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    Untitled Article

    PIEDMONTESE POLITICS . ( Front our Correspondent . ) ¦ Turin , Dee . 4 . CoireiMTCTioirAii government is being put to a very hard trial in this country ; and after the English , people have expended their enthusiasm in welcoming Victor Emmanuel - whom they probably applaud partly as an expiation for their applause of the Emperor Napoleon III . —it is good that they should know some of the difficulties with which , he , or rather the system which he represents , haB to contend . For my part , if I did not fear to be thought eccentric , I should begin my notices of the state of politics in this part of tlie world by what may seem , to be a very cynical confession . And why not tell the truth . ? We are getting too much accustomed to square our phrases to circumstances . Every Englishman aims at playing the diplomatist ; and whilst he hates or despises tyranny , learns the articles of the leading journal by heart , and consoles himself by cant about the gentleman King , and the brilliant prospects of Parliamentary Government in this ill-assorted little collection of States—this miniature representation of Austria—lately entrusted with liberty , called the kingdom of Sardinia . I shall confess , then , that , so far , I have very little confidence in the ultimate success of any of the attempts made to introduce abroad . the artificial system of Government which has so long flourished in England . It was never , with us , anything more than a prudent compromise between principles and circumstances . The circumstances existed ; the principles started up by their side . There was a contest , in Which neither party obtained complete victory . Bather than exhaust our sti-ength in perpetual con- - flicts , we consented to an arrangement which was consonant to our national character . We resolved to wait the result of the action of Common Sense , entrusted with a share of power , upon the mass of absurdities inherited from feudal times ; and Common Sense has at length nearly got the upper hand . We have been many generations at work ; ~ and , seeing the goal draw nigh , most persons are content to admire the constitution—or rather the absence of a constitution—by which we have been favoured . This is why we think we cannot bestow a greater blessingon foreign nations than to teach them how to imitate our machinery ; and why our statesmen and diplomatists are always ready to give their advice , and promise their assistance , to all peoples who will consent to record their political life in an exact imitation of Hansard ; and also why we are as indignant at liberals who promise to go a step further , as at tyrants who prefer to remain as they are . We have invented a bed of Procrustes , and we hate all who will not Uq in it . One of the points on which Englishmen most insist , and without which they withhold their sympathies from any attempt at self-government , is the existence of an Upper House . Laws must be passed through a double strainer before they are good for digestion . We never inquire whether there exists any class from which it iB possible to make more than an arbitrary selection to compose this said second chamber ; nor do we reflect that we have often considered the House of Lords as a nuisance , talked irreligiously of doing away with , it , and compelled it , by our ill temper , to be very diffident of exercising its right of interference in important measures . In discussing the doings of our continental friends , we cannot forgive them for attempting to be wiser than we . Their aristooracy is gone . No matter . They must create one for the nonce . Accordingly , obeying our impulse , and disregarding the suggestions of original minds , all nations who have escaped from government by right divine , hasten to put the idea in action ; and in Piedmont , as elsewhere , we have a constitutional King , a Senate , and a Chamber of Deputies Buperposed on a society which knows them not , and is etui full of the habits of passive obedionoo . No nation left to itself , when it became tired of allowing nil its business to be transacted by a single man , "would think of substituting anything else than the application of this principle— " Every man is the best judge of his own affairs . " A . single assembly , proceeding direct from the people , and obeying its immediate impulse , would at any rate be understood . It seems quite certain to me that the Piodmonteae do not uppreoiufco , by any means , the complicated and oxotio system with which they are expected to identify their sympathies . It ia j uat possible that it would bo for the advantage of this country , and others similarly situated , to fall into a different state of mind and Jonrn to appreciate what now so much puzzlos thorn . Indeed , as all recent experience tolls us that England iB fated to bo the godmother of liberty in Europe , and as theory haH chosen to mould itself by her example—wo may auppq « e , thatin spite of tho absence of legitimate mate- , rials , it is proper , now that the first stop has boen taken to endeavour to accustom tho PiedmontoHO , the Savoyards , the njfcu of Genoa , of Nice , and Sardinia , to the government of representatives— " on trial , " of course for the electoral body is restricted—checked in

    its operations by a factitious Senate , and a King acting by the medium of " responsible" ministers . If so , it does not appear to me that the persons 01 classes who principally influence the action of government are going the right way to work to produce the desired result . Talk to a Piedmontese of the middle classes—an instructed , experienced man ; and be sui-e , if you know how to get at his secret—for the race is dissimulate with foreigners , especially with Englishmen , who are all supposed to be rabid Constitutionalists—be sure that you will find in hia mind , unless he be a member of the progress party who would go . beyond the limit which we mark , a lurking regret for old times . In the first place , the complication of the forms he is called on to understand bores him ; secondly , he does not see the practical benefit . After many umbrages out comes the complaint—the population has scarcely increased and the taxation has doubled within the last eight years , since the unfortunate but glorious events of 1848 . The good people absolutely presumed to identify liberty with economy . They expected retrenchment instead of profusion . They are disappointed , and whilst they are indignant at the men to whom personally they attribute their distress —exactly as they used to eomplain personally of their old kings when they were greedy—they begin unreasonably to be discontented with the system . The truth is , that much of the increased expense of the Government is the result of necessity , and it is childish to attribute it to free institutions . The debts of the war are not yet , properly speaking , paid off ; and the recent alliance with France and England — -after all , a good and noble act—is an expensive affair . But it seems quite certain that neither M . Cavour , nor his predecessors , nor the persons and classes wlio support him—perhaps not even the Left Opposition—have ever thought of recommending freedom to the selfish , part of human nature by iden tifying it with material advantages ; or , if the idea has ever struck them , they have most signally failed in applying it . No one can look beneath the surface of things in this country without perceiving that there is a wide-spread aud growing dissatisfaction with actual financial arrangements—that the unwillingness of many men to contribute towards public expenses is becoming complicated by bitterness— -and that , with very hearty loyalty towards the House of Savoy , is strangely blended a vague anticipation of good from some other quarter . Tlie majority of the Savoyards yearn towards Imperial France or Republican Switzerland ; the Genoese are not at all convinced that a new attempt at a Republic would be a failure ; and even the J'iedmontese , growing dispirited as they breathe the fogs which east winds now bring every day from Lombardy , smile rather ironically as bui'ly Englishmen compliment thena on their prowess in the East , and are not so proud as we seem to think they ought to be of their Constitution and our encouragement . I will not yet accept the explanation given by a part of the Opposition here , that M . Cavour and his friends are perfectly aware of the discontent that exists—that they set it at nought—that they are confident that they are the necessary men , and , indeed , the only ones possible at present—and that all they care about ia the enjoyment of power and the advantages it gives- —that they have no faith in the futurethat they are disciples , of Guizot aud Rossi , who saw in constitutional forma nothing but convenient machinery for carrying out with a semblance of liberty certain narrow and despotic theories . It seems quite evident that as long as the war- lasts , or until it . becomes a war of principles—which England and France will endeavour as much as possible to avertno great change can take place in this Government from without . Tho actual men , or men exactly like thorn , must be in power . M . Ratazzi may be immolated as an old Libei'al who has lost tho confidence of his former friends without gaining the affection of his present allies ; or M . Cavour may attempt to lean a little more towards the Loft ; but this is all that is possible . M . Cavour , then , should feel that ho has a great duty to perform . Ho ought not to be content with keeping together a good majority . He is bound so to act that the Piedmontese , and tho other races agglomerated with them under tlie name sceptre , Bhould have roason to be delighted with free government , instead of almost being led to curse it . Let us not attribute to thorn our own sentiments . They have what in callod a free press , aheoked by tho power monstrously left in tho hands of the police to seize a number of a paper supposed to contain a criminal article—that is , to confiscate arbitrarily private property ; aud ohooked , also , by fear of condemnation by judges uncontrolled by n jury . They have many prooious civil and political privileges . They enjoy religions freedom . ¦ They possess many admirable institutions , of which Austrian despotism deprives their neighbours over the Tioino , I am willing to believe that all the moat generous-spirited amongst them think those more than euffloiont to counterbalance an exhausted oxoboq , uer , au increasing public debt , and a vexatious and ignorant system of

    taxation . But the majority of men—especiall y when new to liberty—are ever prone to look to their pockets more than their principles ; and Power , if it does not condescend to this weakness at first , is unfaithful to its trust . Let us welcome Virtue when it comes forward ; but let us always act as if Iuterest were the sole spring of human actions . The French Republic destroyed itself by supposing , in its enthusiasm , that the brutal peasantry of the departments would be delighted to contribute a few additional centimes for the sake of Liberty .

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    1198 THE ' LEADEB . [ No . 299 , Saturday ,

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    Leader Office , Saturday , December 15 th . THE AUSTRIAN PEACE "SUGGESTIONS . " The Paris correspondent of the Post writes — " The best information in my possession nb the present moment , as to the peace question , is this : — Russia has not officially commissioned , or countenanced , any propositions . Austrian diplomacy has made suggestions , which have been submitted to Paris and London . The Cabinets of France and England have requested that the said propositions for peace should be stated more clearly , and that they should also be fully sanctioned by Russia before any attempt is made at negociation . At this stage of the affair , Austria is supposed to have communicated with St . Petersburg , and so matters remain . Meanwhile , eveiy little German Court is busy in talking , and the large ones in writing . You must expect to hear the movements of German diplomatic gentlemen converted into ' missions . ' We are at a jferiod when the public read with great interest a romantic newspaper , literature founded on fiction . Russia is making immense preparations for the spring campaign . The Allies are doing the same . The Governments of France and England are perfectly agreed . Such are the data on which the public may really speculate ( with the probability of arriving at correct conclusions ) if they care not to be deceived by the exaggerated importance which is given to the most shadowy hopes of peace . "

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    INDIA . | The Overland Mail from India has arrived . It V brings news of tho Santal rebellion , which ia not yet subdued , though the career of the insurgents seems drawing to a close . Martial law will bo prop lainied ) Tho signs of disturbance in other districts of India continue .

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    Tujs Late Mademoiselle Jtjwe . —Mr . Morris , a lodging-house keopor in Plymouth , in whose residence Mademoiselle Julio died from tho injuries sho had received on tho stage , has rofused to givo up tho body on account of damages done to tho bod on which the poor girl had lain . Tho case waa brought bofore the Mnyor , and Mr . Morris was forced , though most reluctantly , to rosign his hold on tho corpse . A stormy meeting of the Oryjatul Palace Company took place yesterday , and was adjourned for three weoku .

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    The Fall of Kars . —The Times contains a despatch from its Vienna correspondent , dated 11 a . m . Thursday , stating that nothing was then known in that city of the fall of Kars . We ( Globe ) fear , however , that this gives no ground for hope that the intelligence of the capitulation which has been published is otherwise than too true in every respect . —The fact is not announced in thd Moniteur . At Trebizonde , says a despatch just received from Frankfort , it was rumoured on the 21 st of November that Omar Pacha had attacked Kutais . The reinforcements he had received were not very considorable . The Shah Bender of Trebizonde has placed between 400 and 500 beaflta of burden at the disposal of the Porte . The Circassians ( according to a letter from Redoubt-Kaleb , in the Post Gazette of Frankfort ) have not fulfilled the expectations of Omar Pacha by co-operating with him , and tho relations between him and Schamyl are not friendly ; indeed , he feara that , if he were to march on the capital of Georgia , Sohamyl would attack him in the rear . . . 1

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 15, 1855, page 1198, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2119/page/10/