THE ITALIAN QUESTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 475, 5 January 1861, Page 6

THE ITALIAN QUESTION.

The Times of October 24 takes in a leading article a general survey of the whole Italian "situation." We believe our readers -will peruse with great interest the . following remarks of our contemporary : —

By this time, with an unanimity which is not wonderful, the Neapolitans will have voted themselves subjects of the Kingdom of Italy, under Victor Emmanuel. The title, therefore, will be complete. Theoretically, unanimous election is without doubt, the best title by which any king can hold a sceptre. The longest hereditary succession is but the original title of the first possessor transmitted through his descendants. What is ,'a cause of joy and congratulation in London and Paris will be vexation at Warsaw, and will lengthen official faces at St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Berlin. Russia, Austria, and Prussia have got together to warm each other's zeal, to nurse the common wrath and keep it warm, but not to do anything. It is at present only a conventicle of despotism where any sinner may go and be converted. It does not for the present pretend to the authority of a settled Church, and it has been explained by the Emperor of Russia to the Emperor of the French that there is no intention of excommunicating the latter from the com-

ion of crowned heads. Still, however, it ig a

especially upon Italy. It is only at the present a I " biting of the thumb " at Victor Emmanuel and his new title. X Russia has been politely prompt iv her reassurances to France, Austria has been no less expressive in her declarations that she means nothing serious. After a somewhat eventful interval France and Austria have, in feet, reverted to their original position. It is not difficult for the youngest reader to recollect the time when Austria was declaring to France that she had not the least intention to strike the first blow against Sardinia, but that Sardinia was acting so offensively that really, &c, &c. And then, it will also be recollected, Austria, in a moment of excitement, crossed the Ticino, and France came down upon her, and all that is now going on succeeded in natural sequence. But, as the Eastern proverb says, "An ostrich will always be an ostrich," and so we say " Austria will be Austria still." Austria is at this moment making the same preparations and also the same declarations. She is declaring she will respect the new English-and-French-born heresy of non-intervention which causes to Pip Nono such paroxysms of disgust, and she is massing her troops upon the Po> building a steam fleet on the Guarda Lake, and making Verona impregnable. Meanwhile Victor Emmanuel s raising his insolent head as King of Italy, and Garibaldi is talking to his comrades in prophetic strain of future campaigns in Venetia and in. Hungary. Will those plethoric citadels and their overcrammed hosts of armed men, and will those well-drilled squadrons whose horses drink the waters of the Po, look on quietly while Garibaldi or while Tiirr marshals his array upon the frontier ? It looks very like the old position. Some day or other the young emperor will again lose his patience, the portals of the Quadrilateral will open, and Austria will be unable to resist the temptation to swallow her easy and insolent prey. What will then happen ? M. Grandguillot tells the sequel plainly enough when he declares on the part of the emperor that that important personage is fully convinced that "a purely defensive attitude is the line of conduct that Austria has adopted, and from which she does not intend to depart." If Austria moves she is lost. Whether if she remains still she is saved we do not dare to say. ' Napoleon may or may not have determined to i break her up at any rate, and he may or may not have secret sympathies with strange things about Hungary which have fallen from Garibaldi and are freely discussed on the heights of St. Angelo ; but, unless M. Grandguillot has lost his inspiration, it is clear that an attack upon Sardinia, openly threatening as is her attitude, and repulsive as is this her new presumption to give a king to Italy, would bring on a campaign in the Peninsula, wherein Austria without, a fleet would be like a dog Sgh'ting an otter in the water. This article in the Constitutionnel, to which we have just referred, in quoting M. Grandguillot, is probably Napoleon's quiet reply to the divine right demonstration at Warsaw. Just at this moment Napoleon is by no means in a humour to allow Austria to go down South and settle matters according to her fancy in the I South of Italy. He may love Garibaldi much or ! little, but he certainly loves the three great 1 Powers and the little Milky Way of fragmentary 1 sovereigns who are met at Warsaw less. They ; may write as lovingly as they please, but he ! knows very well that if there had been no Napoleon nL there would have been no meeting at Warsaw, and that they are not met to consult as to bis well-being and future happiness heisobi^^Perawded.. -Therefore, he answers by a defense to Austria to go out of her own fortifla gentle, intimation that «ho haa broken, the^peace of Zurich by her conduct tpirwdf Venetia, which had been specially stipu-

lated in that document. There is a peculiar significance in this last hint, as we shall probably see when Garibaldi makes his descent upon the coast of Venetia. This seems to be the position. It may not long endure. Now, then, is the opportunity of Victor Emmanuel. If he does not seize this opportunity to drive the King of Naples into the sen, or, more humanely, into a sea-going boat, he is not the man for his time. A few words, a high bid, a new phase of policy, may change all. The crown of Italy is worth an energetic clutch, now that, after such doubtful play for it, it is within reach.