The Nelson Mail. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1866.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume I, Issue 176, 27 September 1866, Page 2

The Nelson Mail. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1866.

Piiussia by recent successes is provoking the envy of some of her great neighbors, and while Frup.ee mediates Russia, menaces. No power in recent history lias been allowed to retain ail ks conquests, especially if they have been l.he fruits of a sinjrle and siiort campaign. The. Elbe Duchies Prussia will most likely keep, and the rather if she throws back North Kchleswig us a consolation 10 Denmark. But Hanover, Electoral Hesse, Saxony, and a million of the population of Bohemia, who for the greater part arc not of the German race hut Selaves and Czcches, are rather too much to be g.iliiercd up by Prussia as permanent acquisitions won by a three weeks' exercise ot" her tieedle-guu in which time she has compelled the Hanoverians to capitulate, repulsed the Bavarians, and defeated and demoralised an Austrian army of perhaps not less than a quarter of a million men. Doubtless Prussia will have the primacy in Germany, which Austria* has now lost beyond hope of reer-vering it. This is due not only to the position and the military superiority of Prussia, but. to the wishes of nearly ail -„a---trioiic German:?. If the tide of Emperor of Germany were to be restored aud were to be given away by the will of the Teutonic pe;>p]e, it would assuredly be presented to William I. and not ro Francis Joseph. But such an inerense of power and such pre-emi-nence as will surely be Prussia's do not need a territorial addition of almost all the country betw.-en (ho Eider, ihe -Mayn. and the Elbe. By any excessive acquisitions Prussia will draw upon herself the jealousy of France, the eumit-y of Rus.-ia, whose, Boynl Family is closely connected with several of those German Stales, and :he revenge of Austria. Ifc is not credible that a new Germanic unity can be constructed from which Baden, Bavaria, or the south-western provinces of Austria are excluded, or that these will submit to fhe option of being left out, mediatised, or Prussianised. Still, for the present, there will scarcely be any attempt, except by diplomatic means, to teach Prussia how to use with moderation her dearly-purchased though colossal victories. She has been allowed and to ih's day retains a monopoly almost absolute of the terrible ueedle-guus, and ifc is not to be supposed thafc even France, after the recent experiments on the battle-fields of Bohemia., would like to encounter those weapons of ptecision until the- Emperor has armed his own infantry with the like or hotter. Our earnest desire is that, we may hear of a military armistice, preparatory to a European Congress. In the invitation given by Louis Napoleon, and declined in a veiy animated tone by Earl Kussell, awhile ago, the Emperor may at that moment have been in the wrong, and the Queen's Ministers iu the right. The times have changed since then ; all nations have iu the interval lived very fasfc, and if their plenipotentiaries "canuot come to some arrangement by which no doubt a grave reconstruction of the map of Europe would be effected, — perhaps ou the Shine, possibly too by the .sacrifice of Sardinia, and almost certainly by the clismemberrneut of the Ottoraau Empire, — Europe will be found standing on the verge of a greater and more awe-inspiring war than has yet been known in Christendom.