HINCKELDEY.
TrCE extraordinary coincidence of pictures presented by Berlin on Thursday last week could not have happened without a long series of events to prepare it. In one part a funeral train of the highest dignity was conducting to the grave the body of a public Minister, the Ring himself being amongst the mourners. In an- other part lay the body of a friend of that Minister—who had died by his own hand, under an impulse of grief—or -under the panic of a political dismay—or, according to the latest version, in another political dud. In a third place, the young nobleman, whose temporary incarceration was politely regretted by the Pre- sident of the Prussian House of Lords, was holding a levee of dis- tinguished visitors in his own house ; he being at large on parole, and the visitors coming on purpose to make a triumphant demon- stration of moral support for the man who had killed the Minister. These are certainly wonderful historical pictures to be got up as tableaux viva= by the great personages of a great King. There must have been a preface to such a combination of tableaux. The King had done it all. We do not mean to charge King Frederick William with having intentionally set the hand of one subject against another, or with creating that civil war—for a civil war does actually exist in Berlin at the present time ; but a very brief consideration of the course which he has taken within the last few years will show that the natural result of his royal intervention is such confusion, such violation of order. When Europe was convulsed in 1848, the King coquetted with the re- bellion, and wheedled his "beloved Berliners " back into submis- sion under his military bureaucratic government. He accepted a constitution, which in a brief space he set aside, and he decreed one by his own royal will. But the will of Frederick William was never very stable, and he has from time to time been touch- ing up, botching, and tinkering the foundations of his own state. He not long since enlarged the representation of his country —if so broad a term as enlarged may be used. About the same time, however, he remodelled -the Upper House for the un- 'tied purpose of increasing the power of the nobles, and giving to " the party of . Order" a larger influence in the Chamber. The party of " Order," soi-disant in Prussia as well as in other countries, is the party opposed to " Reform"— opposed to improvements of a political kind ; relying upon the most arbitrary government. One consequence of the F ing's trim- ming policy has been to nurture Absolutism as a species of phcenix-cuckoo reared in the Constifutional neat. The paternal King, who wants to combine all ingredients in the cookery of constitutions, had sought to develop the bureaucracy as well as the aristocracy of Prussia. He had arranged the ad- ministration into bureaux ; and it is scarcely an anomaly in that latitude if one of the most truly Liberal Ministers was found to be the head of one of these ultra-official bureaux. He combined divers headships; we may say that the head of the Board of Works was the head Policeman. It further illustrates the cu- rious trimming policy of the paternal Monarch, that this same instrument of extremely centralized authority had acted in such a manner as to be the recognized champion of the people. The head Policeman is understood to have been a Liberal at heart ; he was at all events no respecter of one class before another; he was liberal, revolutionary, subversive enough, to dream of carrying out police law equally against aristocratic men and plebeian. It is said that he reported to the King the existence of a Jockey Club, whose sports had degenerated, as sports have done at New- market, into gambling. Here, then, was a subversive "Re- former," identified in aristocratic eyes with an obtrusive Police- man—a Peeler who would intrude into the Crockford's of Berlin —a sort of Sir Richard Mayne, Sir Benjamin Hall, and Lord John Russell, all in one, thrusting himself• amongst the George Bentinek party in the very Jockey Club, and coining there in the name of justice, with the odour of the French alliance ! The Minister had exhibited the frankness of his temperament by giving " the King " as the authority for his acts ; had evinced his loyalty by eating his own words to shield his Sovereign ; and for that sacrifice of the gentleman to the official, he had been , stigmatized by his adversary as " a liar," whom it was an act of chivalry to put out of the way. King Frederick William has so managed his government that police law is confounded with attacks upon the aristocracy. He has so encouraged the party of Order, that it is pampered into a party of Young Prussia, inflated with the hopes of reviving feudal authority ; he has so managed the constitutional government, that his Minister, the man whom he sends to represent him at Paris—the champion that ought to be of constitutional adminis- tration---lately protested in Parliament against the foreign dog- ma of neutralizing the power of the King, and declared his pro- gramme to be this, " We are the servants of the King." Ser- vility is the Prussian Minister's idea of loyalty; rigorous police law is the Prussian Liberal's idea of popular justice ; and assas- sination of the Chief Commissioner of Police is the Prussian Con- servative's idea of restoring influence for the party of Order. And the King, who had lived in some hazy consciousness of the hostility threatened against his Police Minister, follows the Min- ister to the grave, and leaves the murderer to entertain his sup- porters in peace ! The present condition of Prussia appears to be the direct consequence of endeavouring to compromise between fire and water, between Constitutionalism and Absolutism. In such a compromise Absolutism must always gain the day, since it is capable of concentrated purpose, and does not depend upon co- operation between different estates in the realm. But although the condition of Prussia is the clear and direct consequence of a past policy, it is evident that it cannot be the final condition of any state ; it is equally evident that neither King nor statesmen have even the ordinary human control over the progress of events in Prussia.
Previous page
