The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

POST.—TO be able to hope in spite of discourage-
mews destructive of hope is to possess a quality
which has on great authority received a high place
among the Christian virtues. We are not, there
fore, at liberty to scoff at those who solace them-
selves with the expectation that great good will
come of the Conference to be held in London on the

affairs of Denmark. We will try to imitate those
excellent persons who hope the best under all cir-
cumstances and despair of nothing. We will not
suffer ourselves to dwell upon the interference with

anything like calm discussion and judicial equani-
mity which must result from the effects upon dif-
ferent parties of each day's telegrams from the seat
of war. We will recount no more the chances

against a peaceful solution which lie in the fact that
both the assailants and the assailed are possessed

by foregone conclusions. Nor will we spoil any
possibility of a successful issue by throwing
into the arena a single apple of discord out of the

many that lie about on every side. Wo will be con-
tent to watch and wait, giving the Conference, in
the meantime, our good wishes. It will do a good
work if it succeed in terminating the war and

placing the long vexed question of Schieswig-Hol-
stein upon a footing of permanent rest. It may do
this, and we shall be glad to see it. But some things
. _

it can never do. It can ne-rer justify in the eyes of
Europe the barbarity with which the war has been
conducted. It can never wipe out the stains of
blood needlessly shed which will long disgrace
the policy of Austria and Prussia; nor can it
allay the indignation with which the people of
this country regard the proceedings of Germany.
From various causes—not the least among which
must be counted the family alliances which of late

years have been contacted--there was till re-
cently a strong sympathy between the people of
England and the Germans. That feeling has
gone, and no Conference cln resuscitate it. The
feeling uppermost in almost every Englishman's
mind is that two powerful States have combined to
deal out the hardest possible measure to a weak one.
That in doing so they have gone out of their way
to b© unsparing. Not only would they grant no
terms, no armistice, no cessation from the daily
stretch and struggle of almost hopeless self-defence,
but they have done what they resolved to do with
a ferocity that was needless, and a self-glorification
that was inhuman. The bombastic orders of the

day by Prince Charles would lead one to suppose
that his soldiers had performed prodigies of valour
i❑ the face of a superior enemy, and had wo❑ glory
through perils that had no precedent. Whereas
the only credit to which they are entitled is
that which two able-bodied men might claim
. .

for pounding a small boy within an inch of his
life, or for attacking a defenceless woman. Talk
of glory ! Has the military glory of Germany
come to this that it must be freed from the better
instincts of humanity before it can achieve con-
quest ? Is it any glory to swarm over a small ter-
ritory like rats, and then boast of the havoc which
the many have wrought among the few ? Is it
glory to shower fire and shot amongst women and
children, and to slaughter brave men by the brute
force of ten to one ? Let those who can glory in
such deeds ; let the two great Powers of Central
Europe perform their prodigies of power over weak-
ness ; and let their princes proudly proclaim the
heroic actions of superior numbers. These may be
glory in the eyes of Germany, but in England the
triumphs count for tyranny, the achievements for
monstrous cruelty, and the proclamations for mere
swagger. The heart of the nation is with Denmark
as the heart of one man, Not one in ten, perhaps
not one in a hundred, can give.a rational account of
the quarrel, or state the bearings of the Holstein
question. But ninety-nine out of every hundred
know that, be the question what it may, Austria
and Prussia have adopted a tyrannous mode of solv •
ing it, They may know little of Danish or German
treaties, but they know right from wrong, glory
from rapine, fair fight from foul, reason from passion,
and the necessary evils of war from its needless bru -
talties. The conduct of Germany is regarded in this
country with downright abhorrence—so much so,
that it requires the utmost prudence on the part of
our statesmen to keep the popular enthusiasm from
shouting aloud for Denmark at every opportunity and
goading the Government into war. No doubt, neu-
trality is the wise and right course fur this country,
but the reasons are prudential rather than popular.
There is scarcely a dinner-table amongst the highest
classes where the wantonness of Austria and Prussia
is not spoken of in terms of severe reprehension. In
the less reserved circles of the middle and working
classes the utterances are louder and deeper; and
whether it be the unreasoning obstinacy of the
Court of Berlin, or the overweening love of power
at Vienna, or the paltry politics of Frankfort, or the
intrigues of the score or so of petty Sovereigns of
even more petty principalities which make up the
federation, the theme need only be German to draw
forth at once expressions which imply the reverse
of compliment and effection. We are not saying
that this is right, still less that it is wise ; but it is
a fact. The German policy and its attendant
cruelties—for they deserve no better name—heve
scandalised the English mind. If counsels, long
trained to rise superior to passion, did not at once
control the impetuosity, while they command the
confidence, of the whole country, the Charnel fleet
would leave for the Baltic in four and twenty
hours, and Europe would blaze up with war.
It remains to be seen what the Conference will
do. We have seen what it cannot do. At the same
time it is certain that something must be done.
This terrible assault on Denmark must be stayed
somehow. There is a point at which the neutral
Powers of Europe must reconsider their attitude.
Not the most pacific of European politicians is pre-
pared to see Denmark spunged out of the map. Yet
the Germans show no signs of holding their hand ;
and the heroic Denes still sell their lives at the
dearest price kncwn to inherent bravery and aggra-
vated sense of ill. treatment. Welcome, then, the
Conference, hopeless as its prospects are I Welcome
anything that will but make an effort to stop the
waste of blood, to secure that necessary fighting
shall at least be fair, and that judicial wisdom shall
undertake the problem which passion fails to solve.
HERALD.—The bare suggestion that France had
accepted the project of a Conference to arrange the
Dario-German dlffieulty, with the popular will as a
basis, or, in other words, that the Duchies should
decide according to the views of those possessing
most power and influence among them, has very
naturally drawn attention to a subject of the
greatest importance to the present and future
wel:-being of States and dynasties during times
when some, at least, of these are considered not
to be firmly established. If the dangerous prin-
ciple that the supposed will of the people is to
supersede treaties regularly and solemnly ratified be
conceded, then there is not a power in Europe
which may not well tremble for some part of its
possessions. There is no kingdom so blessed with
peace or united in its people which might not be
disturbed with the prospect of independence held
out to any of its sections. What has happened in
Italy may well happen in Germany, in Russia, and
elsewhere. When Earl Russell produced his famous
dispatch to Turin, counselling the doctrine of na-
tionalities, a member of the House of Commons rose
and declared that on that principle our tenure of
Ireland would not be safe for a day, for that uni-
versal suffrage would pronounce for a severance of
the connection with England. Extreme and most
unlikely as this statement appears when utter- d in
a time of internal union and peace, on reflection, and
guided by experience, it will not seem so entirely
absurd and without foundation. If the men of jute!.
ligence and property in Ireland had alone to deter-
mine the matter there could be but little doubt of
their loyal conclusion. But the decision would fall
to numbers, that is, to prejudice, hatred, and igno-
rance, and to unscrupulous ambition acting on these.
The momentous question would thus be left to tt e
most incompetent and corrupt of judges. This must
he the result of an appeal to the popular wid every-
where. There may, of course, arise exceptianal exi-
gencies where even the choice of numbers, the vox
populi, if that could in some measure be obtained,
would be preferable to any other arbitrament to de-
cide the vital problem of the government of a naticn.
But that the great Powers of Europe should allow
a principle so purely revolutionary to enter the field
of diplomacy is to believe that they would delibee
rately propose the sentence of their own disinheri-
tance and condemnation. Our French correspon-
dent calls attention to the emphatic opinion of M.
Guizot on the question of universal suffrage, deli-
vered before it had strength to found the Second
Empire, and to combine various sections of the Ita-
lian governments into one kingdom. "No doubt,"
says the statesman and philosopher, " it should be
the object, and it is the natural result, of good social
institutions to raise progressively a greater number
of men to that degree of intelligence and indepen-
dence which qualifies them to participate in the
wielding of political power ; but bet ween that prin-
ciple of free government and universal suffrage held
up as the first and fundamental law of human so-
ciety, what a gulf ! What utter oblivion of an infi-
rite number of facts, rights, and truths which justly
claim their rank and their share in social organisa-
tion." Now, this forgetfulness of facts, rights, and
truths is just the difficulty that Conservatives hays
always to contend against when opposing the popu-
lar views on the seffroge of which Mr. Bright, Mr.
Baines, Mr. Locke King, and other prominent men
of the extreme Radical school' are the champions. It
is very easy to talk of the rights of the working
classes to a free voice in the election of members of
Parliament, but in reality there is no right at all.
The power to choose representatives in the Legis-
lature is the very highest in the kingdom—the
security and permance of all our institutions
rest upon this. It is preposterouspreposterousto assert that