, 1865-08-01
from tile Spectator, June 24.)
THE END OF THE PRUSSIAN
SESSION.

is further of his two avOWed objects,
and not a whit nearer to his secret one.
His avowed objects, repeatedly amour
ced in speeches and by all his organs in
the Press, are to annex the Duchies, and
arrive at such a compromise with the
people that while his Government re-
tains the immense advantage of Parlia-
mentary support the Crown shall still
remain the only "pivot Of power" His
secret object doubtless is to suppIant
the liberal by the aristocratic system,
using both words not in their English so
much as their Continental sense,-to re-
store to the 'junherS'' and their adherents
an effective control Of the State. lie
has failed in all three. When the SEES
sion commenced he found himself abso-
lutte master of the Duchies, able to bid
the Diet defiance, and order all troops
but his own and the Austrian to retire,
to talk of danger from France as some
thing to be unprecedented but not feared,
and TO treat the Prince Of Augustenburg
as a Pretender, with whom Prussia might
or might not come to some understand
ing. Master OF an army Just flushed with
conquest, supported by It's officers with
passionate zeal, able to appeal to the
masses as the most yisibly successful of
Prussian statesmen, and with a strong
hold over the mobiles of HOlstein and The
Danish section of SchIeswig, he seemed,
as far as the DQchies were concerned,
master Of the situation. DipIomatiSts
may have known better, but the public
expected DEGREES annexing Lauenburg, at
all events, finally to the kingdom, and
would not have been surprised had the
seizure extended to all the territories IN
vOlved in the treaty with Denmark, but
the Session ends with the Premier de-
claring that the Duchies are out of his
reach. Not even Lauenburg has been
annexed, and as 10 Holstein and SchIes-
wig, Herr Won Bismark is fain to invent
an apology for no longer desiring to an
mex them. Absorption, he says, would
be best for them, but then Prussia must
think of her finances, and the Duchies
will be burdened with serious debts
The grapes in fact are too high up, and
the excuse does but conceal the chagrin
O Unconscious failure. The Prussian Court
once masters of II lstein-SchlesWig would,
with their wonderful thrift, have soon
redeemed it's finances, and the Royal pro-
perty alone, most of which is not wanted,
would in ten years Of order have been
worth the capital of tie debt. The pro-
iect of ruling through a Viceroy, too,
has failed as completely as the idea of
absorption. The Prince of Augusten-
burg refuses to be amere Prussian satrap,
declaring that he can cede nothing with
out the consent of the Estates, which,
again, it is certain will never grant the
consent. The promise to absorb the
Duchies has in fact dwindled away into
a mere menace of taking the principal
port in one of them, and even this
threat, though loudly uttered, is as yet
only verbal. When the Court tried to
make it something more, Austria sent her
fleet to Kiel, and the Premier, unwilling
TO stake his power upon the desperate
venture of a wal with Austria, to strike
hard with an armed policeman looking
eagerly on, hastily receded. For all that
appears, and the singular organization
Of Germany almost forbids secrecy, King