Turin, in a despatch of January 7, 1856, gave a very unfavorable view of the manufacturing, mining and agricultural progress of Sardinia. But from Venetia, Mr. Elliott gave a perfectly opposite view, showing that great progress was being made there. The shipping trade of Sardinia with England had declined 2,000 tons. But the British trade with Ancona had increased 21,000 tons, and with Venice 25,000 tons, in the course of the last two years. He attributed these results to the increase of taxation in Sardinia, through the introduction of the constitutional (the _Sardinian_ institutional) system of government, and to the comparatively easy taxation of Venetia. The increased taxation of Sardinia from 1847 to 1857 was no less than 50,000,000 francs. With respect to education in the Papal States, he contended that it was more diffused than it was in this country—Great Britain.” In countries that were so prosperous, every man literally “sitting under his own vine and his own fig-tree,” it is difficult to believe that there was wide-spread discontent and a general desire for radical changes. To prove that there was, it would have required evidence of no ordinary weight. All testimony that can be relied on shows a very different state of feeling. Lord John Russell, in his too memorable Aberdeen speech, gave expression to an opinion which, through the labors of the newspaper press, had become very prevalent in England, that “under their provisional revolutionary governments the people of Central Italy had conducted themselves with perfect order, just as if they had been the citizens of a country that had long enjoyed free institutions.” The Marquis of Normanby, in his place in the British House of Peers, made reply to this allegation:(5) “I should like to know where the noble Lord found that information. There is not in Central Italy a single government that has resulted from popular election. They were all named by Piedmont—which had, as it were, packed the cards. Liberty of speech there was none, nor liberty of the press, nor personal liberty.... The Grand Duchess of Parma was expelled by a Piedmontese army, and restored by the spontaneous call of her people. She left the country, declaring that she would suffer everything sooner than expose her subjects to the horrors of civil war.... Numberless atrocities have been committed under the rule of these governments which, according to my noble friend, are so wise and orderly. I read to you the first day of this session the letter of a Tuscan, whose character is irreproachable. Since that time I have received from him another letter, in which he says: ‘You will not be surprised to learn that my letter to you has been the occasion of the coarsest invectives. For what reason I cannot tell, if it was not because it spoke the truth.’