The Sun.
London, England, 1848-10-23 00:00:00

Lively, strikingly, off-handedly, oracularly, no matter
how silly or unsupported the thing said. Yet, if ever
there were a question to puzzle the wisest and best-in-
formed men not merely strangers and foreigners—
but men long- accustomed to German rule and well
acquainted with the Austrian Chancery, it is this Aus-
trian system miscalled a Government, but which is really
and truly only a Bureauocracy. Undoubtedly that
very agreeable man and shrewd politician who is now
sojourning among us Metternich —is in the main,
though not wholly, accountable for much of the evil
which has befallen his country. Though he did
not create the system of " Bureaucratic," which
flourished to a certain extent under his predecessors—
Thugut, Stadion, and Kaunitz—yet he fostered it by
every means in his power, and did more to corrupt and
degrade the people of the Austrian empire than any of
his predecessors. The early sojourn of Metternich in
France, during the Consulate, had rendered aim, not
merely unscrupulous, but indifferent to all principle.
Provided he governed the vast empire committed to him
easily and securely, it little mattered to him by what
principles or by what mode obedience was secured or
submission exacted. Thus, in an empire consisting of
six or eight different nationalities, nation was set against
nation and race against race. The Milanese were kept
in check by troops drawn from Hungary and Transylva-
nia—the burger of Vienna, by the soldier of Venice,
Padua, or Ferrara—the Bohemian, by the Viennese—
and the Hungarian by the native of Belluno and Udino.
It the Austrian military system was thus vicious and
ill-arranged in principle and detail, the police
system was a thousand times worse. Vienna,
Milan, Prague, and Pesth—nay, even so small a
town as Linz—become sinks of treachery and corrup-
tion. No man or no society was safe. Distrust and
snares were sown in social habitudes, and espionnage
equally corrupted and defiled public and private life. A
lax morality was tolerated, if not encouraged. All
crimes were permissible—at least permitted—excepting
the crimes of thinking or of talking about social or po-
litical regeneration. For twenty years, and until the
death of the late Emperor Francis, this system stood
Metternich in good stead; but ever since 1815 the Aus-
trian scheme of government has been tumbling to pieces.
To govern an empire like a pachalic of Turkey, bounded
by countries so civilised as Bavaria and Saxony, was
beyond even the police power of a Metternich, and from
the very day the ex-Arch Chancellor lent his support
to railroads as part of a military scheme, he did more
than ever had been done by all the Carbonari of
Italy to destroy his own power and to overturn his
old system. Notwithstanding all the efforts of his
police, the free presses of Leipsie, from the period of
railroad traffic, made themselves felt in Vienna; and
the burgher f the Graben and Kohlmark I, who in
1828, 1829, and 1830, would only read a cookery or a
jest book, from 1842 and 1843 read polical pamphlets,
penny magazines, and various treatises touching the
rights of sovereigns and the duties of subjects. If this
awakening of opinion and intelligence had been under-
stood and appreciated by the Arch Chancellor—if the
propositions made by the Provincial States had been
accepted—if the Austrian middle class movement had
been guided and directed by the Government and by the
Austrian nobility, instead of having been checked and
retarded by them—the deplorable excesses of Prague
and of Vienna in the present year might have been
spared to us, and Austria might have escaped the hor-
rors which now perhaps await her in a contest of races,
To show to what an indefinite extent such a contest may
be prolonged we need but cite the following table, show-
ing how the population of the Austrian empire was
composed in 1842:

Firstly, 16,791,000 Slavonians, and, namely:-
4,370,000 Bohemians and Moravians.

2,753,000 Slovacks in the north of Hungary.
2,594,000 Servians and Illyrians, in the soath of Hun-
gary, Dalmatia, &c.
2,341,000 Poles, in Galicia and Austrian Silesia.

1,151,000 Sloventzes, in Styria, Carniolia, Caryn-
this, Lc.
2,774,000 Russines, er Malo-Ruases, in Galicia and
north of Hungary.
801,000 Croats.
7,000 Bulgars.
Secondly, of 6,475,000 Germans, and, namely :-
2,750,000 in Austria Proper.
600,000 in Styria.
232,000 in Karynthia.
24,000 in Carniolia.
1,146,000 in Bohemia.
603,000 in Moravia.
93,000 in Galicia.
600,000 in Hungary.
430,000 in Transylvania.
Thirdly. 4,028,000 Magyars, as Hungarians, in Hun-
gary and Transylvania.
Fourthly, 2,828,000 Wallachians, in Hungary, Trans-
syl vania, and the Bukovina.

For this table we are indebted to an interesting and
timely work by Count Valerian Krasinski," which sheds
a welcome light on the Austrian dispute, and which must
be considered as the complement of the interesting pam-
phlet of Andryane, entitled " Austria and seine
Zuckuafte." It was the practice of this Austrian Go-
vernment of Metternich which shut out light at Vienna
to tolerate it in Hungary, whose population, according
to Gaaffarik, was composed in 1842 of about 3,500,000
Magyars or real Hungarians, and about 6,342,000 Sla-
vonians. It was the Government of Metternich also
which encouraged the Magyars, or Hungarians pro-
per, to replace the Latin by the use of their own
lan.r'aage, and which subsequentl) induced the Diet
of Croatia to declare itself independent of llun-
gary. It was the same Government which, for its
own short-sighted and selfish purposes, encouraged
the massacres of proprietors by peasants in Galicia,
and which afterwards permitted the detestable doctrines
of Communism to be propagated, in order to create dis-
sension between proprietor and peasant. If, therefore,
the Austrian armies are now threatened with dissolution,
and the Austrian territory with a war of races, the fault
is in the greatest degree owing to these German politi-
cians—or rather Government clerks and bureaucrats,
who deplorably mistook their vocation, and who ima-
gined they were governing an empire when they were
only vehemently setting its component parts against
each other. To divide a people even to distraction, is
not to govern them. The destinies of a once mighty
nation,are now in the hands of that Providence which
rules empires and kingdoms, and which alone, out of
disorder, weakness, and confusion, can create unity and
strength.

ADVERTISER—The railway question has become
one of the questions of the day. It now attracts uni-
versal attention. It is not the shareholders only that
are interested in the commercial prosperity of railways
the public are also deeply concerned in the matter.
Whatever has a tendency to depress the market value of
railway property has a tendency to abridge the accom-
modation which that mode of transit is meant to afford
the public. If railway shares are to be run down by
Bears in the Stock Exchange, and hostile journals, such
as the Times, directors will feel compelled to make their
lines more remunerative to the shareholders, with the
view of securing their confidence. And as this can only
be done by raising the fares, and diminishing the num-
ber of trains, the public will be the losers. There never
was a more groundless panic than that which has existed
fur some time past with regard to railway property.
What makes the panic more surprising is the fact, that it
prevails at a time when all the companies, though molt
materially reducing their expenses, are receiving
constant accessions to the amount of the traffic
on their various lines. So far, too, from projecting
new schemes, or incurring new liabilities, the great
companies are abandoning the extensions aid
branches for which they had obtained their Bills. Calls,
it. may be further remarked, aro rapidly approaching
their end. They are, each succeeding month, becoming
small by degrees and beautifully less. The amount for
October was only 1,200,0001., while in the correspond-
ing month of last year it was 3,700,0001. For the month
of November it is supposed the amount of calls will not
exceed 700,000/. or 800,00 e/. We are, therefore, doing a
service, not only to the shareholders, but to the public,
in endeavouring to dissuade the former from parting
with their property at present prices. Everywhere mea-
sures are being adopted to restore it to its legitimate
value. The directors are at last beginning to co-operate
cordially with the shareholders in a general endeavour
to rescue railways from their present difficulties. It is
understood that the directors of all the leading compa-
nies are now busily employed in preparing ample and
accurate accounts of the position of their affairs. They
are also conveying to their shareholders an assurance of
their readiness to adopt any suggestion which may be
deemed likely to improve the position of their property.
It is gratifying to find that shareholders are pre-
paring to take advantage of this expressed readiness on
the part of directors to receive in a proper spirit any
such suggestions. They are at last beginning to arouse
themselves. It is high time. They have slumbered too
long. Their past apathy is unaccountable. Their pro-
perty has for more than two years been vanishing be-
fore their eyes, and yet they have remained as inactive,
and seemingly as unconcerned, as if they had had no
*nterest in the matter. The depth which the depression
in the railway market has now reached has at length
awakened them from their torpor, and called them to
energetic action. From all parts of the country we
hear of the exertions whichare making to restore rail-
ways to their original position in the railway market.
From Liverpool we have received the following account of
what is doing in that city with this view s—" A large
body of influential railway proprietors at Liverpool
and other places are getting up a memorial to the direc-
tors of the London and North-Western and Midland
Railways, suggestive of the best means of restoring
confidence and remedying the present depression. It is
being circulated and signed on the Exchange,
andurges
on the attention of directors the followingimportant
points:—That the capital accounts shall be closed as
soon as possible; that all outstanding accounts of the
legal advisers shall be examined and paid off; that the
engineering expenses shall be placed on the most econo-
mical footing; that the expenses at present being in-
curred in enlarging stations be limited, and that no such
further expenses be incurred without the sanction of a
majority of the shareholders; also, that no further en-
gagements, whether contracts for new lines, the Bills of
which have been sanctioned by Parliament, and contracts
for works not let, be entered into without such sanction;
the rates of fare and tolls of all kinds not productive of
a fair remuneration to the shareholders for their outlay
and risk, be raised at once, and where Parliament has
limited the power of raising such rates and tolls, that
application be made next session to enable the directors
to raise them to a remunerative scale; that the number
of trains be reduced as far as practicable; that the ex-
press trains, except one per day at en increased rate of
fare, be taken off, and that first, second, and
third class trains be run separately, at a speed
in proportion to the amount of fare paid. That
the boards of ;.directors be reduced, that one-third
retire annually, and that the new directors be
proposed by-the proprietors, and not chosen by the
board." This paragraph has also appeared in the

*Panslavism and Germanism, by Count Valerian Kra-
*iniki. London. Newby, Mot timer-street.