The King of Prussia met the first North German Parliament
summoned under the new Federal Constitution on Tuesday last, and addressed it with remarkable reticence. Last week—on Thursday week—the Grand Duke of Baden, the most liberal of the Sovereigns of the South German States, had met and addressed his own little Parliament with remarkable openness and candour, and the frankness of the little monarch must be used to interpret the reserve of the great one. The Grand Duke of Baden told his Parliament that all his efforts should be openly directed " to form- ing a national Union, under Prussia, with the North German Con- federation." " I and my faithful people will willingly make the sacrifices inseparably connected with entry into this Union." He congratulates his people on the treaty of offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia, concluded last year after the termina- tion of the war. " Thanks to this convention," he says signi- ficantly, " the first and most important national demand is fulfilled, •defence against every foreign attack by the united powers of all under one leader." The _Duke asks for means to effect " the introduction of the North German system of defence ;" he wishes to ensure the assimilation of the South German system of postage, telegraphy, weights and measures, and coinage, to that of the Northern Federation. In short, he wants the South German States to follow voluntarily in the path of national legislation proposed to the North German Parliament by Kiug William. His speech was the natural answer of the Liberal party in South Germany to the Salzburg meeting, and to the broad hints of the Ministerial papers in France that the Treaty of Prague marks the ne plus ultra of German extension.
