The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-03-02 00:00:00

PRUSSIA

BERLIN, FEB 26.
The arrangements for the holding of the Neufchatel
Conferences in Paris have made very little progress
since I last addressed you on this subject. Eng-
land, Russia, Prussia, gad Austria have accepted
the invitation which France addressed- to them in
a circular note under date of the 9th instant,
to instruct their respective representatives in
Paris to take part in Conferences having for
their object the final regulation of the
position of Neufchatel, vis-a vis the King of
Prussia on the one hand, and the Swiss Federal
Government on the other ; the common ground
for these, the five great Powers of Europe, meeting
together to settle this small question, being the
London protocol of May 8, 1852. The various
Governments have not as yet instructed their
several Ministers in Paris, and no day is as
yet settled when the first Conference shall
be held ; but, as Count Hatzfeldt is now recovered
from his indisposition, and his Secretary of Lega-
tion Baron Rosenberg, has returned to his post, and
the Carnival is over,it is probable that a day will soon
be fixed. The participants in the Conferences will
be exclusively the representatives of the five Euro-
pean Powers; and when a result has been at rived at
it will be laid before the Swiss Government for
acceptance. The feeble attempts that have been
made by the representatives of Switzerland to open
direct negociations with Prussia have failed,
from their not fulfilling the most obvious pre-
liminaries essential to a resumption of diplomatic
intercourse. The course which the Conferences will
probably follow is thus sketched out in Ministerial
circles. Prussia will adduce the events of last
September as a proof of the necessity of no longer
delaying the regulation of the matter, and will then
lay before the Conferences her proposals towards
that end. Those proposals will form the subject
of their common deliberations, France acting as
the advocate for Switzerland. What those pro-
posals are was some time since communicated con-
fidentially to the different cabinets, as I gather
from various remarks. Letters from various
officieux correspondents of provincial papers here
state pretty uniformly that these proposals, if agreed
to by the four European Powers, and complied
with by Switzerland, will lead to a cession of the
King's sovereignty over Neufchatel ; but probably
the French Cabinet has already ascertained and
communicated to this Court the unwillingness of
the Swiss Government to accede to them, for my
information tells me very distinctly that the King
is still very bent on retaining his Principality, and
should any good ground be shown him why he
should give it up, its cession will certainly not be
in favour of Switzerland. As the subject is not
elaborated here in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
but is talked over in the Palace, I am inclined to
attach greater value in this matter to court infor-
mation than to ministerial inspiration ; but never-
theless, although I tell you now what the King's
intentions and feelings at present are, it will very
probably turn out in the sequel, if the matter be
not very much hurried on, that he will subse-
quently be disposed to listen to the advice of the
Powers assembled in Conference.
The settlement of the question of the redemption
of the Sound Dues is approaching its termination
much quicker. On the 17th inst., the members of
the Conference met for the purpose of agreeing to a
draught of the final protocol which is to record the
adoption by Denmark and the other Powers
interested, of the treaty, a resume of which
has lately appeared in several papers ; the 23rd
inst. seems also to have been fixed for an-
other Conference, but whether this latter has
been a final one is not yet known here ; pro-
bably it has not been so, otherwise the teiegraph
would have brought us the news ere now. The
definitive settlement of the final Protocol cannot
be postponed much longer, as the treaty is to
come into force on April Ist, and the Danish
Legislative Bodies have yet to be convoked and
consulted on the subject; and it is not to be
expected that a treaty so disgraceful to the nation
and so injurious to its finances, will be accepted
without a most lively Opposition. The treaty in
question settles the main points, that the
Sound Dues shall be redeemed by capitalisa-
tion at so-and-so many years' purchase, and
the proportions of the redemption money
that shall fall to the share of each State trading
with the Baltic; but it does not settle how the
amount agreed upon is to be paid, This forms the
subject of separate negoeiations with each separate
State. It is only with reference to this last point
that it is correct to say that a settlement has not
been arrived at. The main point is virtually
settled ; on the onbsidiary point, however, even
when settled between the State themselves, each
constitutional government concerned, must first
consult the tax voting body in the State boJore it can
arrive at a conclusion. Though we have no news at
present of the treaty for the redeMption of the
Sound Dues having been actually signed and
executed, it may be looked on as certain that it
will be so within a very few days, and that from
April Ist there will be no more Sound Dues to
pay• The total amount at which the Sound Dues
have been capitalised is 35,000,000 Danish rix
dollars, of which 28 93 per cent. fall to Great
Britain's, 27.83 to Russia's, 12 69 to Prussia's,
and 3.48 to France's share. The proportion
in which the trade of the 'United States of
North America was affected not only 2.05 per cent,
but yet it was to the impulse given by theirrefusal
to continue paying the Sound Dues that we are
indebted for steps having been taken at last to buy
off this impost. Some advices from Copenhagen
state that the United States have also signified
their willingness to pay up their quota of the
redemption money in spite of their previous refusal
,o recognise the legality of the tax.