The Express.
London, England, 1852-07-30 00:00:00

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LONDON. FRIDAY. JULY 30.

Rusin s, Austria, and Prussia are said to have
entered into a formal convention respecting what am
termed —in diplomatic language--the future eventual'.
ties of the Government of Franc* as at present con-
stituted. Whatever may be the accuracy of the
form in which this mutual engagement between
these absolutist powers is stated to have been
contracted. the substance of the alleged compact. is
sufficiently in accordance with their external policy
to warrant some belief that the sentiments and designs
of the despotic trio do not differ very widely from
those which are currently ascribed to them. Resting,
as their own authority dues, upon the bole basis of
hereditary right, as it is called, and dreading--even
more than pure republicanism—the success of any
attempt to found in neighbouring countries monar-
chical systems on any other foundation, the desire of
the German and Muscovite Autocrats is to deter the
present ruler of France. by the influence of conjoint
menaces and threats, from all at,empts at recon-
structing in France the dynasty of KCPOLEON. In
the palaces of Warsaw and of Schonbrunn, the pre-
tenders of •• right divine" tremble at the name of an
"elected Emperor of the French and King of Italy."
The memory of the man who climbed up to royalty out
of the plebeian mass it loathsome and abhorrent. That
France should be paralysed by internal distractions,
institutions, or
benumbed by the oppression of an exciting and in-
glorious mockery of democratic nstitutions, is a
matter a. no moment to the brute-force governments
of the Continent. So long as M. Lulls BONAPARTE
retains the sty le and title of president of a re-
public. he is welcome to abuse his usurped power as
much as he likes; and as for "the republic," the
more contemptible its name is rendered in the eyes of
the world at large, the better will the despots be
pleased. But M BON %PARTE Mast beware how be puts
forth his unanointed hand to grasp at dynastic so-
vereignty. The heaven-born guardians of that
imprescriptible prerogative never quarrelled with
the amp ff,*tat of the 2nd December, 1c,51, or with
the wholesale confiscation and deportations of 18.12.
(linty the contrary; they rather hail these shame-
ful act' as salutary and significant examples
whereby terror may be struck in the hearts of
the insubordinate men of Western Europe, and
the way he paved for the complete restoration in due
time of Ilourbonism in all its irresponsibility.
Louis NAPOLEON may create himself Perpetual
President, or if he pleases Emperor for life. But
woe be unto him should he marry or beget a son.
As an individual usurper he may live for ever. He
is no more in the eyes of legitimate kings
or emperors than a painted athlete in the circus
who leaps on the back of an unmanageable steed,
and who by alternate blows and bribes, forces the
gallant creature to go down upon its knees, or play
monkey tricks at his bidding. It is not the success
of the mountebank in winning money or applause
that these established conjurors fear or envy. Their
jealousy is alarmed lest haply he, too, should set up
in their peculiar and exclusive way of business, and
ED bring the calling whereby they respectively live
into disrepute. France may be mis-ruled as long or
as much as it chooses, say the allied absolutists, and
we shall not interfere so long u she does not
permit her present ruler to assume the name of an
hereditary monarch. Should she do that, then
we, FRANCIS JOSEPH, of Austria, FREDERICK
Witusit of Prussia, and NtcuoLts of all the
Russian. solemnly protest that the only person whom
We can recognise as our monarchic equal in France
is our kingly cousin, the Comte DE CHAMBORD.
Marvellous, truly, is the infatuation of despotism ;
and fathomless the depths of humiliation to which a
great and enlightened people may be doomed.
Assuming the document to be quite genuine—what
have we here? In the face of day three foreign po-
tentates have the fatuous folly and hardihood not
merely to dictate to the French government what
form and semblance they will permit it to sesame,
but in the same breath to tell the French nation
in so many words what shall be and what
shall not be the shape of their political
chains. Intoxicated with the triumph of their
counter-revolutionary measures of the last three years,
the despots seem to imagine that all spirit of popular
indignation, all instinct of national self-redress, is
dead in Western Europe, and that by degrees the
effete and degrading despotism of the descendants
of Louis CAPET may be re-imposed on a race who
thrice in forty years shook it off with scorn. The
allied absolutists solemnly proclaim their sympathy in
the cause of the dull and feeble line of the Bouanotts,
sad coolly speculate in the clauses of a secret treaty
ass the probabilities of its restoration in case the
FILAMENT should be overthrown by a popular
imestte. or a military plot. Dignified and prudent
speculations these for the beloved monarchs of Lom-
lardy, Hungary, and Poland to indulge in truly ; and
eminently calculated to propitiate the good will of
the French people towards their dethroned and
exiled King. But there is something still more in-
effable in this proceeding—we mean the shabby and
short-sighted eagerness it betrays to bargain with
Louts "taroLaust as a power dseutfacto, though
founded professedly on universal rage, and to
concede him a life estate in despotism, provided the
power to nominate his successor be left unimpaired
to the people. How far Louts NarotEoN might
have been tempted to close with such an offer if
made to him in the secret and vague terms of diplo-
macy, it were idle to conjecture. Still vainer were
surmises as to the sincerity with which
each an understanding might have been entered
into, or the fidelity with which it was likely to be
observed in after years. It is clear that the dicta-
tion of any terms of the kind, and their inevitable
publicity .is articles of a tri-partite treaty, rendered
all semblance of acquiescence on his part too perilous
to be probable. To proclaim himself Emperor for
life, after a warning like this, would bs dangerous.
All France would feel that it was neither more nor
lam than an avowal that her nominally elective Pre-
sident had coasented to became her governor for
life at the will and pleasure of Russia. Louts
NAPOLEON has shown himself a daring ad-
venturer and an audacious aspirant to power;
but no "gilded round and top of sovereignty"
will scarcely lure him to the brink of a precipice
so obvious as the assumption would now be of
a style and title actually settled and appointed for
him by the coalesced rivals and jealous neighbours
of France. If anything could rally a genuine feeling
of national pride to his standard, a proceeding so
insolent and so invasive of French independence as
this might do so. And if anything were wanting to
brand afresh the name of Botfaimm with odium and
with obloquy, it would be the infatuated course thus
pursued by the absolutist allies of the luckless
Count DE CHAMBORD. As for Louts NAPOLEON,
all middle course seems to be rendered practically
impossible. He must either retain the oghe
and position of military president of a disfranchised
commonwealth, or—resolving to call things by their
right names, and avowing the fact that he is by the
will of the army absolute ruler of France—place upon
his head, as his uncle did before him, the appropriate
emblem of hereditary absolutism, and bid defiance to
the hereditary monopolists of the power to misrule.
In either case an avenging fate must surely
await him.

WITH the exception of Orkney the returns of all
the Scotch elections have been received. Scotland
" stands where it did." The meet desperate efforts
of the Derbyites have failed to wrest one seat from
the Liberals. As before, only one district of boroughs
sends a Tory to parliament ; the counties are divided
between the Liberals and the Tories in the same
proportion as formerly. A large majority of the
Scotch constituencies are firm in the reform fahh.
'this immobility of the Scotch representation is
• phenomenon not peculiar to the present elec-
tion. There has been little material change in the
balance of parties among the Scotch members
since the first election under the Reform Rill.
This curious fact we are disposed to attri-
bute to the circumstance that the electoral body is in

a manner entirely new that it was first created by
the Act of 1832. Under the old electoral system in
Scotland the only voters were mane 2,301 ins the
' counties, most of them with fictitious qualifications-"•
"the cadets, dependents, or menials or the great
families—and some '2,500 members d self-elected,
town councils. These worthies returned the esoteh
45—that phalanx so notorious for its servility. Their
number was too small to 'diffuse political corruption
extensively through society; their electioneering
machinery was quite inapplicable to the constituencies
created by the Relorm Act. Hence there is, even in the
present tirue,Pearcely any corruption among the Scotch
constituencies. The boroughs are remarkably pure,
and in the counties it is not so =soh bribery as the
Sir l'ertiwor Mix-sycophant disposition to " boo " to
great men—a weakness surviving in rural districts
from feudal times that enables the squirearchy to
carry the day.
This state of affairs will probably keep the ba-
lance of parties in the Scotch representation nearly
what it is until sonic change is made in the fran-
chise or the distribution of the electoral districts. A
few constituencies which have veered between the
Liberal and the Tory ascendancy might indeed be
reclaimed to the Liberal cause. Mr. ANfiensos,
ta.c., had nearly carried the Airdrie burghs,
notwithstanding the enormous patrimonial in-
(crest the 11 into family possessed there; and Mr.
CARDWELL, brought forward at the eleventh hour,
' gave Sir D. H. BLAIR a close run. Now the Liberal
electors in the Airdrie district are still labouring
under the paralysis of their energies superinduced
by the divisions between the HAMILTON interest and
1 the independent electors attached to the late Mr.
VILsvN, of Dundyvan ; were they firmly re-united
the district which was at one time represented by
Lord LINCOLN, and at another by GILLON, of Wall-
house, might easily be regained for the reform cause.
Ayain, the all but sucees,ful effort in behalf of Mr.
C.iatiwELL in Ayrshire, was made notwithstanding a
scandalous neglect of the registration by the Libe-
rals, persevered in ever since 1839, to such an
extent, that when Lord JAMES STUART was asked
some months ago to allow his son to stand for tho
county, and would have done it could he have been
shown that there was any prospect of success, not
oneof the leading Liberals could give him the slightest
idea how the register stood. A vigorous effort at the
registration is all that is required to enable the
Reformers to redeem the county of RICHARD OSWALD
from the Tories at next election.

• So, too, with regard to Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire,
and Dumbartonshire. Every one of these counties
has at one time been represented by Liberal members,
end might be again. It true that Mr. Snoti.vrr
(Dumbartonshire) is as accomplished and liberal-
minded a Conservative us can be imagined;
and his attention to local busineas, his affability, a
spice of the humour of the old novelist of his family,
have endeared him to his constituents. It woeN
not be easy to unseat him; but the attempt to
the county ,would not be hopeless were any
candidate on his side to succeed him. Again, Colo-
nel NIURE (lienfrewshire), as an accomplished scholar
and man of liberal sentiments, is a general favourite;
—hie seat, however, is by no means so assured as Mr.
Snou.rrfs, and an eligible Liberal candidata might
wrest it from him. Lastly, Mr. LOCKHART'S sole
hold upon Lanarkshire is his exemplary attention to
local business; no such prestige attaches to him as to
the other two we have named. Lanarkshire might
easily be gained by a resolute effort. We feel con-
vinced of this by the results of au inquiry instituted
by the late Mr. Cocas Dt•Nr.or a short time before
he was invited to stand for Glasgow.
There are See constituencies which might and

ought to be gained by the Liberals in Scotland. The
whole of the boroughs would then have Liberal re-
ntatives. In all the counties we have named
and perhaps in Kirkcudbright), there is an inde-
pendent electorate, that might be kept decidedly
Liberal; in the rest of the Scotch counties, the land-
lord interest will prevail as long as the present fran-
chise and the present distribution of electoral dis-
tricts continue, and as long as there u open voting.
Where the great families are Whip, there will be a
Whig member returned; where Tories, a Tory; and
this not so much from corruption or intimidation, as
from a lingering of the clannish and vassal spirit
among the farmers—a romantic sentiment, which
experience and enlightenment will cure.
The comparative absence of a venal, or mean, mer-
cenary spirit among the Scotch electors is a fact that
has a moral of its own. It is owing to the circum-
stance of the infinitesimally small proportion in
which an old corrupt electoral element was mingled
with the new one called into existence by the Ile-
form Act. When the history of elections in Edin-
burjh and Glasgow is contrasted with their history
in Liverpool, it will be obvious how important it is
to keep constastexciss pure. Where any considerable
amount of corruption has developed itself it is
scarcely possible to expel or neutralise it even by a
large infusion of new blood. The bad old taints the
good new.