THE OMINOUS STATE OF EUROPE. (From the "Times," March 6.)

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 559, 23 August 1851, Page 3

THE OMINOUS STATE OF EUROPE. (From the "Times," March 6.)

c concur with tho«c who view the present state of Europe with considerable apprehension, for although a temporary triumph has been obtained over the revolutionary principle, the slightest occasion suffices to prove how thin a crust has formed itself over ihe lately glowing lavn. The anniversary of the last Italian stinggle ii still celebrated by fires kind'ed by thousands of unseen hands along the crests of the Appeuincs, and even in the streets of Rome. In France the renewal of the proposal to recall the exiled Princes sufficed to elicit from the Terrorists of the Mountain a buefaced avowal of their creed of persecution and of blood. Jn Germany the Governments have escaped from the violence of their subjects only to live under their contempt, except where, as in Austria, the energy of a Minister oveileaps the bounds of prudence, and drives the most sedentary Power of Euiope into a strange career of enterpiise. But in all these cases the mainspring of the policy of the day is fear, and there is no confidence on piiher side to cast it out. Suchastite of things must be deeply regretted by every man who reflects upon it, not only because it is deeply injuiious at this time to the liherty and piogre=s of the world, but because it leaves no permanent foundation for the exercise of authority and maintenance of peace. It was from a clear anticipation and foreknowledge of these ulterior consequences that we expressed at the time our hearty opposition to the 1 evolutionary movements of 1848 They were a declaration ot war on the. part of a despnale and incapable party against ths institutions which had given 33 years of unequalled prosperity, of geueial peace, and of piogiesstve liberty to Europe. They were a sudden inroad of force and violence on the civilization of our age and the laws of society. Who did not see that force would ultimately repel force, but that the contest must be prolonged between these brutal agents until the demagogues^ who were themselves incapable of producing any rational form of government, sunk under the pressure of a power as unintelligent as their own, but more irresistahle ? The peiiod immediately preceding the Revolution of February was one of singular promise, Prussia had recently entered upon a constitutional fjrm of Government, which might in ordinary times have shaped itself by practice to the wants of the nation. Italy was animated by new hopes, too soon to be frustrated. All was sacrificed to the spirit of vio'ence and excess which bro*e forth upon the signal from P-iris; and w hen the convulsion began to subside it was found, ab h.id been foreseen with absolute certainty, that Europe had materia'ly lost in prosperity and in freedom. Many of the former friends of constitutional government were shaken in their faitli and driven by their toes to adopt precautions which their principles disavowed. Other minds, maddened by the reverses which they sustained, placed their iutuie hopes of success and schemes of ambition in a more reckless and extrem* pol cj to be practised hereafter. The means ne-cei>-anly employed to put down the wildest outbreaks of popular fury which the mode; n world had beheld — a few days' battle on the barncades of Paris, and a month of anarchy within the walls of Vienna— set at nought all rights but those of public safety- But as one extreme provokes another, a state of armed iepose in the very heart of society succeeded to the relations beioie subsisting between rulers and their subjects. Every Government of the Continent has been fiom that time "forth under arms. Every Sovereign has prepaied for personal defente; and the Courts of Eunpe ara like places fortified against the enemy in the field. Military armaments, haully equalled in the greatest wars, cover the most civilised countiies and exhaust the finances of the people Authority has assumed the arms and accepted the alliance of despotism since freedom descended to violence and appealed to the passions of a revolution. Between suoh extremes there is little to choose, for both are equally lemote from that staudai'l of liberty and order to which ihis country happily adheres. But the deepest disgrace rests in our opinion upon those, who fust degraded the liberal cause by the abuse they made of it, and then exposed it to a conflict in which it has been inevitably worsted ; while the danger now pressing most heivily upon the future is Chat, as nothing has been done since the restoration of tranquilli'y to regain the confidence and gratitude of the people, the struggle will one day be renewed, and the world is threatened by a long alternation of popular hceiibe and military oppression.