POLAND AND ROME.
THE Emperor hesitates still. That strange indecision which has attacked him in all great crises of his career, and which is the result of a conflict between his intellect and his imagination, rather than of any weakness of will, seems to have seized him now. On Sunday Prince Napoleon thinks he has persuaded him that the hour for action has arrived, on Wednesday M. Magic is dismissed from the Cabinet for im- pertinence to the Minister who represents in Paris the cause of financial thrift. To-day it is understood that France must be content with an amnesty which will simply compel the Russians to invent civil charges against leading Poles instead of punishing directly for treason, and to-morrow all Germany rings with a story of the revival of " Leuchtenberg Poland," i.e., of the erection of the Duchy of Warsaw into a kingdom with the Russian Beauharnais for king. That idea pleases, it is said, everybody except the Poles, who are not dying that they may secure a Belgium on the Vistula, too weak to exist except by the sufferance of Russia or the burdensome aid of France. They have still a strong vote in the matter, for in spite of manufactured telegrams and dissensions among the leaders, deliberately exaggerated in order to diminish the sympathies of Europe, the Imperial troops make little way towards the conquest which their • chiefs would describe as peace. The Central Committee still levies an income-tax under the eyes of the Archduke Constantine. The rebellion "suppressed" in Radom is "increasing rapidly" in Lublin ; Poles have crossed the Bug into Volltynia ; Podolia is in open insurrection, and all reports from St. Petersburg represent the Czar as inclined to " certain " con- cessions, definel recently as autonomy without a national army. Arms, as we know from authentic sources, are enter- ing the country, and the revolt of Warsaw itself is only a question of the most expedient hour. The Poles, who origin- ally promised to hold out for two months, now say they can resist till harvest, and from every corner of Europe, from Paris as from Thessaly—the latter a regular depOt of Poles— the gallant exiles are swarming home. Englishmen wonder at the break-down of the Continental obstructive machinery ; but the pompous people in uniform who call themselves a police are not of much avail against men who early in one pocket their commissions from the insurgents, and in the other bond fide passports signed by the Archduke Constantine.
It is difficult in the cloud of dust raised by the chancelleries, which are alive with excitement, and as noisy as rooks when a storm is at hand, to detect the signs which usually indicate the true position of affairs. The balance of evidence inclines, however, to some such statement as this. The event turns on the decision of the man who is telling lads in Scotland to study Latin and Greek. The Austrian Government professes its readiness to act if England joins in the French request ; Napoleon's plea, honest or subtle, is that France cannot safely move till England has been conciliated. The British Ministry, willing to do for Poland all that can be done by diplomacy, agrees to an "identical note" counselling Russians to moder- ation, but perceives, with a strong shade of annoyance, that France is pressing towards results more logical than a Romanoff's promise. An outburst of opinion in England, strong enough to justify Earl Russell in giving way to his own sympathy for freedom, would, in all probability, termi- nate the dilemma and free Poland—and Rome.
Unfortunately, the governing class is not decided at all. It has always sympathized with Poland, and there is no tra- dition, as in the case of Italy, to be patiently overcome. But it dreads France with a dread which every year seems to increase. Will not Poland, it asks, even if free, be still a dependency of France? Even should that result not occur, and the undoubted genius of the Poles for battle make the nation suddenly strong, will not another war, undertaken to liberate a nation, immensely increase French prestige, and make Napoleon the centre and idol of the nationalities which, in the south-east, need only a hope to plunge all Europe in war ? If France chooses in a generous fit to incur the unimaginable risks involved in a European con- test, let her; but why should England be taxed to support a project which may end in results which English- men do not desire, and must produce consequences which Englishmen, being human, have not the power to fore- see ? A generous effort for a great end is conceivable, and may even be right; but what mortal can see the ends to which a European war might lead ? Victory might make Napoleon as powerful on the Continent as his uncle, which is not the interest of freedom, and defeat might weaken France till the Western alliance—the best security for the world while it passes through the present cycle of enthusiasms—would be finally broken up. There is force in all those objections, more particularly when they display the vastness and, therefore, the indefiniteness of the suggested enterprise. But those who urge them forget,—in the case of the Ultramontanes wilfully forget,—that England has a cause to befriend dearer to Liberals even than that of Poland. If Poland is to receive more than a Russian promise—that poli- tical expression of the mathematical zero,—English aid is indispensable to give Austria confidence and France security from attack, and she might justifiably ask her price. If Napoleon advances alone, let him advance, with the good wishes of all who sigh for the permanent peace which cannot arrive while millions are under foreign dominion; but, if England is asked to assist, let Napoleon evacuate Rome. There is no doubt he could do it, if he were marching with the sympathies of France at his back on an enterprise which, if successful, would seat his dynasty. There is no doubt either, that Italy, if Rome were once released, would become in the war a firm though independent ally. Those two facts ought to suffice for the Sovereign who declares that he only remains at Rome under compulsion, while, to England, the advantage would be almost incalculable, would justify the war in the eyes of every class. For three long years the first object of our policy has been the construction of an indepen- dent and powerful kingdom within the Mediterranean, and it is useless to conceal that that policy may still fail. The Neapolitans cannot reconcile themselvesheartily to government from Turin. They admit the headship of Rome, but they still feel intensely that, till seated at Rome, the Govern- ment of Victor Emanuel must he a Piedniontese government. There are factions within the kingdom who would still welcome any Pretender whom they could trust to remain in alliance with Northern Italy, and the ablest ft iends of unity feel that for their cause the possession of Rome is becoming matter of life and death. Yet a united Italy only could balance the new power France will acquire frotu the diminished weight of the Czars, the new force of her vote in the councils of Constantinople. There would be a logic in the act, which the French mind would appreciate, for why free one nationality while still repressing another? or why, with a European war to commence, decline the alliance of a power, which amidst all its difficulties retains an army of tree hundred thousand men. Napoleon will not go to Poland unless the pressure of opinion is almost irresistible, and let it be once but known that this is the one condition of English adherence, and he must accede, or break once for all with the new Revolution. The nationalities will never again trust the man who, having the power of freeing two at a stroke, suffers both to perish rather than relax his grasp on the throat of one. The Catholic world might rave, but with France excited the power of the Catholic world is a measurable quantity, and Austria, even if mortified, dare not oppose England and France, and Italy and Poland all combined. England, so often accused of selfishness, but which alone among nations surrenders a province to fulfil an idea, would then have the glory of freeing one great and historic race, while sanctioning by its support the enfranchisement of another. The freedom of Poland may not seem to English aristocrats worth the ex- pense of a fleet in the Baltic ; but what of the freedom of Rome ? Russia pushed back from Europe ; the French alli- ance secure ; the Eastern question reduced to a negotiation between England and France ; and Italy free and strong—are not these results, Mr. Gladstone, worth half that treasured. surplus of yours ?
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