The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-10 00:00:00

.111 E SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, APRIL 10, 1861.

By being prolific in delays; contentions, and
difficulties of collection. Added to which, this
one penny tax alone has been productive also of
another delightful consequence—'raising nice
little points of law," says the memorial, " nice
little points of law as to ownership." So that
Mr. GLADSTONE may at least lay that flattering
unction to his soul—he has ingeniously contrived
a tax which, while it is prolific Of worry andannoy-
ance to the general trade and commerce of the
country, while it is productive to the revenue of no
more than one little ludicrous item of £5,000, has
actually tended to increase the litigiousness of our
mercantile population. There is yet another of these
dreadful little taxes applied to trade and commerce
in this country that we may yet venture to parti-
cularise. It is Mr. GLADSTONE'S memorable three-
penny stamp on Dock Warrants—a tax .that he
expected would bring, if not more than that, at
any rate £lOO,OOO ! Again,—here he has shown
that he has so ridiculously miscalculated that the
threepenny stamp on Dock Warrants, so far
from bringing in £lOO,OOO, has brought in less
than merely L 1 o,ooo—has brought in just barely
£9,000 ! And this, forsooth, is England's Master-
mind as a Financier ! Could w e but induce ourselves
to arrive at the same conclusion, to regard Mr.
GLADSTONE as his infatuated admirers regard him
—i.e., as England's Master-mind as a Financier—
we should certainly have to arrive at another con-
clusion immediately afterwards—namely, that the
country is trembling upon the verge of national
bankruptcy.

The Great Hungarian Struggle has now reached
a crisis, at which it may well concentre on itself
the interest of all free Europe, and of all in Europe
I that longs to be free. Last Saturday is a day that
is not likely to be soon forgotten. It is
one of the days which will be an era in history.
On that day not only did the first representative
assembly for the whole Austrian Empire meet at
Vienna, and local assemblies in Bohemia, Styria,
Salzburg, and elsewhere, but the Diet of Hungary,
the oldest constitutional assembly in Europe, con-
siderably older than our own, met also; and met
after a suppression of twelve years, by an Emperor
who presented the evidence at this very meeting
of his being a self-convicted usurper. It is even a
more notable resurrection of constitutional life than
that of the British Parliament of 1640, which was
the first after a similar interval, as nearly as possible,
of about twelve years. It would almost seem
as if in constitutional countries ten or twelve
years was about the time after which the
necessities of a would-be despotic monarch com-
pelled him to summon again the dreaded repre-
sentatives of his misgoverned subjects. Singu:ar
indeed would it be, if the HAPSBURG should imitate
the STUART—should dissolve his Parliament almost
as soon as he had summoned it—find himself com-
pelled after six months to summon it again—
inaugurate thus a Hungarian Long Parliament—
and,—but historic parallels are better after the
event, than in anticipation. We can only say that
if poor CHARLES' perjury, treachery, and cruelty,
justly cut off his head, the HAPSBURG of Hungary
may be thankful, indeed, to keep his on his
shoulders.

It is remarkable that the Diet was inaugurated on
the part of the Hungarians by a touching com-
memoration of the blood shed by one of their
noblest patriots, and through that atrocious
mingling of the basest treachery and the most
relentless barbarity which seems the instinct of the
HAPSBURGS, and of the more brutal Germans, whom
they select as their councillors and agents. It is
not so long ago but that great numbers of our readers
will remember, that Count Lours BATTHYANI
went as a delegation from the Diet with other
deputies to WINDISCHGRATZ to treat for peace.
His nobility, his high standing, and the modera-
tion of his liberalism made him confident that
his personal influence would do much towards
securing a better treaty. Coming on this sacred
mission, and with perfectly pure hands, in the
eye of the law, and of legal relations between the
Crown and the Diet—he was seized as a traitor.
He was not, however, murdered at once—not till
the HAPSBURGS, equally cowardly and cruel, had
crushed Hungary by the aid of the fiend NICHOLAS
did they venture to imbrue their hands in his
blood. Then they sentenced him, one of Hungary's
first nobles, to be hung—hung with so many other
patriots, by the wretch who delighted in add-
ing insult to cruelty. The noble, in despair, at-
tempted to cut his throat with a penknife—and the
wretches impatient for his blood, and having shame
enough left to shrink from hanging him in this
condition, accomplished their work with the sol-
dier's musket This was the patriot noble whose
funeral eulogy no less a personage than Prince
ESTERHAZY pronounced at the Hungarian inau-
guration of the Diet' of 1861. BATTHYANI's
blood will speak throughout all Hungary like the
blood of ABEL. May the CAINS who shed it soon
be vagabonds on the face of the earth !
But first came the proofs of the prolonged usur.
pation. KOSSUTH has always contended thal

FRANCIS JosEnt was but a pretended King of
Hungary. FRANCIS JOSEPH has now himself put
that fact past doubt. KOSSUTH has but to obtain

from Pesth certified copies of the papers just laid
before the Diet to prove, one would think, to the
satisfaction of Lord JOHN RUSSELL, of Sir GEORGE
CORNEWALL LEWIS, of Sir RICHARD MAYNE, of

even the mysterious " policeman," and finally of Sir
JOHN STUART himself, that the plaintiff, who
sought British aid against the exiled but legal
Dictator, was not King of Hungary. Setting aside

KOSSUTH'S claim, there was a hereditary claim!)

whose title was so unimpeachable that FRANCIS

JOSEPH goes on his knees to his ill-used uncle--
unless, indeed, he used more -violent methods—and

gets him at the eleventh hour to renounce the

crown of Hungary, as he had previously done

,hat of Austria. To think of all the villanies

and cruelties perpetrated by the young usurper,
liberally aided by the spite of German states-
men—who were jealous of the personal superiority

which constitutional liberty had stamped on the
Hungarians as freemen and soldiers—makes even

us foreigners shudder at what we know. What

must Hungarians feel? They are, it is true, a for-
giving race, a noble, a confiding race ; but they

can hardly be so deluded as again to trust them-

selves without the best securities to the hands of
the accursed dynasty, the authors of all their woes,
and the constant rewarders of forgiveness and
generosity with implacable cruelty.
How the Hungarians will meet the proffer of
abdication from FERDINAND V. remains to be seen.
By law he cannot be discharged from his duties,
but by the consent of the Diet. If they see fit to
do so, they have abundant reason to delay that
consent. But suppose all to go smoothly here,
though we are told there were many ~bitter,,

remarks on the date of the abdication, the vital
question cannot be long evaded. The KING must
nominate a Palatine out of three persons named to

him by the Diet; then he must prepare by the
diploma, or coronation deed, to recognise the full
rights of Hungary ; to consent to a separate Hun-

garian Ministry, and to an independent vote of sup.
plies and troops by the Hungarian Diet ; they may
thetz legally insist on the withdrawing of foreign,

that is, German soldiers, from Hungary, 80,000
of whom now watch over their freedom
of discussion ; they may recall the Hungarian sol-
diers—not a man of whom can legally quit Hun-
gary without the leave of the Diet—and thus para-
lyse the army which now, with Mr. ROEBUCK'S
goodwill, but not with the goodwill of Sheffield
and England, tramples Venetia under foot—with-
out overstepping the line marked out by a succes-
sion of solemn treaties, and which all legal Kings of
Hungary have sworn to observe, they can demand
freedom, autonomy, a merely personal union with
the rest of the Empire, and all that belongs to a
free, constitutional, brava, and independent
kingdom.

And the truth is, that nothing less than all these
rights can make the Hungarians safe in connection
with the HAPSBURGS. Without an independent
Government, without an army bound to the king-
dom when the Diet demands it, and without an
Exchequer absolutely under their own control, the
never-dying treachery and despotism of the dynasty
might revive at any moment, might plot their ruin
while making the fairest professions, and might
renew the work of blood. It seems to come to this.
Hungary must deal with her HAPSBURGS as we
dealt with our STUARTS, or she must render them
powerless in her hands.

Minister Plenipotentiary of his Majesty, in acquit-
ting himself, by order of his Government, of the
pleasing mission of notifying this important event
to his Excellency M. Knusel, President of the
Federal Council esteems himself happy to be able
to express his confidence that the sentiments of the
King's Government will be reciprocated by the
Federal Council. Besides the many common inte-
rests which unite the two countries for the present
and the future, he finds a guarantee for this confi-
dence in the magnanimous sentiments of tho Swiss
people, who adhere so firmly to the principle of
independence, a principle on which the Government
of the King is likewise founded.

" The undersigned takes this opportunity, &c.
(Signed) " JOCTEAU,
" Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary of King Victor
Emmanuel to Switzerland."

In reply to the above note, the Federal Council
addressed the following to its minister at Turin :
Sir,—The Commander Jocteau, by his note of
the 2d March, has informed us that the National
Parliament has passed a law, also sanctioned by
the King of Sardinia, according to which King
Victor Emmanuel 11. has assumed for himself and
his successors the title of ' King of Italy.'
" In forwarding to you a copy of this note we
herewith instruct you to be good enough to thank
the Government of King Victor Emmanuel for that
communication, and to express our satisfaction at
the friendly sentiments expressed by his Majesty's
Government on that occasion towards Switzerland.
" Switzerland, on her part, will not fail to loyally
do her utmost to maintain and strengthen, under the
altered international situation, the friendly relations
which have hitherto existed between two neigh-
bouring countries.

" Accept, &c., &c." (Here follow the signatures
of the members of the Federal Council.)

BERNE, APRIL 9.

The French Government has received with the
greatest readiness the overtures of Dr. Kern in
reference to the conclusion of a treaty of commerce
between France and Switzerland, and has ordered
the competent authorities to examine the details of
the question.

TURIN, APRIL 9.

The supplementary elections, the result of which
is at present known, show a great majority favour-
able to the Government.

THE CALCUTTA AND CHINA MAILS.
MALTA, APRIL 8, 11 A.M.

The Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamer
Pera, Captain Jamieson, has arrived here with the
above mails.

FRANCE.