The Express.
London, England, 1863-04-04 00:00:00

BIUTANNIA.

Tim ANON, THE "FoFlair OF LYON& Moms
WV,Bird and Drummond : Mrs. K. Yam:dd.—JEANNIE
Mr. Mgwood and Mrs. S. Lone.—And THE isrusar
01 THE WANLZEIE. Mr. and Men Croaked.

HIGH NATICK AT LONDON sZIDG
TNNI DAT —Manly" Vt. In.....Allarsoon. ze.
foisoNSON—liccalag. Ith. Nika.....Aftirsecs. SA. O.

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 4.

lr cannot be said that with thelossof LANGIRIVICZ 1
the Polish strugi,le has declined; rather it bascaught
new vigour from difficulty and desperation. If I
there seems at this early Easter time a momentary
lull in the ardour of sympathising Europe, the last
word of the British Parliament at parting was •
for Poland, and the first word at meeting, we may
be sure, will be for Poland again. The Easter
holidays have not suspended the interest of every
free people in the fate of a nation fighting for its
life ; nor is even the expression of that interest in-
terrupted by more immediate and more trivial pre-
occupations. Was not Lord PALMERSTON reminded
of Poland in the midst of his popular triumphs at
Glasgow and Edinburgh? In France, though perhaps
the revival of public spirit may be on the surface
only, and though the independent and Liberal
party are preparing for the general election at
home, the cause of Poland is keenly felt to be one
with the honour of France. The semi-official news-
papers assure the French public, in mysterious
paragraphs, that, when the hoar comes, it
will be seen that the EMPEROR has not
abandoned Poland. So, too, at Glasgow
Lord Paz men:crow declared, amidst tumultuous
cheering, that the diplomatic intervention of Eng-
land, in concert with other Powers, is being and
will be exerted in behalf of Poland. The
PREMIER, who in his most unguarded moments
knows how to measure his words on foreign policy,
utters a regret that it is not in the power of the
British Government to " decide the destinies " of
that interesting nation. Meanwhile the Poles, not
unmindful of the melancholy fact that, however
interesting a nation may be, its meek and passive
protest against tyranny gains no new friends
among the Powers of Europe, and makes even

diplomatic intervention a dead letter, are
struggling to decide their own destinies at the
. sword's point. Alter Easter the fighting season
for insurgents comes, when Nature hes& is
clement and propitious to patriots. Every month,
every week, every day, this insurrection
perseveres the sympathy of Europe is enlarged,
and the demand on the intervention of the Powers
becomes louder and more exacting.
It is easy to taunt public writers with sitting at
their ease and urging brave men to useless and fatal
conflicts. No such taunt will deter us from asking
what the Poles or any other suffering nation
have to hope from the diplomatic intervention of
the Powers, so long as that intervention consists in
appealing to the magnanimity of the CzAR. What
did "diplomatic intervention" do for the Poles
between 1831 and 1856, or even in 1861, when
the population of Warsaw were offering themselves
up unresisting victims, in the streets and at the
altars, to the tender mercies of the Czar"?
Yet, if we are to believe the rumour that
comes from Warsaw to Paris, the Central
Revolutionary Committee at Warsaw are actually

invited—indirectly and unofficially, we need not
add—by the Governments of France and Eng-
land to stop the insurrection and order the patriot
bands to lay down their arms, while the Govern-
ments of France and England are pressing
their diplomatic intervention, more or less
aided and approved by Austria, upon the

good heart of i-LESANDaIItIL ! Before the Polish
insurgents can know the nature of this diplomatic
intervention, what are its propositions, its aims,
its promises, and, in the event of failure, its
consequences to themselves, they are recom-
mended once more to lay down their arms, and to
stand waiting with their eyes shut and their mouths
open for the fruits of diplomatic interven-
tion ; possibly, for the renewal of solemn en-
gagements again and again broken ; possibly, for
the condescending good intentions which Count
014011 hinted in 1856, and the Grand Duke
CowsrairrivE was sent to Warsaw to fulfil ; pos-
sibly, for the grant of national institutions to the
Duchy of Warsaw, or even the creation of a new
Russian Kingdom of Poland out of the Duchy of
Warsaw and the incorporated provinces. Possibly,
too, for the uncovenanted magnanimity of theCzas.
And while the insurgents are disarmed and meekly
waiting upon the Powers, what is to be the atti-
tude of the Russian army in Poland
Let us be permitted to treat this rumour r a
sorry fable until it becomes a fact. When it is a
feet, diplomacy will have surpassed itself. It will
not have left a noble nation to be murdered, but
it will have stepped in to save the murderer's re-
putation, by requesting the victim to dispatch
itself.

Ix is with pleasure we observe that Lord PAL-
'nearer; has closed the aeries of his speeches in
Scotland with an address altogether worthy of his
position and reputation. There was nothing pre-
scriptive, traditional, or artificial in the language
of the PREMIER at the Leith Corn Exchange. The
evidences of energy and enterprise which sur-
rounded him in that busy port, ana the prosperity
which is their reward, inspired him with a warm
and genuine admiration. It was a scene with
which his character is formed to sympathise. Lord
PAL.mxitsrox bas an eye and a heart for visible
greatness, and he spoke without extravagance when
be said that the spectacle of the splendid docks and
ample shipping which told of British intelligence,
and the wise and courageous expenditure of
capital, filled him with the " greatest delight."
H All you have done," said the PREMIER, " has
" been done by the expenditure of your own
" capital and industry, and it is not only doubly
" honourable to you, but it will be more advan-
" tageous in the end than if it had been the
" result of donations from other parts of the
" empire." We are not permitted at present to
reckon a proposition like this among the truisms
of an exuberant rhetoric!; and perhaps the testis-
' faction which Lord PALMERSTON thus expressed
was heightened by the remembrance of the speech
tihe recently had to make on the Galway Packet
subsidy.

But it was in celebrating the triumphs of the
policy of free trade that Lord PALMERSTON
rose to the height of his powers. Nor is it
in vain that our public men insist from time to
time on the immense gain derived to the nation
from the great victories over monopoly won within
the last fifteen years. Not only are other great
communities still in bondage to the errors which
so long held us enthralled, but the tendencies
developed under the system, now happily over-
thrown, still appear and re-appear in our judgments,
if not in our practice. " There was a time," ob-
served Lord PALMERSTON, " when it was believed
" that the interest and profit of the few was to be
" preferred to the advantage of the many." Doubt-
less that is what was believed. What was said was
somewhat different. It was alleged that the interest
of the many themselves required that the few
should have special advantages. We have banished
that idea from our commercial policy, but it is in
vigorous vitality in other departments of our
public life. And even now we have great social
doctors and teachers who tell us that the riginte of
freedom is not suitable for every climate and
country, and who show a disposition to justify those
who in one country deny to four millions of
their fellow-men the right freely to exchange that
labour which is the source of all wealth. The
ides of society, as bound to protect the natural
rights of its members, and as moat safely esta-
blished when doing so, is not yet universal. Men
are apt to fancy that it must be weak and defec-
tive, or as the cant now is, " imperfectly or-
" ganixed," if some machinery of restriction and
coercion is not at work. Lord PALMERSTON shows
triumphantly how much we have gained by
forbidding these follies to interfere with the
business of production and exchange. And
it is indeed an achievement to be proud
of. We in the tumult of events may be ready to

forget it ; but enlightened foreigners wonder at the
greatness of the victory that has been gained over
the deep-seated and almost universal prejudice
which upheld the corn laws. The great difficulty,
as Lord PaxitEagrom pointed out, was to get
persons to imagine the effect of a state of things
•Efferent from that to which they had been accus-
tomed. Men of narrow ideas ignorantly identify
with their success all the conditions under which
it has been achieved, the hindrances as well as the
aids. All alike form part of their experience, and
accordingly all are appealed to with equal conS-
dance. The opposition to truth and reason
came, as Lord PALMIIISTON observed, from those
"practical men" whom no argument could en-
lighten. "We were told," said the noble
lord, " this is all very well in theory, but
" we are practical men ; you are theorists and
" idle dreamers ; practical men alone are those
" who are capable of judging of the effect of legis- '
" lotion upon human affairs. Well, it has often
" and well been said that the practical man is the
" greatest theorist, only he is a bad theorist ;
" that he founds his opinions upon the theory
" which he has based upon narrow induction, and
" upon a mistaken view of the foundation upon
" which theories ought to rest; that those whom he
_ _. . .

" calls theorists have founded their opinions upon
" a larger and more rational view of things ; that
" they therefore are right, and that he, cow*-
" quently, is wrong." And thus it we : the so-
called.practical man, with his buying and selling,
had been developing wonderful sagacity in turning
the opportunities of his situation to account; but
he might have done this for ever, and accumulated
the wealth of the Indies, without ever rising to a
comprehension of the wonderful economic laws
of which he was a blind instrument. Happily
there is something liberalising in the spirit and
operations of commerce, and there have never been
wanting merchants, bankers, and manufacturers
who, having vindicated their own skOl in the suc-
cessful prosecution of commerce, have proclaimed
broad and enlightened views of the interests of the
nation. The " theorists," the men who made it their
business to understand the natural laws which
others ignorantly obeyed and often as ignorantly
thwarted, have always had the warm support of
practical men of this class. The question of mono-
poly or free trade is precisely one of those which
experience is competent to decide. And as Lord
PALYIBSTON shows, the very classes which free
trade was to have ruined, are those which have
most benefited by its operation. This lesson is not
new, but its repetition is still useful both at home
and abroad, and we thank Lord PaLitazurroN for
rehearsing it so well.

THE BILL FOR CLOSING PUBLIC HOUSES ON
SUNDAYS.

(From the Senn's, Belies.)

What Mr. Somes's bill amounts to is the total
prohibitioe of beer to the working man on Sunday. It is
soompuloory =forcemeat of total 'Wainscot,. at haat on one
day in the week for at least half the population of this
country. Less than this the bill does not aim at, and it is
as well that its real extent should be known. It
not only excludos the Sunday excursionist from his visit
to the country inn, but it dries up those foaming pole which
meet us on leaving tows churches oa Sunday morning. It
condemns the Sunday meal—the poor man's only meal—
either to cold water or a dry crust. This may be quite right,
bat it is a tremendous innovation on the social life of a whole
people ; and it is all the worm because it is *wielded, trap-
aka], and oppressive. We of the comfortable classes have
OUT cellars, our clubs, our bottled beer, oar old cognac,
our every means arid appliance for reconciling as we can,
Of as we choose, our duties to ourselves, to society, to
religion, and to health. We may either drink to
satiety, in moderation, or not at all. Nobody interfere•
with as. Yr. Seams does not legislate for the like of him-
self ; beady steps in sad orders what be thinks best for
thins who, as ►e doubtless thinks, cannot help themselves.
met they. though? Partial weeny of this sort not the
&phalanxes habit to endure. There is not a nation on the
earth which would endure this sort of legislation ; nor
aught they to ecdure it. These are not the diva for call-
ing out class passions, or for inviting sections of society to
stand out Kunst their fellows.

Captain Grey has anoceeded Lieutenant-Colonel
Koppel as &perry in Waiting on his Iteyel Highores ths
Prince of Wake Colossi Lima has wand la town.

Mt Court.

WINDSOR CAMP, Ana, S.

The Queen, accoffipanied by Prince Arthur,
and attended by Lady Augusta Braes, malkel in the
grounds yeeterday afternoon.
The Prince and Princess Louis of Hesse drove.

The Queen, Prince and Princess Louis of Heise, Prince
Alfred, Princess Helena, Princess Louis.,, Prince Arthur,
and Prince Leopold attended divine service this morning in
the private chapel.
The Rev. R. Ellison preached the sermon.
Prises Alfred has reformed in good health. Dr. Arm•
strong, R.N., who accompanied his Royal Highness home.
left Windsor Castle last night, having previously reoeived
the Queen's thanks for his care and attention during his
Royal Highness's alarming illness.