At last this long-expected piece of workmanship has made its 
appearance! °' At last ——if we believe the Times, Globe, some French 
and some German papers — Prussia has passed over to the ranks of 
constitutional countries. The Northern Star, however, has already 
sufficiently proved that this so-called Constitution is nothing but a 
trap offered to the Prussian people to cheat them of the rights 
promised by the late king,* at the time he wanted popular support. 
That this is the fact, that Frederick William tries by this so-called 
Constitution to obtain money without being obliged to make 
concessions to public opinion, is certain beyond all doubt. The 
democratic papers of all countries—in France, particularly the 
National and Réforme, nay, the ministerial Journal des Débats,— agree 
in this opinion. The fettered German press itself stammers words 
which allow no other conclusion, but that the movement party in 
Prussia is quite aware of the sly intentions of their “open-hearted, 
generous” king. The.question then is this: will the king succeed in his 
plans? Will the Central Assembly of Estates be either stupid or 
cowardly enough to guarantee a new loan, without securing to the 
people extended liberties, and thus give the king the means to 
continue the present system for an indefinite length of time? 

We answer: No; they will not, they cannot. 

The hitherto followed plan of government in Prussia was the 
consequence of the relative position of the nobility and the middle 
classes in Prussia. The nobility had lost too much of its former 
strength, wealth and influence, to dominate the king as formerly it 

had done. The middle classes were not yet strong enough to 
overcome the dead weight of the nobility, which cramped their 
commercial and industrial progress. Thus the king, representing the 
central power of the state, and supported by the numerous class of 
government officers, civil and military, besides having the army at 
his disposal, was enabled to keep down the middle classes by the 
nobility, and the nobility by the middle classes, by flattering now the 
interests of the one, and then those of the other; and balancing, as 
much as possible, the influence of both. This stage of absolute 
monarchy has been gone through by almost all the civilised countries 
of Europe, and in those most advanced it has now given place to the 
government of the middle classes. 

Prussia, the most advanced of German countries, had hitherto 
wanted a middle class, wealthy, strong, united and energetic enough 
to shake off the domination of absolutism, and to crush the remains 
of feudal nobility. The two contending elements, nobility and middle 
classes, are, however, placed in such circumstances, that by the 
natural progress of industry and civilisation, the one (the middle 
classes) must increase in wealth and influence, while the other (the 
nobility) must decrease, impoverish and lose more and more its 
ascendancy. While, therefore, the Prussian nobility and large landed 
proprietors, found themselves every year in a worse position, first, by 
the ruinous wars with France in the beginning of this century; then 
by the English Corn Laws, ** which shut them out from the market of 
that country; then by the competition of Australia, in one of their 
chief productions, wool, and by many other circumstances —the 
middle classes of Prussia increased enormously in wealth, productive 
powers, and influence in general. The wars with France, the shutting 
out of English manufactured goods from the Continental markets, 
created manufacturing industry in Prussia; and when peace was 
re-established, the upstart manufacturers were powerful enough to 
force government to grant them protective duties (1818). Soon 
afterwards, the Zollverein was founded, a union which almost 
exclusively advanced the interests of the middle classes.*> And, above 
all, the violent competitive struggle arising between the different 
trading and manufacturing nations during these last 30 years of 
peace, forced the somewhat indolent Prussian middle classes, either 
to allow themselves to be entirely ruined by foreign competition, or 
to set to work in good earnest, as well as their neighbours. 

The progress of the middle classes was very little visible up to the 
year 1840, when the ascension to the throne of a new king’ appeared 

to them the proper moment to show that, since 1815, things were 
rather changed in Prussia. I need not recapitulate how the 
middle-class movement has progressed since that time; how all parts 
of the kingdom acceded to it, until at last all the middle classes, a 
great part of the peasantry, and not a few of the nobility, joined in it. 
A representative constitution, liberty of the press, open courts of law, 
immovability of the judges, trial by jury — such were the demands of 
the middle classes. The peasantry or small landed proprietors saw 
very well—in the more enlightened parts of the kingdom, at 
least —that such measures were for their interests, too, being the 
only ones by which they could hope to free themselves from the 
remnants of feudality, and to have that influence upon the making 
of laws which it was desirable for them to possess. The poorer part of 
the nobility thought that the constitutional system might, perhaps, 
give them such a position in the legislature as their interests 
demanded; and that, at all events, this system could not be more 
ruinous to them than that under which they lived. It was principally 
the nobility of Prussia Proper and Posen, who, being severely 
oppressed by want of markets for their produce, acceded to the 
Liberal movement from such considerations. 

The middle classes themselves got more and more into an 
uncomfortable position. They had increased their manufacturing 
and mining concerns, as well as their shipping, to a considerable 
extent; they were the chief furnishers for the whole market of the 
Zollverein; their wealth and numbers had increased very much. But 
during the last ten or fifteen years the enormous progress of English 
manufactures and mining operations have threatened them with a 
deadly competition. Every glut in the English market threw large 
quantities of English goods into the Zollverein, where they were sold 
at prices more ruinous to the Germans than to the English, because 
these latter made, during the times of flourishing trade, large profits 
in the American and other markets, while the Prussians could never 
sell their produce anywhere but within the circle of their own line of 
customs. Their shipping was almost excluded from the ports of 
foreign nations, while ships of all flags entered the Prussian ports on 
equal conditions with the Prussians. Thus, although there is 
comparatively little capital in Prussia, there commenced a difficulty 
of investing this capital profitably. Trade appeared to be labouring 
under a continual pressure; factories, machinery, stock in trade, 
were slowly, but continually, depreciated; and this general uneasi- 
ness was for a moment only interrupted by the railway speculations, 
which, within the last eight years, were started in Prussia. These 
speculations, by raising the value of ready money, increased the 

a 

to the Deutsche-Briisseler-Zeitung May 6, 1847 

depreciation of stock in trade, and were themselves, on an average, 
not very profitable, on account of the comparatively thin population 
and trade of the greater part of the country. They offered, however, 
a still better chance of profit than other industrial investments; and 
thus every one who could dispose of some capital engaged in them. 
Very soon these speculations assumed, as usual, a feverish character, 
and ended in a crisis which now for about a twelve-month has 
oppressed the Prussian money markets. Thus the middle classes 
‘found themselves in a very uncomfortable position in the beginning 
of the present year: the money markets under the pressure of an 
extraordinary want of coin; the manufacturing districts requiring 
more than ever those protective duties which the government 
refused to grant; the coast towns requiring navigation laws as 
the only means to relieve them; and, over and above all, a rise in 
the corn markets, which brought the country to a state approaching 
famine. All these causes of discontent operated at the same 
time, and more strongly so upon the people; the Silesian linen- 
weavers in the greatest distress; the cotton factories stopped; in 
the large manufacturing district of the Rhine almost all hands 
out of work, the potato crop mostly ruined, and bread at famine 
prices. The moment was evidently come for the middle classes 
to take the government out of the hands of an imbecile king, 
weak nobility, and self-conceited bureaucracy, and to secure it to 
themselves. 

It is a curious fact, but which is repeated at every revolutionary 
epoch, that at the very moment when the leading class of a 
movement is most favourably placed for the accomplishment of that 
movement, the old worn-out government is reduced to beg the 
assistance of this same leading class. Thus in 1789, in France, when 
famine, bad trade, and divisions among the nobility pushed, so to 
say, the middle classes to a revolution—at that very moment the 
government found its money resources exhausted, and was reduced 
to begin the revolution by the convocation of the States-General.™ 
Thus in 1847 in Prussia. At the very moment when the more 
indolent Prussian middle classes are almost forced by circumstances 
to change the governmental system, at that moment the king, by 
want of money, is forced to commence that change of system, and to 
convocate in his turn the Prussian States-General. It is indubitable 
that the States would offer him much less resistance than they will 
now, if the money market was easy, the factories at full work (which 
would be caused by a flourishing trade and ready sale, and 
consequent high prices for manufactured goods in England) and 
corn at a reasonably low price. But so it is: in times of approaching 

revolution, the progressive classes of society have always all chances 
on their side. 

I have, during the course of 1845 and 1846, more than once 
shown to the readers of the Star, that the King of Prussia was in a 
very embarrassed financial situation’; I have at the same time called 
their attention to the several clever plans by which his ministers 
sought to extricate him; and predicted that the whole affair must end 
by a convocation of the States-General. The event, then, was neither 
unexpected, nor, as it now is represented, caused by the free grace of 
his squandering majesty; nothing but sheer necessity, poverty and 
distress could move him to such a step, and there is not a child in 
Prussia but knows this. The only question, then, is this: — Will the 
Prussian middle classes, by investing a new loan with their guarantee, 
allow the king to go on as he has done hitherto and to disregard for 
another seven years their petitions and their wants? 

We have already answered this question. They cannot do this. We 
have proved it from the situation of the respective classes, and we 
shall now prove it from the composition of the States-General 
themselves. 

Members of high and low nobility ...............000 311 
Do. for towns and peasantry ............:ccccceeeteeeeeees 306 

As the king has declared his intention to increase the members of 
the high nobility (80 in all) by new creations of peers, we may add to 
the nobility, about 30 more; 341 members of nobility, or government 
party. Deduct from this number the liberal fractions of the lower 
nobility, namely, all the nobility of Prussia Proper, two-thirds of that 
of Posen, and some members of the Rhenish, Silesian, Brandenburg 
and Westphalian nobility, say 70 liberal members, voting with the 
towns and peasantry, and the position of parties is as follows: — 

Nobility, or government party 0.0.0.0... cceeeeeeeees 271 
Towns and peasantry, or liberal opposition ...... 376 

Thus, even allowing that thirty or forty town or peasantry 
members from the remote districts should vote for the government, 
there will always be a liberal majority of from twenty-five to fifty 
votes remaining, and with a little energy on the part of the Liberals, it 
will be easy to meet every demand for money with another demand 
for liberal institutions. There is besides, no doubt, that, under 
present circumstances, the people will support the middle classes, 
and by their pressure from without, which indeed is very much 

wanted, strengthen the courage and enliven the energies of those 
within. 

Thus, the Prussian constitution, insignificant in itself, is, for all 
that, the beginning of a new epoch for that country, and for all 
Germany. It marks the downfall of absolutism and nobility, and the 
ascendancy of the middle classes; it marks the beginning of a 
movement which will very soon lead to a representative constitution 
for the middle classes, a free press, independent judges and trial by 
jury, and which will end God knows where. It marks the repetition of 
1789 in Prussia. And if the revolutionary movement which now 
begins, will directly interest the middle classes only, it is yet not at all 
indifferent to the interests of the people. From the moment the 
power of the middle classes is constituted, from that moment begins 
the separate and distinct democratic movement. In the struggle 
against despotism and aristocracy, the people, the democratic party, 
cannot but play a secondary part; the first place belongs to the 
middle classes. From the moment, however, the middle classes 
establish their own government, identify themselves with a new 
despotism and aristocracy against the people, from that moment 
democracy takes its stand as the only, the exclusive movement party; 
from that moment the struggle is simplified, reduced to two parties, 
and changes, by that circumstance, into a “war to the knife”. The his- 
tory of the French and English democratic parties fully proves this. 

There is another circumstance to be remarked. The conquest of 
public power by the middle classes of Prussia will change the political 
position of all European countries. The alliance of the North will be 
dissolved. Austria and Russia, the chief spoliators of Poland, will be 
entirely isolated from the rest of Europe, for Prussia carries along 
with her the smaller states of Germany, who all have constitutional 
governments. Thus the balance of power in Europe will be entirely 
changed by the consequences of this insignificant constitution; the 
desertion of three-fourths of Germany from the camp of stationary 
Eastern Europe into that of progressive Western Europe. In 
February 1846, broke out the last Polish insurrection. In February 
1847, Frederick William convocates his States-General. The vengeance 
of Poland is drawing nigh! 

No. 489, March 6, 1847