No. 1181. Fourth Series, No. 42. 19 January, 1867. 10. Canada and the Reciprocity Treaty PAGE British Quarterly Review, 131 Hon. Mrs. Norton, 150 Reader, 164 Professor Edw. A. Park, 168 Lancet, 173 Macmillan's Magazine, 174 Saturday Review, 179 182 People's Magazine, 185 11. New Route of East Indian and Chinese Commerce N. Y. Times, 12. Natural Sounds, 13. British Captives in Abyssinia. POETRY: "Let us Pray," 130. The Bachelor to his Buttons, 130. Surf, 149. *This is not the first time that Mr. Reade has built upon another man's foundation. Many years ago he introduced a story by a French author as his own, and was exposed in like manner. We think it was before the era of The Living Age. BOOKS PUBLISHED AT THIS OFFICE SENT FREE OF POSTAGE. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the Living Age will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year; nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. interest of the coveted prize was secured. By adroit tactics of this sort, as well as by military service, the Counts of Savoy ex From the British Quarterly Review. (1). L'Armée Prussienne. Par MICHEL CHEVALIER. Paris: Dentu. 1856. (2). War Map of the German States. Lon-tended their sway from Maurienne to Susa don: Nelson & Sons. THE present age has been singularly prolific in political revolutions. It has been the lot of no other to witness the accretion of two minor States into extensive kingdoms, upon the downfall of an empire which for centuries had treated them as rebellious vassals. One of these States, who now speaks to Europe in the name of Germany, and who certainly bids fair to unite the whole of Germany under her sceptre, was unknown at the Reformation. The other, who now directs the destinies of Italy, was unknown as an Italian power previous to the Treaty of Utrecht. It is remarkable that these, the last-comers into the group of principalities, of which they formed the least promising units, should have finally absorbed the greater portion of their neighbours, within the limits of our generation, and finally laid prostrate their imperial enemy, who had so often cudgelled them into subjection. There is a connection between these two states, anidentity of principle and a uniformity of action, independent of the similarity of their destinies and of their recent alliance, which may throw some light on their marvellous success. If they now find themselves at the head of their respective races, the causes which have led their steps from the cradle of barren provinces to the summits of flourishing empires have not been divergent. The Counts of Savoy, like those of Hohenzollern, trace back their lineage to the tributaries of King Otho and Charlemagne. For a long period they maintained a precarious existence; Prussia as a fief of Poland, and Savoy as a satrap of the German Emperor, only too happy, under the shelter of such powerful patronage, to escape the fangs of annihilation. Both States, from their beginning, appear to have acted upon the principle of clutching land wherever they could get it, seizing little parcels of territory here and there, and leaving it for time to consolidate the fragments thus acquired into one compact dominion. If the intervening proprietors could not be ejected by conquest, they were cozened by barter. Those whom neither the sword nor money could subdue were caught in the meshes of Venus. The value of lives was calculated with the accuracy of a modern insurance office, and by the marriage of a young scion with the heir apparent of the property, the reversionary and Montserrat, and from Montserrat to Turin. An intrenched position on the northern slopes of the Alps, led almost by a natural consequence, to a position equally fortified with castles on the south; .and the command of the mountain passes soon resulted in encroachment on the plain. By similar strategy the Counts of Hohenzollern, from the swamp of Brandenburg, hardly bigger than an English county, dotted the western and northern parts of Germany with demesnes, which served rather to map out the frontiers of their prospective kingdom than as vital members of the same corporate body. The Jülich and Cleves Duchies were leagues away from Brandenburg, as Brandenburg was from Stettin, and neither of these had any topographical connection with East Prussia. Yet at each European treaty both Prussia and Sardinia came in for some make-weight, which served to round off their dominions. till both were allowed, at the commencement of the eighteenth centu ry, Prussia, by direct stipulation with the Emperor of Austria, and Sardinia, by consent of the great powers, to assume the state and dignity of royal kingdoms. This was the great turning-point in their respective destinies. The sword of Frederick, by adding Silesia to Brandenburg, and filling up the gap between East and Central Prussia with Posen, lifted Prussia from the humble condition of a feudatory into that of a rival of the House of Austria. The Congress of Vienna, by adding Genoa to the dominions of Piedmont, enabled her to pursue in Italy a line of her own, free from the tutelage of the same imperial house. In the rest of the rôle there is a perfect identity of means, as well as of ends. Austria, with all the obstinacy of the Hapsburgs, hugged to the last the old principles of an effete feu latory government. Her two young rivals adopted every principle which modern reason and experience prove to be essential to political progress. Prussia, by becoming the arbiter of the commercial, paved her way to become the arbiter of the political destinies of Germany. Sardinia, also by commercial reforms, taught Italy to inaugurate the reconstruction of her old constitutions. Both States, by an enlightened system of national education, by commercial codes based upon strict reciprocity, by representative institutions, and by the widest religious freedom, appeared in startling advantage by the side of surrounding despotisms. The contrast troops to Austerlitz, she entered into a stipwas one of light and darkness, of science ulation with Napoleon, by which she was and ignorance, of integrity and corruption, allowed to annex the British Hanoverian of modern improvement and blind retrogression. The ill-governed were naturally faught to look up to incorporation with the well-governed people as their only chance of escape from political servitude. The first opportunity for political stratagem which presented itself to Cavour dissolved, as if by the stroke of enchantment, the effete governments of Italy, and led to the incorporation with his government of threefourths of the Peninsula. The first opportunity for political stratagem which presented itself to Bismarck has enabled him to repeat the same process in Germany. dominions as the price of her abstention from the conflict. When Napoleon entered on his Russian campaign, Prussia bound herself by solemn compact to guard his rear on the banks of the Vistula, with a force of 30,000 men. She fulfilled her engagement by turning against his outfrozen army the very bayonets he relied upon for its defence. Her last raid against Schleswig Holstein is of a piece with her previous history. She took upon herself, as agent of the Germanic Confederation, to claim these Duchies as members of the Bund. Having, with the assistance of Austria, seized the spoil, she quietly appropriated it to herself, kicked Austria out, and hurled the Confederation into the dust. But though there are many remarkable points of similarity between the fortunes of Prussia and Italy, these are not unaccompanied with differences which may serve to This unconquerable craving for expansion explain the political situation. The princes and remarkable tenacity of grip, which have of Sardinia have generally proved faithful characterized the House of Hohenzollern to the code of honour. Their history is from its earliest years, have been accompastained with fewer crimes than that of any nied with a characteristic which might reother in the annals of Europe. They have deem worse faults than rapacity, and cerbeen guilty of neither spoliation nor treach- tainly presents Prussia in favorable contrast ery. Indeed, in the wars of Europe, regard- with Sardinia and surrounding nations. She less of their political interests, they have had loaded her subjects with no debt worth generally sided with Austria, to whom their mentioning, but has carried out a rigid fealty was pledged against France. Prussia economy in every department of the State. contrariwise has been guided in her alli- The kings and electors of Prussia have been ances by no principle but that of selfish expe- the most parsimonious princes who ever ocdiency, changing sides in every quarrel she cupied a throne. They have reduced their has espoused with the same facility as if the household expenditure to the lowest possibelligerents were only partners in a dance. ble limit, not simply to hoard up wealth for We do not know that Sardinia, even in her their successors, but to lighten the burdens early course, ever annexed a town without of the State, and to provide the country the consent of the inhabitants. But Prussia with an efficient administrative system, and has ruthlessly kidnapped the places she could with a strong arm of defence. The princes not obtain by fair means, turning the same of Prussia have been known to melt down deaf ear to the remonstrances of the annexed their plate, to sleep on camp beds, to dress State as she did to the tall recruits whom in frieze, to live on peasants' fare, with a she used to kidnap for her army. There is view to keep the national expenditure withno principle of international law upon which in the limits of the yearly receipts. The she has not trampled, no act of robbery or economy they practised themselves, they perfidy which she has hesitated at perpetrat- forced upon every officer in the public sering to accomplish her objects. She first vice. It is amusing to hear Voltaire desuggested, and was the most unscrupulous scribe his disappointment on his first interagent in carrying out the partition of Po- view with Frederic, when he found that land. The very fief from which she derives prince in a bare room, with his bed in one her name was obtained by ejecting the corner, and a naked table, lighted with a knights, whose vested interests she, as the single taper in the other, when he expected, chief of their body, had undertaken by the Frenchman-like, to see him surrounded with most solemn obligations of guardianship to gilt trappings and upholstery magnificence defend. Two of the most important limbs of every kind. His father sold his jewels, of the empire, Posen and Silesia, were seiz- sent his spoons to the mint, abolished the ed by acts of Luccaneering unsurpassed in expense of court ceremonials, and even the history of nations. While, as a member forewent the use of peruke maker and of of the third coalition, receiving money from tailors in order to establish a breeding semGreat Britain to equip and despatch 90,000 | inary for the army, which the son turned to such notable account. The frugal habits peculiar freedom, unrestricted in its social Prussia observed in her impoverished state and religious elements, and yet modified by she has not lost sight of in her prosperous years. Even yet the Finance Committee of Prussia exhibits yearly the cleanest balance-sheet in Europe. The country, considering its extent, is the lightest taxed and the cheapest to live in in the world. While other nations have contracted large debts in times of peace, she has made her yearly resources provide for her yearly exigencies in times of war. After the recent conflict, she quartered her troops for weeks upon her prostrate opponents, besides mulcting them in heavy expenses, by which, if she collects the proceeds, the late campaign instead of imposing a loss, will confer an actual gain, upon her treasury. The States she has incorporated have always been made to pay for the privilege of being annexed, and for the expense which that operation has entailed. By refusing to anticipate her revenues, and to entangle herself in expensive loans, she has been enabled to keep her metallic far ahead of her paper currency. It is this regard for her financial soundness which has made Prussia the most hopeful country in Europe. For her trifle of twenty millions of debt she has provided a sinking fund, which promises to rid the nation of it in twelve years; while Austria and Italy, staggering under the load of immense debts, have no escape from financial beggary, except by heavy national taxation. The consequence is, that the Prussian people find themselves in possession of empire without the pecuniary exigencies and the burdensome debts, which are generally the price at which empire has been purchased. They enjoy all the advantages of a great nation along with the social ease, and freedom from grinding taxation which have been hitherto the exclusive privilege of a small nation. If, therefore, Prussia has evinced a riotous predilection for absorbing surrounding principalities, it has not been without putting in the most incontestable credentials for governing them to the best advantage. If she has forced her rule upon others, it has been more to the advantage of the governed than of the administrators. The latter have had more work without increased pay. The States violently incorporated, like the Sabine women, may have screamed out at first, but their subsequent contentment only shows that they have no other wish than to live upon terms of the closest intimacy with their violators. It is this absorption of the personal interest of the Prussian monarchy in that of the State which gives to that country a that parental care which the Government, as the father of the State, thinks it ought to exercise over every subject. Italy, with all its freedom, has a state religion which as the guardian of national morality it is pledged to support. Prussia has none. She cares no more about a man's religion than about the colour of his coat. Every religious denomination has a clear stage and no favour. Even a Jew may guide her Parliament, and a Roman Catholic may mount her throne. Yet her princes have had no notion of subjecting themselves to inconveniences on account of the welfare of the State, without making their subjects do so likewise. If they have disciplined themselves, they have also insisted upon disciplining their people. The State is, therefore, as a corporate entity, intruded upon every subject's attention at the critical stages of his life, exacting from him certain duties, and compelling his obedience thereto. Prussia claims twelve years of the life of every one of her male subjects, for moulding his mind and drilling his body. As soon as a child of either sex arrives at the age of seven years, to school it must go, and be initiated there for seven years more, not merely in reading and writing, but in the elementary principles of mechanics, in the handling of tools, and in the nature of the relationship which exists between its own body and the surrounding universe. At twenty-one the State interferes again. Every male adult must be initiated for three years into the functions of a common soldier. Even the princes of the blood are not exempt from the general law. To the exigency of this service every domestic tie, private compact, and professional engagement must adapt itself. The State will insist upon three years of every subject's life being sacrificed to itself, on the threshold of manhood. Having then fixed her mark upon him, she retains him in her service for the rest of his life. In two years afterwards he is drafted into the reserve force, which, however, leaves him ample space to follow his occupations as a private citizen. He is then held to the State by looser ties, as a part of the landwehr (militia), though still liable to be called upon for active service in cases of emergency. Having passed through the first ban of the militia at thirty-one, he becomes a member of the second, which though entailing the same duties, has less chance of having its services called into active requisition. He finally passes into the landsturm, as a mem |