EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 336, 19 January 1856, Page 5

EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE.

ITALY. If we are to believe the Paris correspondent of the Times, the proposal »i' raising Prince Murac, cousin of ilie Emperor of France, to the throne of Naples, is seriously entertained by sorue parties j a pamphlet suggesting Jjis appointment for a*period of twenty years, as a prelude to an Italian republic, being in extensive circulation.

The tyranny of the Neapolitan Government, by means of the police, is again becoming insupportable. The particulars oi'tbecase given last week are given more in detail. From them it appears that Mr. Fagan, first Attach§ of the British Legation at Naples, was instructed by his Minister to request from Prince Satriano, the superintendent of iheatree, a benefit at the Theatre del Fondo /or Siguoria Paressa, an English lady. He accordingly, one evening, visited the Priuce in his box at the theatre. On seeing Mr. Fagan enter —

•'The Minister of Police, who was opposite, began to make signs of the greatest anger aud the most menacing gesticulations iv that direcliou, to the great astonishment of Prince Satriano, why vvjis unabie to divine the reason of it. Ou the following d;»y, the director sent for Signor Attauasio, one of the employes of the Snperinteurienza^awi, heaping the lowest inhuiis on Prince Satviano for having received such a man as Signor Fagan, who was stigmatised as a■' bhbanle assassino* and an enemy of the lying, ordered him to inform the Prince that he prohibited him fromeveragain receiving Air. Fagan in his his."

The correspondent of the " Post' 1 relates several other itisiuuees :—

" The Prince Palliano Colonna's salons at Capu di Monte are thrown open once a week to all the ilite ot the Neapolilau beau m&nde^as well as to foreigners of dUunctiuu.' A few evenings ago the entrance of the palace was invaded by the police, who insisted ou taking down the names..of all the g-uests as they left their carriages. The porter, not understanding the ineauiiigof the proceeditipT) retu*>n.->trated, and t a row ensued, which reached the rooms above, alarming' the company. The Duke o! Sangro, who hnd. just been obliged to si^n his name, explained the story. The panic was such that all the company, headed hy the Minister oi War, Prince Thchitella, and iiiciudinsj foreigners, instantly left the huuse, s« that at eleven o'ch ck there was jiothlny: to be ■ seen but lights and

un\l(in«f ices.'' v *' On a late occasion the Dnke of Birona, a well-known person in Naples, was reported by a spy. who visited.his house, as having spoken against the-severities of the police, whereupon bis doorway was watclied by police agentsf aad.

himself carefully" looked after. The Duke waned upon the King-, and complained of these proceedings, stating that he had always been attached to the royal cause. His Majesty implied that that might be, but mnv he was imbued with the spirit of opposition to the Government. *' Yesterday, the persons who on a late occasion, nccompa tied a deceased deputy to the grave were imprisoned for so doing. In fact, I am tired of ■ narrating: the injustice which takes place every day in this unhappy city. The king seems to be bent on bringing himself into trouble fay offending all classes. " The King and Government, as you are aware, are thoroughly Russian, and the Swiss soldiers are schooled to hate France and England. Every one is waiting to see what the French and English Governments will do about the insults lately offered to both countries.*' Austria has for the last two years been building extensive arsenals and fortifications in Lombardy, at Verona, Venice, Pescheita and Mantua :— ** At Verona, a completely new fort, containing an arsenal, foundry, and mast extensive stores, is nearly finished, and there is not an eminence along the lines of the Adige and the Mincio that has not had aa earthwork thrown up upuu it, A.t the same time millions have been expended in fortifying and constructing docks ai Pola, with the view, it is said, of retnoviu^ tha wbole dockyard establishment from Venice ; and, as a naval officer describes it who visited it the other day, * it will soon become another Sevastopol."

The " ludepeiidance"is informed by its Turin correspondent that the Neapolitan government has given Prince Cerini, its envoy at the Court of London, unlimited 3ea*e of absence. The agitation at Naples is immense, an 1 the rigour ~of'the police-without example.— Guardian.

THE MINISTRY, THE COUNTRY, AXD THE WAR (From the Times, September 20 ) In the ancient times «.<> be sorrowful in-a period of universal jm\ or joyful at 'a time of universal sorrow, was in iiseif mi offence very likely ip.be risked \v immediate ami condign punishment. We are far from cmtendine for the application of such a maxim to modern time, but a certain school of modern statesmen have undoubtedly something to learn from it. To be opposed to the wishes and feelings of a" whole community is not in itself an offencenay, it may actuaiiy be a merit ; but it is one of those meritorious actions which any one who aspires to administer the affjirs 01 a free people will da wisely to coimnir as seldom as possible. Eugiish Statesmen must uhinuteiy acquire and retain power with and through the goodwill of tho.-e they govern. To their suceess^popularity is an indispensable condition, and to set at defiance public opinion deliberately and universally expressed is iiuieiess than committing an-ael of political suicide. We confess that we are glad it should be so, because it seems to us only fair that men who have gone out of their way to identify themselves with the cause of our'enmies to depreciate our motives, to extenuate our successes and exaggerate' our reverses, should, for the eucitiragement they have given to. our foes and the despondency they "have sought to infuse into us, pay some heavier penally than that of being demonstrated hv events to be totally and tmeri.v in the wrong. By coinpauug the position we now hold with that which we occupied while the Vienna Conferences were sitting, we have some kind of rough measure of the amount of advantage we should have reaped by listen ing to the Counsels of Mr. Gladstone, -Sir James Graham, and their followers. Not merely should we have missed a great :id vantage, but we should have insured a great disgrace. Not only should we have been foiled in our own objects, but we should have opt-J.ed to the Ksuperor of Russia, th« only jjos»ii»iti escape from a great and overwhelming disaster, i'-.-ace at Vienna was, as it now appeal's", the only thing that could hr,ve "aved Sebastopol ■ and peace at Vienna was strenuously urged upon us by several of the uu-.u who jdan'ned and sent out the exhibition. We do not think full justice has evtr been done to the trrnss inconsistency of this conduct. Premature pr«».»Oi..ils for peace cutue vviili a bad <j;ucc; from me.i who held office during the first year of war. ■who left it on grounds which wee not in the slightest degree pacific, and who only found out in opposition that it was criminal to carry out

the plans they had matured in administration. Bat it was still worse to plan the expedition to Sjhastopol, to commit our fleet ami army to this hardy and daring enterprise, to involve ns in a duel"«f the most formal character with tho Emperor of Russia, to place us in a chain clos from which there was no retreat without ruinous dishonour, cxc ;pt by complete victory or absolute failure, and then to be lite first, to seek to break up the lists and terminate the combat while it was yet indecisive. To have been (ideated before Sebastopol, to hare reembarked wiih loss, or even to have been compelled to lay down our arm?, were alternatives on which a brave and resolute nation might look without shrinking, because they are incident to the fortune of war, to whose arbitrament we had committed ourselves; but to commence an enterprise and abandon it when half accomplished, to despond of our own success at the verj moment when our own success was within our grasp, to allow the Emperor of Russia to boast to all the woild that he had thwarted the combined exertions of France and England, would have been an inexpiable disgrace upon our arms, an irretrievable discredit to our national chameter, the possibility of which we cannot even now contemplate without a feeling of impatience and irritation. If Mr. Gladstone and Sir James Graham meant only to carry on the war till Russia could be induced to offer colourable terms of peace, they ought above all things to have avoided the committing us to an enterprise which required either a'successful termination or concessions on the part of our enemies so decided as to leave no doubt of the opinion which he entertained of the probable termination of the conflict. We have a right therefore to accuse this class of our statesmen of having most unwisely, upon their own declared principles, planned this enterprise, of having most feebly and pusillanimously sought to abandon it when more than half complete, and of having been shown by the event to be as shallow in their calculation as they were careless of our national honour and tamely subservient to our enemies. They resent the title of Pbilo Russiaus, and maintain that the same injustice is done to them as was experienced by the Whigs during the late war; but now that Sevastopol is taken, let us ask whose ga :;e, except that -of Russia, were they playing? What had we to gain by acceding to the terms of Russia at Vienna? Absolutely nothing; while to Russia such a termination «>f the contest was, as events have shown, everything. Of course. Lord John Russell is even more censura-ble,-having been, in the commencement of the war, more prominent and more violent, and in the r.e^otiations ent -listed, above other men, with the honour and fortunes of the country ; the first of which he did all in his power to hetrav, ana second to destroy. The flames of Sebastopol have cast a liirlit on the character and capacity of these statesmen which will long- outlive the beacon from which it is radiated.

But, while awarding; a just amount of censure to those who have striven in the Senate and in the Council to deprive us of the )<ist reward of ah our labours and .ill our sacrifices, we ought never to forget the debt of gratitude we owe, not merely to the heads that dsvised and the hands that executed this great and glorious enterprise, but to the stout hearts that have persevered in and carried out this undertaking, in spite of all the opposition that could he raised against them in Parliament by renegade col-l"a-j;ues, in spite of every species of discouragement, and in spite of a resistance the protracted oVsi.-uicy of which forms an epoch in the art ot war, and will probably revolutionize the whole system of the aitack'an.l defence of fortified places. 'j\> Lord P.ilmerstun are due the earnest acknowlcdqrmpnts of every true lover of his country for the unshaken firmness with which under circumstances of the utmost difficulty he adhered to the one end and aim of his* administration—the maintenance of the ancient honour and renown oi' tins country, the humiliation of the pride of Russia, and the consolidation of the French alliance. Of those who entered with him into the war, and who planned with him the expedition to the Crimea, how few remained at his side when that expedition terminated. Lord Aberdeen and the Duke of Newcastle yielded to the weight of popular indignation caused by the Cnmesui disasters of "last winter. .Mr. Gladstone, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Herbert retired because th<;v would not submit to a Committee of Inquiry, and Lord John Ru«sdl because he had become a convert to Austrian principles, and by iudisereet revelations

in negotiation and uncaudid references in debate Imd jimly forfeited the confidence of the House tit' Commons. In Jill ihesc seceders with the single and honorable exception of th>* Duke of Newcastle, Lord Falmerston has found covert or open enemies. He lias had to construct and re-construct, to re-establish and vein force his Ministry, (i)i'i has watched over its existence fiom day to day in the House of Commons, with an utuiriuir vigilance and assiduity which few of youngest statesmen would have found them.;*. selves capable id" imitating. Under the&o trying-' circumstances he lias never swerved from his end. or suflVred himself to be led aside Irom its 'pursuit; and he is now deservedly rewarded, not only by a sidcudi<i success—not only by the triumphant termination of a quarter of a century spent in diplomatic conflicts with Russia—but by the gratitude of his countrymen, who view in him the champion of their interests and the preserver of llieir honour, when meaner hands strove to stain and tarnish it Nor ought we to forget, when acquitting this debt of gratitude, the services of the Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord Clarendon, and Sir William Molesworth, who have adhered to the national cause with the same firmness and constancy, and are therefore worthy of all honour in this the moment of triumph.. We have just passtd through an ordi-al' which has tried by a searching test the metal of which our statesmen are made, and we should be neglecting the le.-.sons of experience if we did not carefully and minutely record the result for future use. But, while we find softnuch to blame and so little to praise among: the class of professional statesmen, it is si range that out of that charmed circle every one is deserving of the like commendation with the Premier. In the nation at lanre thore has been no wavering or flinching, no difficulties and disasters, no underestimate of resources with which to meet them. The minister has represented the people faithfully, and in thai has been his strength. We are victorious because we have found a magnanimous leader, but also because as a nation we also have shown our full share of magnanimity.