The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-21 00:00:00

THE ALLEGE.

DAILY NEWS.—It is of importance at the present
moment that the real ground of the Ultimatum
which Prussia and Austria have just presented to
Denmark should be clearly understood. If the
peace of Europe must be broken, everyone inte-
rested in its preservation is naturally anxious to
know the precise causes, the definite wrongs and
grievances, which have rendered this extreme step
necessary. The only grievance alleged by the Ger-
man Powers as the ground of their summary action
against Denmark is the common Constitution
adopted in November last, immediately after the
death of the late King. This constitution, while
carefuily preserving the rights of the Provincial
Estates in Schleswig and Denmark Proper, created
a central organ or common assembly for legislation
in common affairs, in which both should be equally
represented. The German Powers assert that this
step is in direct violation of the engagement
solemnly contracted by Denmark in the diplomatic
correspondence which took place between them
twelve years ago. They maintain that in that
correspondence the King of Denmark pledged him-
self not to incorporate Schleswig with the kingdom
of Denmark Proper, or take any steps tending to
produce this result, and to satisfy the just claims of
the rival nationalities of Schleswig. The alleged
violation of the first of these engagements is the
ground of the German Ultimatum. Prussia and
Austria require the immediate withdrawal of the
November Constitution, on pain of armed interven-
tion in Schleswig. The vital questions are, whe-
ther the engagements said to have been made by
Denmark have really been violated, and whether in
any case they were of a kind to justify hostile inter-
vention on the part of Germany. Taking the last
point first, there can be doubt that before the final
pacification in Holstein and the withdrawal of
Federal execution in 1852, the Kiag of Denmark
did engage that Schleswig should not be incorpo-
rated with the kingdom ; but the very form of the
engagement wouid seem to determine its true
character as a voluntary and sovereign act, in
which none of the existing right; of the monarchy
were surrendered. They were made in the form of
a proclamation by the King to all his subjects,
specifying his intentions with regard to the future
government of the whole monarchy. This procla-
mation was communicated to the German Powers
and the Diet, in so far as it related to the German
Duchies of Holstein and Ltiuenburg. These pro-
vinces being Federal territory, the Diet, having as-
sisted the King to restore order in them, was en-
titled by the provisions of Federal law to ask for
explanations in regard to their future Government.
But no such right existed with regard to Schleswig,
nor does it appear to have been once claimed
throughout the whole of the correspondence now
appealed to. It is true that the German Powers
pressed the Danish Government to declare its in-
tentions with regard to the future government of
Schleswig as well as of the German Dachies. But
the Danish Government, in meeting their request,
reserved at the outset the sovereign rights of the
King, formally denied the right of the Confedera-
tion to extend in any way its authority beyond the
limits of Federal territory, and declared that any,
communications made with regard to the govern-
ment of Schleswig were of a strictly informal and
confidential kind. These reservations were accepted
by Prussia and Austria, and recognised in the for-
anal decree of the Diet which closed the correspon-
dence. " The annex of the Prussian despatch of
December 39,1851, declares the affairs of the Duchy
of Schleswig, being those of a non-German country,
to be, as such, not subject to the investigation and
discussion of the Germanic Confederation." Austria
made the same acknowledgment, that communica-
tions with regard to Schkm-Nig must be looked upon
as voluntary, and could not poseces the character of
formal engagements. The King's proclamation was
communicated to the Diet under the express reser-
vation that this was done only in so far as related
to the Federal territories, and the Diet accepted
this communication as satisfactory in a decree
whic'a named up the official points of the previous
correpoutlence. In this final resolution, passed on
the 29th of July, 1852, no reference whatever is
made to the Duchy of t.3ehleswig. Any statement
with regard to the government of Schleswig made
to the German Powers under these circum-
stances can hardly amount to an international
obligation, much less afford any justifiable
ground for hostile intervention. Still the pro-
mise not to incorporate Schleswig with the
kingdom was undoubtedly made, and the
Danish Government is honourably bound to fulfil
it so far as this may be possible. Tile question is
whether it has really been violated, mol: if so to
what extent. The Danish Government declares that
it has done its utmost to carry out all the promises
contained in the Royal proclamation of January 28,
1852, to which the German Powers now appeal as
a ground of action. In Schleswig it has not only
restored the Proviuciai Estates but enlarged their
prerogatives. This was the main point urged by
the German Powers in the correspondences of 1851
and 1852, and the facts of the case show that they
regarded the restoration and retention of the old
Provincial Assembly as affording a sufficient gua-
rantee against the dreaded incorporation. The very
proclamation that protected Schleswig from incor-
poration contained the promise of a common consti-
tution fer the whole monarchy, and this was ac-
cepted by Austria and Prussia as a perfectly legiti-
mute scheme, not conflicting in any way with the
promise now invoked. The Prussian despatch of
Dec. 30, 1851, contains the following decisive para-
graph :—" The German Powers acknowledge that,
as a consequence of the principle of the integrity of
the Danish united monarchy, a representation of all
portions of this monarchy in
.a distinct legislative
assembly for discussion and decisions is not incon-
sistent with the separate rights of the German
Dachies of Holstein and Lauenburg." If a common
constitution is not inconsistent with the separate
rights of the German Duchies, it surely cannot be
seriously maintained that it is inconsistent with the
separate rights of Danish Duchy of Schleswig; and
in the light of these facts the grievance complained
of can hardly be regarded in any other light than
that of a convenient pretext for carrying out a fore-
gone conclusion. The Gelman Powers have cer-
tainly no right to insist on the withdrawal of the
constitution, and it would seem from their own ad-
missions that there is no good reason for making
such a demand.
HERALD.—The National Shakspere Committee
was divided against itself last week, and should have
fallen to the ground. It is now sub-divided against
itself, and its standing would be still more contrary
to proverbial precedent. The danger must
be imminent when the crew take to the
boats ; and Mr. Tom Taylor, Mr. Shirley Brooks,
Mr. Theodore Martin, and their friends, whose
letter appeared in our publication of yesterday,
are no unimportant secession, more especially as
they are evidently prepared to pull together towards
an intelligible shore. The fact is, that the ship in
which they sailed was rotten, and should not have
been trasted to the sea. There was ill fate against
it from the first. It must have sailed on a Friday.
There must have been a black cat on board. But
there is no occasion to seek for wonderful causes.
The failure may be accounted for in the most natural
manner. The ship was in wrong hands. Shakspere
at the prow was all very well, but Mr. Hepworth
Dixon at the helm was a different matter. No other
literary pilot could have greater experience of the
rocks in his way, and, like the Irish skipper, he
must have been well acquainted with the one upon
i
which he struck. But the strike was nevitable..
The vessel may hold together a little longer, but it
must go to pieces ; and to Mr. Dixon will doubtless
attach the honour—belonging properly to the cap-
tain rather than to the pilot—ot being the last man
to leave her. Indeed, we should not wonder ifhe
clung on to the wreck a little longer than was ne-
cessary for his personal dignity—the courage ot, the
b
hero being intensified by the constancy of the
liar
We confess we are glad to hear of
,thelast
uncle.
disaster to this unmanageable craft. Not from any
disrespect for the object in view, which, properly
carried out, would reflect nonour on tne coun.try.
But for the same reason that the gentiema.n liked
to hear a child cry—because he then knew it,wouid
be taken out of the room. The National Shaespere
Committee has from the first shown so many ele-
ments of discord as to be hopeless. Any further
crash is welcome, therefore, as likely to clear it out
of the way. There seemed some chance of rational
proceeding when the report of the
tolecouncl was re-
jected, and a sub-committee appointed repare a
new one But when the sub-committee were denied

time, and it was resolved that a great national me-
morial, of a nature not known, should be determined
on, designed, executed, and subscribes for, all in a
period of three months, it was quite time for natn
who appreciated the importance of the object, or
who did not mean joking, should take means to
save themselves from the ridicule, as well as the in-
dignation, which would be cast upon failure. The
idea, too, of seeking a regular public subscription
for a certain sum, without any knowledge of the
amount required, or explanation of the manner in
which it would be employed, was fatal to the end
in view, as far as present machinery is concerned.
There is no such generous public in the world as
that of these kingdoms, if it understands the re-
quirement; but there is no public less likely to
part with its guineas for doubtful objects to be
carried out by a quarrelsome committee. If the
polite request for £30,000, carried at the last
meeting, be publicly put in force, we doubt whether
it will realise anythirg beyond what the personal
influence of the committee—or rather the majority
of the committee who voted for it—can command.
The general public will stand aloof until they know
what is to be done : and this, whatever it be, can-
not be determined upon and put into execution by
the 23d of April. As was suggested in the letter
published yesterday, some pleasant celebration
might be arranged for that day, leaving the perma-
nent part of the memorial to be provided in due
course ; but the precipitation, if persisted in, will
ruin all. Let us hope, then, that it will not be
persisted in ; that the, public will not be disgusted
with the object itself by an appeal towards a mere
sham; and an appeal, moreover, which we are con-
vinced will not be adequately responded to. With
respect to the numerous suggestions which have
been made as to the form of the memorial and the
nature of the celebration, it must be confessed that
those of the council—which have only entered into
the second question—are the least inviting. They
are-1. Three medals for the three best poems on
Shakspere. 2. A soiree in Westminster Hall, at
which books, prints, and other Shaksperian relics
should be exhibited. 3. A morning concert of
Shaksperian music at Covent-Garden Theatre. 4.
An evening performance at Drury-lane. Now, this
is surely a very sorry programme. The notion of
the prize poem is most melancholy, as the probable
result would be that out of a certain number—all
bad—the three worst would be selected, and that if
the result were otherwise nobody would believe the
fact. The Shakspere relics available would be lost
in 'Westminster Hall, unless the house at Stratford
was brought bodily up to town in defiance of the
mayor and all the local enthusiasts. For the rest,
there would be nothing left to do but for the lions
to make occasional speeches, and for the smaller
animals to walk about the hall saying, like Lord
Frederick Verisopht, " What a clever man Shale-
spare was." The concert of Shaksperian music is a
better idea, because more defined ; but we doubt
whether it would be sufficiently exciting for such a
time. As for the evening performance at Drury-
lane, we have most of us seen something like it
before, and in honour of Shakspere one might as
well propose to take a walk down Fleet-street. The
best suggestion we have heard is that of Mr. Tom
Taylor—viz., for the endowment of a National
Theatre, to be in London what the Theatre Fran-
gais is in Paris, and to have for its principal object
the representation of Shakspere, pure and undefiled,
by the best talent available. But for this or any
other practical purpose the present committee must
lose its present form, and give place to one of a
really " National" character, in which every class
in the country shall be adequately represented.
PosT.—The questicn that remains at issue be•
tween the Porte and the Moldo-Wallachian Prin-
cipality is one that can hardly be allowed to fall
into the condition of a chronic grievance. The
dignity of the Ottoman Government and the inte-
rests of the Eastern Church are equally at stake.
It becomes, therefore, of considerable importance to
point out the state of this question in the crisis
which has now arrived, as well as the actual bear-
ings of the dispute. Prince Couza, on his accession
to the united government of Moldo-Wallachia,
found the Greek monasteries of those provinces in
possession of vast estates. These estates have
formed, for some centuries, the chief support of the
Christian Church both in Asia Minor and other
parts of the Turkish empire. All this property,
however, was seized and sequestrated by Prince
COUZ3, in defiance not only of traditionary right,
but of the express limitation of his own powers
over the united Principality. The Porte thereupon
protested against this act of wholesale spoliation, as
not less illegal than unjust. The Prince of Moldo-
I,Vellachia, however, set this protest at defiance.
Great Bricein, Austria, and other Powers then
united with the Porte in demanding a restitution of
the monastic property. But the only result of this
combined representation appears to have resulted in
a legislative enactment which was designed to con-
firm the spoliation. Prince Couza submitted the
question of the secularisation of the monasteries to
Moldo Wallachian Legislative Chambers. This
Chamber passed a bill of secularisation by the great
majority of eighty to only seven votes. The aliena-
tion of the monastic property now accordingly is
pretended to rest on what is falsely called a Par-
liamentary sanction, though the question, all the
tehile, does not lie within the competence of the
Executive or Chamber of Moldo-Wallacnia. It
is with this defiance that Prince Couza has had
the audacity to meet the formal demand of Turkey
and her allies for the restitution of the property of
the monasteries. At this point the question now
rests. It has been the custom, in some quarters,
to argue the matter thus at issue between Turkey
and the united Principality as though it were
analogous to precedents of monastic spoliation in
the west of Europe. It is said that less than
thirty years ago the English people were advocates
of the suppression of the Spanish monasteries, much
as three centuries ago they suppressed the same
establishments in their own country. To this we
can but reply that we are surprised that arguments
fla stile
and inapposite should be used. To begin
with, ult.: one case was that of a suppression of
lishments ; the present ease is that
monastic eata..l'
merely of the Eeti
uestration and secularisation of
their property. If
thteie ware made out against
the Moldo-Wallachian mon.:
sterics themselves, we
should be unwilling to defend their continued pre-
servation ; and if the establishments' themselves are
to be supprese,ed, their revenues are cilverted, as a
matter of course, into some other channel. But
Prince Couza has simply secularised and alienated
the property of the monasteries, while he has left the
monasteries themselves as so many monuments of
poverty and indigence. Moreover, the property of
the Moldo-Wallachian monasteries have been de-
monstrably applied to the most beneficial uses. We
have already said that they have long served to
support the Christian Church in very many of the
regions in which it has flourished amid the Maho-
metan institutions of the Turkish empire ; and
these monasteries thus exert a strong and indisput-
able claim on the general support of Christendom.
The dissolution of the Spanish monasteries, and the
alienation of their property, were in themselves
harsh measures ; but those institutions could put
forward no such plea of public utility for their sup-
port. It is in a spirit of equal liberality and justice
that the Ottoman Porte has opposed this shame-
less spoliation by Prince Couza. In the phases,
however, into which the question of the Moldo-
Wallachian monasteries has now entered, the
question of the Ottoman ascendancy on the
Danube has become directly involved. The Porte
has been set at open defiance by Prince Couza and
his subservient Chamber. The constitutional re-
lations between Moldo-Wallachia and the Govern-
ment of the Sultan, as defined both by the treaty
of 1856 and by antecedent capitulations, have been
not less clearly broken. One difficulty is that an
indignity and a gross insubordination once borne
with and left unredressed, other acts of the same
kind will inevitably follow; and it is easier for the
Sovereign Power to exact reparation on the occur-
rence of the first grievous outrage than when it has
submitted to other such defiances of its authority.
Indeed, there are already sufficient evidences among
other Christian nationalities of the Porte of a dis-
position to challenge its supremacy on the first
practicable occasion. It is now announced that the
Herzegovinians have passed a resolution declaring
that they will pay no more tames to the Turkish
treasury; while the insurrectionary preparations of
the Prince of Servia appear to be increasing. It
becomes, therefore, at once the duty and the interest
of the Porte to sustain its prestige, and not to allow
itself to be driven to the wall by such an intriguer
as Prince Couza. It is well known that this monastic
question has been got up for the most part in a spirit
of hostility to the Porte, and with the view of setting
its legitimate supremacy at defiance. Nor can it be
doubted that Prince Couza, in pursuing this unfor-
utupnoantehainnad idlehijeuncit geenddc ohunr,sei
liwathioiciallocfanonoenlkyinbdrinogr
another, is secretly backed by powerful supporters.
But we suspect that these supporters will be found
to avail him little in the hour of trial ; and we be-
hove that it will not be found consistent with the
temper of the present. Sultan to treat Prince Conza
with any deference fur the extent or buccoso of his
foreign intrigues. In a word, the ascendancy of the
Porte is loots. openly assailed in more than one
quarter; and the preparations for the formation of
a military camp at Schumla will
Couza that one rebellious
vassal is not likely- to be
treated by the Porte with
much
greater considera-
tion than another.

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