My Lords, I have detained you longer than I could have desired; but I felt it absolutely necessary to give your Lordships an opportunity of fully considering this momentous subject.  That such things as have been done by the Government in Italy and elsewhere during the last twelve months, should pass without awakening your attention, and that your examination of the details should not call down a censure, if for no other purpose than to warn the Ministers against persisting in fatal errors, appears to me hardly within the bounds of possibility.  I have, therefore, deemed it my duty to give you an opportunity of expressing the opinion which I believe a majority of this House holds, and which I know is that of all well-informed and impartial persons in every part of the world.

EARL RUSSELL JUNE 27, 1864 DENMARK AND GERMANY

My Lords, I have to lay upon your table, by command of Her Majesty, the Protocols of the proceedings of the Conference upon the affairs of Denmark and Germany, which has just been brought to a close.  In laying these papers upon your Lordships’ table I propose to follow the course which was pursued by the Earl of Liverpool in 1823, and I am confident that in following that example I am pursuing a course which is perfectly fair to this House and to the country.  In that case the English Government had been carrying on negotiations first at Verona, the Conference at which place was attended by the Duke of Wellington, and afterwards at Paris, on the subject of the invasion of Spain.  The Government of that day declared that the invasion of Spain was contrary to all the principles of English policy, and that it was an interference which was entirely opposed not only to the sentiments of this country, but to the settlement of Europe which had been come to some years before.  They, therefore, protested against it, while at the same time they thought it advisable to preserve peace and declare a neutrality between this country and France.  Upon the present occasion I have to discuss a question which is of a very intricate nature, and which for a long time was considered to be one that might go on for many many years without raising any exciting interest, and which was almost too complicated and too wearisome to engage much of the public attention.  For the last, year, however, that question has been in a very different condition.

My Lords, before I refer to the proceedings of the Conference it is necessary to take some notice of those engagements which have been the origin of these disputes, though they were intended to put an end to all differences between Germany and Denmark.  Your Lordships are well aware that in these times it is necessary that a treaty should not only have the signatures of envoys and the ratifications of Sovereigns, but that in its working it should be made to accord with the sentiments and wishes of the people who are to be governed under it.  A remarkable instance of