ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO TREATIES. (Hansard, 25 July 1864)

LORD CAMPBELL
^* said: My Lords, I trust that I shall not oppose the wishes of the House in now proceeding with my notice, in spite of that which has been given by a noble Earl over the way, and which opens a wider field in regard to foreign policy. I should have been inclined to withdraw mine, although his was subsequently given and stands for a later day, were it not that such a course would deprive a noble Marquess near me (the Marquess of Clanricarde), long versed in these affairs, of the latest opportunity for discussing our present situation. My Lords, it will be easy to explain the question I propose to put, as to whether the Treaty of 1852 and the older Treaties relative to Schleswig have any further international validity, and the Motion I submit for recent correspondence on the subject. According to a general impression, the reverses and the losses our diplomacy has suffered impose some line of action, or at least suggest it, to redeem our credit, to reinstate our influence, and to indemnify the Continent to the greatest possible extent for the evils our discomfiture has lately brought upon it. But until these treaties are in some degree considered and disposed of, no such compensating line appears feasible or open. They bind us to uphold a past or at least an evanescent situation, and do not well admit of our being parties to a new one. They pledge us to sustain a fabric which is crumbling, and hardly seems to warrant us in building on the vacancy. At the same time, my Lords, it is far from my intention to disparage them. The proposition I have hazarded—namely, that a new line of action is required, would rather make it logical and just to dwell upon their gravity. The clearest ground for the necessity of diplomatic and political repair is that in the torrent of events we have departed from engagements not to be denied, and hitherto held sacred. As regards the Treaty of 1852, which is so familiar, nothing need be said, except that its apparent 1980 ruin is a serious disparagement to the country under whose auspices it came into existence, and by whom it has been so frequently and ineffectually appealed to. The gravity of those treaties by which the Duchy of Schleswig has been guaranteed to Denmark is based on more than one consideration. Although they date from 1720 they also date from 1814. It is a fallacy to think that they are buried like an ancient temple in the dust which ages heap upon it. At the end of the great war, the Treaty of Kiel revived and re-established them. Besides this, in 1826, Great Britain recognized and acted on treaties identical in scope, in character and circumstances. Mr. Canning, in defending the British expedition to the Tagus, stood upon two guarantees of Portugal—given, one in 1661, the other in 1703, and of which both were re-established at the Treaty of Vienna. It will thus be seen by your Lordships that the guarantees of Schleswig were coeval in their second birth with those of Portugal, and less remote in their original concession. The principle of Mr. Canning with regard to those of Portugal went to the extent that the faith and honour of the country were involved in their observance, no matter how great the risk it might contain, no matter how doubtful or minute the British interest connected with it. Mr. Canning, in his famous speech of December, 1826, was not the leader of a party only, but the organ of an empire. The country acted on the doctrine he advanced, and took a measure which, although it ended in the quick and bloodless victory of right, might have embroiled us not only with Spain, but France, and the three despotic Powers which impelled them against Portugal. If, therefore, and the point will hardly be contested, the guarantees of Portugal and the guarantees of Schleswig stand on the same basis, the indirect acknowledgment which the last received in 1826 was brilliant and emphatic. No English politician can see Schleswig torn from Denmark without the same regret, at least the same humiliation he would feel if Portugal was conquered. He must desire a compensation and a balance for a result by which the credit of Great Britain is so injuriously altered. But the lapse of treaties and oblivion of engagements is not the only ground for seeking a new policy. The general position of the Continent can hardly fail to offer us another. We cannot help observing every tendency and move- 1981 ment which Great Britain would desire to avert. "We see France—to avoid all exaggeration—colder than she used to be. We see Russia and the German Powers obviously combining. If they were not combined, could Denmark have been trampled on? Do you believe the German Powers would have ventured on that course had Russia actively discountenanced it? If they had not combined, could Poland have been cast into a deeper tomb than that which formerly compressed her? If they had not combined, would Austria have been detached from the path on which a year ago it was the triumph of the Foreign Office to have set her, and from which she has relapsed into the ancient mire she had quitted? We see upon the Continent—these are facts which cannot be disputed—the objects of the country baffled, and her remonstrances despised. Let any one compare in foreign policy the Britain of 1815, or that of 1826, or that of 1841, with that of the present moment, and he must be tempted to indulge in terms which I, in order to avoid the semblance of heat, shall studiously refrain from. But what, my Lords, enhances the regret and adds to the desire of reparation; in any foreign capital we should hear something of the errors from which the situation had arisen. In Copenhagen we should hear that the despatch of September, 1862, had lent an impulse to the German movement which never afterwards subsided. This very day, a well-known journal has a letter from that city, alleging, what indeed we knew before, that its inhabitants attribute to that despatch the tide of evils which engulfs them. At Paris we should be informed that the obstacles presented by Great Britain to the Congress in November had altered the alliance, had estranged the Emperor, at the very moment when the death of the King of Denmark and the impending crisis made such consequences doubly alarming. And will any one at present venture to assert that the latent and contingent inconveniences, which, perhaps, resided in the project of a Congress, outweighed the broad and palpable calamities which its refusal has inflicted upon Europe. At St. Petersburg we should be told of the delusion which led our Foreign Office to count on Russia in the autumn, when our conduct on the Polish question had excited her resentment; when the Russian and the German objects were identical upon the Baltic; when the neces- 1982 sity and policy of Russia was to exchange; support and succour both at Berlin and Vienna. In any capital the English traveller would hear that to insist upon the Conference without preliminary measures to support it was to run into inevitable failure. It was said before the Conference I began—and this will be admitted—that success alone can vindicate a measure which at the outset all the world condemns as idle for its purpose. If it is true, my Lords, after a brief and unimpassioned view of what has happened, that our treaties have been sacrificed; if it is true that our objects have been baffled, and also that our errors are conspicuous, I venture to maintain that a desire must suggest itself for something in the nature of an indemnifying policy. To rescue Denmark is assumed to be impossible. But the fragment of that kingdom cannot stand alone without the territory which we have not been able to secure to it. It is hardly requisite to show that a nation; composed of North Jutland and the Islands, reduced in population and revenue, no; longer leading on the Baltic, without a military frontier, assailable by Germany from Schleswig, assailable by Germany on the sea coast, and at the same time the object of its wishes, would not be able to maintain itself. Eventually it must become absorbed in Germany, unless a Scandinavian union happens to preserve it. Both in Sweden and in Denmark a considerable party are known to lean to such an union. If the Treaty of 1852 is gone, dynastic circumstances favour it. Before now its advantages to Europe have been stated. But they are summed up in the jealousy with which—as the despatches before your Lordships show—it is regarded at St. Petersburg. What inspires that jealousy? A Scandinavian union could not act aggressive on Russia. Its population could not go beyond 10,000,000, while that of Russia, as your Lordships well know, is 70,000,000. The jealousy arises from the fact, and only from the fact, that such an union would retard the growth of Russian power on the Baltic. While Russia menaces the East, defies the Treaty of Vienna, detaches Austria from the wholesome concert in which the Western Powers had succeeded in engaging her, it is not our policy to encourage her maritime ambition on the Baltic. On the contrary, it seems to be our policy to check it. No doubt, my Lords, the union of the Scandinavian 1983 countries could not be promoted except by France and Great Britain cordially cooperating. Such a line could only be pursued with tenderness to vested rights, to popular ideas, and diplomatic complications. It could only be pursued by cautious steps and well concerted movements. But before it is denounced as visionary or irrelevant, your Lordships ought to glance at the alternative. The alternative contains a series of intelligible evils. When Denmark lapses altogether into German, you have to bear the unmitigated triumph of that false and hypocritical aggression, which has shocked us; the no less complete humiliation of the power whose diplomacy endeavoured to restrain it; the aggrandisement of Russia in the Baltic through her influence on Germany; the defencelessness of Sweden no longer fortified by Denmark; the right of any country strong enough to kindle war in Europe when its balance had so materially altered; the general decline of public law after the blows it would receive and the encroachments it would suffer in the event I am supposing. But whether or not we ought to favour Scandinavian union as the best result of the misfortunes which have happened to ourselves and to the world—dismissing altogether such a topic—it is still essential to determine the operation of the treaties which the notice has referred to. Were it our policy to make Denmark German, or to sustain her weak, denuded, and dismantled in her islands, the question would not be irrelevant. No line of action seems to be legitimate until we understand the manner in which the treaties bear upon us. It would be satisfactory, no doubt, if the Government would say that they continued to acknowledge them, that combinations might be yet formed for giving them effect, that it was not too late to rescue Denmark, and recover our honour. Such language all would hail, and nobody anticipates. It would be admissible, although not a source of pride, if the Government declared that overruling circumstances rendered it impossible to execute the treaties that their utility was gone, and that the ground was cleared for a line of action they had hitherto debarred us from. But to connive at them, ignore them, hush them up; at one time to call them immaterial because the casus fœderis has not arisen, and when it has disastrously occurred to bury them in silence; to pretend that we are ready to enforce 1984 the guarantee of Prussian Saxony, while that of Schleswig perishes without apology before us, is inadmissible, derogatory to the Crown, and not to be encouraged by the Legislature. That course the Government will now have the opportunity of quitting. I will not detain your Lordships but move for the Correspondence I have asked for.

§ EARL GRANVILLE
My Lords, I do not think it necessary to follow my noble Friend in that part of his speech which relates to the position which this country holds in Europe. That subject has recently been ably discussed in both Houses of Parliament, and both Houses came to a decision upon it. To re-open that question would, to use a vulgar phrase, be like "serving mustard after dinner." I believe it would neither tend to promote the interests of the public service nor to advance the dignity of this House. The question, however, which the noble Lord has put is one of very considerable importance. The noble Lord asks whether the Treaty of 1720, with the additional sanction which it received from the Treaty of 1814, is still obligatory. The noble Lord stated that the validity of our ancient treaties with Portugal was recognized by Mr. Canning in 1826. But the facts of the two cases are perfectly dissimilar. We had had no war with Portugal to put an end to those treaties, but with Denmark we had had hostilities; and it is not only my opinion, but the opinion also of the Law Officers of the Crown, that the obligations of the Treaty of 1720 were put an end to by the war. The Treaty of Kiel, in 1814, prevented that treaty from having any force or obligation on this country. With regard to the Treaty of 1852; it contained no guarantee of any sort; and although the preamble showed the importance which the great Powers of Europe attached at that time to the independence and integrity of Denmark, yet the only obligations imposed upon this country, in common with the other signitaries, was to acknowledge the succession as settled by that treaty. This we willingly and readily did as soon as the occasion presented itself. With regard to the present position of that treaty, on going into the Conference we found that we were the only nation who 1985 were satisfied to adhere to the treaty. Under those circumstances it became necessary to join with our co-signitaries in agreeing to certain modifications of that treaty; and no doubt to that extent the treaty has been modified.

THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDE
doubted whether the noble Earl had quite correctly represented the fact as to the Treaty of Kiel, because he was under the impression that that treaty renewed all others which had been entered into with respect to Denmark. However, as we were not to support our opinions by force, he was glad that we were to have no more protocols about the Treaty of 1720. He was sorry to hear from his noble Friend that the Treaty of 1852 was still to be considered in force.

§ EARL GRANVILLE
explained that he had stated the very reverse. He said that in the Conference the British Government finding themselves alone in their adherence to that treaty, had thought it politic to join with their co-signitaries in agreeing to certain modifications of it.

THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDE
should then like to know what were the modifications which were agreed upon—because in the papers which had been produced there was no mention of any agreement as to modification. He regretted that there should be any agreement the effect of which might be to draw us into I Conferences upon this subject again, either at Vienna or elsewhere; because he attached no importance to any conference or negotiations into which we might enter after a declaration more or less openly avowed that, come what might, we would not enforce our views or opinions as to the rights or obligations which were imposed upon other Powers either by the public law of Europe or by special treaties. [Earl GRANVILLE: I said nothing about going into another Conference.] He (the Marquess of Clanricarde) knew that, but he was afraid from what his noble Friend had said, and from other circumstances, that there was such a risk. When his noble Friend the Secretary for Foreign Affairs was good enough to attend that House and take part in their debates, he told them that no faith could be placed in the declarations of Austria, because she had not the power to control either her allies or her subjects, or to overcome contingencies which must force her to depart from her engagements. Should not that circumstance of itself act 1986 as a warning to prevent our entering into any more Conferences upon this subject? His noble Friend had in his speeches talked a good deal about moral influence; but moral influence was only effective when it was known that you were ready to support your views by force. If they were not prepared to do so he entreated the Government to go into no more Conferences. They had greatly injured the power of, Denmark by the course which they had already taken, and no interference on their part would do her any good unless they were prepared to say that in certain cases, or in some case, or in any case, they were prepared to assert their opinions by force. He had as great a horror of revolution as any man, but it was better than total loss of liberty or submission to a foreign yoke. The revolutionists at present were not the Democrats but the Sovereigns. Could there be a greater revolutionist than he who now sat upon the throne of Prussia? A revolution had been effected in that country, and in order to carry it out and put down the constitution the King had not hesitated to invade Denmark.

LORD CAMPBELL,
in reply, stated that according to Dr. Twiss in his well known work on the Danish Duchies, the Treaty of Kiel revived all our former treaties of amity with Denmark, and among them the guarantee of 1720. The controversy was between the noble Lord the President of the Council upon the one hand and Dr. Twiss upon the other. Since all parties in the State had acknowledged the guarantees in 1848, Dr. Twiss could not be denied to have the balance of authority. A t the same time he (Lord Campbell) admitted that if the guarantees were not enforced, it was better for the country and the world they should not be held valid.