The Sun.
London, England, 1851-10-07 00:00:00

THE GERMANIC CONFEDERATION.

The following is the protest of the French Govern-
ment against the admission of the non-German States
of Austria into the German IJund. It is addressed
to the President of the Frankfort Diet, Count von
Thun

M. le Comte,—As I informed your Excellency in
my :tote of the 19th of July, I laid before my Govern-
ment the communication with which you honoured me
on the 17th, reiveing to the project of the incorporation
of the non-German States of Austria in the German
Band. lam directed to answer that note by the follow-
ing communication. The Government of the Republic
has remarked, to its great surprise, that arguments
are advanced in the name of the Bund which were
employed seventeen years ago to dispute the right of the
Powers who had signed the final act of Vienna to
interfere on the question which, according to their judg-
ment, affected the independence of a German state, in
which that independence was violated, though it was
stipulated by the said act of Vienna. These arguments
were at that time rejected by the Cabinets of Paris and
London, and that rejection never received any reply.
Further, when in 1847 Austria and Prussia so energeti-
cally protested against the acts by which the Swiss
Federal Council, according to their judgment, violated
the rights of some of the cantons, it was necessarily as-
sumed that those two Powers had seen the incorrectness
of the principle they had some years previously only too
absolutely proclaimed. This a+sumption was so much
the more justified, as the Swiss Federal compact is not,
like the German Bend, au integral part of the final act
of Vienna, and therefore the right of foreign Govern-
ments to interfere with the differences of the several can-
tons must he regarded as much less certainly established
than the right France end England would assert in refe-
rence to the German Band. But even were the arguments
on which the German Diet relied in 1834 as much bated
on keel right, as in reality they are not, it is still evident
that they do not in the leastiapply to the present question.
If it must be conceded that a confederation of sovereign
States, in all that regards the relations of its several mem-
bers to each other, is invested with the same independent
power of action as a single or federative State, yet it by
no means follows from this that such a confederation can of
itself alter its relations to foreign powers without those fo-
reign Governments having the right to protest against it. By
the first treaty of Paris and the final act of Vienna, Europe
has recognized the existence of the German Bund within
certain distinctly fixed territorial limits. From this re-
cognition it follows that each Of tha States of the Bond,
with the assent of the; European Powers, stands under
the protection of the whole Bund,..which is also autho-
rizsd to interfere in the differences and disputes of its
members when they reach a certain degree of import-
ance. It cannot be supposed that the European Powers
can look on with indifference while a similar condition
of things is extended over a new territory, and if such
an extension were made without their assent, they
would certainly be exercising their right if they did
not allow the intervention of the Bund in their
disputes with the possessors of such territory.
The chances of a conflict would then be more than
doubled; the political organization of a consider-
able part of Europe would then rest no more on a
generally recognised basis; and international law, as
established by existing treaties, would have received a
wound. It is quite superfluous to
enter more at large into a
perhaps incurablediscussion of a project which,
if laid before the Diet, will place the Government under
the necessity of protesting against it. The Government
of the Republic is far from wishing to prolong a con-
troversy Which does not appear to it becoming. It is
sufficient to state distinctly, that France now, as in 1834,
Can as little re
cogniae the principles the Diet of the Band
then laid down,and that these
principles. even if founded
in right, do not
all aPpl t the great plan which has
given the Diet an oe -ae 7 gain proclaiming them."
The above protest wassnr forwarded by M. von Tallenay, n
to Count Thun
at Frankfort, aceornpare ieter of the French Republic
M. le Comt,—VVith'ile by
the
following
note :
me th
cellency honoured note with which ycur Ex-
enclosed documents. I hew)" than I received the two
iq,thera to M. Baroche,
with whom it alone lies to desce
French Republic. But I cannot ref9rn what regards the
when
nnirom remarking
to your Excellency that Diet,
roeguemther to have lost
Act of a former period, appears al
%mid that
e it refers to an
sight of the difference of owe and ct
the then French Goverment did not thinktiltieP
regard the resolution, communicated to it t7ree""Y
to
of my predecessors, as regular in form or contenue °II-
" I am, &c.,,The English Ambassador, Lord Cowley, aeknow.
ledged the receipt of the same document in the fol.
lowing note :
" The undersigned, the Minister Plenipetentiary of
her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain to the German
Lund, has received the note and enclosures which the
Presieseiteat -the Diet; Count Than, did him the honour
to forward to him, rigor the date of the 17th of July.
The undersigned will' immediately communicate the
document to her Majesty's Chief Secretary of Foreign
Affairs. In the meantime the undersigned cannot re-
ceive
the copy of the document which was directed to
the British Legation in 1834 by the President of the
Diet of that period, and which appears, with respect to

the present occasion of the resolutions of the Diet, to
claim an authority irreconcileable with the rights and
origin of international law, without at the same time
reminding Count Thun of the answer the said Legation
was instructed to return to it in the name of her Ma-
jesty's Government, and of which the undersigned has
the honour of here enclosing a copy, that his Excellency
may obtain a knowledge of it."