have obstinately resisted even the most moderate demands which were made for concessions to the Germans in Sleswig-Holstein. [Illustration: KRONBORG CASTLE, ELSINORE.] The case against Austria, Prussia, and the Diet was capable of easy statement in a popular form. Hence it is not surprising that the large class of Englishmen who act on what may be called the public schoolboy theory of high politics took the side of the Danes. Denmark was a small Power, whereas Austria and Prussia were two large Powers, who were “bullying” Denmark. Austria, Prussia, and most of the minor States of Germany did not come into court with clean hands. They had individually sanctioned the Treaty of London, to which they now objected, because the German Diet, of which they were members, had not ratified it. They refused to be bound by it because Denmark had violated antecedent engagements, made independently of it, and on another subject than the Danish Succession, with which the Treaty dealt. Austria and Prussia could hardly be disinterested in coming forward as the champions of Constitutionalism, and “the doctrine of nationalities” in Sleswig and Holstein. The Treaty of London of 1852 was the work of England, and to uphold it by arms was a debt of honour which Englishmen ought to pay. The big-boy-and-the-small-boy argument was founded on a strange misconception of the facts. In Holstein and Sleswig the [Illustration: CHRISTIAN IX., KING OF DENMARK.] Danes played the part of the big boy who was bullying the little one. When they were asked to hold their harsh hand by stronger Powers they pleaded their weakness as an excuse for their tyranny. The bad motives of the champions of the Sleswig-Holsteiners, however, did not affect the rights or wrongs of their clients. Moreover, Englishmen quite mistook the German argument, which was this: The German Powers who sanctioned the Treaty of London did not allege that it was null and void because Denmark had not kept the engagements of 1851. They said that Frederick VII. had died before he had lawfully established in his kingdom the order of succession which the Treaty sanctioned, and which, had Denmark stood by her engagements, they would have had no difficulty in supporting. This being the case, they were, they said, entitled to repudiate a Treaty which was illegal in the eyes of international law, till ratified by the German Diet, by the Sleswig-Holsteiners, and by the heirs to the Duchies who had been set aside by it.