The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIME:S.—A question vastly more simple than the
general character of the Debate would seen to imply
has boen settled by a division happily more decisive
that we had been led to expect. In a vary full
House, a majority of 18—just twice as lar,:e as the
majority the other way in the Lords—has vindicated
the intentions and indemnified the failures of her
Majesty's Government. In the course of a debate
which has exhausted every conceivable fact, every
argument, and every mode of treatment, " from
grave to gay, from lively to severe," it is some satis-
faction to find that nobody has ventured to impeach
the motives and temper of the Cabinet. It has not
entered into the head of either honest foe or candid
friend to insinuate that Lord Palmerston end Lord
Rassell have had any other object in view than
" righteousness and peace"—that Denmark, as we
have known it for ages, should still be Denmark;
and that there should be no appeal to arms. They
have been pat on their trial, not for any sin of in-
tention, not even for want of diligence, for indiffer-
ence, for carelessness, or any of the secondary faults
said to be more mischievous than the cardinal vices,
but merely for failure. Had the members of the
Cabinet been so many simple-hearted missionaries
put on their trial by their savege converts for the
failure of the fishery and the potato crop which they
had prayed for in vain, they would have received
mach the same sort of trial as that just witnessed
in the precincts of Westminster-hall. Had Govern-
ment—not this Government or that, but any Go-
vernment since 1848—done nothing at all, but let
the mischief take its course, we presume that would
have escaped censure. Had the present Cabinet, on
taking office, consulted the family lawyer, and re-
solved to repudiate the danznasa hereditas of the
Scaleswig-Holstein negotiation, that, too, would
have accorded with the views of most of their present
accusers. Had they threatened war, and fufalled
their threat, then they would have come under that
popular definition of the English gentleman's duty,
which consists in meddling with your neighbour's af-
fairs because you are ready to fight him. Nay, if they
had tried, but suffered another sort of failure; if they
had landed on the Danish peninsula and sailed into
the Baltic, single-handed, in order to make their
ward as good as their deed, but had lost as much as
we did in the Crimean war, without even that pass
able amount of success, then a respectable majority
of the House of Commons would have been ready to
do fall justice to the honest intentions arid generous
spirit which had impoverished England, filled her
homes with mourning, and ruined Denmark into
the bargain. Bat the coarse actually taken had no
redeeming grace in the eyes of the gentlemen who
have constituted themselves protectors of the public
interests and guardians of the national honour. The
monster indictment has pursued the delinquents not
only through every act and word of their own offi-
cial lives, but also the whole of the previous trans-
actions followed up by them and presumably
adopted. It has searched into the remotest acts of
their former and non-official life. It has done every
thing but charge upon them what they ought to
have done. As the subject was the most complex
it was possible to imagine, it had to be met with a
variety of treatment adapted to each part of the
case. But as everything has failed, so everything
has been wrong, and the error is as multiform as
the case. It was first attempted to settle the diffi-
culty by the solemn concurrence of the great Euro-
pean Powers, including the two that claim to speak
and act for Germany. That has not answered, and
was therefore wrong. it was attempted to change
the law of succession in Denmark, so as to bring
the three States under the same dynasty in
future. That failed, and was therefore wrong. As
the three States would not amalgamate, it was
attempted to create three constitutiose under one
sovereign, COI provision for their harmonious
action. This failed, and was therefore wrong. But
one error only succeeded another in acme where all
interference was assumed to be wrong, whether
into the self-government of a State or its relations
with its neighbours. To decline to enter a Con-
gress upon all the past difficulties and possible wars
of Europe was wrong ; and it was not less
wrong to propose a Conference with a view to the
solution of an existing difficulty and the stopping
of actual bloodshed. It was wrong to propose a
new boundary ; it had been wrong to unite, so it
was wrong to distnember ; it was wrong to stand
net, ..A uurntlft to give way ; it was wrong to pro-
pose an arbitration; it was wrong to encourage to
resistance, and wrong to advise concession ; it was
wrong to prepare for giving material assistance,
and then wrong not to assist. The eventual failure
brands every stage of the proceeding, A struggle
of unexampled versatility between two large and
wealthy States, all powerful on land and a small
and poor State, subsisting by its humble maritime '
resources, and dealing with a political entangle-
ment surpassing all that is known of border diffie
culties, presented a good many new situations, each
of which had to be met in its own fashion. This
change of ground was itself a crime, or worse than
a crime, for it did not answer. What are we to say
of the morality of an accusation which assumes all
failure to be wrong ? It has not once been even
hinted that any mixed motive interfered with the
simple benevolence of this friendly intervention.
Faults of manner have been ascribed to it ; it has
been called fussy, pragmatical, " meddling and
muddling," and a good deal more ; but there has
not been a suspicion of malice, or self-interest, or
jealousy, or revenge, or any of the feelings apt to
prompt gratuitous interference. Had there been
any such motive, and had the Cabinet been beaten
in a policy which promised some advantage, the
world would have iorgiven a bad speculation. The
crime in this case has been pure and simple peace-
making—about as successful as peacemaking usually
is on any scale, great or small. Had Parliament
really pronounced a stigma on such a course, it cer-
tainly would have put itself in collision with autho-
rities and traditions which England is accustomed to
venerate. Fortunate as we are in our own unex-
ampled unity and peace, it is not an amiable weak-
ness, but a legitimate inference from our own expe-
rience, that prompts us to communicate these bles-
sings to our neighbours by every persuasion, and at
any sacrifice. There was not even novelty in the
task in this instance. We were not proposing to
constitute a new State—to make another Denmark,
either large or less, or of fresh materials. We were
simply labouring to keep Denmark as much as pos-
sible as it was,and we have failed,—failed for the
present, and for that failure Government has been
put on its trial this week. Happily for the sake of
Peace, the verdict has been on the side of honesty
and good intention, though not gilded by success;
and England, we trust, will not be compelled to
desist from her function as a kind and honest peace-
maker.

POST.—About two o'clock this morning the .two
Houses of Parliament divided almost simultaneously
on a vote of want of confidence in the Government.
In the House of Lords Ministers were put in a
minority of nine; in the House of Commons they
commanded a majority of 18. In the House of Lords
123 out of 242 peers present voted with the Govern.
ment, the balance, 119, giving their votes in favour
of Lord Malmesbury's address. Of the proxies, 45
were given to the Government and 58 to the Oppo-
sition. In the House of Commons 295 members
voted in favour of Mr. Disraeli's address, and 313
against it. With this result the Ministry have
reason to be satisfied. No majority in the Upper
House would have counterbalanced the smallest
minority in the Lower one, and the substantial ma-
jority given to the Government in the House of
Commons must be accepted as the decision of the
country. That Ministers would be victorious in
the House of Commons no one entertained a doubt ;
it was only in respect to the numbers of the ma
jority that a diversity of opinion existed. It is by the
people of the country, through their elective repre-
sentatives, that a Government must be judged, and
by their verdict it must stand or fall. The appeal
has now been made, and by the result, as shown in
the division lists this morning, the Ministry are wil-
ling to abide. To the general tenor of the most re-
markable debate which for many years has taken
place in the House of Commons we will only briefly
allude. It was a great party contest. Each side
summoned forth all its strength, and fought
bravely, and, we would say, fairly, for the prize of
victory. The debate was warm, and at times ap-
proached to fever heat; but if it had not done so
it would have been unworthy to rank beside those
great Parliamentary contests to whioh the present
generation looks back with pride. Men are not
machines, and on occasions like the recent ono an
amount of license is permissible which, perhaps, at
other times had best be withheld. A truly eloquent
man speaks from his heart, and, if he desires to ex-
press feelings of anger or indignation, cannot cast
about in search of those honeyed phrases which the
usages of society require to be employed in ordinary
conversation. When on Thursday evening the
Under‘Secretary for Foreign Affairs., stung by an
,unquelitiOnAbly strong expression wnioh fell from