The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-01 00:00:00

Denmark and Germany since 1852.

(From the Exanuner.)

It was on the 25th of January, 1852, that the
King of Denmark announced by Proclamation the
scheme of the new Danish Constitution, which was
afterwards comraunicated to the Federal DiLt., and
formally accepted by it in the July of the 6411.1 C year
as satisfactory. This was the schema that con-
verted the Government of Denmark from an ab,;o-
lute to a constitutional Monarchy. By the Procla-
mation the King became pledged not to incorporate
Slesvig with Denmark Proper, to connect together
all parts of his dominions in equality of political
rights, and to deal even-handed justice to the
Germans and the Danes in Slesvig.
Now Denmark Proper had already obtained, in
1848, a free Constitution, and the first step to the
establishment of the promised gefieral Constitution
was that the Parliament of Denmark Proper should
be reduced from a Sovereign to a Provincial Assem-
bly, retaining a deliberative vote. To this it con•
seated, and the Danish Government then established
by octroi, in 1854, a Constitution—somewhat mo-
dified in 1855—for all the King's dominions. A
General Council of the Realm, or Rigsraad, was
founded, based upon equal representation of all
parts of the monarchy, according to the ratio of
population and taxation. Denmark Proper, with a
population of about 1,600,000, sent 47 of the 80 re-
presentatives; Slesvig, with a population of about
410,000, sent 13; Holstein, with a population of
556,000, sent 18; and Lauenberg, with a population
of 50,000, sent 2. A normal budget was framed
for the regular housekeeping expenses of the
monarchy, and the financial control of the Assembly
limited to grants asked in excess of this.
This constitution was established by octroi ; for
the one good reason that in no other way could a
constitution ever be obtained. The whole policy
of the German Duchies, Holstein and Lauenburg,
being to make themselves untenable by Denmark,
to make the establishment dependent upon the good
pleasure of their provincial assemblies would have
been to continue for ever the confusion that the
octroi was meant to abate.

So it remained only for Holstein and Lauenburg,
according to the usual policy of obstruction, to pro-
test against the attempt thus made to thrust on
them fulfilment of the King's pledge for their bene-
fit. Little Lauenburg complained to the German
Federal Diet, and the Diet demanded abrogation of
the Constitution of 1855, for the two Duchies, of
Holstein and Lauenburg, within the Federation.
Many form of concession were tried, but none would
satisfy the malcontents, and by an ordinance of
November 6, 1858, Holstein and Lauenburg were
put out of constitutional union with the other parts
of the Danish monarchy.
Rights and liberties were thus thrown away, but
there was a point gained towards further agitation.
Holstein and Lauenburg being cut off, there re-
mained Slesvig attached to Denmark Proper by the
common constitution. Could they not construothis
into incorporation of the Duchy with the monopoly.
True, there was no change whatever in the inde-
pendent local jurisdiction of the Slesvig Assembly,
or in any of the distinct privileges of the Duchy.
No matter. Holstein was out of the constitution,
Slesvig in; that could be mystified easily into a
case of incorporation.

But the next claim made for Holstein against Denmark
by the Federal Diet was by a decree of March 8, 1860,
and another of February 7, 1861, that until Holstein left
off disputing over the constitution, the Assembly of that
German Duchy should have equal power with the
Rigsraad in controlling the affairs of the whole Danish
monarchy I This absurd claim was compromised by Bri-
tish intervention, it was simply agreed that Holstein
should be asked for no more than its share under the nor-
mal budget towards general expenses of the Monarchy, a
modest share fixed in proportion to its smaller population.
Negotiation was continued, and in the summer and autumn
of last year the German claims gradually advanced in
impudence until they settled into these demands : That
whatever was left of the Danish Constitution should be
destroyed. That anew Constitution be submitted to the four
Provincial Assemblies of Denmark Proper, Slesvig, Hol-
stein and Lauenburg, and that until these agreed--in other
words, till Doomsday—the four Assemblies shoulp divide,
among themselves into four equal parts the power over the
affairs of the whole Monarchy I Could there be more im-
pudently iniquitous proposals for the ruin of Denmark than
that 50,000 Germans of Lauenburg should neutralise the
million and half of Danes in Denmark Proper, and so leave
it to the Holsteiners with the help of the Government As-
sembly of Slesvig to execute the will of Fatherland on the
whole Danish Monarchy ?
Yet even in this direction the temperate counsels of the
Danish Government went to the utmost limits of prudent
concession and forbearance. An ordinance of March 30
last decreed that no law should be valid in Holstein until
it had obtained the sanction of the Holstein Assembly,
also that no expenditure beyond the sums fixed by the
Normal Budget of 1856, should fall upon Holstein without
its Assembly's previous approval. The Danish Govern-
ment at the same time expressed willingness, if the Diet
wished that it should be so, to abandon its claim of right
oven to Holstein's share under the Normal Budget, and
leave to the Holstein Estates unrestricted control over the
finances of the Duchy. Only, if the Assembly of Holstein,
in using the rights thus conceded, differed from the Rigs-
read as to general laws, it was defined that it could do so
only by an act of separate legislation that, so far as it went,
divided Holstein from the rest of the Monarchy, as a
Duchy that had enacted far itself such independent laws.
To readjust the Constitution of 1855 in accordance with
the new concession of autonomy to Holstein, it was modi-
fied, without touching any of the existing rights of Slesvig,
inta the new common Constitution for Denmark Proper
and Slesvig sanctioned on the 18th of last month.

It was impossible for the Diet to meet this extreme policy
of concession otherwise than by rushing into an extreme of
violence. And so it was under threat of Federal execution
that, by a decree of the 18th of last July, and by another
decree of the Ist of last October, the Federal Diet demanded
the repeal of this last inconvenient concession to the
utmost rational demands of the llelsteiners, and was
compelled to bring to the front its iniquitous arrilre
pensee, by passing beyond the affairs of Holstein and
Lauenburg to express interference with tho Danish
Duchy of Slesvig, after which the Germans hunger. So
matters stood when with a little sense of the nakedness of
its bad cause, Germany took eager advantage of the death
of the late King of Denmark and the uprising of the
wretched Augustenburg pretender, to raise a fresh cloud of
false issues, and by adding wrong to wrong, muddle them•
selves or others into the belief that if they could see it all
through the confusion they would find themselves some-
where at least a little in the right. It is quite cosy, as we
have shown, to blow the smoke away and see the plain
truth that professorial Germany delights to darken with a
far-fetched gibberish of irrelevant archmalogy from the
creation downward.