TOPICS OF THE DAY.
• WHAT ENGLAND COULD DO FOR DENMARK. THE Danish Debate in the Lords on Monday night was an eminently unsatisfactory one. Earl Grey indeed made a fine speech, in which he maintained that, had the Govern- ment had the energy to send troops to the Dannewerke, the war would never have occurred ; but Earl Grey is without office, and the remaining speakers offered no practical suggestion. Lord Derby showed very clearly that the Government had over and over again induced the Danes to make concessions by hints of support if they were made, hints from which they afterwards retreated, but he showed more clearly still that he would have done exactly the same thing. As to Earl Russell, his single point was an affectation of weakness, an assertion that Great Britain could not have prevented the march of German armies even if she had tried. She must, he said, have allies, and her allies would not stir. The assertion is not correct, for Napoleon at first hinted his readiness to join in defending Denmark, provided he were assured that England meant work, that he should not be subjected a second time to the humiliation of purposeless protocolling. It is not, however, on this point that we desire a controversy, for the Emperor subsequently drew back, and the Government may have had information not contained in the public despatches, but on Earl Russell's distrust of the strength of the people whom he professes to direct. If it be indeed true that with our present expenditure on armaments, an ex- penditure of thirty millions—six pounds a year from every family in the Empire,—we are unable to send out an ex- pedition, or face a great power, then our affairs are infa- mously mismanaged, and the sooner the House of Commons takes the army under its own control, or surrenders the task of defending India, or revolutionizes the military system, the better. Cheap humiliation may be endurable—though we do not advise statesmen to rely too strongly on the British fondness for being kicked—but humiliation at six pounds a house is not the kind of purchase this country is prepared to accept. The melancholy assertion, however, has, we believe, no foundation whatever, and as there exists a wide misappre- hension on the subject, we will just state distinctly what the friends of Denmark believe it possible for this country to do. They do not want to widen the area of warfare one inch beyond what is necessary to secure the triumph of justice, but they believe that end is quite within reasonable means. They hold, in other words, that it is possible to detach Austria from the war altogether, and to drive Prussia and the petty kinglets back again across the Eider. The advocates of peace reason as if Germany were already an united empire, any attack on which would be as useful as trying to kill a whale with a lancet. The "fleet cannot go to Warsaw" said Earl Russell, and neither, say his supporters, can it reach Berlin. The epigram is shrewd, but it is never- theless only half true. Germany is still a composite federa- tion, in which no two States have precisely similar interests, wishes, or traditions of public policy. Over Austria Great Britain exercises at all times a tremendous influence, fer at all times she could inflict a rapid and perhaps deadly wound. The instant a British fleet appears off Venice, England has at her back a regular army of 350,000 men commanded by a king who is fretting his life away in compulsory inaction ; the moment it threatens Trieste the Magyar will be in arms. Austria cannot face England and the revolution together, and despite their longing for the Imperial crown the Hapsburgs would leave Germany to fight for her dreams as she best might. There remain, says Earl Russell, in a despatch which contemplates this very course of action, Prussia and the little Powers, thirty-five millions in all, who will crush Denmark just as effectually as if Austria were by their side. We do not believe one word of it. Suppose we promised to land 20,000 Englishmen in Jutland or Alsen, before they arrived the Swedes would have 40,000 men in Denmark, and in a fortnight an army of 90,000 men would be ready to drive the Prussians out of Schleswig. Does Earl Russell suppose that Germany could destroy such an army, or that the lank youngsters who cry " Nein " when their officers urge them forwards could win a pitched battle against equal numbers of Englishmen and Scandinavians ? Germany has men to send, it is true, for the Germans are not free ; but how long would the German treasuries be able to endure such a struggle? Prussians will do a good deal for the Fatherland, but no amount of effort will make a poor people a rich one in a year, or keep armies in a foreign country without expen- ,, diture. Unless we were hampered by inconceivably bad generals the Prussians would be driven out in a campaign, and forCed to content themselves with the compromise which has all along been offered,—Holstein for Germany, Schleswig to the Danes. Earl Russell dreads a burst of revolutionary fervour in Germany ; but all nations have a respect for the arguments of the strong. The Germans are very in- dignant because their countrymen are not masters in Schleswig, but they see them subjects in Alsace with- out any very bitter heartburning. Once it were clear that Denmark could not be conquered the moral necessity of conquest would appear in a very different light, and German professors would admit, as the upright judge Von Gerlach has recently told them, that the right to Schleswig is a ques- tion with at least two sides. Is there anything in such an effort hopelessly beyond our power? because, if there is, the sooner we lay down our rank in the world the better for humanity. If we cannot defend a line of eighty miles with the population of Denmark behind us, Sweden encamped by our side, Italy rushing at the enemy's throat, and the Revo- lution, springing to arms in our behalf, what right have we to be great, or how excuse the moral baseness of keeping alive in Europe that thirst for freedom which we are powerless to assuage ? It is, says Earl Russell, no more our business to maintain the Treaty of 1852 than that of France or Russia, both which Powers signed with us. Who said it was? But it is a great deal more our business to see that the small number of free Protestant States be not diminished by violence, to main- tain our natural positionas the consistent supportersof the weak against the strong, the right against the unjust. There is no special contract between each suitor and the Court to which he apptals, but what should we think of the judge who on that ground refused to secure him justice ? England holds her high position among the nations because she is the only Power at once free and strong, because refugees from every country are safe within her shadow, because the eyes of the oppressed turn always first to her, because, as Schiller sang, sho is " the rock when man from wrong a refuge needs." If we are really, as Earl Russell says, too powerless to maintain that position, or too selfish to endure its cost, then English history has indeed been lived in vain, and our best course is to surrender that right of asylum which, even more than our freedom, irritates every despotic Court in Europe. What interest have we in shielding Mazzini from transportation to Cayenne for the crime of being accused ? If a nation may perish without our help, why not also an individual ? We have made no specific contract with Kossuth, have indeed proclaimed through the Alien Act that we shall retain the right to expel him if we please. He is protected only by our principles and our pride, and if we care for neither, why not surrender him ? Austria might give us a commercial treaty in exchange, and British trade swell till it was possible to take one more farthing a pound off the duty on loaf sugar.
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