THE SAVIOURS OF ITALY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 48, 30 March 1894, Page 15

THE SAVIOURS OF ITALY.

In a letter to United Ireland Frank Hugh O'Donnell writes as follows : — la view of the sad and terrible events in Italy and Sicily, the people reduced to famine and despair by extortion and misgovernment, the desperate insurrections of the starving peasantry, the proclamation of martial law by the Piedmontese Tyranny, the wholeBale fusillades, the wholesale arrests, the prohibition of public meetingtj, the censorship of the Press, the accumulation of seventy thousand troops in Sicily alone— in view of all these significant and shameful indications of tbe state of public welfare in New Italy, I would be permitted to write a postscript to that correspondence with a German B»dical enemy of Irian Nationality which appeared in your columns some months ago. On that occasion, in defending O'Clery s masterly history of tht Neo-Italian Revolution, I had to mention the terrible atrocities committed by the Piedm.onr.cse invaders of the Two Sicilies— atrocities which the Masonic Press of these countries has systematically ignored, but which literally deluged and soaked with blood the nnbappy lands of the Sicilians and Neapolitans for a dozen years after the Giribaldian incursion of 1860 began the execntion of the long-prepared plot of Cavour and Palmerston. At tbe present moment, when the spurious " Unification ' ellected for the interests of Englißh policy in tbe Mediterranean by tbe Piedmontese and their MasoDic accomplices is sinking in ruin and dishonour, and wben even trebling tbe British fleet will not compensate for the consequences of that collapse, a brief notice of same of the infamies on on which New Italy was founded may be both usefnl and opportune. Circumstances led me. the other d»y, to tike up one of the most remarkable books of recent times, the " Memoirs of an ex-Minister the Autobiography of the Earl of Malmeßbury, E.G." The Earl of Malmesbury in question was Foreign Secretary in two or three Cabinets, and for some time leader of the House of Lords. la his autobiography, under the date of ÜBth of February, 1862— that is, when the Piedmontese and the Garibaldians were already for two years in possession of the two Sicilies, we rind the following notice of the proceedings of the invading army : — Lord Derby brought forward yesterday tho question of which he had given notice respecting a most infamous proclamation issu d by the military commandant of Lucera, near Naples, ordering every human being to withdraw in three days from a ceitain district or to be shot as brigands, and the woois, houses, and cattle to be destroyed. " Of course, Lord John Russe'.l and the Duke oE Argyle denied thejiutherticity of this Piedmontese scoundrelism. but it was per-

fectly authentic all the same, and a couple of weeks afterwards the whole facts were published. The Duke of Argyle, who thus stood up for the murderous work of the Piedmontese blhes of England, is the same coioneted renegade to the Gaelic blood who fatigues the columns of the lilies with abuse of Irish nsjtatn. Here is how the Earl of Malmesbury relates, under the date of the 20th March, 1862, tbe details as lo the Massacre Proclamation issued by the Piedmontese Government : — A letter from Italy states that the Proclamation of Lucera, issued by Fantoni, who according to Lord Russell, was alone responsible for it, was really issued by General del la Rovere when Minister of War, and tbat three colonels were dismissed summarily for not carrying out their orders with sufficient severity. B^antoni'a conduct was in pursuance of direct orders from Generals Govone and Chiabrera, commanding in the Neapolitan province?, win have since been decorated as Grand Officers of Saint Maurice. Lord Malmesbury adds in a footnote :-• The cruelties of the Piedmontese armies to the Neapolitan Royalists taken prisoners were unsurpassed in any civil war or by any tyrant." It is needless to go into further details. I have met scores of eye witnesses of the Piedmontese barbarities. I was allowed to read tbe reports which a distinguished officer representing one of the greatest European Powers sent to Ms Governmeot on the massacres and burnings and torturings during the Piedmontese reign of terror in Southern Italy. All that devil work was done with the knowledge, assistance, and approval of Lord Russell, Lord IMmerston, Mr W. E. Gladstone, and other eminent English Liberals and Goercionists. The blood-soaked edifice of Piedmonteae crime acd English complicity is now tottering to its base, and not even Earl Spencer's zeal for the British navy will prevent the coming of retribution.

The Daily Nervt says :— The most remarkable feature of yeaterday s debate in the House of Lords was the Duke of Devonshire's refusal to assist Lord Salisbury any further in the work of manghne the Local Government Bill. This piece of sturdy independence on the part of the Duke has saved the compound householder, and may perhaps be found to have saved the bill. We must in fairness add that it will increase the Duke of Devonshire's reputation for prudence, senße, and sagacity The Duke of Devonshire again interposed to prevent his Tory allies from depriving London of popularly elected guardians. We doubt whether the alliance will stand many more of these shocks. The Daily ChronitU saya :— " The country can hare some idea of what the House of Lordß is doirjg by the fact that the Duke cf Devonshire has found it necessary to disavow Lord Salisbury in open debate, to pronounce against tbe abolition of compounding, and to compel the Tory leader to abandon his whole crusade for the dis-enfranchisf-ment of the agricultural labour and the final ruin of the bill. We do not t&y that this sets the situation iv any way at rest. Bnt, at any rate, after the Duke of Devonshire's revolt— the revolt be it remembered of tbe strongest and least-inspired Whig in the country— against Lord Salisbury's wrecking the whole attempt to alter the incidence of locil rating and shovel it at one heave on to the shoulders of the poorest class of occupier, is dow utteilv broken down. The Duke of Devonshire has been compelled to humiliate Lord Salisbury m the face of the world in older to eccure this result. '•It will be remembered." wiiies a Westminster Gazette correspondent, "tbat not long ago the Bisnorj of St Aeaph's sods met with an accident when out drivin -, but it was not mentioned that two Jesuit priests happened to be o i the spot at the time. O c was a qualified medical man, and at once rendered assistance. Ou calling at the Palace tj make inquiry for the sufferers, it turned ou that the same Jesuit had attended the Bishop, wbea a young ckr^yunu on board ship, io a somewhat serious illness, and that thoupn they had become fast liiends at the timp they nad never met till a"»m the Jesuit medico had a second ume done a kindness to°tho prelate he had nursed back to life in bygone days." Tbe Pope's Encyclical on Biblical Btudies has creaed imtu sensation among the scholars of all European nations. It has iormed the subject of ducusiion, comment aud laudation in reviews in Germany and England— the greater number of which are Protestant Lutheran. Besides, several Cathoiic faculties of France and Belgium have seat to the Pope addresses expressive of their full adhesion to the doctrines unfolded in tbat valuable Encyclical, wh'ch thus puts an end to the keen and impassioned discussios upon certain interpretations of the Sacred Scriptures, which divided the learned in the Catholic world.