d to the
House. 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. That they disapproved the course taken by us
I by no means assert. When we make a suggestion on the subject, they
receive it with cold politeness; they have no objection to the course
we announce we are going to follow, but confine themselves, with
scarcely an exception, to this conduct on their part. The noble lord
acted differently. But it is really unnecessary for me to dwell on
this part of the question--we may dismiss it from our minds, and I
have touched on it only to complete the picture which I am bound to
place before the House--in consequence of events which very speedily
occurred.

All this elaborate and, I may venture to say--not using the word
offensively, but accurately--pragmatical correspondence of the noble
lord on the affairs of Schleswig and Holstein was carried on in
perfect ignorance