METZ, October 12.While examining the fortifications to-day with BISMARCK, I lent him my cigar-holder, and he told me that Prussia would refuse to entertain any propositions tending to peace until the Schleswig-Holstein question was definitely settled.

And if we must be indignant and remember old injuries that as often as not were sheer blessings, scarcely in disguise, let us reserve our hatred, scorn and contempt for those damned pagan and pirate hordes that first from Schleswig-Holstein and later from Denmark descended upon our Christian country, and for a time overwhelmed us with their brutish barbarism.

It was at this time that the difficulties in Schleswig-Holstein were at their height, and it seemed hopeless at such a moment, and in face of the opinion of the official representative of the Danish government in this country, to engage its attention to an affair of this kind.

An Austro-Prussian army accordingly invaded Schleswig-Holstein, and to the scandal of all Europe drove the Danish defenders to the wall.

" It was the expectation of Napoleon III that Austria would win in this war; but the loss of the Austrians was four to one, besides her humiliation, condemned as she was to pay a war indemnity, with the loss also of the provinces of Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and Frankfort.

Only last June I was discussing it at some length with a prominent Alsatian deputy and various other friends in Berlin.] (2) The problem of Schleswig-Holstein presents far less difficulty, if treated on a basis of nationality.

Austrian garrisons occupied Hamburg; Schleswig-Holstein was abandoned, Hessia was chastised, and all that is dear to Germans purposely affronted.

So is it with Germany's possession of Schleswig-Holstein, with Austria in Herzegovina and Bosnia, France in Algiers, Italy in Tripoli: they are all instances of claim-jumping, reprehensible in varying degrees.

This permission was granted during an armistice between that Empire and the Kingdom of Denmark, which had been engaged in the Schleswig-Holstein war.

While Palmerston was defending his abrupt, highhanded policy towards Greece in the speech which made him the hero of the hour, a war was going on between Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein, in which the Prince Consort himself was much interested.

They had lost prestige over the Schleswig-Holstein negotiations.

The Schleswig-Holstein question is yet to be settled, and Russia has an immediate interest in its settlement, as Denmark, she expects, will one day be her own.

The Schleswig-Holstein question.

The Schleswig-Holstein question.

KIEL (69), on the Baltic, 60 m. N. of Hamburg, is the capital of Schleswig-Holstein, a German naval station and important seaport, with shipments of coal, flour, and dairy produce; has shipbuilding and brewing industries, a university and library, and is the eastern terminus of the Baltic Ship Canal, opened 1895.

SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN. 1863-1864.

A new difficulty was now appearing in the diplomatic world: the Schleswig-Holstein question, which had been so long slumbering, broke out into open fire, and nearly three years were to pass before Bismarck was able to resume the policy on which he had determined.

At the same time, Denmark had entered into certain engagements pledging itself to preserve the separation between Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark, and also not to oppress the German people in Schleswig.

Schleswig-Holstein was the symbol of German weakness and disgrace, and in defence of them the national enthusiasm was again roused.

With this popular enthusiasm Bismarck had no sympathy; and he had no interest for the cause of Schleswig-Holstein.

If, however, a Duke of Schleswig-Holstein was to be created he was determined that it should not be the Prince of Augustenburg, whom he distrusted and disliked.

Mensdorf, the new Minister, proposed in a series of lengthy despatches his solution of the question; it was that the rights of the two Powers should be transferred to Augustenburg, and that Schleswig-Holstein should be established as an independent Confederate State.

With regard to the terms of peace, it was obvious that Schleswig-Holstein would now be Prussian; it could scarcely be doubted that there must be a reform in the Confederation, which would be reorganised under the hegemony of Prussia, and that Austria would be excluded from all participation in German affairs.

It was the same alternative which had presented itself to him about Schleswig-Holstein; now, as then, annexation was what he aimed at, and he was not the man easily to reconcile himself to a less favourable solution.

The clergy are instructed not to attack Prance or Russia, and so it comes about that, as I have previously pointed out, in Prussia, Hanover, Schleswig-Holstein, Brandenburg, and Saxony, the pastors of the State Church preach hatred of Britain, as violently in their pulpits as in their pastoral visits.