The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-25 00:00:00

of Denmark. Not so by the rulers of the two great
rival Powers of Germany—those two Powers now
so incessantly rivalling each other only in the pre-
cipitancy with which they are rushing to war at all
hazards. The answer from Vienna and from Berlin
—in direct opposition to the answer already re-
ceived by our Cabinet from Copenhagen—is a
refusal. The suggested delay is declined—declined
curtly and peremptorily. And this, moreover,
although the proposed tarrying of the German
armies was only to have been until such time as
might have allowed of the meeting anew of the
Rigsraad or Parliament, from which some
calmly deliberated decision might have been
arrived at upon the momentous question
as to the modification or not of the Constitu-

tion of November. Resolved upon carrying
things on with a high and haughty hand to the
direst extremity, that is, to the extremity of War—
Austria and Prussia together say Nay to this most
temperate and conciliatory proposition. As media-
tor, or would-be mediator, England has done her
part in this dread emergency for Christendom.
So far, again, as Denmark could yield a point she
has yielded : she has conceded, at any rate, to the
proposal made by England, in the interests of peace,
for a delay. Upon the Germanic Powers, upon
Austria and upon Prussia especially, rest the respon-
sibilities involved in the rejection of this humane
and benign proposition. The sword just

thrown into the scale is German now,
when the European scales of Justice have been
trembling so long and doubtfully in the balance.
The first sword thrown into those oscillating scales
is the weighty brand of Germany. And, for the
.moment, the weight of that brand may seem to make
the rights of Denmark, in the matter of Schleswig-
Holstein, kick the beam. But, together with those
imperilled rights there is not only the good sword
of Denmark herself, but the possible dropping into
that scale, with the rights and the sword of
Denmark, of the formidable glaives of Powers far,
far beyond not merely Denmark in importance, but
beyond Austria and Prussia and the whole of
Germany leagued together in battle array.
The alternative is becoming daily more and more
imminent—for England and France—the dread and
momentous alternative of Peace or War. The deci-
• sion in our own instance will either be announced,
or at any rate, very significantly foreshadowed in
the Speech from the Throne, or at the very latest
through the first weighty utterances of our veteran
Premier, Lord PALMERSTON, immediately upon the
reassembling of Parliament.

The intelligence from India is, on the whole

highly satisfactory. The war, which threatened to

give some trouble, appears to be coming to a speedy
conclusion. A prompt and well directed attack
took the enemy by surprise and completely routed
them. According to information received from

private sources, Lallow and Nurbegla were both

destroyed, and our forces were in possession of the

pass leading to Bonair. There were grounds for
hoping that this unlooked•for discomfiture would
bring the enemy to terms, and would be the
means of finally establishing oar supremacy over
that part of the country. In the two

days of the fighting, the enemy lost no

Less than 500 men. The Bonair tribe had made

:otal submission to the English, leaving their chiefs

as hostages in the British camp. It was still con-
sidered desirable to delay breaking up the large
farce now collected in the Punjab, amounting to

9,000 or 10,000 men, although it was hoped that
before long the troops might safely return to the

plains. Military affairs are thus in as favourable
a position as could be reasonably expected, while
in the civil department there is leas news to com-

municate. The new Governor-General had not ar.

rived out when this mail left, and Sir WILLIAM

DENISON was Vice. Regent pro tern. He had aban.
doned the intended expedition to the Upper Pro.

vinces, and had summoned the various secretaries
of the several departments of Government to pro-
ceed to Calcutta without delay. Under the circum-
stances this is, perhaps, the wisest course, as the
Governor-General will be the more suitable person
to make the official precession. It was currently

reported iu India that Sir G. GREY was to be the
next Viceroy, but there could certainly be no disap-
pointment when the substitution of a name well
known and honoured throughout India as that of
Sir JOHN MAIR LAWRENCE came to be generally
known. Sir J. LAWRENCE is especially the rig ht
man in the right place at the present junc-
ture, when the disturbances on the frontier
threaten the tranquillity of that province of
which he was so able and efficient

ruler. Should any disaffection or intriguing be
visible in the Punjab, he will know how to meet it,
familiar as he is with the character of its people and
capable, as he has proved himself to be, of controlling
their lawless wills. The experience of the mutiny
not only gives Sir JOHN LAWRENCE a greater hold
over the population he is called upon to govern, but
it also serves to inspire his own countrymen with
confidence in his resource, his firmness, and his
general administrative capacity. It is something
new for an individual to be appointed to the supreme
power at Calcutta who has already acquired experi-
ence as an Anglo-Indian ruler. There would be
many advantages attending such a selection even
where the object of it was less strikingly fitted for
the post than the late Governor of the Punjab. In
the first place, he must be, in some degree, inured
to the climate, and so escape the risk of sudden
exposure to its perils, accompanied with the unac-
customed burden of continuous labour and heavy
responsibility—a combination which has cost us so
many valuable lives, Again, the Governor-General,
who has served his apprenticeship in a lower depart-
ment of the State, must have acquired that know-
ledge of the people, their laws, their customs, their
languages, their prejudices, and general charac-
teristics, the lack of which has so often proved an
insuperable obstacle to really good and wise legisla-
tion. We may hope much from the appointment
of a man like Sir JOHN LAWRENCE, although we
wish we had another chef at the India Office.
It affords good ground for anticipating the increase
and extension of those measures of enlightened
policy which have already produced a favourable
change in India. We cannot suppose that the new
Governor-General will fail to give every encourage-
ment to financial reform, to public works, to national
education and questions of social improvement. We
trust he will be able to devise some means of dealing
satisfactorily with the two points that urgently
call for attention—the redemption of the land-tax
and the laws regulating the sale of waste lands. It
will no doubt be his policy to encourage in every
way the commercial industry of India, to assist ex-
peiiment and favour enterprise, to make it part of
his duty to develope as much-as possible the internal
resources of the country which he governs. He
will also, we may hope, legislate as much as pos-
sible with a view to the interests of the natives of
the soil ; not only securing them rigid justice and
equal laws, but striving to raise them in the human
scale, giving them opportunities of public usefulness
and distinction which may encourage them to re-
newed effort. The railways and canals, the means
of internal communication, will no doubt go on
with spirit, and their value in every respect it is
difficult to over-estimate. "By moms of the irriga.