The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—Now that Italian unity seems at last
permanently secured, men have leisure to take note
of the progress of German unity. Germany has on
her side that element of physical force in which
Italy was so sadly deficient. What Germany really
desires no power on earth can gainsay ; but it
is questionable, after all, whether weaknessitself was
not Italy's strength, and if, on the contrary, Ger-
many's strength is not her weakness. It was her
very weakness that gave Italy earnestness and sin-
gleness of purpose, patience, and self-denial. Italy,
above all things, well knew what she wanted. She
was perfectly aware that freedom was not to be
had without independence, nor independence with-
out unity. Events favoured her beyond all hope ;
she had on her side all sympathy. She availedher-
self of every opportunity. She had address, prompti-
tude, and suppleness. The force she lacked was
supplied by doubtful friends like France, by open
foes like Prussia. With precisely identical aspira-
tions, Germany is in an altogether different position.
She has nothing to wish for, nothing to fear from
without. She has only to shape her own policy, to
follow her own course ; all she wants is to know her
own mind—an extremely difficult thing, as it seems,
for Germany. Unity is not all in all to her. She
thinks union may answer all her purposes. Union
was all she wanted in 1813 to repel an invader, to
become in her turn the invader. But, alas ! times
have changed strangely since that famous " Year
Thirteen." Germany is still strong enough against
her neighbours, but not against herself. The
disorders of division, which brought her so much
misery under her old Empire, were hardly to be
cured by the ill-contrived Bund, which took the
place of it. While freedom was everywhere at the
mercy of local despots, her national Government
was a prey to hopeless anarchy. German Sove-
reigns, indeed, were not so ruthless a set as Italian
Princes, but their sway was equally irresponsible.
The Fatherland was not so constantly exposed to
the inroad of foreign nations, but these, at any rate,
reckoned that " their expansive force," if checked
in every other direction, had always an open outlet
across the Rhine. Under such circumstances, the
want of unity, or at least of a closer unity, began
to be felt in Germany. But there were great vague-
ness and infirmity, great lack of unanimity, of pur-
pose. The man was wanted—a man who not only
should well know his own mind, but who could also
bring his countrymen to have a mind of their own.
Hero-worship will not probably be set down
against us as our common failing; and we have not,
on a variety of occasions, hesitated in expressing our
opinion of the policy of Count Bismark and of the
conduct of Prussian civil and military authorities.
But it is impossible to deny that if either unity or
closer union was necessary for Germany, it was
only to be achieved by such means as Prussia and
Count Bismark have supplied. In order to create a
Germany, it was necessary to drive out Austria, to
break up the Bund, to bring all the minor States
under subjection. A revolution of that nature could
not be made with rose-water; it could not be handled
with kid gloves. There are nations that only re-
quire gentle leading ; there are others that need
hard driving. Very great firmness, and even a cer-
tain amount of harshness, was at all times found to
' answer best with your patient and somewhat slug-
gish German. Count Bismark has done wonders
hitherto, but he is yet far from his goal, and his
frankness in avowing the difficulties with which his
great undertaking is still beset amounts almost to
rashness. Even in his anxiety
,to make his peace
with that Prussian Parliament against which he
waged so violent a war in former years, he conies
before them bidding them to think less of local mat-
ters, and to turn their attention to " the unfinished
task of foreign policy." He expresses himself con-
fident of a good' understanding with Austria, but
he is sure it would be idle to rely on the good
will of any other European State. He reminds the
Committee of the Chamber that Silesia had to be
conquered three times over ; and he sees the possi-
bility that three successive wars may be required to
vindicate the possession of what has been lately
acquired. The Emperor Napoleon looks forward to
" an era of tranquillity." The Prussian statesman
wishes present questions to be promptly solved, so as
to take from foreign Powers all pretext for interfe-
ence. " By doing at once what is to be done," he
says, " a double advantage is gained." It is difficult
to say how much of Count Bismark's real mind is
conveyed in these apparently most candid confes-
sions. His position is certainly full of peril and
difficulty, but he has also an interest iu exaggerating
its danger, so as to rouse to exertion the representa-
tives he addresses. Of the ultimate drift of his long-
meditated policy he leaves no doubt. The annexa-
tion of Hanover, Hesse, Nassau, Homburg, and
Frankfort, he says, is not merely grounded on the
right of conquest. It was on the necessity of Ger-
many to live and breathe that Prussia grounded her
right to incorporate such of the scattered members
of the nation as had been won in honest warfare.
The Prussian Minister was well aware that such
words would find an echo throughout Germany. Had
Austria, or the Blind, or any of the minor Princes
had their own way, France would by this time have
been marching her legions across the Rhine. Hap-
pily for all Germany, Prussia was tuo prompt, too
strong, too fully successful to allow time for foreign
interference. The idea that Prussia's strength is
the strength of Germany cannot fail daily to gain
ground. All that Prussia gets at the expense of
Hanover, Hesse, and other States must be allowed
to have been won for the common security and inde-
pendence of the Fatherland. There is, indeed, good
reason to regret that some of the oldest and most
illustrious dynasties in Europe should thus be brought
to a sudden and violent extinction. As Count Bis-
mark himself avowed, not a few of the people be-
longing to the minor German States, especially in
the capitals, are disposed to look upon the intended
change as fraught with ruin to a variety of local
and personal interests ; but the great mass of the
nation, he added, look upon the matter with more
enlarged views, and even the present opponents will
soon be brought to the same manner of thinking.
Whatever clemency and forbearance Count Bis-
mark might have shown to the conquered, there is
hardly a doubt that Prussian supremacy was neces-
sary for the welfare of Germany, and it could not
be established without offering all the minor States
the alternative between extinction and mediatisa-
tion. Hanover, Hesse, and the others upon which
the former lot has fallen, think theirs has been the
harsher treatment, and would fain compound with
any loss of the substance if they could only preserve
the bare semblance of sovereignty. On the other
hand, Saxony, in whose behalf France and Austria
interceded, and Darmstadt, for whose sake also
powerful agencies are at work, shrink from the
subordinate position which Prussia has made out
for them, and would seem to prefer the absolute
loss of their Crown rather than the diminution of its
lustre. In her own self-defence, and for the safety
of Germany, however, Prussia cannot depart from
the principle she has laid down for herself. She
must have absolute control over the military and
diplomatic affairs of the Northern Confederacy. She
can hardly hope to hold her own on the Elbe and on
the Main unless she assumes such a position in
Saxony and in Darmstadt as will take from there-
stored Sovereigns of those States any possible
chance of doing mischief. However hard these con-
ditions may prove to the Sovereigns themselves,
there is no doubt of the acquiescence of their sub-
jects in the new order of things, and also of their
eagerness to do away altogether with the past, and
proceed to the immediate annexation of the whole
country to Prussia. Evidence of a similar state
of mind in various districts of Saxony, in Baden,
in Bavaria itself, may be gathered from all
the correspondence that reaches us on all
sides.
l'he Lower house at Munich, while giving its
ratification to the Treaty of Peace, recommended
the closest union of their country with the Northern
Confederacy for all military purposes. Yet Bavaria
had been flattered by Count Bismark himself with
the prospect of the leadership of a Southernßund,
to be united to Prussia by a compact of alliance. Even
at the head of Wurtemberg, Baden, and part of Darm-
stadt,' however, Bavaria feels herself too weak to
hope for any advantage in a separate existence.
After all, this merely political revolution has been

long since shadowed forth by the negotiations so
often carried on by the different States of Germany
for the constitution of their Commercial League.
Austria and the South have in all instances offered
a long resistance to the overpowering influence of
Prussia and the North ; a long yet invariably un-
availing resistance. Austria always ended by being
excluded from the Zollverein. The South never
failed to be dragged along and absorbed by the
North. In the same direction as material interests
set, political combinations must necessarily follow.
POST.—When a year ago we had to record the
failure of the attempt to lay the cable of the Atlantic
Telegraph, we ventured to foretell that its recovery,
as well as the ultimate success of the undertaking
with a new cable, might be looked upon as amount-
ing, upon a sound calculation of probabilities, simply
to a question of time. Only a year has elapsed since
then, and not only has a new cable been made and
laid successfully, and is now in excellent working
order, but the old cable of 1865 has been fished up
and spliced, and is in equally good working order,
so far as its continuity and powers of transmission
are concerned. It will be remembered that after
this cable had parted and been lost, it was dragged
for and found more than once, and each time raised
a considerable distance towards the surface, but as
often lost again through the strength of the appa-
ratus employed not being equal to the strain upon
it. Had this been adequate to the task the cable
would have been then and there recovered, spliced,
and the attempt to complete the enterprise renewed ;
but when all the cable provided for the purpose of
fishing up the lost electric wire had been used up
there was nothing for it but to bank up the fires,
turn the head of the Great Eastern towards
England, and steam home at full speed to bring
the unwelcome tidings of failure. The precau-
tion had, however, as a matter of course, been
taken to carefully record the bearings of the
spot where the end of the lost cable had for the
last time slipped through the hands of its temporary
recoverers, no less than to moor conspicuous buoys
there, so that there might be a twofold guide to
those who would come, when the calm season again
returned, a year afterwards, with improved and
stronger tackle to search for it again. The perse-
verance which has marked the progress of this un-
dertaking throughout has now been doably success-
ful, and the Great Eastern, so unfortunate hitherto,
has wiped out her former ill-starred antecedents by
a double triumph. She will have succeeded this
year in connecting the Old World with the New by
successfully laying not only the cable,of 1866, but
the one of 1865 also. When the former object had
been attained the expedition steamed to the spot
where the cable of last year had been lost, and pro-
ceeded to drag for it ; and it was found, and lost,
again and again, until at last it was safely recovered
and spliced. The Albany was the vessel which
claims the credit of first finding the cable. This
she did on the 10th of last month, and succeeded in
buoying it, but here her triumph came to an end,
for the chain broke and the cable was again lost.
Two days afterwards the Great Eastern herself had
arrived on the spot, and by midnight on the 15th
August had not only caught the cable but had raised
it five hundred fathoms. The process of buoying,
however, proved as fatal to her success as it had
done in the case of the Albany, and the cable had
to be fished for again. These successful attempts,
however—successful, that is, as attempts to find
and grapple the cable—served to confirm the expe-
rience of the past, and to show that the recovery
of the old cable, like the laying of a new one, was
but a question of time and perseverance. The
Great Eastern renewed her work, and two days
subsequently—that is, on the 17th August, between
one and two o'clock in the morning—she again
grappled the cable and raised it to her bows, but in
the attempt to land it on board the cable itself
parted, as on the occasion of its first loss, and
again went to the bottom of the Atlantic. A couple
of days later—on the 19th—she had, however,
found it again, and not only raised it eighty-six
fathoms, but buoyed it. Meanwhile the other ships
of the expedition had not been idle, for on the
same day the Albany, which had been the first to
discover and fish it up, again found and grappled
it, but as speedily lost it. In the account which we
published yesterday the latitude and the longitude
are given where each of these recoveries and losses
took place, but it is not necessary here to repeat the
figures over again. A week later another vessel of
the expedition, the Medway, fastened her grapplings
upon the cable, which, however, parted by its own
strain after it had been raised a thousand fathoms.
All the ships of the squadron were now evidently
over the line of the lost telegraph, and had settled
down in earnest to their work. Such repeated losses
must have been exceedingly provoking. To find
the cable slip through the fingers of its recoverers
lik a huge eel, just as they thought they had
secured it, must have been irritating enough, no
doubt, but it only served to put them on their
mettle, and the different ships emulated each other
in their labours. Neither night nor day was the
work relaxed. The calm season is a short and
precious period, which, in such an enterprise, at
such a spot in the middle of the Atlantic, is to be
made the most of. The first time the Great. East-
ern grappled the cable was about midnight ; the
second time was between one and two o'clock in
the morning ; the third time was between nine
and ten. On the same day as that on which the
Medway,' at five o'clock in the afternoon, last
found and lost the cable, namely, on the 26th
August, the Albany, at eleven o'clock in the fore-
noon, again succeeded in raising and buoying it,
showing that these vessels were indefatigable in
dragging the bottom of the ocean. The Albany
was the ship which, on the 10th, was the first to
grapple and raise the cable, but subsequently lost
it through the apparatus giving way. It will
have been observed that generally throughout
these experiments, when the apparatus seemed
strong enough, the telegraph cable itself gave way,
and when the cable seemed strong enough to bear
its own strain the apparatus was inadequate to sup-
port its weight. These united efforts were now,
however, about to be crowned with success, for the
expedition had by this time got a firm hold on the
cable, and, after much hard and successful work,
the old telegraph wire of 1865 had been got on
board the Great Eastern on the 2d—last Sunday—
had been spliced, and the process of paying out re-
newed, so that the thread of last year's enterprise
was taken up and continued, some twelve months
later, just where it had been broken off. On the
application of the proper tests the whole line was
shown to be in perfect working order. It w;l1 be
remembered that several defects were found to exist
in the cable as it was paid out last year, through
pieces of wire having penetrated it, and these im-
perfect portions had to be cut out from time to time
as they were discovered, and the wire properly
spliced. No such blemishes appear to have existed
in the new cable, and there was no solution of con-
tinuity from first to last. Should a further hitch of
the kind occur in the old cable, it need not cause
any alarm, as the former ones were so easily re-
medied. At the time the latest intelligence, which
we published yesterday, from the other end was
despatched, all was going on well and the tests were
perfect ; it was expected the Great Eastern would
reach Heart's Content by Saturday. The popular
aphorism, that in all cases it is as well to have two
strings to your bow cannot fail to be illustrated
with peculiar force in the present instance. One
advantage of having two Atlantic telegraph aables
will necessarily be a reduction of the tariff of
charges for the transmission of messages, and, con-
sequently, a great increase in the amount of news
and the rapidity of its conveyance. Between one
telegraph cable and two cables there is all the
difference between a railway with a single line of
rails and a double one. Now, too, that the art of
laying ocean telegraphs has been so far perfected,
may we not conclude that more than these two
lines will at no distant future connect the Old
World with the New ? An American project has
been talked of for laying a cable between that con-
tinent and Spain, taking, as a matter of course,
the route most peopled with islands. In enter-
prises of this sort the first great success is generally
sure to stimulate rivalry and competition. Consi-
dering the enormous news traffic which the Old and
New Worlds would supply by this direct and
rapid means of despatch, there is no reason why
several lines should not pay a high per tentage on
the capital invested. is it beyond the resources of
science to lay simultaneously a cable in duplicate,
that is, two telegraphic wires instead of one ? The
question of whether they should have separate
sheaths or not, supposing the other difficulties to
be overcome, is quite a subordinate one. is there
any reason why the Great Eastern should not this
voyage have laid two cables instead of one, now
that we have learned the art of ocean telegraphy ?
May it not be doubted whether, in such skilful
hands as those which have just brought this enter-
prise to a successful issue, a much lighter cable
might not have been laid down with equal success,
and therefore two light ones, which might only
have been equal in weight to this heavy one ? Of
course it may be that.the great strength and con-
sequent weight of the new cable insured its success ;
but is this so ? Have we not found the old cable,
which was lighter and weaker ; has it not been
;fished up from the bottom and spliced" and is it not
again in course of being relaid ? And could not the
practised skill now at our command, if presided
over by proper care and caution, equally succeed in
laying a much thinner one than either ? Then,
again, would not two light cables, equal together
in weight and bulk to the new thick one, be equally
strong if paid out simultaneously, and therefore
equally safe, even assuming that a less degree of
strength would be inadequate to the strain ? We
shall ere long probably have a practical and satisfac-
toiy answer to these problems.