UNBIASED OPINIONS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 6731, 14 April 1885, Page 2

UNBIASED OPINIONS.

[\V.> deem it riprbt to state that wo in no wav idontif, oursolvea with the opinions expressed in artiolo nppeauug.under tins head.l RUSSIA IV. In the year 17G2, when that talented hut shameless woman Catharine the Second, a German not a Russian by by birth, her father being a General Officer in tho Prussian army, came to tho throne after tho death, or more probably the murder, of her husband Peter tho Third, Louis XV. was King of France. Louis, though only fifty two, had grown prematurely uged by the grossest excesses, an.l become the servile slavo of tho infamous Madame d( Pompadour. The French nobility ha' long since decline! from that haught independence oO the Crown which the asserted throughout the middle ages, an vied with one another in the servil solicitation of court place and court paj aud the fulsome flattery of court favorite.* The glories of France, bedimrncd befon the close of the reign of Louis tho Great had sulTured for many years almosL tota eclipso. Her ever victorious armies which under Louis XIV., had bidden fair tc conquer Europe, as far as the Vistula and Danube, were now, after disastrous and repeated defeats, driven back nearly all along the line of the Rhine. She had like. wise been deprived of her possessions it Canada: of nearly all in tho West and Eaal Indies : Her exchequer, exhausted b^ i'leessant wars abroad as well as by i corrupt and extravagant administration a lmn», was completely empty: her credi so Beiiously shaken as to be piacticall bankrupt: tho mass of the peasantr starving, perishing in hundreds by actui hunger: the trade and commerce of Iv citiea languishing and dying. The Empire of Austria, strictly term< Anstro-Hungary, was governed at th time by the Empress-Queen Maria Tht-res a talented and high spirited, but unhapi woman, aged fo'ty-five. Up to tho da of the disastrous struggle with Pruss' known as the Seven Years War, Mai Theresa lnd mado Austro-Hungary coi paratively rich and prosperous. Taxatic had been greatly diminished, yet by h wisa government tho revenue had bei considerably increased. A few years ( war, into which some wise men in our o\v enlightened ago seem so strangely eag( again to plunge the world, and this pros purity was entirely changed. With a larg addition to the army, came the iuvaiiabl consequence, a hrge addition to the taxe, a large diminution to the revenue and th productiveness of the country. Frederic the Great, King of Prussia, in allianc with Eugland and Hanover, poured h" troops into the heart of South German, over-ran and devastated tho littles Kinj dom of Saxony, and occupied, as afte wards Prussia occupied in 18G6, i beautiful capital, Dresden. Fr< . S.ixon the Prussians advanced then as on tt su sequent date before the battle of Sadow up the romantic valley of the Higher Ell where that river penetrates tho defile the Erz Gebirgo Mountains, into t Austrian province of Bohemia. There w fought the sanguinary battle of Pragi wherein perished, after a few hours' d( perate fighting, nearly forty thousa human beings. To defend her very cxii^ ence, Austria called in to her aid t/i barbarous armies of Russia, who swnrmei like wolves into the fruitful provinces o Germany, committing horrible atrocities o fiiends md enemies alike. In 17G0, th ye .r when George tho Third became Kin of Grent Britain, an Austro-ltussian arm invaded the Kingdom of Prussia and caj tured the City of Berlin. 'Ili3 capital c Prussia, although even at that time greall improved und enlarged under the hand c Frederick, was not then, as it is n iw, on of the tinest and richest cities in Europe Its broad tree-planted avenues, lined wit gay shops and lofty houses, its pubh parks, its magnificent govcrnnici buildings, art gallerits, schools aud unU'e sity, were, in the mi'lille of the last centur represented by a mere cluster of met buildings, barracks, fortilicalnn?, ar dirty ditchas. But, it must ho confesses the far older cities of London and Pah were only a little less hideoas and lilll t The present mirvcllously improved a pcaiMDce ot thc3e and other Europe! capitals is mainly the result of tho la thirty years. In reading the records of the iuccssa' wars waged between the difi'eient natioi of Europe during the larger part of tl last century, the bitter fiuits of which v aw still twsting in this, it may possih occur to cci tain hypercritical nnd unpatriot minds—un-English, 1 believe, they a sometimes termed —to compare sue bloody battles as those fought in lha Dv of Marlborough's campaigns in the I.y Countries, or during this struggle I twecn Austria an 1 Prussia for suprcma in Germany, in which Russia first activt interfered in European politics, with the contests which, for the last few yea England has been waging in Afghanist; South Africa. Egypt, aud the Soudan, the former instances armies of civili;and Christian nations, each provided w the most approved weapons of dcslrnctn each pcrffctly disciplined and led by t most fckilfill'and famous generals the ago, cut each others' tin oats and blc out each others brains, on somcthi. like fair terms, and in a regular christi fashion. Iln battles were bittles betwe foes evenly matched. If, at this distun of lime, we cannot always manage to ma out what those English, those French, tho, Germans, S.vc(L'B, and Russians, killed cac olhcr for, and the beneficial tesuUs of tl, frightful expenditure of blood and mono,' seem to us latnentablj" smill, at least , may bo sifi.'ly stated that battles lik Blenheim and RamillieF, Poltiva arPriguo were batiks between equals lullles in which heroes hit those cl thei own sizv 1, and would have scorj^' I d think, to win renown by fusilad^. fecmi siva^es armed chiefly with sp^urs am matchlocks. A few v ore campaigns such as that w now hear frantically applauded in ever newspaper, and feebly condemned by i handtul of insignificint fanatics, am glor.ous war will, it may be hoped, stam exposed in its real infamy ; will no longe be approved by any others than Jingocßit hysterics, tin mselvcs at a s:f?e distance ii'o.n lliu honois they so complacently behold in dieted ; when war will be <le Ust"d and condemned by every one ol bouud mind and feeling heart. Up tc the commencement of her tremendous struggle wiih the renovated strength ol ihc French natioii, guided by tho unique r.cnius of Napoleon, a struggle which wat terminated in the fatal battle of Aublcrlitz, ilia Austrian Empire was regarded as the lirst iiiilituiy power in Europe, after the decline of France under Louis XV. A hundred and thirty years ago that Empire comprehended not only the Austrian Duchies, Hungary, Bohcini i, Ul3 Tyrol, and the nortli-castcrn shore of the Adriatic —ne it still does —but nearly the whole of the f i nit ful plain of Lombaply and the Pr6yinca of Vi nctia. By the presc-nco of her armies in the no.th of Italy, ami lur massive fortresses, Austria, moreover, kept the Kingdom of Sii'diuia and the Italian Duchieg in comparative bubj'ciion. Aus'.iia held also that suay over i lie States of German} which was wlusted irom her by her rival Piustia, in the course «f the last Auslru Piussiawar. Austria thus presented, at iiuy rale to outwur 1 appeurauco, llicn uttd lor long afu-rwnrds a torniidable bulwark in (Jeutral liuiope against Russian schemes of aggrandisement. Egmont