The Express.
London, England, 1851-02-22 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Idrertireotents intended for" Papua," Lawton ?Awning paper,
mum be at the (Mice, 10, ouu'erte.rtrest, by Two o'clock us the
day of pablicatioa.

111011 WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tea DAr—Horning, ett. 2941. Afternoon, Gk. SI tn.
Ttenoinow—Morning. 74. 14m Afternoon, 7k. 40m.

LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 22.

TILE announcement of Lord JOHN RUSSELL that he
was nut prepared to proceed any further with the
financial measures of the government until Monday
next, and that he could not state whether he would
be then prepared to do so—or until then the reasons
why such an abrupt postponement had been rendered
unavoidable--will create throughout the country, as it
did in parliament, more anxiety than surprise. It
was clear to all intelligent observers of the public
mind that the whig budget was a failure past repair'
and at the meeting of the House of Commons yester-
, day, the only subject of curiosity or discussion was upon
which of it sill-omened features the weight of condemna
tion was first likely to descend. The infatuation of
its rash and shallow author would have led his col-
leagues to inevitable defeat; Lord JOHN'S better
, judgment discerned the true nature of the position,
• and pointed out the only safe and manly course that
could furnish a way of extrication and escape—
! namely, to place the seals of the Exchequer in other
hands. Sir CHARLES WOOD refusing to play the
i part of Josvu, and the crew refusing to fling him
overboard against his will, all thoughts of going into
' action became impossible. And Lord JOHN RUSSELL
resigned.
When commenting upon the tenor of her MA-
JE,TY'S speech on the sth of the present month, we
observed that neither its promises, nor the pro-
gramme which the then ministerial Tinws had
chalked for the session, of doing nothing, save
merely registering the income tax, would suffice.
Our words were :

We may'surdy say that this won't do. Even if it did do
for the present, and that the session was thus got through
with a non-result, the etf'eet upon the country would be a
disgust and a reaction, not like the reaction of '49 and 'so,'
I but resembling and far outstripping the onward carter of
1830 aad 1831. It is said that we are in a "lull ;" in other
words, the tide is full out, and the moment is coming when
it turns. Public opinion is this tide. It has ebbed for the
last three years in a conservative and tabu direction. But
we repeat, it is on the turn; and a government that idly
slumbers or unwisely resists will infallibly be carried
away.
These remarks have been verified in a surprisingly
brief lapse of time. One day the ministry as left in
a minority on an important free trade dnision by
the desertion of several of its staunchest followers ;
the next, it is compelled to make up for the omis-
sion of all mention or promise of progressive re-
form. And, finally, the admission is made that the
budget is too unpopular to be proceeded with.
The unpardonable fault of Sir CHARLES WOOD'S
ill-starred budget was, that it did nothing, led to
nothing, and amounted, in fact, to nothing. It dealt

with a large surplus of revenue only to squander it.
It trifled with the reduction of the national debt in a
manner calculated to render the very idea of gradual
liquidation ludicrous. It failed to amend the income
tax iu any, one particular, and, with no other excuse
than an offhand sic role, it demanded an extension
of its term for three years more. It pretended to
abolish the house tax estimated by the number of
windows, only to substitute another to be
measured by the number of pounds paid in an-
nual rent. It mocked the demands of the agri-
culturists by a species of fiscal badinage ; and,
by way of compensation for the loss of a sub-
stantial profit, secured by a differential duty on the
fruits of the field, offered the farmers an infinitesimal
remission of charge upon clover seed. With long
sentences, in favour of what nobody ventures any
longer openly to dispute, the abstract principle of
free trade—the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (if
such he still be) proved to demonstration his utter
inability to do anything calculated to develope, illus-
trate, or strengthen, the practical working of that
great principle. The universal voice of the public
has pronounced against his scheme of meddling
without settling, and spending without mending. As
an amiable, upright, and diligent man of plain work,
we have no doubt that Sir CibittLx.s might fill with
credit many positions requiring less grasp of intellect
or originality of view. Ilut in the department of
finance, the country has unmistakably said—". Never
more be officer of mine."

What then? Does the existence of a ministry
that has survived domestic calamities almost un-
paralleled, and surrounding convulsions wholly with-
out example, depend upon the official adherence
of one minor man ? Or is the cuunby disposed
to suffir an entire change in its policy, because
the member for Halifax has committed a comical
and somewhat coxcombical concatenation of blunders ?
There is not surely such a dearth of available ability
and experience in parliament as to render it u matter'
of any great difficulty to supply his place, or that of!
others whose exodus from office would excite still
kss of symputhy. It will be vain for Lord JOHN
to endeavour to persuade the world that his cabinet
could not spare such men us HOLIHOCSE, MINTO, or
WOOD; and if the administration is broken up, nu
other reason being assigned than their disagreement
as to the selection of successors to personages of this
stamp, the public will be driven to seek for a solution
of the riddle in other causes and deeper influences.
Had the whigs been dekated on any question of
policy on which they could resign with honour, and
defy their adversaries with confidence to appeal to
the sense of the country by a dissolution, their posi-
tion would be one of present popularity and of future
power. But to break down through mere inherent
weakness, would indeed give the tory party a fair
chance not of gaining office merely, but of keeping it.
Rumour, as is her wont on such occasions, is busy
with the names of some who might, and many who
could not, enter with credit to themselves and ad-
vantage to the public, into combination with those
among the whip who are likely to retain office.
Wheu the significant phrase, "We must close our
tanks," fell from the lips of Sir his GRAHAM in a
recent debate, the thought suggested itself to the
mind of every thinking man—how comes it that he
who himself seems to have caught, if any one has,
the mantle of l'Em—should so long have been left to
tight us a volunteer in defence of a field he aided so
powerfully to win ? It may, indeed, be true that
the member for Ripon entertains opinions upon
certain points at variance with those on which the
government have recently been acting. But if these
dissentient views are in harmony with the calm
judgment of the nation, it might be no unimportant
service to the whigs as a party, as well as to the
country at large, if Sir JAMES Gnaltan's joining the
admiinstrution proved the cause and the occasion of
a change of measures. No additional strength
which he or Isis friends could bring with them,
either in point of administrative talent or numbers
in a division, could do so much to retrieve the
damaged position of the whigs as the infusion into
their counsels of a more resolute and heartily
popular spirit.

TnE great question which totems to be awakened
by the new bill against l'apal aggression seems really
• I
to be, whether England and Ireland are two or one:
I t and, in either case, how fur they are dissimilar, how
,; tar identical. Nor is the Assumption of Titles Bill
the only political event or legislative measure that
t starts up us an interrogatory to ask this question.
The income tax also forces on the House of Commons
the same consideration ; and people well ask how fur
• England and Ireland are fiscally as well as reli-
giously connected.
; ' With respect to the religions question, it is im-
• !possible to deny that the existence of a majority in
uny country in favour of uny opinion is the strongest
of all claims fur paying respect to that opinion. The
.• great majority of the Irish are Roman catholic's, and
if Ireland be considered apart, their claim to respect,
;, and none than respect, is powerful and just. But
; i merge the Irish in the United Kingdom, and the
Roman catholics of Ireland become a minority, over
i! which the rights of conquest have been exercised
and those of supremacy maintained.
; All these are ungracious, impolitic, and dangerous
m. considerations, and, could we banish them by an
i edict, gladly would we welcome it. But history in-
tercedes; nor can the events of the imat, no more
• than the facts of the present, be ignored. The state,
of the law and the preponderance of sects were be-!
queuthed to us by our ancestors, who wrought and
legislated according to the necessities of the times.
We have legislated towards the removal of injustice
and the remedy of wrong ; and future history
will not say that, either in religion or po-
lities, the British legislation of the middle of the
19th century was an oppressive one. With regard:
to religion, history will give our leading statesmen
the credit of having taken a liberal and a tolerant
path ; one that naturally and inevitably led to the
removal of all disabilities and all yokes. The
greatest of all boons that can be given in a free com-
munity is the admission of a sect to the popular
share of sovereignty, that is to the elective franchise
itself, and to the right of being elected. Once
the Roman catholics were admitted to that,
they were admitted to a share of sovereignty,
and to a share of political influence propor-
tionate with their number. Admit any sect to
the great platform of political power, and you
admit them to all the rights of a majority whenever
they can obtain it. By the Act of Emancipation the
protestants of this empire put generously into the
hands of the Roman eatholics the weapons which can
procure all that man can claim. And had the Ro-
man catholics trusted to this we should have had no
ill-blood, no controversy, no recurrence to the feelings
of antagonism, and the manoeuvres of warfare.
The PorE, however, and his Austrian counsellor,
and that rare agent of both who would set
the world on flume for the sake of wear-
ing red stockings, has struck altogether out
of that fair, constitutional and liberal path, which
parliament had opened. Statutes had secured
for the Anglican church the endowments, the dignities,
the parliamentary rank, which combats in the field of
war and of intellect, in the council chamber and the
public mind, during two centuries, had won for it.
What the POPE has attempted to do is simply to rub
out the events and results of these two centuries of
our history by a stroke of his pen. Aroused by such
arrogance, alarmed by the absurd extremes to
which it further led, the protestant bristles up, re-
demands a supremacy which it had almost renounced,
robes itself once more in a dignity it had thrown
aside, and meets unwarranted insolence by a legal
assumption of pride. If titles and dignities mean
any thing, if a style that implies territorial and
national jurisdiction, be the right of any clergy in
this country, they are decidedly the right of that re-
ligion on which history and events, the great union
of law, circumstances, and public opinion, have be-
stowed them ; for not only a diminished sect, but a I
foreign power in the name of that sect, to clothe
as emissary with lofty dignity, and send
him here as a religious proconsul, set aside
and slight our laws, habits, institutions, and oven
facts, was undoubtedly one of the greatest insults ever
offered to a country. Nor could this insult have
been visited with less severity and more of the lex'
talionis than by a law annulling their assumption
and proscribing their dignities.
Whether the present law be strong or comprehen-
sive enough to meet papal and synodical aggression
is a question which need not be discussed, as the
minister declares that the bill does not preclude fur-
ther legislation if required. But as far as tho bill

goes, and as far as England is concerned, it is
impossible to consider it as intolerant or uncalled-for.
The only doubt exists as to Ireland, where, as wo
before obsCrved, Roman catholicism is the religion of
the majority, and where, in corsequence, its prelates
were allowed every latitude of authority and respect.
They could, however, only claim this as a religious
majority}-, and consequently in Ireland exclusively.,
not in England. But Dr. IVISEMAN and his papal
' supporters have not brought forward their assump-
tious on this ground. They do not distinguish
Ireland from England, or chum dignity us repro.
seating the majority in the one island. They claim
still greater dignity in England than in Ireland,
evidently prizing as naught the claim of the majo-
city, but putting forward instead the old infallible
humbug of traditional descent from the apostles, and
the consistency of having scouted COMMOU sense and
proscribed common liberty in all ages.
It is thus not the English government that has
assimilated England and Ireland, but WISEMAN and
the POPE. The English government did distinguish
England and Ireland, by evidently allowing
even territorial titles and precedence to Roman
catholic prelates in Ireland, as the religion of
the majority, but denying theta in England. Tho
Runtish missionaries and legates, however, in their
rescript, admit of no such ditJet'enee. They claim to
be supreme in ecclesiastical dignity over Westmin-
ster, quite as much as over Dublin. And we do
think, therefore, that, as the purpose is to rebut
these pretensions, the present bill has been logically
even if not prudently, extended to Ireland. plow far
or how vigorously it was meant to be executed in
Ireland, is another question. For ministers would,
nodoubt, have gladly restored that old amicable under-
standing which previously prevailed, and which tho
sanity of WISEMAN, acting on the ignorance of tho
Papal court, has disturbed. Hut assert less authority
than is done by the bill government and parliament
scarcely could.

We have-
tern anxious all along to make a distinc-
tion between England and Ireland; and we shall bo
ready always to abet a very different settlement
and consideration of questions affecting the pro-
testant and Roman catholic churches in the
two countries. But the pending bill does
not strike us as penal. It does not appear to us at
all calculated to interfere with the legitimate action
or organisation of the Itotuan catholic church. If it
is equally applicable to England and to Ireland, that
is the fault, not of Lord Jonx Russm.t., whose go.
comment evidently did make a difference in adnu-
nistering the two cotuttries—it is the faultof Cardinal
WISE MAN.