the mistress of Venetia, and if its provisions had been carried out would have made her the dominant power in the peninsula. Imperious considerations of French. interests might be truly alleged to justify this unexpected peace, but it is not surprising that it should have sent a thrill of exasperation through the Italian people. The claim of the Emperor on the gratitude of the Italians was still further weakened when he demanded Nice and Savoy as a payment for his services, and his attempt to support two great but essentially incompatible interests by maintaining with French bayonets the dominion of the Pope at Rome, while he acquiesced, though slowly and reluctantly, in the annexation of the other portions of Italy to the new kingdom, and in the abandonment of his favourite. scheme of an Italian federation, had the very natural effect of exciting anger and distrust on both sides. England, on the other hand, had but one voice, and her simple policy of leaving Italy, without any foreign intervention, to construct her own Government fully met the Italian desires.

History has certainly not said her last word about Napoleon III., a sovereign who has of late years been as extravagantly depreciated as he was once extravagantly extolled. More justice will one day be done to his manifest and earnest attempts, under circumstances of extreme difficulty, to reconcile a great and real Catholic interest, which was very dear to a large section of his subjects, with his earnest desire to free Italy from foreign control. The obstacles he had to encounter were enormous: the stubborn resistance of the Papal Court to the reforms and compromises he recommended; the furious indignation of French Catholic opinion at his acquiescence in the annexation of Romagna, Umbria, and the Marches; the irresistible

torrent of Italian opinion impelling Italian policy in the direction of unity. The great Continental countries disapproved of his policy as unduly liberal, while, on opposite grounds, English disapprobation greatly increased his difficulties. He desired manifestly and sincerely to withdraw his troops from Rome, if he could do so without destroying the temporal power. At one moment he had almost attained his end, and the evacuation was actually ordered, when Garibaldi's invasion of Sicily threw the South of Italy into a flame, and changed the whole aspect of affairs. Projects for establishing a neutral zone under European guarantee; for garrisoning Rome with Neapolitan troops; for reorganising the Papal army on such a scale that it might be sufficient to secure the independence of Rome, were constantly passing through his mind. At one time he proposed a congress to deal with the question. another he authorised and inspired a pamphlet maintaining that the city of Rome alone, without any other territory, would be sufficient to secure the independence of the Pope. At another he ordered inquiries to be made into the government of the city of London by the Lord Mayor and Corporation, under the strange notion that this might furnish some clue for a double Government at Rome. The secret despatches of his minister, which have now been published, furnish a curious and vivid picture of the extreme difficulties of his task, but also, I think, of the sincerity with which, amid many hesitations and perplexities, he endeavoured to accomplish it.1

At

History will also pronounce upon the policy of England during this crisis, and, if I am not mistaken, it will be less eulogistic than contemporary English opin

1 Thouvenel, Le Secret de l'Empereur.

ion. It will scarcely, I think, approve of that strange and famous despatch in which Lord John Russell justified the Piedmontese invasion of Naples, and it may well pronounce the Roman policy of England to have been an unworthy one, though it was both popular and successful. This question was pre-eminently one on which a great and cosmopolitan Catholic interest. had to be weighed against a question of nationality. and in such a dispute the intervention of a Protestant Power seems to me to have been wholly unjustifiable. The bitter resentment it excited among the Irish Catholics was, in my opinion, not without foundation.

Whether the unity of Italy has been to the Italian people the blessing that we once believed may also be greatly doubted. The political movements and combinations that make most noise in the world, and excite the largest measure of enthusiasm, are often not those which affect most deeply or most beneficially the real happiness of men. The elements of true happiness are to be found in humbler spheres, and are to be estimated by other tests. Italy has had many good fortunes, but the peace which left her with the acquisition of Lombardy, and the certainty before her of another great war for the acquisition of Venetia, was one of the chief disasters in her history. Proposals, it is true, were then circulated, with some authority, for the sale of Venetia by Austria to Italy, and if such a sale had been effected the whole course of recent European history might have been changed. Italy might have been saved from financial ruin, and the financial position of Austria would have been enormously improved. It would have been possible for Austria to have carried out both more promptly and more efficiently her transformation into a really constitutional empire; and as Italy would have had no motive for joining with her

enemies, the War of 1866 might either have been averted, or have ended differently.

But a false point of honour, in which the Austrian Emperor undoubtedly represented the prevalent feeling of his subjects, prevented such a cession, and opened a new chapter of events almost equally disastrous to Austria and to Italy. In the terrible years of preparation for a great war the debt of Italy rose rapidly to unmanageable dimensions, and the dangers, the responsibilities, the gigantic army and navy of a great Power, soon created for her a burden she was wholly unable to bear. Most of the Italian States, before the war of independence began, were among the most. lightly taxed in Europe, but no other European country, in proportion to its means, is now so heavily taxed as Italy. Those who have observed the crushing weight with which this excessive taxation falls, not only on the upper and middle classes of the Italian people, but also on the food and industry of the very poor, the grinding poverty it has produced, and the imminent danger of national bankruptcy that hangs over Italy, may well doubt whether her unity has not been too dearly purchased, and whether Napoleon's scheme of an Italian federation might not, after all, have proved the wiser. A very competent writer has computed that, in the years of perfect peace between 1871 and 1893, the taxation of Italy has increased more than 30 per cent.; that the national debt has been increased in twenty-three years of peace by about four milliards of francs, or 160 millions of pounds; and that the interest of this debt, without counting the communal debts or the floating debt, absorbs one-third of the whole revenue.'

See Geffcken's article on the War Chests of Europe,' Nineteenth Century, August 1894.

It has been truly claimed, however, for Italy that she represents the triumph of the doctrine of nationalities in its best form. Nowhere else do so many elements of nationality concur-language, religion, a clearly defined geographical unity, a common literature, and common sentiments. In German unity genuine sympathy bore a great part, but in some portions of the Empire force alone carried out the policy. In some quarters race is represented as the most essential element of nationality, and the doctrine of nationality has blended closely with a doctrine of races which seems destined to be a great disturbing influence in the affairs of the world.'

The unity of the Latin race, to be established partly by absorptions, and partly by alliances in which France should hold the ruling place, was a favourite French. doctrine in the time of Napoleon III., though it has now greatly faded, owing to the profound antipathies that divide France and Italy. Michel Chevalier, among others, powerfully advocated it; it was given as one of the chief reasons for the unfortunate expedition to Mexico; it gave colour to French aspirations to dominion both in Belgium and French Switzerland; and a school of writers arose who represented the establishment of an equilibrium between the great races as the true balance of power, the future basis of international politics. The unity of the Teutonic race has had corresponding adherents in Germany, and their eyes have been greedily cast, not only towards Austria and towards Alsace, but also towards Holland, towards the German provinces of Belgium, and towards the Baltic provinces. The Panslavist movement is the latest, and perhaps the most dangerous, on the stage, and it

1See Revue de Droit International, iii. 458-63.