VILLAFRANCA.
NorwITHSTANDING the conflicting accounts which have been given respecting the cession of Villafranca by the Sardinian Govern- ment to Russia, and notwithstanding the probability that the purpose of the act has in some degree been misrepresented, it is not difficult to perceive that the cession may have important cense. quences. The first account which reached the public almost amounted to a denunciation of Sardinia, for having ceded to Rus- sia a substantial seaport and naval arsenal, less extensive indeed than Toulon but more secure from any hostile attempt. Thus supplied with an arsenal, capacious war buildings, barracks of im- mense capability, it is understood that the premises have been leased to Russia for a period of ninety-nine years, on the an- nual payment of two millions of rubles ; about, 350,0001. The Sardinian papers deny that the grant of the lease amounts to anything like the territorial or political cession described, and the Nord of Brussels, which may be supposed to give its explanations on behalf of Russia, says that the fact is without importance. A vast steam navigation company is being established at Odessa to trade with the Levant and the Mediterranean; the company needs an entrepOt for its merchandise and vessels, and it buys one. The object of the grant, therefore, is purely. commercial ; the lessee is not the Russian Government but a Russian company. It is said that Napoleon the Third has expressed no disapproval; Lord Derby's Government also having acquiesced. No authentic explanation has been given on the part of any one of these Go- vernments ; and in such a case we can scarcely expect that the official authorities will hold themselves free to make apologies or explanations in reply to newspaper articles or correspondents.
In order to estimate the value and tendency of the cession, it will perhaps be safest to take the statement of the affair on the showing of the Sardinian and Russian explanations. Let us suppose that Villafranca has been conceded not to the Emperor of Russia, but to a Russian steam navigation company, on a lease of ninety-nine years. If that be so, there will be no concession of dominion on the part of the Sardinian Government, which will still exercise sovereign control over Villafranea, and, what is more to the purpose for the present consideration, will still be bound by all treaties relating to the territories of Sardinia. For example, if we are not mistaken in our construction of public law, under the case supposed Sardinia would not be able to admit Russian vessels into the port of Villafranca without granting the same immunities, licences, and advantages to the vessels of any other counties holding treaties with " the most favoured nation clause." We assume that statesmen so able as those of King Victor Emmanuel have thoroughly considered all the political and treaty bearings on the subject, and that Villafranca has been con- ceded to the Russian company on terms strictly consistent with public law, with the treaty relations of Sardinia, and with her international obligations. During peace, however, Russian ships of war are not excluded
from the ports of any friendly power. At such a port as Villafranea they would not be less admissible than they would at Genoa or at Spezzia, and the port being preoccupied. by Russian merchants, Russian authorities, shipwrights, and other persons engaged in serving the marine, of course the Russian navy. would find -Villa- franca peculiarly convenient for all purposes of victualling, re- pairs, &c. Nor must we forget that in Russia, there is little dis- tinction between the acts of the Government and of a public Company,—a machinery through which the omnipresent Govern- ment so often operates. De facto, therefore, we may consider that through the commercial company. which has become the tenant of Villafranea' Russia has acquired a maritime port available for its armed Navy.
We do not at the moment recall the exact parallel of such a
cession during peace. Perhaps the nearest approach to it would be the acquisition, of our own "factories' in India, where, however, we had to contend with Oriental societies not acknowledging the public law of Europe ; or a still nearer approximation would be the commercial tenure which we obtained in Spanish Honduras, and which we afterwards en- larged into something practically though not nominally re- sembling a sovereignty, while we actually claimed and seized the island of Ruatan contiguous to the Western shore of Hon.. duras Bay, on the ground of our squatting occupancy under a Spanish title of the mahogany lands on the Eastern shore. We cannot find any strictly legal parallel for the cession of a sea-port by one Government to another, except in our own history ; where the precedents, we must confess, have no sound legal character. If we are deprived of the right of complaining, we are not released from apprehension by the character of this precedent. And the scene of the new acquisition is conspicuously different from the Gulf of Mexico or the -bay of Bengal. The Mediterranean is the great political basin of Europe, and it has been so since the history of the world began. It is surrounded by monuments of the greatest empires of antiquity,—by E. gypt, the Holy Land, Greece, and Rome; by traces of the empires of the middle ages, —of Charlemagne, and the Saracens ; it has been the scene of the greatest actions under the conquerors and agitators of all history from Xerxes down to Napoleon " the Great." Many of the greatest wars have turned upon Mediterranean affairs, from the time of Alexander to that of Nelson. And now during peace the Mediterranean, setting aside smaller states, is surrounded by the territories of Turkey, Greece, Austria, Naples, Sardinia, France, Spain, Egypt, and England. Russia stood excluded until now, when she is introduced for the first time under favour of the Sar- dinian flag. The Treaty of Paris, giving effect to the conquests of the Western powers in the Cimea, has shut her war ships out of the Euxine ; Sardinia has brought her into the Mediterranean. Should we look forward, as some continental prophets appear to be doing, to a time when the English fleet shall have declined, we may anticipate a great increase of the Russian, as we already witness a great increase of the French fleet; and we now have the first step of Russia, heretofore shut up in the closed seas of the Baltic and Euxine, out into the maritime waters of political Europe. It is a remarkable fact that one result of the war which began in the attempts to check Prince Menshikoffis efforts at extorting a Mediterranean port from Turkey, is this acquisition of a still more advanced Mediterranean port from Sardinia.
We must not, however, exaggerate the precise nature of the cession itself. The harbour of Villafranca is not of vast extent; it is not a Toulon, nor a Spezzia, nor a Plymouth, nor a Cherbourg ; it is not a Sebastopol, still less a Nieholaieff; it may be more than double the size of Ramsgate, but it is in some re- spects less conveniently situated than that port. Its waters are far deeper, and its land-locked position renders it easily defen- sible ; but it is distant from Russia. Completely surrounded by Italian, and we may say French territory, it has no rear. The rocky nature of the land behind renders it, like Aden, difficult to defend in that direction. It is insulated in the political sense, not in the sense of Gibraltar, which can defend itself against Spain and maintain access for English ships. It has in no re- spects the importance of Malta. Its so-called " arsenal" is said to consist of old buildings, nearly useless. The Sardinian Govern- ment has lately abandoned it as a naval port, as incommensurate with the aspirations and plans of the Piedmontese Government, whose own naval department is transferred to Spezzia, that na- tural Plymouth land-locked by an island breakwater. It would. not be difficult for a maritime power to shut up the port of Villafranca ; and, with aid on shore,—to cut it off entirely from any kind of supplies or reliefs.
Though these considerations diminish the naval importance of the arsenal and harbour, they scarcely diminish the importance of the moral conveyed by this concession. When, following the dubious lead of France, we engaged in the war with Russia, we were in great need, not so much of reinforcements, as of some kind of more general alliance to establish on our behalf the character of acting in defence of European independence and law; the acces- sion of Sardinia gave us that moral support. It is well under- stood that Sardinia furnished aid on the express understanding that the Question of Italy should be gravely entertained at the next conference of European Powers. We all remember how the masterly, fair, and substantial memorandum of D'Azeglio was treated when Cavour brought it before the conference ; -how one day was given to that great subject, and to four others, including the paltry grievance of the French Government against the Bel- gian journals. The subsequent remonstrances of the Sardinian Go- vernment at this perfunctory fulfilment of an obligation were treated with coldness. Sardinia had given her support in the Crimea, and when she presented thepromissory note for payment, she was told there were "no effects." It is to be believed that even since that period the statesmen of King Victor Eramanuel have looked to the Western Powers, and especially to constitu- tional England, for support against that Power whose uninter- rupted preparations on the frontier of Piedmont seem to point to no other design than the crushing of Sardinia. The sup- port has not been given. If we are now shocked at a Russian oc- cupation of Villafranea, professedly for commercial purposes, we may remember that our Minister at Paris, Lord Normanby, gave a direct sanction to the French occupation of Rome for anti-consti- tutional purposes. Sardinia aided us in obtaining the objects of the Russian war ; we have forgotten our obligation to Sardinia* and she, most reluctantly, it is to be presumed, has been the in- strument of our enemy for the attainment of his object ; and it is possible that the reason for that breach of consistency on the part of Sardinia may be found in a promise of support against Aus- tria from despotic Russia, when constitutional England has failed.
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