The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

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DAILY NEWS.—The illegal and arbitrary decree
by which the King of Prussia has assumed a power
of life and death over the newspapers in his domi-
nions, is the most despotic measure on which his
Majesty has hitherto ventured. But it is in perfect
conformity with his antecedents. The King has
openly broken with the intelligence and pablic
spirit of the nation, and having insulted and dis-
missed the Chambers, which were its constitutional
organ, was not likely to tolerate its free manifesta-
tion through the press. And as the Constitution
guarantees to every Prussian the right to express
his opinion freely, by writing and printing, and for-
bids any restrictions oil the liberty of the press
otherwise than in the way of legislation, the Con-
stitution is again violated. The decree of June 1
makes the dependents of the King the absolute dis-
posers of that liberty, and empowers them to prohi-
bit and suppress any journal with the tone, tendency,
or " attitude" of which they may be dissatisfied.
No reason is given, and none can be pretended, for
this new violation of the rights of the subject. No
foreign war or internal commotion menaces public
tranquillity. The Prussian journals, like the people,
are moderate and self-restrained under the grossest
provocation a nation ever received. In the Mieiste-
rial report, which in the Prussian 141Oniteur precedes
the Royal decree, it is expressly said that the Go-
vernment is compelled to assume an arbitrary power
over the press, because the newspaper articles most
objected to contain "nothing of which the law can
take hold, nothing which can be made the
ground of a prosecution." it is, therefore, the
utility and not the abuse of the press that
the Government seeks to destroy. It is no light
thing for a nation pre-eminent for education
and enlightenment— a people among whom
intelligence is diffused more widely than among any
other in Europe—to be exhibited to the world as
the helpless victim of a Government which is dis-
tinguished for nothing but ignorance and brutality
and the suspicion and jealousy which always accom-
pany misrule. The downward course in which the
King has made such rapid progress since his coro-.
nation has compelled the most moderate of Prussian
patriots to ask themselves and one another what
the country has further to hope from a family which
for the last 40 years has done nothing but betray
the confidence of the nation and obstruct its pro-
gress. The new outrages. which the King covers
with his name and which too faithfully represent
hie character, are of a nature to destroy the last
link that connects the constitutional party with his
throne. There is one person in Prussia who cannot
be an unconcerned spectator of this movement. The
Crown Prince does not like his father persistently
shut his eyes to all sources of intelligence. He may
not be aware of the extent to which national feel-
ing is being gradually but surely alienated from his
house. But he surely has the good sense to know
what is the irresistible tendency of the policy pur-
sued by the King. His interests for the present, at
all events, are identified with those of the people,
for his rights are endangered in proportion as those
of the nation are placed in jeopardy. The present
is a time to try his temper and show what stuff he
is made of. Whatever delusion the King may be
under, he has only a life interest in the Crown, and
the Prince is not bound to stand idly by and see
his own rights and those of his chil-
dren sacrificed. The Prince appears to be
aware that some manifestation of opinion, some
act that will separate him from the policy of the
Government, is proper in his situation. We fear,
however, that the speech he has just made at Dant-
zic will do little to revive the enthusiastic feeling
for the Crown which the King has done so much to
extinguish. The Prince confines himself to a cold
and barren statement that he took no part in the
deliberations which preceded the ordinances, and
that their publication took him by surprise. This
is all the Prince thought it necessary to say of an
act which not only subverts the most essential
liberties of the nation, but humiliates Prussia in the
face of the world. It appears, however, that the
utter prostration of political liberty is not inconsis-
tent with such glory as his Royal Highness desires
for the nation, for he makes the astonishing remark
that " under his Majesty's sceptre Prussia is se-
curely approaching the greatness which Providence
has marked out for her." The Crown Prince is help-
less and hopeless indeed if he imagines that great-
ness of any kind is attainable by the path in which
his father is conducting Prussia.
TIMES.—We may search history in vain for an
authentic record of a change so vast and wonderful
as that which has just come over the destinies of our
great Oriental Empire. We have been in the
habit for many years of referring with excusable
pride to the brilliant annals of our colonial progress,
and contrasting it with the chequered story of our
adventures, wars, and negotiations among the faith-
less Sovereigns of India and the indomitable tribes
of Central Asia. It is only five-and-twenty years
since the attention of this country was absorbed by
the advance of Persia to invest Herat, and shortly
afterwards by our own unexampled calamities and
reverses in the Affghan War which followed. Herat
is again besieged, but the quarter of a century
which has passed has taught us some useful lessons.
If the world has advanced in nothing else, it has
made considerable progress in the very important
art of distinguishing between the substance and the
shadow. Nobody now troubles himself with the
siege of Herat, but the most eager attention is fixed
on a scene which has just been passing in Calcutta,
where an elderly gentleman, leaning back in an
arm-chair, has been reading to an attentive audience
a pamphlet of some five-and-thirty pages in a man-
ner by no means calculated to attract the approba-
tion of a critic in the art of elocution. But the
Indian public are right, for while they have dis-
covered that Herat may be taken and retaken a
hundred times without perceptibly influencing their
destiny, they know that the Budget of their Finance
Minister is the very corner-stone of their past hopes,
the talisman of their future destiny. After 20 dreary
years of wars and deficits, India has at length
emerged into a period of peace and surplus, and she
knows well that the connection between these two
things is by no means accidental. The financial
statement of Sir Charles Trevelyan, studiously
guarded in its estimates and moderate in its hopes,
is nevertheless'one of the most satisfactory docu-
ments of the kind which it has ever been our lot to
peruse. Let us begin with the year 1861-2, for
which Mr. Laing estimated a surplus of £239,000.
This surplus Sir Chas. Wood converted into a deficit
of £595,000, by certain alterations in items carried
to one or other side of the account; but the revenue
has been so elastic that it has filled up £580,000,
and left only a deficits of £15,000. For the year
1862-3 Mr. Laing estimated a surplus of £179,000,
which Sir Charles Wood by the same inexorable
process transformed inta a deficit of £284,000. But
again the revenue came to the aid of Mr. Laing,
and this time so effectually that there is a clear
surplus for the financial year 1862-3 of £936,925.
The gr )ss revenue for this year isE4s,ooo,ooo,while
the expenditure amounts to £44,000,000. Thus
are banished, we hope for ever, all tbose chimeras
of Indian debt and difficulty which so long depre-
ciated the securities and overshadowed the future
of India. We see an excellent result of this im-
proved state of public credit in the first attempt
to supersede that most objectionable system of
guarantees under which Indian railways have been
hitherto forced by the construction, without gua-
rantee, of a loop line on the East Indian Railway.
Some items in the expenditure of the year must be
regarded with particular satisfaction. The total
sum appropriated for public works in the current
year is £5,250,000, and if we add £4,000,000 for the
payment of interest guaranteed to railways, the sum
total amounts to no less than £9,250,000. So com-
pletely are the days gone by that we used to plead
in vain for the investment of money on public works,
however reproductive, that we are now informed
there will be no difficulty as far as money is con-
cerned, the real point being the difficulty of
getting value for the outlay. The Indian Govern-
ment is ready with any sum that can be profitably
employed, but it requires for that profitable em-
ployment, tolerably cheap labour with honest
and effective supervision—two things which, in the
present state of India, it is very difficult to procure.
In the same way the grant for Education seems only
to be limited, like our own, by the demands of the
people, and not at all by the necessities of the Go-
vernment. India enjoys three sinking funds—the '
proceeds of waste lands, and of the redemption of
rents due to Government; the reserve, which can
be employed in buying up Government securities,
after leavin g sufficient to exchange against any notes
that may be presented ; and the cash balances in
the exchequer. From these resources £4,000,000
have been applied towards the reduction of the
debt. While the debt has thus been reduced it is
satisfactory to know that for the last four years the
Indian revenue has increased (.12 an average by two
millions and three-quarters each year. With all
this liberal expenditure the estimate for the current
year shows a surplus of £815,000. The distribution
of this surplus is to reduce the duty on iron, that first
necessity of a country in earnest in the construction
of railways, from 10 to 1 per cant.; to reduce the
duty on beer from 3d. to 12 d. a gallon, to impose a
duty of 13 per cent. ad valorem on wines, and to
take off one-fourth of the income-tax_ These things
will still leave Sir Charles Trevelyan with a balance
of £480,000, which he reserves to meet unforeseen
contingencies. A
blishments, with aview riot
801!Itieh to economy as
efficiency, is also promised. 1
Budget, and it certainly
well bearshieisthelndian
the out assertion
with which we commenced, that history affords no
parallel to a revival so complete and so satisfactor., .
HERALD.—The Volunteers' Bill, which on Thurs-
day evening passed through committee, failed to