HC Deb 20 March 1851 vol 115 cc220-1
MR. URQUHART

begged to ask the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the question of which he had given notice—when the papers connected with the affairs of the Duchies and Denmark will be laid upon the table of the House?

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

replied, that it was not his intention to lay on the table any further papers in reference to this subject. In August, last year, on the Motion of an hon. Friend of his, he laid on the table a copy of the treaty which established the foundation for the regulation of the differences between Denmark and Prussia with regard to Schleswig. And he would state the reasons why he did not think the production of any further documents to be necessary. The correpondence spread over a space of three or four years, and included negotiations between the Ministers of almost every Court in Europe north of the Alps, namely, Paris, Berlin, Petersburgh, Vienna, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Frankfort, besides many of the minor German States; and it would be impossible to give any connected or intelligible view of these negotiations without furnishing, at the same time, a mass of papers, which would occupy about two thousand pages of letterpress, and which no hon. Member would read—or if any hon. Member did read them, he would be greatly throwing away his time. These despatches were important at the moment; but in any Parliamentary discussion they lost all their practical interest, in consequence of all the questions to which they related having been disposed of. It wag not, therefore, his intention to lay any additional papers before the House, and he would feel it his duty to oppose any Motion made for their production.

MR. URQUHART

begged then to ask further, whether in this correspondence there had been any negotiation as to the succession to the Crown of Denmark, or in respect to the succession in the Duchies?

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

A good deal had passed in regard to these points; that was to say, in regard to the succession to the Crown of Denmark; and, as connected with that, in regard to the arrangements for the order of succession in Schleswig and Holstein. But Her Majesty's Government had studiously and systematically held themselves aloof from taking any share in these negotiations. Her Majesty's Government had confined themselves strictly to the mediation which they undertook; which was a mediation for the purpose of bringing about a restoration of peace between Denmark and the Germanic Confederation.

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