, 1866-05-11

dU lCOSL NC % IAdoONlAtlN OHS3 AN N'RNN $50
O Fictitious regret for States which, had
the Congress of Vienna done It's work
thoroughly, would by this time have
been forgotten.
The charge against Italy is still more
unjust. She, forsooth, is allying herself
with the oppressor to disturb the peace
Of the world, and is gravely told that If
she assists a despot she will lose the SYM
pathies Of liberal Europe. Did we lose
them when we allied o~urselvs with Ma
poleon in order to defend the Asiatic
horde whom it suits our interest to per-
nit to desolatc the faireSt corner Of Eu-
rope and the richest provinces Of West
ern Asia? Nobody argues that Italy
has not right to fight Austria for We
Meta if she likes, and most Liberals
would argue that it was her bounden
duty to do so whenever she saw a chance.
Then why is she so wicked for choosing
what seems TO herself an admirable OPP
p~0rtunity? Because she Will interrupt
English investments il Hungarian rail
ways, or why? We have not common
patience with such emascQlated politics.
Better d dozen wars than that Venetia
should remain crushed down, as she is,
by sheer brute force, than the spectacle
OF wrong permanently triumphant, and
the priest and toe soldier combining sue
ccssIulIy to trampie down a free race OF
d higher civilization than their own
But Prussia will cheat the ItaIians? Very
possibly, if she could, though an ADLER
than BIsmark tried that game and was
beaten within SIX months but Prussia
can't. The %"price" to be paid to italy
is simply this-'hat she can enter the
Quadrilateral rather more easily while
Prussi~Js threatening Bohemia, than
while Prussia IS supporting the German
right TO Venice. 1t she does not enter,
she has fought as she would have done
without Prussia if she does enter, let
Prussia swindle her out of her regalned
properly if she can. We would far
rather it had been r~egained in another
way that the Iiapsburgs, taught by
their conflict of centuries, had at last
made Venetia the dover of an Archdu-
chess, and entered the struggle sure OF
the friendship If not of The sympathy of
the only free Power which can give them
serious all. But as they will not relax
their grasp, why is it SO wicked to strike
them fairly on the knuc&les $50 evil to
ask aid from Bismark when it was right
to take it from Napoleon so immoral
to fire on Mantua when it was noble to
batter Gaeta? Italy is tricking nobody,
is ungtatcful to nobody, is not even
breaking with q friend. She simply
strikes for her own, accepting such aid,
bad or good, as circumstance may yield
her. When the passer-by stops the thief,
we do not ask his previous moral history.
The root of all this injustice and pre-
ference for sentiment over policy is the
secret dread lest France should in the
long run be a%ggrandized. We do not
wish that, any more than our neighbours,
but how is it likely to happen? "The
Rhine" as Englishmen understand The
phrase, 4. e., Belgium, Napoleon will not
get without fighting England-the last
enterprise he is in any degree likely to
attempt. As against any other aggran-
dizement, say the possession of Saar-
louis, or even Of transit henan Prussia,
we have these counterpoises to consider.
That a free State of twenty-four millions
of people, with a mountain frontier, will
be seated on the Mediterranean, with its