The Express.
London, England, 1860-12-24 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, DSC. 24.

Tea Austrian Empire offers an example of dis-
organization and helplessness such as cannot be
matched in Europe, and hardly in modern history.
If the statesman who called Italy a "geographical
" expression " were alive now be would be com-
pelled to acknowledge how very nearly the phrase
described the agglomeration of states which he
educated for anarchy. Absolutism in govern-
ment has its dangers, and so also has innovation.
But custom mitigates the heaviest yoke ; and, on
the other hand, men will bear the shock of consi-
derable changes when they are evidently for their
good. The public men of Austria, however, have
tempted the perils of both systems at once.
HATNATJ and RA DRUZ; it was supposed, had so
completely extinguished the disposition to demand
freedom throughout the states and kingdoms of the
Empire, that Emma° tyranny was intoxicated
with its success, and insisted on appearing in new
and unknown forms. The war of 1859 applied a
touchstone to the strength of the monarchy which
many affirmed had been regenerated. Solferino
followed Magenta, and the truth was disclosed. A
nation does not resign itself to misfortune as the
Emperor Faascre Josara did at Villafranca, and
has done ever since. But the national life of Austria
had been sacrificed to the army, and that having
been beaten, its ICKPZIIOII could not find one of its
capitals whither he could repair and renew the
touching appeal which MARIA Tuaasas made to her
Hungarian subjects at Presburg. Ever since June of
last year the EMPZIOR has been casting about to
find means to persuade those over whom he rules
that he no longer regards them merely as pro.
ducers of the wages of his soldiers, but that the
path of a true national life is opening before them.
We may readily admit that even a sovereign
with the disposition of a Josarli 11. would find in
the heterogeneous character of the Austrian
monarc►y, taken in connexion with that disposi-
tion to constitute or reorganize States according
to affinities of race and language, which is one
of the leading political tendencies of our times,
difficulties demanding the highest qualities of
statesmanship. And there is a kind of poetical
retribution in the fact that so many of the domestic
troubles of the Court of Vienna should spring
from that principle of nationality which it derided
in Italy and denied in Germany. But PRAMS
J4INEPII has further perplexed the " situation "
by his own wilfulness, folly, and bad faith. After
all the mistakes of 1848 and 1849, there was
abundant opportunity to repair the weakened
fabric of the Government. The many and great
errors of those years were followed in men's
minds by • reaction of feeling, during
which the people of every country wore
willing to suffer a great deal for the sake of
order and solid government. Had the Imperial
Government taken advantage of this interval to
introduce order into the finances and economy
into the administration of the State, it would
have acquired a strength in which it would have
been enabled to anticipate or resist the demands
sure to be made upon it as soon se the nation
began to look into its own affairs. But instead
of that, nearly all the attention of the Govern-
ment was spent upon an enormous army, required
for no national purpose, but kept up to enable
the Ex ratio' to coerce Romans, Tuscans,
Panne se, or to help the little Princes of Ger-
many to imprison the people they had choused.
Many a time was this headstrong Government
wanted of the certain ruin in which its course
mast cod, but always in vain. Its only care was
to bind in new chains the people whom it scorned
to conciliate.

The fruits of this fatuous policy have been de.
veloping themselves for more than a twelvemonth,
and are now more obvious than ever. State after
date, province after province, is awakening, not
to a sense of fellowship with the others, in a
spirit of national unity, but to a consciousness of

its itelividual and private interests. The selfishness
of the Imperial Government is thus repaid in kind.
Everywhere we see in Austria either a dogged *nt-
h nnem which is pleased with nothing, or the evi-
dent -talon of some strong oentrifugal force. One
pros ewe asks only administrative independence ;
more than one want to leave the Empire ; while
a third, the strongest and richest of all,
declares that it is the Empire, and threatens revo-
lution if its importance is not fully recognised. This
accounts transmitted from Vienna show only too
plainly that the ministers of the Ennuis ore
quite aware of the difficulties of their position, and
equp.lly so of their inability to cope with them.
Day by day they seek to win favour by sacrificing
some part of the system of the last ten years. Now
it is the high centralization of the administration

el Hungary, now the Concordat, and now the
restrictions on the press. Hitherto the only effect
of theee changes has been negative. Concessions
have liven taken only as confessions of error and
fault. liecuuse everybo.ly knew that, like those of
Fitt,. Is 11., they have not been granted to
justice, but to gain favour for a Court in distress.
That the Government should inspire no confidence
is not remarkable, since it displays no decision of
chancier. All its measures aro half measure*,
which have to be patched up while yet new. The
Etier.mat can now reflect on how much ho lost
when he deprived the Hungarians of their consti-
tution. The re establishment of that constitution
is now demanded, with the alternative of a revo-
lution. To maintain it on an historical basis would
have excited no jealousies ; but to wive it without
alsoctmeeding equal rights to the other State which
are e•rely to demand thent, is itimoexible. The
conference at I.:ran (ruin which.° much a as expected