to themselves, to arrange their own affairs, and this could probably be done with greater safety now than at any previous time. Misfortune and suffering have borne their fruits, and read their painful but wholesome lessons to the impetuous, but, in many respects, highly gifted inhabitants of the Italian peninsula. There is reason to believe that they have profited by the past, and would be less likely than before to run into excesses and ruin themselves by exaggeration. At any rate, the chance should be afforded them of improving their condition. One thing that there are strong grounds to believe certain is, that the execrable doctrines of Mazzini and his gang are now very little in favour in Italy. The hope of amelioration by more worthy means has been held out to the Italians, and they have gladly clung to it. If deprived of it, the fanatic sect that has so greatly damaged their cause would certainly acquire fresh vigour and proselytes. But it must be the care of Europe that this come not to pass. The greater difficulty surmounted, she can hardly be embarrassed by the lesser. Active interference would be interdicted to her, but good counsels should not be wanting, and they would surely be readily listened to, when proceeding from powers who had rendered to the Italians the service, priceless in their eyes, of delivering them from the Austrian yoke. As to the Lombardo-Venetians, their case is different, and they must take patience, although they need not abandon hope. There is little sympathy in Europe with Austria and her harsh ungenial government; but her Italian provinces, secured to her by treaties, can be wrested from her only by war, and that is a price which we positively know that Europe is not disposed to pay, even to obtain the complete emancipation of Italy from foreign domination. If Austria be wise, she will, whilst desisting from encroachment abroad, seek in good earnest to conciliate at home. Otherwise she may rest assured that her fair provinces south of the Alps will ultimately, and perhaps at no very distant day, slip from her grasp

for ever.

To the just, reasonable, and it is

believed practicable arrangement of the great existing difficulty, of which I have briefly indicated the outline, there is now some reason to hope that Count Cavour is disposed to agree. Since his return from Paris, where the main object of his visit is supposed to have been to obtain the admission of Piedmont into the Congress on the same footing as the great powers, innumerable contradictory inferences have been drawn from his words, his manner, even from his looks. One day he was reported gloomy, the next gay, the third again downcast; and in accordance with these changes, probably often imaginary, in his demeanour and aspect, have been the fluctuations in the hopes of the party that considers Italy's malady past assistance from diplomatic medicine, and curable only by trenchant steel. Those hopes are now apparently somewhat less sanguine than they were, and there are also other reasons for thinking that peace, which has been so greatly imperilled, may possibly yet be preserved. We must not, however, delude ourselves. Any day may witness the downfall of such hopes by the act of Austria, who evidently believes that there is a treacherous plan on foot to exhaust her finances by delay. It is well known that her treasury is in no flourishing condition; the expenses of the vast army she now has on foot are prodigious; she chafes like an impatient charger, and fears to see the sinews of war exhausted before war has commenced. At this date, in Turin, some think that Austria will declare war-partly out of impatience at suspense, partly out of suspicion that she is being made a dupe; also, perhaps, with the idea of striking a heavy blow against Piedmont before France can come to the rescue. It is true, that before my ink is dry, the telegraph may bring intelligence that affairs have taken a more pacific turn. But on that we dare not reckon. Perplexity and doubt are in every mind, and we can but await, with such patience as we may, the events that Providence has in store. The disarming, or replacing of armies on the peace footing, stipulated by Austria as the condition on which she will consent to the Con

Ir must be apparent even to the most superficial observer that the present crisis is a very serious one, quite unlike any which has occurred within the memory of the present generation. Of party contests we have seen not a few. We have witnessed the displacement of many Cabinets. We have had repeated dissolutions of Parliament in order that the constituencies at large might pronounce an opinion upon questions of great public interest, or decide between conflicting schemes for the advancement of commerce and of industry. But the present dissolution is altogether of another character, and proceeds from a much graver and a weightier cause. Parliament has not been dissolved because the Bill introduced by her Majesty's Ministers for the improvement of the representation of the people has been rejected by the House of Commons. In point of fact there has been no such rejection. The majority of the House, prompted thereto by Lords John Russell and Palmerston, leaders of sections who, upon hardly any other point, could be expected to agree, declined to take the direct issue, and to record their votes broadly against the second reading of the Bill. They took the undignified and unworthy course of passing certain resolutions which, without rejecting the bill, should have the effect of defeating the Ministry-a course which we cannot designate as otherwise than factious. We have no wish to use harsh language or to utter angry words. The deed being done, acerbity is out of place, and vituperation is an implement which we shall not deign to employ. But nevertheless the truth must be spoken, in order that we may be fully aware of the gravity of the present difficulty and the perils which appear to be imminent. If the conduct of the majority of the late House of Commons was not factious, but, on the contrary, constitutional and patriotic, then we shall be writing in vain. If that premiss be granted, it would be difficult, nay impossible, to justify the

Ministry for having advised her Majesty to take so strong a step as that of dissolving Parliament. It is with the object of suppressing faction in the future that this appeal to the constituencies has been made.

We shall endeavour to make ourselves thoroughly understood, because it is very important that no false cry should be raised, no mendacious watchword issued on the present occasion. The electors of the three kingdoms are now called on to exercise their political rights, by returning to the new Parliament representatives who shall generally express or at least embody their opinions. Many considerations, of course, enter into the choice of members; but whenever there is a dissolution, there must be one consideration of more weight than any other, of which the electors never should lose sight. This is an APPEAL TO THE COUNTRY; and an appeal implies either a foregoing erroneous judgment, or a positively committed wrong. The deliberate rejection by the House of Commons of an important measure brought forward by the Government, would be a judgment against which the latter no doubt might appeal, in conformity with the principles of the constitution. But this is always, and most justly, regarded as an exceptional and extraordinary remedy, to be adopted only in extreme cases, and on great emergencies. The decision of the House of Commons, when it is distinct and unequivocal with regard to any measure which has been submitted for its consideration, is entitled to the utmost respect at the hands of the Ministers of the Crown. They may, with her Majesty's sanction, use, but they are equally bound to abstain from abusing, the Royal prerogative. They must not lightly throw the country into confusion; they should not do so from any motive which may be construed into a party consideration. We do not say that this rule has been universally observed and never violated. We could point to more

than one dubious or equivocal precedent; but these should serve rather as warnings against, than arguments for the repetition of a step which is at once unconstitutional and pernicious. Those who say-and many are asserting it now, both in the public prints and on the hustingsthat the Ministry have appealed to the constituencies in order to obtain a general expression of opinion on the merits of the Reform Bill which they introduced, but which is now abandoned, are substituting a false issue for the new one, and attempting to conceal from the electors and the public at large, the actual question before them. Neither the principle nor the details of the Reform Bill are now under discussion. The late House of Commons might have discussed both the one and the other, and were indeed invited to do so; but the majority of the members, by adopting the resolutions moved as an amendment by Lord John Russell, absolutely destroyed the Bill, without proceeding to reject it. The long debate of seven nights upon the amendment, was productive indeed of much eloquence, but was also rambling in the extreme. Almost every member who spoke, instead of confining himself to the amendment, took up the Bill and criticised its details according to his peculiar fancy or tenets, objecting to one part of it, commending another, and invariably tendering some suggestions of his own, quite forgetting, or affecting to forget, that these were matters which ought to have been discussed in Committee, certainly not dealt with in so desultory and miscellaneous a manner before the principle of the Bill was either affirmed or rejected. Therefore all that has been gained from the debate, is a vast, conflicting, and heterogeneous mass of opinions upon the subject of reform, which no political architect, however great his skill or admirable his ingenuity, could arrange in a convenient shape. If the Ministerial Bill was, as Lord John Russell described it, a noxious and a dangerous measure, why was it not met, with a direct negative? Had it been so rejected, there was an end of it. The Bill would have passed legiti

VOL. LXXXV.—NO. DXXIII,

mately into the limbo of abortive legislation, and the Ministry would probably have resigned. The answer is, that Lord John Russell knew perfectly well that he could not reckon on a majority of the House, had a division been taken, aye or no, on the second reading. His own immediate followers would have voted with him, and against the Bill; but the more wary Palmerston, and those who recognised him as their chief, would not have done so; and a great many liberal members, who may be described as unattached, and who have for years maintained their political credit by advocating Parliamentary Reform, durst not have rejected the Bill before its details had been examined in committee. Therefore the only means of defeating the Bill, without absolutely rejecting it, lay in the proposal of an amendment so cunningly devised as to invite the concurrence of almost every member of the Opposition.

The amendment was a trap; and in that trap the Opposition, not the Ministry, have been caught. They have fallen into the pit which the diminutive Nimrod of the Whigs designed for the reception of a nobler game. We must needs say that we had looked for a better, a higher, and a more honourable course of action from the British House of Commons. When Lord Derby undertook, with much reluctance, which was only overcome by considerations of his duty to his Sovereign, the onerous task of forming a ministry, he could not reckon on the cordial support of a majority of the House of Commons. He possessed, however, the entire confidence of the largest compact body in that house-the only one indeed which could, at that time, discharge the necessary functions of Government. The Liberal Party (we adopt, for the nonce, their self-made generic name, without acknowledging its propriety), was broken up into sections. There was no union among Radicals. The Whigs were divided, and ranged themselves separately beneath the banners of two leaders who never could act in unison; and more than one lieutenant seemed desirous to try conclusions with his captain. Then there were the Pcelites,

2 T