A SPECULATION ON THE FUTURE. [From the Atlas, September 1.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 478, 2 March 1850, Page 4

A SPECULATION ON THE FUTURE. [From the Atlas, September I.]

After eighteen months of European convulsion — of struggles by nations to discard their hereditary rulers, and re-constitute states on new and seemingly more real and natural bases — we find, now that the last shot has been fired in Hungary, that the only apparent result of all this civil and international warfare is a restoration, superficially at least, of all those old political landmarks which bad been violently removed, and of those powers of authority and government which twelve months ago seemed to have been shaken for ever. Each state of Central and Western Europe has more or less been threatened or convulsed by this whirlwind of revolution, but in one alone has the old form of government been obliterated. France is in name a Republic ; but in name alone, for not even in those countries where the reaction in favour of the royal authority has been the most complete, does there at present exist a despotism so exacting and so onerous as that which now weighs down the freedom of thought and action of the French people. Thus far there is retribution in the event. It was in Paris that the torch of liberty was first lit — it is in Paris that it has been the most effectually quenched. Why has a movement so universal ended in a result so disproportionate and contrary to all design ? Is it that the nations which so violently rebelled against their sovereigns are now smitten as violently with a remorseful attachment for them ? Every testimony contradicts that supposition. The King of Prussia, who could once excite enthusiasm in the Fatherland, is now sustained by his bayonets alone. The King of Saxony exists as a sovereign only by the protection of Prussia. The Emperor of Austria, although his youth and the liberalism of his tendencies may have done much to propitiate, is still mistrusted by bis multifarious subjects, not so much on his own account as on that of the intriguers by whom he is surrounded, and -of whom, it is feared, he may at any time become the dupe. No ; if there be any one result to be with certainty ascribed to this great revolutionary movement, it is that the sentiment of loyalty as it existed at the period of the re-actionary vrar against Napoleon, no ' longer prevails in Central Europe. The sovereigns and their armies are tolerated solely for the preservation of order. The great mass of the inhabitants of those great kingdoms are in heart devoted to the great principle of self-government ; and they would make greater sacrifices than ever to obtain it, if they saw anything to which they could look up for the maintenance, 6d interim, of the peace of society. The German millions who were cheated for thirty yeats oat of the con-

stitutions promised in 1815, and who hare been still more egregiously duped within the last year, have not forgotten those broken promises nor their own long-cherished hope*. Self-government— a real and not a fictitious self-government — sooner or later they will have ; and the sovereigns, if they attempt to carry the re-action to the extent of ignoring the principles of freedom, forgetting that they are now only regarded as the guardians of society against some of its misguided members, will assuredly precipitate the crisis. Our readers will not have forgotten that when the European movement first began we characterized it as a social rather than a political movement. It originated in a deep-laid and widely ramified conspiracy — limited in numbers but daring in design. The plans of the conspirators bad long been prepared ; they but waited the favourable moment to act, trusting to the influence of terrorism on a society long accustomed to peace and repose, and making up for want of numbers by rapid and simultaneous action and the temptations offered to the populace in large towns. The demand for constitutional forms of government, the wild dream of German uuity — these were but levers in the hands of men who were fanatics of a new religion, most of whom believed they had a mission to remodel society, while the remainder were not indisposed to the task of pulling it to pieces and appropriating the spoil. As a natural consequence, the most daring and desperate men soon rose to power in a state of disorganisation ; and it was not till they themselves wielded the authority of government that the eyes of their dupes were opened, and the general reaction commenced. Those who clamoured for a constitution, and those who were mad for " unity," alike rallied round the sovereign when they found that the existence of society was threatened. But this re-action will be short-lived,. Tp attempt to govern the German people by armies would be found futile. For moderate constitutionalism they are better prepared, now that they have seen to what lengths the democrats would have gone, The suspicion, even, of a restoration of absolutism, under Russian dictation, would be enough to consolidate all the elements of resistance in one compact and steady movement. The sovereigns of Europe were the originators of the revolutionary movement of 1848 and 1849. Had they given their subjects the promised constitutions, Socialism, which is the real moving power at the bottom of the turbulence of the age, might have existed as a theory, but it could not have become a fierce and fanatical passion, leading its thousands and hundreds of thousands to plunder and massacre. Will the consequences of their former bad faith now operate as a warning ' against any attempt to renew it ? As the denial of institutions for self-government precipitated a democratic movement which had well-nigh ended in universal republicanism, will the sovereigns not only grant anld. Confirm those constitutions, and act up to them, but also, profiting by the warning they have received, at once set about considering what is the social condition of their subjects ? If a people can be kept in a state of brutalised ignorance, their social condition may be left to correspond ; but, in a countty like Germany, where intelligence is so widely spread, it is impossible but that the common people will institute comparisons and cherish desires inimical to the well-being of society. If this should come to pass, who will say that the contest, which we now suppose is ended, will not prove to have been but the beginning of one far more serious and fatal hereafter. There is an enthusiasm in the German character which generates a spirit of self-sacri-fice ; and it will not be so easy in Germany as it might be in France or England, to prolong a panic indefinitely, or permanently to array the middle agaiust the lower classes by the influence of selfishness. Nor Taiust ' we forget that this fanatical devotion to the theory of Socialism prevails in France to an alarming extent. Woe to society, if the common people and the struggling classes generally, of different nations, should come to be of one accord in looking upon constituted society as a vast machine of injustice, of which they are the victims ! No landmarks of states, no international hatreds, no boundaries of language or manners, wonld stand against such a sentiment, used as a weapon against the existing order of things by the able and unscrupulous men who are floating on the surface of society, ready for any mischief which may advance their ambition.