CHAPTER XXXVI

THE DANISH WAR—LAST SPEECHER IN PARLIAMENT-—
CORRESPONDENCE.

1864. Ir was truly said by a Member of tho House of Commons at
Ar co, the time, that if the Session of 1864 were remembered ab
all twenty years afterwards, it would only be remembered
for the answer which it gave to the question, Shall or shall
not England take part in the struggle between Germany
and Denmark ? This entitles it to a notable place in any
account of Cobden. The answer that was then given was 88
remarkable a triumph for Cobden’s principles, as the result
of the Don Pacifico debate had been a victory for Lord
Palmerston fourteen years before. The great wave of
Nationality which was the moving force in Europe for 80
many years after the storm of 1848, now swept into Schleswig-Holstein,
 and brought Danes and Germans into violent
collision. We may here content ourselves with Cobden’s
own account of what he justly called that most complicated
of all questions. “In1852,” he said, “by the mischievous acbivity
 of our Foreign Office, seven diplomatists were brought
round a green table in London to settle the destinies of 8
million of people in the two provinces of Schleswig and
Holstein, without the slightest reference to the wants and
wishes or the tendencies or the interests of that people.
The preamble of the treaty which was there and then agreed
to stated that what those seven diplomatists were going to