The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-11 00:00:00

THE KING OF SARDINIA'S SPEECH.

(From the Times.)
This is a moment of suspense, when the words of
Sovereigns arc substantive events. The opening of
the Sardinian Chambers has been expected with an
anxiety in no respect warranted by the power or
intrinsic importance of that kingdom. But we all
hoped to read in the speech of the King of Sardinia
some gloss upon the words of the Emperor of the
French, and some indication of the policy to be
pursued by France towards Austria. If Sardinia
shows a determination to break the public peace it
can only be in the conviction, more or less well
founded, that France is prepared to protect her in
her enterprise. Sardinia defying Austria would be
as, a •pigmy provoking a giant.. So insensate a
policy is not to be attributed to any sane Govern-
ment. However incautious, or even intemperate,
the King may sometimes have appeared, there is
strong evidence that he has upon this occasion only
spoken so much as was permitted him to speak. It
is even currently reported that the draught of the
document was carefully settled at Paris, and that
the paper went back to Turin much modified in
tone. We may take it that the speech just de-
livered by the King of Sardinia is a speech which
has the approval of the Emperor of the French.
Regarding it in this light it is not so peaceful
in its tone as the friends of tranquillity might
desire. It would be a temperate and moderate
speech for the King who not long ago told his
officers that they might prepare for active service
in the spring, but it is not reassuring if we are to
read it in connection with those words spoken on

New Year's-day, and with the ambiguousexplana-
tion put forth in the 3loniteur. " The political
horizon is not clear," says the Sardinian Sove-
reign. In what quarter, then, broods the storm?
What European Power threatens the independence
of the King's subjects ? Do the inhabitants of
Lombardy seek to annex Piedmont in the interest
of their Austrian masters? Or does the Army of
Occupation at Milan cast eyes of covetousness upon
Turin or Genoa ? Whence comes the storm which
Sardinia fears, or who holds that future which
Sardinia " awaits with firmness ?" The Power
that is determined upon a quarrel need not look
far out and sweep the horizon for indications of an
enemy. If it were the wish of Sardinia only to
hold her own, her small horizon is clear enough.
But we are told that she looks not for a secure, but
for a fortunate future. " Her policy is based on
justice and love of its country's liberty." This
should be a strictly defensive policy, unless the
King of Sardinia interprets the word " country"
in a sense different from that placed upon it by
the treaties he professes to respect. If by the word
" country" he means Italy, then, indeed, we under-
stand what that policy must be which is based on
a love of Italian liberty. Such a policy which
would rule all Italy from Turin. It is a policy
which wouldmake Milan, and Florence, and Naples,
and even Rome herself, departmental cities, send-
ing Deputies to a metropolis which is scarcely more
Italian than Nice or Toulon. This might tend
to the expansion of the liberty of Italy ; it might
mitigate the stringency of the Bourbon tyranny
in Naples ; it might infuse some energy into
the anile burlesque of Government that obtains
in the States of the Church ; it might, per-

haps, improve, although this is rather doubt-
ful, the present condition of Tuscany ; but is it
possible to compass ?—is it a project so
capable of realisation as to be worth a general
European war ? Is it possible that it could be rea-
lised by the agency of France and Russia; and, if
it were realised, could it last? Would Austria
endure it ? Would Rome for a moment listen to it ?
It would rather reduce ,Italy to the state in which
that Peninsula was when iEneas landed on its
shores. It would only produce a chaos out of which
the battling elements should eventually make new
combinations. We might consent to go back to the
days of our boyhood, when, with our heads full of
Livy and our hearts full of Horace, we remembered
the glories of the Republic, and drank in the volup-
tuous literature of the early empire. But the key
note of all that sentiment was Rome, not Turin.

Eighteen hundred years is a long period, even in
the history of Italy. Wave after wave of different
families of the great human kind have advanced,
with more or less force, upon that interesting soil,
and have, to a greater or less depth, covered the
whole surface of what was once a nation—even as

the debris of ages have buried the old Forum and
have choked up Ostium. In Italy's best days her
nationality was never pure. Since then great
Powers have risen and have fallen, and there are
traditions, far more recent and more powerful than
those of the Empire, which divide Venice from
Genoa and Naples from Turin almost as distinctly
as Milan from Vienna. It is not enough to over-
come the great improbability that France and
Russia are honestly desirous to create a great con-
stitutional Power ; we must go further—we must
believe that the fragments of races which never yet
were united should now unite under a distant and
scarcely recognised Italian Power ; and that Rome
should be content with a nationality under the rule
of Transalpine Gaul. Every Englishman has sym •
pathies with Italy. As the King of Sardinia says in
the speech upon which we Are now commenting—
" Piedmont is great in the Councils of Europe on
account of the principles it represents and the sym-
pathies it inspires ; " but our sympathies must be a
little under the control of our reason. England
will never by act or counsel interfere to impede
any effort that may be made towards the over-
throw of the evil Government that now afflicts
Italy ; but we may and must regret to see the ge-
neral peace of Europe broken for projects which
appear to savour only of ambition and to tend only
to strengthen despotism. We cannot see the end;
but we can see enough to feel convinced that what
the Emperors of France and Russia wish cannot
be what we should wish. _

" Let us," says the King of Sardinia, " resolu
_ely await the decrees of Providence." Therei s
small philosophy in this. Resolutely or irreso-
lutely, we must equally be governed by those
decrees. Some small parson, when he advertises
that he is about to preach, is so condescending as
to interpolate by the words " Deo volente" a licence
to Providence to interfere with the arrangement.
We have always thought that this reservation
would be very ridiculous if it were not rather
impious. The question, however, is, not what
Providence may decree, for that we cannot fathom,
but what steps the King of Sardinia is about to
take within the limits of his own human free will.
We must, acting upon the assumption that he is a
sane man, believe that he will do nothing except
so far as he is supported by France ; and we must
further believe that France will not go beyond a
menace, unless she is supported by Russia. But
Russia is not impatient for war ; she has at pre-
sent internal troubles to distract her councils, and,
whatever strength of hatred there may be in her
recent grudge against Austria, it is scarcely suffi-
cient to induce her to break up the absolute sove-
reignties of Europe into hostile Powers, and to
destroy their force by internecine conflict.
But, whatever may be the policy of France or the
tendencies of Russia, or the ambition of Piedmont,
our course of action is plain. We have only to look
on and watch the result. In a period of profound
peace, and at a time when armed force is irresis-
tible, and is arrayed under the command of abso-
lute Sovereigns, any insurrection for merely
popular objects is obviously absurd. He must be a
very shallow dupe who can suppose that the great
military Powers are about to fight for the restora-
tion of long-lost liberties and long-lost nationalities.
There can be no reason that we should spend one
coin or waste one life to support the Popedom, or
to protect the throne of the King of Naples, or to
continue the hard and unnatural rule of the Aus-
trians in Lombardy. It is barely possible that any
change in Italy can be for the worse. It is scarcely
likely that any change produced by France and
Russia can be for the better. This is not the help,
nor are these the defenders, we have looked for.
We live in days in which we are asked to believe
in strange things, but it is too great a demand
upon human credulity to ask our faith insa Tory
Ministry shaping a democratic Reform Bill, and an
alliance of despotic Sovereigns in building up a
constitutional monarchy.

(From the Daily News.
The speech of Victor Emanuel to the Sardinian
Chambers has been looked for with a degree of in-
terest amounting almost to anxiety in every capital
of Europe. At a juncture so critical, friends and