The Express.
London, England, 1853-04-30 00:00:00

TO CORRI3SPONDENT3.

4 Noma lattices ef " The Esproce." &attaining the runs erenioes
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tar poet.
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HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Isis Day Cs. 54. .AfterLoon. 31m.
I.o.ll:ll3bew—lavrninl{, ha. 'Jr.. !durum,. S 34w.

LONDON, SATCRDAY, APRIL 30.

Tin debate on the Budget last night in the House
of Commons was languid enough, and any wronger,
unversed in Parliamentary tactics, after looking on
the empty benches and listening to the comparatively
unimportant ape eches which occupied the earlier por-
tion of the evening, might have been led to think that
the House was maiflerent as to the result. Not
so. The Budget was, and is still, the touchstone of
the Ministry and of their strength, and upon its
fate depends the solution of the problem whether we
are to go on with the present Parliament, or to see
the summoning of a new one. Nobody feels this
more than the members of the Lower House, not-
withstanding the languid look of their proceedings
last evening. The truth is that the Commons are
only on their mettle when there is to be real
fighting, or when a division is nigh; and
lost night, it was clear, neither the one nor the
other was on the cards. The real struggle of the
hour was in the Lords, where the Jew Bill was in
debate; and where it was clear that bigotry and
prejudice were mustered in great force. Parliament
is not strong enough to bear two excitements at once.
It cannot be lively in two Houses at the same time ;
and hence, whilst the flag of the iutolemnta was
raised on the Tory benches of the Peers, the Budget
discussion was allowed to drag its weary length along
under the discouragement. of empty benches and a
drowsy auditory.
Up to last night the friends of toleration confidently
hoped the day bad come when we might be permitted
to set at rest this question of the Civil Disabili-
ties of the Jews. They expected to find the strong-
hold of English prtjudices, the House of Peers,
content to be guided by the general feeling of the
nation,—that no man should suffer persecution on
account of his creed. We have permitted Ito-
monists, Quakers, Sceptics, and Jews to vote in tho
election of members of Parliament ; we permit them
to occupy posts of honour and emolument in the
State; and yet whilst permitting the first three see-
tiohs of the un-orthodox to enter Parliament,
we exclude the fourth. Tolerant to other
creeds, we still adhere to intolerance on this one
point, thus made all the more discreditable by
its being the exception to a wise and lenient rule.
Even Lord ABERDEEN has declared his conver-
sion from the old belief that Jews should be ex-
cluded from Parliament, and points to the fact that our
colonies have in this case shown us an example of
liberality. Canada and Jamaica exclude no man on
account of his creed from their Assemblies. Are we,
then, to be put to shame once more by America? Surely
the voters are the people to decide who is the best re-
presentative of the public interest, and they having
settled the question it becomes a double sin against
freedom for the House of Lords to say that
if such an elected representative be of a creed not
acceptable to tho aristocracy he shall be excluded
from the house of Commons. It is stepping again
between the elector and the elected—it is adding
another to the intrusions by which the Upper Houseof
Landlords,—in spite of coustitutionsl theories to the
contrary,—help to pack the Lower Chamber. Arch-
bishop WHATELY threw some new light on the discus-
sion last night. He brought his powerful logic and his
liberal mind to influence the decision of the Peers. He
showed how irrational, as well as illiberal, the course
of the Lords has been in their treatment of this
question of civil disabilities,—but in vain. The
public, who thought the House of Peers open to
conversion, were wrong. They will not, after all,
be tolerant. They still persist in clinging to the old
plans of persecution, as they did in the days of
C4EUR DE LION, and, if they cannot draw the teeth of
Isaacs of York, will at least visit his brethren in
our time with as much persecution as the laws
of 1833 permit. Romanists, Sceptics, Quakers, may
all be seated in Parliament if constituencies consent
to send them there. The Ultramontanist,who believes
in the POPE ; the Unitarian who doubts the Trinity ;
the Sceptic who suspects everything, may be chosen,
and may serve in the House of Commons. But in-
tolerance still clings with doable fondness to the one
rag of the old banner of bigotry which it has been
able to preserve, even to these our better and more
truly Christian times. The bigots are still able to keep
one favourite object of political hatred and personal
aversion. They must spit on somebody, and for
that purpose they determine to keep the English Jews
in civil bondage. And we are not alone as a nation
in this intolerance. Even Prussia has its haters of the
men who abide by the faith of their fathers of the
days of MOSES ; but there, as here, the more enlight-
ened citizens cry shame upon the istolerants,
just as in England, we see men of undoubted patriot-
ism, unblemished honour, and literary and scientific
eminence, array themselves on . the side of
an oppressed minority, so in Prussia amongst
those Germans who pray the removal of mill
disabilities on points of faith, we see high up
upon the list the name of the veteran philosopher
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. With him, as with
those in England who have most consistently urged
this act of justice upon Parliament, the eman-
cipation of the Jews has been a cause adopted, and
persisted in, from simple faith in the justice, the
wisdom, and the policy of extending to the fullest
degree the principle of civil and religious liberty.
To put a brand of inferiority. on one sect, merely on
account of its religious faith, is to stamp disgrace on
all the rest ;—a truth that may be written 'by those
who have no affection for Jews, but who love complete
religious freedom.

FRANCE.

PARIS, FRIDAY "YINING.
The Prefect of the Indre and Loire has addressed a
circular to the mayors in that department, informing
them that the enemies of the government are en-
gaged in spreading false reports, accusing persona
high in authority of forestalling the grain market.
The subscription for the new bank at Darmstadt,
opened at Frankfort, at the banking establishment of
Bethmann Brothers, produced in one day 106 mil-
lions of florins, instead of 25,000,000. The shares
are quoted at a premium of 24 per cent.
The Moniteur contains the formal promulgation'of
the law for calling out 80,000 men to recruit the
army for the year, and several laws recently paned
by the Corps Legislatif, and " not opposed" by the
Senate; and also the following official paragraph:
A company has offered to execute curtain works of
canalisation in the department of the Manche on condition
of having ceded to it the land which is left dry by the
' receding of the sea in the bays of the Veys and of Mont
•
bt. Michel. As this question may affect the preservation of
the sea sand, and as the government, being convinced of
its utility in agriculture, is decided on permitting nothing
which can interfere with the deposit, or render more diffi-
cult the collection and transport of this valuable manure,
it has wished, before coming to any decision, that the people
themselves should be consulted on the advantages or incon-
veniences which may attend the proposition which has been
made to it. For this purpose, enqueles are now open in the
departments of the Manche, the Calvados, and lla-et-
Vilaine. Far from seeing in this measure a pre-conceived
opinion which will be unfavourable to them, the inhabitants
of those parts of the country will regard it as intended to
enlighten the :government, and as a proof of its solicitude
for their interests.
Letters from Constantinople of tho 15th, brought
by the Mentor, have arrived. They contain nothing
new. The Russian negotiation was still carried on
with the most entire secrecy. Constantinople was
quiet, and nothing was krown about the alleged
tinente of Broussa. An electric despatch from Trieste,
giving news down to the 18th, is as insignificant as
the correspondence of the Mentor.
Several more arrests have been made in Paris
within the last two or throe days.
The Council-General of the Seine yeeterdly voted
a sum of 7,219,893 f. for the completion of the improve-
ment of the Pala% de Justice, making in all a sum of
upwards of 20,690,000 fr. contributed by the city for
this purpose. This expenditure is independent of
that occasioned by the rebuilding of the Courts of
Appeal and Cessation, which is undertaken by the
state. It appears to be felt necessary to say some-