The Sun.
London, England, 1867-10-07 00:00:00

GARIBALDI AND ITALY.

There is division in the camp of the Italian
revolutionists. The chiefs of the National Asso-
ciation blame the Roman Giunta for their unsuccess
in manipulating the subjects of the Pope. The
tranquillity of the Romans, in spite of the insane
exhortations of Garibaldi urging them to join the
revolutionary movement, is the best answer that
can be given to his assertion that a revolution is
imminent in Rome. In the conflicts which an
inroad of Garibaldians caused in Viterbo and the
neighbouring localities, the loyal inhabitants made
short work with the intruders.

The hope that Garibaldi's arrest, and the almost
simultaneous gathering of bands of his foolish and
headstrong followers on the Roman frontiers,
would provoke, if not a rising, at least a manifesta-
tion of feeling, has proved as delusive as the hope
that the Italian Government would be forced by
the Revolution to set at defiance the demands of
the French Government that the Roman States
should be respected. The Italian Government
knows that France is stronger than the Revolution,
that the legions of Napoleon are more to be taken
into account than Garibaldi's redshirts; therefore
Garibaldi is sent to Caprera, and the Chevalier
Nigra, the Italian Minister at Paris, is despatched
to Caprera to consult the Imperial wishes as to
the treatment of the Revolution in the future. The
Italian Government, itself sprung from revolution-
ary principles and from revolutionary violence,
now finds itself in a very embarrassing position. It
sees, on the one hand, in the further development
of the Revolution, its own destruction the
destruction of monarchy, of aristocracy—and, as
far as the hand of man can compass it, of the
Church ; and on the other, in its suppression by
force, it fears that the new Italian kingdom will
fall to pieces by internal divisions, chronic anarchy,
and bankruptcy. Secret societies have been the -
rished until they have outgrown all control. Con-
spiracy has become a habit and insubordivation a
virtue. Garibaldi is arrested to appease Napoleon,
and allowed to publish inflammatory appeals from
his prison to conciliate the Revolution. Such fatal
weakness on the part of the Italian Government
will be its ruin. Revolutionary Italy deserves its
fate, which seems now nearer than ever. It will
be devoured by its own children.

The Italian Parliament is summoned to deliberate
on the present state of the country and on the
arrest of Garibaldi. The Parliamentary leaders
of the party of action propose to call the Govern-
ment to account for laying hands on Garibaldi,
and to protest against his arrest as a violation of
the privilege of the Chambers. The Government,
we doubt not, would yield to the opposition and
set Garibaldi at liberty again, were it not for
the fear of Napoleon, whom Garibaldi attacked in
his incendiary speech at the Peace Congress of
Geneva, and with even still greater fierceness in
the addresses from his prison, which, with incre-
dible weakness, the Government allows to be
published. Will the Chambers have the moral
courage to uphold the supremacy of the law and
insist on the punishment of men who, like Gari-
baldi, set themselves above its dictates, or will it
come to some compromise with the revolution,
so as to stave off, if possible, for some time
longer, the day of trial, which must come eventu-
ally between the Government and Revolution in
Italy. The longer the struggle is deferred, the
more dangerous it will be ; for in the meantime
the principles of religion and of social order are
being-,weakened in the minds of the people. The
first duty Italian statesmen worthy of the name
have to do is to save Italy from herself, that is,:so
far as she is possessed of the revolution. A strong
Government able to preserve order and enforce the
law is of the first necessity ; then it will have to
grapple with secret societies which are engaged in
the work of conspiracy at home and abroad. A
strong Government which wishes to save Italy must
put an end to the secret enrolment or armament of
men who are to be placed under the orders of pri-
vate individuals ; it must stop brigandage or drive
it into the forests and recesses. It must strive at
establishing security, but to do all this it must act
in harmony with the ideas and wishes of the ma-
jority of the peaceable inhabitants of the country.
If the statesmen to whom the future safety of
Italytis to be entrusted are in reality misled as to
the actual state of mind of the vast majority of
the Italian people, they must make it their first
duty to lay aside all pre-conceived notions created
by prejudice, or party feeling, or ignorance, and
study the character and real wishes of the country.
And what will they find? That nothing goes so
much against the mind and heart of the nation as the
impious principles of the revolution. The nation,
not the noisy minority represented by the Cham-
bers, by the Press, and by the secret societies—is
in favour of peace, and order, and religion. The
vast majority of the Italian people—although from
moral cowardice, slothfulness, or ignorance of the
means of making their wishes known, they have
tamely acquiesced in evils which they ought to
have stoutly resisted—are, nevertheless, devoted to
the Church, and filled with reverence and love
for the Holy Father. They no more desire to hand
over Rome to the horrors of the Revolution than
they wished to see their own homesteads overrun
by the brigands. To the majority of the people of
Italy the sight of pillaged monasteries, which have
been for tens of thousands the centres of religious
life—of nuns turned adrift by impious hands—is
at once a personal and national sorrow. They
grieve for themselves, but they also grieve for their
country. Churches closed by violence, or turned
into barracks, or converted to other profane uses,
excite still in Italy a feeling of indignation which
statesmen ought to take into account.
In spite of what Garibaldi may say—and what
the revolutionary Press in Europe may find it con-
venient to promulgate—it is not true that the
majority of the Italians are in favour of the Revo-
lution and against Rome. Italy is divided. On
the one hand, a minority—not So large in num-