On this page

• Text (2)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Jan. 7, I860.] TheLeader % andSaturday A...

  • 

    and metaphysics, or second-hand banter a...

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Jan. 7, I860.] Theleader % Andsaturday A...

    Jan . 7 , I 860 . ] TheLeader andSaturday Analyst . 5

    And Metaphysics, Or Second-Hand Banter A...

    and metaphysics , or second-hand banter about the Court of Pumpernickel , its half-a-dozen soldiers , and three or four thousand subjects . Itwould be much better for them to candidly confess io-norance . It is almost as difficult to understand the dynastic and local interests of each one o f the nearly forty states amongst which the forty millions of Germans are ' distributed , as itwould be to master the genealogy of the different families winch at various times have swayed them , or the innumerable changes in their territorial limits . It is not discreditable to an Englishman

    GERMANY . THE principle upon which most of our contemporaries proceed in the rare references they make to G erman politics , appears to be the x & vy " convenient but dangerous one , that whatever is not at once intelligible , must necessarily be absurd and unimportant . Because the tangled web cannot be' uftfave'llett' without the employment of more time and attention than helter-skelter writers are disposed to bestow upon it , the easy course is adopted of turning the struggles of a great people after a national life into the occasion of bad jokes at Teutonic beeivdrinking , pedantry ,

    to share an ignorance which is avowed by many educated Germans ; but it is a sad misuse of an important position when the leading journals of a country which lias such intimate relations with Germany , and exercises so . marked an influence upon the political tendencies of its people , instead of giving it the benefit of that calm unbiassed opinion upon the questions agitating it which , they might well oiler , treat its earnest strivings with unfair and inopportune pleasantry . The signal failure which has attended all attempts at the unity of Germany , even when made under the most favourable circumstances that could be hoped for , may , indeed , at first sight , seem to warrant the contemptuous conclusion that the proceedings of its politicians are always tainted by a dreamy , muddled impracticability . The more closely , however , the subject is regarded , the more unjust appears that opinion . The difficulties with which the leaders of such movements have to contend , are

    immense ; difficulties too , be it observed , of which so me of the most serious are occasioned by the intervention of . other countries . The advocates of German unity , or of that approach to it which is implied by the establishment of a strong central power , have to contend with a diversity of interests arid prejudices , which appear almost insuperable . There are , first , tlie irreconcileable pretensions of Austria and Prussia , both of Which , enjoying the rank of European powers , and possessing territories beyond the limits of the confederation , seek to use Germany to advance their own special purposes , and can never be cordially united except at the expense of all the smaller states . A reorganization of the confederation which should give . the . Hegemony of . Germany to

    Austria or Prussia , must either provide for the occlusion of _ the defeated aspirant , or grant it some compensation , at the cost , of the petty sovereigns . Of this , these royal , princely , and ducal personages are well aware , and shape their course with the view of averting such a catastrophe , The second rate sovereigns are unwilling to bate one jot of their regal rights . Although the name of king is new to them , they are greater sticklers lor its power and dignity than the wearers of the oldest European Crowns , as Germany knows to her cost . It was by the obstinate refusal of the newly made kings of 'Wurteniburg and Bavaria to give up any part of their privileges that the remarkably liberal constitution which Austria and Prussia proposed as the 1815 and the

    basis of . the confederation , was rejected in , present narrow and illiberal Act adopted . The real , friends of German freedom would be glad to get now that which , but for . Havana and Wurtemburg , they might have , had forty-five years ngo . Then , however , Prussia , Austria , and Hanover Were on the side of liberty ; now , tho two latter , at least , will be found its determined opponents . It is often assumed that the smaller states tuko the side of Austria in the'federal squabbles , solely from sympathy with her governmental system ; that , however , is an error . They side with' Austria , because they have . much . less to apprehend from her supremacy than from that of Prussia , and because , without their support , she must yield to her younger rival . They know that if the scheme of a central power is ever adopted , Prussia is most likely to acquire it , and they feel that such a step would facilitate a cherished idea of that aggrandising . nation , their absorption within its territory . It is u contest of sellpreservation on tho part of these governments , and with all their faults , the sympathy of their subjects is , tp a great extent , with thorn . Tho people of Germany , although they may speak the same language , and sing tho saino songs about F . atherland , nn > divided , by animosities even warmer than those they feel towards the foreigner on their borders . Thero is little sympathy between north and south ; the subjects of one stale would not decunthemsolves guilty of fratricide'if tihoy were called upon to kill in war those of another . And tho feeling is strongest against tho very country which puts , forward tho greatest pretensions to supremacy

    Austria may be despised in the north , but Prussia is most cordially hated in the south . It is , indeed , impossible that Bavarians or Austrian Germans could submit to its domination , whilst the feeling is almost as intense in some of the smaller states . In addition to these prejudices , the b'ulk of the people of the minor states ' would' not like to give up their individuality , and be merged in a great Prussian or Austrian state , as " Germanymust become if its direction is confided to the one or other power . How are these , contending interests to be settled , and this tenacious opposition , which has stood the strongest shocks , to be

    overcome ? That is the point about , which the Germans are at their wits' end . How great the difficulty has always appeared , is evidenced by the numberless projects of a new constitution , which , during 1 S-1-S , 18-A 9 , 1850 , and 1 S 51 , were put forward as its solution . We do not refer to the schemes of journalists and pamphleteers , the number of which is legion , but to the proposals of the German governments themselves . If , however , all these new constitutions attest the difficulty of change , they prove still more strongly the general feeling that some change in the federal relations is absolutely necessary .

    The feeling , indeed , is as old as the institution of the Federal Compact . In 1848 , it found an irresistible expression , and the old Diet was got rid of . The task of organization , however , was above the men who undertook it ; and the Diet resumed its functions to undo , amidst the cowardly-apathy of the people / all the liberal work of the revolution . The war in Italy has again made Federal ' Reform the question of the day in-Germany ; and strange to say , that feeling of patriotism and energy which Austria evoked , in . her own defence , now threatens to consummate her ruin . The' old- Gotha party , which , desires the ascendancy of Prussia ,-has" . commenced an agitation for the replacement of the Bund by a " fixed , strong , and permanent" central power , and

    the convocation of a German national assembly , the central power to be . conferred upon Prussia . Of course Prussians cordi-r ally support a programme which secures their own aggrandisement , arid it jhas equally found unreserved support in many parts of Northern " Germany , despite the severe measures taken by the governments , particularly .- that of Hanover , to discountenance it One sovereign , the Duke of Saxe -Coburg , has likewise given , his adhesion . Elsewhere , the . programme' has been accepted , with the omission of Prussian ascendancy ; and sufficient noise has been made by the ' movement tp alarm the rulers of tne smaller states , who , upon the old plan of throwing out a tub to catch a whale , have lately laid before , the Diet some , proposals of a

    guaslliberal character , determined'upon at conferences held at Wurzburg . In these proposals , Bavaria , Saxony , YVu ' rteniburg , the Hesses , and the Heehlenburgs , with two or three smaller states , ask for the . publication ' of the , proceedings of the Diet , a common-law of domicile and settlement , a . common civil and criminal code , some alterations in the military arrangements of the Confederation , and the fortification of the ! coasts of the Baltic and the German ocean . It is impossible to suppose that such questionable reforms as these will satisfy the agitators for national unity . Tho struggle must continue until the governments become involved in it ,, ami then will commence , an exchange Pf protests and recriminations , more fruitful of ' solid advantage , let us trust , than those which were penned in ! S-I » y and 1 S 30 .

    If , however , this one aim of national unity and a central power is still obstinately adhered toby the German . Jlelbrmcrs , we ciinscc but little ' prospect of results corresponding to their hopes and exertions . It is strange- that a nation which reads the future in the past , as Germany'does , should thus pant after a unity which has never existed in ' its history . ' The unity of Germany means a complete revolution , and the only parties which can pursue it with anything like n chance of success , are- either that small but deU'rnimed one which desires one indivisible , republic , and will not scruple ubout the bloody work 16 be done in forming it , or that larger but much less resolute one , which asks the incorporation of all the states of Germany in the , Prussian monarchy . The time has not yet come , if indeed it ever -comes , for either of those solutions . All that can bo achieved by the special agitation now

    going on , will be an increase of ( he attributions of the Diet , with , perhaps , a greater influence in its decisions on tho part of ^ Prussia . That , result ; would be a loss rather than a gain to Germany . With such powers as the Diet now ha * , its action upon Germany has been' a clog ami a curse ,, and with extended power it would bo more mischievous . Its chief business , fur the last nine years , has been to suppress the liberal constitutions granted by the different sovereigns in 1 SI 8 , mid toTorce thoroughly obnoxious laws upon a struggling people . A uniform legislation emanating fronr the " Diet would be n sad inlliotion . Nor would inattors bo mended bv giving a greater- power in it to Pruaafa . She has shared in the . guilt of nil tho . wrongs which tho Diet has oominittud , and the mere fact that tho men now at tho head ol nor affairs' are a shade more liberal than their predecessors , is no

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 7, 1860, page 5, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07011860/page/5/