A
tradesman whose whole capital consists of ten rigsdaler is no tradesman.
The large capitals swallow up the small. The small must seek their
salvation in associations, partnerships, joint-stock companies, etc.
Our misfortune lies in the fact that there is no other country with
which we can enter into partnership except Sweden and Norway, a little,
unimportant state. By means of this association, which for the time
being, is our sheet-anchor, and which, by dint of deploying enormous
energy, might be of some importance, we can at best retard our
destruction by a year or two. But the future! Has Denmark any future?
It was France who, to her own unspeakable injury, discovered, or rather,
first proclaimed, the principle of nationality, a principle which at
most could only give her Belgium and French Switzerland, two neutral
countries, guaranteed by Europe, but which gave Italy to Piedmont,
Germany to Prussia, and which one day will give Russia supremacy over
all the Slavs.
Even before the war, France was, as it were, squeezed between bucklers;
she had no possible chance of gaining anything through her own precious
principle, and did not even dare to apply it to the two above-mentioned
points. While she fearfully allowed herself to be awarded Savoy and
Nice, Prussia grew from nineteen million inhabitants to fifty millions;
and probably in a few years the Germans of Austria will fall to Germany
as well.
Pages:
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574