Cologne, August 3. Number 215 of the Kolnische Zeitung carries the
following appeal to Rhenish patrictism:

“As we have just been reliably informed, up to today, about 210,000 talers in
contributions to the voluntary loan, partly in cash and partly by subscription, have
been received here in the city of Cologne. It is to be expected that persons who up to
now have not contributed to this government loan will recognise and fulfil their duty
as citizens within the next ten days, the more so since their own advantage is bound to
counsel them to lend their money at 5 per cent interest before August 10—rather than
at 3°/3 per cent after that date. It is particularly necessary that the rural inhabitants,
who up to now have not yet contributed to the loan in the right proportion, should not
miss this deadline. Otherwise compulsion would have to be used where patriotism and correct
insight are lacking.”

A total of 17/3; per cent premium has been placed upon the
patriotism of the taxpayers and yet “for a’ that and a’ that’?
patriotism persists in its latent condition! C’est inconcevable.>
difference of 17/3; per cent! Can patriotism resist this ringing
argument of 1?/; per cent?

It is our duty to explain this wonderful phenomenon to our
beloved fellow newspaper.

By what means does the Prussian state want to pay not 5, but only
3/, per cent? By new taxes. And if the usual taxes are not enough, as
is to be expected, by a new compulsory loan. And by what means
compulsory loan No. II? By compulsory loan No. III. And by what
means compulsory loan No. III? By bankruptcy. Thus patriotism

* Quoted from Ferdinand Freiligrath’s translation (““Trotz alledem!”) of Robert
Burns’ poem “For a’ that and a’ that”.— Ed.
This is incomprehensible.— Ed.

commands that the road which the Prussian Government has
entered upon must be barricaded in every possible way, not by talers
but by protests.

Prussia, moreover, is already enjoying an extra debt of 10 million
talers for the Hunnish war in Posen. Thus a voluntary loan of fifteen
million talers would only be a bill of indemnity for the intrigues of
the secret cabinet in Potsdam?!! which, against the orders of the weak
cabinet at Berlin, conducted this war in the interests of the Russians
and the reaction. The junker counter-revolution condescends
sufficiently to appeal to the purse of the townsmen and peasants who
afterwards must pay for its heroic deeds. And the hard-hearted
“rural inhabitants” resist such condescension? The “Government of
Action”, moreover, demands money for the constabulary business and
you do not possess the “correct insight” into the blessings of the
constabulary which has been brought from England to Prussia? The
“Government of Action” wants to gag you and you refuse to give it
the money for the gags? What a strange lack of insight!

The Government of Action needs money to make the particular
interests of the Uckermark prevail against German unity. And the
rural inhabitants of the administrative district of Cologne are
deluded enough not to want to bear the costs for the defence of
Uckermark-Pomeranian nationality in spite of the premium of rs
per cent? What has become of patriotism?

Finally, our patriotic fellow newspaper which threatens “execution”
forgets in its ardour that the compulsory loan has not yet been voted
by the Agreement Assembly? and the ministerial Bills have the same
force of law as editorials of the Kélnische Zeitung.