The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-14 00:00:00

got through their ,task. The Hungarian Bill of
Rights was put in thatqfga/ form, wltic)l.„ to Hun-
garians seems so important. But why all this baste,
immediately after the reading of so long a document?
Vienna is not far from Pesth—in instantaneous con-
nection by telegraph—and every one feared that
the German Ministers would, by telegraph, order a
dissolution of the Diet, and enforce it by its
foreign—German—soldiers. Pointing to some
Austrian troops as they were walking home after
the completion of the business, a friend observed to
the correspondent, " Those are the gentlemen whose
interference we apprehended, but we have
done what we wanted, and now they may come and
do what they like." After these facts, we ask,
what monarch with the slightest tincture of con-
stitutional knowledge would hesitate for a moment
to call to his councils the leader of the house—the
man whose combined moderation and firmness and
great ability unites all parties in the Diet ? While
unassailed from without, the Germans may occupy
and coerce Hungary—govern the nation they can-
not. We need not discuss whether amalgamating
the higher departments of Government be theoreti-
cally best or not ; it is impracticable when
a nation, as large as the Southern States of
America, and with a separate constitutional his-
tory of a thousand years, refuses to be amalga-
mated. The Hungarians, in their generosity, are
willing to be loyal to a King who has little 'claim
indeed to their loyalty, but they insist, as the in-
dispensable condition, that he should be loyal to
their Rights. So stands now this noble quarrel
of a noble nation, with a herd of selfish Germans,
who use a weak prince of a despotic dynasty as the
tool of their crabbed ambition.

We have but to notice an egregious, though
doubtless unintentional, misrepresentation promul-
gated yesterday by a contemporary. The Diet
appointed a committee to meet the wishes of the
numerous small territories and populations well
known as the partes annexce; they are of several
races, Slavonians, Roumans, Germans, Servians,
Ruthenians, &c., and have long been annexed to
the Hungarian Crown, sharing under it the advan-
tages of constitutional government. All will remem-
ber that in 1848 the Austrian, that is the German,
Ministers secretly bribed the savage JELLACHICH
of Croatia, and others of these territories, to invade
Hungary, while they openly denounced them for
doing it as traitors. After the Russian intervention
the Croatians and the rest, instead of the liberty
promised them, found themselves, to their utter
disgust, deprived of the constitutional liberty they
had before enjoyed together with Hungary, and all
merged in one common despotism. 111-will naturally
existed for some time between the Magyars, and
the ungrateful Croats who had been deluded into
treachery; ten years of Austrian despotism, however,
reunited them in one feeling of hatred of Austria
and desire for their old constitutional liberty. Now,
our contemporary represents these petty races as
standing in the same relation to Hungary as all the
other parts of the Austrian Empire to the Archduchy,
and the Diet as endeavouring to do the very thing
in regard to them, which it resists on the part of
Austria in regard to itself.
The resemblance is apparent only. Setting aside
the prodigious difference of population—the Aus-
trians wanting to amalgamate the larger and freer
with their smaller and more servile population—
the relation itself is quite different. The Emperor of
AUSTRIA first received these petty territories, as
parts of the Kingdom of Hungary. They had been
parts of it for ages. Hence they had a long his-
torical connection with the vastly greater Kingdom
of Hungary, and had been represented in its Diet.
The Hungarian committee, therefore, was endea-
vouring to perfect the liberties of an old
historical connection; the Germans at Vienna are
straining law and power to subvert the same
in regard to Hungary. A pretty broad difference
surely. We need not go far for the evidence.
Amongst the Austro-German devices to delude the
Hungarians in 1848 was a Royal proclamation,
dated Innspruck, 10th of June, remonstrating with
Croatians and Slavonians (whom they were bribing
to attack Hungary), and this document re-
minds them, amongst other things, that for
" eight centuries they had been united to the
crown of Hungary and shared its fortunes ; that
they had enjoyed constitutional freedom through
the Union : that they had shared in all the rights
and liberties of the Hungarian constitution, with
" equality of rights, and the abolition (in 1848) of
feudal servitude in common with the rest of Hun-
gary ; and that (alluding principally to Russia)
they were the only Slavonians enjoying such
liberty !" These were of course truths. But how
great the mistake then committed by our contem-
porary. We must, of course defer till to-morrow
our notice of the eloquent address of M. DEAR,
which will be found in our columns to..day.

The principle of "Passive Resistance" is still
winning its way in Poland, as steadily and as
surely as the principle of Non-Intervention is
working out the Destinies of Italy.
The national anniversary, we now read through
the telegrams, has passed off at Warsaw—may
we not say triumphantly ? It was observed far
and wide as a general holiday. The shops were
for the most part closed. The churches were,
without exception, thronged. At nightfall the
city was illuminated from its centre to its cir-
cumference. The people, there, are locking for-
ward with confident expectation to the time
when (as they hope very speedily), Poland shall
again be endowed with a National Government.
And all this while the Imperial power of the
CZAR is grimly upon the alert—prepared, whenever
the opportunity for harsh measures may arise,
to trample down the reviving aspirations of the
Polish multitude under the tread of armed hosts.
Several of the quarters of Warsaw were
(during the festivities of the national fete)
thronged with the Muscovite soldiery, horse, foot,
and artillery. Blood has been poured forth there
already in the streets of Warsaw within this pre.
sent year of grace—and,' may be yet again. The
wounds inflicted upon Warsaw are even now barely
staunched. Thecritical position of things, there, may
again bring about a collision between the merce-
naries of the Autocrat and the unarmed and un-
aggressive Polish population. The only human
security there is against this, being the resolute
determination with which the inhabitants of the
City of Warsaw still cling wisely to the saving
principle of Passive Resistance.

Wherever the military fury of Russia has been
kindled against the Poles—as was the case when it
broke into a flame a few months since at Warsaw
—there seems but small security however against
outrage even in that screening principle of Passive
Resistance.

A lamentable instance of this has recently come
to the knowledge of Europe in the chief town of
the Government of Flock, called Mlawn. There,
as formerly at Warsaw, the offence of the Poles
consisted in their Prayers and Hymns for the
nationality. And certainly in detesting and op-
posing as something formidable a choral song of
the people, the Russian Government may be
allowed to be simply actuated by a profound
sense of the truth latent in the memorable
axiom of FLETCHER of Saltouu—that anybody

else might make the laws, if he might be per-
mitted to write the Ballads of a Nation. The

fate of the oldest and grandest monarchies as
we all know has often and often gone
(with a peculiar significance in these familair
words) for a song. More terrible to the ex-
piring power of the BOURBONS than even the for-
midable opposition of MIRABEAU, more fatal as the
tocsia of the Revolution than the sound of his
thundrons eloquence, was—history proves it, history
relates it—the choral chaunt of the Marseillaise.
The hymn composed and written by ROUGET DE
LISLE was literally to the ancient Government of
France as the trumpet of the Israelites to the walls
of Jericho. For years and years in our own history
much was effected by the once famous refrain of
Lillibullero. How long did not the Jacobite Ballads
keep alive the old spirit of Jacobinism in Scotland,
and in various parts of England. KORNER'S im-
mortal ode to his Sword did more for the patriotic
ardour of Germany than all the efforts of all the
Governments of the old Fatherland. It were,
however, unnecessary further to multiply instances
of the power yielded by song over the hearts of
the people in any country. The annals of the
human race attest the fact upon all hands. The
Russian Autocrat and his Government appear to
be painfully alive to it. Hence the outrages that
occurred not long since at Warsaw. Hence the
miserable incidents that have recently agitated the
chief town of Plock, the provincial town of Mlawa.
" The inhabitants of Mlawa," we read, " chiefly
composed of mechanics and agricultural labourers,
had, since the Warsaw massacres, been in the
habit of praying to GOD that their country might
be delivered from its misfortunes. These prayers
were read, not only in their churches, but also
in their homes and in the fields at their
work." In consequence of representations which
were, therefore, made to the authorities, "Two com-
panies were accordingly sent to the town ; but in
spite of this the prayers and hymns continued, and
they were not opposed by the soldiers. Things
went on in this way during the month of May. In
June the people began to occupy their leisure hours
with singing ' GOD save Poland,' and other hymns,
daily before a figure in the cemetery of the
parish church. Two more companies were now sent
for." Here is one of the incidents that a brief
while afterwards occurred :—" On the 24th July the
people had assembled in the cemetery as usual
when suddenly the soldiers made their appearance
and surrounded them. They continued their hymns
however, and when they had done turned to leave
the cemetery. In their way stood Lieutenant-
Colonel Runowski, a beadle, and a drummer. The
beadle called upon them to disperse in the name of
the law. The people laughed at this as they were
already dispersing. The drummer then entered
the cemetery and began to beat his drum. This
raised the indignation of the crowd ; they forced
him to leave the sacred precincts, and declared
they would not disperse until the troops were re-
moved. Meanwhile the news had spread through
the town, and crowds, among whom were numbers
Jews, collected in the market-place, where the
church is, to defend their fellow-citizens. The
commandant, seeing that he was surrounded, or-
dered his men to march away, and assured the
crowd on his word of honour that he would not
oppose their singing their hymns so long as they
did so in the church. The people upon this quietly
dispersed." Nevertheless, after this all kinds of
wanton outrages were perpetrated by the military
upon the inhabitants. Sacrileges were com-
mitted in the churches. One inhabitant, a poor
tailor, was robbed and shot at, but " fortunately
missed," we read, by his assailant—another, a poor
bootmaker, has been flogged, and is still kept a
prisoner. All this for—what ? Conspiracies ?
Mustering in arms ? Incendiary speaking or in-
flammatory writing ? No—but for Prayers uttered
in the Church of GOD ! For Hymns chaunted by
the people in their cemetries. Such, in effect, is
the brutal retaliation of the military power of the
Autocrat—provoked against the Polish multitude
by the very meekness of its Passive Resistance !

Never has the appeal been more to the pen
than in the last few years. The master of half-
a.million of soldiers, and the struggling nationali-
ties, are alike pleading at the bar of European
opinion. The Emperor of the FRENCH employs
pamphlets and letters, the Moniteur and the Con-
stitutionnel. The Hungarians publish their
addresses to the Emperor of AUSTRIA, and Italy
sends round circulars to her diplomatic agents—
a course adopted also by most of the civilised
Powers, even contemptuously silent Austria being
obliged to follow the fashion.
From Italy, while CIALDINI is busy in the
South suppressing the Royalist brigandage,
nourished from Rome as its headquarters, RICA.
SOLI writes to the European public by the last-
mentioned method, and places before it Italy as
she is. He wishes general attention to be called
to the unity of Italian action, to the continuation
of CAVOUR'S policy, and to the determination to
secure complete unity. One thing is undoubtedly
remarkable. Louis NAPOLEON can appreciate it
well. There is not, in a house cf the most
freely-elected representatives, a _Legitimist party.
That not one merely but a whole batch of heredi-
tary Sovereigns should have been expelled, that
from each of their former dominions a fair propor-
tion of deputies should have been sent, and that not
so much as one Lord NORMANDY can be found
among them, is surely a most remarkable fact.
What would the Bonapartists of France not give
could they point to a similar fact there?
The laws enacted by the Chamber have been
passed with wonderful unanimity. The Opposition
has been distinguished from the majority, not by
absolute disapproval of the course taken by the
majority, but because it wanted to go further and
faster in the same course. A very natural, we might
say justifiable thing, in the more ardent mirds while
one Government, and that a proposed benefactor,
withholds its capital from Italy; while ano-
ther, an avowed enemy, crushes one of its
most important provinces. The plebiscite of the
people of the different uniting provinces confer-
ring the crown on VICTOR EMMANUEL has been
solemnly confirmed by the representatives of the
people. The laws relating to arming the nation
have been cheerfully passed, and an indirect com-
pliment paid to the French Emperor for advice
which the more it is followed the more it
will make Italy independent even of him. "The
Italians have not forgotten the solemn words which
our august and generous ally addressed to them on
touching the soil of liberated Lombardy---' Be all
soldiers to-day, that you may to-morrow be the free
citizens of a great nation.' For military service
forms citizens to temperance and discipline; gives
them the consciousness of their own dignity and
strength, and renders them familiar with all those
manly and austere virtues which are necessary to
the exercise and preservation of liberty." The
national debt has been unified, and the subscrip-
tions to the loan largely exceed the amount re
quired.
A broad and national view has also directed
the encouragement of public works. " The Par-
liament has provided for the development of
the economic resources of the country by giving its