Now, Her Majesty's Ministers thought it their duty to interfere in that controversy between the German Diet and the King of Denmark--a controversy strictly federal and not international. Whether they were wise in taking that course appears very doubtful. My own impression is, and always has been, that it would have been much better to have left the federal question between the Diet and the King to work itself out. Her Majesty's Ministers, however, were of opinion--and no doubt there is something to be said in favour of that opinion--that as the question, although federal, was one which would probably lead to events which would make it international, it was wiser and better to interfere by anticipation, and prevent, if possible, the federal execution ever taking place. The consequence of that extreme activity on the part of Her Majesty's Ministers is a mass of correspondence which has been placed on the table, and with which, I doubt not, many gentlemen have some acquaintance, though they may have been more attracted and absorbed by the interest of the more modern correspondence which has, within the year, been presented 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.