The Express.
London, England, 1866-04-14 00:00:00

AUSTRIA.

(nom ova owl; col

VIENNA, Aran. 10.
Before this reaches you the news will have arrived
of Count Bismarck's proposition to the Diet to call
a parliament on the principle of universal 'suffrage.
It is a perfect harlequinade, and is looked upon as

such by all parties.
And in the face of these events, what is the
course adolted by Austria, or rather by her minis-
ters) Dar, they take advantage of the excellent
feeling existing everywhere among the people, and

the indignation which every fresh missive from
Berlin calls forth anew ? Do they also feel that
there is a !bit to forbearance, beyond which it can-
not go witlibut sacrificing self-respect, and without
causing a great Power to lose prestige Z It seems
not ; for even to this last note of Count Bismarck

the answer is not in the decisive tone which it

ought to be. Throughout all these proceedings

Austria has shown, it cannot be denied, a sort of I
knock-under inclination—a willingness to put up
with anything, in the futile hope of appeasing her
adversary by over-smooth words.
The same unfortunate indecision so characteristic
of Austrian policy—of the whole policy of to-day—
pzrticularly distinguishes every step taken in this
Schleswig-Holstein question. There is no self-
confidence ; and, above all, there is no fixed plan.
The policy followed is of from to-day till to-morrow.
There is an undue disinclination to offend Prussia ;
and hence those measures are not carried out which
law and diplomacy authorise, and which common
sense demands. - -

But, as some one observed to me yesterday who
knows Austria well, " A curse seems to rest on her,
for when everything is ready and the time comes
to move, she always stands stock still. Or if, every
peeparationteing made. tlierig.ht foot is to be put
forward, she is sure to step out with the left.°
There is such a thing as moral cowardice, the
mere suspicion of which in the decisive moment is
to be carefully avoided. It is not to be denied
that the tone adopted to the last by Austria, in
face of the indignities heaped on her by Prussia,

might not unreasonably give rise to the supposi-
tion that her ceadust was effected by some such
influence. _ _

Though there is something supremely ridiculous
in that man proposing a parliament, chosen by uni-
versal suffrage, who has already treated his own
parliament with such disdain, still were it to come
to pass, its originator would, for the time, have an
advantage over that government who, having
given a constitution, took it away, and had not
given it back again. Here again Austrian slowness,
if it be not something else, is working harm. But
out of those despatches just published—the Austrian
of February 7, and the Prussian of March s—the
people, with an unerring instinct, discovered
that originally it was intended by the Can-
tein treaty that both parties should go together,
each helping the other in his re-actionary
strivings, though the plan, as sounding better, was
called " putting down revolution." It is quite
clear that Austria's hands are not clean ; however,
she now is willing and ready for her own sake to
wash off the dirt. The hand must first be cleansed
if others are to grasp it.
Aa is invariably the case, the opponent has got
the start of Austria. Had she, instead of hanging
back for fear of irritating Prussia, gone at once to
the Diet as she had made up her mind to do, and
had she, as its existence would in no wise have
prejudiced the transactions at Peeth, summoned
the Reichsrath, her position would have been a
strong one in opposition to Bismarck and his par-
liament. But, " Nur langsam voran "(" go only
slowly on "), as the old Austrian rhyme has it ;
that is the spirit that reigns paramount here. Had
she appealed to the Diet as she was justified in
doing, she would have brought the Confederation to
honour. Being on legal ground she would no longer
have had any responsibility, and Prussia would
have been forced to give way or to draw the sword.
And this without Austria being the aggressor.
Austria would thus, too, have regained her lost
position, and her act would have restored confi-
dence, and been a guarantee, to all the other minor
States of Germany.
I have given you here not my opinion merely-

though my opinion it also is, most certainly—but
thegeneral feelinghere, the feeling shared by all. It
is merely the echo of each passer's thoughts—a re-
flex of his views. And what is written about vacil-
lation is based, not on a presumed, but a certain
knowledge of the influence which up to this moment
has prevailed in the mimed chamber.
P.S. This morning the commissioners for the
Anglo-Austrian commercial treaty hold their first
sitting. In the political summary at the end of the
Fortnightly Review, there is, I see, an account of
what is doing here. I mention it because it gives
a clear and fair statement of passing events, free
from the prejudice and distortion so often to be
found in our English accounts of Austrian affairs.

FORRIGN-OPPICZ, APRIL 11.—The Queenhas been
pleased to approve of Don Mariano Ricardo de Arend as
consul at Southampton for her Majesty theQuess of Spain.
The Queen has oho been phased to approve of Mr. F. G.
Primp as vtoe-eceral at Liverpool for has Boyd Rieman
the Greed Duke if Meeklenburg-Sehwerin.--Genetie.