The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-09 00:00:00

AI2DINIA

(From a Correspondent of the Times.)

TURIN, APRTL 4.

Neither House of Parliament met yesterday. The
Senate will sit to-day, but only to 'constitute itself
by the appointment of the President's office. The
President himself is named by the King, who has
in this instance only confirmed in his dignity the
Marquis Alfieri di Sostegno.
The Lower House will also meet to-day, but only
for the "verification of powers," that i 3, to pro-
nounce on the result of the deputies' inquiry into
each other's election. This preliminary proceeding
began yesterday in the nine Uffizi, or sections of
the house. I understand that most of the elections
have already been duly sifted and found. correct, so
that there is reason to hope that this unavoidable
formality will pass off with but little discussion,
and Parliament will be allowed to proceed to real
business. In the year 1857, as the reader will re-
member, this verification of powers took up several
weeks (25 sittings), and made a woeful hole in the
duration of the session ; but at that epoch the
Government was strongly interested in a very
keen search into the election of certain clerical
members whom they were anxious to unseat.
This year, on the contrary, hardly one of the
" blacks" has been returned, not even the great
leader of the party, Count Solara, della Margherita.
The Chamber is as yet all one colour, like the
world in the first grey morning dawn, before sun-
light has called forth itts harmonious variety of hues.
The nation has sent nothing but patriots to Parlia-
ment, and these are but too willing to drive on the
Government faster than it would go. All that
Cavour wants of the Parliament is simply their
sanction to—nay, their acquiescence in—the Savoy
treaty, and this will be but too easily obtained. It
would be mere tampering with truth to say that 99,
at least, out of every 100 Italian Liberals not only
fully expected that the emancipation of a consi-
derable part of the, Peninsula would lead to the loss
I of the Transalpine provinces, but deemed also the
cession, at least, of Savoy, if not of Nice, as desir-
able as it was inevitable. From the first rumour of
the particulars of the Plombiei es interview the sub-
ject was familiarly entertained and looked upon as
mere matter of course. The peace of Villafranca,
and the magniloquent professions of Napoleon has
certainly given men's thoughts a different turn,
and if since Villafranca the Emperor has behaved
very passively, if not quite hostilely to the Italian
cause, the revival of claims so long and so often
disavowed could hardly fail to create painful sur-
prise and disappointment. However made up the
mind of the Italian might be to the separation of
Savoy, it was not, as I said, equally indifferent to
the sacrifice of Nice, and in either case it was keenly
alive to any violation, be it of the individual rights
of the people or the provinces, be it of the funda-
mental principles of the constitution of any free
State, which forbids the sale or barter of lands, and
still-more of men, without the free consent, not
only of the parties concerned, but of the whole na-
tion as in Parliament represented.
The King's Speech announces a treaty already
" stipulated," but conditional both on Parliamen-
tary approbation and on popular suffrage. But
there is not one man sitting in either house who
can for one moment doubt that the contract re-
specting Savoy and Nice is definitive and irrevoc-
' able, so far at least as the Govern ment and State
of Sardinia are concerned. Any discussion in Par-
! liament, or appeal to public vote, would be a mere
mockery. This, as I say, every senator and deputy
knows, and he is fully aware that he must make up
his mind to one of three courses :—first, impugn
the treaty itself, and move to have it rescinded—
in which case the proposer, even if he were allowed
to go through his resolution, would soon find him-
self in a minority of one ; secondly, to hold his
tongue and accept the treaty,—a line of conduct
which would brand the Parliament and every
member in it with abject servility and cowardice ;
or, finally, to enter a protest against the treaty and
abstain from voting,—and this is the only incident
likely to diversify the sameness of the whole of the
dolorous transaction.
There are orators, I believe, not only among the
extreme Radicals, men of the stamp of Cattaneo,
Sirtori, and. Guerrazzi, but even men of just as
moderate principles and conscientious following
of Cavour's lead, who speak as if they were bent
on giving the King's Minister a piece of their mind.
Equivocation and prevarication enough there has
been on the part of the Sardinian Government
throughout this Savoy proceeding. I need not
here recapitulate the particulars of their conduct.
Their only plausible defence lies in the pithy
words, "Needs must where the -- Emperor
drives." Napoleon either actually compelled them
to belie and almost to forswear themselves at every
stage, or so misled them as to involve them in con-
stant, flat, flagrant contradictions and misstate-
ments—a supposition the latter, which, with
Count Cavour's acuteness and fertility of resources,
appears the less probable.
But, when you have even proved that Napoleon
was overbearing and Cavour disingenuous, men be-
gin to ask,what have you gained for Piedmont and
Italy ? It was only yesterday a man in authority
very deliberately assured me, "The only friend the
Italians have in France is the Emperor of the
French." Savoy and Nice, too, are utterly given
up by all the European Powers, the only question
likely to be brought before the Conference now
about to open being that of the neutralised districts
of Faucigny, Chablais, and Genevois, a matter of
international polity in which the national Parlia-
ment may be said to be hardly concerned.
Anything that may be said in the Madama or
Carignano Palaces is, for all practical uses, mere
breath thrown away. But honour must also have
its own path, and the example of the English Par-
liament is a brilliant proof of the extent to which
good men and true should take care "how they
make themselves partakers of iniquity. No doubt
prudent persons reflect how different is the position,
and therefore the responsibility, of an orator of in-
accessible no less than unconquerable England from
that of a speaker in so helpless and defenceless a
State as Piedmont, so helpless in its present transi-
tional and somewhat unsettled condition, so defence-
less in its military and diplomatic position.
Something yet, I am assured on all sides, will be
said; the honour and dignity of the Parliament
will be saved; but Savoy, which the Italians would
so much more willingly give to Switzerland than
to France—and Nice, which many of them would
die a thousand deaths rather than give to any
foreign Power—must not the less be immolated.
Such are the feelings with which hon. gentlemen
take their seats in both houses.

The Chamber of Deputies assembled at 1 o'clock,
and, as it was foreseen, was busy with the verification
of powers, a mere formality, which resulted in a
waste of precious time and was not half gone through.
The house has been beautified, but scarcely im-
proved. The eye is pleased with thQ red velvet seats,
green velvet tablecloths, and other ornaments, but
room has only been made for the new members by
opening into the hall some of the old tribunes or
galleries and converting them into niches, the sit-
ters in which will neither see nor hear, be seen nor
be heard. The full-length portrait of Charles
Albert, which hung behind the President's chair till
last year has been removed, and the effigy of the
present Sovereign has at last taken its place—an
emblem ratherof a new kingdom than of a new reign.
Above the Kin g'S likeness, however, t hey have placed
a large has-relief in white marble, representing
Charles Albert in the act of bestowing the ,!tatuto,
or Constitutional Charter, upon his people. Among
the conspicuous ornaments newly introduced I no-
ticed all round the vast oval edifice, close under the
vault, the coats of arms of the chief towns of the old
and new dominions of the Royal house. Among
them I saw the white crowned eagle, and read the
name of the city of Nice, and I thought, not without
bitterness, that the same hands which so lately
painted that symbol will so soon have to Erase it.
In the accaunt of the results of the various elections
of the kingdom I was peculiarly struck with what
was said about that same poor Nice. The first else•
tion, on the 23th of March, proved a blank failure,
because the Arenir and other papers in the French
interest had announced that the annexation of
the country to France was a settled matter, and
the election of members to the Piedmontese Par-