TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE DANISH DANGER. THAT the end cannot justify the means is sound morality ; but, then, can the means ever be held to justify the end? We may not do evil that good may come ; but may we do good when evil will almost certainly come ? That is the moral problem presented by the Schleswig-Holstein affair, and which renders that "question" so unspeakably troubling to the exceedingly few who have the patience to comprehend it. There can be little doubt that the Germans, in the dangerous line of policy which they are adopting to Denmark, are trying to redress a real grievance in a perfectly legitimate way. There can be no doubt at all that the object with which they adopt these legal means to secure a justifiable end is utterly evil—nothing less than the extinction of an invaluable nation- ality. Stripped of all diplomatic forms, of the fictions in- vented by aggressive Germans anxious for a fleet, and the fictions invented by patriotic Danes trembling for their independence, the Schleswig question resolves itself into this :—The Danish Government did pledge itself to keep the Danish province of Schleswig united in all things to the German State of Holstein ; in other words, to make it for purposes of internal organization part of a German State ruled by a Danish King. On the faith of this promise large numbers of Germans settled in Schleswig, and, after the manner of Germans when their wretched Princes are not at hand to drill them into automata, prospered and multiplied much. The Danish Government, however, in process of time, found its promise inconvenient, wanted to incorporate Schles- wig into the Scandinavian section of the monarchy, and as a great step to that end stopped education in German. The German settlers, who are two-fifths of the inhabitants, did not like this at all, and, having no other resource, claimed the performance of the ancient contract. The Germans out- side liked it still less, for they thought that an inferior civi- lization was eating up a superior one—that men of the grand German stock were being oppressed by men of " barbarian" birth. That seems to Englishmen rather a sentimental view ; but then Englishmen have no experience of any similar kind. No organized body of men of English breed has ever at any period subjected itself or become subject by conquest or agreement to any nation of any other breed, and conse- quently Englishmen cannot tell how, under such circum- stances, they would be apt to behave. Our own conviction is they would do as they always have done whenever indi- vidual Englishmen seemed in their eyes oppressed,—go half mad with rage and sympathy, spend and be spent without scruple, rather than not set free that section of English-speak- ing men ; but that is not much to the point. Germans, at all events, do so feel in Schleswig, and Posen, and Hungary, and in Schleswig they have a treaty right to express their feeling. Moreover, they have by their constitution a legal mode of expressing it. The Diet, though usually an imbecile body, good only to train a patient and careful race of diplomatists, has, in theory, very considerable powers. Among others, it is sole judge as to whether any member of the Germanic Con- federation has or has not violated the federal pact. If it decides in the affirmative, it has also the legal right to punish that member by marching into his territories certain hea bodies of troops. That this power is usually latent, and could not be used against a first-class State with an army in perfect order, is nothing at all to the purpose. It is a legal power, acknowledged by all the States, such as Holstein and Luxem- burg, which have an interest in resisting it. The Diet may be unjust, and so may the British Parliament; but within their own dominions each is, nevertheless, the ultimate autho- rity, responsible, if at all, only to God and the people in in- surrection. This little-used but existing power the German yeaple has within the past fortnight employed. After years and years of discussion, after hearing the accused with a pain- ful patience, after trying all manner of side-issues till Europe closed its ears in hopeless weariness and despair of an end, the Diet has decided that the Duke of Holstein has erred against his federal pact. Consequently, the Duke of Holstein's States are to be occupied about a month hence by an overwhelming flood of federal troops. In so deciding the Diet may have sinned against morality to any degree expressible in words, may have violated all principles of justice and every rule of civilization ; but they have not stepped one iota beyond their legal and, indeed, their acknowledged claims. They have exactly the same right to flood Holstein with troops as the British Parliament would have to flood Ireland, and the King of Denmark himself, upon that point, does not impugn their title. The means are technically good and sound, but how about the end? No man, we imagine, who has studied the question doubts that the end is bad, that the Germans have a secret object in view, and that this object is to reduce Schleswig to the position of a German province, to the ultimate but nearly certain extinction of Danish nationality. The occupa- tion of Holstein is a mere excuse for the occupation of Schleswig. The Germans need, or think that they need„ a grand harbour in the Baltic ; Kiel is the noblest harbour in that sea; Kiel is valueless without its northern shore, which is in Schleswig; consequently, there being good ground for a quarrel with the owners of Schleswig, the Germans go in for redress of grievances and aggrandizement both together. Europe sees with a feeling of amazement, not easily distinguishable from indignation, that a legal process is to be made the occasion of vast aggrandizement, that a kingdom is, so to speak, going to be distrained, a country to be taken in execution by soldiers disguised as bumbailiffs.
protests with hot-tempered asseverations that this, at all events, cannot be just,—and then, stops bewildered by the apparent legality, and even righteousness, of the act. It &- conquest visibly, and yet—Germany in Holstein is, after all, only in her own house. It is aggression, and yet—the King of Denmark's arguments are strangely feeble and wide of the point. He says Schleswig is free, and no treaty is or can be- broken by him ; for if the Estates of Schelswig like they can pass tiny laws they choose in accordance with their own ideas. of that treaty's meaning. Nobody now stops them from making German the official language, or Chinese, if that suits them better. That is true, and would be unanswerable,. only it has nothing on earth to do with the matter. The- German two-fifths cannot pass any laws against the Danish three-fifths, and they retort that by treaty they are united. with Holstein, and so have a clear working German majority which can do as it likes. To disunite the Duchies, and so leave them in a minority, is to abrogate the very object for- which the treaty was framed. And thus Europe stops. bewildered, conscious that a tremendous war of aggrandize- ment is about to begin, yet conscious also that its beginning, however inconvenient, is none the less in accord with the- recognized law of States.
Meanwhile, the question which for years has been only a bore is at last becoming a nuisance. There is the strongest. reason to believe that within the next two months the liti- gants, whatever their rights, will publicly come to blows, and the strongest reason to fear that the Queen's peace once broken. half Europe will take a part in the fray. The King of Den- mark sees just as clearly as Europe that his independence is menaced under legal forms, and has intimated his final resolve to abide no further discussion. If the Diet puts its decree in force he will fight, with such means as Providence and his people may grant. In this resolve he is supported by every Dane alive, by a people few, indeed, but singularly gifted for by a fleet which can blow the German fleets out of the water in an hour, and by a geographical position which makes that fleet more important than any army. He is, moreover, supported by Sweden, which sees her own independence threatened, and has longed for years to join Denmark to her- self; by England, which beholds Germans conquering Scandi- navians with an irritable sense of quasi-humiliation ; and by France, which sees in the tnefee opportunity of very much coveted pickings. Russia could hardly miss such a chance of inflicting a blow on France with all Germans' full con- sent, Italy is panting for a province held by German troops, and,— in short, Europe is a magazine with fusees laid to the doors. There is scarcely room to doubt that if the war broke out it would become general, and a general European war is one of those awful calamities which loosen the knees of statesmen, and make good men sigh with a feeling that God has averted his face. It is a calamity which no man not utterly bad will assist with so much as a word, except for some end like the freedom of a nation beyond all doubt or hesitation, a misfortune which will undo all the work of this generation, stop at once all material civilization, render impossible all political progress, and, perhaps, throw Europe back once again on the hateful regime of force. And all this is to happen for Schleswig, and the right of some one hun- dred and sixty thousand Germans not to learn Danish unless they like. It seems incredible, but the danger is real ; for the responsibility of movement rests with the Germans, and Germans, on most points the most thoughtful, kindly, and long enduring of mankind, are, upon this point, simply mad. We never yet, amidst an extensive German acquaintance, meta man who could talk reasonably upon the condition of Schleswig, never yet read a German speech which, when it touched upon Schleswig, did not break into unintelligible but most menacing declamation. The little Courts are eager for an action which breaks the dull monotony of their politics, and of the great Powers one would welcome even defeat, if it made the throne supreme, and the other is striving successfully to rekindle in all German hearts the belief that the Hapsburgs are worthy to lead the great Teutonic race. The Germans do not believe that when the Fatherland is united it has much to fear from France, and as for England, English ships are not likely to reach Vienna. It is more than probable that the Diet, which has read Earl Russell's remonstrance without a word, and watched Napoleon's ominous quiet without a sign of fear, will carry out its purpose, and bring the Federal army this winter crashing against the united Scandinavian host. It is time for Englishmen, if not to decide on their course, at least to make up their minds. We believe they will be unanimous. Their first object, as of all decent police, is to see that the Queen's peace be not broken. Both, or either, or neither of the litigants may be entirely in the right; but they must come into court, not anticipate law by firing each other's houses, to the danger of all decent people around. Any action tending to stop the march of that army of execution will, therefore, ob- tain the full support of Parliament. That failing, English- men will, we believe, side, on the whole, with the Danes. The debt is too small for the decree. The plaintiff ought to distrain on the spoons, not seize the whole property of his opponent. The Germans may have claims to which the Danes ought to yield, and we rather think they may have ; but it is not possible for Europe to see the State which commands the Baltic fall into the grasp of a Power which is at this moment ruled by a humble servant of Russia; not possible to stand by while a little and gallant people, free at once by constitution and in fact, are crushed by the demi-despotic States which strive, and for good purposes strive in vain, to make an united Germany. No treaty has ever given Germany the right to terminate Danish independence, and in defending her freedom Denmark will have the aid of the sympathy, if not of the arms, of Great Britain. Both will be more readily and more heartily conceded if the King will only remove those grievances which are the avowed, if not the real cause of the movement which, to the irritation of all sane men, now threatens Europe with conflagration, and Germany with the loss of the Rhino.
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