New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1859-02-01
NETWORK DAILY TRIBUNE, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY l. 1859.

desd loek Judged, that some general conslders'ons
msy not appear out of place. When the Ming Win
tn, brsiness head ascend-d the throne he was tuli
of tie visions Of the romantic school. Tie wanted
la be ling by divine right and 10 BE- at the same
time a populsr king; to be surrounded BY an lnde-
pendent arisocracy in the midst oi an oninlpo'eht
braur0eratic administration; TO be man OF peace
at the head of barracks; 10 promote popular iran,
chses in the medieval sense While opposing All
lorgings OF modern Liberalism; 10 b. restorer OF
ecclesiastc faith while boastng of the Intellectual
prominence Of his subjects; 10 play, in one word,
The medieval hing while acting AS the hing of
Prussia that abortion OF the Eighteenth Century.
But, from 1c40 TO lS,S eyeryth ne went the wrong
vsy. The La, djunk,rs, who had hoped that the
crowned collaboration of the Pohtsehe IiochenHatt,
which day by day had preached the necessity of
epgra1ng the pOetcsl rule OF aristocraey upon the
Prussian prosaic rule by the schooimaster, the
drill-sergeant the policeman, the tsx-gatherer
and the learned mandarin, were forced To accept
the Kings secret sympathies in lieu of real conces
sjons The middle class still too weak to venture
upon active movements, felt themselves compelled
a. march m the rear of the theoretical army led by
Tecrrs disciples against the religion the IDEAS AMI
the politics of the old world In no former period
was philosophical criticism so bod, SO powerful
aud SO popular MS IN the first eight eight years oi
the rule OF Frederic William Nv, VINO desired 10
supplant the " shallow" ratioDalIsm, introduced
into Prussia by Frederic H., by medieval myst-
cism. The power of philosophy during that period
uss entirely owing to the practical weakness OF
the bonrgsosie rs they could not assault the anti
quaiId institutions in tact, they must yield Prece-
dence to the bold idealists who assaulted them in
the re gion of thought. Finally, the romantic King
hin sell. was after all, like all his predecessors,
hut the visible hand of Il common place bgreancr,t tie
III I., taH IN vain I'm IN isb
with the fine sentiments of by-gone ages.
The revolution, or rather the counter revolution
to which it gave BIRTH altogether changed the face
of things. The Landjunkers turned the private
crochets of the King TO practical account, and
succeeded in driving the Government back, not
behind l-4S not behind ISIS, but even behind
lcO7. There WAS an end Of coy, romantic asplra-
tons: but in their place there sprang up Prussian
House OF Lords m0rtmain was restored, the pri
yate jurisdiction of the manor hourished more than
ever exemption from taxation became again sign
of nobility, the policemen and the Goyernment
men had to stoop to the noblemen, all prces ot
power were surrendered to the sc0ns of the landed
sristocracy and gentry, the enlightened bure, Az
Gratis Of the old school were away, to be sup
planted by the servie sycophants of rent-rolls aud
landlords and all the liberties won by the reyolu-
tion-hberty of the press, liberty of meeting
liberty of speech, constitutional representation
all these liberties were not broken up, but main
tanned as the privileges of the aristocratc class
On the other hand if the bourgeois,e, in the
by.gone period, had tostered the phllo.
sophcal movement, the arlstocracy now rooted
it out and put pietlsm in It's place Every en-
liphtened professor was driven away from the
University and the riri OBSCURE, the Heogstenbergs
the Stahs and tutt quanti seized upon all the edu
cationa institutions OF Prussia, from the village
school to the great seminary OF Berlin. The police
aud administrative machinery were not destroy
ed but converted into the mere tools OF the
ruling class Even industrial liberty was struck
at ana the license system was turned into a
mighty engine Of patronage, Intimidation ana cor
rupiiOn, SO the artzans in the great towns were
again pressed into corporations, guilds and all the
other extinct forms Of departed epoch. thus
then the boldest dreams OF the King which had
remained dreams during the eight years OF hts alb
solute regime, had all become fulfilled by the Revo-
luton, and shOne as papabe realities IN the hight
Of DAY during the e ght years from l-5O to 1871.
But there is another side to the medal The
revolution had dispeed the theological decisions of
the JourgeOisie, and the COULTER revolution had
done away with their political pretensions. Thus
they were thrown back upon their real resources
trade ard industry-and l do not think that any
other people have relatively made so immense
start in this direction during the last decennial
epoch as the Germans, and especially the Prusslans
Ii you saw Berlin ten years ago, you would not
III q
has been transformed into the busting center Of
German MISUNDERSTANDING. If you travel through
Rhenish Prussia and the Duchy ofWestphllia, Ian
cashire and Yorkshire will be recalled to your
DRY. If Prussia cannot boast one Isaac Pereira,
she possesses hundreds of Merssens, at the head Of
more Credits Mobiliers than the German Diet
numbers princes
The rage of getting rich, of going ahead, of
opening new mine OF building factories, OF con-
siIuctDg new railways. aud above all of investing
in snd gambling with joint-stock company shares,
became the passion of the day, and infected all
classes from the peasant even TO the cOroneted
prince, who had once been a RerhsunmuteLbartr
Iarst SO YOU see the days when the BOurgeOlsle
wept in Babylonan captivity and dropped their
diminished heads, were the very days when they
became the effective power of the land, while even
the inner man of the OyerbeariDg aristOcrat became
converted into proft-loyrg, money moDger-
ing stock jobbcr. II you want an example OF
speculative philosophy converted into com
me rcial speculation, look at Hamburg in 1851
Did net these speculative Germans then prove
masters in the swiUdling liBe Still this upward
movement of the Prusslan middle class, strength
eDed by the general rise IN the p1ces Of commod-
ties and, consequently, the general foil OF the fixed
incomes of their bureaucratic rulers, was, Of
course, accompanied by the ruin Of the small mid
die Glass and the concentration Of the working
class. The ruin of the small middle class during
the last eight is general fact tn be observed
all over Europe, but nowhere 40 strIkIDgly as In
Germany. Does this phenomenon need any ex-
planatiOnl j answer IN one word: LOOK az The
mllionares of to-day who were the poor devils OF
YESTERDAY For one man Of nothing 10 become q
millionaire overnight, thousand ) ,UO0-Inen must
must have been turned into beggars during the day
Thu. magic Of the Stock L xchange will do this sort
of thrg in the twiDkDg OF al eye, quite apart from
the slower methods by which modern industry cen