ness. But one thing is certain. Nothing can be more precarious than the nature of the influence of Russia, over populations whose sympathies she has cultivated, to effect the disintegration of the empire which it is her ambition to absorb. 66 The case, therefore, stands thus. There are three parties besides the czar interested in this loan, which he can make nowhere but in England; the populations of Eastern Europe, the British community at large, and speculating capitalists in The Emperor Nicholas, inflated by success, particular. Considering the interests of the first, may not choose to trust to our continued apathy and supposing they will but distantly affect us, for the slow but sure undermining of Turkey, we may be content that our moneyed resources and may be on the point of striking impatiently, should be poured out to enable Russia to perpetuupon the principle that it is now or never." ate its desolating rule. But with reference to The threatening attitude of his armies, and the what in that case will sooner or later befall the position which, according to the last accounts, they second, ought the problematical gains of a few to have taken up in Wallachia, which they occupy be allowed to drag the whole community into in defiance of treaties, and under the pretext of eventual expenditure and war? And, lastly, are its unsettled state, strongly favor this presumption. the unscrupulous participants in the proposed transIf the sinews of war, and means of corruption more action themselves well assured that their money extensive, are furnished by this country, a similar will be more secure than the "unreturning" milpretext will not be wanting for more extended lions poured into South America and Spain? We occupation, till the moment shall arrive when, the think not. The United Statesman sold his musmask thrown off, the appropriation of the Danu-kets to the Mexicans, alleging that if he had not bian provinces, or a more adventurous advance, supplied them England would, and “ because he calwill bring Russia at last into direct collision with culated that they would soon be recovered by the England. victorious armies of the States," a prediction verified by the event. To the subscribers of the Russian loan we can promise no such fortune as that; their capital, once parted with, is not very likely to be recovered by any contingency of either peace or war. The prospectus ushered into the world by the great house of Baring promises reimbursement of these advances within fifty years. But who that is conversant with the politics of Eastern Europe, who that saw the Austrian empire and Prussian kingdom immutably propped up by bayonets in 1817 and revolutionized in '48, can feel sure but that long before fifty years, perhaps before fifty months, have elapsed, even Russian despotism may be only a tradition? Who that knows the feelings of the Russian people can believe that they would, in such a case, acknowledge any debt their autocracy had made? And, finally, what speculator, who did not intend to palm his bargain on another, would, even with It is argued that any attempt to make the lender responsible for the purposes to which his noney is devoted, is an impertinent interference with the rights of commercial dealing, and the appeal of Mr. Cobden to the moral sense of the country has been parodied by applying his denunciation of the Russian loan to that of the United States, for defraying the expenses of the war with Mexico. ling to Russia with the knowledge that it was to be devoted to a warlike purpose? Yet to the conclusion that such is its intent we feel convinced that a due investigation of the Turkish question would as irresistibly incline our readers as our But public opinion should and does, in certain cases, control the disposal of capital, and prevent its devotion to purposes of infamy or danger. No one would be allowed to propose investment in a slave-trade or a gaming-house speculation, though both were legalized in the country from which the proposal came; and if a loan had been attempted in this country to succor the Affghans with arms, or to complete the equipment of the Sikhs, capitalists would have been compelled to manifest their dissent more decidedly than by an increased per-doubled advantages held out, advance a single shilcentage of the funds demanded. There exist, we are aware, admirers of the principle upon which the Dutch sold powder to our men-of-war employed in battering their cities; upon which the Dey, threatened with the bombardment of his capital, inquired the expenditure it would involve, and selves. offered to destroy it himself for half the money; and in pursuance of which a United States man is alleged to have sold, during the late war, eighty thousand States' flint locks to the Mexicans, receiving from his government the usual facilities for payment. But in all these cases it is obvious that only that was proposed or done, which, if left undone, would have been effected by another; and this consideration (though we deny the justice of the parallel and consequently the point of the parody) applies equally to the American and Russian loans. America does not ask us, or at least depend exclusively upon us, for the funds she raises; whilst Russia can nowhere else obtain them. From the Spectator, 19 Jan. GERMANY. THE revolution of March, 1848, has wrought extensive and permanent changes in Germany. The territorial divisions and the political institutions of all the states remain substantially as they were before; but in each of them the representative system has been more or less modified, and each has had its relations to the rest of the confederation materially altered. The successes of the princes and their armies have not reestablished them in their old positions. The German rulers find that the hurricane which has passed over has left them amid the ruins of their former power, to reconstruct the edifice as they best may out of the readiest materials at hand. posts and observation is waged by diplomacy between these two powers; each is determined either to obtain the ascendant in united Germany, or to clutch the largest share of it in the event of a partition. Austria is busy devising constitutions for each of the nations subject to the imperial sceptre, and a central organization to make the federate king- At present the game has rather the appearance doms move harmoniously in one system. The of going against Austria. Her finances are in a King of Prussia and his people are squabbling state of utter dilapidation. Her miscellaneous about the division of power in a new unitarian populations impart a non-German character to her constitution, not quite completed. The secondary policy. She has in Germany none but half-hearted states are either employed in constitution-tinker- and distrustful allies, except the ultra devotees of ing, or undergoing a succession of ministerial crises and parliamentary dissolutions, according as the popular or the princely power gains a momentary advantage. No one political institution is at this moment regarded in Germany as definitively settled; nothing but interim arrangements are to be met with. The general organization of confederated Germany is the most unsettled of all. The old diet has disappeared; and the vicar of the empire, and the national assembly or Frankfort parliament, have already followed it to the tomb of all the Capulets. In their stead is to be seen the shadow of an interim executive at Frankfort, and the shadow thrown before it, by a parliament yet to be elected, at Erfurt. The interim commission of the confederation is composed of two Austrian and two Prussian ministers; whose sole function appears to be that of thwarting, counteracting, or undermining each other. The commissioners disagree in the views they take of the source, nature, and extent of their power; they disagree in their views as to the authority that will be entitled to call upon them to make place for it; they are not recognized, or are only recognized under reservations, by the secondary and minor German states; and, worst of all, they have no money. As for the parliament in posse, it is admitted on all hands that it will represent, not Germany, but only the populations of the territories subject to the three allied sovereigns and such princes as shall adhere to them; and how many these may be, or whether even the three will remain true to the league, remains to be seen. the Jesuit party in the Church of Rome. The In the Prussia has many advantages. In the first place, the government and its policy are essentially German. Next, Prussia with a large army and tolerable financial condition, surrounds, as it were, the territories of all the secondary and minor sovereigns of North Germany. She has been fighting (after a fashion) the battles of the people of Schleswig-Holstein; by an armed intervention she has put down revolt in Baden and Würtemburg, and established pecuniary claims against the governments of these countries; she has garrisoned the free town of Hamburg. Except in Bavaria and the Austrian-German dominions, Prussia possesses a large amount of real power. This power, though based principally on the military strength of Prussia, is increased by the position of that government as possessing most territory and wealth of all the members of the Zollverein. The princes involved in her toils struggle in vain against her preponderating influence. There is in every one of their states a party of moderate to maintain an efficient executive amid the contests of popular assemblies and democratic agitation. Amid the inorganic heavings and commotions of this political chaos, the most conspicuous and constitutionalists, disposed to side with Prussia, widely felt is the contest between Prussia and as not thoroughly and inveterately hostile to conAustria. The old struggle between the houses stitutional government, and as sufficiently strong of Hapsburg-Lorraine and Hohenzollern, which began when the first Frederick placed a kingly crown on his head with his own electoral hands, is still in progress. The Austrian monarch is still ambitious of exercising over Germany the power which the Emperor Francis renounced when, on the constitution of the confederation of the Rhine, he declared the empire dissolved, and drew back into his hereditary states. The Prussian, after having added first one territory and then another to the Mark of Brandenburg, till his possessions extend from the Vistula to the west bank of the Rhine and from the Maine to the Baltic, is ambitious of incorporating all Germany into his dominions. An incessant sleepless war, of The counteracting influences which impair the power and prospects of Prussia are derived principally from the personal character of the present king and the councillors to whom he listens. With more of a mystical, imaginative disposition, he has much in common with James the First of England. He is a despot in principle and disposition, without the persistent energy required in a despot. Then he is bewildered by fantastical dreams of being in his kingly capacity a special vicegerent of the Almighty upon earth, and bound to uphold what he believes to be divine laws against all popular opposition. He imagines that he stands in some such relation to the divine] All these circumstances are in favor of the authority on the one hand and his people on the Prussian scheme of assembling a parliament, in other as the governor of an English colony does which the greater part of Germany shall be repreto the crown and the colonists. To much instinc- sented, at Erfurt. If such a body can be brought tive benevolence and love of approbation, and an together, and if the Prussian government can be ambition of being thought energetic and consistent brought to act along with it in harmony and good in action, Frederick William adds much of that faith, the Austrian half of the shadowy interim mischievous sophistry which enables mystics to commission at Frankfort will not be able to offer suit their professions to circumstances, and palliate much resistance to it. But the silly mysticism to themselves and others the grossest violations of the King of Prussia inspires such general disof promises. The king, cursed with this unhappy trust, that the possibility of bringing a decent moral constitution, has gathered around him a show of German representatives to Erfurt is still circle of congenial spirits, who confirm him in his extremely problematical. extravagant views and conduct. Hence, the wretched policy of the Prussian government; ever rash and ever vacillating, and so shameless in its tergiversations that "Punica fides" is an inadequate phrase to express its falsehood. : The strength of the Prussian government is derived from the social condition of Prussia and Germany its weakness from the personal character of those who are now at the head of affairs. Were the king a man whom the moderate constitutionalists, the moderate free-traders, and the liberal religionists, could trust, he might rally around him a Prussian and German party, strong enough to insure the establishment of a central government for Germany, (with the exception, perhaps, of the Austrian dominions and Bavaria,) more united and more powerful than Germany has ever enjoyed. The most intelligent merchants and politicians of the secondary and minor states,* feel that the interests of their respective countries demand a more centralized and powerful government than existed either under the empire or the confederation. The imaginations and sentiments of the scholar class-a numerous class in Germany-harmonize with the practical views of these men of the world. The educated classes in Germany are in the main predisposed to second the ambitious views of the Prussian government, as the most likely means of obtaining German unity. The sovereigns of Baden and Würtemberg are debtors to the Prussian government; the Prussian government holds military possession of Hamburg; fear of his subjects holds the King of Hanover in subjection to the Prussian government; the princes of both the Hesses and of Oldenburg expect personal advantages from a plan for arranging the Schleswig-Holstein controversy proposed by Prussia; the minor dukedoms must follow, and are in many instances disposed to follow, the lead of their betters. Saxony and her king alone are uncertain; the king is disposed to court the Austrian alliance; the national pride of Saxony, which since the seven years' war has seen her importance diminishing and that of Prussia increasing, revolts against the idea of being entirely absorbed into Prussia. From the Examiner, 12 Jan. THE MESSAGE OF THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT. THE message of a whig president of the United States to a Congress in which a democratic majority has shown itself in the house of representatives, is necessarily very moderate in tone and ambiguous in language. It affronts no difficulty, and would exasperate no party. The new president is feeling his way; and on the great democratic questions which agitate the Union, General Taylor seems to propose to himself to play the part of arbiter rather than of partisan. That portion of the message to which we first look is necessarily the paragraphs that regard England. In a political point of view, nothing can be more satisfactory. There is not the most remote allusion to annexation, to the superiority of republican constitutions, or to the determination of the Washington cabinet to exercise sole and first influence in the New World. The only cause of difference, that of the proposed cana} across the Isthmus, is alluded to in terms which show that the communications of Sir Henry Bulwer had already removed any possible contention. And yet even these expressions of the message are adroitly worded. They profess a determination to support Nicaraguan rights, without giving it to be understood what these rights are. Nicaragua is perfect mistress of the proposed line throughout the greater part of its course. But whatever rights the republics of central America might claim upon the eastern outlet of the proposed passage, belong now most unquestionably not to Nicaragua, but to Costa Rica, another of the four republics. And the name of Costa Rica is not mentioned in the message. But whatever reason we may have, in political respects, to be satisfied, and highly satisfied, with the tone of the new president's message, its indications of commercial policy excite different sentiments. Even in that sentence where the president announces the abolition of the Navigation Laws, the message takes, we should think, needless care to add, that the abrogation is complete unless some order in council should be issued which militates against it. This looks as if some obstruction was expected. We have heard, indeed, though we cannot believe, that the Wash * By "secondary states," are meant such as Bavaria, Würtemberg, Saxony, Hanover, &c.; which really are states. By "minor states," the petty Principalities and Free Towns, from Nassau and the Saxon Dukedoms down to Kniphausen, with its territory of rather less than sixteen square miles, and its contingent of twenty-nine ington government had contemplated to include men to the army of the confederation. the intercourse with California in the coasting trade. It is to be hoped that such surmises are | California is too far for them to subject. And not correct. General Taylor and his government, however, come forward openly as the partisans of prohibitive duties, not merely for revenue, but protection. The changing the ad valorem into specific duties, and the levying duty by weight, must evidently, if protective on coarse manufactures, be prohibitive on fine. Such a system may have the democratic excuse of being exclusively a tax on luxuries and on the rich, but such sumptuary laws will soon create a system of smuggling that must demoralize the poor. General Taylor might, indeed, have kept his theory to himself. The fact of a deficit, incurred by the Mexican war, is excuse enough to warrant an elevation of the tariff; and we fear that one of the laws of a federal republic must ever be, that the expenses of the general government must be levied in the shape of customs. We shall find this the case, we fear, in Germany as well as in America; and we must admit it to be one argument for sustaining monarchy against federative republicanism. The American president, in his message, omits the part of Hamlet; he says not one word of slavery. Perhaps he saw no need of calling attention to what was in every one's thoughts. Indeed, California has spoken, and so emphatically and reasonably, that it leaves the abolitionists merely the trouble of silently supporting its resolve. The Californians have decreed that they will have no slaves upon their soil. This is one of the good results of the " diggings." There the white man labors, and is not ashamed to labor; the crop is worthy of the workman; and the Californian adventurer has no idea of a great slave horde being driven down upon him, and niggers set to sweep and wash the course of the Sacramento for the profit of a master. It would be at once loss, rivalry, and disgrace to the Californian. This is the first time that the selfish and pure love of lucre has been found an effective antagonist to slavery, or the love of lucre in another form; and if the gold veins of California had produced no other result, they would deserve honorable mention for this. They it is that have set up the first barrier to the epidemic of the New World. Could the Southern Americans have been allowed to work the gold mines of the Mexican regions with slaves, the amount of misery and oppression, as well as the extension of slavery, would have been immense; and were the gold of California found in mines, it is probable that the Californian emigrant would have preferred slaves to carry on the work. But as long as the ore is picked up on the open river, or washed from the detritus on its banks, so long they will prefer to work as freemen, and to declare their soil shall only be trodden by such. These circumstances form quite a novel element in American prospects and politics, and will awaken fresh strife in Congress. Some even go the length of prognosticating a rupture with the Union. But we do not see how the Southerns are to benefit by recourse to arms. Texas ought surely to satisfy their slave-extending ambition. Parliamentary strife, however, there will be, wordy and fierce; and the more fierce, as the contest must soon be brought to a close. The Union is greatly fortunate to possess at this epoch a president universally respected, as well known for his firmness as his moderation, and better fitted, perhaps, than any other American, to hold the post of umpire and executive chief throughout such a crisis. From the Spectator, 12 Jan. PRESIDENT TAYLOR's first message to the Congress, is an interesting document; far less diffuse than its predecessors of recent times, moderate, practical, and yet more truly elevated in tone than those same enormities. The whig semi-protectionist was expected to advocate an alteration of the tariff in a sense adverse to the freest importation of goods, and he does advocate the change from ad-valorem to higher specific duties; but he puts foremost the necessity of raising the revenue to meet the cost of recent wars, and protection sinks to the place of a secondary incident. In this respect, General Taylor is more moderate, perhaps more politic, than his own high-protectionist secretary. The president holds forth the most friendly aspect towards England; passes over the recent dispute with France in a tone of good-humored disregard, inviting that republic to send its representative; and gives other signs of a desire to maintain peace, not by the threat of prepared war, but by fostering cordial relations. The conqueror of Mexico holds out the hand of hearty fellowship to that state; a magnanimity the more unusual, since Mexico was the injured party. In fine, the message is an earnest of General Taylor's professed aspiration to restore in the councils of the model republic the spirit of Washington. From the Journal des Debats of January 12. THE message of the President of the United States is, on this occasion, remarkable for the calm and conciliatory tone which pervades it throughout. Only a single expression has found a place in it which might afford a subject for regret to the friends of peace; it is the sort of threat insinuated with regard to Portugal. Leaving aside this passage, from which we, however, conceive that no collision can ensue, nothing appears in the document which does not recall to mind that pacific, and, at the same time dignified, course which characterized the messages of Washington himself. It is most gratifying to behold a man who has derived his title to admiration from a conquest to which others have forced his country, and who owes his elevation to his victories, so moderate in his views. Precedents were not wanting for his assuming an overbearing tone even towards the greatest powers. Every one knows the provoking language more than once employed by Gen. Jackson, and which the last president, Mr. Polk, did not hesitate to adopt towards Great Britain, on the subject of Oregon. General Taylor-as may be seen with- as Gen. Taylor's presidency lasts, they cannot rely out his declaring it—is convinced that wars, from upon support, direct or indirect, from the authorithe stimulus which they give to the spirit of domin- ties of the United States. The readiness and ion, from the division of interests to which new energy which he has displayed in putting down conquests necessarily give birth, through the opin- the expedition which had been prepared in the ions and jealousies of different states, must endan-Southern ports for the invasion of the island of ger the public liberties and shake the foundations Cuba, is a proof that, in case of need, General of the Union. May these wise and good sentiments Taylor adds example to precept and deeds to pass from the mind of the president to those of the words.-Nat. Intel. leaders in Congress! From the N. Y. Evening Post, 1 March. SWITZERLAND AND THE UNITED STATES. IT is a question worth discussing, even in the midst of the angry controversies which now agitate the country, whether the intelligence lately received from Europe concerning Switzerland imposes no duty on our own government. There seems to be sia have required the expulsion of a large number no doubt that the governments of Austria and Prusdred it is said, and that if this be refused, Switzerof political fugitives from Switzerland, fifteen hunland is to be invaded and reduced to submission by the Austrian and Prussian armies. That France encourage this atrocity seems to be certain. Under any other president we should probably have seen embittered the quarrel which has broken out between Mr. Chatfield, the Consul General of Great Britain in Central America, and the United States agent, Mr. Squier, about a little island, which seems to be of some importance with regard to the proposed canal for uniting the two oceans through Nicaragua. This dispute was, moreover, connected with another, of a much more serious nature, as the canal itself was the subject. Certain citizens of the United States had obtained a concession for making this canal. The local agents of Great Britain, and at their instigation the sover-will not even protest, that she will stand by and eign of the Mosquito Indians, who appears with good reason to be merely a tool of British policy, opposed the execution of that enterprise. At other times the message on such a subject would have been an explosion of warlike patriotism. General Taylor, however, treats the question like a man of sense and business. He endeavors to come to an understanding with the British government, which will no doubt on its part exhibit equal readiness to compromise. The canal for the junction of the two oceans should be, according to General Taylor's views, a neutral passage, with its neutrality guarantied by all the powers which might expect to avail themselves of it. Such a solution of the question could not fail to satisfy all parties. This system of neutrality of the communications to be established across the isthmus (for no doubt several will in time be effected, as the isthmus is not less than five hundred leagues in length) is recommended by the president with regard to the railroad from Chagres to Panama, now in progress of construction by a company. This will be the first convenient line of transportation between the Atlantic and the Pacific formed since the days of Pizarro. The distance across will be about seventyfive kilometres, and may be passed over by a locomotive in an hour. The plan for a sincere understanding with all the great powers, which General Taylor, to his honor, makes the basis of his foreign policy, will receive, by the adoption of the neutrality of the passages across the isthmus, a sanction calculated to arrest the attention of European states land has been the refuge of exiles from all counFrom the earliest period of her history, Switzertries, the resort of all whom political or religious persecution had driven from their homes. In the days of the Protestant reformation she sheltered Calvin and Beza; she gave an asylum to the learned men whom the intolerance of Henry VII. would not endure in England. At a later period, in our own day, when the Jesuits were expelled from welcome in the valleys of the Catholic canton of France, they found a safe retreat and an honorable Wallis. Those whose lives were menaced by the excesses of the French revolution, royalists and republicans, fled to Switzerland as an asylum. In Switzerland those who have made themselves odious to the absolute government of Germany, whether by the freedom of their writings or by acts offensive to the reigning powers, have always found a refuge and dwelt unmolested. In Switzerland the Polish refugees claimed and were allowed hospitality. In the religious thanksgiving festivals of some of the cantons public thanks are given to Almighty God that in their country the political exile is safe. Hitherto, the governments of the old world seem willing to give over the pursuit when they had to have been content that this should be so, and hunted their quarry into Switzerland. While these tyrannies were in their full vigor, there was something like magnanimity in their behavior to this little republic of the mountains, and towards the fugitives who sought safety within it. They might well afford this magnanimity, for from Swittrious population, content with their own liberty, zerland they feared nothing; her poor and indusdid not seek to disturb the existing order of things in the countries around them; nor had she much There is reason to believe that the excellent for them to covet, since she had no sea-ports, no spirit of this message, with regard to foreign pol- navigable streams, no riches of soil, no opulent icy, will moderate the feelings of the people of the cities. Her mountains, her poverty, her inoffensivefrontier states, who have encouraged and excitedness, the hereditary bravery of her population, ideas of annexation among the inhabitants of Canada; and for still stronger reasons should the desires of the Canadian annexationists be calmed. They cannot conceal from themselves that, so long men. for her liberties, were her protection. The despotisms of Europe have now grown old and insecure, and are haunted by the fears which belong to feebleness and decay. The cowardice |