The Sun.
London, England, 1861-05-11 00:00:00

THE SUN.

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1861.

If we maintain strictly, as it may be hoped we
shall in the military sense, our non-intervention
policy, we are not likely to forego the pleasure of
Parliamentary intervention. Andif our Ministers,
however closely questioned, maintain the most
becoming reserve, there is no such thing as pre-
venting the out-spokenness of unofficial members of
either house. All the Monarchs of Europe must
make up their minds to having their doings dis-
cussed by English M.P.'s, whether they like it or
not. Austria, wise in her generation, secured the
services of the renowned English Radical to plead
her cause here, but even his advocacy has met with
so little favour, that Mr. PEACOCKE and Lord Joni
RUSSELL, her Whig and Tory well-wishers, found
themselves last night compelled to renounce Mr.
ROEBUCK'S doctrine, that Venetia ought, for the
good of Italy and Europe, to remain in slavery to
Austria. Rather, we should say, that they both
adhered to the opinion they shared before with
melt Englishmen, that Venetia was never likely to
be anything but a burden to Austria, to her mili-
tary resources, and therefore to her Ex-
chequer, and hence a source of weakness,
not of strength. The Conservative member for
Maldon, with English good sense, honestly accepted
the view that with Austria in the Quadrilateral,
the King of ITALY would always be the Prefect of
France, but that if it were re-united to Italy, and
the Alps became the Southern boundary of Austria,
she would always have a strong independent power
between her and France.
Both Mr. PEACOCKE, however, and our Foreign
Secretary appear to long anxiously for a united
Austria, by which they mean that Hungary should
merge itself into one with the little German Arch-
duchy, of which Vienna is the capital, and which
has connected with itself so many other petty
nationalities and provinces. They may wish this,
but can they hope for it by any means which ban
make Hungary a source of strength to Austria.
The identity of Hungary and Austria is the favou-
rite dream of our English Statesmen. Lord PAL-
MERSTON in 1848 sacrificed Hungary to it. He re-
fused to recognise her Ambassador; he would know
nothing of her but as an outlying province of the
Archduchy. And the result was the suppression
of Hungarian liberties by Russia ; who, emboldened
by security in that quarter, commenced her attacks
on Turkey, and we thus' found ourselves chastised
for our injustice to Hungary by the cost and suffer-
ings of the Crimean war. The truth is our states-
men of the old school, both Whig and Tory, are at
war with facts. Hungary is not a part of Austria,
nor can it be made se. It is an old Kingdom, much
larger than the Hereditary States of Austria, and not
far from equalling in population those States, and
all the other provsuees, those excepted which have
always formed part of the lisincs,aria.n Crown; which
the Vienna Government has made every exertion
to detach from Hungary; which she so successfully
stirred up against her in 1848 ; but which cheated
and duped, as all have been who have put trust in
the HaPsßunos, are now seeking their freedom
in reuniting themselves to Hungary.
The relative positions of Hungary and Austria
are, however, now forcing themselves on the atten-
tion of Europe ; and the simple statement of the case
is, that Hungary
demands what she is entitled to by
history, by law, by treaty, and by the traditions of
a thousand years, while to all this Austria has no-
thing to oppose but force. Hungary demands to
be de facto, what she is notoriously de jute, a
kingdom. Austria wants her to be at best
but in fact a province of an
nominally a kingdom,
empire. Hun pry is willing to abide by the
Pragmatic Sanction to which the Emperor of
AUSTRIA himself is, most reluctantly we may
be mare, compelled to appeal as the basis of his
claim to the crown. But the perfidious HArs-
BURG
W°llld strike out of that treaty all that defines
his obligations as Kiug of HUNGARY, and retain
only the obligati,, of the Hungarians to take him
as their King, to do as he will with his own." It
seems impossible that the two demands can be coin-
is the most important part of
promised. Hungary
that strange motley of States called the Austrian
Empire. Yet the EMPEROR wishes to merge it in
the province. If there be an Austrian Empire, Hun-
garyand the EupER
is its head of gold, oil and his
stolid Germans would fuse the whole, the gold,
brass, iron, and clay, and amalgamate them in the
furnace of a Reichsrath and a Vienna Government.
German statesmen see no other means of creating a
strong Austria; but Hungarians see in them
enslaved Hungary. They are a municipal and
constitutional people by the discipline of centuries.
They know how to manage their own affairs, and
how to fight for liberty to manage them. They have
sustained for several generations the treacherous
and violent efforts of "the Germans of the Arch-
duchy, to cheat them of their independence or to
wrest it from them. Again and again they have
triumphed over chicanery and violence, too; and
they are now regaining their feet after their over- 1