The Address Debate in Berlin

*Berlin, 27 March. The trial of the insurgents of 15 October began today. The proceedings, however, were confined to the examination of the accused and a few witnesses, among whom we single out Dr. Julius Waldeck. The well-known former criminal court clerk Stein will defend one of the principal accused, the so-called Linden-Müller.

Despite the brilliant state of the finances, the Stock Exchange does not desist from its slack mood, which made itself felt today particularly in government bonds and the voluntary loan. The uncertainty of our entire political position, the conviction that the ministry cannot possibly govern with this second chamber, is the essential reason.

— The deputies now have before them the state budget for 1849 together with a volume of special details. The estimates for 1849 are accompanied by the budget estimates for 1848 and that for 1829.
The requirements of the current year are estimated at 94,174,300 thalers, the extraordinary at 5 1/2 million. The estimated expenditure of last year is 8 1/2 million less. The actual expenditure for 1848 is not evident from the materials, since everywhere the estimates are communicated and not the final accounts. The commission thus gets no clear insight into the financial situation; it is not in a position to recognise the approximate accuracy of the estimate for 1849, since one does not know to what extent the individual items were exceeded last year and whether the budgets were formerly estimated too high or too low.

The public, moreover, is astonished (! !) at the level of the current year’s budget. At most 60 million (! !) had been expected. — 6 million of the budget is for public works, 1 1/2 million for the equipment of the army, 1 million for the reorganisation of the judiciary. Another item is the interest on the new loan. The revenue fully covers the expenditure. The budget admittedly lists only 88 1/2 million in revenue as that of the current year; the remainder, however, is covered by 5 1/2 million of the voluntary loan and some other capital sums which are withdrawn from the operating funds of several state institutions. That is certain. In the case of extraordinary expenditure, such as the Danish war and other eventualities will bring with them, it is not possible, according to these very documents, to fall back on the ordinary means.

If the Finance Minister has now declared in the Finance Commission that he has 16 million in the state treasury, he is contradicting his own budget. Unless the year 1848 had hidden gushing springs. On 26 December 1848, when the Finance Ministry published the state budget for 1849, it intends to cover the deficit of 5,608,000 thalers
1) from the surpluses still to be expected from 1847,
2) from the balances of the voluntary loan and from the alterations in the operating funds of certain cash administrations.

The Ministry, it will be seen, has scraped together all the money resources over which it could possibly dispose, and, as if by a magic stroke, the entry of Herr v. Raabe is supposed to have made the financial situation brilliant and a balance of 16 million to be present in the state treasury.

Either the Finance Minister’s assertion or the state budget for 1849 is drawn up falsely.

The Minister has also officially contradicted the rumour that a larger loan is intended. We must therefore believe him, although we thought we had reliable sources. We note now that in 1838 the Royal Seehandlung brought about a loan because the Government, without the guarantee of the Estates, could not succeed. We note further that the Finance Minister did not wish to hand over the Seehandlung’s budget to the Finance Commission. Could the Government perhaps be intending a similar manoeuvre?