The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-26 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT

HOUSE OP LORDS—Last Evening,

The LORD CHANCELLOR took his seat on the woolsack at
b o'clock, there having been a Royal Commission, at
which certain bills reoseived the royal assent.'

THE SCOTTISH CLERGY DISABILITIES BILL.
The Commons' amendments to this bill were agreed to.

DENMARK.

Lord CAMPBELL said—My lords, I trust that I shall
not oppose the.wishes of the house in now proceeding with
my notice, in spite of that which has been given by a noble
earl over the way, and which opens a wider field in regard
to foreign policy. I should have been inclined to with-
draw mine, although his was subsequently given and stands
for a later day, were it not that such a course would de-
prive a noble marquis near mo (Lord Clanricarde), long
versed in these affeira, of the latest opportunity for dis •
cussing our present situation. My lords, it will be easy to
explain the question I propose to put, as to whether the
Treaty of 1852 and the older treaties relative to ,echleseciec
have any further international validity, and the motion I
submit for recent correspondence on the subject. Accord-
ing to a general impression, the reverses and the losses our
diplomacy has suffered impose some line of action, or at
least suggest it, to redeem our credit, to reinstate our
influence, and to indemnify to the Continent to the greatest
possible extent for the evils our discomfiture has so lately
brought upon it. But until these treaties are in
some degree considered and disposed of, no such compen-
sating line appears feasible or offered. They bind us to
uphold a past or at least an evanescent situation, and do
not well admit of our being parties to a new one. They
pledge us to sustain a fabric which is crumbling, and hardly
seems to warrant us in building on the vacancy. At
the same time, my lords, it is far from my intention
to disparage them. The proposition I have hazarded—
viz , that a new line of action, if required, would rather
make it logical and just to dwell upon their gravity. The
clearest ground for the necessity of diplomatic and poli-
tical repair is that in the torrent of events we have de-
parted from engagements not to be denied, and hitherto
held sacred. As regards the Treaty of 1852, which is so
familiar, nothing need be said, except that its apparent
aim is a serious disparagement to the country under
whose auspices it came into existence, and by whom
it has been so frequently and ineffectually ap-
pealed to. The gravity of those treaties by
which the Duchy of Schleswig has been guaranteed to Den-
mark bears far more than one consideration. Although
they date from 1720 they also date from 1814. It is a fal-
lacy to think that they are buried like an ancient temple in
the dust which ages heap upon it. At the end of the great
war the Treaty of Kiel revived and re-established them.
Besides this, in 1826, Great Britain recognised and acted
on treaties identical in scope, in character, and circum-
stances. Mr Canning, in defending the British expedition
to the Tagus,stood upon two guarantees of Portugal—given,
one in 1661, the other in 1703, and of which both were re-
established at the Treaty of Vienna. It will thus be seen
by your lordships that the guarantees of Schleswig were
coeval in their second birth with those of Portugal, and less
remote in their original concession. The principle of Mr
Canning with regard to those of Portugal went to the ex-
tent that the faith and honour of the country were involved
in their observance, no matter how great the
risk it might contain, no matter how doubtful or minute
the British interest connected with it. Mr Canning, in
his famous speech of December, 1826, was not the leader
of a party only, but the organ of an empire.. The country
acted on the doctrine he advanced, and took a measure
which, although it ended in the quick and bloodless victory
of right, might have embroiled us not only with Spain, but
France, and the three despotic Powers which impelled them
against Portugal. If, therefore, and the point will hardly
be contested, the guarantees of Portugal and the guaran-
tees of Schleswig stand on the same basis, the indirect
acknowledgment which the last received in 1826 was bril-
liant and emphatic. No English politician can see Schles-
wig torn from Denmark without the same regret, at least
the same humiliation he would feel if Portugal was con-
quered. He must desire a compensation and a balance for
a result by which the credit of Great Britain is so inju-
riously altered. But the lapse of treaties ana oblivion of
engagements is not the only ground for seeking a new
policy. The general position of the Continent can
hardly fail to offer us another. He cannot help
observing every tendency and movement which Great
Britain would desire to avert. We see France,
to avoid all exaggeration, colder than she used to be. We
see Russia and the German Powers obviously combining.
If they were not combined, could Denmark have been
trampled on ? Do you believe the German Powers would
have ventured on that course had Russia actively discoun-
tenanced it? If they had not combined, could Poland have
been cast into a deeper tomb than that which formerly cog-
pressed her ? If they had not combined, would Austria
have been detached from the path on which a year ago it
was the triumph of the Foreign-office to have set her, and
from which she has relapsed into the ancient mire she had
quitted? We see upon the Continent—these are facts
which cannot be disputed—the objects of the country
baffled, and her remonstrances despised. Let any one
compare in foreign policy the Britain of 1815, or that of
1826, or that of 1841, with that of the present moment; he
must be tempted to indulge in terms, which I, in order
to avoid the semblance of heat, shall studiously refrain from.
But what, my lords, enhances the regret adds to the desire
of reparation. In any foreign capital we should hear some-
thing of the errors from which the situation had arisen.
In Copenhagen we should hear that the despatch of Sep-
tember, 1862, had lent an impulse to the German move-
ment which never afterwards subsided. This very day,
a well-known journal has a letter from that city, alleging,
what indeed we knew before, that its inhabitants attribute
to that despatch the tide of evils which engnlfs them. At
Paris we should be informed that the obstacles presented by
Great Britain to the Congress in November had altered the
alliance, had estranged the Emperor, at the very moment
when the death of the King of Denmark and the im-
pending crisis made such consequences doubly alarming.
And will any one at present venture to assert that the latent
and contingent inconveniences, which perhaps resided in
the project of a Congress, outweighed the broad and pal-
pable calamities which its refusal has inflicted upon
Europe. At St. Petersburg we should be told of the delu-
sion which led our Foreign-office to count on Russia in the
autumn, when our conduct on the Polish question had
excited her resentment; when the Russian and the German
objects were identical upon. the Baltic; when the necessity
and policy of Russia was to exchange supptirt and succour
both at Berlin and Vienna. In any capital the English
traveller would hear that to insist upon the Conference
without preliminary measures to support it was to run into
inevitable failure. It was said before the Conference began,
and this will be admitted, that success alone can vindicate
a measure which at the outset all the world condemns as
idle for its purpose. If it is true, my lords, after a brief
and unimpassioned view of what has happened, that cur
treaties have been sacrificed, if it is true that our objects
have been baffled, and also that our errors are
conspicuous, I venture to maintain that a desire
must suggest itself for something in the nature of an
indemnifying policy. To rescue Denmark is assumed
to be impossible, But the fragment of that kingdom can-
not stand alone without the territory which we have not
been able to secure to it. It is hardly requisite to show that
a nation composed of North Jutland and the islands, reduced
in population and revenue, no longer leading on the Baltic,
without a military frontier, assailable by Germany from Sles-
wig, assailable, by Germany on the sea coast, and at the same
time the ekject of its wishes, would not be able to main-
tain ie.self. Eventually it must become absorbed in Ger-
roreny, unless a Scandinavian union happens to preserve it.
Both in Sweden and in Denmark a considerable party are
known to lean to such an union. If the treaty of 1852 is
gone, dynastic circumstances favour it. Before now its
advantages to Europe have been stated. But they are
summed up in the jealousy with which—as the
despatches before your lordships show—it is re-
garded at St. Petersburg. What inspires that jealousy ?
A Scandinavian union could not act aggressively on
Russia: Its population could not go beyond 10,000,000,
while that of -Russia, as your lordships well know, is
70,000,00'd. The jealousy arises from the fact, and only
from, the fact, that such an union would retard the growth
e.,i Russian power on the Baltic. While Russia menaces
Ithe East, defies the treaty of Vienna, detaches Austria
from the wholesome concert in which the Western Powers
had succeeded in engaging her, it is not our policy
to encourage her maritime ambition on the Baltic,
.)n the contrary, it teems to be our policy to check it. No
doubt, my lords, the union of she Scandinavian countries
could not be promoted except by France and Great Britain
cordially co-operating, Such a line could only be pursued
'with tenderness to vested rights, to popular ideas, and
diplomatic complications. It could only be pursued by
cautious steps and well-concerted movements. But before
it is denounced as visionary or irrelevant, your lordships
ought to glance at the alternative. The alternative con-
tains a series of intelligible evils, When Denmark lapses
altogether into Germany, you have to bear the unmitigated
triumph of that false and hypocritical aggression, which has
shocked us; the no less complete humiliation of the power
whose diplomacy endeavoured to restrain it; the aggran-
disement of Russia at the Baltic through her influence on
Germany; the defencelessness of Sweden no longer fortified
by Denmark ; the right of any country strong enough to
kindle war in Europe when its balance had so materially
altered ; the general decline of public law after the
blows it would receive and the encroachments it would
suffer in the event lam supposing. But whether or not
we ought to favour Scandinavian union as the best result
of the misfortunes which have happened to ourselves and
to the world. Dismissing altogether such a topic, it is still
essential to determine the operation of the treaties which
the notice has referred to. Were it our policy to make
Denmark German, or to sustain her weak, denuded, and
dismantled in her islands, the question would not be
irrelevant. No line of action seems to be legitimate until
we understand the manner in which the treatises bear upon
us. It would be satisfactory, no doubt, if the Government
would say that they continued to acknowledge) them, that
combinations might be yet formed for giving them effect,
that it was not too late to rescue Denmark, and recover
our honour. Such language all would hail, and