The Express.
London, England, 1848-07-15 00:00:00

Newmasis and the OARELEYS. For much of Pusey-
item we are indebted to the disgust which the unrea-
sonableness and the intolerance
bitterness of evangelicanism
created. So that Rome gained by the of
its opponents; and it is much more to their irrational
hostility than to legal enactments that any success of
popish proselytism is owing.
Viewed in this light, the aggressive efforts are in-
telligible, and the resistance that ought to be offered
to them is obvious. The revival of penal legislation
is out of the question. Its design in its origin, what-'
ever might be its practical results, was the guppies-
sion of political offenses, imputed (rightly or wrong.y)
to the professors of the Roman catholic faith. There
is now no pretence in England for any such imputa-
tion ; and penal legislation could now have for its
object only the repression of tiv. religious dogmas of
the Itaman church—an object not to be thought of,
even if it were achievable by human laws. There
are, however, means by which these aggressive efforts
of Rome can be easily, peaceably, and successfully r
sisted. They are by superior zeal, learning, energy,
and piety on the part of our own church. These
arms, used in the spirit of peace and not of con-
troversy, in the propagation and extension of our own
faith, and not in the contentions of polemical strife,
for the extension of the faith and not for the triumph
or promotion of individuals, will as certainly triumph
over Dr. WISEMAN and the host of Romish priests by
which he is surrounded, as the use of weapons from
the armoury of Exeter-hall has failed.
The church of England authorities may, however,
be assured of this, that the battle will be resolutely
fought ; that the preparations which their antagonists
have made for the propagation of their errors
amongst us require the greatest exertions and the
highest wisdom on their parts. Their opponents are
men of no ordinary skill, of trained capacity, of great
learning, of insidious manners, of cultivated tastes,
and of unscrupulous habits. Since the early Jesuits
stemmed for a while the current of the re-
formation, and, in some parts of Europe turned
it, I'rotestantism has, in this country, had to
encounter no such organisation as that over
which Dr. WISEMAN presides, and which he directs.
It aims chiefly and immediately at captivating the
wealthy and highly educated, and at entrapping the
poor and needy ; leaving for a while the intermediate
classes to the comparative indifference in which
they repose—an indifference which has its origin
chiefly in the neglect of the clergy of their own
church. It is altogether of a missionary character,
and is equally competent to penetrate and sustain it-
self in the salons of the great and the cellars of the
lowest. Powerful as its imposing church services arc
for success, they are in reality the least of the efforts
that will be made—that are making. From out the
portals of the conventual buildings adjoining the new
cathedral of St. George will daily issue a host of the
most cultivated missionaries in Europe, losing
no oppo.rtnnity, leaving no stone unturned, to achieve
that triumph which Father IGNATIUS (formerly the
Rev, and lion. GEORGE SPENCER), so glowingly de-
scribed on Monday evening to an overflowing con-
gregation. And these m•n have, be it not forgotten,
the money as well as the prayers of their church to
assist them.
Far be it from us, as protestants, to doubt on which
side victory will ultimately prevail ; far be it from us to
doubt that our faith rests on a rock which not even these
powerful agencies can blast. But this opinion is not
inconaister t with the belief that to that portion of the
ohureh of ,England which is best able to withstand
the assault Dr. WISEMAN leads, the designs of the
Roman catholic church are least known. Hence our
voice.

IN all we have said from time to time on the rail-
way gauge question, we hiatvem. henoldtifoasuatiti y
to thatpo rptooionft.
The matter that directly touches us and this country
is not the success of this or the other body. of capi-
talists, however it may concern the nation, in various
secondary relations, that the enormous sums engaged
in railway works shall be so laid out as to produce
the utmost advantage to the state, with the greatest
profit to the undertakers. Nor have we anything to
do with the engineering merits of the rival systems—
with those relative qualities of each that it would be
right to weigh and act upon, were the railway map of
England at this moment a mere blank, and the
inquiry, what class of lines it might be proper to lay
down upon it ab initio. These considerations can
have no place in the actual state of the system here :
we have to deal not with abstract grounds of prefer-
enoe or rejection, but with the practical conditions of
railway communication as they were already fixed
before Mr. BRUNEL introduced his new pattern in the
west, and as they now exist, after some years of en-
deavour to extend it in that district, and to carry it
into others. The question, we have said and now re•
peat, is not what is the best system per se, but what,
under actual circumstances, ought to prevail in this
country.
Now this wholly practical issue depends upon matter
of fact; and in low disputes of equal importance are
the cardinal facts so plain and cogent as in this.
They may be reduced essentially to the two following
positions now admitted on both sides. The first,
indeed, is visibly undeniable, viz., that of the railway
lines open in this island, there are some 3,500
miles of the narrow and 400 of the broad class. The
second, long denied by Mr. BRUNEL'S partisans, but
at length confessed by him and them, is, that a
break of gauge is a serious practical evil ; in other
words, that a difference of dimension as preventing
the continuous passage of carriages and wag-
gons, checking intercourse. and rendering traffic in-
convenient and expensive, is highly injurious to both.
These are the positive, undeniable, decisive facts of
the case. The importance of uniformity, the mis-
chief of a break, being admitted on all aides, the
proportion of 3,500 narrow to 400 broad gauge lines
being known, the practical conclusion is irresistible:—
viz., that the standard dimension of the railways of
this country is determined by circumstances ; and
further, that if entire uniformity cannot now be had,
we ought, at all events, to prohibit any further mul-
tiplication of the points at which the evils of a colli-
sion between different systems may arise.
The notion of obtaining an uniform system by
widening the 3,500 miles of narrow lines to the di-
mensions of the 400 broad will scarcely be sug-
gested. The mere cost of this operation, were it even
possible—which in many places it is not—would not
be covered, admitting the taking scale of estimates for
the process from Mr. BRT:NEL'S school of engineers—
if we include the value of stock and material de-
stroyed, and the cost of new machinery, carriages, &z.,
by a sum of FIFTY MILLIONS sterling. The full weight
of this estimate will be felt on observing what is the
practical working difference in speed, or other conve-
nience, at this moment between broad and nar-
row gauge lines—a difference in money points
in favour of the latter, and scarcely amounting,
on the one point wherein the former can pretend
any advantage, to four or five miles per hour with
high-priced expresses, the running rate for ordinary
trains being on many narrow lines, as nearly as may
be, the same as on the Great Western. Could the
owners of the nine-teaths of our railways be per-
suaded in any case to waste their money in widening
them, it would clearly be a matter of public prudence
to forbid such a mass of English money from being
spent for any slight advantage which the broad
gauge, when working at its best, can now pretend to
show.
A more feasible means of securing uniformity would
obviously be to narrow the few hundred miles of
broad railways. In this case the only difficulty would
be the mere cost of relayirg the line and purchasing
new moving stock, allowing for the loss of the old.
There are no engineering impediments: bridges,
tunnels, &c., which suit the wide, being more than fit
to receive narrow lines—which is not true of the
converse proposition. All might be done for less than
two millions ; and it may be asserted that such an
outlay, if made by the state, would be repaid to the
country by the gain and saving from the unbroken
communication throughout the island. This, we
say, is a feasible process: but we do not say
that it is one which the legislature is likely
to enforce, or which it is bound to insist upon
in the teeth of the parties who have made
these railways, with parliamentary leave, on the
BRUNEL pattern. Such compulsion would be justly
felt to be a hardship, unprovoked by any fault of the
resisting body, and inconsistent with the spirit of this
country. A contract the legislature has already sanc-
tioned it cannot fairly undo, in spite of the other
parties to the bargain—although a change might pro-
mote the national interest—not, at least, without cotn-
pemation. But one thing it can and ought to do—to
avoid, namely, any further extension of this practical
mischief : no further steps, it is clear, ought to be
taken in a way that it was a sad mistake to have
ever entered upon.