The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-12 00:00:00

TII2 ITALIAN CONFEDERATION.

There are three points of view from which the
proposed scheme of an Italian Confederation may
be regarded, and all three have their strong, though
separate, claims on the attention of an English
statesman. The first thoughts of an Enghill poli-
tician will naturally be directed to its influence on
his own comntry, his Second will be employed in
determining its effects on Italy, whilst a third, and
equally interesting train of speculation will arise
on the important changes which an Italian Confe-
deration must introduce into the whole relations of
the European political system. We have already,
in referrieg to Lord Elcho's motion, had occasion to
examine the last of these three top'cs ; the last is
but too likely to become the theme of many a future
criticism and comment ; but the examination will
scarcely be considered as premature which, with
reference to the second—to purely Italirn interests
—to those interests which are about to be discussed
at Zurich—we now propOse to make.
A politician who had no inconsiderable share in
the negociatiOns that took place in 1848 for the for-
mation of an Italian confederacy has favoured us
with his views on the Treaty of Villafranca, as con-
trasted with the federal project of eleven years
back. M. Augusto de Gori, who shared the confi-
dence and assisted at the deli.tderations of Antonio
Rosmini, Pellegrino Rossi, and Francesco Bozzelli,
and in whose possession he manuscript drafts of
their respective proposals still remain, has every
right to demand an attentive hearing. His argu-
ments reproduce the mature convictions of some of
the greatest amongt the past statesmen of Italy on
the very questions about to be discussed with re-
ference to its present settlement and to its future
destinies.

If the Confederation resulting from the peace of
Villafrance is to secure and consolidate Italian in-
dependence, if it is really to foster Italian nationa-
lity, if'it is to be in good earnest an Italian Con-
federation, it must comply, if not absolutely, at
least ii a far. greater degree than is at present
conceivable, with the four following conditions :
The States forming it should be as equally balanced
in power as possible—these States should be wholly,
independent of all foreign subjection—the confe-
derated Princes should be national in character and
sympathies, not fettered by any anti-national bond;
and the confederated States should be capable of
uniting, in their federal capacity, for all national
ends ; they might not to possess such a character
as would naturally and necessarily clash with the
political interests of the general league.
Tried by these tests, in what light must we re-
gard the position assigned by the Villafranca Treaty
to Venice ? It remains attached as a fief to the
Austrian Empire, and yet it is to &inn part of the
Italian Confederation. As a member of the Con-
federation it must possess an Italian Government
and Italian institutions, and dispose of Italian
troops. Of a State thus conceived, a State in the
same moment Austrian and Italian, with twelve
millions of subjects belonging to the Germanic Con-
federation, with two millions and a half belonging
to the Italian Confederation—of such a political
combination, we shall not say that it is good, bad,
or indifferent, because we are compelled frankly to
declare that it is quite unintelligible.
This monstrous contradiction strikes us at the
very outset ; but inconsistencies not has insignicant
are apparent when we examine the character of the
different States and the extent of their populations.
The Austrian Empire (or its synon:eme, Venice) is
represented by
Naples
Sardinia
Papal States
Tuscany . 1,793,967
Mode

..Lodena •
Parma ..

604,512
499,835

Inhabitants . 25,751,017
From these numbers it is evident how unequally
badholeua
There
e i i
bse,
first,
therst differentpower,on e
Statesl
thei s e
States, i n extentof the v
comparativelyndp Confederation. o pu la t oinn
significant as regards Italy, yet with oveTwhelming
power and resistless influence from the fact of its
forming part of an Empire with forty trillions of
subjects, and an armed force of six hutdred thou-
sand men. Then there are two States ntarly equal
in power—one in the north and the otter in the
south of Italy ; and these two States, 'lcause the
only two important Italian States, woild exhibit
an unceasing antagonism with the viewof obtain-
ing influence. There would be three States in
Central Italy—the three Duchies—whih it would
be but charity to regard as the veriest ephers, now
oscillating between Sardinia and Napas, or mov-
ing like mere puppets, as Austria pulled the
strings ; and lastly, right in the centreof this Con-
federation would exist another State.. the Papacy
—which, from the spiritual character Df its ruler,
must remain, in every great national this, motion-
less and neutral, displaying necessaril7 a negative
power of resistance to all the other Stites without
being of the slightest use to any. Such, and so
curiously balanced, would be the Stabs of the pro-
posed Italian Confederation !
The second condition—that of theindependenee
of the States of the Confederation firm all foreign
pressure—is not realised from the moßent that there
is admitted, as one of the Federal Povers, that very
Empire which is regarded by all Ralf as its enemy
eponrrteass stohi•a;
than
successfulawn dh e
when
nu
hrheiwittycr
hoeseosdno tat f e pwo rary was
mtionsdaoyf
days ago
the Emperor
inaFannergsdfa-
renereoceNmpi,
Italys
jo Joseph
pchhaiansedateoinVexenmi.caeb,leangdaar.
might well sacrifice her territory as ar the Mincio
for the compensating advantages of her increased
federal authority. Strange to sa3, Austria has
effected, after her defeat at Solfcrno, what she
vainly tried to effect after the armitice of Milan
in 1848—her recognition as a membe: of the Italian
Confederation. Her efforts for that purpose were
opposed eleven years ago by Naples aid Rome quite
as much as by Sardinia; for all the :talian Powers
equally felt their independence thr4tened by the
risk of her adding to the influence deived from her

own power that which mast necessarily 'spring froui
her taking part in a federal combination.
But the difficulties connected with Venice are
comparatively trifling when compared with those
arising from the position of the Pope. At the sum-
mit of this Italian. Confederation 'is plae:".d the
Papacy—the authority, as far as it can be diajOined,,
not of the Pontiff grasping St. Peter's keys, but of
the PrinCe who administers the gift of ConStantine.
We say as far as can be disjoined, for the whole
difficulty lies in this disjunction. , How can the.
Pope, whoSe spiritual interests are cosmopolitan
and universal, embrace-and identify hitiaself with.
the exclusively national interests of the -Federal.
State ? He cannot identify himself with the inte- -
rests of one' Catholic nation in preference to those,
of another ;Catholic nation • he cannot, as- the
honorary head of Catholic Italy, become the ally
of Catholic France against even Catholic Austria,
because all Catholic States, we repeat, equally de-
mand' his care. .

Here, then, we have
,a Confederation of which
one of the members will only exert an influence
directly hostile to the others, an influence which
the whole Italian nation has been endeavouring to
overthrow, whilst another of the members, if not
directly hostile to, is at least unable to identify
himself with, any purely national cause, simply be-
cause ; his office embraces all Catholic, nations, and
cannot be confined to one. It is a ques'ion which
opens ,up political considerations far too momentous
to be summarily disposed of, but-we do not hesitate '
to affirm that the element of a Papal presidency in
the pl'oposed scheme will either render it altogether
nugatory or lead to the necessity of inclUding all
Catholic States .as members of this' same Confedera-
tion.-j-Morning Post.
. .

Til B SERRENTINE.

(From the Zimes.).
The comparison between the two plans for the
mrifieation of the Serpentine is that the one has
been tried with perfect success and the other, as
yet, isj a speculation, from which it would be rash
to predict any success at all. The lake in St.
James's-park is the admiration of everybody
who strays into that paradise of children, nurses,
and Life Guardsmen. The water is as free from
colour: and from smell as any lake in the country,
and nobody would guess that it had been,dbtained
by artificial means, except that otherwise it would
not be sweet. As you look at the bottom you have
the satisfaction of knowing that London dirt can-
not come in. That is the result of the operation at
St. James's. It is safe to last centuries, and it cost
but a trifle. It was stated yesterday that the water
filtered through the concrete into the sand below,
and was pumped up again; and the inference was
that the process was illusory. The statement itself
is illusory. The water is pumped up, from a bed
of clear sand, saturated with water not merely
from the lake, but from the whole surrounding
area open to the rain. The stratum of sand under
St. James's Park communicates with a very exten-
sive area, and so long as the Thames flows it will
never to dry.' It is said, indeed, that the quick-
sands tinder London are becoming drier- in, the pro-
cess ofl ages, and St. Paul's is supposed to have set-
tled soinewhat towards the river in consequence of
this change. This would be the natural result of
the rain over many thousand acres being inter-
cepted by houses and pavements, and carried off,
straight to the Thames, But we may be quite
sure that low beds of sand will always hold water
quite Sufficient for the supply of such ponds as
those in our parks.
But what is the other process defended again
last night by Mr. Fitzroy, and now baCked by Mr.
StephOnson's formidable, but not infallible, autho-
rity ? It is to leave the bed of the Serpentine alone,
and to 'touch only the water. This is to be drawn
by engines from the Knightsbridge end into a se-
parate (reservoir at the Bayswater end, there fil-
tered, and returned into the Serpentine. To purify
a lake by taking the water out of it, cleaning it,
and throwing it back again, has the merit of origi-
nality,'and we certainly never heard of it before. If
it answers, a time must come when the process will
be wholly superfluous, for if the Serpentine really
has noisources of corruption, its water, once puri-
fied, will always be pure. But Mr. Fitzroy evi-
dently does not anticipate this perfect success.
His two donkey-engines, the elegance of which will
disguiie their base use, are to puff and bIoYF for
ever. The people of Bayswater and. all the region
thereabouts are not to know but what the engine-
house is occupied by hermits, or nymphs, or some
other sylvan personages. But what graceful ex-
terior, what columns or buttresses, what pediments
or pintimeles can disguise a filtering bed which is
to extend over only three-fourths of an acre ?
Imagine a pond, a hundred yards long and forty
yards wide, filled with Serpentine water, deposit-
ing organic matter in its bed, which is every now
and then to be exposed to the sun, dried, swept,
and carted away ! Mr. Fitzroy, indeed, alludes to
.another process, which, as it is totally incompre-
hensible, can exist only in the form of an agreeable
dream. He supposes the pure water to flow into
the Serpentine, and the dirty water into the Rane-
lagh sower. As this must be done by mechanical
separation, the process cannot but be complicated,
and we incline to suspect that Mr. Fitzroy will
find his £17,000 sunk in the mud and gone down
the sewer before there is any pure water to show
for it. At all events, there is this pond of concen-
trated Serpentine in a constant state of commotion
and separation. Contrary to the warning, it is to
produce bitter waters and sweet. It is to form at
once a lake and a sewer, and not to be a nuisance
to anybody.
If Mr. Fitzroy feeds the Serpentine with itself,
it will only be Serpentine after all, and like feeding
a dog with a joint of its own tail. It is only ar-
guing in a circle. The water is to come from a
filtering bed, fed by a steam engine, supplied by
the Serpentine, and meanwhile there is the accumu-
lated mud of centuries lying no one knows how
many feet deep at the bottom of the Serpentine,
always giving out poisonous gases. Such is the
scheme to be substituted for one of 'the very few
plans that have been tried and found to answer.

Make the Serpentine like St. James's, a great
artificial lake, a mere basin, or stone tazza.
Insulate it wholly from the surrounding
soil. Supply it with water as pure as we
ought to supply to the fountains in Trafal-
gar-square, or those at the Crystal Palace,
from any depth you please. Contract, if necessary,
with the New River Company. If the bed of the
river be levelled and sealed with concrete, the
water will flow out as pure as it flows in. The
levelling of the bottom, and the reduction of the
Serpentine to one uniform depth of five feet or so,
is only a matter of earthwork,. a very light affair
compared with many of those in our railways.
The bottom levelled, and the concrete laid, the work
is done for ever, and the Serpentine will cease to
suggest even the imagination of an unsavoury per-
fume. At present half the world hold their noses

as they pas;; half the world snuff the gale as if it
came from the Spice Isles. There ought to be no
question at all ; the Serpentine ought not even to
be suspected. It may be better than it has been,
but virtue is not a matter of degree ; we want the
Serpentine to be quite pure. When the great Com-
missioner of Public Works to King Augeas was
charged with the purification of his Majesty's
stables, he did not go on pouring over the oxen and
the stalls the water that had just flowed from them;
he drew the pure water from elsewhere, and passed
it through, never to return.