§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, he wished to ask the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the Austrian Government continues to harbour and maintain the troops of the late Duke of Modena upon the Venetian territory, allowing them to be manœuvred and reviewed with their arms, standards, and all other accessories of a force in a state of military efficiency on the Italian frontier; whether such support and encouragement 1062 does not constitute a menace and hostile demonstration on the part of Austria against Italy, and whether any communication on the subject has taken place in any quarter on the part of Her Majesty's Government?
§ LORD JOHN RUSSELLSir, with regard to the question of the hon. Gentleman, it is certainly true that the Austrian Government harbours and maintains the troops of the late Duke of Modena on the Venetian territory. The last we heard of them was that there was a body of 3,000 men in the neighbourhood of Bassano. With regard to the question whether that is a menace or hostile demonstration of Austria against Italy, I have to say that we have received repeated assurances, and of very recent date, that there is no intention of making any aggression on the Italian territory by the Emperor of Austria or his troops; hut that, of course, the troops of the Duke of Modena being there is only, as it were, a protest on the part of the Emperor of Austria, that the Austrian Government do not acknowledge the transfer of the territories of the Duke of Modena to the present King of Italy. I cannot say that it is, in the hon. Gentleman's words, a menace or hostile demonstration, but it is, no doubt, an unsatisfactory thing that two opposing claims should be maintained, the title of the Duke of Modena, on the one side, being still recognized by the Emperor of Austria, and that title being of course denied on the other side by the King of Italy, who has assumed the Government of the territory of Modena as part of his kingdom.