of a law for substitutes, that may fulfil the object referred to without appealing to the odious course of pressing, or establishing a rigorous conscription.

At present, and for a long while yet, it will not be possible to have a force of the line adequate for all cases. When internal commotions or foreign wars occur the National Guard is under the necessity of forming a principal part of the army. Consequently, it is necessary to give it an organization adequate to that service, for which it should be always prepared.

Heavily as that duty may bear upon the citizens, it is necessary to demand it of them under pain of leaving the Republic at the mercy of the seditious within, and of enemies without. For this reason I abstain at this moment from proposing to you, as I should wish, a modification in the law of the National Guard that might lighten that duty.

The increased number of Chiefs and Officers attached to the Permanent Military Establishment, the great permanent burthen they entail on the Treasury, and the position of expectation in which most of them find themselves, without any beneficial occupation, give rise to the thought of the expediency of effecting a military reform that may lighten this heavy charge, and afford to those meritorious servants the means of following another career more useful to themselves and to their country.

It is possible that this may be done with much economy, but in the uncertainty in which we are as to the resources that will be free after other more urgent demands have been met, I do not even venture to propose anything to you touching this matter, and I do no more than indicate the idea.

The body of Military Pensioners will be shortly organized, with the view of utilizing their services as far as can be done, and at the same time of fulfilling a duty of humanity and justice towards the most incompetent and necessitous of them.

The military school, from various causes, was in complete decadence, but in consequence of some measures that have already been commenced, and others that will follow, it may be expected that it will return to its pristine condition, and will answer its object well.

As soon as the examination and correction of the project of military laws drawn up by the late Colonel Don Francisco Lasala are concluded, it will be submitted to your approbation. When it has been sanctioned the army will have a code more in conformity with the military art of the time, and also better accommodated to our ways.

The Department of Marine has as yet very little importance, and it may almost be said to be nominal.

Without vessels and without crews it scarcely occupies itself

with the police and duties of the port of Monte Video. It is not apparent when there will be the means and the desirability of extending its action.

As a part of its duty a place suitable for a lazaretto, a thing that was wanted, has been obtained through its means, the purchase having been made with the revenue destined by you for that useful sanitary establishment.

Finance.

Thanks to the order and economy introduced into all the branches of the administration, the state of the finances is relatively satisfactory, having allowed the regular payment of the services fixed in the general budget of expenses, and the discharge during the past year of the sum of 541,498 dollars, arising from obligations and balances left by the former administration; had there been no such engagements it would have been possible to improve the position of our liabilities.

After the months that have passed corresponding to the period of the budget, and considering the result that has been obtained in that time, it may be held for certain that with only the ordinary resources there would be up to the end of that period, other engagements not intervening, sufficient to cover all the expenditure comprised in the budget, and to employ a considerable surplus in other necessary and unforeseen outlays, to which the additional credit will refer which has to be asked of you.

The long drought which has been experienced, and which has so much injured the agricultural population and the labours of the salting establishments, by diminishing the material of exchange will, it is true, also diminish trade, and consequently the revenue that arises from it, but I think it will not amount to much, and will not alter sensibly the correctness of the calculations and estimates made.

The revenues of the departments made local in the first instance by administrative measures, and subsequently by the law of July last, have increased on a level with those that have been appointed for general expenses; and their collection greatly simplified, and specially assigned to the responsibility of the political chiefs, has already given results which in various departments surpass what had been expected. This is due not only to the easy and simple methods of collection, but very mainly to the good spirit of the payers, and to the probity and energy of the agents of the Executive Power.

Those revenues being reduced since the 1st of January to a single branch-the direct contribution-calculated on the principle of the diminution of taxes with relation to those which existed in previous years, I cannot flatter myself yet that in all the departments with

out exception the revenue may suffice to meet their wants. In some the produce of the tax is in excess, while in others it does not yet suffice, the general revenue having to supply the deficit.

As this arises solely from accidental and transitory causes, which will gradually disappear year by year, it proves nothing against the system of localization and the separation of budgets, which in practice, as it is shown, has well fulfilled the objects in view in adopting it. The law referred to, then, of 20th July ought to be maintained, in my opinion, with the small modifications which experience may counsel, and which will be proposed to you in due time in the project on the subject.

I do not hold the same opinion with respect to the present law of Customs, founded in part upon principles too protectionist, which limit its action and the energy of its measures with respect to the freedom and liberty which commerce and industry should enjoy, and which I consider it useful to grant to them.

The country is destined to be, by its geographical position, a vast and general mercantile depository. I counsel you, therefore, to preserve and if possible to extend the franchises and favours conceded to the transit and to the deposit of foreign merchandize.

The laws of stamped paper and patents, the law itself of 20th July last, and such others as relate to the ports of the Republic and to navigation, ought to be considered and placed in harmony with the development and progress of commerce and with the mercantile destiny of the said ports.

The necessary projects will be brought before you on these subjects, in the confident hope that when converted into laws they will soon produce their natural effects.

As the term assigned for the Treaty of Commerce with Brazil will soon expire, it is already time to provide the legislative enactments that are to replace the stipulations therein contained relative to the traffic on the land frontier.

The most important question with respect to it is that which refers to the exportation of cattle destined for the dried-beef establishments of the Rio Grande. Free exportation has its partizans, as has also absolute prohibition. Between these two extremes there is a middle course, which in my opinion should be adopted as the preferable, that is to say, exportation subject to a moderate duty.

The service of the public debt is performed with regularity, the funds which the law has assigned for this purpose being punctually passed to the house charged with its operations.

There are moreover awaiting the opportunity of an equitable arrangement some claims pending respecting the payment of discharges arranged by former Governments, and other credits re

cognized by them, with the classification and amount of which the Classifying Commission, established in virtue of the above-mentioned law of 21st July last, has occupied itself with assiduity and zeal.

The labours of that Commission are on the point of closing; so that I shall very shortly be in a position to draw up a statement of the public debt, stimulating your enlightened zeal for the definitive resolution of a matter affecting so seriously the political and economical interests of the country.

I have to propose to you various other measures relating to finance and commerce, such as the introduction into the country of the decimal metrical system, adopted already by the majority of mercantile nations; and a law that may protect more efficaciously banks of issue and paper of credit against the frequent forgeries to which they are exposed. The deficiency of the actual legislation for the repression of that crime is manifest.

The census is not yet concluded, that of various departments being yet wanting.

For this reason, and from not having received the notices that the judicial and the ecclesiastical authorities should have transmitted, the general office of statistics is behindhand, and will not be able to present its tables, even thus incomplete, before the lapse of some time.

The same is not the case with the board of mercantile statistics, which will shortly present the classified account of the movement of the customs, and the operations of commerce for the second 6 months of the last year.

The progressive increase of deposits, the want of State warehouses in which to continue receiving them, and the increased rent which is paid for the private ones that the Customs have been obliged to hire, have made us resolve to contract for the erection of the Custom-House, which has been done in an extremely advantageous manner. In effect its cost of 130,000 dollars, payable in monthly instalments of 6,000, will not in reality be a disbursemeut that diminishes the resources of the State, but the reproductive anticipation of a capital that will be reimbursed in a short time, assuring an increased revenue for the future.

Exactly the same may be said respecting a pier which it was necessary to construct, and the widening and repairing of another, since the wharfage dues assure the repayment of the sums applied to the said works.

I have completed my task of making you acquainted with the political state of the country and the improvements and reforms that I consider worthy of your attention.

Having thus fulfilled my constitutional duty, it only remains

for me to express to you, as I do, the full confidence with which your enlightenment and patriotism inspire me, that the great legislative labours to which you are called in the period which commences to-day will be adequately performed.

Monte Video, February 15, 1861.

BERNARDO P. BERRO.

SPEECH of the King of Prussia, on the Opening of the Landtag. Berlin, January 14, 1861.

(Translation.)

ILLUSTRIOUS, NOBLE, AND HONOURABLE GENTLEMEN

OF BOTH HOUSES OF THE LANDTAG!

WITH deep emotion I bid you welcome. The hopes and wishes which I expressed to you in this place have, according to God's inscrutable will, not been fulfilled. With me and with my house you mourn the King who, after severe sufferings, has been taken from us.

What the Government of His Majesty my brother, who now rests in God, was for Prussia, what this country owes to his largehearted guidance, I need not remind the Representative Assembly of the Prussian people, an Assembly which was called into life by the late Monarch.

King Frederick William IV has departed at an anxious period. An anxious task has fallen to my lot. With God's gracious assistance I think I shall bring it to a fortunate conclusion.

In this task you will stand faithfully by my side. The Fatherland requires wise counsels and self-sacrificing devotion.

After I had declared in face of some of the most prominent Princes of the German Confederation that it was the chief aim of my German, the chief aim of my European policy, to defend the integrity of the German soil, it was necessary so to order the reinforcement of our army, for which you had unanimously granted the necessary means, that not only the number of the troops should be increased, but that the internal connection, the firmness, and the trustworthiness of the newly-created corps should be secured.

The measures taken with these objects in view lie within the legal principles of our military constitution.

From the estimates that will be laid before you, you will perceive that for the ensuing year reductions have been directed which will convince you that nothing but that which is indispensably necessary for the warlike efficiency of the army will ever be demanded.

Prussia can dispose of means that fully suffice to keep up her