The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1861-01-21 00:00:00

Denmark, as Duke, has preserved the union a
the Thtchies and governed them as witch in bona
fides: Any breach of faith on the part of Den-
mark towards Schleswig-Holstein must, therefore,
be considered as much an injury, insult, and
defiance to Germany in general, and to Prussia in
particular, as having, representatively, all along
taken the active lead iii the negotiations, as if
the King of Denniark had directly affronted
Prussia in her own proper territory,
Now comes the question,—how has the bargain
been kept ? How far has the Convention been
faithfully adhered to ? As we have already
said, if one-half of what we hear be anything
like true, never was bargain more thoroughly
despised) broken through, and completely set
aside than this has been. If it be so—and there
seems too little room for doubt—there can be no
question as to who is the defaulter. The King
of Denmark seems to have been guilty of a
shaineftil disregard of his solemn undertakings.
It is now eight years since the king undertook
to give each of the two provinces entire control
over its own taxation. Schleswig was to
have its local assembly for that purpose, and
so was Holstein. In flagrant violation of
this promise, the taxation of the Duchies is
determined without consulting either of them by
the authorities at the banish capital of Copen-
hagen. Nor is this one-half the grievance. The
King of Denmark has carried on an inveterate
course of persecution against his German subjects,
the Schleswig-Holsteiners, by supposing that his
ohjedt has been to exterminate; by the cruelest of
all processes, every German frein his dominions,
and to tread out from the minds of his people
every feeling and sympathy for the" Faderland."
By the convention it was promised that the
Danish subjects of the King should enjoy no pre-
ferential rights over the German people of the
Dna-lies, This stipulation, we fear, has been
grossly set at nought. We are told that the
Germans have actually been treated as felons
when they have dared, against Royal decrees, to
educate their children in German instead of in
Danish; and that they have been prohibited,
Under dire penalties, from conducting public
worship in their mother tongue. German
ecclesiastics and tutors have been ' proclaimed
contraband; and every measure has been had re-
course to, to compel the Germans to submit
to the most degrading and oppressive tyranny
which any conqueror could inflict upon a subject
race. And all this has befallen the poor Schleswig_
tfolsteiners, tinder d gndfatitee 11 the Germanic
Confederation that their independence and equal
rights should be for ever recognised and remain
intact under the King of Denmark. Oh! shame
upon the Dane ; and almost equal shame upon
Prussia and Germany that they should have
alloVved the e+il fe go so far.
This then seems to be the grotnd of quarrel as
it stands between Germany and Denmark. Is any
one astonished that at last Prussia is about to take
the field in vindication of its own honour and that
of Germany, and of the rights of the 'persecuted
GermaiiS Of §chlesitig-Molstein P Surely not.
Let us rather hope that, if an appteal to the sword
is unavoidable, it will be swift, brief, and efteettial,
and lead to a just and permanent peace.