Censure

Stettin, February 24. From an official survey of the Prussian merchant marine drawn up by Messrs. E. Wendt & Co., agents for Lloyds in London, we take the following data. At the end of last year the entire Prussian merchant marine consisted of 911 ships of 134,702 lasts, while in March 1848 it still numbered only 822 ships of 113,022 lasts. It has therefore increased from March to December 1848 by 89 ships with 21,680 lasts.
Of these:
Stettin has 203 ships with 27,098 lasts
Danzig 112 ships with 23,897 lasts
Stralsund 103 ships with 11,721 lasts
Memel 95 ships with 19,946 lasts
Greifswalde 55 ships with 6,079 lasts
Barth 80 ships with 9,268 lasts
Cologne 3 ships with 651 lasts, etc.

(D. Z.) Vienna, March 5. The report on the condition of the Austrian National Bank will certainly have reached you by now. Figures decide. But from the sequence of the items the foreign countries cannot gain an accurate view of the state of affairs. It is precisely foreign countries that should pay heed to Austria’s finances, for it is precisely the foreign creditors who will have to suffer the most in case of a disaster. The last support of Austrian paper rests on the belief that the National Bank, in its present situation, offers greater security than the state, which has already twice gone bankrupt. But this belief is entirely false; as things now stand, any payment difficulty of the state treasury necessarily entails the insolvency of the National Bank. I will here set together the items of state debts, which were certainly not unintentionally separated from one another in the last bank report, and they will make clear the intimate connection between the Austrian state treasury and the National Bank.

Advances against state securities deposited in accordance with the statutes 12,604,900 fl.
Funded state debt 78,946,757 fl.
Advances to the finance administration 19,241,979 fl.
Interest-free loan to the state 6,000,000 fl.
Interest-free loan to the state 18,000,000 fl.
Finance administration 1,100,000 fl.
Finance administration 2,437,189 fl.
State-guaranteed loan to Hungary 833,582 fl.
                   139,144,407 fl.

From this official statement it appears that, since the total assets of the Vienna National Bank amount to about 270 million, the state’s debt to the bank amounts to more than half, and every expert will consequently perceive that the bank offers little security in the event of a state bankruptcy.

The aforementioned monthly report also provides information on the highly important point, the ratio of the paper money circulating in Austria to specie. It reads:
Silver coin minted according to bank regulations and silver bars 32,572,055 fl.
Bank notes in circulation 231,507,257 fl.
Thus eight times more paper than coin! certainly an unheard-of result; consider, furthermore, that the first item includes also the subsidiary coin, which is of great importance in Austria.

(A. A. Z.) Kremsier, March 4. In yesterday’s sitting of the Reichstag the ministerial directive concerning the surrender of the deposited monies was debated. Schuselka on this occasion sharply attacked the ministry, so far as people like Schuselka are capable. To be sure, he should have attacked himself most severely. For in October he was precisely one of the chief matadors whose cowardice, wretchedness, treachery and bigotry helped to pave and prepare the way for the present ministry and the power of the martial-law generals. Yet precisely for that reason it will be of some interest to hear in what manner he now expresses himself. With the system, he said, that is now being pursued, the Austrian state offers no guarantees for four weeks. The Cabinet is pursuing a policy of revenge, revenge against Vienna and against the Viennese, revenge against the people that dared to rise up against absolutism, and perhaps at this very moment someone is again being shot in the town moat. Austria is not being governed, but terrorised, and if one were to place the correspondence of the ministers with the generals on the table of the House, one would learn whether the ministry governs or is governed. They are not content with persecuting the members of the Academic Legion, but even the coats of the Academic Legion are persecuted. Father must bear witness against his son, maid against her mistress, and at night citizens are dragged from their beds. The ministers threaten the officials who dare to hold an opinion other than the prescribed one, and if Deputy Helfert could call Emperor Joseph a despot, one can call the ministers caliphs who want to force everything into a uniform. Equal rights of the nationalities now means nothing more than equal bondage, in that one part is enslaved by means of another. What reward do the Croats receive, who upheld the throne with their blood? In Tyrol anyone who dares to speak for a separation of the German and Italian districts is taken to court. In Galicia, however, a new partition of Poland is being undertaken, and the ministerial policy leads to an unavoidable civil war. This is a Ruthenian or Russophile policy, but actually a Russian policy. Vienna, which an honest policy would have preserved from the abyss of October, is daily more humiliated, unnerved, impoverished. Instead of a popular ministry, as had been promised on the night of 6 October, the Emperor departed and we got this ministry. Even this was, however, jubilantly greeted upon its programme; eighty millions were voted it, but after a few weeks it lost the confidence of the entire Empire. The policy of this ministry has brought it about that Austria, the imperial state of Austria, has sunk to being the protégé of Russia. The Empress Maria Theresa wrote to the Empress Catherine: my very dear friend, but never: my neighbour. That is how a woman thought. But the ministry summons the Cossacks into the country as good friends. One has daily proofs of the boundless insults and denunciations of the press. The ministry wishes the Reichstag to be dragged through the mud, so that it can then say to the people: see, they accomplish nothing! But it would be unworthy of any writer to enter into a polemic with these ministerial papers. In Italy we stand, after the sacrifice of so much blood and money, at the beginning, and must first safeguard our right at a congress, since the ministry was unable to acquire the confidence of the country. What then shall one call the policy towards Germany? It is a perfidious, in the old sense diplomatic, policy that is condemned on all sides of this House; for it is a policy against the Slavs as well as against the Germans. An old Austrian proverb says: “Austria is not to be done in”; but the policy of this ministry may well retain the fame of having ruined Austria. — Schuselka’s earlier interpolation concerning the prohibition of the dissemination of the German basic rights was corrected to the effect that only the official dissemination and proclamation were prohibited. — To Bilinski’s interpolation that the ministry was levying troops without the consent of the Reichstag, the ministry replied that in the granting of the credit of 80 millions, which was after all intended largely for the suppression of the revolt and the restoration of military power against possible external enemies, it had also seen the approval of recruitment!

068 Kremsier, March 5. From the draft constitution now completed by the commission, the division of Austria into imperial estates, and of these into imperial circles, is already known. With regard to the remaining provisions, the following is to be noted. There are 2 chambers: a People’s Chamber (360 deputies) and a Chamber of the Provinces (115 deputies). In the former the towns are to have 80 representatives, the rural areas 280. Entitled to vote is everyone who is 24 years old, in full enjoyment of civic rights, and pays a direct tax or has in lease or rent an object subject to direct taxation (census). Eligible for election is anyone who is 28 years old and has resided in the Empire for 4 years. The elections are direct and by relative majority of at least a quarter of the votes. For the Chamber of the Provinces, for the passive right to vote an age of 33 years is prescribed, and for the active right to vote no census is prescribed. For the Chamber of the Provinces, each province elects 6 deputies through its provincial diet, and in provinces which consist of more than one circle, each circle also elects one deputy. The legislative period is three years for the People’s Chamber, six years for the Chamber of the Provinces. The provinces consisting of several circles are headed by a governor with responsible councillors, the others by a provincial captain. The internal affairs are regulated by the provincial diet according to the provisions of the provincial constitution, which must, however, previously be submitted to the Reichstag for ratification; in case of doubt concerning the competence of the Imperial governmental power and the provincial diets, the presumption speaks for the competence of the central power. The Emperor may adjourn the Reichstag only once in a session period; he may dissolve either both chambers simultaneously or only one of them, but must order new elections within 60 days; the Emperor may spend only 2 months a year abroad and in that case must have the ministers with him; he has only a suspensive veto. The declaration of the intention to sanction must be made before the end of the session period. In the event that the same resolution passes again in the same chambers and is nevertheless not sanctioned, the dissolution of the chamber must take place. If the newly elected Reichstag again adopts the proposal, sanction may not be refused. A supreme, irremovable Imperial Court, partly appointed, partly elected by the provinces, decides on competence disputes, on accused ministers, governors, as well as on all judges, who can only be deposed by the Imperial Court alone.