The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TMIES.—A glance at the map of Europe is suffi-
cient to show that there are several reasons which,

in various degrees, singly or iu combination, have
constituted its several divisions as they now stand.

The geographical reason prevails in large islands
and peninsulas, in regions backed by mountain
ranges, frozen deserts, or inhospitable seas. The
national reason, or the influence of race, tells most
when the cognate branches of some one human
family have been closely packed, and other circum-
stances have favoured their assimilation and fusion.

The political reason takes its origin from history—
from the achievements of conquerors and great

statesmen, or from a course of policy favourable
to alliances and compacts for mutual advantage,

leading to closer and more permanent union.
If we review the States of Europe under these
three divisions, it will be observed that the most
enterprising, ambitious, and revolutionary are
those which either possess the concentrated strength
of a great race, or the perfect security of a good
geographical position, or both these advantages.
The most conservative are those which have grown

out of policy, and must depend upon it. It may be
a bold word to say, so we say it in all humility—
nothing but a folly approachig to madness can pre-
vent France, England, and Russia from being very
great Powers. This cannot be said of any one of
the States that lie between them. The more we

admire the genius and the audacity which made

Prussia in the last century, the more we must

admit that her existence- depends every day on

,he soldier and the statesman. The more we ad-

mire the astuteness, the good fortune, the patience
and fortitude, and all the good and evil qualities
which have packed the Austrian empire, and have
held it together, the more must we see
that so motley a population, and so federal a Go-
vernment will only hold together so long as its
policy is modest and wise. When Metternich called
" Italy" a geographical expression, he spoke like a
clever craftsman doing honour to his own craft ;
but he must have inwardly lamented that the Aus-
trian Empire had neither a geographical origin nor

the bond of race; nothing, in fact, but the policy of
which he was a master. How fine that cunning
thread, and how easily broken, he well knew when
he foretold the " deluge" that should come even
earlier than he exp9cted. As he found it, so he left
it—a virtual federation, the form of dynastic unity;
a bnndle of races, allied with some loyalty, but
more sense of mutual benefit. But it is a combina-

tion fatal to political enterprise. All that Austria can
safely attempt is to keep things together and as they
are, to hold its own if possible, to leave its neighbours
alone, to maintain a good police on its frontiers, cul-
tivate tolerable relations with its neighbours, and
let the influences of peace do their work in cement-
ing and mixing her various and scarcely congruous
races. Such is the Power which, urged by sudden
impulse, has raced across Europe to inflict a deadly
wound on another Power, whose only crime was to
resemble Austria herself in the composition of ner
people and her designs for their amalgamation.
Denmark, with mach more reason than Austria,
and a longer prescription to plead in her favour,
has been attempting, perhaps not with equal clever-
ness, but with more than equal candour, to reduce
into an actual administrative unity provinces which
have been held together now, without interruption,
for several generations. There is not a fault to be
found with the Danish policy that does not lie
against the Austrians, in the dealings of the house
of Hapsburg with its discordant multitude of .
sub-
jects. The difference in favour of Austria is one of
might, not right, for she conspires and co-operates,
after a fashion, with forty million Germans, akin
to the malcontents with whom Christian IX. has
to deal, hostile to those under Francis Joseph.
But as Austria lives and breathes by policy, by
policy she must stand or fall. As she does to Den-
mark, so must she expect to be done by. What-
ever she says to Denmark must be read in Venetia,
in Huneary, in Transylvania, and Galicia. When she
declares war upon Denmark she declares war also in
behalf of all those alien dependencies against her-
self. W hen she says this is her time, she proclaims
with trumpet voice that this is their time also to
assert their national independence. So Austria finds,
in fact ; for scarcely has she completed her occupa-
tion of Schleswig before she has to deal with the
more terrible occupation of one of her own provinces
by the original race itself, fighting with the best
means and the best weapons at its command. Eng-
lishmen can speak their thoughts with a good con-
science at such a time. We, too, have had to deal
with divers races, but we have done all that was
possible to make them one, and, on the whole, we
have succeeded. Our only interest in the approach-
ing conflict is that populations held under an alien
Crown shall either be made to feel that their true
interest, their improvement, and their !elf-re.ence.
spect
enet
lie that way, or shall achieve their indeT
But France has not that purely philanehropc
i
interest in the quest ion,nor even has Russia. France,
with her commanding geographical position, has a
singularly homogeneous people. Her varieties of
race sink into insignificance compared with her
oneness. Indeed, the policy of all her great states-
men
in has been directed for centuries to the aboli-
tion of everything that could stand the way of
unity. The nobility, religion, language—every-
thing liable to assume a local and independent ohs-
racter„has been beaten or smoothed down into the
ideal Frenchman. The result is a power unknown
to any other forty millions of men, But France
has her grievance, the abstract justice of which
cannot be denied. She sees beyond the frontier
imposed by European jealousy, but within the
frontier that Nature herself seemed to ordain, a
large population more French than
German, and
disposed to union with her. This is her interest
in the gathering strife ; and at the present time the
only object of ambition placed within her reach.
If Germany, whether in the Diet or in a less
regular way, by the hands of her two most powerful
States, lays down the law and carries out the prin-
ciple that no Germans shall be allowed to remain
under an alien Crewnithe Rhenish provinces fall by
natural gravitation into the lap of France. England
has already laid down the self-denying ordinance
that she will not interfere again to arrange the map
of Europe, unless she be required either by treaty
or a necessary regard to her own interest. Whether
we should indeed look on quietly must be left to the
circumstances of the time and season, but such is
our present attitude. France, then, is the State
principally interested in the success of this mon-
strous aggression. But what " nationality" will
fail to hear the call, and hesitate to obey it, even if
it has waited for that time ? There is not a State
between the Mediterranean and the Baltic that is
not either encouraged or menaced by this movement,
and told that now, if ever, is the time 10 get its own
again, oe keep and acquire what it can.
POST.—The despatches which relate to the special
mission of Lord Wodehouse to the Danish Court are
those which in that mass of correspondence known
a s the Danish papers will be read with the greatest
interest. The Dano-German dispute underwent so
total a change on the death of Frederick VII. that,
except as a matter of historic interest, the negotia-
tions to which the Schleswig-Holstein question had
previously given rise possess but little intrinsic
value. On the accession of Christian IX., however,
the right of succession to the Duchies became for
the first time agitated, and almost simultaneously
the promulgation of a common constitution for Schles-
wig and the Kingdom Proper gave to the German
Powers a fresh pretext for pursuing towards Den-
mark that aggressive policy on which they had long
resolved. The mission ofLord Wodehouse, accredited
as that nobleman was to the Court of Copenhagen,
with the object of congratulating the new Sovereign
on his accession to the throne, consequently marks
the opening of a new phase of the Dano-German
question, and the fact that the English Govern-
ment took advantage of his visit to Denmark to
unfold their views of the policy which, to their
minds, it was incumbent on the Danish Cabinet to
pursue, tendersit equally the starting-point of those
negociations which have hitherto produced such un-
profitable results. In the last instalment of the
Danish correspondence presented to Parliament are
contained the special instructions given by the Go-
vernment to Lord Wodehouse on his departure from
England, together with the substance of the com-
munications which passed between our Envoy and
the Prussian Prime "Minister when the former was
at Berlin. This blue book also contains a very re-
markable despatch of the English Foreign Secre-
tary on the subject of the common Constitution ;
but as the correspondence does not extend beyond
the middle of December, the time of Lord Wode-
house's arrival at Copenhagen, no information is
afforded respecting his communications with the
Danish Government or of the result of his mission.
l'he documents before us, however, furnish ample
matter for comment. So far as we can
gather from the letter of instructions ad-
dressed by Earl Russell to Lord Wode-
house, the latter was authorised to exercise
the quasi-judicial function of hearing the com-
plaints of the aggrieved parties, and then to tran-
mit them to the English Foreign-office, there to be
duly. sifted by her Majesty's Secretary of State.
" It Is not my purpose," writes Earl RUBS( 11 on the
9th of Dacember, " either to point out how these
engsgements (the diplomatic. engagements entered
into by Denmark. with Austria and Prussia in 1851)
have been violated. It will be for the Ministers of
Austria. and Prussia to make their complaints on
this head." The Ambassador is further instructed
to communicate with the Ministers of France,
Russia,. and Sweden at the Danish Court, and, if
possible, to induce them to make joint representa-
tion' the Danish Government, the main object to
be kept in view being the fulfilment of the 'Treaty
of 1852, as well as of the engagements respectively
entered into by Denmark, Austria, and Prussia in