SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN—WHAT WILL THE CONTEST DO FOR THE PEOPLE?
THE Schleswig-Holstein agitation has at last spread into the re- gions of diplomacy and that in a way that must be disagreeable to the long acknowledged leaders in German politics. The Grand Duke of Oldenburg has publicly protested, in the Hamburg pa- pers, against the "open letter" of the Danish King; politely in- timating, that he does not believe in the existence of the Royal declaration, because he as an agnate was not consulted before its publication ! Old diplomats will of course demur to this mode of protesting, and to the form in which the appeal is made. But both documents point in characters sufficiently intelligible to the great want felt in Germany as well as in Denmark. The agitation proceeds from the people of Germany, who seek to engage the sympathies of the people of Schleswig and Holstein in a national cause. But neither the people of Germany, nor those of the Dano-Germanic provinces, have recognized organs through whom they can express their wishes, or through whom the Sovereign can reason with them. Lest the provincial Diets should act as approved organs, Mg have been dissolved. On the aggressor's side, therefore, there is no resource left but agitation —public meetings, newspaper tirades, tumultuous songs in the streets—leading to arrests, conflicts with the military, persecu- tions, and martyrdom. Even the Grand Duke of Oldenburg can proceed in no other way in so far as he would enlist public feel- ing on his side. His Royal Highness has done through a Ham- burg editor what would have cost a Danish editor his liberty and his licence. The results of this very undignified mode of pro- ceeding on all sides is, that appeals to the most formidable of all tribunals, the public feeling of the people, prove of no use to those who rely upon them ; for those people are not duly represented by responsible delegates. There is no Danish people and no German people in the political sense of the word. The question is practically the same that arose on the decease of the late Grand Duke of Baden, when the Bavarian family wished to enforce a claim to a part of Baden that formerly be- longed to the Elector-Palatine, on the ground of an old Germanic legal pretension. The King of Bavaria was in Italy at the mo- ment, and his Ministers did not venture to occupy Heidelberg without express orders. An answer was soon obtained from the great Courts to the effect that they had guaranteed the integrity of the Grand Dutchy by the treaty of Vienna. They therefore protected the Sovereign in virtue of the rule he held over a recog- nized state, and did not sanction the notion that a personal claim could destroy a state established under their guarantees. That the Schleswig-Holstein dispute will be diplomatically settled on the same principle cannot be doubted. Could either of the contending parties, indeed, Danes or Ger- mans, contrive to attach to their gaining the upper hand the boon of a constitutional representation of the people, there can be little doubt but that such party would outwit the diplomatic agents, and prove victorious after all. There is, however, little probability that the people will gain anything either by the con- test or by its settlement.
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