The Sun.
London, England, 1859-04-22 00:00:00

The hour is at hand ! Proud in the command of
an overgrown army, and flattered by the base sub-
serviency of European statesmen, the Emperor of
Austria defies the sentiment of the civilised world,
and precipitates war. To stamp out ideas with the
hoof of the war horse has been for ages the dearest
delight of the family of Francis Joseph ; and he is
worthy of his ancestors.
Austria has rejected the proposal-of a Congress,
on conditions to which all the other Great Powers,
and also Sardinia, had assented. She dares not sub-
mit the frightful system she has pursued in Italy to
inspection. Better war—better even defeat and
compelled concession—than that horrible exposure
and condemnation before Europe. To surrender at
the point of the sword her arbitrary interfer-
ence in the independent States of Italy would be
tolerable, a soldierly submission to the fortune of
war, a reverent homage to brute force; to retire
within her treaty frontier in consequence of the
deliberations of a Congress, would be a slavish
deference to reason, opinion, and the force of ideas,
such as the Austrian Emperor will never consent to.
After months spent in bringing the impartial
opinion and disinterested statesmanship of Europe
to the solution of Italian difficulties—at a moment
when England, Russia, Prussia, and France had
agreed on the means of preserving peace and doing
justice—when King Victor Emmanuel had given a
signal proof of his readiness to make sacrifices for
the preservation of the general peace, Austria, with-
out notice, withdraws her quarrel with Sardinia from
the domain of diplomacy, and insists on settling it
simply with the sword. This is a monstrous insult
to all the neutral Powers, but most of all to Eng-
land. For the mean and grovelling compliances of
Lord Malmesbury—for the flattery of Lord Derby
—for the sacrifices made by the entire Cabinet in
preferring Austrian favour to the approval of their
just and generous countrymen, this is the fair
return,-the righteous retribution.
Count Gyulai presents an ultimatum to the Court
of Turin : Sardinia must disarm, not as taking part
in a generardisannament, by voluntary agreement
with the Great Powers, and under the regulations
of a joint commission, but at the peremptory order
of Austria, and in such manner as her generals and
marshals may dictate. Before all things she must
send away the 16,000 volunteers who have flocked
unbidden to her standard from all parts of Italy.
Let her refuse to do this within three days, and
Austria will declare war.
Austria has declared war. This ultimatum—to
speak of it for a moment as if it were a bona fide
diplomatic demand, intended for serious considera-
tion—is a monstrous proposal to extend to Piedmont
the same infamous policy which has reduced all the
other States in Italy to subjection to Austria. It is
a demand that the one Constitutional State, which
is the hope and joy of every Italian patriot, shall
strip naked, and prostrate herself at the feet of the
great, oppressor of Central and Southern Europe.
We will not insult the King of the noble Twenty-
five Thousand ivho fought at our side in the Crimea
—we will not insult our readers, by discussing this
mock proposition. It will not be accepted ; it will
not ,be entertained ; it is already rejected. The
Sovereign, the People, the Army are unanimous.
" I will fight a second Novara," said Victor Em-
manuel, a day or two ago, " rather than surrender
lie noble Italian youth who have placed confidence

in me."
Count Gyulai's declaration of war follows hard
upon Count Buol's recent exposition of Austrian
policy in Italy as pursued for nearly half a century,
and is- its rational consequence. In the despatch of
the Austrian Foreign Minister, dated Feb. 25, it is
solemnly declared that Italy can never have free
institutions, but must always be governed by the
bayonet—that the .PrinCes of Italy have a legiti-
mate right to deliver their territory to, the military
possession and their subjects to the stripes of Aus-
tria, and that to contest this is to deny their inde-
pendence—that the,Papal Government needs reform
in its army, and that if other reforms are needed
in Italy-, none can be undertaken while Piedmont
retains her system. Such is the sum Of Count
BUQrS declaration, and he is not expounding an
idled theory. ' '
To defend bad governments against peoples weary
of suffering, Austria has successively occupied every
State in Italy.. Since 1815 her armies have been
for five years in Naples, for six in Tuscany, for six
in Modena, for six in Parma, for 25 in the Papal
States. There is not one of the petty princes south
of the Po who does not know that, however badly
he may behave, there is a great power at hand
which will infallibly protect him against the in-
dignation of -his people. In 1815 Austria bound
the King of Naples by treaty to administer his
government according to her absolutist principles.
At Lay bath, when there was danger that constitu-
tional government might strike root in the same
kingdom, Prince Metternich declared that " if the
King himself wanted to establish the constitu-
tional system, the Emperor would make war upon
him." In 1822, the Austrian Minister declared, in
the name of his master, that " the institutions of
representative Government could not and should
not be established in any single Italian State."
When the Austrians left the Pontifical States in
1822, the Emperor informed the Cardinal Legate of
Forli that " he should return, as he had come, un-
asked, whenever he thought proper." When, in
1831, the French Government remonstrated against
a renewed occupation of the Papal States, Metter-
nich replied that his master was determined to
intervene, at the cost of a general war. And now
we ask—Who is it that has associated freedom with
war in Italy ? Who but the Power which declares
that only by the sword shall Italy become free ?
This is the policy of Austria—" dignified,
.conci•
liatory" Austria, as Mr. Disraeli has just described
her. And now can any one doubt what has im-
pelled the flower of the youth of Italy to thebanner
of the monarch who has exerted himself to
put an
end to the oppression of his countrymen P Blind
of heart must he be who does not see that this is a
renewal of the undying struggle between freedom
and tyranny. Every Englishman will follow it with
his sympathies and prayers. Let those who are
fighting for freedom know and feel that our hearts
are in their cause. Let them be assured that, while
we are sternly forbidden by duty to engage actively
on their side, the universal judgment of this free
nation condemns their enemies ; and that, come what
may, no sword of England shall be drawn to pro-
long Austrian tyranny in Italy. Let no one be
deceived by the languige of Ministers on sufferance,
for the people of this country will confound and
overwhelm any Cabinet that shall dare to array the
name and power of England on the side of de.
spotism.—DailyNvics.

(From the Tinges.)
Tn
alternately
Yesterday this kingdom was iternately soothed
and startled by two successive telegrams which
airrived from Paris and from Turin. We were
compelled within the course of the same morning to
hold out to the English public a prospect of almost
:certain
peace, and to withdraw that promise and to
substitute for it the probability of almost instant
war. Lord Derby, in his explanation on Monday
night, intimated that in the interests of peace
Ministers had made the other and last sugges-
tion to the Powers at difference, and that upon the
acceptance or rejection of that suggestion their
present hope of peace rested. The Moniteur of
yesterday at once informed us of the substance of
that proposal, and of its acceptance. The proposition
was to effect a general
_Ana, simultaneous disarma-
ment under the supervision of six Commissioners,
one of whom should be a Sardinian. It suggested
also that the Congress should assemble and delibe-
rate contemporaneously with the Commission, and,
following the example of the Congress of Laybach,
that the representatives of the Italian States should
have seats in the Congress. To this suggestion,
which appeared reasonable and practical, France,
Russia, and Prussia bad given their adhesion, nor
was there any intimation in the telegram convey-
ing this information which constrained us to believe
that the absence of the name of Austria proceeded
from any other cause than that she Was more deli-
berate in her action than the other Powers. Close,
however, upon the heels of this good news followed
the telegram from Turin, stating that the English
proposal for Congress had been refused, and Oat
the Austrian General commanding in
Lombardy
had been ordered to present an ultimatum demanding
immediate disarmament, with the
alternative of
war after the lapse of three days from the delivery
of this ultimatum. The knowledge of less decisive,
but consistent, contemporary facts was added. A
reinforement of 80,000 men had
been ordered to the
Austrian army now on the banks of the Ticino.
Prussia had mol'ilised three Corps d _Armee,
con•
silting' of some 70,000 men. Every act notified
was a preparation for immediate war on the
.part
of Ausftia ev • •
' my movement was directed either
to aggressive operations upon Sardinia or to the
defence of her own German provinces.
• Sueh is -now the state of off sirs. Austria has
200,000 men either upon the Ticino or within such
a distance that they can be placed upon the banks
of that frontier within the three days of grace fixed
in the imperative demand of the Austrian General.
Sardinia occupies the opposite bank with a force
which could not, probably, delay for one day its own
It niay be th it
gigantic eneniy. . .
destruction by that
' 000 men in arms including
Sardinia' can show i ,
her free corps, gathered from all parts of Italy, and
11 portion of the discontented
comprehending no Ins ea d their lives in making mani-
festations who have
pas
t the foreigner. Of these
festations of hatred o.
I, s after garrisoning her great. fb:.
70,000, tppr..ap , _
tresses, Alessi n lria and Genoa, she may be able to
00 in line of battle. Three days of re
mile 40,0 ,
. ll that Ts vett. If; tts ve road tlie.
telegram, A . 4
tg the demand has been already made, next