The Sun.
London, England, 1867-03-29 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONUON, FRIDAY EVENING, MARCH 29 1867.

Ethnological Society.

An ordinary meeting of this society was held on
Tuesday evening in their rooms in St. Martin's-
place—the president, Mr. J. Crawfurd, in the chair.
A paper was read by Professor Busk on two skulls
of the hairy men of Jesso, supposed to be the origi-
nal inhabitants of Japan, and which had been pro-
cured with much difficulty. Professor Busk de-
scribed technically the various parts of the skulls,
pointing out their peculiarities, but the general re-
sult was that they were scarcely distinguishable from
many long-headed European skulls. Mr. C. Carter
Blake and Dr. Donovan made some remarks on the
paper, the latter objecting that while so much tech-
nical knowledge was displayed in describing the
various bones of the skull, no notice was taken of
the brain. A second paper, by Mr. Crawfurd, was
read, " On the supposed ab )rigines of India as dis-
tingu:shed from its civilised inhabitants." It is known
there exists in India rude and even savage tribes,
differing in manners, customs, religion, and not un-
frequently even in language, from the great body
of the civilised inhabitants. They are found only in
hilly or mountainous districts, and by their compa-
rative sterility holding out little temptation to con-
quest and occupation. They are never seen in the
fertile and well-watered alluvial valleys of the great
rivers, which are inhabited by civilised nations, how-
ever differing among themselves in manners and
language. Linguists and craniologists have in-
vented a theory to account for this state of things,
which supposes the rude mountaineers to be the sole
aborigines of India, while it imagines the civilised
inhabitants to be intrusive strangers, who in a re-
mote antiquity invaded India, conquered it, and
settled in it under the imposed names of Aryans for
Northern and Turanians for Southern India. This
view, Mr. Crawfurd said, appeared to him to be
utterly groundless, and the object of the paper was
to refute it. In doing so, he in at first considered
the actual position of Hindostan and its inhabi-
tants, and observed that it is contrary to what is
known to be the case in all other great portions of
the globe to suppose so great and fertile a region, and
consequently so favourable to the promotion of an
early civilisation, to have been within the historical
period destitute of any other original inhabi-
tants than the few rude tribes now confined to its
least favourable localities, until it came to be peopled
by immigrant strangers from remote countries. He
felt satisfied that both the mountaineers and the in-
habitants of the open plains and valleys are alike
natives of the soil of the same race, allowance being
made for such varieties of type found to exist in
other large regions of the earth, as for example in
Europe and in Western Asia. With such an allow-
ance, a common character distinguishes the people
of Hindostan from all the other races of man just
as complete as that which distinguishes the Euro-
pean, the Chinese, and the Malayan race. Mr.
Crawfurd, in confirmation of his opinion, pointed
to the insuperable obstacles which would have been
opposed to an immigration from the north-west, and
he referred to various countries in different parts of
the world to show that varieties in the characters of
the original inhabitants exist as great as those ob-
servable between the hill tribes of India and the oc-
cupants of the plains. Referring particularly to
the former condition of Mexico and Peru, he ob-
served, in conclusion, that the state of India before
there could have been an invasion of Aryans or a
religion of Brahma, would probably be a parallel to
that of America on its discovery ; the wild and
savage tribes would be numerous, and the civilised
few in number. Proportionate to its extent, it would
have as manysmall tribes, speaking as many distinct
languages, as America itself. India has still a score
of nations with written languages, but the number
of its wild tribes have not been counted.
After some remarks from General Balfour and
Dr. Campbell, who dissented from some of the
opinions expressed by Mr. Crawfurd, the meeting
adjourned.

RAILWAY IN TE LLIGENCE.

GREAT WESTERN.

The following is the report of the directors to be
presented to the aajoureeu meeting to-day :
" When the directors recommended the adjourn-
ment of the general meeting, held on the Bth inst.,
they did so in consequence of the pendency of nego-
tiations for raising a sufficient sum of money to
enable them to meet the pressing claims on the com-
pany. A proposal was made to the Government for
temporary assistance, which, looking to the peculiar
circumstances of the case, the large interests in-
volved, and the ample security the company were in
a condition to offer, it was hoped would have been
acceded to, The directors, however, regret to state
that their application was ineffectual ; the Govern-
ment, whilst reserving their ultimate freedom of
action, having declined to adopt the proposal
submitted to them. Feeling the uncertainty
of any external assistance being obtained of suffi-
cient amount to relieve the company from the bur-
then of its temporary loans and other immediate and
pressing .claims, the directors renewed their appeal
to the shareholders to take up the unissued 6 per
cent. stock to the extent of £1,000,000, the calls
thereon being spread over a considerable period, and
the subscriptions being made subject to the condi-
tion that the whole amount should be obtained. The
directors regret to state that the applications hitherto
received from the proprietors in answer to this ap-
peal amount to little more than £250,000, of which
upwards of £50,000 has been subscribed by the
directors and officers of the company, in addition to
their previous subscriptions. The directors must
again earnestly impress on the proprietors the con-
sideration that so long as the temporary loans are in
existence, it is impossible, in the present state of the
money market, to sustain the credit of the company,
or to place it in such a financial position as to give
to debenture holders that confidence which its am-
ple and improving revenue justifies. They trust that
those proprietors who have already offered to sub-
scribe will waive the condition on which they have
consented to do so; and they would once more urge
on the remaining proprietors the policy, in their own
interest, and for the protection of their own property,
of at once coming forward and taking up the re-
quired amount of thestock in question. The direc-
tors have already been able to arrange for the re-
newal of a considerable portion of the debentures
falling due in the course of next month; and they
trust that those debenture holders with whom such
arrangements have not been made.may be induced
to postpone their claims for the repayment of their
principal. Considering the large margin of net re-
venue, amounting to more than £1,000,000 per an-
num, after payment of all rent charges and deben-
ture interest, there cannot be a doubt as to the
security of the interest on all the debentures and de-
benture stock of the company; and it may reasonably
be hoped that, when the position of these securities
is properly understood and appreciated, confidence
in them will be restored, and that some general
action will be taken by Parliament to enable rail-
way companies to replace the whole of their deben-
tures by a permanent stock. The directors are
themselves taking measures in their bill of the pre-
sent session for the issue of a debenture stock to the
full extent of their borrowing powers ; and in the
meantime an arrangement is being made with the
Bank of England to open an account there, to which
will be paid, from time to time, out of the weekly
traffic receipts, a sum sufficient to meet the inte-
rest on debentures and debenture stocks. Under
the existing circumstances of the company the di-
rectors have no alternative but to recommend that
the shareholders, both preferential and ordinary,
should be paid their respective dividends in prefer-
ence stock until the temporary loans are paid off,
and the finances of the company are put in a sound
and safe position. Assuming that the affairs of the
company are not complicated by the pressure of
debenture holders, and that its available revenue
can be appropriated in discharge of the temporary
loans, these liabilities might be extinguished in the
course of about 12 months. In lieu of dividend
warrants it is therefore proposed that irredeemable
preference shares of £2O each, authorised by the
Act of 1866, bearing interest at 5 per cent., should
be issued to each shareholder in exchange for an
equivalent amount of dividend. For any fraction
of a dividend not amounting to £2O an obligation
would be given, such obligations being convertible
into shares when presented for that purpose, in

amounts of £2O, the holders being at liberty to pay
up any difference in cash. Apart from the claims
in respect of renewable debentures and temporary
loans, the estimated capital to be expended by the
company for the next three years is as follows :
Works of construction in progress for improving
the company's existing lines, £186,540 ; new en-
gines, carriages, waggons, machinery, &c., ordered,
£107,397 ; reconstruction of viaducts and Barlow-
road, £50,000 ; unsettledland purchases, &c. £75,000;
subscriptions to other undertakings, £35, 700; lines and
works for which the company are liable, £176,000 ;
lines and works for which the company are respon-
sible jointly with other companies, £l94,ooo—total,
£824,637. The above statement includes the capital
required for the construction of the goods stations
at Birkenhead and Smithfield ; but it does not in-
clude any liabilities to which the company may be
subject under the agreement with the Metropolitan
Company, which is now the subject of negotiation,
nor does it include the capital charge for rolling
stock purchased on deferred payments, the interest
on which is already borne by revenue. The direc-
tors, impressed with the necessity of abstaining from
making any avoidable addition to the capital ac-
count, will endeavour to reduce or postpone as far
as possible their existing liabilities, obtaining where
necessary parliamentary powers for the purpose. It
has been the earnest wish and endeavour of the
board to limit the capital expenditure of the com-
pany to the smallest possible amount, and although
in the bill before Parliament powers are sought with
reference to some new works which the company
are at present under obligation to carry out, the
only line of any extent which it will be necessary to
proceed with is that in the Bargoed Valley, the
capital of which is £123,000. The works there pro-
posed to be sanctioned are in substitution for a line
which the West Midland Company was originally
authorised to construct, and which the company is
now under penalty to complete. An arrangement
was made in regard to this line by which the above
costs will be divided in equal moieties, with a neigh-
bouring company. The liability of the company in
respect of lines agreed to be leased at fixed rentals,
which amounted for the year ending Jan. 31 last to
£240,000, will be increased in the course of the next
three years by £51,000, and eventually by about
£58,000 a year. It was anticipated that this increase
of liability will be partially, if not wholly, met by
the increased traffic to be derived from these lines,
of which 59 miles are not yet opened. It will
be understood that this statement does not include
the lines worked upon a percentage of traffic re-
ceipts. The directors have, in the above figures,
endeavoured to place before the shareholders an esti-
mate of the expenditure on capital account for the
next three years, and they feel confident that by ad-
hering to the policy of abstaining from extensions
and capital expenditure beyond what may be neees-
sary for improving, their own undertaking, by close
attention to the increase of traffic, and by economy
in-working expenses, there will be a gradual but
certain increase of dividend to the ordinary share-
holders, for it must not be lost sight of that the inte-
rest on so large a part of the capital being fixed, an
increase of only £lOO,OOO per annum, or the present
net earnings of about £1,900,000, would give the
ordinary shareholders in the original section an in-
creased dividend of 1 per cent., with a proportionate
increase to the ordinary shareholders in the Oxford
and Newport sections."

GERMANY AFTER THE WAR OF 1866.

(From the Westminster Gazette.)

Our author next quotes some passages from
the writings of two eminent Prussianists, Dr.
Droysen and Dr. Hauser, according to which the
mission of Prussia to annex the other German
States rests on a sort of historic necessity, and is
based on the national need of more solid Consti-
tutions, sustained by a new Protestant sovereignty
and by Protestantism. lie then continues :

" These gentlemen arbitrarily take up an idea, a phan-
tasy—make of it an absolute thought, an idol which
they worship, or, more properly, in which they worship
themselves, and this theoretical phantasy becomes in their
ekes the sole legilinutle things in the world, the absol-
utely legitimate, necessary in itself, to which all else right,
morality, and history must yield. Thus the pernicious
theory that has come into vogue in Germany about the
mission of Prussia has long tended to produce a breach
with Austria. According to it Austria has naturally no
longer alplace in Germany ; she stands in the way of Prus-
sia's mission, which, with the force of a natural law, seeks
its own necessary fulfilment ; and, in like manner, to
use the language of Herr Droysen, the further annexation
of other territories at the cost of the remaining German
States is to Prussia as purely a natural law of necessity
as it is to the heavenly bodies a necessary law of their
nature to move each in its own sphere. In the year 1848,
for the first time in my life, I encountered this Prussian-
ism, with its tendency to annexation, as a natural neces-
sary law. I was at that time rector of Hopsten in
my native country, Westphalia. The trust which the
inhabitants of the surrounding country reposed in me
obliged me, in direct opposition to all my wishes, to
accept a seat in the German Parliament at Frankfort.
The county of Teklenburg an old Prussian and Protes-
tant district, was included in the same electoral limits,
and at a meeting of all the electors that was held at that
time in Teklenburg, the political task of their deputy in
Frankfort, especially with regard to the question of the
Constitution, was discussed. On that occasion a man,
otherwise most respectable, maintained the view that
above all things it was the mission of the Parliament to
extend the boundaries of Prussia to the Main, and thus
to form a North German kingdom under the Prussian
Crown, and that it was my duty as deputy to labour to
that end. How often have my thoughts reverted to
this elector in Teklenburg. His expressions prove how
universally and how early the events that have now
taken place were prepared for. I have now no doubt
that the words then uttered by this gentleman were
not the simple expression of his individual thoughts, but
set forth the views adopted in that secret society where,
what we have called Prussianism, has its especial seat.
This opinion of an unlimited mission of Prussia pre-
pared the war ; and during the course of the war it grew
into a mighty lever wherewith to conduct it. After
the great victories, it carried all away with it in Prussia,
even those whose lives had hitherto been devoted 'to
the advocacy of right. To sum up all, it dictated the
conditions of peace, and at this moment dominates in
Prussia almost without opposition. But what dangers lie
in such views for the peace of Europe in general, and par-
ticularly for that of Prussia? It is in its very essence
aggressive against all—a kind of universal declaration of
war against all who oppose this mission, said to be a
necessity of natural law. Such theories leave no rights
and no State secure. Why should this theory of neces-
sity by a law of nature stop short at the Main, why at the
Danube ?"

We will venture to add that a slight modifica-
tion of this fixed idea would suffice to extend this
mission of Prussia even beyond the mere boun-
daries of Germany to all nations of Germanic
origin. Prussianism would then be converted into
Pan-Germanism, corresponding to the Pan-Scla-
vonism, and to the Pan-Latinism, towards which
Louis Napoleon has more than once made a stride
already. That German Switzerland would not
escape, is to be understood of course ; even the
Saxons of Transylvania would not be left out in
the cold ; then Holland would follow, and Brabant,
and Flanders ; then Scandinavia, and—we cannot
help it, we must speak ont--England. The intel-
lectual lava cannot be held back ; England,
perhaps, would not be able to keep clear of
this new Protestant empire of the German nation.
That relationship can lend no security we have seen
in the case of llancver. In truth, matter would not
be wanting for imposing proclamations to the
nations of Europe. The great grouping of na-
tions, according to Louis Napoleon an "historical
necessity," is being consummated. The Catholic
Emperor of all the Latin—the Protestant Emperor
of all the Germanic races—the Greek Emperor of
all Sclavonians and Greeks, three Emperors, by
the grace of " blood and iron "—what a triumph
over the holy alliance of yore !

But enough of this. God lives yet, and a breath
of llis Spirit suffices to melt the lava of Revolu-
tion.

Our author still further develops his views of
the corruption of the Prussian State by this re-
volutionary Prussomania, in the chapter headed
" The end sanctities the means." If. by the ne-
cessity of a natural law, the mission of Prussia is
to annex, no means that serve that end can any
longer be considered blameworthy. He places
the Prussia of to-day on a level with the French
empire under Napoleon 1., thus :

" Napoleon also pretended to a mission, to be the execu-
tor of the higher decrees of Providence ; but his mission
was bound up with his name and with France ; he also
represented a prindiple, a theory devoid of right, devoid
of history, devoid of the law of God; and if success, if
brilliant victories are to be looked upon as a judgment
of God, as a proof of the Divine blessing, Napoleon,
instead of one, could appeal to numberless victories.
With this pretended mission he trod under foot al; the
rights of nations as well as of princes. Against these
arbitrary and godless theories peoples and princes fought
at Leipzig, and then pursued their victorious carter to
Paris."

In the same manner he speaks of the events of
the past year, the understanding with Louis Napo-

leon, the alliance with Victor Emmanuel, Gari-
baldi, Klapka, &c. :
"We see here before us the unhappy workings of
that corrupt principle which seeks to remove the higher
politics from their true foundation. If, in the intercourse
of peoples and States an exceptional standard is set up as
if they were subject tc other laws than those of or-
dinary morality and right ; if the delusion is encour-
aged, that what in private life would be wrong, unjust,
unlawful, in questions of higher politics is right, just,
yea, necessary ; if, in a word, the laws of God are disre-
garded, and in such high matters other laws are set up,
then such consequences as we have narrated above, must
of necessity follow. Then, at once, questions of high poli-
tics are degmded into mere questions of human prudence, of
human caprice; they are degraded into qtestions of low poli-
tical expediency, of political intrigue, in short, to a policy,
where self-seeking is the sole unrestricted law. Selfish
ends are aimed at, repugnant to the ordinances of God,
and all means are used in the pursuit of these ends accord-
ing to the principle : the end sanctifies the means. In
the separation of the law of nations from the laws of
God, in the fiction that in questions of higher politics, mea-
sures and objects aimed at are to be judged from a
higher point of view, than that of ordinary morality and
justice, lurks a most imminent danger for the peace of the
world. Whoever would avoid revolution in questions
of lower politics, must abjure it in questions of higher poli-
tics. A law of nations without the law of God is a perman-
ent state of war, or at best only a truce preceding the war
of all against all. What a confusion of minds and con-
science ! It is radically wrong in the individual to regu-
late his ends and means without reference to God and
the laws of God, without reference to morality and the
moral law. Just so, and for the same reasons in the life
of nations is it radically wrong for nations to choose
and pursue their ends, and the means to attain those
ends, without reference to God and the laws of God, to
morality and the moral law."

In chapter VII. Bishop Ketteler looks the
dangers in the face that are the consequences
of the deeds characterized above. First of all,
the dissolution of the Confederation which was
founded after the war of liberation, and then the
destruction of that confidence, which for fifty
years had been growing up and had waxed strong,
that a fratricidal war was no longer possible in
Germany, in place of which trust indications are
now observable of men's minds being bent on this
war of brother against brother. He then discusses
the present break up in Germany that may pro-
duce a state of things similar to what existed at the
period of the Confederation of the Rhine, which
our author describes as the period of the deepest
degradation of Germany. The danger appears to
him all the more pressing, as all confidence among
the German princes has been destroyed, and the
thought lies in their hearts that a similar fate
awaits them to that which has overtaken their
brother princes. Our author then speaks of the
overthrow of all public morality, of the want of
fixed yrinciples, on the basis whereof alone a stable
order of things can be built.