THE BELGIAN PRESS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 408, 1 October 1856, Page 4

THE BELGIAN PRESS.

(From the Guardian.) Count Walewski's attack on the Belgian press at the Paris Conferences has been answerediby a spirited scene in- the Representative Chamber at Brussels. The .emphatic " Never!" of M. Vilain Quatorze (he had been asked whether he would consent to any change of the constitution) .finds a ready echo here. And the material fact transpires that no warning or complaint had been previously made to the Belgian Government by the French. There is no doubt that in bringing forward the subject and thrusting it into the protocol Count Walewski took an unfair and improper advantage of the circumstances of his position—of the acendancy of France, the presence of Austria aud Prussia, the natural anxiety of Lord Clarendon to avoid dissension; none that in signing the protocol, as framed, Lord Clarendon made a mistake for which he has suffered much in public opinion at home. But the question whether: the

French Government has real cause of complaint is, with deference to Mr. Gladstone, a question of fact, and should be so treated. And, valuing as much as any one the liberty of thought "and expression, we are unable to uphold the doctrine, fortified as it may be by the authority of text-writers, that systematic attempts a to stir up. sedition and. provoke assassination in a neighbouring country ar. to be placed on the same footing with a mere civil injury—the refusal to pay a debt or fdeliver a sack of potatoes —for which sufficient redress may be had in the court of law. Common sense, which is thefoundation (of public law, revolts against such a technical and arbitrary limitation of the right of self defence inherent in every independent State; for it is just as possible to "levy •war" with pen as with sword, and a series of incendiary pamphlets thrown across the frontier may be more dangerous than a legion of armed sympathisers. Lawyers may give, as they do, to such proceedings and to a slanderous speech [against an attorney or a cookmaid the common name of libel; but ihe things are really distinct; to give damages for the one is a matter of civil jurisdiction^ but to repress the other appears rather to be one of those duties of domestic police "W&ch every civilised nation owes to its surrouuding neighbours, the neglect of whichjis a legitimate subject of remonstrance and cause of war. Sic utcre tuo lit alienum ne ladas is the fair answer, in such a case, to a plea of the liberty of the press : keep yourselves to yourselves ; your domestic institutions are no business of ours,but we have the right of self-defence, and shall enforce it, if other means fail. The question, we repeat, in the case of Belgium,is*wliether, supposing the complaint well founded, other means have failed ? There are obliging people who will never let your gratitude slumber, and who if they do you a good turn overnight are sure to ask you for another in the morning. We have one of these delicate and disinterested friends in our late ally, Sardinia. Her case against Austria, and her claims on the West, have been published in two memorials; the .one, proposing the erection of the Legations into a sort of Italian Hospodariate, nomi. nally dependent on the Pope, was circulated before the famous discussion at the Paris Conferences ; the other presented to France and England after that discussion, insists on the refusal of Austria to take "part in it, and paints forcibly the injury done to Sardinia by the Austrian occupation of Italy—the continual menace of the great Austrian army, and the ferment and agitation which it occasions. There is truth in this—there is also some coolness in it, considering who 'was the aggressor in, the last Lombard war, and (we may add), who is pretty sure to take the offensive in the nest. For the present, considering that peace is everybody's policy just now, and that the two powers appealed to are as little disposed to abetf the smaller and more ambitious State in attacking its neighbour as to allow an Austrian army to overrun Piedmont, there is little immediate risk of any resort to more dangerous weapons than pen and ink. Sardinia has registered her claims, urged her sacrifices, made another opportunity of standing forward as-the champion of Italy. She can wait.