The Sun.
London, England, 1861-05-14 00:00:00

ITALY.

The following letter has been addressed by Gen.
Garibaldi to the Workmen's Association at Naples,
dated Maiatico, 28th ult. :
" I accept with thanks the honourable title of
Perpetual Honorary President of the Neapolitan
Workmen's Association. You are the first centre
of the population of the Peninsula, and you must
take the lead of the robust and laborious classes of
all the nations of Italy. Hence a strong joint re-
sponsibility among them must cement that indis-
soluble unity, which is the sole basis of the
liberty and prosperity of our country. Christ has
laid the foundation of equality among men and
nations, and we must be good Christians. But we
should be committing a sacrilege were we to persist
in the religion of the priests of Rome. They are
the most ferocious enemies of Italy, and those are
most to be feared. Let that contagions and perverse
sect be cast out of our country ! We want our
priests to be Christians, and not to belong to the
religion of our enemies. Therefore, let us have
King Honest Man at any price, but away with the
vipers of the Eternal City, with whom the unity of
Italy becomes an impossibility. This is what I have
to tell you for the present ; in future, wherever my
co-operation may be useful to the sons•of the people,
I shell be with you body and soul. Yours, etc.,
" GARIBALDI."
A letter from Turin, dated May 11, says
vate news acquaints us with important movements
of the Austrian troops in Venetia. The flotilla of
gunboats on the Lake of Garda is to be disarmed.
The Regiment Franz Karl is to be quartered at
Este ; the third battalion of every regiment at
Mantua is expected to leave that garrison ; 16 large
houses in the town, till lately crowded with troops,
are now empty. The commander of the place has,
however, issued orders that they shall be repaired
and fitted up as permanent barracks. It is added
that the troops of the ex-Duke of Modena will be
sent to Trieste.
There seems to be little doubt, in short, that
Austria is, with all her wonted adroitness, with-
drawing a great portion of her troops from her
Italian Provinces, with a view to have as many of
her forces as she deems available ready for
action in her impending struggle with Hungary ;
and, faithful to her old policy, she reckons that she
can employ the Italian element in her army to crush
the Hungarians, asslie relies on the Hungarians in
her efforts for the subjugation of Italy.
Her calculations may, however, turn out incor-
rect, and the experiment may be found to have
been carried too far. The desertion of three Hun-
garian officers from Rive, on the Lake of Garda,
and the bloody encounter between Tyrolese sharp-
shooters and German infantry on the parade-
ground, where, in a mock battle, two of the latter
were killed and a score or more wounded (events
the announcement of which I received with great
caution, but which now receive full confirma-
tion), give a sufficient idea of the disorganisation of
the Imperial army, and of the evident animosity
among its component nationalities. With a certain
knowledge of such facts, it is no wonder if the Ita-
lians watch the proceedings in the Vienna Reichs-
rath and in the Diet at Pesth with breathless inte-
rest. Some great catastrophe is, they think, immi-
nent in Hungary, and the tragic and mysterious
death of Count Ladislaus Teleki is looked upon as
the signal for a crisis, as the beginning of the end.
Unquestionably the success of Russian reaction at
Warsaw gives rise to a probability that Austria may
not be left alone in the strife ; but a strife between
her and Hungary appears no less inevitable, and
the result must be a general melee between all the
Transalpine nationalities in Austria, unless the
compact organisation of the army enables that
Power to subdue them all one after another or
simultaneously. It is the chaos of 1848 all over
again, and, as Radetzky at that juncture was able to
rally such a force under his baton as enabled him
to save the monarchy, by deciding in its favour the
Italian quarrel, so, no doubt, Benedek, or some other
fortunate soldier, might come to the rescue of the
tottering empire, if he could muster under his
standards out of the Italian garrisons such a force
as had nothing to fear either from internal dis-
solution or from an attack in the rear. All these
are serious considerations for the Italian Go-
vernment and nation. It is matter of the
neatest moment for them to arrive at the real
aini and drift of the Hungarian Diet, and of
the patriot leaders of. that movement; it is of
the greatest consequence to obtain correct infor-
mation as to the true disposition of the Imperial
army, lest they should either be lured on to their
own destruction by trusting deceitful appearances,
or should allow a certain opportunity to escape
them. The irresolution, of Charles Albert in 1848
caused him to neglect more than one chance of
carrying both Mantua and Verona by a coup de
main, and the rashness of his advisers irr the fol-
lowing year committed him to a struggle which
could only bring him to grief.

The Government of Victor Emmanuel is now,
doubtless, in a far more favourable condition than
that of his father ; but the complication of the diffi-
culties they have to contend with is also greater ;

they have less to gain, and expose themselves to
far more serious and irreparable losses. The game
is to a great extent in their own hands, and it
behoves them to clee well how they play their cards.
The declaration of war in 1849 was made by despair
—an outbreak of hostilities could now only be jus-

tified by reasons of deep policy. Italy has at the
present moment nothing whatever to fear from
Austria, and the question of Venice loses nothing
by adjournment. Still, a collision between the two
rival Powers, however delayed, is inevitable, and
Count Cavour would give no proof of wisdom were
he .not to seize upon the first best moment in which
his great enemy was brought to real extremity.
It is with these views, perhaps, that the Lom-
bard Grenadiers and other troops are being
marched rapidly from the South to the frontier of
the Po in the where they will swell the
ranks of the divisions placed under the command of
the bold and enterprising Cialdini. It is the duty
of Italy to hold herself in readiness ; a duty to her-
self and a duty also to a sister nation. Hungary
must not be left too utterly at the discretion of
overwhelming. Austrian masses, exposed to an
annihilation which might eventually throaten the

existence of Italy herself. All hope of a peaceful
arrangement with Austria as to Venetia must needs
be abandoned, and the chances of a restoration of

that province to Italy rest on the success of Hun-
gary in the revindication of her legitimate rights.
The success of Hungary herself depends on the part

taken by the Austrian army, and on the promptness
and oppoytunity of Italian co-operation. It is at
such an emergency that this country learns to value
tho mixture of baldness and prudence which cha-
racterises Cavour.

Unfortunately, Count Cttvour and his Government
have to a great extent their hands tied by the un-
settled and precarious state of things in Southern
Italy. While Piedmont, Liguria, Tuscany, and all
the provinces away from the Austrian frontier can
be keptin perfect order without even the semblance
of an armed force, a considerable mass of troops

must necessarily be stationed in the Two Sicilies.
It is not from any serious discontent among that
helpless and supine population that the danger
arises, for, if there be any discontent, it has its
source simply in the uncertainty and disquietude
consequent upon frequent outbreaks, which prevent
the people from experiencing or appreciating the
blessings which they reasonably anticipated
from the present order of things. The im
mediate cause of evil is the presence of the Bourbon,
at the head of the most unprincipled plotte-s of all
European countries in Rome, and thz, facility with
which he is enabled to turn to account the evil

elements supplied by the disbanded regiments of
his brigand army, scattered all over the kingdom.
Those who were conversant with the conditions of
those Southern people, and with the character of

its people, needed no prophetic sight to foretell
what would come out of the many thousand starv-
ing- cravens whom Garibaldi drove before him• rt
was humanity to spare them, but it Was worse
than madness to let them loon about th© couutrY•

Garibaldi himself had no choice in the matter ; b
1 when the garrisons of Capua and Gaeta fell into
the hands of King Victor Emmanuel's generals it
was the height of •folly on the part of the Italian
rulers not to remove them on any terms from the
country. They might have been organised into
military colonies in the island of Sardinia; they
might have been thrown as garrisons into :the
Alpine strongholds of Exilles or Fenestrelles, but
it would have been kindness to their country
people even to put them to the sword rather than
allow them to carry on a kind of Vendean war
in the Abruzzi and Calabria, a war which may
have to be prolonged to their utter extermina-
tion. The regular Northern troops and the
National Guards would, indeed, be more than
equal to the task of disposing of them, and dis-
persing them utterly, were it not for the en-
courag►ement, incitement, and organisation they
receive at the hands of the Bourbon and his
"black" supporters at Rome. Indeed, the war, if
brigandage as dastardly as it is ruthless can be dig-
nified by that name, is actually at an end all
over the kingdom, and the real mischief is almost
entirely limited to the Papal frontier. Upon that
frontier alone the Italian Government is utterly
helpless, and a military cordon encompassing the
miserable remnants of the Pope's dominions could
not be established without risking a collision wii h
those French troops which are quartered in Rome,
it would seem, with the only object of perpetuat-
ing ,Italian miseries. It is not enough for the
" best and only ally " of the Italians to keep the
Pope at Rome, and to enable the Pope to keep the
Bourbon there, but himself and his agents lend a
visible hand to all'the plots that are hatched in the
city. They connive at the departure of brigands by
land and sea, and secure their retreat in case of
discomfiture by stepping in between them and
their pursuers. We are assured on all sides that
such a state of things is not intended to last ;
and, certainly, if the present policy of France is
carried on with a view to dishearten the Italians,
to wear them out, to throw them into confusion, to
bring them to repentance of their act of annexation,
and to bend them to the Emperor's own cherished
views of a confederacy, there is little doubt but the
Italians will be sufficiently consistent and persever-
ing to baffle their adversaries, and to overcome all
difficulties which a crooked policy may purposely
throw in their path.