The Sun.
London, England, 1868-08-27 00:00:00

GEICILLAT UNITY.

Count Miinster, a member of the Federal
Parliament, and late Ambassador of Hanover
at the Prussian Court, has just published a
pamphlet, entitled " The Confederation of the
North German Bund, and its transformation
into the German Empire." In this pamphlet the
former Hanoverian diplomatist openly advo-
cates the dethronement of the German Kings
of the second and third rank, the substitu-
tion of a Chamber of Princes, as peers of the
German Empire, in place of the existing Fede-
ral Council, and the creation of a Federal
Ministry. The Chambers of the Federal
States, according to this plan, are to be con-
verted into Provincial Diets, with large and
independent powers, and the Prussian House
of Deputies, as well as the Upper House, to be
abolished. This Upper House, however, would
be replaced by the new Chamber of German
Princes, composed of Kings and of Royal and
hereditary Princes of reigning Houses. Such
a Chamber, the author argues, would exercise
a much more Conservative influence on the
development of the institutions of the German
Empire than the present Prussian House of
Peers. The preponderance which such a Con-
stitution gives to the feudal element is not
in keeping with Prussian exclusiveness and
love of domination exactly to suit the taste
and policy of Count Bismarck. But the arro-
gant character of the Prussian plan of merg-
ing Germany into Prussia is still exciting in
South Germany an opposition that even the
obstinate patience of Count Bismarck will not
easily overcome. But what Prussia of itself
could not effect may be brought about by the
lapse of Austria into the hands of Revolu-
tionary Liberalism. For Austria, as the active
propagandist of a Germany united under revo-
lutionary and irreligious democracy will be
more abhorrent to the Catholics of South
Germany than Prussian despotism. Austrian
Liberalism is doing Count Bismarck's work.
By getting up a socialistic and irreligious
movement, by seeking alliance with the irreli-
gious party throughout Germany, the pro-
moters of German unity, encouraged as they
are by the present rulers of Austria, will make
Prussian domination a welcome refuge for the
Catholics and Conservatives of South Ger-
many.
At the late meeting of the riflemen of
Germany at Vienna, where all the scum of
the Revolution in Germany was brought
together under the tutelage of Viennese
Liberalism, the amalgamation of the Ger-
mans of Austria with the rest of Germany,
was declared to be an absolute condition
of preserving their German nationality. If
the German lands of Austria are not re-
united to Germany, urged one speaker, a
Jewish member of the Reichsrath, we shall
witness them undergo the sad fate of the
Russian provinces of the Baltic Sea, or even
of Alsace and Lorraine. How this union of
the German lands of Austria with the rest of
Germany was to be effected was left unex-
plained, in order not prematurely to excite
the interference of Prussia. But that Prussia
will quietly stand by and allow the revolu-
tionary propagandism to make use of Austria,
in order to wor out a unity of Germany, demo-
cratic and irreligious in its character, subver-
sive of every existing institution, and of neces-
sity aggressive against the established order of
things in Prussia as well as in South Ger-
many, is not to be expected. But what we
think is to be expected from the policy of
Count Bismarck is a patient abstention from
open interference until Austria under Baron
von Beust has fatally and irretrievably com-
mitted itself to this Democratic and revolu-
tionary propagandism, until South Germany,
is not only completely alienated from Aus-
tria, but is driven to regard Prussia as the
upholder of order, of monarchy, and of reli-
gion in Germany. When such time arrives,
and from the appearance of things in Austria
it may come much sooner than is expected,
Prussia will have achieved the height of its
ambition, for it will claim as its due, after the
dispersion of German Democracy and the
breaking up of revolutionary Austria, the
forfeited Empire of Germany.—Westminster
Gazette.

INCREASE IN THE MIDDLESEX COUNTY RATE.—A
deputation from the overseers and vestrymen of twenty-
nine parishes of the county of Middlesex waited on Mon-
day upon the members of the Assessment Committee of
the County of Middlesex, at the Sessions House, Clerken-
well. Mr. Dangerfield, vestry clerk of St. Martin's-in-the-
Fields, and the vestry clerk of St. Mary, Whitechapel,
having pointed out that the re-assessment proposed
act most prejudicially to th. •--
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