The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

eee•
TIMES.—Mr. Cobden has availed himself of a
very extraordinary occasion to give us a really new
chapter on his standing theme of non-intervention.
It is not often that a man is so fortunate in being
able to produce an old friend with an entirely new
face. On former occasions Mr. Cobden has had to
proscribe great wars and little wars entered into in
behalf of our neighbours, or combinations success-
fully made against the liberty and interests of na-
tions, or proceedings, not always orderly, for the
preservation of public order. The present instance
falls under none of these heads. In order to carry
out an idea, net exactly dynastic, as Mr Cobden
puts it, but rather as to what Denmark oi'giit to he,
or what ought to be Denmark, we and certain other
Powers, 12 years ago, agreed to recognise a certain
disposition of two provinces containing near a mil-
Hun inhabitants, without asking th'ir leave, with-
out waiting to see how they
would like it when the
time erne, without consulting the Diet, which had
unquestionably rights in one of them, and without
considering the chin of ot circumstances, of Sove-
reigns, of opinions, of intern.tional reiationa, that
might possibly occur in a very 1,-,w years. O -le nis
only to glance at the history of Eorop since 1852
to fcel the rashness of an engagement that might
possibly come due under circumstauces 50 very dif-
ferent from those of its own data. For example, one
of the signatories has in the interval forcibly di.Po-
sessed another of a province and population far
more important, and bound by a much stranger tie,
than those under question. The treaty was, of
course, contrary to the first principles of non-inter•
vention, even though it confined itself to a barren
and ineffective recognition. As to all that has hap-
pened since, and all that our Government has done
to obtain effect for the treaty, Mr. Cobden delights
to picture her Majesty's Government at their wits'
end for arguments and persuasion, bellied, cheated,
scouted, insulted, slighted, and eventually left
altogether out of the question. He describes
the case to the full as bad as Mr. Dis-
raeli, or General Peel, or any other partisan
on that side. His moral is that they are rightly
served for interfering. They took part in a street
quarrel; so mud from the gutter and stones from
the road are their just recompense. Parliament and
all England share their sense of humiliation. They
have had to hawk about their whining petitions at
every Court in Europe, and have had the door
slammed in their faces. Mr Cobden's own cheeks
tingle with shame, but reason comes to his aid, and
he is glad of it, It is a caution to the country never
to interfere again, and Mr Cobden boldly calls it the
last interference. As far as we are concerned, he
says, the result is ridiculous rather than disastrous,
and Denmark only suffers what small States, espe-
cially small continental States, always have suf-
fered, and willauffer, through their habit of attempt•
ing to drag larger States into their quarrels. Thus,
as respects the " snub" suffered by this country,
Mr Cobden agrees with the Resolution, but he does
not think our influence lowered, for that influence,
he says, will always be in proportion to our power.
HERALD.—The Dano-German debate, resumed
yesterday evening by Mr Cobden, progressed
through several hours without any approach to a
decisive result. The speech from Rochdale, however,
was a specimen of two.sided ingenuity which, on
the one part, was an unrestricted censure of the
Government, and on the other did not promise the
Opposition a vote. We have rarely heard an attack
more merciless, culminating in so unintelligible an
ambiguity. The force of Mr Cobden's statement
consisted entirely in its endorsement of Mr Disraeli's
writ, served on the Cabinet, calling upon Ministers
to abdicate, or to vindicate their policy. He had
not a word of vindication to utter, but he would
not summon the Government to abdication. He
professed, indeed, to stand outside of the party
question, as if that were fulfilling the duty of a
public man, 'who, on this principle, would be less
bound by his oath than the member of a jury. For,
Mr Cobden, if he believes what he affirms, is under
an absolute obligation, as the representative of an
important constituency in Parliament, to condemn
the transactions which he reviles, ridicules, and
covers with unmitigated aspersion. No doubt,
his assault was nominally directed against Mr
Newdegate's amendment, which points to war,
and his appeal was in favour of that European
peace which Mr Disraeli, aloof from Mr New•
degate, champions. But, before dealing with a
subject which is scarcely under practical discus-
sion, since all parties, casting off a few outsiders,
are agreed against war, he slighted the leader of the
Opposition as having attempted prophecy, in hint-
ing that the securities of European tranquillity has
been diminished—not a /very consistent reproach
from the author of " What Next, and Next !" who
answered his own questions so intrepidly. Ho
failed to perccive that Mr. Disraeli had retied on

hist-ory, not on pri.diotion, because we stand upon a
surfexe of Lots IY:ne:11 Which Cpl in ears egitk-
tion is perceptible. Yet he went on at once to con-
fess that our just influence has been perverted and
lowered ; that our foreign policy has been utterly
futile • that our diplomacy has been a complete
breakdown ; that mischievous transactions have
l?en worked out in the dark recet,.ses of thf Foreign-
office ; and that Lord Russell's entire conduct has
lx.'en deplorable. More than this, we nave fusbily
and feebly hawked about cur.importunits in every-
court W Europe; we have exhibited a total want of
sagacity; we have been ignorant cf all that has
been gOing forward abroad. We have behaved
more foolishly than children ; we have been met
everywhere with rejection, rebuff, and humiliation,
This was not Mr. Disraeli's language. It was Mr.
Cobden's, who left the house, after casting around
him that cold shade of studied indignation, in
doubt whether he would vote for the procedure he
thus branded with his contempt, or stand by a
Cabinet whose leader he alleges is demoralising his
party, and whose foreign representative, he thinks,
has ground the nation's nose the in dust.

POST.—Mr. Cobden's known antipathy to war
under any circumstances prepared the House for
the speech with which he last evening opened the
adj Aimed debate. That wa are not at present at
war with Germany is a circumstance which, to his
mind, in itself entitles her Majesty's Government
to a renewed lease of power, although, in the con-
duct of their foreign policy he seems to consider
that there is much worthy of censure. If we were
to engage in hostilities with Germany we should be

obliged to rely mainly on our preponderance at eca ;
but,
as we could not blockade the banks of the

Rhine together with the shores of the Baltic, our
blockade would be entirely ineffective, and its sup-
posed advantages completely lost. Such is the train
of reasoning by which the member for Rochdale
deprecates any attempt to render material assistance
to Denmark, and the most that can be said of it is
that it has long since presented itself to the minds
of the advisers of the Crown. The question, how-
ever, can never seriously arise whether England
should alone attempt to rob Germany of her prey.
The question is rather whether this country should
not court an alliance with France in order to attain
that end, and, in reviewing the policy of the past,
to determine whether the English Government did
in truth give that of the Emperor of France to
understand that, with such an object in view, it
might reckon on the cordial ca-operation of Great
Britain. If it can be shown that the English Cabinet
refused to declare what would be its policy in the
event of contingencies which have since taken place,
then France should be exculpated from the oppro-
brium of having permitted the annihilation of
Denmark, when by joining England, she might hove
prevented such a result. If, on the other hand, the
English Government pledged the country to
then they
tako
decisive action in the event of an alliance being
formed, a step which would most probably have
i
arrested the tide of German aggression,
are entitled to an acquittal on the chargest lt t noW
advanced against them. It is conceded hit would.
co on W's not
.-oPerati
have been, and still is, in the highest inex-
pedient degree
pedient to act alone. Through whose fault, then, has
it happened that the desired
procured P This is the main issue Which Parlia-
ment has to determine.

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The Opin;on Nationale has just received a
second warnivg for an article entitled : " 149
Manifesto du Cabinet Anglais," par M. C uoroult,
in its number of the 30th June, in which "the
author, by daring to say that France is con-
demned to impuissance, that she has undergone, and
will undergo, the humiliation imposed by foreign
Powers, and that she is acting in obedience to the
cowardly doctrines of peace at any price, insults
and calumniates the policy of the Emperor's Govern-
ment."