8 APRIL 1854, Page 1

Notwithstanding the hopeful allusions in the debate on the war,

last week, some promising signs in the Prussian Chambers, and the perpetual alternation of better with the gloomier portents, the position of Prussia grows even more doubtful, not to say un- pleasant, than it was. Diplomatists and autograph Imperial notes are moving backwards and forwards, and we shall have an account of these movements some day in more "correspondence." Those who are sanguine gather hope from the fact that Baron Hess has been sent from Vienna to Berlin, the Baron being known as anti- Russian ; and that the Emperor Francis Joseph has transmitted an autograph letter to the Emperor Napoleon. The Prussian Chambers, too, contributed earlier in the week to revive English confidence in Prussia, which had sunk with the manifest vacilla- tion of Frederick William. The Chambers have sanctioned the loan of 30,000,000 dollars ; accompanying their sanction by a de- claration that they accorded it on the faith of Government assur- ances, that the policy of the Four Powers at Vienna would be fol- lowed up in the endeavour to regain peace based upon right. This looked patriotic and manly, and as it was understood to chime with the feelings of Baron Manteuffel, it was thought that the Prussian Parliament had supplied the defective firmness and sagacity of the Court. Subsequently, however, comes this new report of "peace proposals" from St. Petersburg, transmitted to Vienna with the hearty approval of Prussia,—" Prussia," of course, meaning King Frederick William. The proposals appear to be nothing but a re- newal of the last which were rejected by the Prussian as well as the Austrian Court, slightly altered in unessential points. They were conveyed to Berlin by the Grand Duke George of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and are supposed to be in reply to the Prussian hint conveyed by Baron Lindheim. They are most pro- bably intended, therefore, as a convenience to Prussia, and as a facility for her retractation from the Western alliance and her re- turn towards Russia, by affording a pretext new at least in name. Nobody now believes that Russia can put forward anything in the name of " peace " which is not a mockery, a delusion, and a snare ; and the attitude of Prussia at this moment indicates that she is willing to be both dupe and accomplice. That Austria too is falling into the trap, it would be unjust to believe upon the hasty insinuations of the electric telegraph. If she do, it may be said of her, as it may of Prussia, that she makes her election at her own peril; for if the German Powers were now to join with Russia, the effect would be, not the avoidance of war, but the ex- change of a war to sustain the existing relations of Europe, for a revolutionary war of boundless expansion.