The Express.
London, England, 1851-10-07 00:00:00

AUSTRIA.

VIENNA, OCT. 3.
A grand council sat yesterday in the Burg. The
ministry and the members of the lteichsrath met at
eleven o'clock, soon after which hour the Emperor
himself appeared, and presided. His arrival took
place, as expected, during the night of Wednesday.
the deliberations lasted several hours; their import
remains a secret, though they were doubtlessly
weighty in the extreme. 'rho l'resee and other
journals say that they turned upon certain proposals,
made by Prince Schwarzcnburg and Baron Kubeek,
on the possibility of granting a constitution and the
laws it would render necessary.
Archduke Albrecht has arrived in Vienna from
Prague, having delivered up the civil and military
command of that province to a temporary successor.
He will leave for Pesth in a very few days. The
official Gazette of Hungary mentions a rumour that
the Emperor will probably visit that country before
the winter.

The new loan, like the proverbial " bad shilling," re-
turns again and again to notice. Yesterday, or the
day before, the Minister of Finance confessed, in an
official document, that his loan hud proved a failure.
The official document to which I allude was an order

on the bank to subscribe the ten or twelve millions
which all the extortion, compulsions, intrigues, and
promises of the past month have left him minus the
desired amount. Notwithstanding the unusual ad-
vantages offered by the government, nearly 10 per
cent. altogether ; notwithstanding the prolongation of
the original period within which this great advantage
would be continued; notwithstanding the very ample
use of sham agents who have subscribed in Frank-
fort, Amsterdam, and London; notwithstanding the
acknowledgment of the "domestic obligations" of the
two Austrian provinces and of Styria—a measure
which added ten million real subscriptions and other
ten millions of state paper to the loan—Baron Kraus
has at last forced himself to resort once more to his
usual expedient of drawing upon the bank, and ho
has ordered the bank to subscribe the amount want-
ing to make up the eighty-five millions. No matter
by what means, or however unreal, the new loan is
at least to appear to have been subscribed. What
the finance minister will do when he has got his
eighty-five millions must be a puzzle alike to himself
as it is to the rest of the money world. With all the
arrogance and daring which the government of Austria
has displayed when it has had to deal with vanquished
opponents or crushed subjects, the want of real cou-
rage is displayed in the matter of this loan. To all
intents and purposes it has not been a voluntary but
a forced loan.
_Former letters have described in de-

tail the methods which the authorities have pursued I
in order to obtain subscriptions. The involuntary
subscriptions they extracted, however, solely from
the humbler money-boxes of the small merchant and
citizen. Baron Kraus has not ventured upon such
measures with the princes and nobles of the empire.
Nothing is known of subscriptions having been made
by the Esterhazys, Lichtensteins, Lobkowitz, or
others of the nobility whose wealth is known to be
enormous. Baron Kraus preys only upon the pros-
trate, who depend for their existence upon the main-
tenance of police favour. Archduke Maximilian
d'Este, whose fortune is believed to be greater than
that of any other man in the Austrian dominions,
would have done more to re-establish the financial
credit of the empire by subscribing five or six
millions, than the ten compulsorily extorted from
the bank.
Since the 9th of September sixty-eight persons
have died from cholera in Brant' and its faubourgs.
Brtinn is the seat of government for Moravia.
Baron Mcyendorf, the ambassador of the court of
St. Petersburg, has returned to Vienna from Hun-
gary, into the condition of which country he is said

to have been making close inquiries, in obedience to
orders received from the Czar himself.
Very little authentic information has been re-
ceived of the fortunes of the German immigrants into
Hungary. From the meagre details which news.
paper columns occasionally furnish, the conclusion is
forced upon the reader, that the various colonisiLion
schemes have not turned out well. Respecting ono
of these societies, which bears the name of its pro.
motcr, Ehrenberg, letters from Tokay give a most
deplorable picture. The promoter and Ins followers
are said to be nearly ruined. The Hungarian pea-
sant treats the immigrants with contempt and dis-
dain, calls them " bankrupt Germans," and tells them
to "go home." With this example before their
eyes, and very little prospect of improvement in the
general condition of Hungary, the formation if other
companies ought to be difficult in the extreme. An
enterprising individual, named Reichenbach, is ac-
tively, and us yet successfully, engaged in organising
another emigration company.
Field-Marshal Prince Windischgratz's history of
the first Hungarian campaign is in print, and will be
published is a few days.
A railway is planned to connect Pesth with Lem-
berg. It will have to cross the Caipathians at
Dukla, where engineering difficulties nearly equal to
those on the Sionmering will have to he met. The
government is said to have sanctioned the plan.
Great activity prevails in the naval arsenal at
Venice. No less than 1,500 workmen are in daily
employ. Several vessels, commenced by the ex-re-
public, arc being continued by the imperial govern-
ment; among them arc a huge corvette and two
steamers. A frigate, a sister ship to the Novara,
lately launched, is also on the stocks.
Rich coal mines have been discovered in Upper

Styria.
The great telegraphic conference of deputies from
each of the states belonging to the Austo-German
Telegraphic Union has commenced its sittings; but
nothing beyond formal business has as yet been
transacted. The Austro-German Telegraphic Union
was established in the month of July, MA for the
purpose of uniting the several lines of telegraph in
the different states of Germany, and making them
without difficulty available at moderate expense to tho
inhabitants of all. I have not a list of the states who
have joined it, but I believe that few out of tho
thirty-four arc wanting. Union and combination, for
the purpose of promoting the material welfare of
Germany, have until late years been so very rare or
little advantage taken of those which did exist, that
very great credit indeed is due to the establishment
of postal, railway, and telegraphic unions. The re-
sults of these unions, under other circumstances,
under other governments, would display in bril-
liant relief the disadvantages of artificial isola-
tion. Meddling aid impeding as is the prac-
tice of all the governments of Germany in
means of communication, their union has done
good, and may in future do still more. At present,
however, the advantages which the increased rapi-
dity of communication obtained by their union affords
are confined, so far as newspapers are concerned, to
the transmission of the closing prices of funds.
Political intelligence of importance is classed
under the head of " dangerous communications
if false, the telegraph officials refuse to for-
ward it'; and if true and unpleasant to the govern-
ment, the forwarder is likely to meet the attention of
a court-martial ; or if a foreigner, to be expedited
beyond the frontier with the least delay. I am
surprised that the telegraph is allowed to commu-
nicate the closing prices of the funds, as this infor-
mation must interfere most disadvantageously with
many of the hazardous financial speculations upon
which Baron Kraus so frequently ventures.
Under these circumstances it is still more sur-
prising to learn that this government intend at the
conference to submit plans for a great reduction in
the prices of telegraph communications, and an in-
crease in the number of places to which messages
can be sent. It is proposed to establish a bureau at
each post-office. This government further proposes
to send every despatch in future direct to its desti-
nation, without the use of the intermediate stations.
Direct telegraphic communication would thus be es-
tablished between Trieste and Ostend. At present
the despatches are transmitted from Trieste to
Vienna, from Vienna to Berlin, and thence through
several intermediate stations to Cologne.
Baron Jellachich is in Vienna.