The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-10 00:00:00

istrian people, are' indignant at what they con-
sider with reason the arrogance and duplicity of the
Prussian Minister. In spite of debt, in spite of the
discontent of a great province, in spite of menaces
on the side of Italy and political troubles on the
Lower Danube, Austria has assumed a warlike atti-
tude. Count Bismark probably did not expect to
meet so resolute an antagonist. The easy and some-
what sluggish nature of Austrian statesmanship,
and the remoteness of the matters in dispute from
Austrian territorial interests, may naturally have
led the Prussian Minister to expect that he would
have no difficulty in carrying out his purpose.
Schleswig and Holstein are far beyond the limits of
Austrian ambition. Though German, they be-
long to that part of Germany which Prussia must
always influence, and over which she may at any
time extend her sway. The traditional division of
North and South, by 'which the younger and more
active Power has been totally permitted to lead the
little States in the neighbourhood of the ocean,
might well inspire the Prussians with a belief that
they would be allowed to have their own way in
the Duchies, provided they were equally complai-
sant to Austria on some future occasion. But they
must not be fully undeceived. Whatever may be the
result of these negotiations and disputes, it is clear
that Prussia will not annex the Duchies without
something more than strong remonstrances on the
part of the other States. Austrian dignity has been
wounded by the coolness with which Count Bis-
mark affected to consider as belonging to his master
provinces in which an Austrian army corps is sta-
tioned. The other States are angry at what they
think an outrage upon the rights of a pdople
whom they have just liberated from Danish rule,
and an insult to the Federal authority and their
own. Though a large part of their citizens de-
sire neutrality, their rulers do not conceal that their
sympathies so incline towards Austria that in case
of a war they might possibly drift into it on the side
of the Power which defends the rights of the Con-
federation and the Duchies. On the other hand,
the Prussian Minister, though probably not less
anxious to attain his end, and indifferent to the
opinions of his adversaries or the world, is likely
to see the wisdom of not pressing matters too far.
Of the power of Prussia to obtain military posses-
sion of the Duchies, all parties to the dispute are
well aware. The Austrian corps of occupation is
isolated, and the facility with which it might be
overcome and the Duchies reduced to a Prussian
province must have been before the eyes of the
Minister, and has, perhaps, tempted him to take so
bold an attitude. In a country where so much may
be done by the show of audacity it might well enter
into the calculations of an ambitious statesman that
a demonstration of force might induce the Austrians
to retire, in order to escape a humiliation they could
not resist. The preparations of Austria have shown
her adversary that this hope is vain. Undoubtedly,
the Austrian corps is at the mercy of their enemy ;
but Count Bismark now knows that any breach of
faith in the Duchies would be followed by a war on
the opposite frontier. If he is to gain his end with-
out paying too high a price, it must be by a present
policy of artifiee and delay. The consciousness
that the question is serious, and that the Vienna
Government is more in earnest than was expected,
shows itself in every paragraph of the Prussian reply.
There is the desire to stand well with the world, to
appear as not the wronger, but the wronged, as the
victim of unfounded jealousies and impatient pre-
parations. The advance of the Austrian troops gives
their opponents a pretext of complaint, and they
will, no doubt, take full advantage of it. It is de-
clared that no danger of war existed before the
Prussian frontier was threatened, and that no
danger would remain if the menace were 'withdrawn.
Prussia only desires to defend itself, and did not,
indeed, move its own troops until " the safety. of
the Prussian territory became dependent on the
resolution of the Austrian Cabinet." The emphatic
declaration that Prussia has no intention to violate
the peace, and that nothing is further from the
King's intentions than an attack on Austria, may
be only diplomatic language; but, undoubtedly, the
tone and purport of the note are to indicate that
Prussia will not plunge into war, and desires at least
to place the enemy in the wrong. By the tele-
graphic summary of the Austrian reply we find that
Austria inclines to press her advantage, and to fol-
low up her receding rival with fresh demands. On
the evening of Saturday last Austria sent a despatch
to Berlin, in which Count Bismark is charged with
having declared war with Austria to be inevitable,
and it is affirmed that the Austrian armaments have
been caused by this declaration. So far, therefore,
the two Powers would be only on an equality.
Prussia says that she armed because Austria
menaced her by her movements, and Austria says
that she moved because Prussia menaced her by her
words. But Austria is not content with this recri-
mination. It is actually demanded that Prussia
shall " demobilize" her army ; that is, while Aus-
trian troops are pouring into Bohemia, and may at
any time be forced on to the frontier, Prussia is to
desist from counter preparations. These prepara-
tions Count Bismark would, of course, call strictly
defensive. The Austrian Government, on the other
hand, considers, or affects to consider, them as in-
tended to carry out some scheme of aggrandisement.
It is unfortunate that so stringent a demand should
have been made, for it will be difficult for Prussia,
however desirous to keep the peace, to yield to
what seems like the dictation of her antagonist. A
threatening demand and a grave accusation are hard
things even for a mild-spirited statesman to bear,
and we may well imagine what effect they will pro-
duce upon the man who has so long governed
Prussia at his will. The • action of the two adver-
saries in the Federal Diet seems hardly more intel-
ligible than their diplomatic bickerings. Prussia is
said to be about to propose the establishment of a
German Parliament, with universal suffrage and
direct elections, for a reform of the Band. This
from a Government which so strenuously opposes
Parliamentary liberty at home is strange enough ;
but it is fair to see in it a bid for popularity, and an
effort to embarrass the Governments which have
always had the power of the Diet in their hands.
The latest phase of the dispute is certainly the most
unpromising that we have yet witnessed. If the
antagonists were not German Powers, war would
seem inevitable, but, as it is, we do not yet de-
spair of peace.
SATURDAY REVIEW.--We were rather too early
in addressing our congratulations to Mr. Gladstone
on his powers of parliamentary self-restraint. The
very day which introduced to our readers our pre-
mature felicitations also published that remarkable
outbreak of temper and puerility with which the
Chancellor of the Exchequer closed the first
page 'of the annals of his leadership of the House
of Commons. You may expellhuman nature with
all unnatural violence, saps the old poet, but carac-
ter will break out at last. Impelled by princih ple or
policy, a man may take the temperance pledge, but
if he does run riot and return to his old courses, he
does it in earnest. ribose seven dull weeks of sullen
and difficult self-repression were atoned for in one
compensating shriek. of bad taste and bad temper.
The famous " flesh and blood" and " fellow-Chris-
tian" inarticulate burst convinced the House of Com-
mons what dependence could be placed on the cour-
tesy and judgment of its foremost man.
" Who but must laugh, if such man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he 2"
The very phrase which has already azquired an ugly
sort of immortality, the kind of adhesiveness which
belongs a
to a nickname, was but a small echo of an
old-cant, "Am I not man and a brother ?" But
the deplorable indiscretion in the House of Commons
into which Mr. Gladstone was betrayed by the poor
provocation of Lord Robert Montagu has, like many
other trifles, been productive of serious consequences
—serious perhaps rather to the speaker than to any
other or greater interest. It committed him. If
these things can be said and done in the green tree,
what about the dry? If this is the language for
the uninfiammable senators, what becoming words
are right for the touchwood susceptibilities of the
ignorant ? The consequence of the appeal for one's
own flesh and blood and fellow-Christians—as
though the franchise were a matter of animal phy-
siology and the three creeds—was an appeal (in an-
other sense) to the flesh and blood of the orator's
hearers. To talk of flesh and blood savours strongly
of animal passions and physical force. If a man has
a right to the franchise by virtue of his flesh and
blood, it must be his flesh and blood that must assert
his right. Very likely Mr. Gladstone did not mean
this ; he only meant to scream, more or less articu-
lately. Ire did not intend to threaten ; he only
meant to show that he was in a passion, and that he
was tired to death of being courteous and stupid.
So 'much the worse for the leader of the House of
Commons. It is quite possible that his enemies
were on the look-out for this, or something like this,
though not, perhaps, something quiteso bad. For
it must be the policy of the Opposition to taunt and
goad and irritate their high-spirited antagonist. In
the economy of party there is always room for the
playful stimulants of the banderilleros and picadores
especially if the noble toro affects stupidity. The
way in which Mr. Gladstone's speech was received
by the Opposition showed that somebody at least
was satisfied. Mr. Gladstone's stump visit to Liver-
pool is the logical result of his speech delivered on
the eve of the parliamentary recess. He could not

influence,we must postulate some influence. Mr. Glad-
stone on the stump is so utterly beyond conception, so
out of keeping and harmony with all anticipation,
so extravagantly and abnormally wild and strange,
that we are driven at once to the incredible to ac-
count for the fact. And this whether we look to the
man or to his office. For, of all professions, that of
demagogue is about the last for a man to take up
when the shades of life are beginning to settle upon
him. With most of us character somehow or other
is pretty well consolidated by the time we are fifty.
A fool at forty is a fool indeed, and to be great on
the stump you must mount it before tastes, habits,
associations, and principles are formed. Of course
we speak of men such as men are, as Mr Gladstone's
old friend Homer would say. We do not speak of
the human paradox. There mayhave been instances
in which youthful and mature saints have turned out
septuagenarian sinners, and in which burning and
shining lights have gone out with a twang not so
melodious as that which accompanied the disappear-
ance of Aubrey's Ghost. But Mr. Gladstone is not
old enough for the apology of imbecility. He knows
what he is about in doing Mr. Bright's behests. We
believe that he is quite in earnest when he says that
a tremendous moral wrong is inflicted, and that a
righteous cry ascends to the highest heaven for jus-
tice from the gentlemen who, for instance, were to
be seen about London streets in a certain stage of
elevation, perhaps moral, perhaps corporeal, on
Easter Monday, towards 12 o'clock. But what is
alarming is that Mr. Gladstone is always in earnest
and that his earnestness is so very many-sided. As
to his sincerity it would be folly to question it. But
then he is so kaleidoscopically sincere. He was quite
sincere when he detected the doctrine of the Trinity
in the " Iliad ;" quite sincere when he saw in Church
and State but two aspects of one eternal embodi-
ment of truth ; quite sincere when five years ago
he stood up forpocket boroughs ; quite sincere when
he said that all men, being equal, have the same
rights, that of voting included • quite sincere when
he unsaid this; quite sincere When he deduced the
necessity of passing the present Reform Bill from
the identity of the blood globules of Jack
and My Lord ; and quite sincere when, at
Liverpool, he re-asserts his latest paradox
while varying his figure, and concludes the necessity
of Reform because the non-enfranchised have the
same breathing apparatus as electors have. And
he may be quite sincere if at the Amphitheatre he
explain away his doctrine of the Philharmonic Hall.
For no one can ever exactly tell, until the time comes,
what Mr. Gladstone 'may or may not say. Before
Thursday night's " grand banquet" came off it was
all uncertain, and before last night's sports in the
Amphitheatre were concluded his line was not to be
predicted. But whether he goes to the north to lash
his clients into fury, or to still the small tempest
which has been got up, there can be but one opinion
either as to the discretion or the decency of his move.
It is at the best but a sorry reproduction of an Ame-
rican notion. Presidents elected by the stump take
to the stump naturally. The stump does not suit
Mr. Gladstone. In his way he is unapproachable ;
but his way is not the way of the greatest demago-
gues. Cleon was twice the man in his line that
Pericles was ; and, as far as we remember, Fox left
the stump business to Wilkes. Bright, and Odgers,
and Potter, after all, tell most with the audiences
which Mr. Gladstone is just now saluting. Even
Miss Emma Hardinge, the " inspirational" speaker,
would do it better. O'Connell always kneig that
just a trifling touch of the tongue in the cheek, and
at least one sly wink, to show that he and his audi-
ence perfectly understood each other, was necessary
to a triumph at the Rotundo. Mr. Gladstone must
be longer at his new trade before he can snatch this
new grace. At present his undoubted earnestness
and sincerity are against him. There must be a spice
of blarney and humbug in the most successful de-
magogue ; and, to do him justice, Mr. Gladstone
has not yet acquired the popular qualification of being
insincere. He is, and always will be, too tremend-
ously real to tell thoroughly with his own flesh and
blood. One can hardly fancy Bishop Andrewes
preaching Latimer's buffoonery. We are writing, of
course, in ignorance of what deliverance it may have
pleased Mr. Gladstone to make to his less select audi-
ence at the Amphitheatre. As both he and his great
model, Mr. Bright, affect to be as variable as the
weather, storm one day and sunshine another, it will
not be surprising if Friday night's intemperance
makes up for Thursday's continence.. There are
some peoplewhom it is safest to estimate by contra-
ries, and who, if they are dull at a grand banquet,
may be safely reckoned to run a muck at a sober
soiree. The Liverpool banquet seems t•-) have been
an extremely unimpassioned affair. It is the sort of
thing which might come off on Easter Monday at the
Mansion-house, with a difference—the difference
being a matter of taste to the students of post-
prandial eloquence, whether they prefer the hard
and reluctant oratory of Earl Russell to the easy
and unctuous flow and sesquipedalian sentences of
his Chancellor of the Exchequer.
THE " ANGLO-AMERICAN TIMES."—In reply to
some visitors from Maryland, Kentucky, and
Louisiana, the President lately remarked that he
" would adhere unfalteringly to the principles
laid down in the several speeches he had made.
He added that he was guided in his course by certain
fixed principles, and that he had always some fun-
damental idea regarding the nature of the Union.
It may be useful, as he thus refers to previous
speeches, to examine these a little closely, to see
what the President's " fundamental ideas regard-
ing the Union" and the principles to which he
means to " adhere unfalteringly" are. In the first
place, we find him expressing on many occasions his
feeling that treason against the Union is the sum of
all crimes, and must be punished. IV hile he would
deal mercifully and kindly with the mass of the
Southern people, as deluded and helpless, he
has always insisted on punishment for the leaders.
" The American people must be taught that treason
is% crime, and must be punished. The people must
understand that it is the blackest of crimes, and will
be surely punished ;" thus he spoke to a public
delegation on the 18th of April, and he has repeated
the same sentiment on numerous occasions since.
The pardoning power should be exercised with
caution," he said to a delegation of loyal
Southern men on the 3d of May ; the mass of the
people had been punished sufficiently, in his
opinion, for in the amnesty proclamation, issued
May 29, he granted " pardon, with restoration
of all rights of property, except as to slaves,"
on their taking a prescribed oath of fealty to the
Union, to the great body of the Southern people.
He held that consistent Union men only should
be appointed to Federal offices in the South. In his
reconstruction proclamation, issued May 29, he in-
structed the Secretary of the Treasury and the Post-
master-General that in making appointments the
preference should be given to qualified loyal persons
residing within the districts where their respective
duties are to be performed; but if suitable residents
of the districts shall not be found, then persons re-
siding in other States or districts shall be appointed."
On the 29th of January, of this year, he gave
utterance to his dislike of constitutional amend-
ments. He doubted the propriety of making further
amendments to the Constitution, as tending to bring
that instrument into contempt. One great amend-
ment, that extirpating slavery, seemed to him
sufficient. But if another was to be made, he
4, knew of none better than a simple proposition,
embraced in a few lines, making in each State the
number of qualified voters the basis of representa-
tion, and. the value of property the basis of direct
taxation." In the same conversation he expressed
the opinion that "the negro franchise question in the
district of Columbia at this time was the mere enter-
ing wedge to the agitation of the question through-
out the States, and was ill-timed, uncalled for, and
calculated to do great harm. He believed that it
would engender enmity, contention, and strife be-
tween the two races, and lead to a war between
them, which would result in great injury to both,
and the certain extermination of the negro popula-
tion." This fear of bringing on a " conflict of
races " turns up repeately in Mr. Johnson's
speeches and conversations. Furthermore, he
has at different times expressed himself as
opposed to immediate suffrage for the freed-
men, anxious that loyal representatives from Sou-
thern districts should be at once admitted to Con-
gress ; opposed to the payment of any part of the
rebel debt, State or Confederate ; jealously on
guard to oppose what appear to him measures
tending towards the centralisation of power in
the Federal Government -- therefore his veto
of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, and his oppo-
sition to any permanent measure of that kind.
If, now, after reading all his speeches and other
public documents since he became President, we
were asked what are the, chief motives of Mr. John-
son's mind, the seeds, so to speak, of his policy, we