THE RED SHIRT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10302, 6 November 1911, Page 2

THE RED SHIRT.

ONLY SIX SURVIVORS. Tho London papers have published a letter from j\lr M. \V. Novinson, who asks for help to send out to Italy, for the celebrations of the Italian unity, a few of the survivors of the " British Legion" that fought under Garibaldi. It appears, says the "Spectator," that only '2l of the 674 who sailed from Harwich lor Naples in the autumn of 1800 aro still alive, and of these only about six will be ablo to undcrtako the journey to Rome. Hiese six, or more, wiil be accompanied by six of their Italian comrades-in-arms, who are living in England. The British legion—except the colonel, and one or two others, who fought in Sicily before the fall of Naples, arrived towards tho end of Garibaldi's greatest campaign, but fought, well at Volturno, during the passage of the Apennines, and up to the moment when Sicily and Southern .Italy camo fohnaily under the Government of Victor Emmanuel.

No Englishman who is proud to remember the aid which Great Britain gavo to Italy when her cause was iu sore need of it will withhold his sympathy from Mr Nevinsoirs appeal. Some of the legionaries may have been such soldiers of fortune as discover that right, is always on that sido which gives them an opportunity of a fight, hut the majority had been profoundly moved by the spectacle of Bourbon despotism, and they offered their lives as a genuine sacrifice to libertj-. If their enlistment was rather irregular, in one sense it was regularised by the divine law of justice. Those men wore tho more active expression of the generous English emotion which fired Gladstone's denunciations of tho Neapolitan tyranny and Lord John Russell's reasoned justification of the movement towards unity. It is a good and purifying thing for a nation now and again to sweep aside peddling objections, as England did then, to disregard barren questions of form, and to declare its unalterable conviction that the demand for freedom must prevail in all circumstances over the assertion of a right to perpetuate tyranny. But there was something more at work in the hearts of Englishmen of that day than an appreciation of the political issue at stako in Italy. For ages Englishmen had directed tlieiv sympathies and their affections and their search for intellectual stimulus so naturally to Italy that the request for support thence was a guarantee of the response. The "Italianato" Englishman may sometimes havo been a ridiculous figure, and, as Mr Sidney Lee has lately made clear to us, he and his successors may have greatly underestimated tho contribution of France to the Renaissance, but, at all events, he had a real reason for existing. He stood for something that was strong and stable in the intellectual and artistic sympathies of England. Those affinities may be traced clearly in tho sixteenth seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. " A man who has not been in Italy is always conscious of an inferiority," exclaimed Dr Johnson. They passed into the nineteenth century with Byrori:

Italia, oh, Italia, thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty.

Englishmen hare never been able to resist that beauty. Tlio very names of Italian cities and historical places stir witliin them ideals, regrets, desires. They cannot, of course, have the quality of Garibaldi's passion, when he was fighting for his own land, but his unforgettable address to the women of Rome, who had declared that they looked to him to deliver Rome, does nob strike falsely on the ear, " Rome is a word that will arouse people as the tempest rules the waves. Rome, the mother of Italian grandeur. Was not its history of giants, its wonderful ruins that kindled in my young soul the flamo of tlio beautiful, the ardour of generous designs P Rome I Oh, Rome I who is not urged by the very nam© to take arms for thy deliveranoo? Who feols not thus lias not deserted the tender embrace or the ardent kiss of a lover. Such a ono has only to restore a base heart to its original clay."

Tlio Englishmen who put on the red shirts of freedom with Garibaldi intensified their enthusiasm as thoy learned all his passion, sincerity, and simplicity. It has often been said that Garibakhsm became a new reJigion; devout nuns worked bis figure into the sacred fabric of their creeds. His magnetism was explicable only, because his human qualities so plainly framed his greatness. _ As Dictator of Sicily he would administer a philanthropic institution on methods of common,sense which mi,isit be bodily adopted by the Charity Organisation Society to-day. But if an appeal were made to his own pocket, he could' not say no to the most palpable rogua. He drew only the pay he allotted to himself—eight" francs a day—when the whole Treasury of Palermo was at his disposal. "And ho would borrow psnce from his soldiers whenever he overspent his eight francs, and religiously repay the dobt. He was so gentle with animals that he would not allow a whip to be used to a horse, or any animal, within his sight. At the_ same time, he had the proper so-, verity of a master and a leader. A' correspondent of "Tho Times" in 1809 wrote of him: " A child would stop him in the street to ask him what o'clock it was, but the man condemned to immediate ©xecutlon would never, after a look of that calm, determined face, waste time in asking mercy upon earth." A member of the British Le<*iooi, named Brook, wrote: "I never in my life saw a face like Garibaldi's—so dignified, so resolute, and so perfectly self-possessed in every lineament—with the oye of an eagle, tho brow of a Grecian sage—his smile is tho sweetest and the most reassuring in tho world." Forbes, another Enclishman who fought with Garioaldi, wrote this remarkable tribute:—

" In his downright honesty -we have the secret of his unparalleled successes. He cannot lie; and if ho could, why should he? From the hour when, he first dreamt of ' Italian unity' ho declared ivar to every obstacle in his path, whether priestly or princely. When he saw an Italian prince lead on against tho Austrians, ho hastened to join him. Though Europe dared not oppose a French occupation of Rome, ho did, by his uncompromising hostility to oppressors, whether foreign or domestic; he revivified, tho nation and inaugurated that spirit which has emancipated sixteen millions. Three millions of his countrymen a,re yearning in Rome and Vonetia, and because heis bold enough to avow his determination to fulfil his task haggard diplomacy desires him to be more circunvspect._ What, in the name of heaven, has diplomacy ever done for Italy since it condemned her to half a century of misrule at the Treaty of Vienna?" The best known of all the British legionaries was their commander, Colonel Peard. He was a trurt volunteer of liberty's _cause ; knowing what he did, why he did it, and how to do it. At school and Oxford he had been a prodigy of physical strength; he weighed fourteen stone when he was nineteen years old. On the river, as a boxer, as an Achilles in town-and-gown fights, he was equally well known. Ho was a lover of Italy, and in his visits there he had seen with his own eyes the oppression by officials which Garibaldi was determined to end. None fought with such conviction as " Garibaldi'?; Englishman." Those who care to read thorn will iind Foard's war journals, edited by Mr G. M. Trevelyan, in the " Cornhiil Mngnsine " of 1903. Such traditional English affection. for ItaJy was deeply reciprocated by GVri■bakii. Yv'ken he was about to return to his home in Caprera. after the capture of Npplc-s, hj« visited .Admiral •dundy in Naples Harbour, mid, looking at the Efjglish ship in which ha Was about to .uiuko tho passage, and'

which was awaiting him impatiently, lie said: "I could not depart without ox pressing my steadfast faith in the honour of the English flag." Tho friendship is as bright to-day as fifty years ago. At least, wo can answer for it that it is so on our side. Italy I ins entered into an alliance in which she is associated with her ancient enemy, Austria. Englishmen are formally associated with her other ancient enemy, France. These changes and chances make no difference. The traditions of our sympathy holds. And of all that wo liko to emphasise in that tradition, tho most memorable part is the struggle of fifty years ago. Yes. Freedom I Yet, thy bannor torn, but flying. Streams, like the thunder-storm, against the wind.