Tt li trussian Parliament has been dealing this week with a curious
historical survival. Prussia as a Kingdom is an aggregate of small sovereignties absorbed from time to time. It was the custom, whenever new territories were annexed, to grant to the dispossessed rulers certain immunities, and above all, exemption from taxation. The Treasury has of late felt this to be a burden, and a Bill has been introduced to buy up all the exemptions at thirteen years' purchase. The Bill has passed by a large majority, but many Liberals are wroth because it provides for compensation. They press their State logic too far. If the exemptions had been originally unjust, they would have had a case ; but some of them must have been secured by treaty, and all of them were in the nature of contracts, tacit or expressed, between separate sovereign Powers. No doubt, when such exemptions become unbearable, they must be abolished, as they were abolished in France ; but abolishing small evils by revolutionary measures only makes society feel that property has become insecure.
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