The Express.
London, England, 1857-10-13 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13.

THERE are few events that will open fields of
greater and more important expectation than the
change in the Prussian Monarchy which the alarming
illness of King F/LEDERICK WILLI tM renders so pro-
bable. In his reign Prussia has grown in wealth, intel-
ligence, in material power, and has entered on the
forms of constitutional progress ; but,owing to the cha-
racter, policy, and weakness of her Sovereign, has dis-
appointed Germany, and to a large extent has lost the
respect of the more advanced nations of Europe ; so
that on the demise of FREDERICK WILLIAM it will
be left doubtful, owing to this neglect of hoe duties,
whether Prussia really occupies the position of a
flat-rate Power. Happily for Europe, all may be
yet recovered, if the summon of the present King
only possess the heroism of the earlier founders of
the SRARDEstirrito family, and recognise the great
Sets that it is their mission as Prussian sovereigns to
place Central Europe in a situation of independence;
and that the only mode of doing so is by dropping
all the sacerdotal pretensions of old royalty, and be-
coming the first magistrates of a free and self
governing people.
That family has, by the valour, and virtues, and
constancy—to my nothing of the seltishnese—of its
great men, sufficiently aggrandised itself. The time
his now come for it to aggrandise Germany by cul-
tivating its unity, by directing its learning, its
capacity, and its spirit to public life and the public
aerrice, by infusing into it national energy, and
mating a national policy, by prudently substituting
• parliamentary government for the bureaucracy
and finctionarylans, without the destruction and re-
moval of which nothing substantial can be acquired.
Hitherto the world has known little of Prussia
(except on one memorable oreasion, when Germany
at last rose against the tyranny and foreign domina-
tion of N troLeoN), but in the will, the wishes, the
exploits, the insincerity, and, finally, in the weak-
nesses; of its Kings. And it will have been to small
purpose that those Sovereigns gradually formed an
artificial state, unless their descendants can convert
It into a substantial and independent nation.
That is cow their task. Should they fail in accom-
plishing it, the future of Germany lies between conti-
nued alternations of despotism and republicanism. In
no other of t he Germanic reigning houses is there hope
or power. The expectations of Germany lie either
in the BIL‘NDENBLEG family creating a great nation
that shall be capable of giving expression to German
intelligence, and of attracting and aggregating
around it the smaller States, or in the ultimate
extinction of German royalty in favour of a federal
republic, inch as the United States have taught the
world can exist and flourish. Should, then, FREDE-
RICK WILLIAM be on his death-bed, a great and
glorious opportunity is about to open on Germany ;
and in it England is deeply interested.
England is deeply interested because, as a first-
rate European Power, she stands alone in her Con-
stitutional character and in her Protestant policy.
Her satellites in freedom are small States, in whose
continued success and in whose welfare she must of
mane take the deepest concern, and wham indepen-
dence, if ever assailed by the mere brute force of
despotism on the ground of the wiser means they
have chosen of working out their own happiness and
prosperity, she most protect. The Scandinavian
states, Belgium, Holland, and Piedmont are all asao-
Mated with England in teaching Earope where and
in what direction its true interests he. They are all
more or less threatened by the adjacent Autocracies
whose policy is to enslave mankind under the pre-
tence of order, to keep down liberty by immense
standing armies, and to repress national life and
spirit by centralising all authority. And the Binder
position of England, separating her in daily life
from continental peoples, prevents the spread of that
active sympathy and instinctive cooperation which
are such powerful agencies in forming the opinions
and shaping the fortunes of nations.

Had England but one assistant in the great cause
of conetitutional freedom in a first-rate continental
and military Power, such as Prussia alone can be-
come, her anxieties would be lessened, bee in-
fluence in the great councils of Europe increased
and, combined and united in aims and objects, and
in general policy and feeling, the two powerful con-
stitutional monarchies would be able effectually to
control the aggressive ambition of Russia; to give
unity and freedom to Germany, and assist Italy in
relieving itself of the terrible weight of Austrian
oppression and priestly domination. As it is, with
Prussia a nullity, and worse than a nullity, in Europe
--dreaming of millennial happiness and assisting con-
temporaneous despotism—England is compelled to
adjust and tack her policy according to varying cir-
cumstances. We have now to endure our Govern-
ment seeking for support in an Austrian connexion;
then to disappoint the hopes of Italian freedom for
the sake of an alliance with the French Empire;
and even to submit, at the conclusion of a successful
war, to the renewed efforts of Russia to confirm and
extend its influence in Germany, and to exclude our
commerce from those advantages in the Reface
which our arms won and our diplomacy recorded for
as. Disappointed and even disgusted as we may be
with the ignoble part Prussia has of late played in
Europe, we can yet never cease to be interested and
concerned in Prussian politics ; and the prospect of a
new reign in Prussia is for England one of the
greatest of European questions.
There is in Germany a very general notion that
in a new reign the direct order of succession will be
interrupted by the transfer of royalty from the
Prince of Pitt note to the Prince FRk.bLIIICK WIL-
LRM, the future husband of the PRINCE3B RuTAL of

ENGLAND. This transfer would b_e it noble andi
magnanimous act of patriotisto./41e, thouyli 'OW
Prince of PRUAAI t, has learnt ofich and well, as the
education of his son testifies, dice the eventenf
1848 induced him temporarily to retire to the Court
of London, anti there form the intimate friendship
of our own most excellent Sovereign, the habits of
his life have been too purely and exclusively military
to connect him with the hopes of Prussia. That his
reign would be an improvement on that which is
closing, his spirit as a soldier gives 11=11111200 of, for
one great defect of his brother's government has been
• total absence of all spirit and dignity. But with
a young and ambitious Emperor at Vienna, arching
popularity in Germany by fictitious, and theatrical,
and ostentatious show of independence of /burin—
with a youthful Czar at St. Petersburg anxious
above all things to perpetuate the influence of Russia
in Germany—Prussia needs au entirely new life,
fresh thoughts, fresh rigour, fresh activity, such as
the accession of an elderly soldier, of no great pro-
fessional reputation, could not be expected to bestow
on her.

Old things are passing away in Continental
Europe, France has got rid of its Restorations, its
BOURSON4, and it. ORLEANSLV; of its Tutu, its
GVIZOTS, and its other old intrigues,; Aus-
tria is released from the immobility of FRANCIS,
FERDINAND, and METTERNICH, and compelled in
its self defence to action and activity, to cultivate
Hungarian attachment as some counterpoise to
Italian hatred and Oilman contempt ; and the new
reign in Russia hat sent NEsszutont and his school
into retirement. Prussia, too, needs youth and
vigour of its own, to compete with those around it,
to fulfil its own destinies. Literature and learning
now claim BUNSEN for their own at Heidelberg.
And if the Prince of Pm-BmA does, by a rare act of
royal abnegation, make way for younger men in
Prussia, he will do more for his own tame in history
than by interposing a brief interregnum to be im- '
patiently endured by Germany.

ALMOST within one sheet week from the time
when the first serious note of alarm was sounded,
we are in the midst of a monetary crisis of a severity
unequalled since the disastrous autumn of the year
1847. The Directors of the Bank of England, who
no later than Thursday last raised the rate of dis-
count from 6i to 6 per cent, have now raised it to
7 percent., without any intermediate pause. Should
the drain continue, it is most reasonably appre-
hended that additional steps in the same direction
will be unhesitatingly taken. Upon no occasion
within our recollection has it been requisite to
take so wide, so cosmopolitan a glance at the
monetary movements of the world. Both in
the old and the new hemisphere there is a startlingly
eager rush for money, and to suppose that England,
however sound and prosperous may be her trade, is
to be undisturbed, would be the merest folly. All
over the Continent, with the exception of France,
the various banks have raised their rates of discount.
Well, we have done so likewise : our rates now are
equal to nearly the highest terms current on the
Continent. An immediate movement will probably
be made by the Bank of France, and then all par-
ties will be brought to a pause, end wait to see the
tendency of the ever-musing current of capital.
If the Continent bids still higher for money, we
shall probably be compelled to raise our terms
too. In 15155 and vise, however, a good test was
afforded of the extent to which our market can be
affected by the monetary variations of the Continent,
unless under the influence of very extraordinary
circumstance,. Were the Continental markets the
only competitors for our capital, we should feel con-
fident that the worst is past, and that the existing
stringency would merely have to be kept up here for
a few weeks. A new and most serious element
of disturbance is presented, however, in the
I American panic, and no one can presume at
I present to set limits to its influence upon
our own monetary position. The commercial
relations between England and America have an-
nually swelled into greeter importance, and just in
proportion must be the reaction of their embarrass-
ments upon ourselves. It is important to remark
that whilst the rates of discount here are still only at
7 per cent., in New York first oleos commercial bills
cannot be negotiated below 24 per cent. per annum.
This extr►ordinary rate, it is true, can be merely
temporary, but so king as there prevails so enormous

a difference between the values of money in the
American and English markets, houses in America
will inevitably make attempts upon English capital,
and English houses will be willing to lend, where the
terms offered arc so high. It is from this point
of view that the chief difflculty to our market is
apparent. At the departure of the lut steamer
from New York there were not wanting indications
that the panic had somewhat slackened along the
Atlantic seaboard, but great apprehensions were felt
se to the progress of affairs westward, and it is
highly probable that from that quarter a prolonged
pressure will react upon the leading American
money markets. The prospect undoubtedly is, that
the difference between the rates of money in London
and New York will for some time to come remain
sufficiently wide to render it an important object to
he Americans to divert capital from this
side. The fall in the price of wheat and other
produce in the American ports is one of the means
by which commerce works towards the desirvd end.
And to protect ourselves against this threatened
divenion of more of our capital than we can spare,
the monetary stringency must be maintained here,
even, if necessary, to the extent of a fresh rise in the
rates of discount.

The causes and bearing of these movements are so
simple, and it is so evident that the disturb-
ance does not originate in any financial or com-
mercial rottenness in this country, that there
will be no excuse for the public should
they permit themselves to be hurried into blind
alum. We have long probed and tested our COM.
menial position, marked carefully its few weak
points, and derived that most valuable result—confi-
dence in its general soundness. If, then, to avert •
foreign drain it should become necessary to raise the
value of money to eight or even nine per cent., why
should panic ensue? Why, above aU, should the
public rush to the Bank to borrow to an almost in-
credible aggregate, knowing that when they have ob-
tained the money which they are so frantically eager
to obtain, they can only lodge it at their bankers ?
This rush for money to an amount which can-
not possibly be wanted for trading purposes,
is a premonitory symptom of panic, and, as in all
disuses premonitory (symptoms should be carefully
watched, we warn the public to abstain from a
coarse which needlessly aggravates the difficulties
of the market.
We regret that duty compels us to remark that at
this period,—one of the most critical in our financial
history,—the blunders of Government are to be
visited upon the heads of the community at large.
How often have her MAJZSTT'S advisers had urged
upon them the absolute necessity of making ample
financial provision for the necessities of the public
service in India ? Bat neither the Board of Control,
nor the Directors of the East India Company would
be moved from their antiquated practice, and
the result is, that in the midst of a monetary crisis