The Express.
London, England, 1860-09-22 00:00:00

PRUSSIA AND GERMAN UNITY.

The Cologne Gazette publishes a circular, ad-
dressed by the Prussian government to its repre-
sentatives at the German courts, explaining the
attitude which the Prince Regent's government
has assumed with regard to certain important
question,' pending in the Federal Diet. The
following are the most essential passages :

The German Confederation is an association *worthw
to international law, the essential object of which, in the
eyes of the Prince Regent's government, is to protect the
security and the independence of Germany, and of each at
its members, in presence of Junin nations. Some of our
confederates, however, appear to turn their attention prin-
cipally to the uniform development of internal political
organtmtion, and especially to the constitutional entail-
tierse of each co.feilemte state, according to a sys:em
which, if carried to its extreme consequences, would lead
to the establishment of a Anpreme federal authority in-
teetering with the internal ftzinization of each state. The
action of the Federal Diet, as regards the internal orga-
nization of states, and especially their constitutional
institutions, ought to be reduced to the most restricted
measure of its „geuerally recognised jurisdiction. In fact,
the confederation et a certain number of states differing
in extent, iu character, and in power, and yet enjoying
equal rights in that confederation, cannot overcome the
difficulties irking from such a situatioo, unless the tie
which binds its members together touches as little as pos-
sible their internal independence. The Prince Regent's
government is certain in advance to obtain that adhesion
when it proclaims its conviction that the first and the
highest mission of the confederation, and that which prin-
cipally led to its eatablishnieut, was nothis more then to
protect from all danger and all violence from abroad
the independence of each German state separately,
and the absolute integrity of the national territory. At
no epoch has this mission been more imperative for the
German Confederation than in presence of the existing
political situation. Hut the spirit which animates the
ratioe facilitates the accomplishment of it. Since the
fonzdation of the confedemtiou the idea of nationality has
beeline stronger and stronger among the Germanic people,
and the governments will only anticipate their wishes by
zealously joining in giving to the military forma of Ger-
many the development and the organization calculated to
inspire in the nation, on the appearance of a foreign danger,
a well-founded hope of the success of the efforts which
in that eventuality It would be called on to make.
Prussia has quite recently, in order to increase her power
and her military forces, ridded new sacrifices to those
which she had previously demanded from her populations.
Relying on this circumstance, on the fact that, as demon-
strated
by experience, the security of Germany depends
chiefly en the efforts of Prussia, and on i.a loyal intentions
and the purity of its object, the government of the Prince
Regent C3ll confidently hope that its German confederates
. will not only respond, the measure of their resources, to
the exigencies of the general political situation, but that in
the Diet they will zealously support all the measures which
the gravity of circumstances and the real diameter of the
situation imperatively demand for the defence of the com-
mon country.