Since Prince Bismarck has declared that he leans and neces-
sarily leans more and more on the Liberal party, it is inter- esting to observe how heartily the Liberal party seem to support him in the obscurantist policy of punishing free discussion. The Germania has got into trouble for allowing its London correspondent to translate portions of a leading article published in this journal on the 30th of November last, on " The New Law of Persecution in Prussia." A calmer and more dis- passionate statement of the effect of the law it would not be easy to conceive, but the Germania of last Saturday announces that it was invited last Thursday week to show cause why proceedings should not be taken against it for the London correspondence in which our leading article was translated, and apparently the proceedings against it for that correspondent's letter will not be dropped. This, then, is a Liberal Government in a very emphatic sense indeed,—so Liberal that it will not allow the Liberalism of its own measures to be temperately challenged by Liberals, on the ground of principles which have been accepted as axiomatically Liberal from time immemorial, without prosecuting those who circulate these challenges, for bringing the Govern- ment into contempt. People will too soon, we take it, be asking far and wide in Prussia when the time of this "Liberal" tyranny is to be overpast.
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