The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.— the Crown Speech delivered by Christian
IX., King of Denmark, at the opening of the Rigs-
rand on Monday last, cannot fail to work a painful
impression on those whose notions of right and wrong
are rather guided by the intrinsic merits of a cause
than by the magnitude of the interests at stake in it.
Months have elapsed since the signature and ratifi-
cation of the Treaty of Prague, yet no steps whatever
have been taken towards the execution of the article
concerning the future destinies of the Danish dis-
tricts of North Schleswig. By the terms of that
article, as we all remember, Prussia engaged to re-
store those districts to Denmark, in the event of the
majority of their inhabitants declaring in favour of
such a re-annexation. The mere fact that nothing
whatever has been done towards eliciting the vote of
those people is, in our opinion, tantamount to a
flagrant and deliberate breach of the treaty itself, and
would doubtless be resented as such by Austria, if
that Power had either the inclination or the ability
to renew the struggle in which she was so recently
worsted, or if, in inserting that clause, and proposing
an act of tardy restitution which cost her nothing, and
bound her to nothing, she had been actuated by any
sense of justice, and not merely by a wish to gain a cheap
popularity. Nothing could be more distressing than
to hear the King of Denmark give utterance from
the Throne to a confidence which he must be so far
from feeling in his heart ; to hear him putting his
faith in the " text of the Treaty," in the principle
of nationality which is now gaining ground through-
out Europe, in the recognition of the Danish claims
by friendly Powers, and especially by the Govern-
ment of the Emperor Napoleon, to whom Denmark
owes a debt of deep gratitude, and, finally, in the
goodwill of Prussia, a " proof of whose good friend-
ship" King Christian sees in " the proposed settle-
ment." It would be cruelty to grudge a good King
tine meagre consolation of hope. Denmark had
signed away her two Duchies, from the Elbe to the
Kongen's Aa, at the close of the unfair struggle
that was forced upon her in 1864 ; and for herself
she would never have the power, or, strictly speak-
ing, the right to recover them. But the Treaty of
Prague has created a new title in her favour, and,
though any attempt to enforce it by her own
strength would be too decidedly out of the question,
it is hardly consistent with her dignity to allude to
it in any other tone than that of peremptory de-
mand and protest. This, however, would imply
the existence in Europe of a common sense of jus-
tice, of a police, and of some regard for the sacred-
ness of engagements. Prussia knows all the while
that she never intends to part with a single square
inch of Schleswig territory, and she is equally sure
that no one has either the power or the will to make
her do so. Her unconscionable delay in the appeal
to the popular suffrage of the North-Schleswigers
evidently reveals on her part a settled intention to
evade the spirit, if not the letter, of the Treaty, and
to postpone the plebiscite till she has laid her plans to
secure the vote in her favour. Letters from the
Duchies tell us of the efforts made by the German
settlers of Flensburg, Tondern, Hadersleben, and
other localities to get up a German or Prussian party
in the midst of the native Danish population. The in-
divisibility of Schleswig-Holstein on which so much
stress was laid by both parties at every stage of that
sorrowful contest is now brought forward as a plea
against that retrocession of those northern districts
to Denmark to which Prussia is solemnly pledged.
" We hear," says one of those letters, " of Gesang-
verein, Turnverein, Burgerverein, and other associa-
tions setting themselves against tbe parting of Schles-
wig; but it is well to know that the members of one
of those German Unions are the same men who also
belong to all the others." Notwithstanding all this
factious agitation, however, there is little doubt that
if the matter were ever allowed to come to a free vote
the great mass of the people down to the Dannewerke,
especially in the rural districts, would vindicate its
Danish nationality. Free voting, however, is not to
be thought of with the Prussians in possession; nor is
it to be expected that the civil and military authorities
of King William will be withdrawn for the occasion.
The King of Denmark talks of a good chance that
Dentrdrk may obtain the natural frontiers necessary
for her defence; but surely, even if there could be
any possibility of Prussia giving up Toudern and
Hatlersleben, it is very certain she would proceed to
any extremities rather than dispossess herself of that
line of the Slei, and of those positions of Duppel and
Alsen which were the main objects of her invasion.
Neither can we share the King's sanguine expecta-
tions arising from the benevolent attitude of friendly
Powers. The case of Denmark is past any remedy
that might be afforded either by peaceful remon-
strance or by armed threat, or even by the outcry
of public opinion. The man who has the fate of
those North Schleswig districts in his hands is

equally inaccessible.to shame or scruple, or, to do
him justice, to fear. What Count Bismark wills
even the Government of the Emperor Napoleon will
not venture to gainsay. It is a pity that a man
conscious of so much strength should show so little
disposition to he just or generous. We are among
those who have most fearlessly applauded the main
work of Bismark, because we believed it good
for the Germans to be cast together in one people,
and that, so far as Germans can be said at any time to
know their own mind, such was their desire. We feel
no inclination to change our.views on the subject,
although it would now seem that the Germans, like
very children, fancied they could " eat their cake
and keep it," make of their fatherland one State and
30 States at the same time. But it is cruel to think
that a nation so incapable of knowing its own mind,
or of acting with one will, in anything concerning
its own interests, should have shown so much unani-
mity only when its vanity could be gratified at the
expense of an inoffensive neighbour. In the annexa-
tion of Hanover, in the humiliation of Saxony, in
the expulsion of Austria, in the dissolution of the
Bund, Bismark may have partisans as well as oppo-
nents in. Germany. But on the subject of Denmark
he has been, is, and will be sure of the suffrage- of
all his countrymen from beginning to end. In the
spoliation. of the Dane Germany had only one mind
and one heart. This inexorable hardness and bit-
terness against the weak augurs ill for the future
career of a nation which is even now rising to un-
bounded and irresponsible power. Yet, we have no
doubt, in any design Count Bisfhark may harbour
about evading the stipulation of the sth Article of
the Treaty of Prague, and defrauding Denmark of
what ought now to be indisputably her own, he
would be sure to be out-Bismarked by every man
throughout Germany, not excepting the members
of the most violent Opposition in the Prussian
Chamber, the most discontented municipalists of
Hanover, Dresden, or Frankfort, or even the most
rabid democrats of Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and
Baden.