I

"N January, in the present year,

a treaty was concluded between Austria, Russia, and Prussia, by which these powers mutually agreed to deliver up, on the demand of the aggrieved state, all persons accused of rebellion or treason, or of being engaged in any plot against the throne or the government. These stipulations were not to have a retrospective operation.

In the beginning of the year a congress was held at Vienna of the ministers of the several German states. No authentic statement of the subjects or results of their discussions appeared. General report said, that their deliberations were principally directed to the consideration of how far the institutions of any single state could be allowed to clash with the acts of the confederacy, and what was the course proper to be followed with respect to the press. proposition for the institution of a tribunal of arbitration, which was laid before the Diet towards the close of the year, appears to have emanated from this meeting.

The

In April, Frankfort was the scene of some disturbances. The chief actors in them were strangers, collected from different parts of Germany; a considerable number of them consisting of students, animated by the principles of republican propagandism. The primary ostensible aim of the rioters was the liberation of the individuals who were in prison for taking part in the insurrection of the preceding year; the real object was to insult the constituted authorities and to take the chance of promoting the cause of democratical anarchy. The attempt was soon quelled: and, with the sanction of the Diet, a corps of federal troops, under the command of an Austrian general, took military occupation of the city, in order that its tranquillity might be secured for the future. In September a renewal of the disturbances was anticipated in consequence of the arrival of great numbers of students at Offenbach. Austrian, Prussian, and Frankfort troops were immediately put uuder arms, and strong patrols of cavalry

and infantry traversed the city in every direction. A battalion of an Austrian regiment was stationed in detachments from the guardhouse of the parade-guard of the Zeil as far as Schoenhausen: another battalion, with artillery, were posted at the head of the bridge, and the Darmstadt gate. The Prussians took up their position on the boulevard: three pieces of cannon charged with grape shot, were placed at the gates of the city. After two hours of great anxiety to the inhabitants, the troops returned to their respective quarters; these preparations having preserved tranquillity, if any attempt against the public peace was intended. All foreign students received orders to quit Frankfort within twenty-four hours.

In Hesse Cassel, the financial arrangements gave rise to warm contentions between the ministry and the states, who insisted on making a reduction of at least 50,000 in the army estimates. M. Mesterling, the minister of finance, endeavoured to prevent an open rupture by acceding to a diminution of 35,000 in the estimates; and it would appear that the opposition were ling to be satisfied with this concession, but his colleagues refused to sanction it, and he resigned. The states then persisted in the resolution which they had adopted as to the army budget: the members of the government on the other hand, refused to submit to them, and stated that they had been laid before the Germanic diet. The states were equally obstinate; they persisted in rejecting the budget as proposed by the government, and finally voted it with amendments and reductions conformable to the

In Baden a strict censorship was established; and in order to prevent the mode of its increase from being made manifest to the public eye, editors were forbidden to leave any blanks in the journals published by them.

In Bavaria, agitators and their partisans were less numerous in proportion to the whole population, and there was less tendency in the public mind to democratical ideas and sentiments; and accordingly, at the opening of the assembly of the estates, on the 8th of March, the king was received with enthusiastic plaudits. "I have been zealously occupied" said he, in his speech to them, "in forming a treaty of commerce with Prussia, Saxony, the two Hesses, and Wurtemberg. It is completed, and I announce it to you with joy, and this treaty will be a source of prosperity to Bavaria, and an additional bond to unite the Germaus to each other. I hope, for the good of my subjects, that it will extend still further, and that a commercial treaty may soon be formed with the Austrian empire. Since the last session a spirit of disorder has shown itself in some parts of the kingdom, but the loyal sentiments that prevail throughout the country show to how small a faction it is confined. I am able to distinguish the voice

sembly for settling questions in which every state had distinct and conflicting interests. Commercial alliances were therefore left to the arrangement of neighbouring go. vernments by treaties between themselves and the first convention of this kind was that between Prussia and Hesse Darmstadt, concluded in the beginning of 1828. The inconveniences which this treaty removed were glaring, as Darmstadt lay between different provinces of the Prussian monarchy; and the benefits, which Prussia derived from it, presented an additional motive to extend its arrangements by negotiations with other states. It stipulated for an entire freedom of internal trade between the two states, and a suppression of the custom-houses of either on those points where their frontiers touched: and it estab. lished, as against foreigners, a uniform tariff, on their other frontiers; the duties being to be levied under their joint inspection, and divided in proper proportions. Wurtemberg and Bavaria, in order to remove similar inconveniences, formed a similar treaty; and in May, 1829, these two states on one part, and Prussia and Darmstadt on the other, formed a joint convention, which, though it differed in some respects from the former model, was an important step towards a uniformity of commercial regulations, and, including a considerable portion of southern and western Germany, gave Prussia an extended market for her manufactures and produce at the expense of other states. The treaty stipulated that from the 1st of January, 1830, all the indigenous productions of industry and art, belonging to the subjects of any of the contracting parties,

might with few exceptions be imported duty free from any one of their states into any other. The exceptions were divided into two classes those which were to be permanent, and those that were to be temporary. The former were of little importance, such as playing cards, and other articles of government monopoly; the latter included nearly all the articles of staple manufactures or colonial produce supplied by great Britain, France, or other commercial states; all of which were to be admitted into Prussia at lower duties than when imported by foreigners. Thus cottons, silks, woollens, hardware, might be imported from Prussia into the confederate states at 25 per cent. less than from England or France. This reduction of duty was to commence in January, 1831, and was to be diminished gradually till the whole was abolished; when importation and exportation, as between the confederates themselves, would be duty free, whatever tariff might be established as against foreigners. Thus Prussia secured to herself in the states of her allies, a monopoly of many articles of manufacture or consumption.

Encouraged by this success, the Prussian government continued without relaxation its exertions, both by negotiations and through the public journals, to extend this commercial league, so that it might comprehend all between the Rhine and the Vistula, the frontiers of Switzerland and the Baltic. The cabinet of Berlin exercises a powerful indirect influence over the press throughout the whole of Northern Germany; and accordingly most of the journals were loud in their eulogies of the league.

The people of the several states were, from day to day, reminded of the advantage of a free commercial intercourse for 22,000,000 of Germans within 10,000 square miles, with an equal tariff for all; an advantage which, doubtless, would be most important, if it were not accompanied by the disadvantage of excluding foreign merchandise which they might have cheap, and being obliged to pay a high price for articles of a worse quality produced within the circuit of this exclusive system. On the other hand, everything which tended to impede the progress of the Prussian scheme was stigmatized as injurious to Germany. The mineral waters of Nassau form the principal article of exportation from that duchy; and from that source arises no small portion of the ducal revenues. In order to obtain an extended market for these mineral waters in exchange for French wines and silks, the duke of Nassau had concluded with France a treaty, by which, in consideration of the reduction of the duty on mineral waters imported from his dominions, he exempted for the period of five years, French wines, and French silks from any increase of duty, and further engaged that French wines and silks should participate in the advantage of any reduction of import duties which the ducal government might make during that period on the like commodities when introduced from other countries. Even so harmless a treaty as this was the subject of vehement vituperation to the partizans of the Prussian plan; because it would hinder Nassau from being a member of the commercial confederacy, till the five years had expired; and because during that

period, the duchy would be a dépôt for French wines and silks, whence they might easily be smuggled within the limits of the confederation. So successful were the labours of Prussia, that, at the end of 1833, a final treaty, carrying into effect the objects of the commercial confederation was concluded, between Prussia, Bavaria, Hesse Cassel, Hesse Darmstadt, Saxony, and Wirtemberg. In the course of the present year, some of the smaller states sent in their adhesion; and negotiations were carried on for including Baden in the union.

The Diet met on the 30th of October. In the speech, with which count Munet Bellinghausen opened the session, he directed their attention principally to the establishment of what he called an arbitral tribunal, to decide differences which might arise between the governments and the states, wherever the law or the constitution was insufficient for the purpose. With a view to the institution of the tribunal of arbitration, he, on behalf of the emperor of Austria, proposed to the Diet a plan, consisting of 12 articles, of which the following were the most important:-"1. In case differences should break out in a state of the Confederation between the Government and the Chambers relative to the interpretation of the constitution, or to the encroachment of the Chambers upon the rights of the Sovereign, or to a refusal of subsidies-if all legal means have been judged insufficient to put an end to the misunderstanding, the members of the Confederation undertake, that before they call for the intervention of the Diet, they will confide the decision of the