The Express.
London, England, 1851-09-02 00:00:00

Zhe Orortssfs.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
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HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Ten D4T—Morsise, G. 24a. Atterstwq
To.souow—lfonaleg, ;h. 17w /Ammo. 7e. 47 0.

LO.VDON, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

IT appears to us that one great object, if not the
chief one, of electoral reform, should be to do away
with a principle which ought never to have been
allowed to creep into our system of government, but
which of late years has become of such general use,
that nothing important is carried without it. Me
allude to the principle of intimidation.
Whenever a great question is now put forward in
England.a question of progress—and, thank heaven,
no other can be brought forward with a chance of
success—this question is not carried by fair voting and
divisiun of party against party, class against class,
interest against interest; for if such questions were
to be decided by the numbers of those possessed of poli-
tical power, Elie ral propositions would have no chance.
The popular interest is not represented in proportion
to that which keeps it down. But what is wanting in
constitutional forceissupplied by the forceof intimate.
in. The minority bluster. They declare that they are
the people; and the plea is so true, that the classes
which, if adhering to their selfish interests, could
fling back every popular advance, then give way, not
to argument, but to prudence; not to love for the
gond folk more humbly placed than they, but to
dread. In fact, our legislative history has become a
Perils of moral mks, of violence legalised by sue-
cow, and of treasons that are prosperous, and thus
acquire another name.
It is time to put an end to this, the most danger-
ous of political shams. It is plain that the popular
voice and feeling carry all questions by a mode not
only not recognised in the constitution, but totally
alien to it. The constitution knows but a par-
liamentary vote ; all great questions must now puss
previously by a popular one. Why then do those
classes, to whom the constitution has nominally given
power, prefer keeping that power in order to
humble it before popular intimidation, instead
of throwing the constitution open, and establishing
an electoral law, by which all classes would he fairly
represented according to their numbers, intelligence,
and property. Were this done, the parliamentary
vote would he identical with the popular one. There
would be no violence, no intimidation, no forcing of
the constitution. At present the tory majority of the
two houses of parliament feel that by coding a
principle against their conviction, and notwithstand-
ing their power, they sutler merely a temporary defeat,
and they are flr ever looking toreverse such great popu-
lar decrees, as those establishing free-trade, instead
of sitting down contented beneath them. Then
again the liberals, who have carried their point by
stirring the popular mind, but too justly regard agi-
tation us a normal portion of the system, and orga-
nise it as something permanently required.
But it is idle to point out the too manifest danger
of thus falsirying a constitutional government, and
rendering permanent an oligarchy tempered by their
dread of the people. Why do the oligarchs hold to
it:? Some of them hold to it, not that they can pre-
vent the advance and the success of gnat popular
questions, but that they can monopolise official power
and political pre-eminence thereby. Others again,
prefer the system, in the hope that it may
one day be brought back to the good old
tory one, when aristocratic majorities defied
int imidat hal, and sabred crowds with yeo-
manry. Others, notwithstanding their acknow-
ledged powerlessness to obstruct great questions,
find consolation and recompense in the undeniable
power to crush and thwart all minor ones that
savour of change or of improvement. And hence it
is that England, at the present day, stands the most
advanced of all countries in great things, but just as
many centuries behind them in small ones.
The only hope of n•moving this mass of danger,
and injustice, and absurdity, lies in electoral re-
form, and in the introduction of a fair, broad,
and popular system of representation. For our part,
we do not anticipate from such a measure any addi-
tion to the power which the people already possess
to enforce a great measure, or dictate a necessary
law. A new reform hill would merely legalise and
regulate this power. It would not increase popular
influence on questions naturally fraught with agita-
thus. But it would increase their influence on minor
points, and on those upon which interest, not
passion, can be exerted. To financial discussion, for
example. the people now remain strangers. They
take no interest in it, although on none are their
fate and condition so deeply involved.
It is not, however, so much the consequences that
we should look to in the event of such a change,--and
we could continue the enumeration of most benefi-
cial ones—it is the extricating the country and the
constitution from the dangerous slough in which it
is half sunk—a good and great measure thought of
long, yet not dared to be proposed in the
face of such a power as the tory Lords and
Commons present- Too good and too wise to be
alrandoned, however, the measure and the hope of
carrying it is kept alive by active and patriotic may
wino are obliged to conspire for so simple a purples,
to agitate, to convulse the country, to intimidate the
dominant classes into submission. Every one knows
of these periodical insurrections, but all are too apt
to forget the absurdity of the practice and the danger
of the example.

Tuts is the day on which the SULTAN promised to
liberate KO.A:TII, I'ERCZEL, HATIIYANT, and the
illustrious prisoners of Kulahia. Since the fact was
first announced, as it was by us some weeks hick, a
regular fire of menace has been kept up by all the
organs, or would-be organs of the great military
governments. They would break with the
Porte, the ambassadors should be withdrawn, reta-
liation taken by re-exciting the Bosnian insurree-
tim and the whole East was to be convulsed be-
cause KOSSUTH was allowed to receive visits at Bays-
water instead of planting cabbages and defending
himself against assassins at Kutahya.
The question is, in truth, one of mere sentiment
and humanity ; for no one hopes or thinks to
work harm to the empires of Austria and
Russia, or to disturb their peace by liberat-
ing . KOSACTII. Admiration for the past, not
intrigue for the future, is the sole motive with
our Hungarian sympathisers. But the solemn poli-
ticians of St. Petersburg and Vienna cannot under-
stand that the most practical of earthly races, tho
Anglo-Saxon, should simultaneously, in England
and in America, have been taken with such enthusi-
astic sympathy fur the Hungarian cause, and for its
chiefs, unless some deep policy lay at the bottom of
it. We need not say to English readers that
, neither Britons nor Americans have the least
admixture of policy in their love of Hungary and
Iliossern. It is from sentiment, the untningled
homage paid to brave men struggling in a righteous
cause. And if Lord PALMERSTON has exerted him-
self, through our ambassador at Turkey, first to save
the lives, and then to procure the liberties, of the
Hungarians, it has been more in obedience to the
demands of English feeling, we are certain, than
from any desire to spite, alarm, or injure Austria.
Tin: same dissatisfaction regarding the septennial The future fate of Hungary and its definitive con-
averages on which the tithe rent-charge is calculated, flexion with Austria, are things, we believe, very
which we recently noticed as prevalent in the Id._ much in Austria's own power. After the complete
cultural districts of England, is widely felt in re- conquest it has effected, great wisdom, moderation,
land also. The system there is indeed somewhat and liberality on her part might, we have no doubt,
different. The grievance is less complained of as a secure Ilungary to the Harsaeacs and to the Aus-
popular one, for the landlord is under the act of 1838 trian power too firmly for K 0981.711 and all his in-
made primarily liable; and be must " re-coupo " the fittence to shake. But there is no wisdom, modem-
amount out of inereaatsl rent as he can. The oven- tion. or liberality in the conduct of Austria.
pier has in some measure lost the distinct sense of Not only is barefaced tyranny the adopted prin.
pecuniary- contribution to the support of the church; ciple of government, but it is the avowed one.
and hence the cessation of popular controversy on Until now the Austrian ministers were supposed to
the subject of late years. be responsible to the nation, or to some imaginary
But on the other hand, it cannot be denied that an States. Hopes of a constitutional system, at least
ecclesiastical establishment which rests upon sock- for the future, were not at an end. The fiction of mi-
cumscribed a basisof practical suitability to the wants nistcrial responsibility did not the least detract from
of the country, can far less safely afford to have its the absolute power of the government. But the
money claims upon the industry of the community at young Emperor would not tolerate the decorous
large called into question. In England a large and fiction. And he has published a solemn decree, de-
powerful clement of zeal for the maintenance of a Oaring that his ministers are only responsible to him-
church which, in the . eyes of the great majority, is self. Every one well knew such to bo the fact.
the church of the nation, tends to restrain the spirit Why then declare it? In order to promulgate
of financial reform in rectorial and vicarial matters. As divine right in theory as well as practice, and to
a frugal farmer, many a man grumbles at a corn-law seek to establish as a philosophic truth, what was
scale of averages being retained after a corn-law already established in the only way it could be
has itself ceased to exist, who would nevertheless established, by force.
energetically deny that he grudged the parson an Such doctrinaires of despotism, such puerile poll-
extra five-pound note in the course of the year. ticians, monarchs whose sovereignty is bounded by the
Wherever a really working clergy are found, not horizon of their staff, and statesmen who have taken a
above "being about their Masters business," and personal piquet° constitutions—such men as these can-
identified in sympathy and feeling with the great not found an empire, re-attach defective provinces, or
hulk of their docks, we are likely to hear compa- give that confidence and freedom, without which in-
ratively little of agitation for the adoption of the I dustry cannot breathe, nor prosperity be developed. ,
triennial system. And though the number of loca- The hope of consolidating such an empire as that of
licks may be great in which no countervailing I Germany. by denying in royal and imperial
influence of this kind is felt, and whence edicts, the grusadreela or national rights, voteA by
the reiteration of discontent will doubtless eon- national assemblies, and promulgating instead the
tinue until some adaptation to the existing state I law of ministers,being only responsible to sovereigns,
of things is obtained—still, as we have said, many and sovereigns to GOD; this is the current mistake
will compromise the economic grievance with theiof seeking to pacify the nineteenth century by re-
religious generosity, and will thus resolve upon re- ducing it to the ignorantism and servility of the
mauling mute. I fifteenth.
Nut so in Ireland. The establishment in that i The hig children, who assert that political wisdom
country has enjoyed, it is true, a longer respite since / is the gift of Heaven, and who prove themselves pos-
the enactment of the statute we have above referred, sessed of it by governing in this way, may
.well
to, than at any period during the last hundred- dread KOSSETIL as they must dread' every ride-
years. But its essential insecurity becomes obvious 'T pendent man that wields a sword or a pen. Well
whenever its ppoosiution is casually glanced at: and may they tremble at every shadow. And yet
there is no sat point of its over-extended and they are wrong to dread individuals, and

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EITNING, SEPTEMBER 2, 1851.

~eople mean to move Heaven and earth to fetter
down one political Prometheue.likeXossur.n. .For
their exstam of Iteverstuent aeon convert% a whole
Into a tacit bind of conspirators, biding their
'me
tube insurgents, and only biding that opportu-
nity from the certainty, that a fatuitous govern-
ment oannot fell to afford it.
• Hoirever, we may foresee all this in the inevitable.
course of things, we have no wish to interfere,
to foment conspiracies, or keep alive a war of
jealousy with a great 'European power, whatever
the 614 oats misgovernment. Suoh abuses always
cure themselves without foreign intervention;
and if we should hail with pure welcome and
delight the coming of KOSSUTH to our shores it is
with no desire to prompt or aid him to a renewal of
that contest, which for the present epoch has been
decided in the field.

FRANCE.

PARIS, MONDAY ETTNING..

One of Dr. Veron's elaborate articles appears in
the Constitutionnel. He complains of the apparent
indifference of public men in the presence of the
dangers which menace the country. Comparing the
demagogic manifestoes of this year 1851 with the
threats of spoliation and massacre which were daily
published in '92, he finds an exact parallel between
the two years. From this he concludes, that, unless I
some vigorous measures be taken to divert the ten-
dency of events, 1852 will be the precise counterpart
of '93, and that a new reign of terror must then com-
' mence. The only hope for society, as the doctor has
so often taken occasion to say before, rests upon
Louis Napoleon and the prolongation of his powers.
He holds up to censure a cynical mot, which he attri-
butes to M. Thiers—" Soap the plank well ; we
' must keep the President slipping upon it till
1852 ; but soap it well." danger of this
counsel he says is, that society may glide away
after the President down the plank so well soaped.
He claims for Louis Napoleon Bonaparte the merit
of having introduced an innovation in politics,
namely, honesty. Ho advises the President, as a
crowning act of honesty, to complete his mission by
proposing the repeal of the law of the 31st of May.
That law, far from being a rampart, he describes as
a breach, through which the furious populace will
break in. Write, he says, at the head of your poll-
cal code, "every citizen of twenty-one years of age
is an elector," and 1852 will no longer be a ren-
dezvous for a general riot. You will have, at the
worst, to deal with a few bandits revolting against
the law, without concert and without pretext.
The law of the 31st of May is so universally felt
to be a stumbling-block, that, after all efforts to ob-
tain the revision of the constitution shall have been
exhausted, it can scarcely be doubted that the As-
sembly will seriously consider the revision of that
law, which lies within the scope of their own powers.
The misfortune is that anything short of a total
repeal would leave the major part of the opponents
of that law as dissatisfied as they now arc. Even
total repeal would not advance the revision one jot
in the Assembly. It would gain at most the votes
of M. I.amartine and some half-dozen followers.
Towards a modification of the law many of the ma-
jority who admit that its effect has been to disfran-
chise more electors than they had intended,
are well disposed. But the maintenance of
what is called the principle of the law
has become a point of honour with those who have
so often vaunted it as the salvation or the state. It
is reported that M. Dufaure, who, less timid than
Dr. NA:Ton, considers it the only real difficulty of
1852, is preparing a bill for attacking the law indi-
rectly, and so humouring the susceptible pride of the
sticklers for the principle. His plan is to introduce
a new chapter into the civil code, which would then
define the political, as it now does the civil domicile.
If such a new chapter were liberally framed it might
open the polling booths to very large numbers who
are now excluded by the artificial difficulties thrown
in the way of proving their domicile by the law
of May 31.
Thirty-five councils-general have now pronounced
. for revision, but inasmuch as 32 out of the number
have asked for legal revision according to the 1 1 Ith
, article of the constitution, the effect of the movement
is rather to give additional force than otherwise to
, the minority of the Assembly, who they know to
possess the power and the determined will to pre-
. vent the revision from being legally voted. The
, three other councils have voted for revision in a
purely Bonapartist sense, and have studiously
avoided the use of the word legal. These councils
are, those of the Island of Corsica, of Seine and
Marne, of which the minister, M. I.con Faucher, is
i a member, and of the Ilautes-Pyrenees, of which the
minister M. Fould, is a member. Sonic idea

may be formed from this of the extent of the
cheek experienced by the government, who expected an
enthusiastic Bonapartist demonstration. The fol-
lowing form of resolution, composed by the Minister
of
Finance, M. Achille Fould, and voted by the
council of the Hautes-PyrenC:es, may be taken as the
model of what the ministers desired to have, but
have obtained in only three places out of thirty-five :
The council-general, deeply regretting that the proposi-
tion for revision woo not adopted by the National Assem-
bly, urgently repeat the wish previously expressed; sup-
ported more and more by the numerous manifestations
which have been produced in the country in favour of the
total revision of the constitution, and especially of Art. 4.5,
the council-general appeals to the patriotism and to the
energy of the 'National Assembly. The country, if con-
sulted by it, would not be found wanting.
The concluding sentence is suggestive of a dilemma
from which it is difficult to escape.
If the councils-general represent the opinion of the
country, that of the Hautcs-Pyrenees, being in a
minority of 3 out of 3,1, is evidently mistaken in its
estimate of what that opinion is; but, if they do not
represent the opinion of the country, then the whole
movement is of little importance. Whether the
ministers, as a body, are prepared to recommend the
Amembly to substitute for legality that " energy " of
arbilek 11L Fould speaks in his individual capacity se
• councillor-general, is a very anxious question.
In the council-general of the Euro on the 30th of
August, a vote for the total revision of the constitu-
tion being proposed by 21 councillors, amongst
whom were 111%1. de Broglie,Vatimeanii, Suchet d'Al-
bufem, and Lefebvre Durufle, considerable sense-
tion was caused by a vehement protest against
the proposal by M. Dupont (do l'Eure). The vene-
rable president of the provisional government de-
clared that the vote was at once dangerous and ille-
gal; that it was an infringement of the legislative
power, in open violation of the 111th article of the
constitution ; that it was the setting up of a rival
power to the legislature, and an attempt to provoke
the country to fresh revolutions.
The condemned prisoners at Lyons have all decided
to appeal to the Court of Cassation. Supposing
them to fail there, it seems to be, after all, a
doubtful question whether the government can
legally send those under sentence of transportation
to the Marquesas Islands. If the prisoners can
be sent there, it is only by virtue of the law of the
16th of June, 1830. But that law contains a clause,
carried after a warm debate by the small majority of
329 against 31.3, stating that " the present law is
only " applicable to crimes committed subsequently
to its promulgation." Now Gent and his comrades
were arrested in October, 18,50, but the facts consti-
tuting the conspiracy of which they have been found
guilty extend over a period beginning with the
month of May. It is called in the indictment the
conspiracy of May. The legal rule, that penal
clauses arc to be construed strictly Prevails—in
theory. at least—as much in France as in England.
Applying that rule, the law in question, in a case
whcrepartof the crime has been committed before the
law was passed, and part. afterwards, there is ground
to contend that these prisoners are not liable to be
sent to Marquesas. Should they obtain the benefit
of this construction, the legal meaning of the word
transportation in their sentence would be imprison-
ment in France.
The three advocates, among those who threw up
their briefs at the Lyons trial, who belong to the
Lyons bar, have been summoned to appear before
the disciplinary council of the order, on the 3rd at
Sept., to account for their conduct.
It would appear from the following account of m.
ceedings at the Patois de Justice yesterday, that
there is but a small prospect of the grand industrial
&tes which were announced for September coming
off:
Messrs. Place, liorspai, and Ituggieri, projectors of the
"Fats a r Industrie I.7narerselle" by national subscriptions,
contracted some time ago with two persons, named Martin-
ville and Maubert, to employ agents to collect subscriptions
for them ; but not finding the success equal to their antici-
pations, they suddenly put an end to the engagement. Ac-