The display of a " virtual" representation of the Prussian
States in a National Council, on sufferance, has scarcely passed away ere the same country exhibits signs of political activity of another sort. M. GEORGE HERWEGH, a young Swiss, a political poet, and a Republican, became connected with a paper which cir- culated in Germany. The King of Prussia had already admitted M. linawson to his presence ; had attempted, apparently, to Seduce him from the austerities of his Republicanism ; and had exposed the royal advances to a rebuff. If M. HERWEGH, how- ever, could not be beaten in the encounter of wits, he could be gagged ; and accordingly his paper was prohibited in Prussia. The paper is suppressed; but the King exposed himself to the further damage of a long lecture from the prohibited editor, which is in fact an appeal from the Monarch's arbitrary conduct to his pretensions in respect of what is intellectual and liberal. On the face of the story—of which, indeed, the counter-explo- itation is yet wanting—the King is committed to a ludicrously false position. It appears to be the natural result of entertaining in- 'compatible objects. He seems sincere in the desire to bestow won his people freer institutions; but his heart misgives him, and he wishes to retain in his own hand that complete power which he -very probably thinks so wise a ruler as himself cannot but use 'beneficially for "my people." The cunning device is to make the 'people a sort of tenants-at-will of free institutions ; having all the benefit and all the glory of popular power--with its claws pared. Such seems to be the impossible object the pursuit of which lays the paternal King open to lectures like that from impracticable M. HERWEGH.
To the denizen of a free country, this bubble which rises to the 'surface suggests a further reflection. One of the uses of a free press is, not merely to concentrate the popular will and power, nor solely to afford a vent for popular excitement, but also to serve as an open index of what is going forward. For want of such an index, the actual political condition of Germany must be in some -degree matter of conjecture, even to those best informed ; for it they know that there is a ferment, and that there are agencies at 'work of which the fruits will one day appear, they cannot estimate the entire extent of those agencies, or whether they are really the only influences—whether there are not others beyond to appear un- expectedly ; they cannot tell, in short, precisely what is the matter. In countries, on the other hand, where there is a free press, gene- rally speaking the elements of disorder arc not hidden, the worst is known, and the spirit of order is forearmed by being forewarned. So it is in France, in England, in the United States ; and ap- proaching danger is foreseen. Could they enjoy it, there are uses in a free press which the veriest despots would prize.
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