The Express.
London, England, 1853-12-21 00:00:00

FRANCE.

PARIS. MONDAY EVININO.
We are to-day without any important addition
to our news from the East. People are discussing
the chances that the Sultan and his ministers will
accept the project devised at Vienna. The DThuts
of this day publishes the instructions to the ambas-
sadors of the Four Powers. It cannot be said that
this last document has raised the few hopes of a
pacific and honourable settlement which were pre-
viously entertained. The Powers do not promise to
constrain Russia to accept fair propositions, nor does
it appear that the four cabinets are agreed in their
opinion of what might be considered such.
The question whether and how far the retirement
of Lord Palmerston will affect the entente between
the French and English governments forms to-day
the subject of an article in the Pays. The writer
begins by remarking, whatever has been the motive
of the retirement of Lord Palmerston, the circum-
stances, in the midst of which it takes place, give it
a bearing and acharacter much more important. In
such a moment, when the eastern question touches
its most decisive period, when the mediating powers
are uniting in a supreme effort of conciliation, public
opinion can with difficulty accept the idea that a man
so considerable as Lord Palmerston should abandon his
share of influence and responsibility in the direction of
public affairs and in foreign policy for a simple differ-
ence of opinion on *question of parliamentaryreform.
He then proceeds to ask—Does the retirement of
Lord Palmerston mark a new phasis in the policy of
the English government? Whatever may be the
motive of it, will it modify the conduct of the British
cabinet Can the situation of Eastern affairs be
modified or compromised ? And his answer to these
questions is the following:

We have never dissimulated the sincere and devoted ad-
miration which we entertain for the character and the great
political qualities of the former chief of the Foreign Office.
The sympathies of Lord Palmerston for France and for
the government which directs her destinies were on his
part highly avowed. In our conviction the presence of
Lord Palmerston in the English cabinet has facilitated
between England and France an alliance which is at
present the moat powerful guarantee of the peace of the
world, end of the independence of states. With his old
experience, Lord Palmerston, from the first, understood
that, when the two great Western powers should be sin-
cerely united, Europe would have nothing to fear from the
violence of private ambitions, or the enterprises of the re-
volutionay spirit, and that they would always form an
efficacious counterpoise to any force which should pace so-
cial order or the European equilibrium in peril. In this
point of view Lord Palmerton may claim an eminent share
in the resolutions which have cemented the union of France
and England, and have made them the most energetic ob-
stacle to pretensions which menaced Europe in the Otto-
man empire. But this union, let us hasten to say, is much
more in the nature of things, in the logic of situations, end
in the predominating authority of interests than in men.
Personal sympathies may have rendered it more
easy and more sincere; but they did not create
it, and still less have they been able to change
' the character of it. Engiand and France are now what
they were yesterday; their will, their interests, their
action remain the same, for the basis of them is the respect
of treaties, the object of them is the defence of an ally un-
justly attacked, and the maintenance of the peace of
Europe, and the guarantee of them is a mutual sympathy
which has been strengthened by new and frank relations.
No doubt there were divers elements in the British cabinet;
all its members were not perhaps completely in accord as
to the means to be employed to solve the Eastern question.
But we believe we may affirm that, if there have been dif-
ferences of opinion in the British cabinet as to the employ-
ment of the most efficacious means, there has never been
any as to the object which it was desired to maintain
in accord with the French government. England has
hesitated as to the necessity of guarexteeinft to
the end the free sovereignty 'and the integrity of Tut.-
, key, of opposing the encroachments of Russia, and of
thereby defending the sacred cause of European right.
The retirement of the Minister of the Interior cannot
then change this policy, with which reason and justice
inspired England from the first, and which has become
that of Europe herself. Assuredly no one regrets more
than we do the resolution of Lord Palmerton ; his experi-
ence might still have been of great utility in the delicate
condition in which Europe is placed. But that this
event can serious y affect the relations established be-
tween the great European States, and lead to a modifi-
cation in the unanimity of their views, is what appears
to us neither logical nor probable, and is evidently dis-
proved by the rights, interests, and conduct of all the
mediating powers.

Under the head of "Des Petits Prophkee de la
Deesse Raison," there is an article of nearly four
columns, from the pen of M. Grapier de Cassagnac,
in the Constitutiunnel. It eonsiAs for the greater

part of an euloginm on the present government, and
a satire upon the doctrines and theories of the philo-
sophising politicians who oppose it. The article is
well written, but it will not excite much interest at
a moment when public attention is absorbed by the
great and stirring question of the East.
The Bourse was heavy to-day, with little business
doing. The Three per Cents. opened at 74f. 80c., but
on a report that the English ministry had resigned
en naasse, they fell to 74f. 60c. They closed at
74f. 70c. for the end of the month. The Four-and-
s-Half per Cents, closed at 101 f. 10c. ; Orleans Rail-
way shares, I,lBBf. 75c.; Rouen, 1,060 f.; Havre,
500 f. ; Great Northern, 8821. 50c.; Paris and
Strasburg, 832 f. 50e. ; Paris and Lyons, 9201. ; Lyons
to the Mediterranean, 782 f. 50c.; Great Western,
696 f. 23c.; Bordeaux and Cette, 6281. 75e.; Great
Central, 520 f.; Lyons and Geneva, 5201.; Shares of
the Bank of Credit Mobilier, 760 f.

FALL FROM BVlLDlNGS.—Yeaterday Mr. Payne
held an inquest at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, on the body
of James Hubner, a bricklayer, aged 21, who had been
killed by a fall :Tom a building in New-street-square, whilst
he was fixing a chimney-,14. His master, Mr. Clarke, of
Gough•square, deposed that be had asked him whether he
thought it would be safe to attempt the job without an u•
siatant, and he replied that he thought it would. Mr.
Wood, foreman of bricklayers at a building opposite, saw
the accident, and considered it not only rash in the de-
ceased to attempt such a job, but exceedingly imprudent in
any master to permit a workman to go out on a roof in such
weather without an assistant. He would not have done so
in fine weather ; indeed, there ought to have been two or
three men to such a job. The Coroner addressed the jury
at some length on the imprudence of Mr. Clarke, in not
exercising the authority of a muter to compel the deceased
to have an assistant. The jury returned a verdict of" Ac-
cidental death," and several expressed a wish that Mr.
Clarke should be admonished. That gentleman was called
in, and was cautioned in strong terms by the coroner.
A LIBERAL GlFT.—Thirteen inhabitants of Here-
ford have subscribed the donation of 720 tons of coal for the
poor of that city.