The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

HER A LD.—Every Englishmen has read-the reply
of the King of Prussia to the Hanoverian deputa-
tion with a sense of sorrow not altogether referable
to sentiment or sympathy. By a chain of events
absolutely without a parallel, the fortune of war has
placed the fate of central Europe in the hands of
the House of Hohenzollern, and has-made the occu-
pant of the Prussian Throne the arbiter of destiny,
whose will it is hopeless to resist, and whose decrees
it is vain to question. The calamities of Austria and
of her allies among small but independent States,
which culminated at Sadowa, extinguished the last
lingering spark of hope which might have been
cherished,either by Sovereign or subject, of the now
extinct kingdom of Hanover, that the chances of
war might yet so far change as to render the exer-
tions of Austria effective to save herself from dis-
memberment, and her allies from being driven to
accept any terms the conqueror might offer. After
the course which Prussia had pursued it was not to
be expected that she would relinquish the spoil for
which she had ventured so much, and in gathering
which she had shown herself determined to brave
the disapproval and displeasure of her nearest and
most powerful neighbours. Von Munchausen him-
self must have felt that undertaking to play the
part of spokesman at such an audience as that at
which he appealed, ad misericordiam, on behalf of
himself and his compatriots, he was consenting to
lead the most desperate of forlorn hopes. That such
was the feeling of the deputation when they entered
the royal presence no one can doubt, nor can we
suppose that the few touching words with which,
as they retired, they expressed their regrets at the
refusal of their prayer, were one whit more despon-
dent in tone than they had from the first known
that they must of necessity utter when submit-
ting with bursting hearts to the decrees of Pro-
vidence, as interpreted 'by grand battalions and
needle-guns. Admitting that, after what was known
of the plans and purposes of the Prussian Cabi-
net, no one could have expected the King to accord
permission for the Hanoverians to preserve a sepa-
rate existence, to enjoy their own organisation, and
to obey their own Monarch, we can but regret that
the Power which has gained so greatly by the late
war should have deemed it wise and politic to forget,
in its hour *of triumph, how to be generous to a
State which has for centuries held no unhonoured
place in the great European system. The submis-
sion of Calais burghers to our own Edward was
scarcely more abject than was that of the Hanove-
rian deputies when supplicating the mercy of the
Prussian William; and the answers of Napoleon
himself to the discrowned Kings who swelled his
triumph and formed the most conspicuous portion
of his retinue did not more completely manifest his
calm consciousness of command than did the some-
what lengthy reply of William I. to the lately con-
quered subjects of King George: He does not blame
the Hanoverians for loving their former Sovereign
and their old dynasty—on the contrary, he would
have esteemed them less it they had failed to show
their loyalty to the one and their attachment to the
other. But neither love nor loyalty can be allowed
to influence his policy or turn him aside from the
course which he has marked out for himself. Though
the wicked world has failed to give him credit for it,
his aim throughout the war has been to win none
but moral conquests. The policy of Bismarck and
the power of the needle gun, the perfection of state-
craft, and the latest appliance of the machinery of
slaughter, have alike been enlisted on behalf of the
moral elevation which Prussia has throughout been
solicitous to display. Austrian influence has been
used to counteract this lofty, transcendental purity,
and to baffle the disinterested endeavours to which
it gave rise. Hanover has cast in her lot with Prus-
sia's rival, has listened to his seductions, has pan-
dered to his purposes. The beneficence which would
have infused unity into the Bund has in part been
thwarted by the efforts of Hanovey as a nationbent
on maintaining itself as a distinct integer in the sys-
tem on whose overthrow Prussia had resolved. By
overt act and covert agency Austria had striven
with Prussia for the preponderating power in
Germany—had again and again attacked and dis-
turbed her—and only recently had carried inter-
ference in Holstein to a degree which all the
magnanimity of Prussia was unable to bear. Hence
came the resolution to make war, which has been
crowned with a success alike beyond precedent and
expectation. " The visible interposition of Provi-
dence" was manifest as soon as the struggle had
begun, and when its progress agreed so thoroughly
with Royal inclinations, it would, of course, be both
foolish and wicked to attempt to control them. The
annexation of Hanover is necessary to compensate
Prussia for her heavy sacrifices, and now that the
irrevocable fiat has gone forth, his Majesty trusts
that those who at present feel themselves aggrieved
by it will receive his declarations in such a way as
to get that " mutual confidence which may ulti-
mately lead to content." We need say nothing in
praise of the dignity with which the Hanovarian
deputies deported themselves both before and after
this communication of their conqueror's will. But
we cannot help regretting that any Sovereign should
have thought it well to refuse success to such a
petition. The days are over in which we could
afford to make and meddle in every continental con-
troversy; to engage in hostilities for the sake of
abstract justice, or to make war, asFrance does, for
an idea. But even we cannot contemplate without
emotion the fall of a kingdom whose history is so
intimately connected with ours, or hear, with indif-
ference, the dirge of a dynasty from which our own
Royal house has sprung. The hauling down the
Hanoverian flag, with its well-worn motto, " Nec
aspera terrent," was a sight sad to contemplate, even
from a distance, and with the feelings of mere spec-
tators. How infinitely more keenly must those have
suffered who saw in its involuntary lowering the
cessation of their being as a nation, the destruction
of their hopes, thefalsificatiou of their most cherished
traditions, the transformation of themselves from
the members of a small but independent kingdom
into the mere unconsidered atoms of a great and
grasping monarchy, which it is impossible for them
successfully to resist or willingly to endure. And
it would have been well, both for Prussia and for
Europe, had the former so far deferred to
the public sentiment of the latter as to forbear from
pushing matters to this last and most repulsive ex-
tremity. The campaign which has just concluded
has shaken the security and jeopardised the exist-
ence of all but the largest states. It has shown that
the securities hitherto afforded by public faith, by
private attachment, by regard for the wishes of a
brave people, by desire for the perpetuation of an
ancient dynasty, may henceforth be set at nought
by any power with a great army and a formidable
weapon. It teaches that the era of territorial ag-
grandisement, which the Emperor of the French
assured us was " gone, never to return," is not yet
over, and that with the characteristically absorbing
tendency of modern times it may now be pursued
without stint or stay. Napoleon, in the zenith of
his power, dealt not more despotically with Prussia
when he stripped her by successive spoliations, and
exhausted her by continual contributions, than
Prussia herself has dealt with Hanover. She has
pursued towards her unhappy neighbour a policy
of exceptional severity. She might have taken her
under her pretection, have constituted her neutral
territory like Switzerland, she might even have me-
diatised her like Saxony. The command of her army,
the control of her policy, might have been with
Bismarck and his successors; or she might have been
virtually ruled from Berlin, have been, to almost all
intents and purposes, Prussian, if only the separate
nationality and sovereignty had been preserved to
those by whom traditions of the past are cherished,
and by whom consequently the transitions of the
present are most deeply and painfully felt. In the
exercise of his discretion, or rather of the irresistible
power which the events of the war have placed at
his disposal, flip King of Prussia has thought fit to
disregard these considerations, to make the iron
enter deeply and visibly into the souls of those he
has subdued, and to proclaim that henceforth the
right of mind is the only title whose validity is to
be recognised when the fate of nations and peoples
is to be decided,. leaving to Kings discrowned by
hostilities undertaken without plausible pretext, and
pressed " to the bitter end" without pity or enlight-
ened policy, no heritage but the love of subjects
whose only duty henceforth becomes " an endeavour
to convert the bitterness and excitement created by
annexation, into the sentiment of hopeless resigna-
tion to the unavoidable decrees of Providence."

TIMES.--We have felt ourselves very reluctantly
called upon to animadvert on the conduct of one
colonial governor, who, after having been ' most
properly relieved from his duties on account of con-
duct for which there may be urged many excuses,
but certainly no justification, has had the bad taste
to accept a public festival held in his honour by
persons acting in worse taste than himself. We have
now to notice the conduct of another colonial
governor, also removed from office with the general
approbation of men of all :parties and opinions,
without the excuse of necessity and emergency
which palliates Mr. Eyre's errors, but involved in
the folds of a net mainly of his own making. We
have no wish to bear hardly on the conduct of Sir
Charles Darling, but we cannot pass it over without
remark, lest an evil precedent of the gravest impor-
tance, which Sir Charles Darling has seen fit to
create, should escape the repudiation it deserves.
We have before us further papers on the troubles
in Victoria. Sir Charles Darling had been cen-
sured, very properly, because he had continued
to levy customs' duties under the authority of a
bill passed by the Assembly of Victoria, which
the Council had refused to entertain. He was
told that the decision did not affect the practice
usual in this country of collecting duties under

Resolutions of the House of Commons, before
the bill has had time to pass, with the view of pre-
venting a loss to the revenue. But he chooses to
consider himself as placed, by the censure of the
Colonial-office, in an unfortunate dilemma, sea
proceeds, with what we can only call mock gravity,
to point out the injury that would occur to the re-
venue if the duties were not at once collected. II?
further dwells on his inability to construe an Act of
Parliament without legal advice—an evident sneer
at the censure he most properly received for enter-
ing into a plate to deprive one branch of the Vic-
torian Legislature of its power over the revenue,
although that course was sanctioned by his lay/
officers—that is, by the law officers appointed bl
the Government in whose interest he was acting.
He concludes by asking for an authoritative decision
to guide him for the future, although he must have
perfectly well known that no such decision was re-
quired, that it could only be given in one sense, an''
that a request for it, if made bona fide, would 01
itself prove him unfit to hold the office of Governor..
of Victoria. Who could justify the intrusting vs°
and important interests in one of the most remote
of our colonies to a man incapable of distinguishing
between the collection of revenue in accordance
with English precedent, with the certainty of
_a
future indemnity, and revenue collected for the veil
purpose of embarrassing and overawing one brawl'
of the Legislature, with a certainty equally deaf
that the indemnity would be refused ? Or who
would continue such a trust in the hands of a wall
capable of affecting ignorance on such a point for
the purpose, as he believed, of involving his official
superiors in a logical difficulty ? Equally wanting 0'
a just perception of what was due to himself and to
his official superiors is the despatch in which Sir
_,C'
Darling replies to the announcement of his dismissal.:
He " bows respectfully to the commands of the
Queen," and enters his " respectful, but unhesitok
ing, protest against the grounds of the advice given
to her Majesty," and then goes on to re-open the
whole case, and to reiterate arguments already'
refuted. He denies that he went on collecting
the duties after an adverse decision of the
Court, because, as we understand, the decision
was only that of a judge and jury ; and he insist°
that he acted under an overwhelming emergeneh
because he acted at the request of the Legislative
Assembly and Government—the very essence et.
the case being that he did so without the asset":
of the Council. The ground of dismissal was that
he occupied a position of personal antagonise'
to almost all those whose position pointed them
out as most likely to be available to him on all
change of Ministry. This was undoubtedly true;
and the only answer Sir Charles Darling offers is
that he has since entered into an unsuccessful Liege,:
tiation with one of these persons with a view
placing the Government in his hands ; and this, We
are told, proves that " the single reason for remov"
ing Sir Charles Darling prematurely from the high-
est and most lucrative office in the Colonial Service
is entirely baseless." Sir Charles Darling expreseell
a hope that his case may be investigated by a COt:
mittee of the House of Commons, and if there P"
thought to exist any reasonable grounds of doubt a 0
to the propriety of the decision which removed hire
from office, this is undoubtedly the proper and Con-
stitutional course. He announces his intention tet
apply for such a committee, and we doubt not tha,.
his application will meet with all the attention 1;
deserves. He is quite right to put his case or record
in the form of a memorandum, but we wish he had
stopped here. Unfortunately, he has taken aOl
which, if other evidence were wanting, would she
his unfitness for the high and responsible office
which he has been deprived. He communicated t°,,,
despatch of the Secretary of State recalling him fre;
the colony, together with a minute which he laid ,
fore the Colonial Ministry, to his assistants and CO;
adjutors in the recent transactions—a minute:io
which, under the form of a narrative, he given
own version of the affair, and incidentally his osv
"
defence of his conduct. That is, he, the represents
tive of the Queen, the organ of the Queen's Goveril;
ment in the colony, has forgotten himself so far 0
to submit questions between himself and the 'Dill
Government to the very persons whom he is to col;
trol and guide in all matters relating to their dAll'lo
to the Crown and the mother country. The Queellie
Government in England is in no sense responsil3
to the Queen's Government in Victoria, and ive
imagine no line of conduct more calculated
to
weaken the connexion between the mother country
and her colonies than an appeal by the Governor of
his Ministers—and through them to the people
the country which he has been sent to govern
against a decision of the Home authorities, espest.
ally when that decision refers to his own conduc,
This proceeding will hardly be forgotten whene%
Sir Charles Darling makes his promised applicatlo
for redress to the House of Commons, and is,.
our opinion, in itself quite a sufficient justificatle.o
of his removal from office. A man who alloWs'
the first instance, an attempt by one branch oftid
Legislature to oppress and overawe the other, an
who, having thus brought matters to a dead-0,41
lends himself to an illegal combination in order to
obtain the possession of public money without
consent of the authorities to whom it is intrustT4
and who appeals to his partners in these offences..7, ,udges between him and the Government that el'r in
ployed
and trusted him, is certainly not fit to ta .
a new country in the ways of order, moderatle'
and obedience to the law.