majority of the Congress at Dresden. But if we since 1815, Austria has dominated, or nearly so, disregard the consideration whether it will ever be beyond the Alps; she rules there by her possescarried out or not, it is still of some importance as sions and by her relationship with the Grand Duchy a proof of the influence which predominates in the of Tuscany and the Duchy of Modena, and her inconferences, whilst the rumors of an expected pro- fluence will be materially increased by the admistest from France point to the quarter from which a sion of her Italian possessions into the Germanic serious opposition is anticipated. At the same confederation. Can England be satisfied with this? time the interpretation which we have put upon the The interest is much greater and more immediate proceedings of Austria in Germany is strongly for France; setting aside all question of rival influcorroborated by the indications of hostility on the ence, there is here a paramount question of safety. part of that power against Switzerland and Pied- If Italy is politically transformed into a province mont-both of them popular governments, and, of the Germanic confederation, it is no longer with therefore, peculiarly obnoxious to Prince Schwar- Austria alone that France will have to do, in the zenberg. An intervention is talked of in the event of any motive causing an Italian war, but case of the former, and an Austrian army is with the whole of Germany; a war on the Alps already assembled on the frontiers of the kingdom would necessarily lead to one on the Rhine. This of Sardinia. The pretext in either case is the consequence alone is enough to show all its gravity. same-the danger arising from the presence of It is said that the government of the republic propolitical refugees. When such measures are con- tests at Berlin and at Vienna, and it is thought that templated, and when such threats are held out to England is doing as much. Whatever doubts may independent states, we may well fear for the tran- have arisen on this subject appear to have been quillity of Europe. The worst revolutionary lead-removed by recent explanations between the two ers never preached a doctrine more dangerous than governments. But what will be the result of these that which is practised by the professed friends of protests, if it be true, as stated, that Austria and order. Could it be successfully applied, it would Prussia are resolved to pay no attention to them, be more intolerable than anarchy. Happily, the and to conclude their new arrangement of the conlaw of progress is independent of the wills of the federation? No one in France can be mistaken on most determined statesmen. Individual obstinacy or this point. Austria, before the revolution of Febignorance may create a vast amount of human mis-ruary, would never have undertaken such a scheme, ery, but they can neither triumph over right nor arrest the political progress of nations.

or, if she had attempted it, she would have failed in it. The reason is that France then had a government with which Europe knew that she might treat, and to which it would be necessary to give an account. When pretensions of a nature such as those which Austria now raises are put forward, they present numerous difficulties, and affect powerful and varied interests. A well-established and well-conducted government knows how to combat those difficulties, and to make apparent the impossibility of the success of the pretensions. This unmeasured and unnatural extension of the Germanic confederation cannot benefit any power in Europe except Austria. It may secure her rule in Italy, but it cannot secure the peace of Europe, for it changes the balance of power, and may lead to conflicts. When they shall present themselves, will the republic have a government, a policy, and a diplomacy capable of preventing such a perturbation? God grant it may !

From the Times, 17 Feb.

From the Journal des Debats, 15 Feb. THE Conference of Dresden is on the point of coming to an important resolution-a resolution which we have foreseen, and which is of the highest interest to our policy in our relations with Germany and with Italy. We think we may affirm that the demand made by Austria to enter into the Germanic confederation with all her Sclavonic and Italian possessions, has been consented to by Prussia, and even by the greater number of the secondary states of Germany; and the assent of those which still hesitate will doubtless soon follow. The Emperor of Russia will not oppose this transformation of the Germanic confederation, and the protests which France may make, with or without the cooperation of England, will not probably stop the definitive adoption of the proposition of the Austrian cabinet. What, however, will France and England do? In our opinion, in spite of the consent of the middling and the petty states of Germany, and the adhesion of Russia, they cannot accept purely and simply the new Germanic confederation as it is now to be organized at Dresden; they must claim the maintenance of the law of nations as created by the treaties of 1815, and oppose the interpretation given to those treaties by the two great German powers. The treaties, of 1815 laid down the territorial limits of the Germanic confederation, as they did those of France. It is not permitted to one, two, three, or more of the powers who signed them to modify them at The Germanic confederation was constituted by will. They are a work common to all, and any the act of the Congress of Vienna-that is to say, changes to be made in them must also be a common by all the European powers deliberating and acting work. That is a principle which it is essential to in common. Not only were the forms and means maintain. With regard to France and England, of government of the confederation regulated by moreover, it is not only a question of principle; that act, but also its elements-that is, the states it also regards the maintenance of their traditional of which it was composed by attributing to each and national policy. The policy of England pre- one a participation corresponding to its extent and scribes to her to oppose any decisive preponderance population. Hence it follows that the confederain Italy. The preponderance of Austria will not tion cannot extend itself either wholly or partially, suit her any more than that of France. Already, change its limits, or alter its manner of existence,

It is now certain that both France and England have protested against the demand of Austria to the indiscriminate admission of the whole of her possessions into the Germanic Confederation. It is even stated that those two powers have communicated notes to the cabinet of St. Petersburg, and that they are making every effort to bring it over to their opinion.

The following may be considered as a fair résumé of the reasons, founded on national law, and alleged by the two powers:—

torial divisions of the continent, which could only end in throwing everything into disorder and an ultimate appeal to force. It would place in additional embarrassment and uncertainty the position -perhaps the independence of other states, like Denmark and Holland, which belong to the confederation by one province, though essentially distinct from it in the rest of their dominions. But, above all, it would give to the relations of Germany and Italy, or rather to the domination of Germany over Italy, a character differing widely from the rights hitherto attached to the house of Austria in the Italian provinces of the imperial monarchy.

When the Austrian Empire seemed a short time ago to be on the brink of dissolution we were among that small number of observers who never despaired of its recovery, and who have watched with confidence the steady regeneration of the monarchy. That great work, though still very imperfect, especially in the department of finance, is still advancing. But while we desire the maintenance of the Austrian Empire in the position it has so long filled in Germany and in Europe, it can be no part of the true and enlightened policy of Austria herself to assert immoderate claims of dominion, to stretch her powers to the uttermost, and even to defy the adverse chances of the future. We see with regret, and something more, the presence of an Austrian garrison in Hamburgh, which cannot be necessary for the pacification of Holstein, and which is not justified by the bad precedent of a similar occupation by Prussia. We are aware that, with reference to the affairs of Switzerland and of Piedmont, language has sometimes been held and projects discussed, which would, if they ever acquired a more practical character, call for the most decided opposition of England and France. The territories of those states are inviolable by the public law of Europe, and they are the more

We are not insensible, on the other hand, to the arguments which are employed in favor of at least one considerable portion of this scheme. The incorporation of the eastern possessions of Austria and the northern possessions of Prussia with the confederation opens to the industry and enterprise of the German race a vast and thinly peopled country; it extends the coast of the confederation on the Baltic and the Adriatic; and it will include a much larger extent of land and population within those common laws of trade and intercourse which must one day unite the German states. The military forces of those provinces have never been ex-inviolable in our eyes because order and governcluded from Germany, and the federal army sent at this moment by Austria to Holstein consists in great part of troops not belonging to the federal provinces. The extension of the federal rights of Germany to Hungary, Gallicia, and the Lower Danube, as well as to Posen and East Prussia, would unquestionably strengthen the whole barrier of eastern Europe against the danger of a Russian invasion, and give to Austria and Prussia a point d'appui in the west rather than upon their eastern confines. So far, then, we believe that the proposal for the incorporation of the provinces we have just named in the federal body, would call forth no remonstrance or objection from the cabinets of western Europe, and might have been effected without opposition. But when it was found that the Austrian plan positively included the imperial dominions in Italy, as well as the provinces to the north and east, the question assumed a graver aspect.

It has been correctly stated that the French government lost no time in protesting at Vienna, explicitly and firmly, against any such extension of the Germanic confederation beyond the Alps, both as a material alteration of the Treaty of Vienna, and as an important addition to the political strength of the states contiguous to the French territory and frequently rivals of French influence. The British government, if we are correctly informed, did not directly participate in the diplomatic measures actually taken by the cabinet of Paris, inasmuch as this country is less directly interested in the question, and has shown of late a greater desire to renew its accustomed amicable relations with Austria. But, as the proposal made to the German conference was one which called for the expression of an opinion from all the chief parties to the Treaty of Vienna, a courier is understood to have been despatched from London, in the course of the past week, who conveys to Dresden and Vienna the remonstrances of the British crown against an arrangement which can only be legally effected with the assent of a European congress, and which threatens by so extensive a change in the relations of Austria with Italy, to be the germ of future differences, or even hostilities, in that country.

ment have been restored in them by the use of free institutions, and not by the sword. Europe is recovering from a general convulsion of unexampled violence, and Austria herself has recovered more rapidly than some of her rivals. But it is the worst policy to turn this opportunity to any purpose of separate aggrandizement or exaltation. Prussia has just blasted her reputation and destroyed her influence by that fatal game; we trust Austria will resist the temptation which the failure of attacks upon herself has certainly afforded, and that she will remember the only rule of common security to be mutual forbearance. Whatever tends to breed any serious dissension between the principal states of Europe is an evil of the first magnitude, for in a struggle for territory, or for ascendency, the spirit of the revolution would infallibly break loose to mingle with the combatants. The annexation of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom to the Germanic confederation is such an occasion of strife. It would be received with despair by the inhabitants, who are the lawful subjects of the house of Austria, but not citizens of the Germanic body. It would give additional reason to apprehend that Austria means to rule in Italy by the force of Germany alone, and without any concession to the interests and feelings of the Italians themselves. It would increase our suspicions of her policy towards Piedmont and Switzerland. But above all, it would so materially turn the balance of power in the South of Europe to the prejudice of France, that the protest already made on her behalf against this measure would sooner or later be followed by a more open and determined resistance. The interest of England in the question is of a slighter and less direct character; but we oppose whatever seems to threaten, however remotely, the maintenance of peace; and we hold that no time could be more unfit for any extension of German or Austrian powers beyond the limits of the Treaties of 1815.

From the Morning Chronicle, 20th Feb ENGLAND AND SOUTH CAROLINA. EVERYBODY knows that the moment a British ship touches at a port in South Carolina, those of her crew whose complexion falls below a recognized

standard of olive are immediately taken into cus- the two countries are not governed by the comtody by the police, and lodged in prison till the mon law of nations, or by a single treaty, but by vessel clears outwards. Some extraordinary ex- a succession of treaties, and by habitudes of comamples of this peculiar practice appear to have mercial intercourse which possess a sanction almost come recently under the notice of our consul at beyond that of international engagements. Nor Charleston, and he has been instructed by the can it be urged against us that we have not apForeign Office to lay a strong remonstrance on the pealed to the proper tribunal. We had recourse subject before the Governor of the State. The to the Federal government, and we were informed American newspapers would have us believe that that no jurisdiction over the matter resided in this proceeding on the part of the local agent of our Washington. We now betake ourselves to the government has raised a great question of inter- government of Carolina-a Sovereign State, in national law between England and the United every incident of sovereignty-which has not been States, and a still greater question of constitutional transferred to Washington; and the central aujurisprudence between the State of South Caro-thorities immediately interfere with a protest, urglina and the American Federation. It may be ing upon us-reasonably, it may be, but most remembered that representations on the sarne illogically-the perplexities which must ensue if head were some time since addressed to President we attempt to treat with an isolated member of the Taylor's administration by the English plenipo- Federation on the same footing as with Mexico or tentiary at Washington. Á not very lucid or satis- Chili. We are thus called upon to give our assent factory legal argument, signed by Mr. Clayton, was to the doctrine that, by complicated internal arrangereceived in reply, but it contained a clear admis- ments, a country may contrive to annul its extersion that the privilege of incarcerating British sub-nal responsibility. jects on account of discoloration of the scarf-skin The truth is, it is quite idle to argue, as a diffiwas not one of the rights ceded to the Federal culty of public or domestic law, a matter which government by South Carolina in the Constitu- every soul in the Union admits to be embarrassed tional pact. The application of Mr. Consul Mat- solely by circumstance and accident. Nobody has thew to Governor Means is the direct logical conse- a shadow of a doubt that, in relinquishing the quence of Secretary Clayton's letter; but, in the management of her external relations to the Presisciences of diplomacy and of constitutional inter-dent and Congress of the United States, South pretation, two and two do not always make four, nor is the conclusion at all times a necessary result of the premises. The Federal authorities, recoiling from the anomalies which the independent action of a single state would entail-and not a little irritated, perhaps, by the evident complacency of Gov. Means in repeating the words, "our government," " your government," and "the two governments"—have abandoned, under President Fillmore, the position which they took up under President Taylor, and Sir Henry Bulwer is engaged in a long and active correspondence," explanatory of Consul Matthew's diplomatic irregularity in resorting to the subordinate instead of the supe

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Carolina disqualified herself for the enactment of laws which, by their operation, if not by their language, affect the foreign policy of the Union. The constitution provides a very simple mode of superseding local jurisprudence where it encroaches on the privileges reserved to the Collective Federation. But the difficulty cominences at the next stage. The fiery citizens of South Carolina would be sure to disregard the disallowance of their acts by the Washington authorities; and any attempt to coerce them would be made at the cost of civil war, and at imminent risk to the cohesion of the Federal system. In addition, it may be observed that there is probably no man in America more disinclined to push such a question to extremities than the present Secretary of State, hampered as he is by somewhat extravagant professions of devotion to the Union. In the face of such perplexities, the most honest, perhaps the wisest, and certainly the most consistent policy would have been to let the British negotiations with South Carolina take their course. The tone of Governor Means, in the correspondence with Consul Matthew, is markedly courteous; and it is not at all unlikely that the State Legislature would have relaxed the obnoxious practice in our favor-a little, no doubt, by way of brilliantly vindicating the theory of "State Rights," but partly also from an enlightened sense of the folly of feeding a quarrel between the population which produces the cotton of the world and the population which manufactures it.

It can never be contended that no wrong has been suffered. The gratuitous imprisonment of a whole class of British subjects, tested by every criterion of international law, and still more by that large and liberal version of it which was sanctioned by the House of Commons in the Greek debate, amounts to a diplomatic grievance of the first magnitude. The most considerate and longsuffering of foreign ministers would never endure that, under a general permission to trade with a Roman Catholic country, Protestant sailors should be locked up as soon as they are landed, and Romanists only allowed to go at large. The king of Naples is as anxious to keep free Englishmen out of his dominions as South Carolina can be to exclude free negroes from her boundaries. But he does not declare that his subjects associate the presence of Englishmen with revolutionary princi- We are sincerely desirous that the "long and ples-that the characteristic marks of an English-active" correspondence should produce some intelman are red hair and red whiskers-and that he is ligible result, even if it do not bring redress. Not therefore under the painful necessity of imprisoning that we are in the least inclined to imitate a few all red-headed foreigners who may visit his realms. of our Transatlantic contemporaries, who rub their The "bloated Bourbon" confines himself to the hands over the dispute, declare it insoluble, and expedient at all events, an impartial one-of an conclude with simulated gravity, that it must end interminable quarantine, which is calculated to in a war. But if we cannot obtain reparation, let slay the most fervent of propagandists with weari- us at all events have the question placed in the ness and ennui. In the case of America, the indig- proper light. Mr. Webster's sophistry will doubtnity offered to us by the South Carolinian practice less be exerted in mystifying it with greater sucis the more inexcusable, because the relations of cess than was Mr. Clayton's; but we trust that

Sir Henry Bulwer will drive his correspondent to | chief of the Campbells has been telling the burghers a point beyond the audacious quibble that the sub- of Glasgow how they should employ their odd ject of our complaint is nothing more than a rule hours. Spectacles such as this, happily now freof local police. It will be some kind of amends for the insult put upon our colored fellow-countrymen to have it publicly and explicitly avowed, by the organ of a self-complacent democracy, that a subject of the British oligarchy cannot set his foot on a portion of the territory of the Republic without imminent danger of a popular insurrection.

war.

From the Times, 20 Feb.

BREAD IN ENGLAND.

Scotchmen are a very warm people; they seldom travel far out of their country except in quest of a fortune, and even then they carry with them as much as they can of Scotland. To do them justice, they need not travel far for poets, philosoSuch is the illustrious group which the Duke of phers, historians, economists, or men of science. Argyll thinks it necessary to press on the attention of the Glasgow Athenæum. Why? Any one who has ever looked into one of these institutions with his wits about him will be at no loss for a regeneration at Glasgow, and by the adult too, is ply. The literature most studied by the rising that which is published every day in the form of

quent, are among the most agreeable features of the age. Instead of heading forays, avenging family feuds, waylaying sleek citizens, or scouring the Western Isles with a semi-piratical squadron, the Campbell now figures as the schoolmaster abroad, calling a set of young shopkeepers to account for the turn of their studies. Little thought his grace's noble but rather bellicose ancestors that a Duke of Argyll would one day enter Glasgow, not in coat of mail, or with a band of retainers, but THE people of England will not eat bad bread to clerks and rhymers. It is true that his affections a mere stripling dominie, with his speech full of please anybody. They ate bad bread in the year are still rather homeward. His first name is Wal$17, and in various other years during and after the ter Scott, whose genius took fire from the old ScotWe have frequently heard laborers and their tish ballads; and if he commemorates Wordsworth, wives ascribe their constitutional maladies to the he adds his confession that he received some of his hard, heavy bread, made of unsound flour, from un-earliest inspirations from the "Ayrshire ploughripe or sprouting corn, in their early youth or man." If he must quote another name, it is childhood and we have even heard them ascribe Campbell. As for the rest of the poetic hierarchy, the death of their brothers and sisters to such food, they are all despatched in half a sonnet. Then which was as dear as it was bad. We remember Chalmers, for a specimen of biography; and, once the sort of bread which large families in the middle classes, compelled to be economical, used to eat-Brewster for science, and the circle is complete. more across the border, Dr. Arnold, with Dr. bread as hard and black as stale dumplings, from dough that would not rise, and which, instead of swelling uniformly, would blow out partially here and there, till there were cavities that a mouse could run in. The people who have eaten that bread will not eat it again if they can help it. If such is the feeling of those who remember the high prices of the war, and the bad harvests of the last generation, the feeling of those who have become accustomed to the cheap and good bread of later days is not less serious on the question of free trade. It is a very old remark that there is no point in which men will less consent to go back, and in which civilization makes good its ground more firmly, than in the matter of bread. Nations advance very slowly from the fish bread of the north-leased from the desk or the counter, the citizen ern climates, and the bark bread of old Europe, to takes up a newspaper in preference to a history of the fine flour of England; but they never go back modern Europe, a book on population, a treatise from wheat to rye, or from rye to bark. The millions of this country, who within the memory of man have advanced from barley and oats to wheat, will not go back; nor will they go back from good wheat to bad wheat, if good wheat is to be got by any honest means. We warn these noblemen, then, that any attempt whatever, under whatever name or pretence, to restrict the people of this country to the short and spoilt harvests of our own soil, will be met by the most determined resistance. It will not be tolerated for a single hour. Should any body of persons in the position of her majesty's advisers only divulge an unmistakable intention to bind again the chains of monopoly, and to stretch the victim once more upon the rack of dearth, there would certainly be an almost universal determination to resist, at all events, even to the last appeal; and there is not an institution in the country that would stand before that resistance. It is idle to mince these matters, when they are so grave and so manifest. It is the wisest charity and the soundest loyalty to tell the whole truth; and that truth is, that the British people will not have "Protection."

From the Times, 1 Feb.

LECTURE BY THE DUKE OF ARGYLL.

THE much vexed question of popular reading has been handled by another great authority. The

the broad sheet. This is the modern folio.

Re

on conic sections, or even one of Walter Scott's poems. So the Duke of Argyll, in a very kind and meral reading is likely to produce a superficial and paternal manner, undertakes to show that ephedesultory mind; and that a man who wishes a deeper basis of thought, a wider scope of information or loftier range of thought, must not confine his studies to the journals of the day.

From the Morning Chronicle, 27 Jan. CONSTITUTIONS, FRENCH AND AMERICAN. EVERY fresh experience of the French constitution is an additional testimony to the wisdom and forecast of the founders of the translantic republic. There is, perhaps, no subject of complaint so frequent among educated Americans as the rule which makes the functions of ministers incompatible with a seat in the Senate or the House of Representatives. They describe it as a perverse contrivance for weakening the administration party, and for unduly strengthening the opposition. The eloquent voice which invigorated whigs or democrats during the political struggle is silenced the moment that victory is achieved, and it can only through the clumsy mechanism of committees communicate a defence of policy which, if delivered orally, would be unanswerable and irresistible. What end, it is asked, does this exclusion