Austria is the only great state in Europe that comprises so many diverse but well-poised nationalities within its bosom; in all the other great states, one nation bears the preponderance. To this circumstance may be ascribed her peaceful policy, every great war threatening her with the revolt of some one of the foreign nations subordinate to her sceptre. To this may, moreover, be ascribed the tenacity with which she upholds the principle of legitimacy. The historical hereditary right of the reigning dynasty forms the sole but ideal tie by which the diverse and naturally inimical nations beneath her rule are linked together. For the same reason, the concentration of talent in the government contrasts, in Austria, more violently with the obscurantism of the provinces than in any other state. Not only does the overpowering intelligence of the chancery of state awe the nations beneath its rule, but the proverbial good nature and patriarchal cordiality of the imperial family win every heart. The army is a mere machine in the hands of the government; a standing army, in which the soldier serves for life or for the period of twenty years, during which he necessarily loses all sympathy with his fellow-citizens, and which is solely reintegrated from militia whom this privilege renders still more devoted to the government. The pretorian spirit usually prevalent in standing armies has been guarded against in Austria by there being no guards, and all sympathy between the military and the citizens of the various provinces whence they were drawn is at once prevented by the Hungarian troops being sent into Italy, the Italian troops into Galicia, etc., etc. The nationality of the private soldier is checked by the Germanism of the subalterns and by the Austrianism of the staff. Besides the power thus everywhere visible, there exists another partially invisible, that of the police, in connection with a censorship of the severest description, which keeps a guard over the inadvertencies of the tongue as well as over those of the press. The people are, on the other hand, closely bound up with the government and interested in the maintenance of the existing state of affairs by the paper currency, on the value of which the welfare of every subject in the state depends.