Germany is becoming the theatre of more than one state
of agi- tation, of a kind to excite solicitude, but also to reawaken hopes. The tendency of events is to give another shake to Absolutism, and to reunite those influences which are naturally opposed to Absolutism but have been wasting their energies in useless con- flicts. The half-recognized 'war of the Dutehies proceeds lan- guidly; the terms of a genuine settlement being, evidently, still to seek. A bad project imputed to Prussia, by a Parisian journal, is the reconquestlof the Swiss province of Neuf:lite' to arbitrary, government, With the . help of Austria and Russia, if not of France! But these smaller outlying questions shrink into un- importance bef is the momentous question which the Elector of . Hesse-Cassel s precipitating.
The Hessian Elector labours under the odious burden of a con- stitution; but his soul rises above such thrall, and he has recently tried to separate his little domain froth the rest of Germany in po- litical progress. To that end, he appointed as his Minister Has- . senpfiug ; who set himself to the work of nullifying the constitu- tion. He is trying to levy taxes without Parliamentary sanction, in defiance of an express clause in the constitution ; and to fortify himself in that course, he has declared the entire dominions of the Elector in a state of siege ! In other words, by a bold stretch of royal prerogative, he tries to set aside all Parliamentary law by ordaining martial law.
The question is, will the Elector's subjects acquiesce in this de- liberate tyranny ? Should they not, it is expected that Bavaria will send in troops to coerce VINCI. If so, will not the F_Iector's own army patriotically raise the cobatitutinal flag and resist the Bavarian invader? In that vase, it is supposed that Austria would bask Bavaria; but then, 'further, that Prussia would back the Constitu- tionalists of Hesse-Cassel, and so finally and openly take a stand for constitutional government in Germany. Such is the problem precipitated by Hesse-CasseL
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