and without an approach to its rich mineral wealth. struction
of China than by an earthquake which swallowed
The population bears about the same proportion, being up Paris. But force is as essential to the development of 1,400,000, or rather more than a third of that of Scotland, national as health to that of physical life, and Denmark has singularly divided in all but feeling, and tainted already alike been deprived of the necessary force. She must exist in con- k Jutland and Zealand with the Germanic element. This stunt terror of invasion, and by acts of incessant obedience. little people, just the half of the Swiss in number, resides in If Bismarck considers her constitution too free the constitution a country of which three-fourths is a flat plain utterly in- must be altered, if Russia thinks her too friendly to Sweden defensible, and the remainder islands defensible only by a fleet, the friendship must be broken, if Schleswig-Holstein holds which Denmark has no means to maintain. The Danes, we her tariff excessive the tariff must be reduced. National life are told, may still have an army and a fleet, for the soldiers or vigour is impossible under circumstances which leave of the Duchies were disaffected, and their sailors very few, energy no object and intellect no room, in which political life and if Schleswig and Holstein claim half the ships, as they is reduced to a feeding operation, and human aspiration con- do, some more can be built in the Clyde. Is Ireland, then, fined to the hope of becoming inordinately rich. The true test a drawback to our military strength? Denmark may have of a nation is not its comfort, but the men it produces, and soldiers, it is true, for she may drill her whole population, as what have Norway or Switzerland done for the human race Switzerland does ; but for an army and a fleet it is a revenue that we should set up their life as ideal ? As well might which is needed. And where is revenue to be obtained ? we argue that a man must be happy under perpetual pupilage, No statesmen, save the English, French, and Dutch, have if only his meals are regular and his sleep unbroken. "I ever succeeded in levying taxes to the extent of more than won't be your fatted hog," said Napoleon, and the sentence thirty shillings a head, and that high average would leave is remembered because it expressed the unspoken thought of Denmark with a revenue of 2,100,0001. It will be hard every man with the capacity to comprehend it. Napoleon to reach even that, for one of the many difficulties with which may have been wrong, but the counsel given to the Danes to the country has to struggle is an inordinate emigration, which become fatted hogs and be happy comes oddly from a nation year by year empties the islands of their most energetic which finds its happiness in achievement, and a press to children, and which any heavy taxation would be certain to which political movement is the very life-blood. The stomach increase. Out of this sum she will have to pay the interest on a may be, after all, the most important member, but there is
debt of 10,000,0001., leaving her less than 1,300,000/. for a want of self-respect when it is the brain which suggests court, army, navy, colonies, and internal administration. We that truth. may imagine in these days of iron-clads the sort of fleet she would be able to maintain out of the balance remaining. MR. LINCOLN'S DIPLOMACY.
temporary paralysis of Great Britain are thinking that they ness to better advantage than in the unofficial negotie- approve of Mr. Cobden's opinions, may live without fleet and lions recently commenced by the South. The Southein army. She may, but it will be a life without a future, for she statesmen share with the Northern great skill in the manipu- is not, be it remembered, under the European guarantee. In- lation of elections, and early in July they hit on a most
deed if she were it would be worthless, for the Five Powers
TOPICS 014' THE were solemnly pledged to maintain the integrity and
pendence of Denmark, and broke the pledge because it was THE POST-MORTEM ON DENMARK. inconvenient. The German stream flows ceaselessly into Jut-
" TEE late King!" said Philip of Orleans, Regent of France, land, the traders in Zealand are German, the Court is purely who could not endure to hear of death, to a Secretary German, and once the Duchies are gone the rest of the who talked of a deceased King of Spain, " what do you mean by monarchy can be absorbed whenever a Prussian Premier de- the late King ?" " Mais, Monseigneur," answered the startled sires to stave off an unpleasant internal reform. Switzerland and pliant Secretary, "it is but a title ihey take." It is a novel exists with a separate life without either fleet or army, but r6le for Liberal journals to play, but the English press has all then even steel bolts " at a pound a piece" are wasted on this week been acting, with less wit and less provocation, the mountain sides. Denmark may avoid incessant compul- part of the Regent's Secretary. They will not call Denmark sion by entering the Confederatioh, but then she becomes a dead,—the phrase is far too uncourtly, she is but " reduced," German State ; or by joining Sweden, but then she becomes a or to be very frank, " despoiled " of part of her territories. Scandinavian province; or by accepting a Russian Protectorate, The nationality subsists ; the fleet remains; the Danes can trade, but then she becomes a Russian satrapy,—in any case, even and marry, and eat ; and even if Denmark has ceased to be the most favourable, " there is an end of an auld sang," as of any consequence in the world, why, says the Times, " the good Lord Belhaven said, Denmark as a member of the Euro- happiness of nations does not depend on their importanee ; it pean family is dead, and the only subject for specn-
is indeed often in an adverse ratio to their magnitude in lation is the manner and time of her burial. In other their neighbours' eyes and their own." The motive of all words, England rather than risk her commercial prosperity, this courtliness is plain enough. The English public does not or risk a cessation of harmony between the Court and the like to remember that the power it was bound to proteet has people, has suffered a free Protestant maritime State to be been slain under its eyes, and in the teeth of its protest, feels swept from the map by a great despotic semi-Catholic power. as it hears of the last sad ceremonies a pang which might, if There are but two more such States in the world, Holland the details were brought too clearly forward, change into a and Sweden, and either may now be attacked on the same spasm of indignation against the advisers who have misled pretexts, and with the same certainty of success. That policy it. A veil therefore is stretched over the transaction, and all may be wise, it is waste of time to argue in England when its little horrors concealed. That was not the death-rattle in all the political leaders are on one side, but at least let us the patient's throat, only a stifled groan ; the surgeons are acknowledge to ourselves and the world its visible results.
using the knife, but it is not a post-mortem they are making, But granting Denmark dead, i. e., utterly powerless, a they only prepare for healthful amputation ; the patient will be " nation's happiness is often in the inverse ratio to her greatly relieved by the loss of his legs and arm. It is pleasant power." Is it ? Are Greeks so much happier than English- no doubt to sorrowing friends to hear those smooth excuses, men, Turks than Frenchmen, Poles than Russians, Chiliana and their utterance is considered by many as morally justi- than Spaniards, the Swiss than the people of the -United fiable, but the fact remains none the less that the life has States ? The sentence is in fact the mere reductio ad absurdum fled, the European power called Denmark is extinct. M. de of the theory which asserts that the slave is happy because he Quaade on the 1st August, agreed at Vienna tothe arrangement is well-fed, that England would be the happier if she described by us last week, the cession of Holstein, Lauenburg, had no status to maintain, that, in short, physical well- and Schleswig, with their islands, and the Danish monarchy being is the sole constituent of happiness. Even if happi- consequently ceased to exist. There may remain for a time ness were the true object of life—which it is not, or a little State called by the old name, and the tradition of inde- this world must be pronounced one vast and hopeless pendence may linger round it, like the smell of an eaten dinner failure—that theory would still be false. Man does not live round the table, but the reality has departed. The "Den- by bread alone, though the bread be never so thickly buttered, mark" which remains is politically only a corpse, bearing still and power, influence, independence, the force which can make the old semblance of manhood, but utterly powerless, either ideas prevail, the right to act without interference, resources for good or evil. It is a State consisting of two _small islands, sufficientto give all latent capacities fair play, are with all men neither of them so large as Lincolnshire, half.a-dozen islets, higher than brutes real and necessary conditions of happiness. the largest less than Brecknock, and a peninsula little bigger That size has nothing to do with the matter we readily than Munster, a scattered territory in all not quite half the admit. Attica did not grow great through the extent of her size of Scotland, almost as bleak, much worse cultivated, acreage, and even now the world would lose less by the de-
and without an approach to its rich mineral wealth. struction of China than by an earthquake which swallowed
Previous page
