THE PRESS AND THE MONTPENSIER MARRIAGE.

We mentioned, on Saturday, that there was a paper in the Morning Chronicle of that day, constituting a kind of war-cry against the Montpen- sier marriage. A remarkable imitation of that paper has since appeared; and, to show the parallelism, we extract some passages from the original- " It would be premature," says the Chronicle, " to speculate upon the objects or the probable result of a Carhst insurrection. The inducement to it is certainly strong enough. Anything—even the prospect of Don Carlos—to save them from this menaced alliance would no doubt he popular with the great bulk of the Spanish nation. The domination of the exiled Pretender would at least be

national. • • • • •

" What a career do not the circumstances of the time open to this adventurous soldier! [Narvaez.] Not in the eyes of Spain alone, but of every disinterested Power of Europe, may he more than retrieve the past. That which has hitherto hung like a millstone about his neck has been his subserviency to Christina and Louts Philippe, and his having consented to be the more tool in their hands for carrying into effect their intrigues and anti-Spanish schemes of personal and poli- tical ambition. Let him now take up the cause of Spanish independence—let him at once, and frankly, identify himself with the national party in Spain, that is, with the whole people—and he may secure to himself the glory and the advan- tage of unmasking the intrigues, baffling the duplicity, and defeating the plot- , tinge, of the French and Spanish Courts against the political independence of his country. The resources of negotiation are exhausted. Every generous spirit, will sympathize with a prompt appeal to the only arbitrage that now seems left. "And what is England to do in this crisis? Not, certainly, to interpose with a fleet or an army—not to subsidize an insurrection—not to countermine intrigue • with its own dishonourable implements. As yet, we have as little the right to do the one as the disposition to do the other. But we have the right and the power to insist that Spam shall decide this question for herself. • • " The success of this marriage scheme would be an event to be deplored by the whole Liberal party of France. They avow it. • • * They cannot discover the advantage that is to result from a rupture of the good understanding that has now sub- . sisted for some years between England and France. • • • Nor is this national resentment [in England] of a character to be appeased by skilful ap- , peals to those vulgar considerations which alone are presumed to have weight with a nation of shopkeepers. Were our Parliament assembled tomorrow, a promise of a treaty of commerce would have as little influence upon our Free-trade friends as unhappily would the now broken spell of the entente cordiale upon even the par- tisans of the foreign policy of the late Government. Let that party [the Liberal party in France] put forth its influence while there is yet time; let it, in con- junction with this country, assist in every legitimate way the efforts of the Spanish people; and there is the best reason to hope that the marriage may yet be pre- vented, even without bloodshed."

This example was followed by the Times, in a very similar paper, on Wednesday; from which we extract the passages subjoined- " It is time now to tarn to the best means yet accessible for frustrating a de- vice which we are steadily convinced can end in nothing but the annihilation of Peninsular independence; and to look around us for instruments by which a coun- try which has already in three centuries fallen from undisputed supremacy to undisguised subjection, may yet preserve a nominal place in the system of Eu- rope; and retain the power of recovering its integrity and its position if ever a Connive or a Ximenes should arise to reassert its claims. Our first reliance, should be on Spaniards themselves. • • • But Spain has forgotten her energy, though she has not unlearnt her jealousy. A nation which gave viceroys , to half Europe, will now receive a King from a neighbour, and leave to others the

task of resenting the insult or obviating the evil. • "There has not been wanting a demonstration of noble sentiment in the heart

of the aggressive nation. * France is freer than America. No Transat- lantic journal would dare to tell the unwelcome truths which the Opposition press is daily proclaiming in Paris. • • • "Among all the parties which are distracting Spain is there none to take that tower of strength which a Queen's name gives? Cannot the Maria Theresa of the nineteenth century find a Hungary throughout her dominions or dependen cies? Cannot the hills of the Asturias, which once preserved a monarchy from& deluge, give a single mountaineer to a Queen in as hard straits as ever was Pe- layo? Can old Vaseony, which astounded even the Roman satirist by its spirit, dosothing now for its independence and its honour? Has Catalonia forgotten what it has borne for freedom ?—can it not compensate the ferocity of fifty re- bellions by the devotion of a day? Is there no district in all the kingdom of chivalry to shake a sword for its Queen and cry Moriamur pro rege noatro

Iaa-

be&t? Where is the old loyalty which was the unica nMbiilfus of Castile? Is there no grandee who will earn the cognizance of a crowned heart for his shield of arms with greater justice than ever did the old Douglas? There is one man who has now such an opportunity of retrieving a character as none but times of revolution can give—of obliterating recollections of tyrannical violence--d cancelling illegal and impetuous outrages—of endearing himself to his country, and establishing his renown before the eyes of Europe. If Narvaez will but head the national opinion of his countrymen, and supply the means of expression which the sentiments of Spain require, he might acquire a nobler title than those of Blucher or Bolivar. Every party has a head but one—let him supply it, and make that party the head of all. Before that party—composed of the truest Spaniards, fighting for the best cause, and led by the ablest general—every other would go down, and the name of Narvaez would be known throughout Europe as that of the banished soldier who had returned to rescue his Queen from misery and his country from dishonour."

In the course of the paper quoted above, the Morning Chronicle asserts that the protest against the Montpensier match on the part of England is "the general expression of a deep and settled sense of injury." We find no traces of the imputed feeling in the usual organs of opinion in the country. On the contrary, though some of the provincial journals object to the mar- riage on general grounds, the notion of coercive intervention on the part of this country is scouted by all. We give such samples ofopinions as we could glean from a budget of country papers lying at hand; but many so little feel the " settled injury," that they express no opinion.

We begin with extracts of some length from the Wiltshire Independent, an intelligent Liberal paper published at Devizes. The editor advises that "other people's business" should be left alone—

"Acting on the reverse of those principles on which society at home is governed, n ations have endeavoured to set limits to the aggrandizements of each other; and in order to prevent war, have madly rushed into wars, to preserve such a balance of power as should prevent any one kingdom from becoming powerful enough to annoy or crash another; thus setting out with doing that which the alleged object of all their care and contrivance was to prevent! Was ever such folly— such madness! • • • And to carry out so wise aplan, seas of blood have been spilled and treasure untold has been wasted, the effects of which we are now feeling in Malt-tax, Income-tax, and all the other imposts which bear so hard on the industry of the country.

If the people of Spain or of France dislike the match between the scions of their Royal families, let them object to it, and, if they so please, prevent it; but it is no business of ours; and no Government, Tory, Whig, or Radical, ought to be, or, we believe, will be allowed to interfere in the business. * • * To go to war with Franeemow, to prevent an alliance with Spain lest the two powers united should be able to fix a quarrel on us at some future day, would be too mad a scheme to be tolerated by the practical, business-like people of England. To go to war today to prevent the probability of a war some ten or twenty years hence, is. so much more foolish a trick than 'jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire,' that we feel convinced no English Government will ever dare to propose it. By- gone days and barbarous countries have witnessed such freaks of statesmanship. England is too wise and too civilized, and the people to well informed, to fight about the marriage of a French boy and a Spanish girl. A war on such grounds is, not to be thought of. Our potatoes and our poor forbid the idea. To provide feed for the destitute Irish—even if our own people should not require it—will absorb all our spars cash: we shall have none left to equip armies and fleets to murder our French neighbours."

We subjoin a few further specimens from provincial papers; all, we be- lieve, of Liberal politics- " To us the whole subject appears as one of comparatively national indifference.

• • * As to family compacts, and dread of the individual influence of a Sove- reign over ajealously-watchful public, we believe that the time has gone by. when such things could be more than mere traditionary terrors; bugbears to frighten sucking ambassadors, or to divert the attention of the public from realities, by exciting their apprehensions with fictions. The people are daily. becoming more and more powerful, and more independent of the will of their sovereigns."—Preston chronicle.

We have had the worst of the intrigue at Madrid. The Frenchman has won a wife. But Spain remains as much separated from France as ever. It has always been so. • • • If all the accounts from Madrid may be relied upon, it will be a bloody wedding, a repetition of the Saturnalia of Murat. The crisis is imminent and most exciting."—Liverpool Chronicle. [Not a word, however, offoreign intervention.

"The meddling Lord [Palmerston], of course, cannot be quiet. He took the seals of the Foreign Office on purpose to meddle with other nations. That is his mischievous duty. He has interfered. Again, the entente cordiale is at an end, and the accession to power of the noble meddler brings on a contest with France. • • • At once we must say, that meet when it [Parliament] will, the people of England will not allow Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell to plunge them into a war on account of the marriage of the Spanish Princess."— Brighton Guardian.

"If aggressive war is justifiable at all, we do not say this marriage would not constitute a sufficient cases belli, seeing it involves the violation of a treaty in Whim we are interested; but neither the Government nor the people of this country would think of encountering the certain ills which a war with France would entail, to escape from the problematical ones which may arise from the as- cendancy of French influence in the Peninsula, or from a daughter-in-law, or a grandson, of Louis Philippe. becoming, one day or other, Sovereign of Spain. Seeing the marriage is offensive to the Spaniards, and will not tend to increase the harmony which exists amongst the European Governments, we think it mat- ter of regret that the King of the French should persevere in pressing it forward; but as we do not perceive any likelihood of its being prevented, we again repeat that we think it absurd to talk of Britain going to war with France on the subject. The marriage once completed, there would be no utility in the object of an appeal to arms."—Glasgow Argus.

"The Times contains an article in this number written in a tone of vigorous menace, which the commercial public must greatly regret, if that influential Journal be the organ of Lord Palmerston and the Whigs. This young Spanish lady—her sister the Queen—her mother the former Queen-Regent, and the great majority of the Spanish people, are said to be all opposed to this marriage: and if so, we see no reason why it should or could take place. But under any circum- stances, it is not at best commercially advantageous to insult a neighbouring na- tion, with whom we wish rather to live on better terms than formerly—because a young French Prince is to marry a fortune of 800,0001. and the prospective, and not very improbable, succession to the Spanish crown. Political and commercial treaties are not much influenced at our stage of the world's history by the do- mestic and family arrangements of princes. —National Advertiser. [A solely commercial paper published at Glasgow.]