Among the most extraordinary phtenomena exhibited by Italy, the most
wonderful is recorded in our pages this week. It is proposed to establish an association to promote free trade; and the proposal is thrown out, not in anonymous placards, nor in the
shouts of rebels, but is deliberately made at the great scientific congress in Genoa, in the very view of authority : and what is more, it is favourably received I Certainly, free trade follows as the inevitable consequence of railways, just as much as free travelling does ; and free political institutions will eventually follow both. The ,proposition is logical enough; it is also, id truth, highly wise, prudent, and conservative. The wonder is to see the "go-ahead" progress which the Italians are making. But they are a great people. Art and science have survived every national humiliation ; and even political knowledge has flourished beneath the surface. Like the supernatural resident in the Castle of Otranto, political knowledge was really growing too big for its confined tenement ; which it would have burst and -shaken down, had not Pius the Ninth unlocked the iron doors of tyranny, allowed the fettered genius to feel its coming freedom, and so saved the structure.
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