The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TlMES,—Parliament has at last digested the only
tough morsel which disturbed eccasiohally she (pie-
tude of the slumbering session. Three times already
there has been an effort to get rid of that China
lump, which on excel occasion produaed a slight
nightmare and a small struggle without any happy
solution. Now it is all over. The unassimilated
morsel is dissolved ; China is clear out of the parlia-
mentary breast. Like a debt paid by a note of
hand or a hreken nrotttiee heeled by the homage a plausibie excuse, the Ciairds df tlhine bays
been handsomely recognised, and the topic may
now fairly be struck off the parliamentary list.
Nothingi ihtlated, has been antealle done ; it was
only a motion made and withdrawn ; vci row
stayed to listen, because no one expected to have
to divide ; but it was something that China has
at last escaped the ignominy of a count out, and
that a tolerable sprinkling of the first and second
class speakers have submitted to be called up
in debate. It was just such a demonstration as
might be expected upon a subject which tees at one
time of immeuce interest, because of immense dan-
ger, but has cow lost its interest because every one
knows that all danger is past. No one ventures to
treat it with open contempt, because it is it, itself so
vast and may at any moment become so important ;
but at the same time no practical statesmen cares to
adopt it as a subject, because all moderate men are
not only agreed that the present policy is sound, but
they see that it is successful. It has for the present
lost its party importance, and is a bit of no man's
land, on to which every " independent member"
may ride his own particular hobby to caper and cur-
vet. At this moment the position of this country
towards China is the very model attitude of non-in-
tervention. Captain Sherard Osborn is come back
with his squadron, the instructions to our naval
officers confine them strictly to the defence of our
Treaty Ports and a :little breathing circuit round
them, and the order is now on its way, if it be not
already arrived, which will detach Major Gordon
from the service of the Imperial Government.
Whether, as has been suggested, the Admiralty
have issued instructions that Chinese pirates shall
not be interfered with so long as they confine them-
selves to the plunder of native merchant vessels, we
are not informed ; but this far-strained application
of the non-intervention principle to non-interven-
tion between the robber and his victim was not
wanted to show that we are perfectly impartial
between the Imperial Government of China and
the hordes of plunderers who infest, the country.
All we do is to protect our own merchants,
oar own Treaty Ports, and our own commerce;
and that policy thrives so well that everybody
is satisfied with it. The amount of our trans-
actions with the Empire of China is in-
creasing yearly in a ratio that seems almost
incredible, and although some of the old' world
superstitions seem still to survive in our House of
Commons, and although gentlemen who ought to
know better seem to think with the Chinese that
commerce is only valuable when the exports exceed
the imports, yet the British public generally have
learnt that it is a good thing to have large trans-
actions with a great country, even if you have to
pay for its produce in the silver and gold you
accumulate from your commerce elsewhere. To the
general public it will be matter of congratulation
that tea has been imported from China in greatly
increased quantities, and that silk has come over in
greater abundance. The present generation has
been brought up to believe that the more plentful
an article of general consumption is, the more
attainable it is by the multitude who desire it ;
and, therefore, they rejoice that the commerce
with China goes en doubling itself, even although
it may be shown that the " balance of trade" is
against us. In the increase of the commercial move-
ment at the Treaty Ports in China we do, therefore,
recognise, and we believe the public in general re-
cogises, success of the modern policy pursued by
our Government. The closest reading of this debate
will fail to discover more than one practical suge
gestion to be drawn from the speeches of the speak-
ers. With that single suggestion it should not be
our business to quarrel, for it is one which was first
made in these columns, and was launched imme-
diately the news of the failure of the Osborn expe-
dition arrived. It requires no very great astuteness
to discover that China has arrived at a point when
she must be either cut up by conquest or eaten into
by the gradual growth of Free Cities. This idea was
the thought which pervaded the debate of Tuesday
night, and which alone gave it vitality. We must
protest, however, that our notion of a Free
City is not that which was presented to the
Rouse of Commons in this debate. A Free City
such as we see in the future of China is not a rock
like Hongkong, with its surrounding fleet, its Go-
vernor, its courts, and its wide jurisdiction. We do
not recognise as a Free City the fortress of a first-
cless Power, existing as a menace to the neighbour-
ing country. China has a fringe of islands which,
if they became free in this sense, would advance the
interests of commerce much as the castles on the
Rhine protected the ancient navigation of that river.
Whether we bought or conquered them, such pos-
sessions as these could only oe a curse to us and to
the world. Hongkong is in itself worse than useless,
for the action of its courts and the jurisdiction of its
Governor are a standing nuisance in the Chinese
seas. If we had a succession of Hcugkongs all up
and down the coast, we must have a Governor and a
garrison for each ; we should but multiply our ex-
penses and our chances of quarrel ; and, as the
example of Shanghai shows, such establishments
never could compete with a really Free City. The
Free Cities we hope to see are those which grow of
their own accord, and which rise out of the cir-
cumstances of an abundant commerce and an un-
settled country. If the nations of Europe would
agree to stand aloof, we should very soon see little
commercial repubiics intrenching themselves and
extending themselves upon the shores of China!
Just such cities as arose upon the coast of Africa,
and in later history upon the coasts of Italy, when
similar dangers compelled traders to draw together
fur defence and self-government. We believe
that our cheapest and our best policy is not to
establish, but to favour the growth of such coma
munities as may develope themselves into free
Cities. Nor can we expect that this development
will be the work of a day, or that so great a ruin
as that which is mouldering over the heads of one-
third of the human race can fall, and be reformed
into modern habitations, without many clouds of
dust and some terrible catastrophes. These specula-
tions, however, are of very minor importance now
we are all agreed that our interest is to force nothing
in China, but to be content to defend our own, and
follow the course of circumstances. The active
policy of obtaining possession of islands round the
coast and turning them into fortified warehouses is
not likely to find many advocates; the passive
policy of holding our own and waiting is the policy
which is now being pursued with a very general
approval, and which at any rate has the advantage
of a present success.

POST.—The grand object to be attained by
the Confederation is so to arrange matters that
henceforth the territories of Denmark, wherever
the frontier may be drawn, shall be inviolate, and
that the enoroachmints of the German Powers
may be finally stopped. So long as what we
may term the process of Germanisation shall
be allowed to go on in Danish territory, the integrity
and independence of Denmark wia be gradually
sapped and undermined. If this were put an end
to once for all, it would be like arresting the dry
rot in the timbers of a ship or a house. The rid-
dance of a disaffected, seditious population is not,
in fact, a loss; it is in reality a gain. If the dis-
affected portion of the King of Denmark's subjects
could be made to undergo a change of mind and
feeling, and if there were not a population of some
forty millions of the same race only divided from
them by a geographical line, the case would be dif.
ferent from what it is. But the Germans have made
up their mind to possess themselves of as much
Danish territory as they possibly can. They have
Germanised Holstein, and a portion even of Schles-
wig. If this leavened portion of territory be not
cut off, like a mortified limb, the malady will gra-
dually spread over the whole body politic. Not
perhaps within the present generation ; but far-
seeing statesmanship has to look beyond so brief a
period as this. So long as the King of Denmark is
the sovereign of a German duchy, and subject to the
jurisdiction of the German Diet, so long will the
Germanising process go on, and so long will Ger-
many harbour designs for the dismemberment and
absorption of Denmark. The question then is—
How are these difficulties to be met and got over ?
The Germans, of course, are for having both the
entire Duchies severed from Denmark and erected
into an independent State under the Prince of
Augustenburg, or some other Sovereign, and added
as a new member to the German Confederation.
This project is entirely inadmissible, for the obvious
reason that a large portion of Schleswig is inhabited
by a purely Danish population. Denmark could
never be expected to assent to so unjust a propo-
sition as this. The neutral powers, whose office
and.
duty it is to see that something like juss
nee is done, could never give their sanction
to so unreasonable and inequitable an ar-
rangement. Another suggestion is to divide
Schleswig by a line which shall sever the Danish
from the German population, and unite the south-
ern or German portion, with Holstein and Lauen-
burg, into a new State, to be brought within the
German Confederation. The northern or Danish
portion of Schleswig would then have to incorpo-
rated with Denmark Proper. But the difficulty here
is to find where the line can be drawn. In the north
of Schleswig the population is purely Danish. In
tha south the Germans claim the preponderance.

But there is a broad surface between the two eX-
tremes where the population is mixed, and perhaps
about eqUally mixed. How is this portion of the
Daeby to be dealt with To incorporate a Daniph
naaatation with the new Oerraiin State would be
r
an ad of harsh injustice bordering'
upon
cruelty. The project of a personal onion would
hate the effect, if carried out, of exposing peani.art:
ni to the Geranising process, and to the ainitw_.
machinations of Geruian politicians. Denmark c"'
positirie_
al
the Danes, and the Dines in Denmark, should
ea
press the nature of the new arrangement. What'
ever the equities of the case may be,
rrf alistra,.,t justice, Denmark cannot hcrtre, es:
question of fad and practical expediency, to hnletif,
single•handed, her ground in Holstein and SO',
Schleswig against the Gerrftnised populations
Within, backed by forty millions of foreign populace
mans without. The vast mass of aggreeaive matt
seatioo
is pressing on end on, without a moment is
Upon Denmark. A personal union would kceP open
e"i a questicla
the median of Communication through which
Germanising process crperates. Cut off this cornint-
nication by isolating Denmaiole entirely from per
many, and her chances of maintaining the inclePe.rY
deuce and integrity of her territories will be great
!$
The proposal for the peopla of .tfo
Duchies to elcctl by universal suffrage, under villa,
Government they shall henceforth live, would pot:
solve the difficulty about the mixed populations;
If all the inhabitants of both Duchies are to were
in one mass, then, if the gross majority Dpi
Germans, the eliecZ would be to dispose the Da131,5
inhabitants of a portiot of territory—nail:oo
North Schleswig—as if they Wsve a flock of sheep;
If the purely Danish population of this Duchy ate
to be placed under alien rule by a majority voting
by universal suffrage, with all the magical raysterid
of the ballot-box to boot, it will be just as 13,(1of
apon them as if a single despot had dispose() ~,
them. If the Confederates are to be coerced Imo"
into the Union against their will by the Federalsl
because these are in the majority, it will be just
hard a fate as it would have been for the colonists
to have been coerced by King George M. A vote,
,
taken by universal suffrage throughout the Duce"-
would not show what was the real feeling of those
parts where the population is either purely Danish
or purely German, or mixed. And even if it wer"
proposed to take the sense of the several district!:
there would be some difficulty in defining th
boundary lines for separating one from another'
But, considerable as these difficulties are, they are
by no means absolutely insuperable ; and it is E
their solution that the Conference has been calla
into existence. A point of great immediate impor-
tance is the prolongation of the armistice. If be s'
tilities are renewed on the 12th of this month, tht).
Conference will have come to nothing, and its labour:
will be at an end. While it is sitting, and there
a suspension of arms, there is at least a chance „c'
apc 2ific settlement. It will be singular if all th
e,
Powers who were parties to the Treaty of 1852
r
11
unable to frame some arrangements which 3
,t
satisfy the parties more immediately concerned °
minimising the amount of injustice to be done ,or
one of them. It is a hard thing for Denmark to be
deprived of her possessions in spite of a treaty
'-
which her despoilers were parties ; but we have
deal with what is, not what ought to be. The 01
tion is, whether the integrity and independence °,
Denmark Proper shall be preserved intact, and til:
cruel war be brought to an end, or whether t",:,
conflict is to go on, with the chance of even
territory being invaded and dismembered. It ietc
fact, a choice of evils ; it is a hard choice, but it lot;
necessary one. We have had to put up with sac
a choice ourselves, and so has every other couctri,
at one time or other. We had to give up our At°e;
rican colonies ; the United States will have to gy,,
up the South ; and Denmark, if she judge avieel;.
will recognise as a benefit, rather than mourn as
loss, the riddance of a disaffected population.