The Express.
London, England, 1850-03-14 00:00:00

OUTGOING MAILS.
. _ _

The malls fey Lisboa, Spain, and Gibraltar will be made
pp on the 17th inst.
The West India Mills, excluding Bermuda, Eavannah,
Nassau, H. dorm, New Orleans, and Mexico, and including
sh•ae for Madeira, Bt. Juan-de-Ntearairua, New Granada,
Chili. end Perumill be made up on the 17th inst.
The midis for Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, the lonian Islands,
Egypt, Cagiest, India, and China, lea Southampton, will
he teed' up on the morning of Much 20.
The mails for British North Alkaliell and the United
States will be made up on the evening of the 22nd inst.
The mails yid Marseilles, to the Mediterranean, Egypt,
Ovlon, India, Hong-Kong, die., will be made up on the
evening of the 24th inst.
The mails for Maoris, the Brasil', and Buenos Agree, will
be aids up on the evening et April 4.

BIOS WATIN AT LONDON SUMO&
Two Day—Nacelac I. Slai *hens.. Di. ODA.
To.•••••—Wert'. 7n. lAA Mamma. L. Stm.

LONDON, THURSDAY, MARCH 14.

THE time is now fast approaching when it must
be decided one way or another what path Germany
is to take for the maintenance of its nationality, for
the development or the extinction of its freedom.
Tome different views prevail, or have prevailed, on
this important ',Woke. The popular and ultra-
liberal view, dominant in 1818, WJB to overrile the
rights of princes by establishing ono constitu-
tion or code, one grand reprisentative as-
sembly, which was to legislate for Germany,
whilst the chief that it should elect or appoint
' was to be the emperor and executive, throwing back
the kings, even the greater ones, into the rank of
vassals. In willing and decreeing this, the demo-
cracy of Germany overlooked the necessity of esta-
blishing and supporting it by some physical force,
more permanent, organised, and manifest, than the
mere clamour of the multitude. They raised no
army, but affected to count on the armies of the very
monarchies they proposed to destroy. Their con-
fidence was puerile, and the result what every man of
sense must have expected.
Opposed to this extreme was the old absolutist
idea of 1815, to leave Germany a confederation
of princes, represented by their envoys in a
Diet, the majort-y, of votes and the lead in which
were to be in the hands of the two, or rather of the one
great German power. The German Diet, presided
over by Austris, was in fact but a repetition of the
cabinet council of Vienna, and thus a purely absolutist
control was exercised over a league of states, called
constitutional, but in which no one genuine element
of a free constitution could be developed. The D.et
forbade the several chambers to curtail the budget;
it fixed the amount of the army contingent, and its
expenses. It bridled the freedom of the press, eon-
tituted itself judge of all quarrels between sovereign
and subject, and in fact, though allowing the forms,
it too bade the reality, of constitutional government to

any state in Germany. As a necessary cm-
sequence it reduced the smaller sovereigns
to the nature of puppets, unable to ac-
quire the science and experience of government,
the love of their subjects, or the respect of the world.
Nothing has so contributed to render the events of
1848 fruitless in Germany, as the utter nullity of the
princes, espeei illy of the smaller ones. The middle
classes, amidst convulsion and wreck, had literally
no power or principle to look to or invoke.
In the Frankfort Assembly, es well as in the elan-
try, there arose a party, which conceived the hope of
saving something from the reaction of 1849, and
which meditated the establishment of German unity
and freedom on principles arid institutions equally
removed from abs lutism and autocracy, as from a
sweeping and prince-annulling democracy. The first
principle of this party was tnat whilst the rights of
individual princes,together with local liberties, should
be respected, there should at the same time be a
Volkshaus,a popularly elected representative assembly,
fur Germ any. To this principle Prussia adhered,
and on this basis hurled a constitution, in which
Hanover and Saxony concaved. We are far horn ap-
proving of all the acts of the Prussian government ;
uor would we withdraw any one of the bitter cen-
sures which i.s conduct has provoked from us. But
we cannot but see that the only hopes of developing
German nationality, power, and freedom, all of them
necessary to the peace of Eun pe, and the de fence of
liberal principles, rest at pre,ent with Prussia, and
with the triumph of the policy adopted by the court
of Berlin.

......
Directly opposed to Pru.sia in these aims and poli-
cies stand Austria and ltu-sia •, both firmly united,
breathing the same language, and pursuing the same
sin-, in Greece u on the Danube, at Frankfurt as at
Mir-ich, in the saloons of the Princess LIEVEN, as in
the editorial office of 'he Times. The principle which
the absolutist league insist on for Germany is, that
there shall bs no rtilkshaus, no nation,l ar,d popular
representations, but that the link between the state,
erall crr.sist, as the old Diet did, of mere delegates
from princes. We need not say that this is mu..l
more flattering to minor kings and courts than the
Prussian plat ; and that it has succeeded in not only
k (Ting Bavaria and Wurtemburg in hostility to
P. es,ia, but t ven has drawn Hanover and Saxony
from ihe alliar.ce which, in the days of their distress,

they had concluded.
Were princes all in all, no doubt the reactionary in-
trigues of Austria would have succeeded. But in Saxony
and Hanover, as in the rest of Germany, there exit
representative chambers, as well as a popular feeling.
And these, howevtr they might aject to tee Prussian
plan, could not but pr. ter it t) a return under the old
ab,olutiot and Austrian Diet. The day for the meet-

ing of the parliament at Erfurt was at hand, and if it
was to be delayed or opposed, it was absolutely ne-
weary to propose some plan of German unity and
seeming liberalism, to compete and contrast with that
of Prussia.

1%, concoct such a scheme was put Austrian inge-
nuity, but the minister of Bavarta,Von DER PFORDTEN,
an able man, who had ratted from the ranks of the
liberal constitational,re, undertook the task, acd
lifter much negotiation with Prince SCIIWARTZEN-
NERO, he has produced a constitution for Germany,
which is to outshine and supersede that of the King
of Prussia and Von GAGERN.
The scheme of it we pub,ishei yesterday, and it cer-
tainly is not wanting in the grandiose. It proposes no
less than to unite in one empire the seventy million
subjects of I'russia, of Austria and of the German
pricces. The link of this vast confederation, com-
prising twen•ysix million of Selavonians, Crows,
Hungarians, and Lombards, was, according to the
Bavarian plan, to consist of what it ingeniously
called a Voikskons, that is, a body of representa-
tives chosen by the provincial teat( s, which it was
promised each province should possess. The Getman
House of Commons was in fact to be like tic
American Senate. chosen by the states, meet of which
do not exist, and never can exit ; and which, if they did
existunder the military rule of Austria, would be non-
entities. This assembly was to be composed one-
third of Austrian, me-third of Prussian, and the
remaining third of the other German states.
Above this melt House of Commons was to be
established a Stuatehbans, of plenipotentiaries from
the several courts, like the old Diet ; and above them
b ith a Federal Executive, t 3 consist of seven members,
Austria appointing one, Prussia another, Baverit
a third, Wurtemberg (absorbing Baden) a fourth,
Saxony (absorbing the central states)a fifth, Hanover
and the North Western states a sixth, the two limit's
a seventh. It was, in fact, a restoration of the old
Diet, with the mere name, and the mere promise
crver to be fulfilled, of a Volkshans. And Austria,
obj by
ocdte°:it:vpgeernatilwyo gaayvito‘iwniedtoth
her
ree
poSultdraposa strelson nil 'oi:fit: isnotafunntdihieniaGn:eiismt insisting
as form went, to the old machinery of 1615.
The consequences of the adoption of such a plan and
extent of confederation are petty obvious. First of
all, it would absorb all Hungary and the Selavonian
provinces of Austria, together with Lombardy, in the
German empire. As the polit;oul and military ex-
penses were arranged, the first to be in common, the
last to be divided into three parts, Austria bearing a
third, a war in Italy for example, commenct d by the
French, should be met by the army of the new em-
pire, an insurrection in Hungary the same.
Austria would have her outlying provinces,
guarenteei by G rmany, as the price of her joining
Germany. Whilst by the constitution of the federal
executive, the senate, and even the pretended
ibfk•lawe, Austria, and, through her, Russia, would
dominate over the whole of central Europe from the
Baltic to the Appenines. It would •
of NAPOLEON'S prophecy of Europe
If from political considerations v
dal ones, the formation of such an empire