PRUSSIAN FINANCE.
ACHARACTERISTIC little anecdote of the King of Prussia and his late Minister of the Interior was told at the recent coronation show at Konigsberg. William I. having made his grand impromptu speech about divine-right kingship and grace-of-God government, Count Schwerin shrugged his shoulders, and audibly exclaimed, "And the money ? " The Count, himself a poor man, of aristocratic birth but plebeian fortune, knew something about the awful question of cash. The King probably did not at that time, but it seems that he has since learnt something likewise. It is a lesson which all sovereigns by the grace-of-God, from Charles I. to Louis. XVI., and William I., must learn at some time or other. The most dutiful subjects in the world will not pay ship-money unless they see what is done with it, and object to taxes the use of which they cannot comprehend. This is the natural origin of constitutional government, and the quite as natural solvent of divine-right kingship. The process is very beautifully illustrated in Prussia at the present moment. The constitutional malady in Prussia has broken out rather suddenly. The realm of the Hohenzollerns was always be- lieved to be a rather quiet-going country in the way of finance ; as respectable as a retired shopkeeper of solid income, who pays his bills on the quarter day. A trifling public debt of some 265 millions of thalers—little more than the annual interest which our own dear country pays for her national obligations—made Prussia appear almost like a miser among the states of Europe, hoarding uncounted wealth, and un- willing to take her share in the expenses of our spendthrift age. This dream of prosperity has now all at once been rudely dispelled, by no less a person than Herr von der Heydt, the Prussian Minister of Finance. In a despatch to his colleague of the war department, he confides to him sotto voce that the public exchequer is bankrupt, that the expenses far surpass the income, and that, to restore the equilibrium, a reduction of the army is absolutely necessary. The news must have come like a thunderbolt upon poor Herr von Roon, who, according to his own declaration in the late Chamber of Deputies, holds the army to be the main prop of the Prussian state, vowing that utter ruin must ensue if a single soldier were discharged. The King him- self, as is well known, shares his War-Minister's opinions ; but is completely helpless in the face of the inexorable logic of his Chancellor of the Exchequer. The truth is, the King, with all his nonsense, his antiquated feudal notions, and his military hobbies, is not without a sub- stratum of solid sense, and, as shown by his whole career, invariably gives way in his prejudices before the pres- sure of stubborn facts. So, it has et:me to pass now, that Herr von der Heydt has been able to plunge the lancet into the tenderest of all his Majesty's fancies, the strength of the army. It must have been a fearful struggle in the royal mind to reach a perception of this financial question through the wild haze of divine-right notions which sur- rounded it. The final victory of fact over fancy is the more notable, as the personal influence of the exponent of the subject was of no account whatever. Herr von der Heydt is ambitious of becoming the Necker of Prussia, and is no more beloved, therefore, at the court of William I. than his prototype was at that of Louis XVI. Besides, his Majesty must be perfectly well aware that his minister, though a very clever financier, is a thoroughly unprincipled statesman. Since 1848, Herr von der Heydt has wheeled round the whole political compass, from the ultra-Liberal to the ultra-Con- servative side ; and is consequently mistrusted now by all parties, but particularly by the old feudal fraction. The latter have never forgiven him his plebeian origin,his bourgeois pride and rapacity, and his commercial free-trade notions. Formerly partner in an industrial establishment in Western Prussia Herr Von der Heydt has never forgotten his old habits, but has devoted his elevated position chiefly to the attainment of the one great object of making money. If rumour speaks true the wealth of no man in Prussia is increasing faster than that of the Minister of Finance. Many an old baronial estate is deeply mortgaged to his Excellency, many a broad acre is transferred from a most noble " junker" to the ownership of the low-born man of finance. What more natural than that the old Prussian nobility should hate the parvenu Minister almost as much as they bate democracy ? That such a mau should have persuaded the king into submitting to the most important reform of his life, involving long-cherished principles, which Prussia has in vain demanded for the last twenty years, is a most significant fact. It well deserves examination. The pride and the weakness of Prussia has always consisted in her condition as a purely military state, unexampled and un- rivalled as such in modern times. With a population of eigh- teen millions, she possesses an army of above 600,000 men, exclusive of militia. What is called the peace footing of the troops—that is, their utmost reduction in numbers—leaves more than two hundred thousand soldiers in the ranks. In reality, the reduction seldom reaches to this extent. Every year 60,000 men are called up, and the average time of service, line and militia, being nineteen years, there are con- sequently 1,400,000 men continually on the regimental books. Deducting twenty per cent. loss, from illness and other causes, there still remain 855,000 men at the disposal of the Government. This enormous army, as might be ex- pected, devours the best part of the revenues of Prussia. In the budget, as laid before the Chambers last year, the allowance for the Ministry of War is set down at forty million thalers ; but there is reason to believe that it amounts to even more than this sum, and that some of the items of other departments are devoted, in addition, to the maintenance of the huge body of troops. That there is some mystery in these matters is clear, from the fact that the Prussian Ministry have hitherto obstinately refused to lay the details of the budget before the representatives of the people. This refusal, as is well known, led to the dissolution of the last Chamber, on the emphatic declaration of the official advisers of the Crown, that government would become impossible under a too close financial inspection. All that the Minister of Finance promised, was to " lump" the sums of income and expenditure under a certain number of headings, and in this form offer them to the inspection of the curious. The crude budget thus published shapes itself somewhat as follows General income, 135 million thalers ; general expenditure for 1861,140 millions ; deficit, five millions. This deficit, so far from reducing it by timely savings, the King has, been trying to increase since his ascension to the throne, by a pro- posed new organization of the army, which would give his Majesty sonic fifty thousand more soldiers, and the country an additional burden of some seven million thalers annually. To cover this double deficit, at least to some extent, it was proposed to add twenty-five per cent. to the income tax, and slightly raise the fiscal duties on some articles of first neces- sity. Against this scheme, the whole country protested, and the consequence was a House of Deputies in which the opposition formed the great majority. The whole struggle between the Government and this opposition was one of finance from beginning to end. Other ques- tions were brought forward in preparatory skirmish ; but this was the great battle which all knew would decide the campaign, and which did decide it in reality, even sooner than was expected. The dissolution of the Chamber, it has now been discovered, was a great political blunder, for it is' absolutely certain that the new House of Deputies will be of a far more liberal shade, and, above all, much more bent on financial reforms than even the old. It is the knowledge of this fact which has produced the extraordinary letter of the Minister of Finance to his colleague at the War Office, proposing a reduction of the army. The chief object of his Excellency is, of course, to take the wind out of the sails of the coming opposition, and to prevent sweeping reforms by partial concessions. But there is some deeper scheme hidden beneath this proposed rearrangement of the Prussian finances. Nothing is said in Herr von der Heydt's letter about the intention of the Government to lay for the future the details of the budget, so often demanded, before the representatives of the nation ; but it seems, on the con- trary, from the whole tenour of the document, that this great point will be evaded. The Minister is evidently most anxious to come before the country with an even budget, chiefly in order that his accounts may not be too closely examined. The equalization of income and expenditure being likely to satisfy the demands of the people at large, and no new taxes being required, the Minister seems to hope that the old point will be ceded, and that such motions as Herr von der Hagen's will not be repeated. Probably, Herr von der Heydt may be successful in this scheme, though it would be a success much to be regretted. There is a skeleton somewhere in the household of Prussian finance, and the sooner it is found out the better.
Taking Herr von der Heydt's proposal for a reduction of the army for what it is worth, it must be allowed to be a very great concession to the spirit of constitutional govern- ment. It is, in reality, the first open acknowledgment of the right of the Prussian people to control the public expenditure and to impose their own taxes. The paper constitution of 1848, begot in riot and lost in despotism and that reaction which inevitably follows all violent efforts, promised the same thing, but never carried it out faithfully; and it required fourteen years of quiet but energetic exertion on the part of the people to gain this first triumph. It is a great step in advance from every point of view, and augurs well for the political future of Prussia. Until within the last few weeks it seemed a doubtful point whether the great bulk of the subjects of William I. had really sufficient political education to appreciate the struggle now going on between a divine-right Government and the selection of the best among the people for constitutional rule. There were many even in Prussia who doubted the ripeness of the million, in spite of the high education and general advance in culture for which the country is distin- guished. The epistle of Herr von der Heydt has dispelled these doubts. The very extensive bureaucratic organization of the Government allows him to feel the pulse of the people to a nicety, and we may take it for granted that, had he not felt the absolute necessity of giving way before the spirit of reform, his Excellency would not have dreamt for a moment of laying before the King such a fright- fully trevolutionary proposal as that for reducing the army. A twelvemonth ago, the mere hint of such a change would have cost Herr von der Heydt his place—a thing to which he is believed to cling more than to aught else in the world. As it is, the good will and affection of the King will be lost to him for ever. How his Majesty feels the effect of his proposition only those can imagine who comprehend the exclusively military education which Wil- liam I. has received, and the spirit of Horse-guards phi- losophy with which he has been indoctrinated, from the tender age of three, when he was taken out of his petticoats and squeezed into corporal's trousers, till now that his hair has grown grey under the peaked helmet of the marshal's uniform. Dreadful must be the visions now rising in the mind of the harassed King. Already he must see himself surrounded by a set of disagreeable constitutional Minis- ters, in black pantaloons and tail-coats, talking to him in off-hand manner of their duties to the country, and bowing deeper to a deputy than to him. Already, he hears the tumultuous noise of deputies debating the estimates, and cutting his allowance down to a fraction not sufficient for one .week's coronation expenses. William I. has seen all these awful things here in England in 1848, when he studied constitutional institutions somewhat against his will. His Majesty then visited St. Stephen's on one occasion, and the vision probably will be a nightmare for the term of Ins natural life.
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