The Express.
London, England, 1866-08-27 00:00:00

THE TREATY OF PRAGUE.

The conditions of the Treaty of Peace which was
signed at Prague on Thursd►y evening last between the
plenipotentiaries of Prussia and Austria have not yet been
I made public ; but the Times has every reason to believe
that the fourteen main articles of the treaty are almost
identical with the original terms of the preliminaries of
Nikolaburg, as nothing whatever has occurred since the
armistice to alter the position of the contracting powers.
But there is no reason to suppose that the arrangements
to which the peace of Prague and the various treaties
with the minor states have led will be considered per-
manent. There was from the beginning at the bottom of
the whole movement something stronger than either the
Prussian or the Austrian government—something more
unanimous than the minor princes and the helpless Band,
and that was the German people. The people have not
spoken yet, and the question will aeon be laid before its
final arbitrament. Baled by the court, thwarted by his
party, worried by foreign remonstrance, Count Bismarck
has one great trump card still to play. He has yet to
see what a national German parliament will do for him.
An assembly that speaks in the name of thirty millions of
Germans cannot fail to be heard from one end to the other
of the fatherland, and the mere mortification of seeing
themselves excluded from the Congress of their brethren
will put any harmony between the subjects of the minor
princes and their rulers altogether out of the question.
Count Bissoszek's work all it is cannot stand ; it is not
meant to stand. There are things which, bold and enter-
prising as he is, he could not achieve single-handed. But
Germany has thirty.six millions of people, and he may
trust, perhaps, that he will find an auxiliary in every one
of them.

The treaty of Prague and the settlement of which it is
a part do not, at first sight, seem to the Daily News a
step towards the unification of Germany. They substi-
tute for a single Confederation three groups of States,
Northern, Southern, and Austrian. But dissolution
must always precede recombination. The ejection of
Austria is the necessary condition of German unity. The
Southern States, which mere formerly drawn to her, will
now, in the course of time, gravitate to and become ab-
sorbed in the Northern Confederacy, which again is likely
to lose itself in the Prussian monarchy. It may even be
questioned whether the Austrian Duchies may not, in the
source of time, find that the elective affinities of politics
incline them rather to alliance with their fellow
German, than with the antipathetic Sclavonian and
Magyar races. The day may possibly come when the
Duchies of Upper and Lower Austria will be the theme
of a controversy like that of which the Duchies
of Bohleawig and Holstein were lately the subject
The Daily New views the possible acitievement of German
unity with•.ut jealousy or apprehension. The right of a
people to live its own life, to develope its own strength,
and to organise itself in accordance with its own desires and
natural affinities, is to it an axiom in political ethics and
not less a plain dictate of political expediency ; but to feel
satisfaction at the change which has been accomplished,
and to look with hope to the future which it promises, is
not to condone all the steps that have been taken to bring
it about, nor to admit that the end justifies the means.
In the opinion of the Herald the results of the treaty of
Prague will be to effect a very material alteration of the
balance of power. This treaty is in one sense a supple-
ment to the treaty of 1813, in another sense a revision of
that famous document. Thus, if it was the chief inten-
tion of the allies at that time that Germany should re-
main divided their plan has been frustrated by this revolu-
tion of 18416, which practically places Germany under one
bead and enables her to combine her forces for any com-
mon purpose. If, on the other hand, it was the design of
the great powers to create such an equilibrium
of power ou the Continent as would for all future
time serve as a check to the domineering propen-
sities of any one of the great powers, then this treaty
between Austria and PrtlAsia is an accomplishment of the
work most inadequately carried out by that earlier and
more famous instrument. It is true to the letter rather
than the spirit of the treaty of 1813.