The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-06-19 00:00:00

" VII.

" But his Royal Highness the Prince of Prussia
would make a dangerous mistake were he to suppose
that the national movement is powerful enough to dis-
pense with any assistance. However strong may be the
impulsion which leads the mass of Germans towards a
Prussian monarchy, all well-regulated minds (tour les
bons esprits) will resist the current, and throw them-
selves back if the court of Berlin does not meet them
half way. Democratic, Germany is wise and patriotic
enough to rally round a king, but she will require
guarantees which the Prussian constitution does not as
yet present.
" First of all, it would be necessary that Prussia should
make a choice between the two principles. which divide
Europe at the present day. Divine right and popular
right are in presence. Whilst a number of princes
obstinately clasp- a- false Jegitimacy, really legitimate
empires are being founded upon the democratic basis of
universal suffrage. The King of Naples stoutly asserts
that his subjects are his property, and the nation meets
this pretended right with an armed denial. The Em-
peror of the French and the King of Sardinia declare,
in conformity with the tenets of a modern philosophy,
that a people only belongs to itself, and two great
nations, by a nearly unanimous vote, elect them their
chiefs. Does the Prince of Prussia side with Divine
right, with the King of Naples, or with popular right,
with the King of Sardinia and the Emperor of the
French ? A choice must be made.

" It is the more necessary, as the King of Prussia
had chosen, and very badly chosen, in 1849. A national
assembly, the issue of universal suffrage, offered him in
his own palace a legitimate crown. What did he do
He pronounced for Divine right against popular right.
He declared that he would only accept the crown if it
were tendered him by princes. The Prussian squire-
archy applauded this anti-democratic resolution, and
history has recorded the formula by which they expressed
their assent. 'We do not (they said) want a crown
which democracy has spit upon.'
"Not content with refusing the empire, the King of
Prussia cruelly persecuted the upright and honourable
men who had offered it him. The people of Baden and
Saxony, interpreting in favour of unity the vote by
universal suffrage, had dethroned their Sovereigns. Two
Prussian armies invaded, in the name of the ' Divine
right,' the kingdom of Saxony and the Grand Duchy of
Baden. The King of Saxony was replaced on his throne
by the Prussian forces. The Grand Duke of Baden was
restored in his turn, in virtue of the same right, and
by the same power. But more than this was done.
When the battle was won, and the campaign closed—
when the democratic army of Baden, 10,000 strong,
had retired to the territory of Switzerland—when all
resistance to the legitimacy of Divine right was over-
powered—the Prussian army shot, in the period of three
mouths, iu the midst of the silence of peace, twenty-six
German patriots. Their bones rest in the churchyards
of Friburg, Raclstadt, and Mannheim; their names are
almost all forgotten, yet Germ arly still remembers with
admiration, mingled with sorrow, young Max. Dortu, an
enthusiastic boy ; Valentine Streuber, a harmless and
honest burgher of Mannheim ; the old patriot Boning ;
and, above all, Adolphus Trutzchler, deputy to the
Frankfort Parliament, member of the Court of Appeal
of Dresden, a man of upright convictions and large
fortune. He will long survive in the memory of Ger-
manic democracy, together with his glorious friend and
accomplice, Robert Blum.
gi VIII.

" Peoples know how to forgive—an advantage they
have over some kings. Germany may, therefore, bury
in a generous oblivion these useless persecutions, and
the names of the generals who carried them out. But,
first of all, it is necessary that the Prussian Govern-
ment should pronounce. It must, instead of wrapping
itself up in a mantle of Austrian conceit, throw its
arms open to receive the democratic party.
"A few days since a Prussian democrat wrote to a
friend in Wurtemberg:— Why are you so long before
uniting with us ?" If we did
,I)ccome Prussians,' was
the answer, ' all our patriots, and the poet Uhland at
their head, would still continue in exile' Nothing
apppears more unlikely; but nothing can be more,true.
Since the popular emotions' (sic) in 1848, all European
princes, not even excepting the Pope, have granted
amnesties. The Prussian, amnesty is still due.
If the Prince Regent entertains the noble ambition
of reigning legitimately over the whole of Germans, let
him begin by recalling those exiles whose only Crime
was to have proclaimed the will of the nation at the
dictation of universal suffrage. Let him do still better.
Let him be the testamentary executor of the parliament
of 1849, as the Napoleons are the testamentary execu-
tors of the French revolution
Ix!
".

" Here we make a pause to refute an objection which
certain ill-informed Germans will not fail to make.
They fancy on the faith of some feudal prints that the
French nation is reduced to slavery. They have been
persuaded that the Imperial regime had gagged the
utterance of thought, suppressed the national represen-
tation, and made mincemeat of all our liberties. This
it an article of faith throughout Germany, that the
Prussians are much happier than we are, thanks to the
benignant influence of a liberal Government, and to the
blissful harmony of Parliamentary institutions.
" It is true that the Emperor Napoleon labours to
promote the greatness and the prosperity of Fran 4 with
almost unlimited power. But that power, it is the
nation that has entrusted him with. Is there throughout
Germany a single prince who can be looked upon as the
representative of the nation, elected, as Napoleoul 111.,
by universal suffrage ?
" It is true that the majority of Frenchmen obey, and
even with a certain degree of empressement, the orders
of the Emperor Napoleon. But that obedience is equal
for all, as obedience to the law, and, the payment of
taxes. • It is a democratic obedience, because all the
world has given it beforehand, and because no French-
man has a right to refuse it, Is the case similar in

Prussia ? Do :theY prOvinces subjected to the Prussian
monarchy enjoy equal rights ? Is the Grand Duchy of
Posen'in :possessibn of the same 'liberties as the Mar-
gravate of Rrandenburgh ? Is the Margravate of Bran-
denburgh ruled by Yaws
..as equitable as the Rhenish.
provinces ? In the same province are. nobles and
burghers equal in the eyes of the tax gatherer?
the privileges of the nobility abolished ? Is such fa.

thing not to be met with as great territorial magnates
who pay taxes in an adverse ratio with their fortune ?
" It is true that the French army is sincerely devoted
to the chief of the state ; nevertheless, it does not belong
to the Emperor, but to the nation. Does the Prussian
army belong to the King or to Prussia ? 'lt belongs to
the King,' said a minister of one of the Hohenzollern's,
a few days since ; ' the deputies of the nation hake
nothing to do with the army.'
"It is true that amongst us the liberty of the press is
placed under severe restrictions;. but the right of print-
ing anything or everything is not confiscated—it:is only
postponed. The nation consents to remain silent for a
while around a prince who is achieving great things,
just as friends assembled in the closet of a ihilosopher
or a writer favour him with their silence. As for
the right, it remains intact ; and the French people,
armed with the right of petition, will always
be able to claim it in fitting time and place, if the
Emperor should forget to restore it to them. Public
writers at Berlin are perhaps a little more free just now
than we are in Paris, thanks to the new-born toleration
of the Prince Royal of Prussia, not because they are
relieved of the stamp duty, or exonerated from caution-
money or surveillance ; nevertheless they have more
freedom than public writers in Paris. But what guarantee'
have they that that privilege will last ? What plea could
they bring forward to claim it if the, hand that gave
it chose to take it away ? The difference that exists
between them and ourselves is that we lend our liberty
to Napoleon 111., whilst they borrow theirs from the
Prince of Prussia.

"Efforts are made to persuade the Germans that we
have allowed ourselves to be cheated out of parlia-
mentary institutions. It is certain that our parliament
is greatly changed since 1848. It is no longer a coterie
of from 400,000 to 500,000 persons ; it is the whole
nation that sends deputies to the Corps Legislatif.
That assembly, elected by universal suffrage, like the
Emperor himself, no longer enjoys the ridiculous privi-
lege of interrupting every moment the despatch of busi-
ness, of replacing deeds by speechification, union by
coalition, public interests by private vanity, the serious
progress of a great people by the wriggling of a few
puny oratorical ambitions, but it enjoys the unquestion-
able right of voting all the taxes and all the laws of the
empire.

" This being established, ought we to be jealous of the
Prussian constitution ? Is the principle of ministerial
responsibility applied in Prussia? Not yet. Have the
chambers the acknowledged right of refusing the taxes ?
No. And what are the Prussian chambers ? The lower
chamber, which corresponds with our Corps Legislatif,
is recruited by a mechanism far more ingenious than it
is democratic. No universal suffrage ; not even any
election at the first stage of the proceedings. Given a
(C circle" or arrondisement paying 300,000 f. direct taxes,
for instance, the ratepayers are divided into three
unequal squads. The fifteen or twenty great land-
holders who pay the first 100,000 f. between them form
the first class of electors ; the second consist of the
two or three hundred persons who pay the next
100,000 francs. All the other citizens paying the
direct iax—that is to say, from 2000 to 3000 persons,
form the third. Each of these three classes assemble
separately, and appoint an equal number of electors—
six, for instance, in each class—and the 18 electors meet
in their turn to proceed to the election of a deputy.
Hence it follows that not only the working classes have
no hope of being represented in Parliament, but that
the third class, or the great majority of the burgher
class, will always be in a great minority in the electoral
body, and will never send a member to the Chamber.
This explains how it was that M. de Vincke, who
sat on the right (i.e., the Conservative side), in the
Frankfort Parliament is at present, without having
changed his opinions, the most advanced democrat
throughout the Prussian Chamber.
" Can liberal Germany set any store by a body thus
composed ? Unquestionably no. And yet the Prussian
deputies have occasionally shown some leaning towards
progress, but the Chamber of Lords -was there to keep
them in order. This latter is composed, first, of noble
personages, who have a seat in virtue of their birth ;
secondly, of members appointed by the King out of a
list of candidates presented to him by the nobility,
the universities, and the large towns. The upper cham-
ber has never been recruited from other sources ; on the
one hand birth, on the other the monarch's choice.
Therefore, does it entertain a premeditated hostility
against any democratic or even simply liberal measure.
It rejected, by a large majority, the principle of civil
marriages. It almost broke out in open insurrection
against a ministerial bill which proposed to make the
nobles pay taxes like other classes of citizens.
" That constitution is not perfect ; it will:be-wise to
modify it if it is desired that the Germans should throw
themselves into the arms of Prussia.

"It will also he well, in the interest of this great
opposition, to treat with a little more fairness Govern-
ments that are founded on universal suffrage. We do
not make the Court of Berlin responsible for 'the Vio-
lence of the German press. It is not we who will ever
request the Prince of Prussia to gag his subjects, even
when they insult us. But it is open to us to remark that
if the Slide or the Opinion Nationale expressed itself in
offensive terms with regard to a sovereign not at war
with us, the lifoniteur of the empire, or at least the
semi-official papers, would hasten to repair the mischief
by severely blaming the delinquents.
"It will also be desirable that political men in Prussia
should abstain in a constituent assembly to utter threats
directly addressed to. France. When M. de Vificke talks
in the Chamber of Deputies of reconquering from us
Alsatia and Lorraine, the French nation is not roused by
this indiscretion to the extent of going to war; but it
notes with satisfaction that such imprudent manifesta-
tions never take place at home.

"XII.
"Since the accession of Napoleon 111., and especially
since the annexation of Savoy, German publicists, perhaps
even princes themselves, have loudly expressed an unjust
distrust against the policy of France. They will have it
that we harbour the design of annexing the Rhenish
provinces, and encroaching upon the soil of Germany.
This ill-founded apprehension is so noisily manifested
and so obstinately repeated, that it might have suggested
evil thoughts to us if we were less equitable. It is cer-
tain that if you address in the public street the meekest
and most harmless individual in the world, and say to
him, 'Sir, you wish to give me a slap in the face; don't
attempt to deny it. I know that you wish to give me
'a
slap in the face. Don't swear; I would'nt believe
your oath. You want to give me a slap in the, face, but
I am stronger than you are ; I am not in the least
afraid of you. I would crush you like a worm, and I
dare you to give me that slap of the face.' The meekest
and most inoffensive man in the world would in the end
find excellent reasons for giving what he is asked for,
and his hand would spontaneously fall on the cheek of
the man who had provoked him.
" XIII. •

" But no amount of provocation can turn France
from the path she has chosen for herself. Whatever
satisfaction people may feel in self-aggrandisement and
in protecting themselves behind natural barriers, we
have too much generosity and too much justice to think
of conquering the territory of a foreign nationality.
Would 'to Heaven that :the Germanic Confederation
were animated with the same spirit ! She would neither
have conquered the Grand Duchy of Posen nor attacked
Northern Schleswig, nor declared that Trieste is a
German town. As for us, we fearlessly assert that Lor-
raine and Alsatia are both French, because they have
proved it against the *Germans themselves. We keep
what belongs to us; we ask nothing more; we think
that all the natural frontiers and all the watercourses in
Europe, are not worth, for the defence of our territory,
' a stream of Zouaves and foot chasseurs with le4relled
bayonets.