THE WAR IN EUROPE.

West Coast Times, Issue 299, 7 September 1866, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE WAR IN EUROPE.

MANIFESTOES OF THE THREE

POWERS.

(?ROM THE TIMES, JUNK 19.)

The two great powers of Central Europe nave said the last words that divide peace and war. Hitherto they have appealed to reason- and professed humanity, but henceforth they play a dreadful game, and are at the mercy of terrible contingencies. It is possible that future historians will pass with little remark over the almost imperceptible step that leads from a state of" things rapidly culminating to war to the act itself. Causes and consequences will be found to fit hi as closely as the ragged edges of the fracture, which, though fatal to the vase, may for a moment be concealed from the eye. But to 'us, who know not the future, and who are titugily drawing auguries from the past, ana looking nound for the last omen, the words of the Sovereigns who now stand before the world sword in hand have an awful import. How does Prussia, how does Austria, demean herself as she casts the die of war ? There is this common inconsistency in both their manifestoes, that the grander topics wholly eclipse the lesser; the case which each makes out would lose nothing by an oblivion of the last feverish manth or. two, and incidents put in the very foreground of the quarrel are found to be nothing more than the feeble head of a procession irresistibly thrust on by the column behind. We may reasonably doubt whether Prussia couldf have helped" taking possession of Holstein, and, on the others hand, whether the Diet had any choice to mobilise the Federal forces. As to the smaller states, what they do at such an emergency, certain known affinities being taken into account, is only a comparison of one overwhelming force with another. They must go on as they are pushed, even it.be to and fro How to deal with them is a military question, and this it has come to. But, passing by these incidents, we come to the great appeals on which these powers severally rest .their '- cause'. Had the belligerents concerted to keep their proper parts and speak in character, that the dialogue might be well sustained, .they could hardly' have, done it better. Each comes out in bold relief, the Prussia and the Auhtria we have known so long, little a3 we might think that they would one day stand in_such fell antagonism. Prussia's first and last appeal is to Germany ; and whether she speaks to courts oV to people it is to Germany she* pleads for, and Germany that is- to cover her misdeeds. Germany is divided. Division lays a multitude of states open to evil influences. The Diet has long represented, not unity, but division. For true unity a new Constitution is wanted — of what kind', in what name, with what centre; time will tell. The geography of theTegion is ridiculous. Prussia cannot turn its face any way. without having! an enemy, or a, bad neutral,. a. day's 'march in the rear. If there is to be a paramount German power' — arid without that there can* be no Germany—then that power should have a a better geographical position arid a more preponderating influence. Germany is defrauded of its due rank, and place in the world. It is nut allowed, without interruption, to vindicate its nationality, even \Vhen it i • enforcing lights guaranteed by treaty. Prussia does not condescend to notice what tin: Diet was ready to do. Perhaps the feebleness of the result — a small new state — nay, two_ small new states — >upercedes the necessity of notice. The conclusion from a train of thought, i atlior felt than espreeued, is thai- neither

Diet, by the confession of Austria itself ; and under the existing conditions no alliances are possible between the several states. There must be a new Constitution, and a new power that shall really stand for Germany, speak for her, and protect her from insult and wrong. This I "can only be done by setting aside the present Federal system, obliterating boundaries, and making military considerations supreme.' If Prussia can reunite Germany, and obtain justice to her numbers, her position, and her history, then Germany can afford to deal as fairly with other races ahd territories not her own. Prussia, of course, cannot insist on any Divine or treaty right to become the chief of Germany and its symbol of amity. This want in her title she makes up with the power of the sword, the fortune of the great soldier, and the high destiny that has still to run its course. It is an old saying that an army of sheep commanded by a lion will beat an army of lions commanded by a sheep. It is an army of sheep that Prussia is addressing, and she must prove herself a lion, an animal that sees far^ decides quickly, can make a terrible spring, and when it once grasps never leaves hold. Thus much is to be said for these appeals and these representations — that they are intelligible. Unless it be that the one idea of Germany has' net yet quite developed itself, and except for some possible scepticism as to Prussia's notions of truth and honor, all is plain here. We may assume, or not, just as we please, , that the new Constitution of Germany is to be Prussian, and that, in fact, Prussia and Germany are henceforth to be the same.

What has Austria to say to herself In this hour of trial when she has to bid against a power confessed to have a glorious cause, and accused of unscrupulousness and audacity? Austria tells the world she is for peace and quiet, and always has been. She appeals to truth andy justice, and to the Almighty that has them and her in charge. She could wish that her own peoples were assimilated, and knew one another better. She would then have her family more about her • but, as they are not all about her, she must act for them, which makes her position still more awfully responsible. It is the empire she has to make the best of against the somewhat less substantial though grander name of Germany. But she is German still, and, in a sense, Germany. Not that she can appropriate the Caesars to herself ; but she is the Germany of the lesser states, that flock to her from a fiercer terror ; she is the Germany of the Diet. She is the Germany of Courts, that like to see two great powers keeping one another in order, and are content that the stronger of the two should also be the less German. It suits the politics and the tastes of the lesser states that Germany should not take too high a flight and aspire to too close a unity, or resent too keenly the wrongs of the race. v So they'like the hybrid empire which has something to fall back upon besides its German character.* Austria touches very tenderly upon some questionable affairs in the North Sea, in which she lately found herself in indifferent company ; but the Almighty she appeals to cannot care, she thinks, for such a trifle. A few words of utter loathing are enough for Italy. It is Prussia that is giving that enemy of mankind, so Austria intimates, the desired opportunity of one more crime. That the dynasty has.been always just and true, and has always enjoyed Divine favor, she calls to witness a prosperous and tolerably united people. Austria is content. She only wants to ke.ep her own, addict herself to the arts of peace, and foster her resources. She could have no other interest. She has nothing to gain. Prussia must be the aggressor, not Austria. All this is very simple- and winning, but not politics. The truth is, Austria is not Germany, and will not be Germany. She will aot allow Prussia to be Germany — why should she, of course ? — or even Germany to be Germany. She wishes to divide, and reign by dividing ; Prussia to unite and reign by unity. That is at least a political Idea, and better worth fighting for than most objects of ambition. Whether the means employed can be justified by the end is quite another question.

(FROM THE TIMES, JUNE 23.) The King of Prussia and the Kiug of Italy have Doth put forth their ap*peal in vindication of the justice of their cause in the pending struggle. King William I. informs his people and the world that there is between Prussia and Austria a deadly quarrel for the supremacy in Germany, as both the latter p v 6wer and the states, which side with it are bent on the humiliation— nay, ' the annihilation of Prussia. Prussia is fighting for existence ; but, "should the Almighty bless her arms," she hopes to be strong enough to "reunite more prosperously in another shape the loose tie. which held the German lands together more in name than fact." The last word is thus said on 'both sides, and we know now, what we have long surmised, that the two great German powers are committed to a ruthless war, the aim of which is on the part of Prussia the expulsion of Austria from Germany, on the part of Austria the disruption and dismemberment* of the Prussian monarchy. The dispute dates as far back as the days of the Great Frederick, for it was he, or the Great Elector, who established that dualism which set the north of the empire in- antagonism with the south — an antagonism which could only end 'either in the perpetual division of Germany into two states, o? in the absorption of one into the other. the Seven Years' War sowed, the campaign of 1866 is to reap. Europe might well have striven to put off the solution of the great German question, but it could not eventually avert it ; and those who most earnestly deprecated the outbreak of hostilities ought • now with equal zeal to pray that the sword may not be sheathed till the quarrel is finally settled, and' the danger of future complications permanently removed. The manifesto of King Victor Emmanuel to the Italian people followed close, upon his declaration of hostilities against Austria. He is 5 the " enemy arrayed on the Southern frontier," who had- not been mentioned by name in the Emperor Francis Joseph'^ proclamation of the 17th, but only, scornfully alluded to as the j power which " deems no pretext necessary to justify its lust for the plunder of a portion of the Austrian Monarchy," and " in whose eyes a favorable opportunity is sufficient cause for war." The King of "Italy, rising in reply, pleads guilty to the charge, and re-echoes the very words of his mighty antagonist; " Ife has been," i he ftwiiowlftdggs. »toy iha hti seven

accomplish the independence of Venetia," and this has been afforded by the complications which, are now threatening a total change in the destimpi of Germany.' In the estimation of the King of Itafy "and his subjects, -there has really never, been anything like pence between that country and Austria. Seven years ago, when this same King Victor Emmanuel declared before Parliament that the v Piedmoritese " would no longer be deaf to the complaints of their brethren," his Government devoted itself to the liberation of Italy, or, in other words, to the expulsion of Austria from the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom *' as far as the Adriatic." That " just aud glorious enterprise," though partly successful, was left incomplete, as the King informs us, owing to "supreme reasons." But the state of things which was brought about by the Treaties of Villafranca and Zurich was anything but peace. Between tho two rival powers bordering on the Po'and Mincio there never were either official or informal relations, no mutual recognition, no extradition of deserters, or interchange of even the commonest international civilities ; unavoidable messages were, so to . speak, conveyed on either side at the point of the bayonet. The' position of the Italian kingdom, with an open frontier, with the most formidable strongholds in the heart of the country and in an enemy's hands, was precarious in the extreme. Although the possession ,of Lombardy was secured to Victor Emmanuel by the guarantee of France, the same could not be said of the centre and south of the peninsula, where the attitude of Austria, as the ally of the expelled dukes and of the Pope, was a standing' menace. The treaties consequent on the battle of Solferino were such, in fact, as to allow neither of the interested parties to acquiesce in them as a permanent arrangement. The game had not been fairly played out, and " a revenge" wa"s looked forward «to with lodging on either side. Moreover, the outcry cf the oppressed brethren which could be heard so easily across the Ticino in 1848 and 1859 was not to be stifled now, wijen it had only to make its way across the Po and the Mincio. It was hardly to be expected that Italy, raised to the rank of a united and free nation, should be indifferent to the fate of one of her " noblest provinces," the one which for fifteen centuries shed the greatest lustre on the national annals,. the last to fall under foreign domination, the firit to shake it t off, and again the last to bow to it during ' the common struggle for emancipation in 1849.

We have no wish to be harsh in our judgment of Austrian rule in Italy. There are men still living "who remember the day. when the Austrians were hailed as champions' and liberators on their re-entering the Lombard v cities in 1814 ; , for the Italians were heartily sick of the French, and, their national aspirations at the time aimed no higher than to the change ofone foreign master for another. Austria, it is but justice to assert, came back to her Lombard subjects, animated by benevolent intentions, as earnest in her attempts to conciliate their goodwill as in her endeavors to improve their condition. The experiment to win the stiff-necked neople was made again and again, and by no one with greater zeal than by the Archduke Maximilian — the same who has now undertaken a no less thankless task in his new empire beyond the Atlantic ; but the Italians spurned and her gifts. They " would none" of' her," and since the Carbonari plots of 1816-20 an antagonism sprang up between the people and their rulers which compelled the latter, in spite of themselves, to vexatious measured of repression far' more galling than. the most heinous deed 3of oppression. However vague the new-fangled doctrine of nationality may be elsewhere, it is impossible 10 deny that it applies in the case of Austria and Italy. There may be no fault on either side, 'or there may be faults more, probably on both sides ; but the incompatability of temper has been sufficiently established by centuries of implacable enmity ; , and whether it be by peace or war, we confess that we should rejoice to see Venice restored to Italy, and the Alps and the Isprizo rising as a perpetual barrier between the two irreconcilable races, whose intercourse has been since the days of Otho I. a perpetual infliction of misery upon one another. We should rejoice, ,not for the sake of Italy alone, but of Austria also, and of Europe, to wjiich we think, with Victor Emmanuel, that " Italy -independent arid secure in her territory would become a guarantee for peace and order." King Victor Emmanuel, while exhorting'his people to rely "on their own strength and the sacredness of their right," says nothing of the co-operation of the great power in the north of Germany ; but the Florence papers, it appears, dwell on the identity of their cause with that of Prussia, and insist that "the reconstruction of t,he Italian and the German natioualties requires either that the Austrian Monarchy should disappear,' expelled from Germany as from Italy, or that Prussia and Italy, with the principle of nationalities which they represent, should be crushed." It is to be heped that the King of Italy and his official advisers do not bind themselves to these sweeping theories. Germany is not Italy. She is no friend to Italy; and fifteen years have hardly elapsed since the most liberal Prussian members of the Frankfort National Assembly contended that , the " natural frontier of Germany was oii the Adige and Mincio," and rejected the suit of the deputies from Itoveredo and Trento, who pleaded their Italian ' nationality, and asked to be excused from, sitting jn a German Parliament. , The following is from the " G-rey Eiver Avgus" :—": — " Several statements have appeared in the Nelson and other papers'witlrregard to the engagement of counsel for the prisoners Burgess, Kelly, aud Levy. It has been said first that Mr James Smith, of Dunedin, had been engaged, and another report was io the effect that Mr Michie, of Victoria, was to defend the prisoners. Wo are in a position to state that Mr Smith declined to' acoept the brief, _and that Mr Richie could not, owing to his beiiig unable to givV the requisite notice of his intention to pass the examination necessary .to his admission as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of New Zealand. We understand that Burgess wrote to friends in Hbkitika, rer questing that LIOO should be raised for his defence, but that tho money could not be procured. The'properfcy taken from the prisoner* being a portion of their robberies is not available for the purpose of their defence, and it is said the prisoners have no other moneys that can bo devoted to such a purpose. It isi considered probable that the only <*oansel they. cm )wd in $w> iW'emu? wjl bp &# mtyfim to Him kytkgQmti -,