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    Untitled Article

    power banded against them . This also should be mended . In this survey we have seen how much work remains for the People to do ; but it is work , the nature of which is an incentive not to despair , but hope . It is with that hope that we enter upon the first year of the half century .

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    THE CONDITION OF GERMANY . The affairs of Germany have not made much progress during the last week . The following letter from our correspondent at Bonn , whose excellent letters on German affairs will be remembered by most of our readers , gives a well-balanced view of what quiet , thoughtful men are saying on the great question of the day : — ^ Bonn . Dec . 31 , 1850 .

    The year concludes , on the part of our rulers , with an attempt ( the first serious one since the year of trouble had come upon them ) to bring the storm-tossed , uncommanded " Germania" into something like a harbour of refuge , thereto pass the winter at least ^ hd , if possible , to settle the mutiny that has been raging amongst the commanders , without the aid of the men : on the part of the people—with a quiet despair of their political selves ; or , I should have said , on the part of the politicians which , after all , are not the people . The people are following their trades , are carrying manure to the fields , enjoying Christmas cakes , enjoying the return to their

    homes too . I heard them sing on their return-march , while their march out was grave and silent . Men of business are presenting addresses and civic crowns to Manteuffel " the Peace-preserver . " In the towns they grumble and sneer a little ; but one hears less of the ' Prussian honour , " and no one , not even the Liberal Opposition papers , has a word to say for war now . Yet in town or country , amongst politicians and amongst the people , there has spread a feeling of disappointment and humiliation , manifesting itself with the former in a sort of Hamlet-like self-irony ; while the latter , with a goodnatured , acquiescing smile , condense their philosophy of

    history into the indisputable aphorism , " Ja , Deutsche sind halb Deutsche ! " and then spit in their palms and send the spade with encreased emphasis into the ground . What has been humorously said of John Bull , that he shall " many times be thought an ass and dull ox , " and shall himself believe it , may not less be predicated of Bull's old uncle , the Deutsche Michel . The poor man thinks very lowly of himself just now , and begins seriously to doubt whether he will ever make anything of " the sum of rights which , " as the King of Prussia told him only the other day , " God has placed into his hands . " He considfrs the various attempts he has made to settle

    his household on a reasonable and permanent footing , so as to enable him to think no more of that , and to devote himself entirely to the doing and the getting of his share in the world's work and business , and how he has never rightly succeeded in it . Golden Culls ; Diets at Worms , with " eternal peace "; Diets at Munster , with only " Westphalian peace "; Congress at Vienna ; hopeful Parliament at Frankfort , ending now with hopeless Conference at Dresden : still no satisfactory settlement even in prospect . And thus now Michel thinks he will never do it , and has a great contempt for himself , particularly when he calls to mind , as he always does , how much better his nephew

    John , over the Channel , has succeeded in this . And yet he should be reasonable . If , old as he is , he is still a growing fellow , why should he complain that his breeches require frequent lengthening , letting out , and even patching up ? If , different to the rest of mankind , he nurses ideals in his big philosophic head , and will not be contented with the mere actual development of things , but construe them after a theory , why be so shocked when Theory and Fact come in collision—as they must if they are ever to modify and improve each other—and collision causes " reaction " ? He ought to remember , too , that he has been going forward all the while , and not

    backward . At the end of the llnrty years ' war , his fumily had been reduced to five millions ; he counts now upwards of forty , mostly of a heulthy , hardworking , and even an educated race . His cities are flourishing , hie industry und wealth encreasing , his lands cultivated to the mountain-tops . Even bin much-abused Governments , are they not mostly of a democraticalsort , where , in mutters civil or military , talent , not family or purse , advuncca a inun ? Doch he forget that , but fifty years ago , his deur Great Fatherland was subdivided into 1800 little

    fatherlands , which are now already reduced to the comparatively small number of thirty-live , with every pronpect of further reduction and approximation to the Great Onene «« ? Again , in matters constitutional and liberal , have we not , with our own ears , heard the excellent Profcsnor Duhlniunn ( who ought to be an authority ) tell , ex cathedra , his numerous und respectful auditorium ( including hits Royal Highncns the young Prince of Prussia und several minor IlighnenneH ) how he could be much shorter now on mnny points of constitutional doctrine than ho wnn wont to be foimcrly : since those truths which he

    had then to defend , almost single-handed , against the rampant Absolutism of the country have now been accepted as tme by most parties ? So that if , after these three years' tribulations , " much abides" yet , " much is taken" also , and getting ready for being taken ; witness even those two recent documents , severally signed by Prince Schwarzenberg and Herr von Manteuffel , wherein those two dreaded Reactionists , in convening the Dresden meeting , speak of the old Diet as a failure , and as having been more of a hindrance than a help to the progress of

    the nation : things for which , three years ago , any newspaper giving insertion to them would have got immediately extinguished , and the writer received free quarters at Spielberg or Spandau . Is not there an advance ? But the good Michel has a great thought that lets him not rest—about Unity and the fulfilling of his great destiny as the Grand Central Empire of Europe . - Michel is a philosopher , and will not think me pedantic when I ask

    him to listen to his great teacher , Fichte . Other peoples , he says , develope the state before the individual , and the part receives culture and lustre from the whole ; but the Germans are destined , first , fully to cultivate and to develope the individual in character and in freedom , and then to carry that aggregate of high results to the state , which will shine throug h the lights of its component parts , and be the perfection of a state . Courage then , friend Michel .

    When some one once remarked that the peace of Westphalia was a very bad peace , he received answer that it was better than the war which it brought to a close . Thus , also the treaty of Olmutz contains some ugly points , and is very far from satisfactory ; but who will blame the statesman for having preferred it to another Thirty years' war ? Two armies of half a million each stood fronting each other , both of the same race , closely matched in numbers , in strength , in

    resources ; Russia stood ready in the background , and France was arming . Who could foresee the end of such a war , once begun ? That Manteuffel ( or his master ?) allowed things to arrive at so critical a point , therein lies his great sin : but for his peace of Olmutz , a peace before the war , he deserves praise rather than blame . That kings and governments are so fearfully reluctant to enter upon war must also be considered a progress in the affairs of the world .

    With the arrangement at Olmutz the German question has arrived at its third stage since the great breakup in 1848 . Unity of Empire with constitutional Government was the problem to be solved . The Frankfort Parliament tried first and " by sad mistake and adverse fate , " failed . Then Prussia undertook the cause , and failed equally . The plan pursued by both was to place Prussia at the head of the union , and form a close alliance with Austria , which was to take its place by the side of the German Union , not within it ; it being composed mostly of non-Germanic nations . Austria ' s opposition to this plan , supported as it was by the dynastic jealousies of the

    smaller kings , who look upon Prussia as a mere parvenu , proved too strong ; they resuscitated the defunct Diet ; which again Prussia could not be brought to acknowledge . Till , at last , Prussia and Austria , having found each other indisputable facts , and none being as yet able to swallow ihe other , have agreed upon " Duality ; " and , upon that principle the Dresden Conferences will have to proceed in the reconstruction and improvement of the old Diet . The executive will probably be shared between Austria and Prussia , and be made stronger and more effective than it was under the old system . Bavaria and

    some of the smaller powers ask for the representation element to be introduced ; being naturally afraid that if Frankfort does not become the centre of public attention , it will again be attracted towards Berlin . No great construction can be expected from the parties assembled at Dresden ; but if they undertake simple practical measures , such as the equalization of coins , of postage , and the extensions of the customs-union over the whole of Germany , they will have brought the matter to as good a compromise as the circumstances allowed . The rest will follow ; and so we do not conclude the old year quite without hope . J . N .

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    HOW TO UKV HIT ) OF THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE . In another part of our paper , appears the second annual report of the Newspaper Stamp Abolition Committee ; our readers will have learnt already that a deposition exiHts on the part of the Government to take oil * one of the knowledge taxes—the paper-duty . It will he the fault of the people themselves , if the . question is narrowed to the ' trade grounds , which give this tax a preeminence by no means due to it . The advertisement-duty interferes not with one branch , but with every branch of labour ; and , as it in levied only on periodicals , it is emphatically a tax on knowledge . You cannot go into a railway or an oinnibun without seeing a host of advertisements which evade the duty , by separating themselves from that object of Government suspicion—the newspaper . We need waste no words on our readers to prove that the penny stamp , which brings but little to

    the revenue , is a most odious prohibition on the working man ' s newspaper . Mr . Milner Gibson ' s manly refusal to lower the tone of his previous parliamentary agitation ; Mr . Cobden ' s determination , to keep constantly in view the operation of the penny stamp ; the difficulty in which the Stamp , office is placed by the repeated demand to enforce the law against Charles Dickens , and others whom they dare not interfere with ; end the manifest temper of the public , as shown in the Morning Chronicle , Daily News , Nonconformist , Standard of Freedom , and other papers , and at the London hand

    Tavern , where one solitary was held up in favour of the stamp ; all point to the present as the time when a struggle may be made with success . We say then , to such of our readers as are active Propagandists , consider every one of you how best to join the movement . In the report alluded to , a list is given of district secretaries ; in the districts named all Propagandists should immediately call on the secretary , and offer him their cooperation . Whereas , for instance , in Norwich and in the metropolitan districts , there is no distr ict secretary , the best course would be for our friends to communicate with Mr . Collet , the

    Secretary of the London Committee , who will instruct them as to the usual course of proceeding . It is understood that every district committee is perfectly independent ; it is only where no such body is formed that the secretary is an agent of the Committee in London . Members of Mechanics ' Institutes , Town Councils , Parish Vestries , arid of Associations for political or social progress , should propose to their respective bodies to petition , or even to make the free-knowledge question , a special

    subject of agitation . Publishers should persecute the Stamp-office by asking them to inform them exactly what latitude is permitted to unstamped publications , and copies of these last should be forwarded to Somerset-house , with a request that they may be prosecuted . Every reformer ought to join the movement , because every reformer will gain by its success . Government gave up the theory of the penny stamp last year ; if the people are in earnest , the practice will be given up in the present session .

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    A NEW EDUCATION SCHEME . Manchester seems determined to maintain its title to the proud distinction of being the most forward town in England on the great question of the day—National Education . The impulse given to the cause by Mr . Lucas and his friends , who founded the Lancashire Public School Association , has begun to tell among the ranks of those who were its most bitter opponents . We have elsewhere given a brief report of an important meeting , which took place at Manchester the other day , to consider a plan drawn up by a clergyman of the Established Church , " to show the practicability of constructing an effective system of local education on the basis of plans now existing . " The principal features of this new scheme are , to make use of the unoccupied room in the schools of the various religious denominations in Manchester and Salford ; to provide for the contingent expenses by a local rate , and entrust the management to committees elected out of the town councils of the two boroughs . The schools , apparently , are to be conducted on much the same principle as they are at present , with the guarantee , however , that " creed or formulary shall be taught to children to which their parents or lawful guardians may , in writing , object . " In new schools erected by the Education Committee " no distinctive creed is to be taught within the ordinary school hours . "

    Such are the main outlines of the new scheme , so far as we can gather them from the somewhat meagre report of the proceedings which has been suffered to appear in the papers . Without more definite information it would be premature to pronounce any opinion on the merits of the scheme . We are glad , however , to see such a movement , because it indicates a belief that our existing educational establishments are not sufficient for the wants of the day . How far the plan proposed will meet those wants remains to be seen . Meantime

    we rejoice to find Churchmen and Wesleyans proclaiming the want of a proper system of education . Only let them tnke up the subject in an honest earnest spirit , and they will do much good . They will , probably , discover that they must adopt a more liberal basis for their scheme before they can hope to obtain popular support . If they are prepared to take that course we can promise them success . If they do not , we incline to think that their new scheme will prove a failure .

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    36 «>* . >*«*?*? [ Satoiu ^ t ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 11, 1851, page 36, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1865/page/12/