The Express.
London, England, 1852-09-03 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPT. 3.

YEATERPAY the Kingdom of Cotton commenced a
fresh conquest osec the dark realms of Ignorance,
and over those narrowed territories which Old-
school Toryism still guards with the grim tenacity of
a second Giant Desiustr. The spacious, plain, but
handsome halls of the Public Free Library of Man-
chester gave forth one of those hopeful signs of tho
Present, in which the political and social Future may
be clearly and joyfully read. A library, whose doors
are from this day to be thrown open without restriction
to all classes of citizens from the millionaire to the
meanest artisan : whose books arc to be freely lent
to and disseminated amongst all those who choose to
borrow them, with no other restrictions whatever as
to the social rank of the borrower, and with no other
condition attached to the loan than fair usage, and
punctual return, is, to this country a novelty and a
blessing, which deserves to be especially commemo-
rated.

It is fortunate for the success of the act of parlia-
ment recently passed fur the promotion of free
libraries amongst the people, that it should have
been inaugurated in the mighty heart of physical
labour, Lancashire. No other place could have
taught a more wholesome lesson, or could have so
efficiently enforced it by example. Whatever may
be said of the Manchester School (so pleasantly re-
ferred to by Mr. Cu IRLLS DICKENS in his speech),
from that school has come forth some of
the best and most practical graduates in so-
cial! and political science that this age has
produced. Lancashire first taught, b of
wonderful machinery, and skilfully capital,
how the world could be supplied with c cap clothing;
it then showed the way to vile the poor with
cheap bread ;it now points how the lowly and
humble and ignorant
In therefore,
access, not
to cheap books merely, bu km without any fee
or payment whatever. In therefore, that per-
tains to the physical, moral, and intellectual im-
provement of the strength and basis of every healthy
community—its labouring population—the capital
of Lancashire, Manchester, has justly become, and
is looked up to as an authority by every other muni-
cipality in the empire. May the noble example it
set yesterday be rapidly and effectually followed!
1-he building—the very ground upon which it
stands—when the purpose to which it is applied
comes to be considered, has a peculiar signifiuince.
In the days when the persistent ignorance of our
rulers kept ups restrictive commercial policy, and when
the ignoranceof the people,groaning under thatpolicy,
took wrong modes of redress, the site of the Manchester
public free library was that of a socialist hall. Yes-
terday the new edifice enclosed within its walls—
adorned and covered, las they are, with twenty-
thousand civilizers and peace-makers—representa-
trees of all ranks, of all classes, of every shade of poli-
tical opinion. Professors of opposite religious creeds,
sat together ; rivals in the great struggle of which
modern existence is made up round themselves neigh-
bours. Prince ALEERT, the natural representative of
monarchical institutions; America, the exponent and
exemplar of democratic government—each sent a
well-chosen. and though silent not the less eloquent,
deputation of books. The two extreme points of the
political compass veered to where the breath of phi-
lantropv listed, Protection shook hands with Free-
trade. The Anglican bishop and the quaker—the dis-
senting clergyman and the catholic priest—the soft-
skinned aristocrat and the hard-handed mechanic—
sat on the same stage or shared the lame form.
If, then, the mere temporary occasion can effect such
wonderful amalgamations,—can even for an hour
heal such wide differences, can bring people to-
gether whose habit it is to remain "wide as the poles
asunder," by the simple but irresistible force of
literary sympathy ; to what a millennium of peace and
good will may we not look forward amongst all sorts
and conditions of men when the permanent effects of
that occasion—increase of intellectual knowledge and
aeltrespect amongst the lowliest of the land—begin
to operate and to be manifested ? The chequered
opinions and sentiments brought together and
Dented within the hulls of the Manchester Pa lie
Free Library, arc but the foundation and the typed
that co-operation and harmony which will—by ends
agencies as that institution—be spread in time
amongst all classes. The mere existence of seek
institutions shows to the workman that his master
cares for him ; that he loves to see him as
well taught as himself ; while their contents
diligently perused and rightly construed prove to him
that identity of interests ought to bin! him end his
maployer together as fellowobivers in the field
of tabour. They will Wed ill teen diIIINSP
tent, and will teach kin a bee, meanly, led ties odes
remedy, should he be sebleeted to esimemeeed op-
Even in a Bella aid emamercial pit of view,
theproustima of pules free Rhumb. is the smeedemt
licy.libpadmese les fully proved to semetheter-
lag -masters thee et all the dangers veld& set only
trade, bat the sleek can have to contend vied, the
greatest are simenees swept. of
Duda, the weer/ =ausfao.
taring proems am arebillisd arnhembal
far limo dpubla a sigh Mmb. the Wed me
have ems aid Wthe
plebes
aits
ll oei
ee bed, it plebes
all sorb el vise mod diseeeteet. The ever We
work far idle binds to do. The Ostia Lod is
therefore wise his 'entrance beetles his bosh by
dainty literary hillealtare far neeteldlostion during
the entirely useheolsel employment if their bodies.
Wholesome essiteessb to the been mei imagine-
bah embeweelt leers, are the beet blame eitl
maneeseelle bribes and debauched habits.
ere the best antidote for socialist halls el die:melee
aid der liemehep. They will prove the most power
awl aleatheet of rekesers ; far they 1W
aide the mow of the purls still bare wee-
thy of ea ealseded fnusdhise. Whether the., wise
use them to study polities er poetry; te read hieboy
oe weaker this remelt will ha equally attain ; tar
habits el felellestual esseebe will insemihty angst
the thmeghb into merest Ems* et nosesing via
all eehjests, especially upon theme width ameba the
penned welfare of the thinker. The From Library,
thews/ere, will tend to educate relemures worthy et
the eameei reformers who will Wig upon what is
just sled proper; bat who instantly becomes sup-
porters el what i• already right mei prow when-
ever thst may be ignorantly throbbed trith attack
or destruction.

Ilamonr, then, to Manchester for the new and good
example she has set to the whole empire by the foun-
dation of a Free Library.

=Wake, which ear.ata learnt& undertake ostswsibir every
day, of the falsest sews.
The shrewdness that suggested this modifieation
of the old threat should have carried the author
further. It should have shown him that
whilst meddling with the press be is not simply
playing with dangerous edge tools,but is running
with eyes open into the pitfall that proved fatal to
his two predecusors, Cuutme X. and LOVIA-Pm-
LirPE. He hates the press, because it tells things
too true to be pleasant. These he calls " false news."
He doss not like certain facts relating to his own
career to be repeated. The oath that preceded, 11
and the slaughter which followed, the 2nd of
December are things he wishes forgotten. They are
spectres of falsehood and murder terrible to the soul
or their author--shadowing his path whilst living,
and certain to stain his name so long as men may
hereafter care to remember it at all. But what folly
to think, whilst he stops the Cbreaire and proscribes
Punch, that men can forget the character and career
of Loris N trott:or. Strasbourg and Boulogne will
suggest his follies in both, whilst the boulevards
bare now for a part of their history the bloodshed of
December. Ile and his friends declare that all he has
done has been wise and net-dial, but it is absurd
to suppose such assertions can have weight, whilst
those who make them are afraid to let their oppo-
nents enjoy free speech. Truth requires nothing
but a fair field and no favour, and LOUIS NAPOLEON
BONAPARTE is self condemned before the world by
his own act when he gags the newspapers.
We said that the shrewdness which has led LOUIS
NAPOLEON to modify his demands upon the Paris
correspondents of London papers should have carried
him further—it should have taught him to ascer-
tain the real position and duty of the press in
England, France, and America at the present day.
In all three countries there exists • public opinion
which is the life-blood of their civilisation, and the
mainspring, of their aspirations for civil and religious
liberty. This public opinion is to a great extent the
offspring of the press, and finds in the press its chief
means of manifestation. The press is at once its index
and its safety-valve. Speeches at public meetings, and
discussions in public newspapers, are the chief forms
in which public opinion makes itself known, and,
when known, that very public opinion gives to the
wise statesman the data for his calculations, and affords
him a fulcrum for his levers of state. Crush the press
and you do not crush public opinion ; on the contrary,
you nail down the valve in which resides safety, and
insure, sooner or later, an explosion. CHARLES the
TENTH and POLIGNAC tried this suicidal plan, and
paid the penalty in exile; LOUIS-PHILIPPE fell into
the same error, and was soon afterwards, disguised
as Mr. Sarni, on hie way to Newhaven.
At this hour it is true areas exists in France, but
then it is so like a sham, that its true functions and
its true usefulness are gone. Men know that the
press is not free, and with that foreknowledge they
disbelieve its statements and suspect its argument'.
Lotus NAPOLEON uses ono or two papers for his
own purposes, and straightway all which ap-
pears in those journals is ascribed to him.
All their follies he gains the credit of—all
their mis-statements and blunders are declared
to be his. The authority of tho government
gets mixed up with the articles in the newspapers,
and confusion, doubts, disrepute, and national dis-
trust ensue. Emasculated journals share their weak-
ness with a cowardly and emuculated government
until the public become equally weary of both.
Public opinion, meanwhile, avoids the taint of
this weakness ; but, left without its pabulum
of wholesome argument in a free press—
miming its printed representatives of different
political parties—driven from the contest of words, it
grows moody and sullen and discontented, and, when
' the timecomes, provocation and opportunity will again
combine, and produce revolution. Gay, witty, brave,
enlightened, prosperous, and impulsive France, cannot
long be content with a gagged press. To avoid
such a nuisance, she has already overturned two
kings. Yet the hero of the coup detat seems too dull
to read the moral of their fate.

LOUIS NAPOLEON continues his contest with tho
press, and though retreating from the first position ho
assumed, seems determined to maintain the second.
When some time ago he summoned the l'aris cor-
respondents of three London papers before his
Agent of Police, that official declared he would bold
ach foreign eorrtivindent responsible for what the
t-,itor in England might think tit to say. The
manifest injustice of this was so apparent tliat one
ut,nersal feeling of repugnance was excited by it.
To make • man responsible for a thing beyond
his control was toy 6uJ even from the bans of
the coup 4regat : and with a shrewd eye to sense-
quenccs,Lonts NAPOLEON,when giving a second warn-
ing to the English correspondents in France, modifies
his requirements, and declares only his ;evolve to
expel any one who may send from Paris for publi-
cation
in London anything distasteful to himself—
the ruler of France. The document declaring his now
determination now says :
Ministry of Urneral Pollee, Cabinet of the Director
of the Press, &c.
Paris, August 2£l, 1832.—The French government has the
right of expelling fern its territory foreigners, of whatever
nation, who may seek to trouble, by their manceuvres or
their writings, üblic ord:r and 04'2,1141114y. The
Minister of General Police desires not to use thle if& with-
oat serious Motive ; nor does he mean to reader the cor-
respondents of fonts *trash manmade Ow erdeles of
political dieewelsa fir griehltion oubtiabsd by these jour-
nals bat he is sessnal wit to leave saiewilmed Mrs tease-

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 3, 1852 ‘:l'. •-•

renewal of the Zellers's treaties), the said daderaties of
the 21st in* noseste the Prassias government to drier
how far it is wady to rowers', as basis tee a
with Austria, the drift of treaties delivered terbdillii
eselltr•
ease br the said government" on the 25th lisp, and in what
shape t will accept the said treaty of commerce and eta.
tams. Iteferring to its declaration of the 20th Jul', the
Prussian government cannot but interpret this question u
implying that, in we the said g 00000 ments receive satisfac-
tory information regarding the extent of the terms for a
treaty with Austria, they will secede to Prussia's vkw of
the amenity of postponing negotiations for such till after
the conclusion of the Zoliverein treatise.
On this assumption the Prussian government (though a
doubt regarding its intentions in this respect could hardly
exist, after its previous repeated declarations) does not hesi-
tate to consent that, is groundwork for the negotiations to
be commenced with Austria after renewal of the Zonverein,
the said draft of a treaty of commerce and customs be
adopted in form and substance, with the exception of the
passages referring to a customs union, in Articles 1,4, 23,
21, and the separate Article 1, and under reservation of
nearer deliberation on Articles 6,7, 21, the separate Ar-
ticle 7 and 8, the ninth paragraph of Appendix 11., and
further under reservation of a mutual agreement touching
Appendix I , which the framers themselves did not regard
as sufficiently matured.
After this declaration, the Prussian government may the
more confidently hope to have convinced the said govern-
ments that it fully agrees with them on all essential points
of a commercial treaty to he concluded with Austria,
inu-
much as it has already explicated, in the Wiesbaden proto.
cools referred to on 20th ult., that the future effectuation of a
general customs' union must loom (vorachereben) as guiding
point of view. It believes, therefore, that it may eapect at
once a reply confirming the above interpretation of the de-
claration of 21st inst., and thereby euabliag it to resume
negotiations with the whole of the Zollverein government'.
Should, however, au immediate reply not be feasible, and
the further interruption of the conferences prove =avoida-
ble the Protean government cannot too urgently recom-
mend the greatest possible expedition in answering. The
whole position of the negotiations, and especially the ar-
rangements to be made in accordance with the eleventh
seperate article of the September treaty, render it Impera-
tive to settle the extent of the future union in binding
form by the let of October next, at the latest. In order
to leave time for the necessary preparations to this end, a
definite reply must be given as soon es possible, and, in any
case, by the middle of September, to the question, whether
a common basis of negotiation exists. The Premien
government deems itself mare of unanimous agreement in
this respect, and cherishes the hope that, within the said
period, it will receive the desired reply, without which it
would not be able to enter into further negotiations with the
whole of its Zollverein allies.

In conclusion the Prussian government cannot omit
taking notice of another question, touched on in the decla-
ration of the 21st inst. In article 41 of the older treaties of
union, as in article 8 of the treaty of 1641, a duiation of 12
Year. is fixed ; and, in accordance therewith, not only has a
like duration been given to the union with Hanover and
Oldenbcrg, dating from January 1814, but was also ex-
pressly proposed in the Prussian invitation to the present
conferences for the renewal of the Zollverein treaties. The
Prussian government hu hitherto had no grounds for ,
doubting, that its view on this weighty question met
with unanimous approbation; nor does it, deem it-
self warranted to deduce from the declaration of the
21st inst. grounds for such doubt ; but since, in the said de-
claration, the duration of the future treaties of union is
mentioned as a point still to be settled, the Prussian govern-
ment cannot hesitate to repeat its view on this question, and
to urge the inconvenience of giving to the treaties of re-
newal too short a duration, thereby stamping them with a
provisional character, to the great detriment of the commer-
cial and industrial interests in all participating states ; while,
on the other hand, the fixing of a period of twelve years
nowise precludes the entering into negotiations fora further
approximation of the two customs districts.