The Sun.
London, England, 1858-11-30 00:00:00

PRUSSIA.

The results of the elections in Prussia are even
more favourable than was announced by telegraph.
The majority of the constitutionalists is over-
whelming. The National Gazette of Berlin, whose
liberalism is of a more advanced type than that o
the Government, thus classifies the suecessful can
didates :
Ministerialists
Advanced Liberals
Conservatives
Catholics .
Poles ...
Feudalists

128
95
39
38
18
27

The Feudalist party, which had the upper hand
in• the last Chamber,, has suffered most, and is com_
p!etely defeated. The Kreuz Zeitung, the name of
which that party oft@ bear, laments in its issue, of
the 27th, that territorial influence has almost every-
where had to give place to personal qualifications in
these elections. The Democrats have for the most
part abstained from ;the elections. Neither Rod-
bertus, Schulze, Dclitsch, nor Jacoby, names so
familiar in 1848, have presented themselves to the
constituencies. But, on the other hand, the party
of real progress in Prussia is represented in the
Chamber by a large number of its ablest champions.
There are George von Vincke-Hagen, whose con-
stancy and Ate in debate sustained the cause of
Prussian liberalism in its darkest days ; Count
Schwerin•Putzar (returned for five places), formerly
for six years President of the Chamber, moderate,
but firm and true, and honoured of all parties ;
Simson, President of the National Assembly at
Frankfort; Heinrich von Arnim, the Foreign
Minister in 1848, and subsequently an imprisoned
victim of the Manteuffel Ministry, having offended
by the publication of a pamphlet; and others of
scarcely inferior note.
A more promising Chamber with which to renew
the experiment of parliamentary government can
hardly be imagined. The members have not been
returned under the influence of any violent tem-
porary excitement. Extreme parties are represented
in it only by inconsiderable minorities. The nation
has understood from the words and acts of the
Regent that he wanted a really representative
assembly, and that he did not propose to dictate to
the electors, and it immediately returned to politics,
from which it had retired, disgusted by the hypo-
crisy and unreality of M. Manteuffel's pretended
constitutionalism, and elected a Chamber which it
believed wilt prove worthy of its authors and its
vocation,

THE PRINCE OF PRUSSIA'S DECLA-
RATION TO HIS 111IXISTE_RS.

The Hamburger Nachrichten publishes the fol-
lowing as the full text of the address which the
Prince Regent on a recent occasion addressed to his
new Ministry :
" Gentlemen,—After having passed through a
serious crisis, I behold you, for the first time, as-
sembled around me—you, gentlemen, who inspire
me with that confidence that I do not hesitate to
select you as the prime councillors of the Crown.
Moments of this description appertain to the most
serious incidents in the life of a Sovereign, and I,
is Regent, feel it all the more keenly, as unfortu-
nate circumstances have called me to the position
which I now occupy.
" My devotion towards my King and master, so
=idly tried, made me hesitate long upon the est
means of bringing back the symptoms which I had
observed under his Government to a more healthy
state, without hurting my brotherly feelings, or
tainting the solicitude and fidelity with which our
King exercised the government of the country.
" If I have finally resolved to change the council-
lors of the Crown, it is because all I have selected
share my opinion—viz., that neither now nor ever
can a question arise of a rupture with the past. All
that is required is to restore and improve with a
gentle hand whatever errors or usages contrary to
the wants of the age have inadvertently slipped in.
" You all admit that ,the interests of the Crown
and of the country are inseparable ; that the wel-
fare of both rests upon a healthy, strong, and con-
servative basis. The great secret of Statecraft is
to find out exactly those wants, to understand
them, and to meet them, and, to do so, all extreme
measures ought to be avoided.
" Our task is no easy one, for a movement has
for some time manifested itself in public life which,
if it can in part be explained, still in many points
presents traces of ideas wilfully exaggerated, to
which it will be necessary to oppose a calculated,
legal, and even energetic line of action. We must
faithfully keep what has been promised without
giving up improvement ; we must boldly put aside
what has not been promised.
" Above all things, I wish to guarantee you
against this stereotyped phrase—' That the Go-
vernment must allow itself to be driven more and
more towards the development of liberal ideas, be-
cause they would prevail in despite of it.' This is
precisely the point where what I called Statecraft
is applicable. When every act of the Government
bears the stamp of truth and consistency, a Go-
vernment is strong because it has a good con-
science, and with a good conscience it has a right
to oppose everything that is evil.
"In our home elihifs, which appertain to the