Sir, I should not be doing justice to the Secretary of State
if I did not bear testimony to the perseverance and extreme ingenuity
with which he conducted that correspondence. The noble lord the
Secretary of State found in that business, no doubt, a subject genial
to his nature--namely, drawing up constitutions for the government of
communities. The noble lord, we know, is almost as celebrated as a
statesman who flourished at the end of the last century for this
peculiar talent. I will not criticize any of the lucubrations of the
noble lord at that time. I think his labours are well described in
a passage in one of the dispatches of a distinguished Swedish
statesman--the present Prime Minister, if I am not mistaken--who, when
he was called upon to consider a scheme of the English Government for
the administration of Schleswig, which entered into minute details
with a power and prolixity which could have been acquired only by a
constitutional Minister who had long served an apprenticeship in the
House of Commons, said:
Generally speaking, the monarchs of Europe have found
it difficult to manage one Parliament, but I observe, to my
surprise, that Lord Russell is of opinion that the King of
Denmark will be able to manage four.
The only remark I shall make on this folio volume of between 300 and
400 pages relating to the affairs of Schleswig and Holstein is this--I
observe that the other Powers of Europe, who were equally interested
in the matter, and equally bound to interfere--if being signatories to
the treaty of 1852 justified interference--did not interpose as the
English Government did.
Pages:
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422