ect than it deserves, yet
he cannot persuade himself that rational and sound Constitutional
Government is at present in danger in Germany, or that the Austrian
Government, whatever may be their inclination and wishes, can think it
possible in the present day to re-establish despotic government in
a nation so enlightened, and so attached to free institutions as the
German people now is. The danger for Germany seems to lie rather in
the opposite direction, arising from the rash and weak precipitation
with which in 1848 and 1849 those Governments which before had refused
everything resolved in a moment of alarm to grant everything, and,
passing from one extreme to the other, threw universal suffrage among
people who had been, some wholly and others very much, unaccustomed
to the working of representative Government. The French have found
universal suffrage incompatible with good order even in a Republic;
what must it be for a Monarchy?

Viscount Palmerston would, moreover, beg to submit that the conflict
between Austria and Prussia can scarcely be said to have turned upon
principles of Government so much as upon a struggle for political
ascendency in Germany. At Berlin, at Dresden, and in Baden the
Prussian Government has very properly no doubt employed military
force to reestablish order; and in regard to the affairs of Hesse, the
ground taken by Prussia was not so much a constitutional as a military
one, and the objection which she made to the entrance of the troops
of the Diet was that those troops might become hostile, and that they
ought not, therefore, to occupy a central position in the line of
military defence of Prussia.

The remark which your Majesty makes as to unanimity being required for
certain purposes by the Diet regulations is no doubt very just, and
that circumstance certainly shows that the free Conference which
is about to be held is a better constructed body for planning a new
arrangement of a central organ.[49]

[Footnote 49: War was staved off by the Conference; but the
relative predominance of Prussia and Austria in Germany was
left undecided for some years to come.]

[Pageheading: STATE OF THE CONTINENT]

_Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _22nd November 1850._

MY DEAREST UNCLE,--Accept my best thanks for your kind letter of the
17th, and the dear little English one from dear little Charlotte,
which is so nicely written, and shows such an