The Express.
London, England, 1863-08-20 00:00:00

BIXTANNIA.

TIM ETIOGRO. THE ANGEL Or PEACE AND PARDON,
Introducing THE GREAT GHLMT EFFECT Professor Peppees
adaptation of Sir. Direasis Inventlon.—Mr. W. Randall and Mr.
Parker.—And CRIME AND ELMOILSE.

11168 VIATKA r 1.014D013 SILIDBIL
TIM DAT Manila& 61 14m.. . Attammen. bb. 33m
rt-atouov—Morabs. 6l 11w.. 13m.

---
LONDON, THURSDAY, AUGUST 20.

NITER had monarch a fairer opportunity for
supplanting a rival than the Austrian EMPRROR
had in his recent antagonism to Prussia and its
King. FRANCIS JOSEPH had but to outbid the
hesitating and ambiguous liberalism of Berlin by
proposing at Frankfort a project of Reform or
of Union which should be acceptable at least to the
moderate liberals of Germany.
Instead of this, what has Austria offered
What scheme have the Princes of Germany and
its people been summoned to listen to t A scheme
illusive, unfair, impracticable, and of a nature to
be received by the assembled Princes themselves as
• political conundrum, by the people as a delu-
sion and a snare.

The first portion of the scheme brought forward
by Austria is that of the new Federal Executive.
The German Government is proposed to consist
of eleven members, three to be chosen by Austria,
three by Prussia, three by Bavaria, and only two
by the rest of Germany, with its varied interests
and large population. The majority of this
Executive Council is at once in the hands of
Austria and Bavaria, two Courts closely united
by policy and intermarriage, both Catholic, and
both retrograde in many respects. Such a pro-
posal is nothing less than an insult to North Ger-
many, and, instead of depriving Prussia of its
adherents, calculated to make all Germany rally to
its aide. Wo had been already warned that the
ideas of RECHBERO, and even of SCIIMERLING, were
not sufficiently advanced to satisfy the saOrations
of Germany ; and certainly the propositions of
the EXPEAOR at Frankfort will not diminish that
mistrust of Austria which prevails in the minds
of the most farsighted German patriots.

In adcFtion to a Federal Executive so un-
fairly put together, there is to be an Upper
Chamber in which these Courts and their
aristocracies may entrench themselves ; and
this Upper Chamber is moreover to have the
power to elect one-third of the members of the
Lower or Representative Chamber. We admit
that Austrian statesmen have some excuse for
being conservative at home. The difficulty of re-
conciling so many nationalities and bringing them
to harmonise in one assembly is so great that the
attempt to solve the problem by giving an immense
preponderance to the aristocracy can be understood.
Moreover, the remote populations of the Austrian
empire are centuries in strew, and want that
middle class which tempers extravagant tendencies
above and below it.

But Germany contains quite a different kind of
population, and quite a different field for the lees-
later. It is far too advanced to be governed by
a Senate of Notables. It is far too sanguine and
too agitated to allow a civic minority to be kept
down and neutralized by a large aristocratic ma-
jority secured by unfair means. Austrian states-
men, by their EXPEROIIII proposal, have merely
shown themselves as much behind German ideas
as the Austrian Empire is behind Germany in
political requirements, in social, intellectual, and
political development.
The step which Austria has taken should
profit immensely to Prussia, if King Wita.rast
and his Government were of a nature and in a
condition to take advantage of it ; for the bare
hint of such proposals must break up what is called
the Great German party, and swell that of the
National Union. What an opportunity for the
King of Paustna himself to retrace his steps, and
throw himself once more upon his people, if indeed
the Prince of PRUSSIA had been called to Gastein
by his royal father for such a purpose ! There is,
we know, a conviction growing up in Germany
that union and regeneration can only be achieved
by shaking off, rather than accepting with alacrity
either Austrian or Prussian supremely, and
this conviction will gather streogth from the
experiences of Frankfort. But however merited
by these Powers, and however just such a
conclusion, it still renders the hopes of rege-
neration more visionary, and commits their reali-
zation rather to revolutionary hazards and un-
foreseen events, than to that regular course of
liberal action in which peaceable and sensible men
may work together for the common good.
Let us hope that German patriotism may yet
have a larger future. The liberation and union of
Italy was the work of a King. Why should not
Germany follow the example of that Peninsula,
so long unhappily associated with its history
and its fortunes f But whatever might be
hoped from one Prince could certainly not be ex•
peeted from a Council of Princes, or Furxten Cou-
rts., such as that which has met at Frankfort.
The four lesser Kings of Germany are all retro-
grade ; the Hesse' are little better. It would be
idle to propose to a meeting of Princes any real
reform of the Confederation, or establishment of
unity, unless some one Sovereign would come for-
ward and speak less in his own name than as
the representative of the n itional heart and
will. It was long hoped that the King of Panama
would have undertaken that part. A few indulged
in hopes that the Emperor of AUSTRIA, awakened
to a full sense of the crisis, would have assumed
the part at Frankfort. He has not even ap-
proached it. " Put not your trust in princes"
will be more than ever the watchword of Germany.
The Sovereign Congress of Frankfort will not,
however, be without result. The Grand Dukes of
BADEN and of SAXE-COBURO will, it is hoped, have
protested against the practicability of the Austrian
proposals ; and the meeting of the Princes will
be followed by one of popular delegates, who, had
they been allowed to meet of themselves,
might have made little impression, com-
pared with the weight they will now bear
after the fiasco of the Princes. They will be in a
manner called for. They will have a right to
speak. And the public will auxiously wait to know
whether the German people and their intellectual
leaders have no better prescription for political
stony than a gathering of privileged and hereditary
State Doctors. The Delegation will, we trust,
- •
nvisicioles, and learned
and wishes of
nr political re-

set aside theories, abstract
disquisitions. To state the wants
the German people, and define the: