The Express.
London, England, 1849-08-14 00:00:00

gilt lur Preg4o.

OUTGOING MAILS.

Bias far British North America and the tfaited States
will be made up on the evening of August 17.
The West India Mails, excludible Bermuda, Ilmanta,
Nassau, Honduras, New Orleans, and Mexic,, and techigiu
those for Madeira, St. Juayde-Nicaragus, New Graxag
Chili, and Peru, will be made up on August 17.
The mails for Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, Madeira, Culls, sad
Gibraltar, will be made up on August 17.
The mails for Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, the lonian Islands,
Egtpt, Ceylon, India, and China, via Southampton, will
be made up on the morning of the 20th of August.
The mails, via Marseilles, to the Mediterranean, Egypt,
Ceylon, India, Hung-Hong, Re., will be mad. up en
August 24.
The mails fer Madeirs, the Brazils, and Buenos Ayres,
will be made up on Sept. 4.

MGR WATER AT LONDON
Ts up D4:—Verdes, 4T 0.10. pm 0, After mana, P. 011 n. put in,
7•4llmalor—ltoralag, 0 win. put II; A/tem.:lo,U nil. put it.

LONDON, TUESDAY, AUGUST, 14, 1849.

Thum is an impottaut truth enunciated in the re.
pert submitted bust night by the Counel of the Per.
liatnentatyatd Refnm Avociation to the first aggro.
gs'e meeting of the members. It is that their
pr.nciples are of a " preservative nature."
No constitution—no plan f goverumeut can confer
power. It can at moot declare who are the possessors
of power, and in what manner they are to exercise
it. A monarchical constitution could not creates

monarchy in the United Ststee, where there le nom-
dividual possened of aufficient power to exerc'he the
kingly office; a republ•can constitution would be
equally unreal in Rani', where all but the emperor
and his eivil and military deprndents are politically
powerless. To impart teelity to a paper or
parchment constitution, the parties recognised in it
as the depositaries of politioal power, must exist tefon
and independent of it.
What constitutes political power? Intelligente
and property. Wherever in any society its intelli-
gence sad property is concentrated there will its
political power be found to reside. If one individual
and his eatrsps have drawn to themselves all the pro-
pert, of the state, and if they are superior in point of
intelligence to thetrest of the commnni'y, their power
is unaessilable. If a numerous hereditary and
hierarchical aristocracy possess the greater part of
the community's wealth and intelligence the govern-
ment will texain in their band,. It' wealth all in.

tellience are mote or lees equally diffused through.
out society ivatttutions more or km democratical are
inevitab'o.

It is superior intelligence that ensbles men toss.
same the direction of publicaffairs. It is the opinion

of their superior iutelligencr, spread this*
society, that predisposes the messes to acquiesce in
i their management. It s the possession of accords-
lated property that enables them to procrastinate say
struggle ler ascendancy, and starve out their entrain.
Hence it comes that in every community there is
predisposition, a peculiar fitto es, fur one or other
framework of government. The more a country id.
veneer; in civilisation—the greater amount of intehi.
gene it acquires—the more that intell'uence booms
uiffused. With the increase of individual intelligence
comes increased regulated self-exertion, increteed
eonscioustess if the individual's worth and import-
ance, a wider diffusion of property through many
hands. And this chiracterieric of civilisation brings
along with it aspirations after extended popular pri-
vileges.
All popular commotione have their ultimate source
in a defective arrangement of the balance between the
real political power, which exists prior to and in-
dependent of any constitution, and the conventional
power recognised by the political conetitutioo of a
country. When the real power in a community exists
in a different, or in a more numerous, class than that
to which the constitution attributes it, the reties
debarred from thu direct and ostensible exerc.sa of a
power which they feel existent in them naturally grow
discontented and give vent to their discontent in re-
fractoriness. When this is the case there is only one
method of restoring tranquillity, and that is so to
modify the national institutions, as to make real sad
conventionally recognised power coincide.
We have said that the council of the Reform
Association, in declaring that their efforts are
lot a " preservative nature," have enunciated
a great truth; and we said so, because we are
convinced that among the classes re cogitised
in this country as exercising political power,
there is one which lays claim to a greater share of it
than it really possesses, and that beyond the limits of
these classes ti ere are some possessed of a power, the
existence of which the constitution does not recognise
at all. The landa aristocracy cr.stitute exclusively
one house of the legislature, and their influence mtarns a majority of the member+ to the other home.
Yet this seemingly so powerful eriatccracy has, within
the last twenty years, been once and again
shamefully beaten and baffled by a power out of
doors, of which it would fain deny the exigence.
Again, there are very few amorg the operative
classes who possess the right of suffrage, yet mid
the deferential respect which in all discussions of the
legislature is paid to these uner franchised—the car'
stant, and,toooften,unavailingendeavours toscotheand
propitiate them. Tnere are many possessors of poll.
tical power in this country who are inadequately
represented in the legislature, and many who are not
represented at all. The aggregate intelligence and
the aggregate property of the middle end lower
climes enable them to exereire an influence mom
potential over the government and the h gialatare of
the country than the forms of the constitution would
lead us to believe. And out of this serara'ion of real
from ostensible power have arisen many panics, sad
will arise worse consequences, unless a timeous modi-
fication of the constitution prevent them.
The financial and pad:me ntary reformers ere the
true conservative party: they would conserve peace,
and order, and the supremacy of law. Hence it was
with unfeigned delight that we witnessed lest night's
manifestation in Drury-lane Theatre. About tow
thousand persons were there assembled, whom intel-
ligent countenances bespoke their enlightenment,
whose general appearance declared them either pm
season of property cr those whose habits of rep-
lated steady labour are in themselves a kind
of property. At the beginning of the evening's
proceedings the apparent prevailing sentiment was
not that of enthusiasm, but of what in Englishmen is
will more impressive. Every man, it was (Anjou
came with ready formed opinions to testify by his
presence hie devotion to them. There was the ties
quil stillness of long cherished resolve. But as the
night wore on, and as speaker after speaker appealed
to their sympathies, livelier emotions began to pre-
vail, and to express themselves with more of energf
and abandon. And at the close there was as mark
warmth of enthusiasm as they who rely upon the
effervescent slate of mind could desire. The meeting
was emphatically a manifestation of high intelligent
and rooted determination.
The report approved of by the meeting emhodim
practical scheme of parliamentary reform, and indi•
cites a system of operations by perseverance in which
that scheme may be realised. The meeting wee the
final result of preliminary district discussions, held in
Lambeth, Finsbury, Marylebone, Tower Ramie%
Greener:eh, Southwark, and West London. The
temper of the Metropolis has been thoroughly tried,
its decision fairly ascertained. And last night the
Metropolitan Association, encouraged by matures
invitations from the provinces, deliberately &caged
its objects and organisation to bo national.
The good work is fairly begun. The movement
which is to terminate in makiug those who at the
present stage of our civilization see the real holden's(
political power its avowed holders, has begun. lid"
long the contest is to laid will depend entirely 114
the amount of energy, earnerenees, at d sourel jedf,
meat that shall animate and regulate the councils d
those who direct the movement.

GENERALS at the close of a campaign Boa PI"
liamentary It adere at the end of a eessios, gle
accustomed to is,ue allocutions to their follool,
monitory, laudatory, and exhortatory. Mr. Dotaft_2l.
who never win do any thing like any body &se,
init'"
of publishing such an address, has given to the ,r°
a fifth edition of " Couingsby." Ile republish°
what he raid
hem
his party five years ago, resod tikes
care to tell therh in a preface that hid , pinion of tbr!!
is unaltered. The luckloes °hied. of Mr. Dl4ttEtJ,
envenomed sarcasm in " Conirgeby," it via b!re",
membered, are " the N Reel( ad hitt ikierd, wb?Feltb:
comprehended his [Sir nolsEitt PEELS] patUoar,`
that of their courtry."