The Sun.
London, England, 1850-07-17 00:00:00

fur binina

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 1850.

A question has never been involved in more per-
verse obscurities than that of the allegiance due from
the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein to the Danish
SOVEREIGN. Every species of misrepresentation has
been resorted to by the apologists of Prussian cu
pidity, for the purpose of inducing the unwary and
incurious to recognize some right of possession to
those provinces on the part of the Confederation.
Throughout the whole of the struggle which, after
three summers' almost uninterrupted continuance,
seems now to be really approaching its termination, we
have preserved that impartial equanimity of tempera-
ment which can alone justify a public journalist in de-
ciding between the claims of two powerful amid in-
furilted disputants. On one hand, it is true, we

1.
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have observed a Monarch who, from the dictates of
his own judgment, and in obedience to no insurrec-
tionary movement, yielded to his subjects the privi-
lege of certain free and liberal institutions ; while, on
the other, we have seen a Prince, reluctantly carried
away by the impetus of revolutionary enthusiasm,
affixing the democratic cockade to his helmet with a
sort of theatrical ostentation, and subsequently
slinking back to the ranks of absolutism and to
the side of the counter-revolutionists so soon as he
himself perceived a safe and reasonable opportunity.
Inasmuch as we had thus contrasted the leaders of
the respective armies, we confess to having enter-
tained a very considerable predilection in favour of
his Majesty of DENMARK. Nevertheless, in striving
to estimate the merits of the territorial misunder-
standing between himself and his Majesty the King
of Paussre, we entirely divested ourselves, from the
first, of any partialities or prejudices affecting the
disputants. We viewed the subject-matter of
their contention simply in relation to the narrative
of history, and in reference to the requirements of
abstract justice. Referring to the records of anti-
quity, of an antiquity of almost immemorial duration

—we discovered that for centuries and centuries,
stretching buck to no period " where the memory of
man runneth to the contrary," but to remote epochs,
where the annals of Christendom become lost in
" the twilight of fable," the province of Schleswig
has formed an integral portion of the Da-
nish kingdom, the most southern part of the
continental dominions subject to the Govern-
ment of Copenhagen. So venerable in truth
is this fact, so notorious were the rights of
sovereignty exercised by Denmark over the population
of the Duchy of Schleswig that upon the ancient
maps of Europe (as now• a-days upon the most recent)
the extreme frontiers were inscribed with the motto,
Eydera Germani terminus Inzperii ! At that river
skirting the southern boundaries of Schleswig and
the northern boundaries of Holstein, terminated
the influence of the Germanic empire. From the
Eckernforde Haven to the northern shores of Dith-
marsen extended a clear and impassable line of de-
marcation between the dominions of Denmark and the
dominions of Germany. Looking at a sketch of the
European continent prior to the partition of Poland,
when Austria was still in embryo and Prussia a petty
state confined to the south-eastern corner
of the Baltic, not having been yet amal-
gamated with the Duchy of Brandenburg—
we find the same story told in very visible cha-
racters. At that period, when Pomerania, and
Silesia, and Lusatia, and Moravia, and Hungary, and
Bohemia, and divers other sections of Christendom
were still unabsorbed by
_the dynasties of Hapsburg
and Brandenburg, the Eyder still continued to be
regarded as the southern limit of the Danish posses-
sions. Turning again to the map of Europe as late as
1831, when Poland was no more, and when
the territorial robberies of Austria and Prussia had
been carried to their very uttermost, we observe that
line, so far from being contracted, extended down-
wards to the mouth of the river Elbe, embracing the
whole of the province of Holstein, and stretching
westward to the city of Hamburgh, and eastward
to the Gulf of Lubeck. Of course the conditions
upon which this arrangement was rendered dependent
were of a very different description to those relating
to the Danish right of sovereignty over the provinces
of Schleswig. The latter ibeing an integral portion
of Denmark, and the former, although yielded up to
the Danish Sovereigns, still retaining an indirect
association with the confederated states of Germany,
no comparison whatever could with any show of reason
be instituted between their relative positions and re-
lationships.
It is because an aggressive movement has been
made against Denmark, with the intention of depriv•
ing her of the ducal province of Schleswig-Holstein—
it is because that country, in withstanding the forces
of her assailants, is acting simply in conformity with
her ancient rights and her most venerable privileges
—it is because we see in the course adopted by Prussia
a shameless violation of the most antique laws and
the most sacred treaties, and this solely with a
view to alleviate her own interior embarrassment,
that we are filled with such earnest sym-
pathy for the Danish soldiers and the Danish
SOVEREIGN, and with such unutterable abhorrence
for the policy pursued in this matter by the Berlin
Government. Under some of the most paltry ex-
cuses and the most transparent arguments, the expe-
dition set on foot for the assistance of all the traitors
in Schleswig-Holstein originated most glaringly in

the desire of Prussia to distract the attention of

the more energetic and enterprising from the central
seat of her own Government to the extremest limits'
of Germany. It was imagined that the atrocity of
injustice would be swallowed up by the glory of con-
quest, that the disgrace of lying would be forgotten
in the rapture of victory, that the faithlessness of the
Prussian KING in regard to his liberal engagements
would be overlooked in consideration of the national
aggrandizement. Happily, such have not been the re-
sults of this most atrocious and flagitious procooding.
Prussia has so far failed in her endeavours that the
rest of the powers of Christendom are making prepa-
rations to secure her own possessions inalienably to
Denmark. By the triple influence of England,
France, and Russia—of England free and en-
lightened, of Republican France and of Despotic
Russia—Schleswig, and so, also, to a certain extent,
the province of Holstein, will be preserved as among

the continental territories of Denmark. When this
arrangement shall have been accomplished an act of
justice will have been done to the Danish Monarchy
and an indelible infamy spared to the German Con-
federation.

On Monday evening the Government sustained
another defeat, and that on a fiscal question. Such
events are of such common occurrence, under the
leadership of Sir CHARLES WOOD, that they might
now be passed by with comparatively trifling notice,
but for the peculiar circumstances of the case, and for
the strange doctrines enunciated by the Chancellor of
the Exchequer respecting fiscal matters.
The question on which the Government was left
in a minority was that relating to the stamp duties
on attorneys' certificates. At the very commence-
ment of the session, in the month of February,
the Noble Lord the Member for Middlesex
moved for leave to bring in a Bill to ex-
onerate the members of the profession from
the very onerous and vexatious tax to which they
were exclusively subjected. Sir CHARLES WOOD
was, however, at that time exceedingly unwell, and
the Noble Lord, at the urgent request of the Secre-
tary of the Treasury, consented to postpone the dis-
cussion on the Bill until after the Budget had been
brought forward, and the Minister of Finance bad
explained the manner in which he intended to dispose
of the surplus remaining in his hands, That state-
ment was made in March. The "Brick-dust
Budget " had excited the derision of the people, but
it was not until the beginning of May that Lord
ROBERT GROSVENOR was enabled again to call the
attention of the House to the subject.
If ever there was a calm and deliberate expression
of opinion it was on that occasion. The entire power
of the Government was exerted to reject the just
and salutary measure on the very first stage of its
progress The whipper-in used the lash freely and
unsparingly—threats and promises were pretty equally
distributed, but in vain. In vain the Chancellor of
the Exchequer brought forth his most pompous plati-
tudes—babbled about the necessity of maintaining
the public revenue, and asserted that the attorneys
and solicitors should be contented to suffer injustice,
because they were not the only parties victimised—
that bankers, auctioneers, horse-dealers, and several
likewiseotherswere
tradets and callingsaxedinorder ; and finally,
to bepermitted
to follow their
without entering into the merits of the case,
to use his stereotyped and hackneyed ex-
pression, " that he was certainly not prepared to
relinquish an impost that produced so handsome a
sum to the national Exchequer." A division took
place, Ministers were defected by a clear and decisive
majority, and leave was given to bring in the Bill,
which was accordingly read a first time shortly
afterwards.

It might have been supposed that those who were
so nervously sensitive to the opinion of the House on
another occasion, who hastened to carry into operation
a resolution adopted four weeks afterwards, for the
purpose of obstructing the public service, and in-
creasing the labour of the people on Sundays, would
in this instance likewise have exhibited a similar spirit,
and have withdrawn from all further opposition, as they