The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-27 00:00:00

by fortifications, and by keeping bothour army and navy
in the most efficient condition. We must endeavour to

maintain the best understanding with France. Above all,
he looked as our beet security to the revival of tho ancient
spirit of the country, which did not consider lucre, but
looked to honour. There was no doubt that wb at we now

saw passing around us was calculated to fir, us both with
indignation and regret. Did history record any instance of
cruelty more revolting than that of which the Poles bad
recently been made the victims? Did history record
another instance in which, as had been the case with the

Poles during the last few months—women, children, old
men, young men, the glory and pride of their country, had
been marched (without any of that assistance required by
the age of some and the sex of others) from Warsaw to
Siberia, dying on the road or destined to slavery when they
arrived at their destination ? When we saw this, and wit-
nessed the wrong done to Denmark—when we saw the
Powers which had despoiled her, proceeding from one
wrong to another until they had appropriated to them-
selves a large portion of the country—when we saw

such outrages as these, which could not remain without

decisive retribution, he could only express his hope
that those who were not parties to these crimes, that
those who had not in any way participated in them,
might, by the divine permission and mercy, be exempted
from that punishment which should only be inflicted on
those who designed the wrong and assisted in its perpetra-
tion. (Hear, hear.)
Earl RUSSELL said this matter had been fully debated
in both Houses of Parliament, and both Houses of Perlis-

went had come to their conclusion upon it. Bat there were

some statements made by the noble earl which appeared to

him to require so much correction in order to reduce them

to the actual state of facts, that he could not avoid noticing

some of those statements. The noble earl had spoken of
Denmark as a country that had been invaded by two great
Powers, who had invaded it for the purpose of taking from
it some of its own provinces. Now, the difficulty of this

question throughout had been that while Denmark was a
small country there were at the same time two different

races—indeed, more than two different races in that country
—and that one race, which possessed the power of directing
and controlling the Government, were at issue with another
race, which occupied part of these provinces. But there
was another difficulty still. While the majority might
exercise unjustly, and could exercise oppressively if they
chose, all their power over the minority, that minority had
the power of appealing to a nation on its frontier, close to
its boundary—a country of more than forty millions of in-
habitants, whose feelings, whose position and sympathies,
would be with the provinces. In that state of affairs the great

towers of Europe made a treaty, but that treaty depended

upon the temper, upon the discretion, and upon the good
sense of one party, as well as upon the mercy and forbearance
of the others. Now, they should remember always that the
beginning of this contest was in 1848, when Prussia in-
vaded the provinces of the King of Denmark. They con-
tended that they were justified in invading Holstein by an

article of the Germanic Confederation, and that they were

justified as respected Schleswig. by a special engagement

that had been made. Therefore there was a disputa and
discussion between Denmark on the one side and the Ger-
manic Confederation on the other, and it could not be said
that Denmark was entirely blameless in that matter, or
that she had fulfilled all the promises she had made. He
was told that be had looked into the subject of the
treaty of 1852 more than it was necessary to do, but he had
thought it was absolutely necessary to look into it, and he
could neither say the Government of Denmark was blame-
less, nor that they had fulfilled all the promises by which
they had bound themselves to the Germanic Confederation
or to Austria. Therefore the question came to this. Were
the Powers justified in dividing Denmark in order to compel
her to fulfil her promises, and to keep her treaty engage-
ments ? The question was a complicated one, and no one
could say that in going to war purely and simply for Den-
mark, without asking anything for Denmark, we would
have been taking the right course. This was not a question
of whether you should go to war or should not go to war;
but the main difficulty in a question of this kind was that
you should not draw the sword without being convinced
that you were in the right. If you were to go to war-. if
you were to ask the people of England to contribute large
subsidies to that war—if you were to ask them to subject
themselves to all the evils of war, you should at least be sure
that you were in the right course when you drew the sword.
Now when he said that Denmark had not taken a perfectly
upright course in this matter, he did not mean to defend
the Powers of Germany against the accusation the noble earl
had brought, but he would say if they had been willing to
submit the matter to the decisica of the Powers of Europe
who were not immediately engaged in it, if they had listened
to both sides, all this difficulty might have been settled by
negotiation. But unfortunately, while Denmark for 11 years
continually and l ersh:tently put herself in the wrong, Ger-
many had determined that she would listen to no reason, and
as Denmark would give no promises of redress, she would
settle the question by the arbitration of war. He blamed that
conduct, and he blamed it the more because is was not the
judgment of Austria and Prussia which led them to this;
but perhaps together, and perhaps separately, they wished
to have popular feeling in Germany in their favour, and it
was rather in consequence of that feeling that they felt the
cause to be right that they again participated in that war.
lie did not agree that in that case we ought to have taken the
part of Denmark, and that, although France and Russia
refused to be our backers in it, that we should ourselves
have proceeded, and by our means have defended the cause
of Denmark. He had said the question had been discussed.
He held ire his hand the resolution that had been arrived at
by the House of Commons, the address which they had
presented to her Majesty, after considering this matter, he
thought, for four nights together, and knowing, as they
must have known, that if it had been a case of war the
appeal must have been made to them, as the only email-
tutional body, for the means to carry on that war. After
thanking her Majesty for laying before them the papers,
and expressing the regret of the House of Commons that the
Conference had been brought to a close without accomplish-
ing the important purpose for which it was called, they
went on to express their satisfaction that at this conjuncture
her Majesty had been advised to abstain from armed inter-
ference in the contest now going on between Denmark and
the German Powers. Therefore, if they had called on the
House of Commons to carry on a war of that kind, the
House of Commons would not have supported the Govern-
ment in that war. The noble earl had supposed that the
honour of England had been impaired. Now, in what re-
spect had the honour of England been involved in this
contest? Was it bound by treaty to assist Denmark?
There was no treaty since 1852, and there was no proof
whatever that it was to the honour of this country to assist
Denmark in this war. He was convinced there was no such
obligation, and he was fully convinced also that if any
cause should arise in which the honour of England re-
quired her to go to war, they would have the House of
Commons deciding, not by a small majority, but by
overwhelming numbers, in suppert of fulfilling the obli-
gations in favour of which the honour of England was at
stake. They might repeat now what Burke said in an
eloquent speech made ninety years ago in relation to
America. He said, " Slavery is a weed that grows any
where. They may have it in Spain, they may have it in
Prussia." Now he was loth to think that the people of
Prussia, in the course of these 90 years, had not learnt
both to value and to understand liberty. His belief was
that neither on the part of the Crown, on the part of the
House of Lords, nor on the part of the House of Commons,
had they yet arrived at a true understanding of what a
constitutional monarchy should be. It required no aid and
no assistance frem us, but after this question of Denmark
had been settled, as it would be without any interference
of ours, he believed the best prospect for the future to
see liberty and constitutional monarchy established in
Germany, was to leave that intelligent people to establish
what should be the terms of government between the So•
vereign and themselves, and there was no reason why
England should interfere in any way in the settlement of
that dispute. He was far from thinking that, were we to
compare Europe with what it was 40 years ago, at the
time of the Holy Alliance, that the people of Europe had
not made great progress in political feeling, pecans© he
believed that feeling was in abeyance at that time. He
believed no sovereign, looking at the signs of the times,
would think otherwise than that; but, on the contrary,
they would find the sympathies of the people of England
to be with the government of a constitutional monarchy.
That was his belief, and he was far from thinking if we
had been thrust into war, and the States of Europe had
been pitted against each other in bloody contest, that we
should have promoted the cause of liberty any more than
we should have promoted the cause of peace. He believed,
on the contrary, that by leaving it to the people and the
sovereigns of Germany to settle this question among them-
selves, the Government had acted not only for the honour
and interest of England, but they had done that which was
best for the honour and interest of Europe.
Lord STAT F ORD DE REDCLTFFE said his noble
friend had asked where anything could be found to justify
the expression that the honour of England had been
lowered. He thought a justification was to be found
for it in the manner in which the negotiations had been
conducted. The great object of her Majesty's Govern-
ment was the maintenance of peace in the north of Europe.
But, instead of peace, we now had war. Then we had
been told that the treaty of 1852 was to be maintained ; but
that treaty had been given up by the, English Government
itselle The hopes which were raised in Denmark had been
destroyed. It was, in a word, impossible not to perceive
facts which justified the expression that we had suffered a
certain degree of discredit as a nation. Ho regretted the
blame which had been imputed to the Danish Government,
who th
criticalr()uhuu ntz
d ei
all
lttlihe proceedings had been placed in a
most cult position. The conduct of the
Danes ought to elicit feelings oif the strongest admiration,
and it was matter of regret teat we meld not show our
syn:pathy with trifle in a inore cii't3tive manner.
The subject then dropped.
SEARCHING FOR, ARMS IN IRELAND.

The Earl cf LEITEDI drew attention to a search for
arms which had been made in April last, under a warrant
of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, in the parish of Clonda-
vadock, in the barony of Kilmacrenan, county Donegal ;
and asked the Lord President if there were any law to au-
thorise the police in Ireland to enter the dwelling-house of
any of her Majesty's subjects without a warrant and to
search it, or carry off any property of any kind whatsoever
from
such house without any written authority.
Earl GRANVILLE said that all the proceedings in the