The Sun.
London, England, 1859-06-21 00:00:00

ENGLAND'S NEUTRALITY.

Continental Governments are looking with
anxiety and impatience for signs of English influ-
ence and policy with regard to the war in Italy as
applied by the Palmerston Cabinet at Berlin and
the Courts of Germany. It is felt here of the
highest importance that the new British Cabinet
should lose no time in distinctly stating what Eng-
land's neutrality really means. In order to under-
stand this anxiety it must be remembered that at
Vienna and at most of the German Courts an im-
pression prevails--indeed I may say that a strong
conviction exists—that England will eventually
come forward and form an alliance with Germany
to oppose France, Italy, and Russia, even to at-
tempting to restore at least a portion of Lombardy
to Austria. It may be asked on what grounds can
Austria and Germany expect aid from England
when the late Government and the people of Great
Britain so loudly proclaimed for neutrality ? As
far as I can understand the question, Austrian
statesmen have always thought circumstances
would eventually drag England, Prussia, and the
German Confederation into the war, although
against their will. Austria reckoned on a chapter
of accidents. Her agents at London, Berlin, and
the German Courts, have been moving heaven and
earth to persuade neutral States to arm, because
they know nations are more likely to fight when
they have arms in their hands than when simply
unarmed spectators of a quarrel. Austria says to
herself—" It is always something gained to have
put the armies of Europe on a war footing." Her
policy has not failed. The invasion panic took in
England ; the Rhine alarm lighted up Germany,
until Prussia was obliged to inflict a war footing
decree on her own people. England has given the
example of " an armed neutrality," and it is the be-
lief of most foreign statesmen that if Lord Derby
had remained in power that armed neutrality would
have ended in a European war. It is therefore hoped
the Palmerston Cabinet will distinctly let it be
known that if the French, Italians, and Austrians
will fight out their quarrel on Italian ground, and
not offend surrounding States, then England will
maintain a strict neutrality, and be quite satisfied
to see the Austrians driven out of Italy, and Italy
become independent. Such a declaration, it is felt,
would do much to bring the war to a close. Ger-
many will not dare to move without England, so
that in point of fact it depends upon England
whether the war be confined to Italy or whether it
become European. England might even have pre-
vented the war had the Government only used past,
experience of Austrian trickery as a guide for the
present. Whilst Count Buol was assuring Lord
Cowley, Lord A. Loftus, and therefore the Derby
Cabinet, that Austria would never assume the
aggressive and invade Piedmont, the Emperor and
his advisers were actually'making preparations to
march on Turin. Whilst these negotiations were
going on—whilst, in fact, Lord Cowley was at
Vienna, I told your readers that Austria was only
employed with her old game of deception. She in-
tended to invade Piedmont, and wanted to get
England on her side. She found the Government
and the agents of our Government sympathising
with her, and the ready dupes of her cunning.
Austria was encouraged, therefore, to believe she
would divide the armies of Europe into two great
camps. It must be known also that Austria had
designs beyond Turin. The Emperor Francis
Joseph and the Church Papal party all over Europe
reckoned on being able to put down the Napoleon
dynasty in France. They think to this day any
reverses of the French army would create discon-
tent in France, and perhaps end eventually in a
change of Sovereign and Government. It was
argued at Vienna—" England would be pleased to
see such a change, and no doubt assist us." The
Holy Alliance ideas haunted, and still haunt, the
statesmen of Austria and Germany, and that is
another reason whythe English Government should
let it be known that the people of England wish to
see Italy Italian, and that the French alliance is
the basis of our foreign relations.—Correspondent
Morning Post.

PRUSSIAN NEUTRALITY.

(From the _Daily News.)

The intelligence which we receive from Germany
discloses three presumptive violations of German
neutrality, and two distant breaches of the funca-
mental laws of the Confederation. It was lately
announced on reliable authority that special COM-
missioners of the Prussian Government had con-
cluded at Dresden a treaty of military transport
with the Court of Saxony, and that they had pro-
ceeded to Munich to effect the same arrangement
with Bavaria. We now learn that what the Prus-
sians are reported to have done by treaty the Aus-
trian army of Bohemia, to the number of 70,000
or 80,000 men (which had been placed as a cover-
ing force for the north of the empire against the
contingent hostility of Prussia, before the policy of
that State, disclosed in its Circular of last April,
had undergone a change) has already been trans-
ported by the railways of Saxony and Bavaria in to
the Western Tyrol. The circuitousness of this
route is counterbalanced by the continuous line of
railway it affords from Prague to Inspruek, -which
lies within 150 miles of the Lake of Garda.
Thirdly, as we yesterday announced, Austrian
troops are alleged to have been relieved by Prussians
from those Federal fortresses which the former, by
the stipulation of the Diet, are bound to garrison.
Of these three fads, it is obvious that the two
former at any rate would violate the obligations com-
monly imposed upon neutral Powers by in•
ternational- law. But a question may be raised
by official defenders of the Austrian Go-
vernment whether such arrangements are not
permissible to the Germanic States inter se,
under the terms of the Federal Act, which,
having been confirmed by the General Congress
Treaty of Vienna, becomes part of the public law of
Europe. It happens, however, that these proceed-
ings are as distinct violations of the Federal Act as
of the ordinary obligations of neutrals. Now, the
war at this moment existing is, quoad the Ger-
manic Confederation, simply a war between France
and Sardinia on the one side, and the King of Lom-
bardy and Venice on the other ; both because the
Federal Act expressly disintegrates the extra-
German territories of German Sovereigns from the
Confederation, and because the progress of the war
has as clearly discriminated between the two classes
of Austrian territory. " Les Membres de la Con-
federation," runs the 11th article of this Act, " en
se reservant le droit de former des affiances, s'obli-
gent cependarrt a ne contracter aucun engagement
qui serait dirige contre la stirete de la' Confedera-
tion." It may be lawful, for instance, to Bavaria
to conclude a commercial treaty within or without
the limits of the Confederacy ; such a treaty could
not affect the safety or liability of the Germanic
body. But here we have, in the one case, two.
neutral States transporting the armies of one bellig.e-
rent with the direct object of attacking the armies
of the other belligerent; and in the other case, a
great neutral Power negotiating with other neutral
Powers of the Confederation for the right of carry-
ing its troops to the verge of the theatre of war.
As there is nothing to bind France to a recogni-
tion of the right of Saxony and Bavaria to
transport the troops of its enemy while the
Confederation is at peace, so these minor States,
by violating their owh neutrality, compromise the
o
Confederation, which is bound to maintain the in-
tegrityotheenn. s
irrdlaomininno muchs—tli for the
ose dominions
instance being
exclusivelyof
Austria. In regard to -thifof Prussia, the Federal
Act expressly reserves to the Diet the exclusive
right of legislation for the internal organisation of
Germany; andtherefore, even if the right of military
, as in this case, the hostile mo-
tivetransport between neutral German- States were
Diet has enacted nothing
arise under an enact-
ment Irasleodbgveiodu(sw),hietrceould only
special negotiation of
Commissioners. Here, ththeereefoornef,edwee_
mnfetnhteosfnthrte
isDicelte.arThfia.ntmthethe
Sp
the Prussian
have at once a breach of the terms of
States
Confede-
racy inter se, because the Diet., has given no sanction
to arrangements thus tenth!), to hostilities and a
Gthereinaaindi;ig
towardsviolation
France
n theoe a
nd neutrality.
sard in a of German
and
abetting the King of Lombardy and Venice.
It may be assumed that, while the object of AAA_
tria in this measure is military, the object of Prussia
is chiefly, or at any, rate in the first instance, diplo-
matic. Prussia has just taken three concurrent
steps, irrespectively of her arrangements at Dresden
and :Munich. She has mobilised some 300,000
troops ; she has contracted a loan of 30,000,000
thalers ; and her Ambassador to Vienna is nowt-I)ra-
bably at the Austrian headquarters. Though in-
trigue is rife enough at Berlin to render Prussian
policy wayward, and the Regent hardly master of
his own actions, it is certainly to be contemplated
that Prussia may develop, dragged on by the minor
States and the cabals of her own Court, the position
of an armed mediator. That such a result would be
an unqualified disaster to European countries still at
peace we need hardly observe. Austria, on the other
hand, by throwing her Bohemian army into Tyrol,
has probably been guided by two distinct manoeuvres
She has thus either been able to strengthen the
garrisons of the quadrangle with the least delay,
for she has reserved to herself the alternative of
debouching from the Tyrolese mountains upon the
left flank of the Allies while perhaps engaged in the
siege of Verona, with the bold design of compromis-
ing their communications with the Ticino, which is
now their natural base. These fastnesses lie within
fifty miles of Verona and Peschiera ; and there is
no doubt that an Austrian army in Tyrol, if led by
an able general, might descend on either side of the
Lake of Garda, and fall vertically on the allied
flank. It may thus be the design of Austria either
to relieve the quadrangle, if
besieged;
or if it

should have fallen, to arrest the allied advance on
Padua and Venice ; or even, thirdly, to entice the
allied army into Tyrol, in order to bring the Con-
federation into the field. We have little fear that
the astute commanders of the allied army would
suffer a surprise ; but some such development of
Austrian tactics is evidently not improbable.
Itis one eccentric result of this struggle to tighten
the gripe of German despotism in proportion as it
relaxes foreign domination in Italy. German Go-
vernments thus seem to get the consolation of secu-
rity at home, which they have very little deserved,
in order to countervail what they lose abroad. War
with France is ostensibly popular in Germany,just
because the mass of the Germans, or the more noisy,
who illusivelyrepresent the mass, cannot distinguish
between the aims of the first and of the second
French Empire. The Germans are apparently for-
getting the hatred they still legitimately owe to
their own sovereigns, to revive the hatred they once
owed to a former generation of Frenchmen. Tbis
effect, however, is obviously a temporary one. It
will soon be perceived by the German people that
their Governments are simply abusing their
credulity, in palming off an alleged hostility of
France towards Germany in order to turn away
their sympathies from the French liberation of
Italy. But there are two conflicting perils in the
prolongation of the war to which no journalist can
close his eyes. If there is one movement inciting
Germany against France, there is assuredly another
inciting Hungary against Austria, and Russia
against Germany. In a word, there is an ascer-
tained and incontestable preponderance of European
power, prepared and resolved to effectuate the inde-
pendence of Italy. Against that preponderance it is
vain for Austrians or Germans to contend. If Ger-
man Governments are only politic—be they as
tyrannous as they may—they will not commit
themselves to a course which will serve incalculably
to widen the social calamities of war—to render
fiercer, longer, and more desperate the struggle
which is now maintained, without the possibility of
precluding the eventual triumph of Italian na-
tionality and Italian freedom.