man Powers and Denmark, which ended in the Danish Government announcing its intention to invest each province with separate legislative power, and to treat Danes and Germans exactly alike. The Germans say that this was an undertaking entered into by Denmark, and was the recompence for the termination of the SchleswigHolstein war by German interference. The Danes say that it was a mere announcement of the intentions of the Government of Denmark. Lastly, the two nations are at issue on the question of fact whether the Germans in Schleswig have been badly treated, and whether their ill-treatment would be an infraction of the convention, if that convention were binding. The Germans allege that German parties have been driven away, that the education of children in German has been forbidden, and that a rigorous police prevents the assembling of Germans even for the most innocent purposes. These are all questions of fact, and very few persons in England can have any means of determining these satisfactorily. It must, however, be observed that the concessions made within the last few weeks by Denmark, are of a nature to show that the treatment of the Germans had not been very gentle. Danish Government makes quite a merit of allowing Germans to educate, henceforth, their children in private in the German tongue. This does not seem much of a boon. But what is really important to understand is, that this is not a piece of Quixotism or of a wish for aggrandizement on the part of Prussia, unsupported by plausible reasons. If the German view of the case is the true one, it is a very good case, and we hope that Prussia will see that it is efficiently supported by arms. If Denmark is in the right, we have every good wish for a country so gallant and free. The only thing we object to is that England, or France, or Russia should dictate to Prussia her course of conduct irrespectively of the merits of the case.

The

The difference of language which

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is at the root of this quarrel between Germany and Denmark, is also causing many difficulties elsewhere. Prussia, which thinks itself bound to protect the German language in Schleswig, is engaged in forcing German on the reluctant people of Posen. Theoretically the legal and proper language in Polish Prussia is Polish. But practically, the German officials insist on German being talked and written in all official communications. If a letter comes to the post-office containing money, it is not delivered unless a receipt is given in German. The mayors of the villages are obliged to correspond in German, a language of which they generally do not know a word, when they write to the central authorities. Every summons to serve on a jury is framed in the German language, and if a Pole will not take notice of it he is fined, and the fine is exacted from him by putting his goods up to auction. Of all this the Poles complain bitterly. But with only a very moderate claim to pity. There is a wide difference between making the language of the central government obligatory in official matters, and forcing it on private families as the only vehicle of education. Prussian officials are often very disagreeable, and they may sometimes require German where good sense would recommend an indulgence for native ignorance. But the Poles are proverbially quick at learning languages, and they might easily, we should have thought, have learnt enough to give receipts in German, and obey German summonses to sit on juries.

The difficulty is really much greater when it assumes the form which has been pressed on the Austrian Government by the Gallicians. To the scheme of governing the whole Empire by a central Diet, they object on the ground that the Gallician representatives will never have justice done them, as they will either not be able to speak German, or else will labour under the disadvantage of a foreign accent. Hungary may say the same, and undoubtedly this is a

and Cavour can keep the regular forces of Italy quiet, Austria can, it is thought, dispose of Italian volunteers and Hungarian rebels. It is of no use overlooking this. When the French governmental journals announce day after day that France looks to Piedmont to maintain peace, what is intended, unless the whole announcement is a delusion, but that Victor Emmanuel and Cavour should allow Hungary to rise in vain, and Garibaldi to be defeated in Dalmatia? The King and Parliament cannot prevent this issue being forced on them. It is in the power of Garibaldi and the Hungarian exiles to oblige Piedmont to accept or reject this great opportunity of regaining Venice. And it is as certain as any future event can be that this power_will be exerted. Austria obliges Hungary to pay taxes; either resistance will be made at once and then the war begins, or what is more probable, a reluctant obedience will be rendered, and its bitterness will be sweetened by the daily thought that the time of spring and war is approaching.

These taxes are the sorest of all points with the Hungarian. He pays them to a foreigner and a conqueror, and the foreign officials of the conqueror sell up his house and all that is his in order to pay the troops that keep him down. Thus every village, however remote, and every villager, however obscure, is brought into collision with the Government. To this old feeling we must add the new conviction instilled by the recent concessions of Austria, that the tide of fortune has now turned, and that Hungary is destined to be free. A people agitated by such feelings is as dried grass before the fire, whenever a popular hero chooses to let fall a spark.

The elections for the new United Parliament of Italy are watched with the greatest interest; but the question at issue is really whether the country generally has confidence in the uprightness and ability of Cavour, and not whether Garibaldi is to be at liberty to force the country into a war.

He can

do as he pleases about that without troubling himself how electors vote.

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But there is much to be decided besides the mere fact of war. Garibaldi made the most serious mistakes at Naples, and very nearly produced an open collision between the King and the Republican party. It is therefore of the utmost importance to know whether Italy wishes it to be understood that, however much she may stand by Garibaldi, she does not consider it within his competence to decide on questions of government. The Parliament of North Italy virtually gave this to be understood by voting in obedience to Cavour's wish that the annexation of Southern Italy should be accepted without conditions. Will the introduction of the representation of Southern Italy change the tone of the Parliament on this head? The Republican fanatics hope that it will. All the best friends of Italy earnestly pray that it may not.

It is long since any occurrence has agitated the world of a character so mournful and alarming to Englishmen as the secession of the Southern States, and the prospect of an armed struggle between the South and North. America appears to be drifting into a civil war, that is, into the greatest calamity that ever afflicts mankind. We do not understand what the North proposes to effect by using force. That it may have the right to do so, is a legal proposition not easy to deny or maintain. But nations do not act by the mere consideration of bare legal rights. They must see either that they are bound_in honour to use force, or that they will gain by using it. What can the North gain? Probably the argument that lies at the bottom of the advice given by those most bent on coercing South Carolina, is that the other States not yet committed will be frightened at the prospect of war, and find some means of reconciling their pretensions with the supremacy of the North. Then if South Carolina stood alone, or was only supported by the other States that took part in the first movement, they would in time be reduced to terms, and would have to accept a common lot with the non-seceding Slave

States. Especially, it may be thought, that the border States, and more particularly the great border State of Virginia, would take the side of security and peace; and even if the cotton-growing States were ultimately to be allowed to secede, the border States would be preserved to the Union. We cannot pretend to judge better than Americans judge, or we should have thought that this was a wild vision not worth risking a civil war for. It may be true that the border States have as much reason to stay with the North as to secede with the South; but then the point of honour would be at once raised by an armed collision. If the border States remained neutral they would be accused of deserting the cause they have professed to uphold. And it must be remembered by whom the accusation would be made. In a civil war, charges of dishonourable inactivity are made not by distant and alien critics, but by near and intimate friends, by brother against brother, by parent against child. It is possible that if peace is preserved, if no more collisions take place than those we have already heard of, the border States may remain in the Union; but if civil war once commences, every Virginian who failed to throw in his lot with the South would hold himself dishonoured.

If the Union is broken up we shall have two questions to resolve that will interest us deeply. We shall have to consider how we are to prevent the revival of the African Slave Trade, and how we are to supply ourselves with cotton. Far the best solution of the first difficulty appears to us to lie in not recognising the new confederation unless it engages not to import slaves from over sea. This would be a strong measure, but it is the only measure that would be effectual, and it is much better to do effectually what must be done somehow. We could not allow the open, undisguised traffic in slaves over the Atlantic. When we know that a State is being formed with

the express object of making money by importing them, we had much better raise the question at the outset, and announce that if an attempt is made to revive the traffic we shall stop it. We are certain to be supported by the Northern Union, which, although powerless to coerce the South, is quite able to beat it at sea. If we once came to diplomatic arrangements on the point after the Southern Union has been recognised, we should be sure either to be foiled and jockied, or else to have to go to war in order to dictate our terms. We may take it for granted that England would never endure the importation of slaves by a new slave-holding community. This is a determination that is unalterable, and therefore we had better take care from the first that there is no misunderstanding about it.

The South has been buoyed up to encounter all the risks of secession by the conviction that we must have cotton at any price, and that they would be able to dictate terms to us, and grow richer and richer while we become humbler and humbler. It is now the greatest kindness we can do ourselves and them to show them their mistake. If England determined to grow her own cotton, she could do it. India offers a supply which it only requires railways to bring to the shore. It is a curious thing that the hoisting of the Palmetto flag at Charleston is the one thing probably that could have persuaded English statesmen not to leave half-constructed railways to rot in India. Australia will also supply some of the finer growths, and so may the Cape. But India has not only a suitable soil and sky, but also cheap labour, much cheaper labour than that of American negroes. We trust that one of the very first things on which Parlia ment will demand a satisfactory answer from Ministers, will be the steps that are being taken to ensure the growth of cotton in India on a really great scale, and to provide without delay adequate means of bringing it to the sea.

THERE are some men who seem

to be consulted instinctively by every one in a difficulty. Which of us but has a friend somewhere to whom he flies at a moment's notice, when he finds himself in a dilemma; whose opinions he asks eagerly, to whose maxims he listens with respectful deference, for whose brotherly interest he certainly feels intensely grateful, and by whose advice he as certainly refuses to abide?

I have heard experienced counsel affirm, that the great difficulty they have to contend with in the defence of criminal cases, is the extreme unwillingness on the part of the prisoner to confess even to his adviser 'the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.' There is a suppressio veri somewhere in the unbosoming of even the most candid of culprits, and on this unfortified point the whole defence is apt to break down. 'I could have got him off, if I'd been quite sure he did it,' says the astutę Balthazar; but if a man wont trust his counsel, he deserves to lose, and be hanged to him!' Which is perhaps, after all, the result of his ill-advised insincerity.

Now on a point in which his own personal feelings were not concerned (for on those in which they are I hold no man to be better than a fool), I would have taken John Gordon's opinion as I would the Lord Chancellor's. He was one of

VOL. LXIII. NO. CCCLXXV.

the few men I have ever known, who could calculate the eventual not the immediate results of any given measure. I can find hundreds who will demonstrate clearly that if I pull the trigger the piece will go off; but I could number on my fingers those whose far-sightedness can hazard an opinion as to whether the cartridge will reach the pigeon at which it is aimed, or fall short in the breast of the inglorious crow. John Gordon, like a fine rider across a country, could see his way, so to speak, into the far distance, field by field. It I would have been a very queer obstacle that turned him from it when once he had taken his line.

His whole career had hitherto been one of uncompromising determination. He was well-born, indeed a distant connexion of Lady Olivia's, well-bred, and well-educated; but he was a second son. These encumbrances may think themselves fortunate in succeeding to a portion at all; more fortunate still if it is ever paid up. John Gordon's brother had five thousand a year; John Gordon himself had five thousand pounds. He inherited, though, from his mother, a legacy worth five times that amount. An iron constitution, which nothing seemed able to impair; and a strength of will rarely equalled, at least in his own sex. An off-shoot from the illustrious stock to which Lady Olivia belonged, the late Mrs.

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