The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-30 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Stock Exchange Journal of St. Petersburg of
18th insc. publishes a report from the Minister of War,
showing that the Russian regular army Consists of 31,856
officers and 858,957 privates, and the irregular army of 4,818
officers and 302,961 privates, making altogether 36,674
officers and 1,161,958 privates.
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ts. Printed
ment
and
e Oint
other painful and complicated com
plain ths
alterative Pills
very plain directions for the application et.
are wrapped round each pot. HollowaY
should be taken throughout the progress of the cure, to
ritv, and to pre-
maintain the blood in a state of perfect Pn
vont the health of the whole body being jeopardised by the
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diseases attack
drawing from him the nutritious diet
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Elizabeth Jacobs, of extreme nervousness, indf
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TIMES.—The speech with which the King of Den-
mark has just opened the Session of the Danish
Chamber is not calculated to encourage any rising
hopes of the preservation of peace. It is not ad-
dressed exclusively to the Danish representatives;
it is also a manifesto to Europe that the demands
made by the German Confederation cannot be met
by any further concessions on the part of Denmark
without sacrificing its independence, and aban
cloning the internal government and policy of
the nation to the German Diet, dictating its mea-
sures from Frankfort. A conclave of German Sove-
reigns has just broken up and dispersed from the
same city, after discussing the Constitution of the
body still left with the power of embroiling Europe
by its dull pertinacity in wrong-doing. The debate
of the Royalties on the reform of the Band proposed
by the Emperor of Austria proved conclusively that
the Diet, with all its clumsy political machinery,
has not the implicit confidence even of the Princes
of whose delegates it is composed. And having
sufficiently indicated an apprehension that under
the first strain of war the whole organisation would
break clown, they left it unchanged, to continue a
course of proceedings directly tending to invite the
calamity they ought to dread and avoid with special
caution. The old German helplessness and stolid
endurance of a national evil can have no stronger
illustration than the mischief the Diet is still per-
mitted to work under the double condemnation of
Sovereigns and people. As an organisatian it may
be fairly considered as doomed, for the declared in-
tention of Austria to supersede it in the present
form will always impend over it. The certainty of
having been condemned, and the prcspect of being
set aside at the first opportunity, would reduce any
ordinarily constituted body to, at least, harmless
inaction. But the German Federal Bund, without
any political strength derived from the people, who
have not the slightest influence over it, and not
trusted by the Sovereigns, who have themselves ex-
perienced its defects, still acts, like a piece of heavy
mechanism that nothing can stop. It has but one
kind of activity, one object that it pursues, without a
gleam of statesmanship or apparent perception of
the dangers it is plunging into. For a series of
years it has had no visible aim or purpose, except
that of invading, limiting, or absorbing the sove-
reign rights of Denmark. Knowing that the inde-
pendence of that Monarchy is under ,the solemn
guarantee of France and England, and now fully
npprised that Denmark " will not stand alone" in
case of attack, the Diet, with an arrogance that
looks like infatuation, is pushing Denmark to the
last extremity, endangering the peace of Europe,
utterly blind to what may be the consequences to
Germany itself, or what it is certain to lose by war.
It is only consistent with the heavy incapacity of
the Frankfort Diet to deal with facts intelligently
that it is doing the worst thing possible at the worst
possible time. The question of German " nation-
ality" does not stand where it did in 1849 and 1850.
Then Prussia was its champion, and when offering
to rescue any " oppressed " fragment of the race
from the dominion of its neighbours—France
cautiously excepted—it had some political freedom
to share with it. The relapse of Prussia into Abso-
lutism deprives the agitation of even the semblance
of excuse. Denmark is full justified in resisting
the attempt to impose on the Duchy of Schleswig any
constitutional changes by German influence in the
Interest of the German population itself. The Diet
demands of Denmark a common Constitution for
" the whole Monarchy." The degree of political
freedom it is to confer is a matter the Diet must
decide, part of the Monarchy being a State of the
Confederation. As Prussia is the model State of
Germany, it could not permit the Diet to establish
any form of government contrasting too favourably
with its own ; and as the Prussian Chambers are
reduced to a nullity, the Germans now under the
sovereignty of Denmark will lose considerably by
the change. As a liberating process, it would now
be like inviting the thousands of Germans who are
politically freemen to forfeit their advantages, and
share
with the Prussian millions the subjection to
which the latter have been reduced. If the
German Sovereigns have any sense of their own
position, or of the condition of the Bund, they
will restrain that body from provoking the inter-
ference of the Cabinets of Europe by persisting
in a policy as full of absurdity as of peril.
Prussia is the Power most identified with the
long persecution of Denmark in the name of Ger-
many. The part it played in the war of 1849 and
1850 does not furnish a very glorious page in its
annals. And since that period the Government has
lost influence abroad and popularity at home. It
has identified itself with Russia by its conduct to
the Polish insurgents, and with Russia it shares the
anger and irritation the issue of the negotiations
with that Power has created. It would be little less
than insanity for Prussia to place herself by a repe-
tition of the " nationality" crusade of 1849 in open
hostility with France, England, and the Scandi-
navian States, which would now give their hearty
support and co-operation to Denmark if attacked.
The real oppression of the Polish " nationality,"
with which the world has been sickened for the past
year, has made it intolerant of the petty, half-ima-
ginary grievances the Germane, with more senti-
ment than sense, have magnified into wrongs.
Europe has lost
patience with the continually recur-
ring annoyance of this superfluous trouble in a cor-
ner of Europe that is prosperous and practically
self-governed. It cannot, for the sake of its own
peace, longer permit the Diet of Frankfort to keep
up a groundless agitation that has not a single valid
claim to our sympathy. It knows that the Bund
has always been ready to strangle political freedom
in any German State in which the Sovereign was
not strong enough to apply the bowstring himself.
It has therefore no belief in the sincerity of its claim
on behalf of Danish subjects of what it has so com-
pletely suppressed at home. The last step may still
boar ested by a word from Prussia, which will pro-
bably be the agent of the violence with which Den-
mark is threatened. The note of Baron Mender-
strom, the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, fully
confirms the intimations given in the King of Den-
mark's address to the Chamber. Negotiation with
Frankfort has ceased. The Federal Diet will demand
of the Danish Government the withdrawal, within
six weeks, of the patent of the 30th of last March,
though it conceded to the Duchy of Holstein all
the rights the Diet had required on its behalf. It
must:include the Duchy of Schleswig, in which the
Diet has no authority, to find acceptance. Such an
assumption no State can possibly submit to, and
against the invasion of its independent rights Den-
mark justly protests. But if the patent is not
withdrawn, the Diet threatens to send a body of
Federal troops to occupy Holstein—a process called
an " execution." Baron Manderstrom asserts that
every pretext for such a measure has been removed
by the repeated declarations of Denmark, which
will, therefore, consider the occupation an act of
hostility, and it will be " her duty to oppose it by
all the means at her disposal." The King treats it
as a violation " of the independence of Denmark,
which is firmly determined to protect herself against
any attack." This is the state of affairs that both
Sweden and Denmark now submit to the Cabinets
of London and Paris. claiming protection against
German " aggression."
PosT.—lt would perhaps be unjust to the King
of Prussia and M. Bismark to ascribe the declara-
tion they have just made on Federal Reform to an
electioneering manoeuvre. Nevertheless, it would
be difficult to imagine any position more cleverly
taken up with the view of leading away the minds
of the Prussian constituencies from the main ques-
tion that is now before them. It reminds us of
Tadpole and Taper with " our young Queen and old
institutions." The King and his Minister put
themselves forward in this declaration as the cham-
pions of the dignity of Prussia, outraged by the
other German Sovereigns at Frankfort, and as the
supporters of a wider popular representation in the
Federal Diet, which these Princes are represented
as having attempted to crush. Thus the Prussian
constituencies are called upon altogether to forget
the great question, whether representative govern-
ment and political freedom in their own country are
to be a reality or a sham. They are simply to be-
lieve in King William and Count Bismark as indis-
pensable to the grandeur of Prussia and to its inter-
national dignity at the German Diet; add they are
expected to inculcate also the still greater paradox,
that the party which have been attempting to crush
public opinion in their own country are those on
whom Germany is to rely for a freedom which
the other Federal Princes would restrain. It
may be thought that such a palpable absurdity
would deceive no one. Nevertheless, we all know
from our own experience in this representative
country that nothing in electioneering times is too
preposterous to exert more or less weight in turning
the scales of public opinion. The King of Prussia,
accordingly, reduces his objections to a participa-
tion, at present, in the course taken by that other
German Sovereigns, to three heads. He demands,
first, that the veto of either Austria or Prussia
should be sufficient to debar the Diet from making
a declaration of war, except in the event of the
German territory being actually invaded. This is
pretty nearly equivalent to leaving things as they
were; for the Germanic Confederation being essen•
tially a defensive body, it is hardly probable that it
would collectively declare war with any other ob-
ject than that of defending its own territories; and
during the near fifty years of its existence it has
never yet declared war at all against any consider-
able Power. But the object of this proviso, which
4 the sounding character of maintaining the
"f Prussia," and the tendency of thus
empathy of all true Prussians in
4`: clearly a very different
'nterrnined that
States

"dignity
appealing to the bJ.
the approaching elections,
one, The King of Prussia 18
Franco and Austria shall not drag the mine,

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