It must be confessed that the Danes had not unreasonable grounds for believing they would not be left to meet such odds single-handed. Lord Russell had often warned the Danish Government that unless it respected the liberty of its German subjects, Denmark must look for no help from England in a conflict with the Germanic Powers. The Danes protested that they had scrupulously followed this advice, and there can be no doubt that they had been encouraged to look for the support of Great Britain if any attempt were made to infringe legitimate Danish authority, and that both Lord Russell and Lord Palmerston contemplated armed intervention between Denmark and her possible aggressors as a duty which Great Britain might have to undertake. But Great Britain had too much at stake to risk a conflict single-handed with Austria and Prussia, who, as Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord Russell, “could bring 200,000 or 300,000 men into the field.” England was not more bound by the Treaty of Vienna than France was; France refused to act, and England adopted the prudent, but apparently cold-blooded, part of looker-on. Public opinion in Great Britain ran pretty high in favour of the Danes, and many Englishmen felt ashamed of the part their country was made to play. They could not understand how Palmerston, of all men, could act so unhandsomely, and perhaps the only thing that saved the Government from defeat on a vote of censure, was that Disraeli, who moved it, shrank from advocating the only logical alternative to their policy—a declaration of war.
The sixth Parliament of Queen Victoria was dissolved on July 6, 1865, having attained the unusual age of six years and thirty-six days. |Dissolution of Parliament.| The chief feature of the general election which followed was the number of seats gained by the Radicals at the expense of the remnants of the Whig party or Moderate Liberals. Mr. Gladstone, reckoned as a Liberal-Conservative up to this time, though well known to be inclining more and more to the policy typified by John Bright, was unseated for Oxford University by Mr. Gathorne-Hardy (now Earl of Cranbrook), and the last tie which attached him to the Conservatives was severed by his subsequent election for South Lancashire.
From a Photograph] [by Eyre and Spottiswoode.
THE PARLIAMENT HOUSE, MELBOURNE.
The first settlement on the site of the present city of Melbourne was made in 1836; it is now the largest city in Australia, with a population (1891) of 490,896. The Colony of Victoria, of which it is the capital, was separated from New South Wales in 1851, and received a self-governing constitution in 1855. Population (1895), 1,181,769. Imports (1895), £12,472,344. Exports (1895), £14,547,732.
From a Photograph] [by Eyre and Spottiswoode.
THE TOWN HALL, AND PART OF COLLINS STREET, MELBOURNE.
Palmerston’s appeal to the country had been answered by an expression of confidence in him, but that confidence was of a very complex kind. The Radicals voted for him, because, as long as he was in Parliament, no other man could lead the Liberal party; but they distrusted his foreign policy, and chafed at his indifference to questions of reform. The Liberals voted for him, because he represented exactly the views of moderate Liberalism; and the attitude of many Conservatives was accurately expressed in a letter written by Mr. W. H. Smith, Liberal-Conservative candidate for Westminster, to Colonel Taylor, the Whip of the Conservative party, thanking him for the support he had received from Conservatives in his unsuccessful contest against Mr. Mill. “I believe in Lord Palmerston,” he said, “and look forward ultimately to a fusion of the moderate men following Lord Derby and Lord Palmerston into a strong Liberal-Conservative party.”