As
a rule, he has perfect liberty to do and say and write what he likes, and
almost inevitably he gets to think that a government which is so lenient
a one for him cannot be a very bad one for its own subjects. The cause,
however, of this exceptional lenity is not hard to discover. Much as we
laugh at home about the _Civis Romanus_ doctrine, abroad it is a very
powerful reality. Whether rightly or wrongly, foreign governments are
afraid of meddling with English subjects, and act accordingly. Then,
too, Englishmen as a body care very little about foreign politics, and
are known to live almost entirely among themselves abroad, and seldom to
interfere in the concerns of foreigners; and lastly, I am afraid that the
moral influence of England, of which our papers are so fond of boasting,
is very small indeed on the continent generally, and especially in Italy.
All the articles the _Times_ ever wrote on Italian affairs did not
produce half the effect of About's pamphlet or Cavour's speeches. I am
convinced that the influence of English newspapers in Italy is most
limited. The very scanty knowledge of the English language, and the
utter want of comprehension of our English modes of thought and feeling,
render an English journal even more uninteresting to the bulk of Italians
than an Italian one is to an Englishman; and the Roman rulers are well
aware of this important fact.
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