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    -o^amv ROMAN POLICY

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    Affairs ] THE LEADEB . 771

    Untitled Article

    fever ; of many sick and hurt , or bleeding , jolted for hours in uncovered springless carts over rough roads , under a burning sun . We read of forts blown up , of guns spiked , of animunition cast into the water , and'of much labour being wasted and much life destroyed . Some officers are killed , some are wounded , but the survivors get ribands and stars , and pensions and estates , Or a Marshall ' s staff ; the great leader , Emperor or King , is greeted ¦ with loud acclamations , —he is a hero or a demigod . And this is the glory of war . It may defend a home , or give freedom to the slave ; it may only rifle a country , or rivet a despot ' s chains ; whatever be its object , as its banners wave , its trumpets

    sound , its arms gleam , and it marches proudly on , it has a glory of its own , which charms the heart and makes the bulk of men instinctively honour aud worship war . We know very little of the real causes of the contest now waging in Italy , we know less of its probable results , but we all watch its progress with intense interest , and believe that it must be for one or the other combatant , or it may be for both , an ever-torbe-remembered glory . For one it may be only defeat , disgrace , and ruin ; but the greater then will be the glory of the other . Fancy decks the destructive contest with a halo of its own , and wliile . it mourns and weeps over unavoidable , evils , the wilful infliction of misery is by its decrees glorious .

    Turin , Paris , Vienna , London , St . Petersburgh , and Berlin—the centres of civilisation , of which they are supposed to be the authors , promoters , and defenders—were ^ scheming how they could most adroitly , and with the least scandal , bring about , or . how they could stifle , a -wai % Mr . G-isborne , the directors of the lied Sea Telegraph Company , Messrs . Newall and Co ., and their humble and unknown assistants and servants ^ were far away from those centres of civilisation , near the lands of the wild Arabs and their masters , the Turks , and , under the waters of the Red Sea , preparing roads on which civilisation is to travel hereafter , to the most distant and the rudest people . The names of those who helped them to make this great conquest—the marshals and irenerals who led on the forces- —are not recorded

    in the history we are abridging . Only one person — " that Pullen , " captain of the Cyclops , who " distinguished himself in two expeditions j ; o the Arctic regions" —is mentioned . lie had for many months most diligently sounded and surveyed the whole track , and led the way , sounding every two hours through the greater part of the voyage—the Columbus of the expedition . In their distant , unobtrusive and unperceived labours there was nothing to attract the least attention . There was no gleaming of arms , waving of flags , or beating of drums ; nothing but two or three ships making their way carefully and regularly through

    the water , so as only steam can impel ^ them , and their crews assiduously performing their common and every-day ' s labour . Thought of fame or honour , perhaps , never rose within them while they were - performing their useful task . From labour like it , however , grows all the improvements which ennoble man ; and from the labour of the sovereigns , and then * ministers we have adverted to , has grown only the misery , the destruction , the eviL which is at once so glorious and so baneful . Greater knowledge and more discrimination will , perhaps , lead our successors—who will see more clearly than we see the different consequences of the labour which lays down telegraph cables at the bottom of the ocean , and the labour which destroys man and all that man holds .

    dear—to decree more glory to the few silent and distant workers on the Red Sea than to the noisy , embroidered and flashy appellants to pur regard who are at work in Italy . Those Tiu-ks aud Arabs , Kaimakans , and others , who have assisted in the work , and who seem fascinated at once into submission to power exhibited in a benevolent and useful form , will , then take a higher place in the general estimation than Zouaves , Grenadiers of the Guard , &c , who display zeal and prowess not to be surpassed in the work of destruction . Out posterity will know even better than we know , that there is one glory of Avar and another glory of peace , and they will lead safei" , longer , and happier lives than w « j lead , by preferring , more than we prefer , the « lory of peace to the glory of war .

    Peace , too , has its glory . While men were mustering on the southern side of the Alps from Hungary and Normandy , from Alsace and Transylvania , from France and Austria , in hundreds of thousands , were sharpening their swords and rifling their guns , to make the work of destruction more siyifb , certain , and terrible , far off" on the distant Red Sea and the Indian Ocean , a work was being done silently and noiselessly in the depths of the ocean , which will bring India into speaking communication with . Europe , and forward the friendly union of the most distant people of the ancient world . On May 9 th , there steamed out of

    the roadsted of Suez the Imperador , a vessel to . be remembered hereafter in the annals of the world like the Santa Maria or the Mayflower . She had on board an electric cable , made ^ many months before , with a view to accomplish the object she then began to fulfil at Bii-kenhead . Having previously made fast one end to the shore at Suez , as she steamed away she paid out quietly and orderly this -cable fathom by fathom . So steaming , in forty-eight hours she reached Cossier , and then had laid , at a depth varying from . 350 fathoms to nothing , the cable which now connects these two places . After landing an end there , four

    away she steamed again , and steaming on for days morei and ever paying ont the cable that lay coiled in her hold many miles in length , she then reached Suakin , 800 miles from Suez . There , too , she landed ah end of the cable , and established a communication with the Company ' s splendid three-storied stone house , provided at a reasonable rent by the Turkish Kaimakan , and then her part of the work was done . She had emptied herself into the ocean of the great line that was coiled into her at Birkenhead . Then there steamed forth from Sunkin a sister ship . The Imperatrix took up the work where the Imporador had loft it ; and her cable having been

    connected with Suakin , she steamed away direct to Aden—a distance of G 30 miles—passing by , though not wholly nogleoting , the island of Pernn , which has occasioned so many political heartburnings , for tho cable was laid close to the island , and , sending forth a branch , can be easily connected with it ; and at Aden , on the 28 th of May , the cable was landed , and communication at once established between Suez and Aden . The telegraphists on board the ships had always continued to talk with their friends at Suez , eo that they mitfht bo informed ut every moment of their route 28 tu

    of all that was known at Alexandria . On the of May , howevor , from Aden—one of her Majesty a possessions—a messngo was sent , informing her that it -wiis pluced in telegraphic communication with Egypt . So it has ever since continued , and so wns most successfully laid down 1 , 430 miles of the line , which is to bo continued to the Koona Mooria Inlands , thence to Muscat , and finally to Kurrachoo , a nourishing port at the mouth of tho Indus , and within tlie British possessions in Hindostan . So finally will bo established a means of talking between tho inhabitants of London and Calcutta , While tho monarohs and ministers of Europe , at

    -O^Amv Roman Policy

    advisers ^ . Priestly training is a bad preparation for civil administration , whether regarded negatively or positively . . It is vain to expect ability for state management in men who have not been educated with a view to temporal rule ; and the blind unreasoning obedience claimed and yielded by the votaries of the Church of Rome is too onerous to be peacefully conceded where material rights and interests are at stake . The

    most earnest and devout of the Pope ' s spiritual progeny are apt to rebel against the narrowminded old-world policy dictated by the priest ministry of the Roman court . Take the following as a specimen of the political economy of the pontifical states . Not many years since it was by law enacted that corn should be sold only to persons and places in the direction of Rome . In the words of the law , it should not turn its

    back—voltare le spalle—upon Rome . Thus grain could not . be sent from Perugino to Cittii tli Castello , from Terrano to Foligno or Spoleto , because the latter places were in an opposite direction to the capital The natural effect of such foolish legislation has been realised in the abandonment of agriculture to a great extent . The dreary , deserted appearance of the rural districts in the neighbourhood of the Eternal City can excite little surprise when it is known that all scientific and practical experiments are discouraged as dangerous innovations ; _ all social gatherings for the advancement of agriculture or commerce rigorously prohibited , lest they should be made the pretext for political

    disquisi-. M . About , in his able work on the " Roman Question , " mentions the want of cultivation around Rome , and states that be found the fields fruitful in proportion as he depai'ted from the vicinity oi the capital . When once he had fairly crossed the Appenines , and was no longer subject to the air of the pontifical city , he seemed to breathe an atmosphere of labour and cheerfulness . Having ( pitted

    Bologna , on his return to Rome , the desolation he had before remarked began again to make itself felt ; and he thus sums up his opinions upon the subject : "I had seen enoug h to serve me as a subject of reflection for a . long time , and a pertinacious idea took possession of my mind under a geometrical form ., It seemed to me that the activity and prosperity of the subjects of the Pope

    were in direct ratio with the square of the distances which separated them from the capital ; or , to speak more simply , that the shadow of the Roman monuments was injurious to the culture of the country . I submitted my doubts to a venerable ecclesiastic , who hastened to undeceive me . ' The country is not uncultivated , ' said lie , ' and if it is , it is the fault of the Pope ' s subjects . The people are idle by nature , although they have 21 , 415 monks to preach industry to them . '" Equal want of enlightenment and progress are manifest in the regulations with regard to free trade , taxation , coinage , popular education , saniot inouci

    tary regulations and all the subjects n improvement which claim the attention of liberal temporal governments . Brigandage is terribly rife throughout the Pope ' s dominions . But this may perhaps find an explanation in the hereditary descent of the Cardinal Secretary of State , Antonclli ; as the grandson , son , nephew , brother , and cousin of banditti , and a native of bonnino , their stronghold , some little indulgence to the tribe may naturally be expected from linn . Viewed in whatever fight , the clerical government is a poor , old , effete , worn-out maolunc , many of whose springs and cogs are broken and useless , some entirely lost and gone . Far many an ago it has been shaky and crazy , and ought to have ceased long since to bo oonsiderod as forming a part of European statecraft . Surrounded as it w , Ewovor . bvSlmlo of antiquity and sentimentality . oi

    ROMAN POLICY . The evacuation of Bologna , Ancona , Ferrara , and other towna of the Roman states by tho Austrian troops and papal authorities , affords ground for assuming the probability that the influence of Piedmont will eventually be exerted throughout the States of the Church to the same extent as in the other provinces of Italy . A popular authority says that the subjects of the Pope will bo as rich and happy as any people of Europe when they are no longer governed by the Pope . It would indeed be a beginning of bright times for tho Peninsula if tho temporal power oFPius IX . were made to give way to anything approaching a unanimous acceptance of the rule of King Victor Emmanuel , or any form of government which should unite Ituly under one

    controlling national power . That the spiritual claims nnd pretensions of the pontifioato are utterly incompatible with efliciont temporal government , the experience of tho past ton years has more than sufficed to prove . No sovereign , whether lay or clerical , could bIiow himself more desirous of furthering the truo interests of his people than did Pius IX . at the beginning of liis reign . Pispojod to grant concessions of every description as a temporal ruler , ho was compelled , aa Pontiff , to undo all that ho had done , forfeit his word , and render himself an object pi ! contompt to his pooplo . Ilia naturally amiable and conciliatory disposition was completely obsourcd by Ins oligious scruples and tho bigotry of his sacerdotal

    it will doubtless be considered by many a prow impious daring if not of open infidelity , that wo KuU league with those who advocate tho severance of tlfe temporal from the spiritual polity o Rome . But even with a view to thv mtcrestB of . Catholicism , w believe that both the Pope and Roman Catholics in general would gain greatly by the pontifical rule being limited to spiritual concorns . Tho Pontiff would thus become tho object of much higher veneration . No longer incurring darieion and contempt an a temporal sovereign , hu would , as Pontiff , to more top and ««* " «* £ more impartial and more influential : l . no X'opc ought to have no sovereignty of stote or territory The papal jurisdiction headed by a ponuil w ft

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 25, 1859, page 771, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2300/page/15/