Ir is the privilege of few generations to assist at so grand a spectacle as the resurrection of a people and the birth of a new state in the old commonwealth of nations. Such events happen rarely; and still more rarely are they foreseen or deliberately contrived beforehand. They are schemed for by statesmen through long years of anxious vigilance and thought; they are fought for by patriots through long years of defeat, discomfiture, and despair; they are suffered for by captives in squalid dungeons; they are sighed for by exiles in foreign garrets; they form the dream and the prophecy of poets. But time glides on, and brings no apparent approach

L'Unité Nationale de l'Italie. Par EMMANUEL MARLIANI, Député. Turin: 1860. Nota del Ministro dell' Interno sull' ordinamento administrativo e finanziario del Regno. Torino:

1860.

VOL. LII.-No. 2.

0 F ITALY.*

to the desiderated end; wars pass over the land, and seem to rivet still faster the chains of the oppressed; insurrections serve but to decimate the noblest votaries of the cause; revolutions give only bewildering gleams and intoxicating draughts of freedom, and servitude settles down again with a gloomier darkness than before;-till a sort of sick hopelessness takes possession even of the most sanguine and most daring spirits. Then, perhaps, comes a combination which no one could have anticipated or effected: events which would have been powerless if single, become omnipotent when simultaneous and united; the ambition of one man, the restlessness of another, the demented obstinacy of a third, the heroic devotion of a fourth, the opportune advent of the needed statesman, the opportune removal of the insuperable obstacle, join to bring about the

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moment so long waited for in vain, when the pictured consummation becomes a possible achievement, and "the desire of nations" is realized at last. The noblest and wisest of Italian patriots, Daniel Manin, not long before his death, expressed his conviction that another thirty years must pass before Italy could be independent and united, and that the best course for all friends to that great object would be to give up all early hopes and premature attempts, and devote themselves to the work of training the young generation for the task which would devolve upon it. Scarcely more than three years have passed away since Manin was laid in his grave in a foreign land; and the object for which he lived and died is an actual and accomplished, if not yet wholly a completed, fact.

We have no intention of dragging our readers through thorny and profitless discussions as to the purity of the agencies and the merits of the agents by which this great result has been brought about. We are concerned with the fact-not with its genesis. Whether the war between France and Austria was unjust or unavoidable; which party prepared, and which began, the conflict; whether Louis Napoleon originally designed, and whether he now relishes, that creation of a Kingdom of United Italy, of which he was the undoubted instrument; whether the citizens of the new state ought to be grateful to him for their emancipation and reunion, or to Providence for having overruled his purposes; whether the cession of Savoy and Nice was a moderate and necessary, or a questionable and a needless, price; how far the duplicity and misstatements which undeniably discredited that transaction, exceeded the recognized limits of diplomatic mystification; whether Victor Emmanuel and Count Cavour have throughout been actuated by genuine patriotism or by dynastic ambition; whether the invasion of the Neapolitan and Roman territories by the Sardinian army, which was unquestionably a violation of international law, was a violation of international morality as well; or whether the king of Italy, in taking that decided step, did not obey more sacred obligations than those which he transgressed; and, finally, what share in the magnificent success of the joint achievement the judgment of history will assign to the sagacious and compromising statesmanship of Cavour, and what

to the lofty and single-souled enthusiasm of Garibaldi-these are now purely speculative questions, upon which we do not care to enter. We have a practical aim in view, and have to deal rather with the present and the future than with the past. We shall assume the consolidation of the various states of the Italian peninsula into one homogeneous kingdom as a fait accompli, for the purpose of our present argument. It is as yet imperfect, indeed, but it may be considered settled. Its completion, too, we may assume as certain, though the time and the mode are as yet buried in obscurity.

Two points-and these the only vitally important ones-we hold to be irrevocably determined, partly by diplomatic consent, partly by "the inexorable logic of facts"-to borrow a phrase from the imperial vocabulary. First, it is determined that (apart from the utterly anomalous and of necessity temporary occupation of Rome by a French garrison) there is to be no intervention beyond the Alps. England has urged this in the most pertinacious manner, and on the strongest grounds of principle. Sardinia has pleaded for it; France professes to consent to it; Austria has promised it. "The Italians"-and it is important to notice how much meaning and how many consequences are implied in this expression when employed, as it has been, in diplomatic dispatches and imperial proclamations-the Italians are to be allowed to settle their own affairs and to decide their own future, undisturbed by any foreign interference. That is— the citizens of the several states into which Italy has hitherto been divided, are at liberty to discard their former governments, and to select new sovereigns and new forms of polity according to their own judgment; and to do this, if need be, by mutual assistance and after mutual consultation. They have been, tacitly and by implication at least, recognized as one people, free to combine if it so please them into one nation. And, secondly, they have chosen thus to exercise the right conceded them. With a unanimity the more remarkable because it has manifested itself alike in every corner of the peninsula and in every rank of the community, because it has expressed itself sometimes in spite of the priests, sometimes even by the priests, they have determined on unconditional union, and have elected Victor Emmanuel as their common king. Of all

the provinces of Italy now owning allegiance to him, Lombardy alone fell to him by the fortune of war, and Lombardy made haste to ratify this result by the enthusiastic expression of the popular will. For the decisions of universal suffrage, to which it is now the fashion for democrats and despots to pay equal homage, we can never affect to feel submission or respect; but this was an instance in which, what ever had been the voting franchise, the result would have been the same-in which the feelings of the mass of the people and those of the élite of the people differed not at all in their direction, and scarcely at all in their intensity. It is settled, then, we hope, that the Italians are to be left to themselves, and that, as the inevitable result, Italy is to be no longer "a geographical expression," but a united nation and a European power.

Even while writing this sentence, however, the very expression reminds us of the limits and exceptions within which only it is true. Two of the most characteristic provinces of the Peninsula, Venice, with its unique city and its impressive story; and Rome, with its imperial associations and its venerable monumentsare as yet unincluded in the fusion. The subject is difficult and painful, but it is impossible to pass it by, and it would be worse than idle to attempt to blink its perplexities. The practical question of the hour for statesmen and men of action is, however, clear and simple enough. Without for one moment pretending to admit that the new organization of Italy can be regarded as complete, or the work of liberation and amalgamation as fully achieved, so long as Venetia groans un der a foreign yoke and Rome languishes under priestly domination, it is obvious that nothing but the most ungovernable fanaticism, or the rashest and vainest pol icy, can dream of attempting, at once and by force, to incorporate these unattached portions of the monarchy. It is about equally certain that a premature and violent attempt to seize them must end in disastrous failure, as that time and mediation-patience on one side, prudence on the other, calmness and policy on both -must insure their ultimate annexation. Nothing can so surely delay the wished for consummation as an endeavor to hurry it on intemperately-nothing can forfeit the ripening prize, except the passion which would snatch it too fiercely and

But

too soon. We understand and can sympathize to its very depth with the aggravated suffering which weighs down the enslaved as they listen to the rejoicings of their emancipated brethren around them; we share almost more vividly in the impatient longing which those who have won their liberty must feel to communicate its blessings without an hour's delay to the fellow citizens who are still captive and oppressed; we know, too, how these sentiments may be exasperated into almost intolerable fury when the foreign ruler-partly out of revenge, partly out of sinister and cruel craft--day by day lays on heavier burdens and inflicts severer outrages, in the hope of goading his victims into premature revolt. we say deliberately, in no cold temper and in no Pharisaic spirit, that a people who, in such a crisis and with such a prospect, can not control these bitter emotions and govern these generous sympathies and bear these calculated irritations, are not ripe for the stern requirements of a state of freedom, and have yet to win their spurs. That the ultimate absorption of both Rome and Venetia into the Italian Kingdom is inevitable, unless consummate folly mar the game, we think is clear. Let us picture to ourselves a state with a population of twenty-four millions, more homogeneous than any people except the French; with an extended coast, a happy climate, and a fertile soil; full of resources both material and moral; civilized, intellectual, and industrious; with healthy finances, and an army carefully organized and patiently and scientifically prepared for whatever work it may be called upon to do, with the clear consciousness that that work will, in all probability, be hard and perilous; and above all filled with citizens rich and prosperous because commercial and free, and enjoying a constitution moderate and wise, showing, at once, what marvels liberty can achieve, and what deep attachment it can aspire; let us picture all this existing in the face of Europe, not as a sudden creation, not merely as a meteor of a few months, so that malignant enemies or desponding friends might represent it as a passing revolutionary phase, and predict its speedy downfall-but for some years of progressive, tenacious, unfaltering prosperity; and then fancy two provinces, lying in the heart of such a state, crushed under an alien and a hated domination,

bound in the heaviest and rustiest chains of despotism, yet inhabited by people of the same race as the surrounding free land, speaking the same language, aspiring to the same fate, yearning even more for union than for liberation; and let us ask ourselves, is the situation one which is even conceivable as permanent? Is the contrast one which Europe-or NatureCOULD by possibility long endure or long maintain? Would it be practicable, or would it be worth while for despotism to wage so unequal, so unnatural, so objectless a struggle?

The difficulty about Rome and the small and barren slip of territory towards the Mediterranean, is complicated by the Papal question. We shall return to that subject by and by. As to Venetia, we think the matter is clearer, if not easier, although fully prepared to admit that it is one on which opposing interests and different starting-points may well lead sincere and thoughtful politicians to antagonistic conclusions. But, in addition to the views suggested by the picture we have just drawn, there are several other weighty considerations to be borne in mind. In the first place, is it possible for Austria, under any circumstances, to retain her Italian provinces except at a cost wholly disproportioned to their value? Lombardy, up to the Mincio, is already ceded, and can not be recovered unless under the contingency of an entire change of policy on the part of France, or a premature warlike movement on the part of Victor Emmanuel, or under the combination of the two misfortunes. Venice proper, or Venetia, became Austrian only in recent years-almost in the lifetime of the existing generation, first by the gift of Napoleon in 1798, and again by the settlement of Europe in 1815. It is a case, too, in which there can be no compromise. Seldom in political history has there been so decided an instance of instinctive and ineradicable antipathy between the governors and the governed. A separate vice-royalty under an Austrian prince, with an Italian ministry and an Italian chamber, or any other analogous contrivances, would go literally no way towards meeting the difficulty. We doubt whether it could be accepted even as a provisional arrangement, and we are sure it would be unwise to attempt it. Austria could not govern Venice mildly and constitutionally if she

wished. What the Venetians want is not good government, but self-government. What they detest is not so much oppression as subjection; not the cruel ruler, but the German ruler; not Il tyranno, but Il Tedesco. Light taxation, evenhanded justice, a free press, a gentle and equitable police, are simple impossibilities to Austria as far as the Venetians are concerned; yet the lightest taxation, the justest tribunals, the freest press, the mildest police, would now do nothing towards reconciling the Venetians to the Austrian yoke. It is this that renders the difficulty so insuperable, the "situation" so impossible, and all proposals of compromise so futile. Reigning among a hostile people, Austria must reign by hostile means. As long as Venice is retained by her, it must be retained by force. She must drain her other provinces of men to hold it in subjection, and she must expend its revenues in supporting and subsidizing those men. How long can she continue to do this? and is it wise economy to do it at all?

It is becoming pretty clear that her power of retaining Venice and keeping down the Venetians must depend almost entirely on the success of her conciliatory policy with Hungary. We are among the least inclined to undervalue the Austrian army, or the singular tenacity of Austrian vitality. We believe that she will always be difficult to beat, impossible to kill; and it is probable that for years at least, if not for ever, she will be more than a match for any force, moral or ma terial, that unaided Italy can bring into the field. But it is impossible to forget that Hungary is the largest and most warlike portion of the Austrian Empire; that the Hungarian troops have always constituted the flower of her army; that a systematic and well-organized insurrection in Hungary would paralyze her strength, and that the complete and final severance of Hungary would reduce her to comparative impotence, both for aggression and for European influence. It seems all but certain that she will not be able thoroughly to conciliate and repossess Hungary by any means short of restoring her ancient constitution, a distinct ministry, and an independent diet. Is it certain that such large concessions, even if the happiest thing for Hungary, would be the wisest thing for Austria? If this be really the price at which alone she can retain her