The Express.
London, England, 1848-06-06 00:00:00

which his lordship spoke of Sir H. BULWEB, of
the Spanish minister, of his own intention, and
general policy towards Spain, was well received, and
showed that in questions of foreign policy there was
no very severe difference between parties. If Mr.
DISRAELI in the latter part of his speech drew down
equal applause to contrary assertions, it was that
the house was more delighted with the malice than
touched by the truth of what he said. We have not
time at present to allude to the speech of Sir ROBERT
PEEL, who, as usual, was half and half, nor of Lord
PALMERSTON, who closed the debate. The result, as
might have been anticipated, was the withdrawal of
Mr. BANKES'S SeRSIIIIL

MR. Stirrif O'BRIRN has seized upon the circum-
stances of Mr. MITCHEL'S conviction to cast off the
penitentiary robe, with the black patch over his eye,
which he has worn since his discomfiture in his native,
city. The opportunity for him was certainly too
good to be lost. And he has mide the most of it
to come forth once more as a hero. The worst of a
state of feeling, such as that which pervades the Irish
at present, is that a man to put himself in front of
that feeling, and to run the risk of being its victim,
for the sake of being its idol, will never be wanting.
MITCHEL dethroned Mr. JOHN O'CONNELL, and Mr.
SMITH O'BRIEN now steps to the foremost rank ;

w--_ ---
1..`n0 avulse, nom deficit alter.
Mr. SMITH O'BRIEN, in the name of the confede-
ration, declared that he does not identify himself with
Mr. IklyrcnEes opinions. We cannot descry in what
the member for Limerick dissents from them. He is
for physical force. He exhorts the Irish, by the at-
tachment they bear to their homes and by their regard
for their children, to lay up materials for civil war,
and to go on their beaded Icrese to invoke a blessing
on the deed of blood, Mr. SMITH O'BUIEN shames
that he and the confederation prevented an insurreo-
tion, which was to have taken place tor the rescue of
Mr. MITCHEL, his sole reason for doing so being its
_ ...

small probability of success.
We really can see no difference in this manifesto of
Mr. SMITH O'BRIEN and those for which Mr.
MITCHEL has been sentenced, except that they are
marked by a little more taste and much less courage.
Mr. O'BRIEN'S Exhortations arc quite as sanguinary,
quite as provocative of a war of race. In the same
spirit of blind frenzy, they commit a question of
right to be decided by an award of migh'. And in this
Mr. Ssetru °Titles preaches the self-same doctrines
as the Orangeman, the absolutist, and that school of
politics now so prevalent, which puts exclusive faith
m the military and the police.
We were the first to condemn and the loudest to
reprobate the composition of the jury which tried
Mr. MITCHEL. It was indispensable, in order to the
good effect of such a sentence—that is, its deterring
the froward without irritating the well-disposed—that
the sentence should have been passed with more than
the ordinary conditions of fairness. Front the mani-
pulation of the jury, but half the end has been
attained. Joust MITCUEL has gone less as a victim
than a martyr • and thousands of the susceptible and
oscillating Irish who opposed the incendiary have
been brought to commiserate the felon.
We cannot say, that we are more satisfied with the
new law and its working, now that it has for the
first time come into operation. It has been for
well nigh a century the good fortune of England to
find its sole disaffected or treasonable persons in the
inferior grades of society. It has therefore
been able, we think unjustly, to apply to them
the same punishment as that which awaits the
meanest robber. This has never been the
custom of any, even the most despotic country.
In Austria, in France, and elsewhere, the
politically condemned always form a class apart, se-
verely treated no doubt, but never visited with peines
infantantes. This is justice. And we cannot bat
think our own system of confounding the traitor with
the murderer, and the seditious writer Stith the bur-
glar, one of the most gross perversions of justice. It
is one, moreover, which der, ats its own end. For it
infallibly excites sympathy even for the mo-t inexcus-
able offender, like MITCHEL, and marks the sentence,
as not that of justice, but of a vindictive government.
Deep as is our indignation on perusing the sufferings
of Sthvto PELLICO, how much would the feeling be
increased, had the suffering man of letters and taste
been handcuffed with ruffians and set to work with
galley-slaves?
It as impossible to deny that Repeal is a difficult
antagonist to deal with, and that the government in
Ireland had but the choice of perishing in weakness,
or of putting forth strength in coercion. Still, every one
admits, that the physical force party in Ireland form
a contemptible minority, and that the way to keep
them so, and thus render them powerless, is to employ
no mode of repressing them which could have
the effect of irritating and Hinging over to them the
lsrge class of moral force repealer', who are not irre-
claimable by just treatment, by fair and successful

government. -
This large and intelligent clam of Irish repealer!
do not think even repeal worth a civil war. They
cannot but see, too, that the whole body of
the Ilish people, if bent upon one put-
pee, and striving towards it, persevering, without
pike, arms, or even threats, must in the end throw
such a mountaiu of embarrassment in the way of
England, that their desires must be granted. These
are the truly formidable repealers, and compared with
them MITCHEL and O'BRIEN are but mischievous
schoolboys. But these schoolboys must be whipped
and chastised in such a way as not to offend the sus-
ceptibility and the sense of justice of their more
rational countrymen.
The government of Ireland is not a work of ven-
geance or of war, as the big blundering Times would
have it; it is simply an affair of tact.

GERMANY.

PRUSSIA.—Our Cologne correspondent writes

follows:

COLOGNE, JUNE 4.

The excitement in Berlin is still on the iricrea;c. Tens
thousands of individuals, principally belonging to the work-
ing classes, thronged the public thoroughfares on the 2nd of
June, and loudly demanded the general arming of the people
as well as the occupation of the arsenal by the eivc guard.
It is asserted here, in well informed circles, that the g.)vern.
meat, to appease the operatives, has promised to give a gun
to every one amongst them who can produce a cert ficate
from the authorities of his district respecting his right to ha
domiciled in Berlin. The people are exasperated by the re-
port that several students, who followed a boat laden with
fire-arms, were arrested in Charlottenburg, and grossly
treated. General Von Aschoff, commander in.chief of the
civic guard, has resigned, in consequence of that body having
declared that he had lost their confidence. All the
clubs have resolved to go in procession en Widt-Sunday to
Friedricha•Hain, where, it will be remembered, those -,,ersons
were buried who fell during the Berlin revolution, in MArch
last. It is clear, from public and price's accounts which
have reached this city, that Berlin is in an alarming xi t.te.
It appears by the reasisehe Zeitung that the town of
Posen is placed in a semi-state of siege. All the Ewes are
closed at 9 ~ and no one after that hour is allow,: 1 to
pars through them until five the next morning. Orders have
been received at Grandeur to place the fortress there imme-
diately in a state of defence. It is believed that this measure
has reference to soma threatening movements on the p at of
the Russians.
The greatest a-tivity also rrevails atWesel, in nuttinv that
town and the adjacrits. Rhine Island in a complete s'.ite of
defence. On the lot instant all persons ,n the We, : dis-
trict who serve I in the army from the year 1816 to 1330
were called out again, in order, it is said, to form a reserve
battalion of landwehr.
The free traders of Stettin have forwarded an address to
the constituent assembly at Frankfort, in favour of a common
lint of customs for all Germany, and the greatest possible
Ireduction of all import and export duties on manufactured
articles and raw materials.
The Nene Rheinisehe Zeitung (an ably conducted paper
just established in Cologne) severe:yew:mires the government
for having ordered several companies of the tat Artillery
Brigade, and other troops, to quit Konigsburg and Pillan
for the Rhine province, and contends that it is far more ne-
cessary to have an imposing force on the Prusso.Ruaisa
frontiers (where real danger exists) than on the Germano-
French ones, where no foe is making military preparations.
AUSTRIA.—VIENNA.—The Wiener Zeitan•/ of
31st of May contains an official statement of the re-
venue and expenditure for the month of April, 1848,
and also for the half year ending 30th April, 1848.
During the month of April last the receipts were
6,756,194 florins; the expenditure amounted to
10,267,474, leasing a deficit of 3,511,280 florists. The
receipts during the half year ending 30th of April,
1848, were 71,123,882 florins ; the expenditure was
78,868,549, leaving a deficit of 7,744,6 6. In addi-
tion to the above half-year's income, 11,908,100
florins were raised by extraordinary loans, but the
expenditure for extraordinary purposes amounted to
16,204,182, leaving an additional defier. of' 4,296,082
florins. The outlay incurred during April last, on ac-
count of Hungary and the Lombardo-Venetian pro-
vinces, was 4,900,000, and no revenue was remitted
from either.
By the 29th ult. the shops were all re-opened, and