Cologne, 6 January. What the Prussian government costs the country we have at last had in black and white for a few days now. The *Preußische Staats-Anzeiger* has at last, with the financial budget for the year 1849, shown us how shamelessly we have been lied to in previous budgets. This splendid New Year’s gift came as a surprise only to those who until now regarded every word of the government-by-the-Grace-of-God as holy truth and the whole state-finance humbug practised on us since 1820 as proof of the excellence of our police-state budget.

Prussia is a country of some 5,000 square miles and slightly more than 16 million inhabitants.

The United States of North America encompass a territory whose area is now fairly close to that of the whole of Europe and whose population amounts to over 21 million.

There is no more appropriate introduction to reflections on the Prussian budget for 1849 than the budget of the North American free states.

A comparison of the two budgets shows how dearly the Prussian bourgeois must pay for the pleasure of being ruled by a government-by-the-Grace-of-God, maltreated by its mercenaries with and without states of siege, and treated *en canaille* by a host of arrogant officials and Junker squireens. At the same time, however, it shows how cheaply a courageous bourgeoisie, conscious of its power and resolved to use it, can set up its government.

The budgets on both sides are in themselves sufficient proof of the cowardice, narrow-mindedness and petty-bourgeois philistinism of the one, just as they are of the self-assurance, insight and energy of the other.

The total expenditure of the United States during the year 1848 amounted to $42,811,970. This includes the costs of the Mexican war, a war waged 2,000 miles from the seat of central government. One realises what enormous expenditure the transport of the army, and of all the articles required for it, made necessary.

The revenue of the Union came to $35,436,750, namely $31,757,070 in customs duties, $3,328,642 from the sale of public lands and $351,037 in miscellaneous and incidental revenue. Since the ordinary revenue was insufficient because of the war costs, the deficit was covered by loans, which were concluded at above par. Just ask on the money market whether the “Christian-Germanic” government would be capable of raising even 1,000 thalers on such advantageous terms!

In the United States the financial year begins on 1 July. Up to July 1849 expenditure will still be considerable, because of the Mexican war, compared with normal times – though not, of course, compared with Prussia. For the next financial year, however, ending on 1 July 1850, President Polk announces in his message to Congress the ordinary peacetime budget.

How high is the expenditure of this mighty state – the North American bourgeois republic – in peacetime?

$33,213,152, including interest ($3,799,102) on the public debt and the $3,540,000 to be paid to Mexico on 30 May 1850.

If the two latter sums, which appear in the budget as extraordinary items, are deducted, the entire government and administration of the United States costs not yet $26 million a year.

And how much do the Prussian citizens pay annually to the state in peacetime?

The answer is bitter. The *Preußische Staats-Anzeiger* gives it to us.

It reads: more than 94 million thalers a year!

Thus while the 21 million inhabitants of the North American republic, with all their prosperity, indeed with all their wealth, pay scarcely 26 million dollars – that is not yet 38 million thalers Prussian courant – into the state treasury, the 16 million Prussians, with their comparative poverty, must annually throw up to 94 million thalers down the throat of the state exchequer, and yet even that does not satisfy it.

But let us not be unjust!

The North American republic possesses, in return, nothing more than a president elected every four years, who admittedly works more for the country than a dozen kings and emperors put together. He does, however, receive for it only the paltry annual salary of 37,000 thalers Prussian courant. In this tiny sum of 37,000 thalers the whole agony of a Christian-Prussian soul with its God for King and Junkerdom can be summed up. No chamberlains, no court jewellers, no sprinkling of the road to Charlottenburg for court ladies, no game-park apparatus at the citizen’s expense, etc. O it is terrible! But the most terrible thing is that these North Americans do not even seem to grasp this dreadfulness, this barrenness, this God-forsakenness.

How entirely different it is with us. Even if we pay three and four times as much, we also enjoy things that they do not have, cannot have for 37,000 thalers. We rejoice and refresh ourselves in the splendour of a court by the grace of God, which – one does not know exactly, but according to a rough estimate – costs the people 4 to 5 million a year.

While the Americans are such foolish fellows as to keep their money as far as possible for their own splendour and their own benefit, we feel Christian-Germanically obliged to throw our splendour, i.e. our money, away from us and let others shine with it. And quite apart from the splendour, what benefits does not a court richly endowed out of the people’s pockets offer to a mass of poor counts, barons, free lords, simple “vons”, etc.? A great number of these people, who are equipped only for consumption, not for production, would in the end perish miserably if they did not receive, in a refined way, a public alms. If one wanted to go through all the benefactions and advantages one by one, we should not be finished today.

And how far behind us in other respects do the Americans stand because of their small budget!

Among them, for example, Lord Chief President Bötticher would not receive a gift of 3,000 thalers from the state treasury. He could be content with his handsome salary, it would be said. For counts and barons nothing would fall out for the rearing of children. The North American republic would in such a case say to these gracious lords: *alors il faut s’abstenir d’avoir des enfants!* A “Hüser” would there be cheated of his annual gratuity of 6,000 thalers and would have to content himself with his salary; indeed the latter would perhaps be reduced to 3,000 thalers. On that a man, a Prussian man, a Christian-Germanic general was supposed to live? Godless thought! *Apage!*

The Americans, like Herr Hansemann, lack all geniality in money matters.

They would send Don Carlos at most a few whippings, but never ever 700,000 thalers, so that he, together with his grandees and monks, could live it up and fight for Metternichian legitimacy. Only a monarchy by the grace of God, whose subjects’ pockets must at all times and by right remain open, is capable of that.

If the American’s taxes to the state are indeed very insignificant, he also possesses, on the other hand, only a standing army of 10,000 men, which can be rapidly increased solely in times of war to up to 2 million sturdy warriors. He is not remotely acquainted with the happiness of being permitted to spend the best part of his taxes on a war-host that besieges, maltreats, wounds and shoots us dead in time of peace – all to the glory and honour of the fatherland.

But what is the use? These bourgeois republicans are simply so stubborn that they want nothing to do with our Christian-Germanic institutions, and indeed would rather pay low taxes than high ones.

Just as stubbornly, the German bourgeois insists that the monarchy-by-the-Grace-of-God, with its army of soldiers and officials, its hosts of pensioners, its gratuities, extraordinaries, etc., cannot possibly be paid highly enough.

The moneybag republican of North America and the bourgeois in Prussia relate to each other exactly as their budgets do, as 37 to 94 million. The one graced by himself, the other graced by God: that is the real difference.