The Express.
London, England, 1867-02-20 00:00:00

L 1 L21:111.

THIS PArcistan, THE Tii.lll7Jait. Mr. Widdicomb —Antl
ROUGE Er N. li It. Messrs. Pechter, Emery, Cowper. Moreland,
//Hanalei-Lk. D.ltun, Reynokls, Lomas, Andreae, Price, Ac. ,
Mrs. L. Murray, and Misses [tentacle, Grattan, and C. Leclereti.

Tinslrrcrwo, MARRIED DA6IiTTERS AND YOI"ND
BAND.4.—Last Nights of GUY FAWILES.—muI A SUIT OF
TWEE.D.S.

ROLBORN.

Trim Branum MY TURN NEXT Mr. Belmore: Mimes
Foote and LlitiOX —And FLYING SCUP. Hews. Neville, Del-
more, Make, Vullalre, &c.: Meedunes F. Josephs. C. Saunders,
Berle Foote, tlddes. Lennox. Raymond, Ike.

BRITANNIA.

THIS EVENING. THE PRINCE:LS OF THE PEARL ISLAND:
011.. THE THREE. KINGDOMS OF PEARL. GOLD, AND
SILVER. Mi:. Jacohn —Pint-rate Pantomimist& —And THE
NETURN OF THE WANDERER.

MOH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

TIDI DAY —Nfornine, RIL 4m Afternoon, 3h 25at.
2D-Moßao4l-11orninz, 3h. 44m Afternoon, 4h 3M.

LO:VDOY, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20.

Foe a considerable time it has been an en.
pleasant task to comment on the affairs of Austria,
but the reconciliation of the Imperial Government
with the Hungarian Diet is an event which gives
hope of better days for the monarchy. The
history of the domestic government of the empire
for the last twenty years has been little more than
the record of a series of false starts on the roaAl of
constitutional policy, each followed, after an in-
terval of exhausting elf, ,rt, by the discovery of
error, and ending in dejection and collapse.
Patent has been issued after patent, and scheme
has succeeded scheme, but hitherto not one of
them has been found practicable in its applica-
tion. The SclIM ARTZEN BERGS, 11ACHS, SCAM ER-
LINGS, and BELCREDIS have by turns tried their
hands, and Bavaria and Saxony have been required
to furnish Austria with statesmen capable of
recovering the country from its embarrassments ;
but until now a constitutional plan, in which the
various peoples of the monarchy can co-operate for
the common good, has not been discovered. The
principal difficulties of the Austrian Government,
as it seemed to distant observers, were found
in the political sentiments and disposition of the
Hungarian and Italian subjects of the Ex-
ezeort—the one demanding a position in the
monarchy inconsistent with the plans of any of the
successive advisers of the Sovereign, while the
other turned away from Austria altogether, and
required nothing less than separation from the
empire and union with Italy. The Italian ques-
tion settles itself in two great foreign wars, leav-
ing thelltingiuian difficulty only the more promi-
nent. Defeated in their great and truly national
insurrection in 1848, the Hungarians ceased to
trust in the sword, but took up an attitude of
patient and proud reserve. The Austrian Govern-
ment held that by the events of 1848 the king-
dom had entirely forfeited its constitutional rights,
and that its territory and population were but so
many elements which a clever constitution-
monger might freely dispose of for the purpores
of his new combivations. All that the Hun-
garians could do was to submit passively to the
measures which were adopted at Vienna in pur-
suance of the right of conquest, while they care-
fully avoided all active participation in the affairs
of the empire. Every attempt to induce them to
enter into the new policy of the Austrian states-
men found both leaders and people immovable.
They had lost all material power ; their sons were
taken for the Imperial army, and their money for
Imperial taxes, without their consent. They
could not help it, and they would not stoop to
complain, but they could and did stand aloof,
believing that the time must come when the
EMPEROR would be compelled to approach
them with other tones than those of a conqueror,
and when they would have an opportunity
of expressing their sentiments freely without
loss of dignity. Year after year they waited
for such a time, and for a while it seemed as
though the Austrian Government was acquiring a
power and authority in Europe which would make
it indifferent to their situation ; nevertheless, they
preserved their attitude, admired by a few, but
blamed as impracticable by more of their friends.
The recovery of Austria, however, was rather in
appearance than reality, and even in appearance
it was only partial. When, with the invasion of
the Danubian Principalities by Russia, and the
consequent expedition of French and English
armies to the Crimea, the long period of European
peace was interrupted, and governments had some-
thing else to do than league together to suppress
domestic revolutions, the internal discord of Aus-
tria again became a manifest source of weakness.
The Congress of Paris was a warning to the Em-
peror FRANCIS JOSEPH to set his house in order,
and was followed, three years later, by the
Italian campaign, which saw his fine army
completely defeated, and one of his richest
provinces torn from his empire. Impelled by the
necessity of doing something to restore public
confidence, so thoroughly shaken by this heavy
blow, the EMPEROR made what was intended to

be an appeal to the public *4 of his_ peoples,.
and issued patents purpostin. g 'to establish some-
thing like a national representation. But beneath
all his measures lay tho assumption thaethe
ancient constitution of Hungary was annulled,
having been forfeited by revolution, and that the
ground in that kingdom was cleared for the con-
struction of a new political edifice. The Hunga-
rians, more than ever convinced that the necessi-
ties of the Imperial Government would in the end
arable them to make good their own position, and
effectually assert the unbroken continuity of their
historical rights, would have nothing to do with
the EMPEROR'S schemes, and the Reichnath met
at Vienna without their representatives. They
were not deceived. In 1861 the EMPEROR
made a real and decided advance towards his
Hungarian subjects. He restored their Comitats,
replaced the German functionaries of the kingdom
by Hungarians, declared Magyar the political
language of the country, and convoked the Diet.
The system which the Emssioot desired to intro-
duce was not, however, satisfactory to the repre-
sentatives of the nation, who in their address to
the Crown declared that, not seeking themselves
to make laws for the hereditary States of Austria,
they could not divide with any other party than
their national Sovereign the right of making laws
for Hungary. They must, therefore, decline to
send deputies to the great Imperial Diet at Vienna,
or acknowledge the right of that body to make
laws for them. They were ready to live side by
side with the other constitutional peoples of the
monarchy, as one free and independent nation
with another, under the Emesatox, and thus only.
We need not repeat the history of the
subsequent negotiations. The first few weeks
of this year have witnessed the com-
plete success of the Hungarians. The EMPEROR
has yielded everything essential in their demands.
In an Imperial rescript, read in both Houses of
the Diet, at Pesth, on Monday, he declares that,
" confiding in the loyalty of the Hungarian na-
" tion, and putting entire faith in their readiness
" to co-operate with him to preserve the empire,'
"he restores tho Hungarian Constitution." Ile'
asks no more in return than the Diet had declared
itself ready to perform. " The Esirmum desires
" the integrity of Hungary, and will defend her
" Constitution, and ho expects that his people
" will also defend the throne and the empire."
His MAJESTY'S words were received with enthu-
siam by the Diet, and the kingdom has given itself '
up to rejoicings. It may well be glad; it has suc-
ceeded in a cause in which many a brave people
wiih equal right on its side has had to succumb
to force. A twenty years' struggle, disastrous
alike for Austria as for Hungary, has been brought
to a close. The EMPEROR asks an indemnity
for his Ministers—a thing which would
have been inconceivable a few years
ago—and the Diet in return appoints a
deputation to convey its thanks to the EMPEROR.
it is a proud moment fur those patriotic statesmen
who, without passion or resentment, have steadily
pursued the path of constitutional legality, to have
reconciled the kingdom with the EMPEROR, and
restored it to its old place in the Austrian States
system. It is also a triumph for Baron BEtsr,
the first Austrian statesman who has had the cou-
rage and resolution to carry the most urgent,
but long delayed, business of his master to a con-
clusion. We trust he may be equally successful
with the non-Hungarian people* of the empire,
whose representatives are to assemble • month
hence at Vienna in the constitutional Reicluwath.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIB DAY.)