NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE constitutional crisis which we have so often predicted in England has suddenly arrived in Prussia. The Prussian Peers, after defying the people for sixteen years with perfect impunity, have become inconvenient to the statesmen, and are to be crushed like eggs. The Government, moved by a cry from the entire people, last year introduced a Bill suppressing the squirearchical government of the counties, and especially the hereditary jurisdic- tions, and replacing them by Councils elected by a widely extended suffrage. The Lower House, after making one or two concessions to Conservatives, passed the Bill, and it was expected that the Upper House would abstain from opposition. The Peers, how- ever, say very justly that the Government is making the road easy for Republicans, and they first endeavoured to talk the Bill out, then introduced amendments analysed elsewhere and in- tended to be destructive, and finally threw it out by 145 to 18. As the King had informed the House that he must have his Bill passed, he naturally feels insulted; he has prorogued the Chambers, and on their reassembling on November 12th, he will order the re- introduction of the Bill, which will then be passed, the Govern- ment "employing all constitutional means" to sweep it through.
