My Lords, our honour not
being engaged, we have to consider what we might be led to do for the
interests of other Powers, and for the sake of that balance of power
which in 1852 was declared by general consent to be connected with the
integrity of Denmark. My Lords, I cannot but believe that the Treaty
of 1852 having been entered into, if there had been at an early
period--say in December or January last--if France, Great Britain, and
Russia, supported by the assistance which they might have counted upon
receiving from Sweden, had declared for the maintenance of the Treaty
of 1852--the succession of the King of Denmark might have been
established without difficulty, and might have been peaceably
maintained, and that the King and his Government would have remedied
all the grievances of which his German subjects complained. I believe
the King of Denmark would have found it to his advantage to grant
to his German subjects that freedom, those privileges, and that
self-government in their internal and domestic matters which they had
demanded, and that they would thus have become quite contented as
subjects to the King of Denmark. That desirable result, however, could
not be brought about. In reference to the Treaty of 1852, I have to
repeat what I stated on a previous occasion--that it was not a treaty
of guarantee, that the Governments of France and Russia were competent
to acknowledge the treaty, but that they had not pledged themselves
to maintain the connexion of Schleswig and Denmark, that not being a
question of the general balance of power in Europe.
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