Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 125.djvu/522

508 affirm that in this day loyalty counts for much, or can prove that any race is bound more strongly to its hereditary rulers than the population of Hanover were to the Guelphs. The German-Austrians might dislike and yet acquiesce in the change; and in the nineteenth century, with its conscriptions, the acquiescence of a population suffices to make its government strong.

We do not intend, we need not say, to accuse the German government of the smallest design against Austria. On the contrary, we have always argued that Germany could secure more, with far less danger, by a strict and hearty alliance with the House of Hapsburg, then by any other conceivable combination. The two empires, acting together and thoroughly armed, could maintain for the next century peace in central Europe. Nor, whatever may be Prince Bismarck's wishes, is there any probability that the Emperor William will attack a friendly power merely in order to avert a possible and remote risk of a future combination. We are only addressing ourselves to that large class of Englishmen who will look only to one point of the compass, who will believe that Prince Bismarck cares only about France, and who expect from day to day, as, for instance, the Standard reappears to do, to hear that a German army is encamped at Chalons. To such we say that they may be right, but that, if they are right, the German chiefs, while dreading a coalition — for it is only a coalition which could put Germany in tremor — think it best to strike at the best-guarded point, at the point where the fight would be sorest, and at the point where there is the least additional strength to be obtained as the reward of victory. Is that likely? It may be true, for Prince Bismarck may one day make a mistake, like another man; but it is much wiser to assume that he will not, that he will, if he breaks out of the ring, break out at the weakest point, and that if he chooses war, it will be war in which there is something to be obtained. It is indefinitely more probable that all the rumours of war which disquiet the Continent are spread to carry the new ecclesiastical laws, but if war is really intended, it is the Hapsburgs, of all men, who, as we calculate, have war to dread.

 

 From The Saturday Review.

minister of commerce and agriculture is ordinarily one of the least political members of the French government, and the present minister was put into his post rather for what he was outside the Cabinet than for any special services which he was expected to render within it. But the speech which M. de Meaux lately made at a dinner at St. Etienne is in some respects the most interesting expression of political opinion that has been heard since the 25th of February. Everybody knew what M. Dufaure or M. Wallon would say, and M. Buffet was eminently successful in his attempt at saying nothing. But M. de Meaux represents the Right in the coalition majority, and it was at least possible that he would take the first opportunity that offered itself of bringing out in stronger phrases than M. Buffet could venture to employ the anti-republican character of the present republic. The opportunity has come, and M. de Meaux has not used it. Indeed, he has gone further, and has used it for a directly opposite purpose. Instead of copying M. Buffet, and avoiding all mention of the republic, he has described the vote on the Constitutional Laws as the substitution of a republican rule, clearly defined, and armed with regular weapons, for the republican rule which has been practically established since the fall of the empire. It may seem a small thing that a minister has brought himself to see and admit so patent a fact as this. But the recognition of patent facts is by no means a common virtue among French politicians, least of all among conservative politicians, and M. de Meaux deserves credit for breaking through the custom hitherto so strictly observed by the Right of shutting their eyes to everything which they do not like. M. de Meaux is perfectly frank as to his relation to the new republic. He does not profess to rejoice over the constitutional settlement at which the National Assembly has arrived. He took no part, he says, in bringing it about, because his "deepest and dearest convictions" did not permit him to do so; but when once the law had been passed, he was able to take part in giving it effect, because the law has itself taken care to respect all honest convictions, and has only shut the door on coups d'état and revolutions. "On ground which all have not chosen all can find room to sustain the cause of 