The Sun.
London, England, 1849-02-03 00:00:00

PRUSSIA.

The elections for electors to the first Chamber took
place at Berlin on the 29th ult. The number of persons
chosen to return the members to the first Chamber for
Berlin is 130 only. They are almost all reactionaries,
so that while the lower Chamber will have a Democratic
majority the reactionaries, thanks to the limitation of
the franchise, will reign supreme in the upper. At
Breslau, Stettin, Halle, and several other places, the re-
actionaries have secured the majority among the electors
to the upper Chamber. A col:ision between the two
Chainbirs would therefore appear to be inevitable.
The following in the note which has been addressed
by the Prussian Minister for Foreign Affairs to the
Vrus,ian diplomatic agents at the various Courts of
Germany on the subject of the Headship of the Ger-
man Empire:—
"The proceedings entered upon last April, by the German
National Assembly, convoked in Frankfort, for the purpose
of founding a new Constitution for Germany, are approach-
ing the crisis in which the German States will have to de-
clare themselves; concerning the result of the Assembly's
labours. At the time the Assembly met, the revision of the
Constitution of the Confederation, although already com-
menced, had not advanced far enough to enable the German
Governments to lay before the said Assembly a scheme of Con-
stitution concerted in common, or to be the prolocutors of this
scheme before the Assembly. The Assembly found itself
obliged to take the work of Constitution in band on its own
account, while both the passive temper exhibited by the
Governments, many of which found their powers entirely
engrossed by internal affairs, and the palpable difficulty of
coining to an accord with thirty-seven different and inde-
pendent States, might contribute to raise to a high standard
the conceptions prevalent as to the extent of the political
powers of the Assembly. The Prussian Government also
thought itself bound to attach great importance to the situa-
tion in which the German States found themselves, whilst
thus opposed to an Assembly legally elected from the col-
lective body of the nation. It thought it ought to exert
itself to the utmost not to step forth with negations before
an Assembly before which ,the Governments of Germany
Lad laid no positive proposals. It thought that the German
nation had a right to demand protection from all ex-
traneous impediments while an attempt was being made
to arrive at unity in a way legally laid open in part by
the German Government, and in point conceded by thein.
It was this point that the Prussian Government most espe-
cially kept in view after its July proposals, for gaining a
basis for a collective representation if the German Govern-
ment had failed, and after other attempts also to bring
matters into the path of conciliatory understanding had
proved fruitless ; and at the same time, while it was unhe&-
tatingly willing to retire awhile from the executige functions
of the Confederation, and to approve the conferment of
them upon his Imperial Highness the Archduke John of
Austria, it has, with no little devotion, and often with self-
denial, supported and sustained the Central Power of Ger-
many by the means and resources of Prussia. The aim has
been gained. The National Assembly in Frankfort has been
able freely to devote itself, for almost, eight months, to its
constituent labours, and, as these labours are apparently
approaching their end, every German Government will feel
itself called upon to co-operate in bringing these labours to
a happy issue, and to prevent any possible failure being laid
to the fault of the individual Governments. The Prussian
Government may cherish a hope that it is secure from such
culpation, but it is very well aware that its assent alone is
not sufficient to bring a remodelment of the German Con-
stituti,.n into life, aid that the failure of the great scheme
would not be the less lamentable even if it were proved be-
yond all doubt that Prussia was not the rock it had split upon.
"Induced by these contemplations, the Prussion Govern-
ment would have proceeded, at an earlier moment, to propose
the preparation of the declarations which are expected to be
made, within a short interval, by the States of the German
Confederation. But a momentuous epoch of development in I
its own state coincided, in point of time, with a decisive turn
takenmcat:uvnicalled
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ldhada ai bntucsondhnp• the internal affairs in Austria, which, as being the
necessarily
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the National Assembly in Frankfort thought to
discern the express wishes of the collective German na-
tion. The Austrian State is attached to Germany by an-
cient bonds, and in the most troubled period of the past
year it has given these bonds a new and closer signification
(sine acne Innigkeit), by a prince of the Imperial House
to
of
Austria undertaking the conduct of the affairs of Ger-
many. On its part, again, the rest of Germany cannot
renounce the old connexion with Austria;te and,
of Simon
hitherto least of all,
would the Prussian. Government have been able to advance
.
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vigorous
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