The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—About 3 o'clock on Saturday morning
we are to arrive at a crisis rather curious than grave.
Two or three votes this way or that are to decide,
not the fate of a nation, or of a legislature, or even
perhaps of a Government, but of a manoeuvre. Her
Majesty's Ministers have not met an extraordinary
occasion, for there is no such occasion • they have
not hit on any startling novelty, for nothing can be
older or more familiar than their proposals ; but
they consider that they have divided their foes, and
are destroying them in detail. So in the small hours
of Saturday are we to know whether the wonderful
piece of strategy is so far successful. In an age when
a whole nation—nay, two whole nations—will
divide themselves into the partisans of two horses,
and enter into that question with a good deal of
bitterness, we cannot wonder at the interest awakened
by a race on the Westminster course, especially when
it promises to be neck and neck to the winning-post.
We decline to back either horse. Since the last
news from the Parliamentary Tattersall's, Cam-
-bridge has sent a vote to the side of the Amend-
ment, two votes have been lost to Government at
Lancaster, two more at Windsor, and it must look
to the result of other Election Committees with a
certain misgiving. Such is the counting of noses
upon a question the matter of which is nothing less
than the basis of our Constitutional system—the
men to elect the men that choose the rulers, and
that dictate the policy of this great Empire. Some-
how or other there is a universal feeling that a very
great business has been reduced to a very poor anti-
climax, and that a matter substantially of national
life and death has been brought to a technical issue,
and made a game of forfeits. As it seems quit im-
possible that Samson can be held by such green
withes as these, or that any important issue can
really depend on a 'feat of the ring, however won-
derful in its way, there is a growing impression that
it cannot so much signify which way the small ma-
jority will be. If on the side of Government, it will
not secure the passing of the bill, or even make that
at all probable • and if against Government, it will
not, it is hoped, the country of their services.
That a small majority in their favour will not give
the bill headway enough to carry it unscathed
through committee, and compel the submission of
the Lords, is too self-evident to require further re-
mark. As to the contingency of a small majority
against them, they will, no doubt, if it should arise,
do the right thing according to the laws and cus-
toms of the country. They will place their resig-
nations in her Majesty's hands, and give their oppo-
nents an opportunity of forming a Government if
they can. No Government, however, can be formed.
with any prospect of success except upon a Liberal
basis and including a good many members of the
present Government, and, in the event of this being
found impossible, our present rulers will, it is
thought, have nothing to do but accept a defeat,
weed out a few of those most irretrievably com-
mitted, and, for this session at least, direct their
attention to business of more pressing urgency.
It cannot be alleged that there has been any mis-
carriage of deliberation, any denial of hearing, or
that there is more in the question than appears.
Several times within living memory the Minister has
had to allege facts that could not be divulged, fears
that could not be expressed, opinions of the highest
authority that could only be confided to statesmen,
and factious obstructions that did not permit the
debate to be fairly conducted. In the present in-
stance the most remarkable thing about the debate
is the open field it has afforded for the utterance of
every opinion and every argument on the Minis-
terial side. There has been quite as much variety
of statement and of feeling on that side as on the
other. Mr. Bright himself, as if the very character
of the discussion permitted any amount of private
divergency, has declared his belief that, so far as he
has taken the trouble to inquire, Mr. Gladstone's
Electoral Statistics are worthless upon the very
question at issue. The debate has presented us
with a succession of Essays, rather on the plan of
some recent publications, in which the only bond of
union is that made by the bookbinder. Industrious
politicians who have taken the trouble to get up the
Blue-books, and who really do believe in " working
men," have been disappointed to find the debate
going on night after night, without bringing them
at all nearer the object of their political interest
and faith, or at all nearer any particular ideal of
Parliamentary Reform. We cannot say how this
is, unless it be that there is a complete want of
mental tension on the subject, arising, as it can
only arise, from the want of any goal in view. The
other night a member complained that there was a
large body of young members who wished to speak,
but under existing arrangements and circumstances
saw no chance of being able, or, indeed, of being
allowed, to do so. In the short conversation that
ensued it seemed to be thought a matter of very
little consequence' whether they spoke or not. On
both sides of the House there is one common wish
that Government should have its say out—that it
should make a clean breast—that it should tell
everything that it knows, and declare the whole of
its design. By the merest accident it was apprehended
the other evening that Mr. Sheridan would insist on
interrupting the debate by a night on fire insurance
duties, but that gentleman has promptly declared
there could not be a greater mistake, as he could not
think of balking the public impatience in a matter
so important as reform. Of course this is right; but
perhaps it assumes an impatience which does not
exist. - It is possible that more interest might be cre-
ated by a few interruptions. As it is, the stream of
debate loses itself in a wide channel which it cannot
fill, and in which it cannot make a straight course, or
attain to the dignity of a current. Were there but
a rock or two in the way—would the banks just con-
tract
themselves, then we should hear the rush of
waters. The crowning sign and proof of this indiffe-
rence is that unhappy boast made to show the inge-
nuity and success of this measure. The 100 repre-
sentatives of the condemned cities and boroughs are
perfectly satisfied with it, and see in it nothing to
alarm them. If it is worth anything,. and answers
the purpose of its framers, it will deprive every one
of them of his snug little seat, and compel him to
try his eloquence, or other resources he may possess,
on constituencies of not less than 2,000 electors.
Are there really 100 men in the House of Commons
ready to Offer themselves in a human hecatomb for
the inauguration of a new electoral edifice ? These
100 men are not more patriotic than others, norless
wise. They possess that secret lore as to electoral
classes and the workingmenwhich, it appears, is only
hidden in blue-books, and which certainly has not
yet appeared in the debate. These 100 men are the
depositories of knowledge and the masters of the po-
sition. It is to win their votes that Lord Russell ap-
pears before the world with a half-measure, a trun-
cated policy, and a dividedparty. They will votefor
this bill and no other, and Lord Russell has conde-
scended to their policy. If this be so, we have
nothing to do but turn round and see who these
are, and what they can be about, who accept an
invitation meant to be their destruction, and lend a
willing hand in the first stage of their own slaughter.
Do they really think they are performing a grand
sacrifice, and, like the condemned in ancient times,
carrying' on their backs the instruments of their own
torture and capital execution ? They think no such
thing. They do not believe in the efficacy of the
vote to be given on Saturday morning. They know
that the proposed addition to the constituencies may
or may not create additional demands of an unpar-
liamentary character, but that it will be politically
insignificant. The boroughs thus augmented from
the class below will return the same quality of men
they now do, and we shall approach the question
of redistribution under the same difficulties as those
which have deterred Lord Russell from so much as
touching it.
DAILY NEWS.—Speculators for a fall are very
busy just now with the movements of Italian troops.
Having received a check in Germany, they are pur-
suing their operations- in a country where the pos-
sibility of war can never be pronounced extinct so
Tong as an Austrian army remains encamped be-
tween the Mincio and the Adriatic. Rumours of
the concentration of Italian troops on the Austrian
frontier have always an air of probability, and may
easily be worked into a semblance of facts by dex-
terous manipulations of what s called " informa-
tion." Recently, indeed, the mutual exasperation of
the two great German Powers, the noise of their
offensive and defensive despatches, and the rancor-
ous display of their warlike preparations, have set
the imaginations of the mischiefmongers on fire, and
played havoc with the savings of credulous inven-
tors. It was more than enough that an Italian gene-
ral had visited Berlin and Hamburg, received the
courtesies due to his military rank, visited arsenals,
and attended reviews. From the arrival of General
Govone in the Prussian capital to the conclusion of
an alliance between Italy and Prussia was but a
step: More than half the young linguists in pub-
lic offices, and especially the budding diplo-
matists, seem to be employed now-a-days in
concocting mock treaties and counterfeiting official
documents of the gravest import with the most en-
terprising levity. Public journals, so often and so
inconsiderately accused of exercising their invention
in the absence of facts, are reduced to the thankless
but necessary duty of contradicting false reports.
Official amateurs cultivate forgery as a fine art.
Telegraphic agencies vie with each other in antici-
pating events, more or less possible, summarising
State papers which have never been written, and
pointing the moral of contingencies that have not
happened. There is no fairer field in all Europe for
the mancenvres of these ingenious disturbers of the
public peace than Italy. Take Italy, France, and
Austria, and shuffle them well together, and you may
turn up a panic at any moment. Add M. de Bismarck
and the panic becomes a conflagration. Unfortu-
nately, the chronic crisis of the Italian kingdom, be-

tween France and Austria, lends itself onlytoo easily
to the combinations of calculating prophets . With
finances at the utmost strain, with an enemy in the
midst, a Shylock for ally, and a peace that, is an
armistice undefined and unconditional, wasting like
a fever the energies it• intensifies, Italy is the na-
tural prey of those who live by the dangers and
disasters they provoke or precipitate. Of course no
friend of that interesting and important country can
pretend to be blind to the precariousness and costa"
bility of its fortunes, so long as its independence and
unity are not secured. Not the least of the dangers.
that encompass Italy at this moment is the incessant
temptation which besets her statesmen to make a
desperate rush out of domestic difficulties and to set
all the future on the hazard of a die. Of the two
great and constant evils, an enemy that prefers afalsei
point of honour to a chivalrous reconciliation, and
an ally who exacts in secret the price of pro:
miser unfulfilled and the usury of a dissembled
vassalage, the latter is beyond all question the most
insidious and the moat consuming. Yet we are
very far from believing that the Italian statesmen
of to-day are so destitute of the hereditary astute-
ness and patience of their race as to suffer then?'
selves to be made the dupes of occasions not their
own. To our thinking the text of a treaty between
Italy and Prussia wasnot so much a premature as
a silly fabrication. Such a document would, under
any circumstances; be. Supeffluous. It needs
no
acuteness of calculation, no gift of propheci)
tne
understand that it is the simplest prudence on
part of Italy to be ready to take advantage of °Pi
portunities in Europe. But to take advantage of
opportunities is one thing ; to consult the con/ehm
ence of doubtful friends and dangerous allies
quite another. The visit of General Govone to
Prussia at a time when hostilities in Gerniss
seemed imminent might be explained, if it sated
the purpose of the speculators to explain anythoal
in the simplest manner, whether or not the Cabinet
of Berlin had made advances to the Italian Gael?
ment or simulated a desire for closer relations)
the event of a German war. The most prudent an
obvious step the Italian Government could take was
to send an officer of military experience and saga-
city, and specially acquainted with the organisation
of the Prussian army, to judge for himself whether
the warlike preparations so loudly and ostentati—
ously announced by M. de Bismark's journals were
reallysuch as to indicate a seriousresolve, or nothing
more than the marching and countermarching et
supernumeraries across a stage, and mere theatrical
thunder. General Govone will doubtless have satis-
fied himself of the true value of all this trumpetingt
and parade, and will have informed his Governmens
of the political and military aspects of a tediell,,f
German quarrel. But the misinterpreted mission
General Govone can be no excuse to the Austria,
Government for pretending to treat the wild anus
unfounded reports of a concentration of Italian tree')
on her Venetian frontier as realities, to be enconll_;
tered by a sudden increase and displacement of forma'
by hurried movements and by costly aril-100117'
which can only have the effect of creating enle•-f
gencies ever present to the susceptible conscience
the Cabinet of Vienna. The worst of these Ine"
nacing military movements is that the Italian 9,°.;
vernment may feel itself obliged to resort to siltw„'t
measures for its own protection. Up to the prese-f
time the Cabinet of Florence has done nothing. ea
theikind ; it has in no way threatened the Austriaro
frontier, and the provocation, if provocation the
be, has proceeded from Vienna. It might be sap"
posed that the Austrian Government was content'''.
considering the actual condition of its finaneeslo
with the cost of its preparations to resist st
Bismarck. In her defensive armaments a,gall'
Prussian aggression, Austria had the sympatil of
all Europe. That sympathy will certainly In
extended to fictitious fears of Italian aggreEs'°o9
and to offensive preparations, which can have
,in
other motive or purpose than to exhaust the
' exchequer.