The Express.
London, England, 1852-09-14 00:00:00

SPAIN:

We read in the Espana, of Madrid, of the 7th :
A dreadful mime has been committed in a town of
Galicia. An individual has murdered nine persons of the
same family. We have not received the details of this hor-
rible event, the news of which arrived yesterday. We only
know that the murderer immolated his victims, one after
the other, with the 'rudest sangfroid.
There was no Boum on Sept. 8, it being the na-
tivity of the Virgin.

GERMANY.
ZOLLVEREIN.
. . BERLIN, SIPTIMBIII 10.

My prognostications on the turn of the Zollverein
affair receive daily confirmation. All parties now
begin to see that the decision of the question lies be-
tween Austria and Prussia, and that the coalition
has become a mere puppet, the wires of which are
jerked in Vienna. The Austrian government has, as
the National Zeitung learns from an unquestionable
source, notified to the coalition governments, " that
the last Prussian declaration, which expungst from
the draft of treaty A all essential points, and refuses
every guarantee for the realisation of a general cus-
toms union, offers no firm basis, and cannot, in its
present state, be regarded as acceptable."
The official Austrian Correspondence only calls
the Prussian declaration " inconclusive,' and endea-
vours to provoke discussion by criticising the Prm-
elan arguments. But the organ. of the coalition go-
vernments, having reoeived from Vienna the neces-
sary instructions on the subject, speak out more
plaanly, and lead us to expect that the coalition's re-
jeinder, now in course of preparation in a congress of
plenipotentiaries at Dresden, will unequivocally
.re-
new the demand of guarantees for a customs union
with Austria, and thus destroy all the delusions of
those who flattered themselves that a compromise
for the preservation of the Zollverein was about to
be effected. The Afaisich Zeitung says, " the
expectation that Prussia would make a cones-
pending return for the conciliating advances of the
coalition governments, has not been fulfilled." The
German Chronicle, the semi-official Wurtemberg
organ, says : " Prussia sticks unequivocally to its
fundamental conditions, and leaves the coalition go-
vernments no alternative but to accept the Prussia
ultimatum, and leave the commercial union with
Austria to loom in the future, or to let Prangs secede
from the Zollverein." The Cassel Zoltan', which may
be regarded as expressing with least reserve the
wishes of the Vienna cabinet, says : "The Zollverein
is an anomaly within the Germanic confiders-
tion ; it must be set aside, in order that
Berlin may cane to form a centre he. the
customs legislation and the commercial interviews
of the majority of German states ; this centre
must be removed to Frankfort, where the south
German league in connexion with Austria will then
do the rest." This is speakiug out plainly enough.
The apprehension that Austria may be inclined to
mike a bold push in this direction, gains ground
here. The Vossesche Zeitung, in its leading article
of this day, endeavours to prove that a resolution for
subjecting tariff matters to the decision of the Diet,
can become valid only by unanimous assent. But if
Austria takes up the Zollverein contest, lees for the
sake of the interests really at stake than with a view
to asserting a predominant authority in the settlement
of all German affairs, it will not be scrupulous in
overruling objections founded on its present want
of such authority; and if its arguments on points of
federal law prove light, it can find, like Brennus of
yore, a ready make-weight. Should Prank be placed
in the same predicament in which it found itself in
the autumn of 1860, it will not be able again to dis-
pel the clouds so easily as on that CIOCINIOIL At
Olmiltz, the Prussian minister did concede all that
the Austrian minister demanded ; but the Austrian
minister demanded nothing more than the Premiss
minister, at the bottom of his heart, was glad to see
effected ; he only consented to return to a
course of policy from which, but for the revolution,
Prussia would never have swerved. Now, however,
the case is totally different. What Austria aims at
would have the effect of ousting Prussia from Wisest
among the great powers, and leaving protestantism
without a representative in the supreme council of
continental potentates. If a crisis of this sort really
occur, the blame will mainly lie with the present
Hing's see-saw system, which shirks the consistent
prosecution of a clear principle., and will not allow a
compact ministry to be formed of men united
in itheir policy • an administration, however,
thus purposely debarred from acquiring. strength,
naturally invites aggression from rival powers.
But the country Is by no means so weak
MI the government may appear to be ; and when the
times render it necessary to repel usurpation, it may
prove that any foreign power, speculating on
making an easy capture of Prussia, will find that it
has caught a Tartar.
M. von Manteuffel finds his power of action very
much paralysed by the court influence of the cavalier
party, which opposes him rather from personal than
fl•em political 'amity. The appointment conferred,
in M. von Manteuffol's absence, on General you

v 1, ~.%

Radowita was a severe blow to his authority. M.
von Manteulfel tendered his resignation, which the
King refused I but, as head of • divided cabinet, he
cannot impose an energetic policy when colleagues, in-
clined to thwart him, see that he has not the power of
preventing the man most obnoxious to him of all from
being invested with an aloe of such importance as
the direction of all military education, necessarily in-
volving constant immediate communication • ith, the
King as head of the military. That this poet, more-
over, has been entrusted, at the present season of ca-
tholic aggression, to the man who declared that the
interest of the church of Rome imposed on him higher
duties than those national ties, is a portentous sign
of onr times.

- - -
The report which I lately tt•entioned, that a plea
would be raised foe binding Brunswick and the
Saxon duchies to the Zollverein, in case of a breach
with Prussia, is now formally disavowed. 'I he coali-
tion journals very justly remark, that Brunswick or
any Saxon duchy might then put in its veto against
the union with Austria for the next twelve years;
because, by virtue of tho existing Zollverein treaty,
no step can be taken without unanimous consent.
Some uneasiness has been excited here by an
article in the Hanoverian official paper, which is
regarded as a symptom of Hanover's deserting the
Prussian colours, which, of course, would render
l'russia's position very awkward :
Hanover (it says) is certainly bound by the September
treaty ; but Prussia must not make the September treaty,
in opposition to it. unquestionable purpose, the instrument
of narrowing and dividing instead of widening and uniting
the sphere of German intercourse, thereby resuming the
plans of its recent anti federal so-called " union," which
would amount to a breach of the treaty on its part. Prussia
is legally bound by the September treaty to strive for an
extension of unity, and must not be guided therein by re-
gard for its political power and its own interests alone, but
equally by the interests of its allies. The greatest possible
pliability, readiness for every feasible advance, in order to
avoid a breach, are imperative conditions. Provocations of
an opposite nature, on the part of Prussia, were and are so
many provocations for Hanover to disavow the treaty.

The editor of the Reform of Hamburg was tried
by the municipal tribunal of that city on the Bth
inst., on a charge of insult to the President of the
French Republic by publishing a caricature entitled
" The fishwomen are the supporters of the empire."
The public prosecutor called for the condemnation of
the defendant to a fine of 200 marks (about :130fr.),
and the costs. The tribunal was to pronounce judg-
ment on tho 10th.