That Italy, as she stands to-day, would be found more than the equal of Austria, no doubt can be felt by any one who is acquainted with the condition of the two powers.  Italy would enter upon a contest with Austria under circumstances of peculiar advantage.  She would have so decided a naval superiority, that the Austrian flag would disappear from the Mediterranean and the Adriatic, and she would be able to operate powerfully from the sea against Venice.  It is a military axiom, that, wherever there is a sea-side, there is a weak side; and Venetia presents this to an assailing force in quite a striking manner.  Command of the Adriatic and the neighboring waters would enable the Italians to threaten many points of the Austrian territory, which would require to be watched by large collections of soldiers; and aid could be sent to the Hungarians, should they rise, by the way of Fiume.  Italy could raise a larger army to attack Venetia than Austria could employ for its defence, with Hungary on the eve of revolution, Bohemia discontented, Croatia not the loyal land it was in ’48, and even the Tyrol no longer a model of subserviency to the Imperial House.  The Italians are at any time the equals of the Austrians as soldiers, and at this time their minds are in an exalted state, under the dominion of which they would be found superior to any men who could be brought against them, if well led; and among the Imperial commanders there is no man, unless Von Benedek be an exception, who is to be named with the generals who have led the way in the work we have seen done since last spring.  In a military sense, and in a moral sense, Italy is the superior of the beaten, bankrupt monarchy of Austria, and capable of wresting Venetia from the intrusive race, which holds it as much in defiance of common sense as of common right.

But would Italy be permitted to settle her quarrel with her old oppressor without foreign intervention?  We fear that she would not.  Venetia is held by Austria in virtue of the Vienna settlement of Europe, in the first place, and then under the treaty that followed the war of 1859.  Some English statesmen would appear to be of opinion that Venetia must remain among the possessions of Austria, without reference to the interests of Italy, the party most concerned in the business.  In his first note to Sir James Hudson, British Minister at Turin, which note was to be read to Count Cavour, Lord John Russell, Foreign Secretary, writes more like an Austrian than an Englishman, going even to the astounding length of declaring that a war to defend her right to Venetia would be on Austria’s part a patriotic war,—­such a war, we presume the Honorable Secretary of State must have meant, as Wallace waged against Edward I., or that which the first William of Orange carried on against Philip II.!  Lord Palmerston seems inclined to indorse his colleague’s views:  for he referred directly to this very note in terms of approbation, in the speech which he made at the dinner of the “Worshipful