The Press. — London, England, 1856-05-24 00:00:00

7. • MAY 24, 1856. unseemly treatment under the shadow of constitu tional freedom, ye t is clearly not sufficient for the object. Foreign Governments, however foully at tackel, and menaced by complot, together with the prom p t ing for the assassination of their rulers, have only the rights of private individuals in their appeal, and the punishment is wholly inadequate to the offence. This licentious journalism has been made unpleasantly manifest, and brought home to the Belgians, by a dastardly libel upon the Duchess of Brabant. A princess of a more amiable character and benevolent temper it would be difficult to find; and it may be said, without the accusation of flattery, that it is hardly possible to conceive how that a person so replete with tho loving kindness of humanity in its best sense could have a detractor. Yet so it has been almost within the precincts of the palace. The Duchess of Brabant has been happily favoured by Nature. Is comeliness a crime in Bel gium? The Princess has a winning graciousness. Is courtesy contrary to Belgian usage ? Is generosity of nature displeasing to the Belgian? Moreover, her Royal Highness is a fearless and accomplished rider. Is this mark of nerve and skill distasteful ? In the meantime this incomparable lady has been traduced by a press that urges and justifies assassination,—and yet a Belgian journal has the assur.., " Qai s'en plaint ?" The doings of the "part pretre " largely occupy public attention. It insists in the Chambers for electoral reform, and a proposal is made to do away with the electoral colleges, in order that the votes may be taken in the villages and "communes." This would place the lower class of voters under the immediate superintendence of the priest; therefore it may be seen that, elsewhere than in England, the Roman party has its Brass Band. Neither are the members less eager than the Roman John Sadleir to acquire the " proprietes foncieres," although in this case tha patient acts come within the legal pale. A lady of station and wealth, under priestly guidance, lately left a large fortune from her family to certain persons of straw in trust for ecclesiastical purposes, and her disinherited relations have no redress. It was a work of piety. The Nollet family also have instituted civil actions against certain clerical estab lishments of Namur and Tournay for having pos sessed themselves of the property of a relative by fraudulent means. Again, a rich widow of Antwerp has beggared her family to bequeath her wealth to priests for special purposes under their control. There is a feature belonging to these transactions that cannot fail shortly to attract notice. The " biens d'eglise" are exempt, for the most part, from taxation; and when these accumulated appropria tions shall have attained a certain amount of fiscal respectability, the Minister of Finance will be made sensible, of a grievance not at present anticipated. to remark, At the close of the Prussian Chambers the Minis. try was in a large and declared majority, yet the latter events of the session have given cause for un easiness. The debate on the affairs of Prussian Poland was disagreeably significant. Public no tices and official declarations in Prussian Poland appear t have been occasionally promulgated in the Polish language, and hitherto with a certain degree of authority—that is to say, without obstruction. The practice, very decidedly, has not been in con travention of the law, but the Manteuffel Ministry proposed that the custom should be discontinued, and that, in a national point of view, the Polish lan guage should be thoroughly ignored, and cease to have governmental cogn'sance. It, was an exceed ingly daring act, and was vigorously opposed. Both the entire L- ft and a part of the Right in the Cham bers expostulated upon the proposed law as uncalled for and contrary to the spirit of the constitutional p mt. The debate was stormy, according to the iCreutz Zeitung and the Zeit, and the Minister was greatly embarrassed (vivement emu). When taken in conjunction with the attack on the local privileges of the Rhenish provinces, it is clearly proved to be a link in a predetermined chain of policy. A measure has been carried, or rather forced, through the Prus sin Chambers, destructive of some of the particular h vrties of the Rhenish provinces. Petitions have b !en addressed to the Throne, remonstrances have b ee made to the Chambers, and Count Fiirstenberg Stinnnheim has personally protested to his Sove• r:ern against this act of impolitic legislation. Nei • tier does the opposition stop here. The Prince Royal of Prussia has firmly signified his disapproba tion of the Ministerial conduct, and Coblentz, Co -1 , gne, Dusseldorf, and other Rhenish towns, have expressed themselves constitutionally against the abrogation of privileges upon which they set an especial value. M. de Kleitz Retzon and M. West. nhalen are at variance in the Ministry upon this $ ibiect. The frail tenure of Prussia upon the olden C mfederation of the Rhine should have suggested a more prudent course. This is not the time when popular rights can be rescinded summarily without regard to justice or equity ; still less is it opportune to revive the memory of a by gone e p oc h connected with the name of Napoleon, when a titular designa tion _conveyed at least a nominal independence. 4 •••••••• I THE PRESS. Nevertheless, the King has confirmed by royal sign manual the unpopular act of the Legislature. A singular occurrence has happened at Potsdam relating to a person sentenced to be decapitated. The condemned criminal had been found guilty of the murder of it widow, " Spillner," of Potsdam, and execution had been delayed on account of the heads man of Berlin refusing to act under the order of a provincial court of justice. It was derogatory to the position of the " executuer des hautes oeuvres" of the capital to •Je subject to an inferior court, and a substitute had to be provided. Certain facts in the meantime had become known strongly corroborative of the assertion of innocence; and upon the repre sentation of the confessor and governor of the prison a reprieve was granted by the King immediately before the intended execution. There seems to be little doubt that the result of the fresh investigation will be in favour of the prisoner. The mission of Prince Windkchgraetz to Berlin is plain and simple. Austria would persuade Prussia to guarantee by treaty the integrity of her non- German States without any countervailing equiva lent. Prussian interests are not concerned in the preservation of the Lombardo-Venetian, Dalmatian, or Sclavonian provinces ; and the declination of Austrian power in Germany by weakness from with out cannot be supposed to excite any great amount of Prussian sympathy. Neither is the intimacy of French relations, advanced by M. de Buol as an " arguinentum in terrorein," at all calculated to have the desired effect. It will merely give an additional value to the English alliance, and draw more strin gently the Russ i an bond of amity and interest. • . But it is remarkable that Austria should have made overtures to Prussia at the moment when the promulgation of the tripartite treaty of April 15 is declaratory of a want of confi lence in the sincerity of the Northern powers. Either the treaty of Paris was sufficient for the preservation of the peace of Europe, or it was not. If held to be satin• factory, there was no occasion for a separate and underhand covenant betwixt a portion of the Euro pean powers to the exclusion and ignorance of the others. The guarded secrecy of the contracting par ties betrayed the spirit of the conspiration. Austria has ranged herself against Russia and Prussia, and has aided, " ipsi mann," to cement s close alliance betwixt the Courts of St. Petersburg and Turin. Prince Windischgraetz has an ungrateful task. A proposal similar to that made to Prussia will be submitted to the German Diet ; and here M. de Buol will have to confront the indirect, but not less powerful, opposition of that Nestor of German princes the King of Wurtembarg. If Prussia and the Dist were to bind themselves to protect the in tegrity of the Austrian States—meaning thereby the undisturbed possession of the Italian provinces— they would incur the risk of a proximate war, which they claim credit for having avoided on Oriental affairs. A report has been prepared by the Grand Council of the Austrian Empire on the reorganisation or re form of the political institutions. It is proposed to preserve the ancient division of the States into four orders ; namely, the order of prelates ; the order of nobles—princes, counts, and barons ; the equestrian order, comprising the minor aristocracy and small landholders; and the municipal order. The chief reforms affect the latter, whose civil powers will be augmented in proportion to the advance of wealth and intelligence. Hitherto the commercial classes have been debarred from many of the privileges, civil and political, to which their national consequence gave them an unquestionable right; and, as money in this age has an all commanding influence, tha channels whereby that necessary ingredient of well being flows into the coffers of a nation have a claim to have reversed in their favour those effete and statutory enactments—impediments to progress— which were based upon privileges solely aristocratic and exclusive. When an ancient country like Austria voluntarily acknowledges the progress of the middle classes, and prepares to meet the demands that are made by the altered circumstances of a por tion of the community, in their increase of wealth and intelligence, by a becoming spirit of legislation, all other liberal States will applaud, as all must re spect, the deed. There is no personal dislike to Austria and the Austrians, " per se ;" it is only against the "modus operandi" in the system of government, by the adoption of force instead of reason,—by tyranny instead of clemency,—by restriction of popu lar right instead of the generalisation of public in terests,—that the country has earned the animad version of more liberal Governments. Another line of conduct will meet with other treatment, and a more favorable judgment. The contemplated re forms will completely subvert the old Constitution of Hungary, which, in spite of its seeming freedom, was replete with signorial abuses. The pastoral letter of Archbishop Rauscher, pro hibiting the sepulture of I'rotestants on Catholic ground, is more than ever the subject of contention. So bigoted a denunciation of Protestantism has elicited marks of general disfavour. The Gazette 487 of Augsburg recounts the determined opposition of many of the Romau bishops; and the prelates of Hungary have declared, in conclave, that the teach ing and practice of Archbishop Rauscher is incom patible with the spirit of the age, and contrary to the word of God. Austria cannot count upon an ad herent throughout Protestant Germany; and her own population is turning against the Rauscher or dinances. At Moscow the discourse of Archbishop Philareta, in priestly exaltation of the Greek Church, drew to gether an immense assemblage of persons. The successes of the Russians, in resistance, were attri buted to the conquering virtues of the orthodox faith, militant against heretics and unbelievers, and the excited diocesan reviled equally both the French Roman Catholic and the Anglican Protestant as workers of religious evil and iniquity. M. Lanskoi, Minister of the Interior, has issued a proclamation to reassure the Russian nobles who were alarmed at the reported emancipation of the serfs by order of Government. In addressing the latter, the Minister says—" In resisting the legal order of things, and the obedience due to the masters, the serfs will cause the anger and bring down the chastisement of the monarch." The military commission or court martial upon the irregularities connected with the hospital of Simferopol, is creating a great sensation. General Ouschakoff, Major Generals Tcherwinsky and Ostrogradsky, have been severely reprimanded, and the chief physician and Counsellor of State Protopokaff, now on trial by a court-martial, has little chance of escaping severe punishment The peculations upon medicines, stores, provisions for the sick, clothing, and hospital furniture, Sec., are incredible, and the guilt is of such extensive ramifi cation that it creates embarrassment to draw a line of demarcation. In the Conferences of Paris no suspicion could be fairly entertained of the sincerity of Count Orloff. The return for this candour has not been paid back in the same coin, and the tripartite treaty of the 15th of April causes a deep-rooted dissatisfaction. There is also a conjecture that more remains to be re vealed. But it is with Austria that the Court of St. Petersburg is most seriously offended. The selec tion of Count Chreptovitch for the English mission cannot fail to be acceptable. To an open frankness of manner and disposition, the Count adds the courtesy which is a distinguishing mark of the Rus sian noble; and his ready participation in social amenities, which are the natural consequence of ample means, will not detract from his certain popularity. In Sardinia Count Cavour takes his stand openly upon the broad basis of opposition to the Papacy. This is the true state of the case. It is the priest that is the impediment to Italian amelioration—it is the Jesuit that foments republicanism, and leagues secretly with Mazzini to maintain a state of perpe tual fermentation and discord. A measure has been submitted and carried in the Piedmontese Chambers placing popular education under the control of the Minister of Public Instruction. Against this whole some act of legislation the bishops and clergy have protested as an invasion of the rights belonging to the sacred college. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, unwillingly, and with regret, has been constrained to abandon the project of a Tuscan concordat. He was told by his Minister that it would be the signal for a general insurrection of the Tuscan towns. His sister, the Archduchess Louisa, had been residing at Rome during the winter with the hope of arranging matters, and the Grand Duchess, a sister of the King of Naples, equally favoured toe Papal alliance. The Minister Baldasseroni was peremptory in his determination to resign bad the Grand 'Jake per sisted. The ovation preparing at Florence in com pliment to the Grand Duke for withholding his con sent to the Papal Concordat is somewhat of a farce. The Cardinal Viale Prela publicly advanced at Vienna, with the semblance of authority, that no powers have a right to intervene in the affairs of States except those exclusively Catholic, and he quotes M. de Buol as protesting, in the case of Piedmont, that "les actes accomplis par des grandes puissances soient critiques par des puissances da second ordre." The conduct of the English Ministry appears to favour this arrogant fallacy. C. A. H. jortign ad (Colonial jntellignut. FRANCE. The visit of Prince Oscar of Sweden Archduke Maximilian of Austria, the by Baron Brunow of his credentials Extraordinary to the French Court," dations of the rivers which have laid waste the departments and caused the most !!" hensions, are the sole facts of importance with the past week's news at Paris. the baptism of the Imperial Prince, cided, will be attended only by a legate xUlgen e. den and the le presentation as " Minister ' and the inun- waste many of serious appre- ance connected e, it is now de- from Rome.