The Express.
London, England, 1852-11-11 00:00:00

BELGIUM.

PROPOSED LAW ON THE PRESS.
BRUSSELS, TVIHDAT EVIMINO.
As it wee known that ministers would this after.
noon lay before the chamber of representatives a
Bill for the punishment of press offences towards
foreign governments, not a little excitement was
produced in and out of parliament. The members of
the cabinet, however, did not make their appettraato
in tho chamber until after tho appointed hour, as if
they were unwilling to appear over anxious to bring
forward a bill likely to be very unpopular. The
public tribunes were crowded, but a deep silence pre-
vailed no soon as business commenced.

After some petitions had been presented, as well
as a report on the proposed line of railway from Ant-
werp to llolland—a line, the shares of which are
already negotiated on the London and Paris Ex-
changes, although it has not yet been voted by the
Belgian parliament—M. Folder, the new Minister of
Justice, ascended the species of pulpit appropriated
to speakers, and, with a tremendous voice, an-
nounced that he was authorised by his Majesty to
present a bill for the punishing of outrages so
foreign sovereigns or heads of governments. The
bill, or, to use the term employed here, project of
law, provided that any one found guilty of out-
raging, by means of the press, images, en-
graving., &c., the persons of foreign sovereigns,
or the heads of government, or of attacking,
should be punished by an imprisonment nut exceed-
ing a term of two years, and by a line not exceeding
.5,000 francs (20014 It was furthermore provided
that the plea of having merely reproduced anteri,,e
publications, &c., cannot be admitted in justification,
or in extenuation of the offence; that the prosecu-
tions arc to take place at the formal demand of the
diplomatic agents of the foreign governments cora-
plaiuing of any attack or outrage, that the trial, are
to be regulated according to existing laws, that is to
say, in other words, that press off, Meg will still he
tried by jury, and that the press law of NI/ is
abolished. In the preamble to the bill (exiimp des
rtio'ili4) it is set forth that the law of NM was virtu-
ally declared defunct by recent verdicts of juries; and
that a law punishing outrages on foreign sovereigns
is an international necessity, a law based on national
right, and one admitted by even the greatest nations
of antiquity as well as of modern times. It was
stated that the Belgian government could not and
I did not undertake to prosecute er ofti,io, and conse-
quently that the complaint must emanate from the
government considering. itself outraged, the pro-
secution to begin within three mouths of the
alleged offence.
The ministerial announcement gave rise to no de-
monstrations of opinion either on the right or tho
left, or in the public galleries. I may announce to
you, however, that it will be very severely attacked
in several liberal journals to-morrow.
I forgot to mention before that the new bill ex-
tends tool! discourses and cries or exclamations in
public assemblies ; and I hear some one near rue in
one of the galleries of the Chamber of Representa-
tives contending, and not exactly sulto cure, that not
only is the liberty of the press, but the liberty of
association—liberties formally guaranteed by the
Belgian copatitution—violated by this press bill.
To-morrow an account of the state et public opinion
and feeling.