The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-24 00:00:00

AUSTRIA AND PRUSSIA.

(Front the Special Correspondent of the times,)
HAMBURG, Aug. 21.
There are great rejoicings in Germany about the,
forthcoming interview between the King of Prussia.
and the Emperor of Austria. "The visit of they
King of Prussia to Vienna," say the papers, " is an'
event of the highest significance, as setting forth
the glorious results of the union between the two
Powers, and as strengthening the conviction, which '
is rapidly gaining ground everywhere, even in
Prussia, that this union constitutes the most solid
security for the peace of Europe and for the inde-
pendence of Germany."
I have never forgotten the shrewd remark of an
old French diplomatist at Frankfort, at the time that
Austrian and Prussian battalions were on the very
point of turning their bayonets against each other's
breasts at the cluso of the convulsions of 1848.
"Do hot iet all the din of arms disturb you," he
said, "it is as impossible for Austria and Prussia
ever seriously to fail out as to come to a real cordial
understanding. Their mutual jealousy is too strong
for friendship, but their fear is too great for enmity."
The position of 1848 is not materially altered in

1864. Then as now Prussia was as near the attain-
ment of absolute supremacy, or at least political
leadership (hegemonie), in Germany as circumstances
could ever bring tier. Then as now she quailed be-
fore extreme measures which could bring her into
collision with Austria, and sued for that entente
cordiale with the emulous Power which alone can
"give Germany union and independence."

If a rendezvous between the two Sovereigns or a
conversation between the two Ministers can lead to
any plausible settlement ot the Schleswig-Holstein
business, but little, if any, opposition need be ap-
prehended on the part either of the Bund or of the
minor Powers, either of the people of the Duchies,
or of the German nation at large. It does not seem
likely that, with the consent of Austria, Prussia can
work out her intent of en absolute and immediate
annexation of Schleswig-Holstein and Lauenburg
to her monarchy. M. de Bismark must have seen
the impracticability of that undertaking, and must
be ready to abandon it. We shall therefore, in all
probability, have the thirty-seventh German State
a new member of the Confederacy, consisting not
only of Holstein and Lauenburg, which already
belonged to it, but also of Schleswig, which
must be embodied with it by virtue of the "in-
dissoluble bond which makes it one with Hol-
stein." By relinquishing her holm of ter-
ritorial acquisition, Prussia will all the more
strenuously insist upon the extension of her pro
tectorate over the helpless new Duchy; she will
retain all its military and naval power in her hands,
and she will so far exercise the high police over the
new community as to prevent its becoming the
focus of German discontent, the trysting place
of all plotters and adventurers. Only in this
sense can we interpret the assurance given
by semi-official organs that the intervtew between
the two Monarchs of Prussia and Austria will
secure "the peace of Europe and the indepen-
dence of Germany." I believe the saying of. my
French friend may be in so far modified, that these
two Powers can never be cordially united, except
for some evil purpose. They were tolerably unani-
mous in February last, when they conspired to-
gether to the spoliation of an inoffensive neighbour ;
but their object was then not so much to strip Den-
mark of two or three of her provinces, as to place
themselves at the head of the great national move-
ment in Germany, whose aspirations were centred
in Sehleswig•Holstein, and so to gain the mastery
over it as completely to frustrate and crush it.
Thanks to the daring and cunning of the Austrc-
Prussian statesmen, and especially of M. von Bis-
mark, the plan has thriven beyond their most
sanguine expectations. Austria and Prussia are
masters of the situation, and so long as they keep
together there is an end not only of the Bund and
the minor States, but also of the national aspirations
of the unity of the great Fatherland.

There is no doubt but Austria and Prussia (more
especially the latter) have well divined the ten-
dencies of public opinion in this country ; they
have known how to stoop to conquer it; they have
by turns humoured it and snubbed it, so as finally
to stultify and nullify it. When al.l has been said
that may be said it is difficult to know what the
German people really want ; difficult for the
Germans themselves even more than for anybody
else. Both the Italian and the German nations
aspired to unity but in Italy unity was a pri-
mary condition of independent existence. That
country was striving to shake off th© yoke
of a preponderant foreign Power ; all her
combined efforts were ecarely sufficient to gain
her the mastery over her destinies, and to maintain
it: But Germany, although not altogether safe from
invasion, has never been permanently subjected to
foreign occupation. Perfectly secure from abroad,
she is thoroughly at liberty to settle her internal
concerns at her own pleasure. Her sovereigns are
only strong by the consent of the people. They
are utterly at the mercy of popular opinion. What.
ever Germany really wills is not to be withstood
either by Austria or Prussia, by the minor kinglets
and princes, or by the Bund ; it is not to be gain-
said by Europe.
Somehow, one would feel incline to think that,
as Germany is not, like Italy, in a condition to live
by unity, so she has no real inclination, no settled
wish for it. A Gothic minster, or a quaint mediaeval
town hall with many gables, turrets, and pinnacles,
would seem to be an edifice more in unison with the
German mind, more in keeping with a German sky
and land, than a symmetrical Grecian temple or a
Palladian palace. Look wherever you list, you
find in Germany a strong conservative veneration
for whatever is; a most praiseworthy dread of
levelling innovation; a hankering tenderness, also,
for all that is individual, municipal, and local. 1
am somewhat convinced that whatever amount of
unity the German people deemed to be good for
themselves was never, could never be permanently
withheld from them. So far as the Germans them-
selves have been willing to go, their Governments
have invariably been fain to follow. But a love
for the quaint, the grotesque, and the brusque seems
to be innate in the German mind. What tyrant
force or sovereign caprice, for instance, cons
spires to keep up half-a-score of ' post-offices in
these Free Cities of Hamburg and Lubeck P When-
ever you wish to send a letter or a telegram, you
must know whether you should apply at the Hano-
verian, the Swedish, the Danish, the Prussian, the
Thurn, and Taxis, or any other office. All these
postal establishments are in separate locali-
ties, keep different hours, and have a variety of
special regulations; a stranger is easily distracted
among them all : but to the merchants and bur-
gesses of these towns the arrangement seems
the most natural and plausible in the world. Again,
look at their currency ! Surely all this medley of
Prussian thaler and reichsthaler, these courant marks
and bank marks, these real coins, nominal coins,
and ideal coins, this prodigious variety of fractions
and multiples, are not the offspring of ruthless ab-
solutism. It is not in Austria or in Prussia that a
handful of money presents the most puzzling va-
riety of shillings, groschen, silbergroschen, kreutzar,
pfennig, &c., such a mixture of dirty, smooth-worn,
undecipherable, neither silver nor copper pieces.
It is in these free towns especially that the imps
from the mints of all ages and countries keep their
perpetual sabbath. A luckless traveller is bewil-
dered by the change till he chooses to be fleeced
rather than plagued; but the natives find it all well
as it is; and if you ask when Germany is going to
establish a unity of coinage Sun are answered by
the rogue who chuckled at your perplexity and
profited by it, "Ali when, indeed!"
Such unity as the majority of the Germans deemed
conducive to their advantage they know how to ask
for. They never rested till they obtained it. There
is a custom league which secures an almost complete
free commercial intercourse between all the States,
with only two exceptions—Austria, who teems
now bent to bring herself and all her non-Ger-
man provinces into the union, and these Hanseatic
cities. It is especially in these " free" towns that
all attempts at German unification are most strenu-
ously resisted. Talk to a Hamburger about the
reasonableness of foregoing the advantages of his
Porto-Franco for tke common good of German
trading unity, and hc, will answer that the entrance

of his city into the Zoilverein would bring about
the total ruin of his Freystaat. There was a tin 3,„
in which, whether obeying a spontaneous
nation, or yielding to popular pressure, the chief
German Governments combined to bring about such
a social order as would give the country
all the
mental and material advantages of a compact corn.
munity. The establishment of a common copy.'
right provided not only for literary unity, but
also for an almost absolute freedom of the
press, inasmuch as the publications that were
tillowed in any single State practically acquired
the right of unimpeded circulation throughout
all the others. This literary league ought easily
t o have led to a united system of education ;
t at the local restraints against the free exercise of
lecrned and liberal prof(sBions is so great that,
r‘ii instance, a Prussian cannot he graduated at
or Bonn, unless he has studied at least for
t.wo years in one of these universities; a Saxon
rr.ust eat his two years' term at Leipsic, &c. Those
6 tates who have no academical institutions of their
o wn, as, for instance, the city of Lubeck, must
come to some arrangement with one of their neigh.,
hours; but, even in that case, the dread of assimi-
lation of rights and interests is so great, that a
Lubecker Who studies at Berlin is not admitted to
the free exercise of his profession in any part of
Prussia, but is only graduated for Lubeck.
No one will tell me that these inconveniences
could not be done away with on the slightest inti-
ydesmeruibche
melon to that effect by the sound part of the
oh
endt
ao
tu
at
nsuch s
tr
nPigeee Ur 1 ia
presumer t l fl
ianr
gel vt
oe r
population of the different States ; but the men
o
y
flora as evils. They tell you that the beauty, as
well as the happiness of Germany, consists in the
utmost development given to all local talents and
energies by separate institutions; the
y
ready to denounce the evils of central are always
isation, and
point to England or France as instances of
countries where a great centre like London or
Paris absorbs all intellectual light no less than all
material prosperity, leaving all the circumference
in darkness and misery. There may be some
truth in what they urge, and there were men
in Italy who equally trembled for the fate of
such minor centres as Florence, Parma, Bologna,
Naples, &c,, when the project of establishing the
seat of government for the whole Peninsula at
Turin or Rome was first entertained. But, in the
first place, it is true union or even unity is alto-
gether incompatible with decentralization; it is not
true that in England the capital has so utterly killed

,he provinces as it has in France ; neither is it quite

rue that in Italy local well-being has been or will

be sacrificed to the general welfare; but, were it

even so, it would always be a elioiee between two

evils, and little would it profit the people of this
country to have achieved the ruin of Denmark if they
are so far as yet from obtaining a victory over them-
selves, over their narrow local predilections; if the
real object nearest to their heart was and is not to
create one Germany, but to add more to the six,
and-thirty Germanies already in existence. The
unity to which the Germans aro said to aspire has
been hitherto powerful enough for the injury of
their neighbours, but it remains to be proved

whether, even in their own judgment, it can work

out any real good for themselves.

_
SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.-..This Day,

YORK RACES—This DAY.
(BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH)
FILLY SAPLING STAKES.

Siberia
•••
Pbysalia fitly
Brioche
3
Four ran.

LATEST BETTING ON THE COURSE.

GREAT EBOR HANDICAP.
100 to 30 aget Welcome (taken)
100 to 30 agst East Lancashire (taken)
11 to 2 agst Raglan (taken)
100 to 15 agst Highflyer's claw colt (taken)
12 to 1 agst Muulsey (taken)
12 to 1 agst Clown (taken)

RACING FIXTURES FOR 1864.

AITGUST.

York August
.):.;.
Ply►nouth
Lichfield

Devon and Exeter ..., 30
Stockton 3O
Derby

Weymouth 1
Baden-Baden .... 1
Warwick September.... 6
Bridgwater 8
Leicester 8
Doncaster

Bedford .. 4
Edinburgh and Lothians
Club. .. 5
Newmarket Second Oct. 10
NOTE,

Worcester Autumn .... 1
Shrewsbury Autumn .. 14

IRISH.

SEPTEMRER.