Emperor's government. In other words, may
r.,crve under Garibaldi with the permission of the
French government in like manner as others v e
(with authorisation) under Lamoriciere? Your
answer is awaited by upwards of 10,000 men, who
are ready to start with me.
"An ex non-commissioned officer of the Ist Regi-
ment of Zouaves, commanded by Lamoriciere.

"PETIT, ex-sergeant, Rue Moreau."

The Cpinione Nationale considers it to be certain
that Garibaldi in person was with the expedition
that landed in Sicily, although the language of all
the telegrals leaves that point doubtful.

Mr. P. A. Taylor, in a letter to a contemporary,

TILE FRENCIi TREATY.

LETTER FROM MR. COBDEN.

The folploawriis7B2 R letterue hasd o rbueneinv
eardsdi
tree,ss::al
yb y 1
2. Mr.
Cobden to an intimate friend in Manchester :
"My dear Sir,—l will answer your inquiries as
briefly as possible._
" I am as strongly in favour of the principle of
lad valorem duties as any one in Manchester. But
;nearly all the countries of Europe have, from mo-
tives of convenience, or to avoid frauds, preferred
specific rates, and the French Government cannot
be induced to take for its rule the ad valorem sys-
tem. Nor, indeed, is
,it-invariably_tlesirable ; for in-
stance, in the caseAiatott atitt some other articles,
the English producer prefers specific rates. In
goods of a simple aid uniform nature, admitting of
easy classification, such as yarns and plain cottons,
though ad valorem duties would be preferable, the

idopiion of specific rates will not be attended with

great inconvenience. If there are other articles of
so mixed and varied a character as to defy classifica-
tion, the treaty has made provision for dealing with
them in an exceptional manner.

"England is not really in a position to dogmatise
on this question. The French Government are of
course aware that our own tariff hardly contains an
ad valorem duty, and that even in recent years we
have been engages in substituting specific for ad
valorem rates. 21t-this momentthe wine-growers of
Burgundy are holding meetings to protest against
our specific duties on wine, which, owing to the al-
coholic test, impose 50 per cent. more duty on their
common qualities, costing perhaps 2s. 6a. a gallon,
than on the rarer kinds of claret, which are often
worth more than ss. a bottle in the cellars of the
Gironde. My answer to these complaints is that
the evil is inevitable, owing to the exigencies of our
revenue system. The French Government plead,
with equal good faith, the necessities of their Cus-
toms service in defence of their specific duties.

" With respect to your other inquiry, there is
not the slightest foundation of truth for the reports

in question. The commissioners now sitting in
Paris are not engaged in correcting the imaginary
blunders to which you refer.- We -have no more
power than yourself to negotiate for the alteration
of a word of the treaty. Our duties are limited to
the carrying out of the provisions of the 13th ar-
ticle, in the manner contemplated, froth the first,
and by the only mode in which it'could have been
accomplished. The task on which the commission
has just entered will call for the exercise of much
patient labour; and they who wish to pass a fair
judgment on its conduct will wait for the result.
Speaking only of the past, I will say that from the
time when I was first brought into communication
with the French Government, now more than six
months since, to the present day, I have expe-
rienced from them nothing but frankness, straight-
forwardness, and good faith. They have never
professed to carry out at once a free-trade policy to
the advanced stage at which we have arrived in
England. They are rather at the point of dept,r-
tuee. -from which Mr. Huskisson started in 1823,
with the great advantage of having had our eg-
perience to guide and encourage them, of hav-
ing- to deal with protected interests very much
in advance of ours of that time. The French
Government has begun with the repeal of
duties on raw materials, giving notice
that after a certain time the prohibitive
system will cease, and foreign manufactures be ad-
mitted at revenue duties, w hich will operate as a
protection to home producers. This is precisely
the course pursued by Mr. Huskisson, and we know
with what happy consequences.
" The French Government have entered upon
this new commercial policy, not for the benefit of
England, but from an enlightened appreciation of
the advantages it will confer on the people of
France ; and were I to doubt the success of the
experiment, or fear that they will not persevere in
the career on which they have entered, I should be
faithless to those principles the application of which
has conferred such incalculable advantages and
blessings on my countrymen. The present treaty
will inaugurate a new era in the commercial inter-
course of France and England, and it will only re-
quire a few years to develop that state of mutual
dependence which forms the solid basis for the
peace and friendship of nations.

" Can it be true that there are sinister influences
at work in England to mar, if possible, this fair
prospect? If so, I trust, the mercantile, manufac-
turing, mining, and trading interests of the coun-
try will prove true to themselve4, for in the present
case their interests are eminently those of huma-
nity and civilisation.—Believe me, yours very truly,
" RICHARD COBDEN."