The Express.
London, England, 1849-03-23 00:00:00

glie OrpreOL

OUTGOING MAILS.
ml was IhrMl North Amino% rad the Unita& States,
will be am& tles waft&
loirrk ors Mara Mks. to the Metbanns/ea, rapt. Aden.
Cellos. lank lifewliasse, Ire., wNbe mode op on the etemisit
IM fithie,b.
_ _

-lititimile der Vigo, Liston, Madeira, Cad* and Gibraltar
old lee mode op ea the ot the Wth Werth.
The iris kr the West Nest oil An sad Madeira will be made
up on the wain( et the Slat of Ilsreh.
The wile for New dootb Wales, Van Diemen% Land, and New
Zabel will be ass an ea the twenty/ of the ilst Womb.
Dm West ladle /Leib. instodbot nenenda. tineauna, Nemo,
Beodeens, New Odom% awl Mateo, sad excluding them lot
Walk% J11.14.441111/11/14. Now Chords, CUL and Peru, will
be WWII so dilazMet the tad of Aped.
lhe maLs Oar sad Bores Ayres, will be made
op tot Use wredgetitie "di or*
Ilts meth ter Mita, the lonian Islands. KUM
Ad.., Oaten. bah Idemolkom add nouthampont, will
be made open thomemingol the Idtb

MOH WATIN AT LONDON MOON.
am Dia' —Nondar. li slah um 1 g Mimosa. MI wille. MMI.
ID-Il••••••—ilankm, IS AM 10111, 1: ILAMMINI. is Mla. ion 2.

LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCH 23.

Ma. Bouvrmin ietroeuces his very unaccountable
amendment on the grverament measure for the re-
peal of the navigation laws this evening. If Mr.
BOUVERIE knew no better we cartel more readily par-
don him. If his teachers before e itering parliament,
his professions upin catering parliament, and his as-
sociati Ise sitce no Las occupied& se at in the house of
tepresentetives, had been other than they have been,
we should the less regret his present course bemuse it
You'd have has surprised us. But all the grounds
en which palitical anticipations can reasonably be
formed must be hell vaheilese, or the hon. member
foe Kiimarnock must be held in the present cue to
have committed waywardly and wantonly a grave,
and, fur his own sake, an important error.
The purport of Mr. BODVERIE's amendment is
th s —to limit the opeiatioa of the proposed fn e
trade in thipk log to our i..tercauree with
such couttries as choose; to make with us
reciprocity treaties or conventions to that effect. At
present France, Russia, Germany, and England oom-
pete—or, at hest, ate said and suppos d by the
argument of the protectionists t be capable of cote-
petiog—with one another in navigation. Free traders+,
of atom Mr. BOUVERIE calls himself one, insist that
it is not good for the ships of any or all of there
countries to return to their respective norms in ballast
instead of with such cargoes as they could, if they were
suffered, obtain. if all wi:l not see their true interest
in this respect, at all events let those who do,
get ril of their absurd restrictions as fast as they can.
The pretretisniets say no; these restrictions ale not
injurious, for, though they appear to be so, they are,
in tact, eesentiel to oar national safety. We cermet
expaiin how very distinctly, but no man who
rev. n noes "the flag that braved a thousand }ears,
the hauls, and the bre, z •," or his any tree feeling
about "the British Lies," and all that sort of thin/,
will agr. e to sweep away the navigation
law.. AU this may be, and we think it ir,
downright nonsense; but it is consistent non-
sense; area this is a free land, in which every man
has politically a right to be a fool it he pleases. But
the honourable member for Kilmarnock is nn
He affect. to be above all these obs3ltte superstitions.
He is a doctrinaire—o' eof tbo wire—and a polit'esl
eemierniet. He avows that restriction are esscetirlly
hunful a.d wrong; yet be would keep them up, us
against his own country, wheeler superior intel-
ligerce spurns and would fain be rid of them,
80 long as end wherever any less enlightened,
leis cnnuorcial, and therefore less deeply interestrd
ratio i cho *e to do 83 too. " We can understand pro-
teeth! ism, an Iwe can understand free trade ; but
the I appy esnfinion of 13)03, that Mr. BOUVERIE set ins
ambit ors to personify, surpasses, we must own, our
humble comprek
Th, re is only one individual in the Home of Com-
mons whom bewilderment on the present on a-ion we
should imagine to be still more complete and distre ss-
ill. And that is Mr. GLADSTONE. He has declared
already that ho agrees with Mr. BOUVERI3: ; and,
therefer., we are bound to presume that he will vote
against him.: Unlike his wouldlia leader in tt is
meter, he tat never fluctuated between the clear ani
the mysified—the pl in speech of matter-of-fait and
the dialeefe self-obscure:qua of a mediaeval sihool-
men. In an ungnordel moment he let fall, it is true,
stmothi: g that would have pinned any other
min to the reciprocity dictrire of shipp;rg.
But that was an inadvertence. lie only
th =t,g'rt it in passing. Either his convictions
changed on the point immediately of or he only
got a peep at them through au male ky chink in the
wordy wall wherewith they are usually environed,
and which it must now be the business of their inde-
fatigable keeper and con.erler to step up with the
first rubbish that may lie at hand.
As for Mr. GLADSTONE voting with Mr. BOt/VERIE
tip n his own principle, the thing is out ef the Tres
lion. Why, anybody could do that. The commonest
leaguer, wing or Peelite, could take up a notion, and
stick to it for a while. Even the poor protectionists,
elways excepting Mr. DISRAELI, who is said to
harbour notions on a very particular question impend-
ing, that will render him a dangerous rival to Mr.
GLALSTONE—but even arty ()Milieu country gentle-
man could say, though indistinctly, what he though+,
and Veen die rutin+ act up to it. But the representa-
tive of Oxibril University is above diatinetheas in
anything. If he ever falls into it, his by a mere
lapses I:ngue ; all flesh is frail, and he must not be
held accountable to a law he repudiates.
We have every confidence that the absurd amend-
ment of Mr. BOUVERIE will prove abortive, but we
have no doubt whatever that Air. GLADSTONE Ow. a it
to his own charre.or for incomprehensibility to vote
against i: becouw we are sure that he agrees with it.

WE see Itee profit or utility in the present day of
phsiding the cave of rational rights of innking
tieatiee' or ss:ablishicg claims to liberty or indeptn-
denet! by the plainest principles of ioterna.ional lace.
That Hungary and Sicily are fully warranted in de-
manding and defending their old constitution by
treaties and laws and coronation oaths, tanctioced
and repeated through centuries, is too manifest to need
th- support of argument. That Italy has a right to
free itself from the German yoke is a troth that no
special pleading of diplomacy can set aside. Genoa
and Venice were free republics in the last century,
robbed of their liberties by treachery and violence.
Austria may plead the treaty of Vienna as her claim
to Venice, whilst she must set aside the same treaty
in her claim to Cracow. The sovere gas of Europe
have in fact made and unmade and crushed treaties,
just as it suited their advantage or caprice, and as
their relative atreng h or weakness might permit.
They have since 1814 bemoeked every law, and
shown their contempt for every treaty and fr every
right.
We do esteem it therefore quite gratuitous, and an
idle, however plausible, expenditure cf argument, to
enter into a comparison of Russian deeds acd Polish
grievances. Tne Times aeserts the divine right of
the Sclavonians and the Crca's to mulct awl decimate
the Lombards. That journal declares that RADETSKI
exercised no penal vindictiveness against the chiefs of
the Fallen insurrection, in only confiscating their pro-
perty ! It condemns the career of CHARLES ALBERT
as the champion of Italian independence, because for-
sooth the house of &may obtained some territory by
treaty last century. Why, who pretet.ds that CHARLES
ALBERT is fighting for the house of SAVOY P He is
the champion of Italian independence against German
despotism and oppression. And the An-tria• s can
never be other than despots and oppressors in Italy.
To narrow such a question to one of princes and dy-
nuties is merely repeating the nonsense of our cowts
of law, and deciding cases of life and death by the
worth of form and quibble. 'the sensible public ought
really to kick aside at the present day this special
pleading of diplomacy, and demand to have plain
questions stated in plain terms.
For these reasons we c 'mot enter, with the anther
of an able pamphlet just published,* into the rights of
the Moldavian and Wallschiers to self-government
and independence, and into the claims founded on
diplomacy and intrigue by the Russians, as usual
with them, to constrain the independence of those
whom they protect, into a mere dependence

•Ds Haulms in Moldavia end Wallee64. Midgwoh 1849.

Mt the commandant of their frontier force.
The rights of lloldavla and Wallachia ar,
stranger than eves those of Hungary. Bat wha•
power rcs,Asetr right in the present day? What
military or despntio government erres one fig for trea-
ties, unless conclunel with a power able to defend
and insist upon them ? If Russia has hitherto re-
@reed the DannWan principal►ties, it has done so,
b•canre not only the moral force of England and
Fiance wombed the Porte in its rights, but b. clue-
Atudzia was also able and ea:tied to hold the same
language.

But The Austrian coat t,repudiated by the Germane,
ee'ranged from i's people, even from the population
of Vienne, beaten by the Hungarians, menaced by the
%slims, and obliged to have recourse to Russia to
man her fortresses, has, in reality, ceased to be a
p twers, except for the purposes of domestic oppression.
The young Emperor himself has aqumel the crown
under Russian auspices, and performs the functions of,
a Russian prefixt. In such a state of things the prin-
cipalities of the Danube are clearly at the mercy and
at the feet of Russia. We may prcdest ; but would
Lord DUDLEY &rerun. have us do more P We think
it would be impolitic and vain. A great struggle is
going on in Europe between the despotic and the
democratic principles. The banners on bath ides
are borne by first-rate powers—by France and
by Prussia on one side, by Rasria and by
Aurtria on the other : the fate of the lesser states and
powr

were will inevitably depend ea the remit of the
stru4e between the great ones, a straggle which we
d.exrib.d the ether Mar as one not nc•esearily of
open war. On the result of that *toggle the fate of
minor states will for some time depend. Notwithstand-
ing the trumpet of war, now sounding in
North Italy, we doubt much the failure
or the might of Italian arms being very
dmisive one way or the other. Brave as are the
Pielcoonte-e, we doubt the conclusiveness of their
guns and bayonets. The Lombard, the Sicilian, the
Danish, tae Hurgtrian was are all ep's Ides and
side-play. And how much stutter they all attract
attention for the moment, we cannot keep our eyes
from turning in another direction to see, what say
the great German peo?lo and the gnat French
ptople to the rights, the f atoms, and the roue-
quences of this great struggle.
It we do not think the G troika knot of the present
difficulty likely to be cut either on the Po or the
Theism, we are still less inclined to consider the ques-
tion of the Danubian princ'paht;el as ail-im-
portant. Russia may occupy these principalities.,
and organise them to her interests and tastes,
cajoling and menacing by turns the government of
Turkey. But any serious advet ca of Itusnia to the
Balkan is at present, we thit.k, not to be feared.
Russian anxiety and efforts are at present turned to-
wares the centre of Europe. The enemies which the
Cz it has to combat are to be found in the German
c our:s, assemblies, and armies. Nor will NICHOLAS
tompllcate that question by any signal provocation of
the maritime powers. If we mistake net, Russia makes
every effort at present to sooth France and England,
and to tranquill se their gorernm. rits in,teud of
arousing and provoking them. Loed PALMERSTON'S
kng oag indeed. bespeaks this. Imre td, then foe, of
joining Lord DUDLEY STUART in his generous and,
perhaps his natural ansielt for D.nuotun indepen-
dence, we rather confine our prayers to the wish that
Pru•s a may be staunch, and the French, true in the
ma ntenance of th se intern sts in which are bound up
the cause of constitutional freedom and of national
independence in Europe.