The Express.
London, England, 1848-10-24 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 24, 1848.

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LONDON. TUESDAY. OCT. 24.
Wa can folly understand the reluctancy of the men
of the West Riding of Yorkshire to be represented
by an unfledged youth of two and twenty, however
his want of experience and steadinem may be com-
pensated by noble blood. We also hold strongly to
the maxim, that great interests can be represented
and expow.ded best by one who belongs to those into-
nate, and who feels as well as knows them. The old
feudal rule was, that champions and advocates should
always be taken from a certain clam. The church se-
lected a knight to defend its interests, a city reposed
in the arms of its buigrave. Englishmen and En-
glish classes of the present day ought to have
the knowledge and the privilege, as they alrrady have
the right, to defend themselves and push their own
interests. And the shopkeeper, who, groaning under
unequal and local taxation, elects a 'lord to continue
the burdens, rather than a popular candidate who will
stir and excite discussion about the grievance, is a
mean-spirited fellow, who deserves to have the iron of
his fetters driven in to his soul.

We do not desire, however, to make war against
noble', or excite the envy of class against class.
Birth, wealth, and talent have all fair claims to respect,
and the two former should not be denied their just
and natural influence. Nor should the people be un-
grateful to the past services of a family which hss in
general identified its efforts with them for popular
liberties, and braved obloquy in bad times to further
and preserve their rights. No house has more
claims to popular gr/ titwle on this account
than the harm of WENTWORTH. We need not recall
the time and the occasion when the names of MILTON
and Frrzwituait were pat forward oftentimes
alone of their clam, to defend the old principles of
freedom or further new ones of popular development.
Nor can the inditing of one ill-judged and splenetic
letter cancel the deep obligation of a century.
If, therefore, Mr. FITZWILLIAM will come for-
ward and accept, as it is confidently said he
will, the pledges 'eked of him by the men of
Leeds and Wakefield at the Normanton din-
ner, we should strongly recommend the electors
of the West Riding to abide for the present
by the noble candidate. The tory journal
of Leeds strongly recommends whig and tory
to hold together, and agree at once for the rejection of
a popular candidate. When aristocratic parties are
so pliant, reformers need not be impracticably stiff
And if they can get their great Principles accepted,
they must pass over the inconvenience of being repre-
sented by a young and unknown man. The liberal
aristocracy put forward a WENTWORTH ; if he
accepts the popular pledges, lit him have a fair trial.
A new champion of reform is not the worse, but much
the contrary, fur signing himself FITZWILLIAM.
The Mayor of Leeds, a man of no extreme opinions,
set forth the very minimum of the popular demands
that the liberals would be contented with. These
were free trade, extension of the suffrage, reduction
of expenditure, and no extension of endowment. We
do not think that in so wide a field as the Wer
Riding, comprising such mixed interest', reformers
should reject a whig who comes so far beyond the
circumscribed limits and principles of his party,
especially at a time when great, however
unfounded, fears, exist of the danger of organic
changes, and when the political and social
convulsions of the Continent appal so many
liberal men, who do not comprehend that, though
surpassing most countries is the greatness of popular
grievances and the complexity of social difficulties,
England has still most solid guarantees of security
in making the changes, and applying the remedies,
which we require more than any country, from our
being immeasurably, for good and for ill, in advance
of all.

It seems that of the four points put forward by the
Mayor of Leeds, the last, or the religious one, was
most unpalatable to the friends of Mr. FITZWILLIAM.
They wish that he should be left free upon religious
questions. And we must own that we join in that
wish. We are ourselves against the endowment of
the Irish priests, and think at the same time that it is
most unfair to continue the endowment, as it stands,
to the protestant clergy of that country. But Ireland
is, and must for some time remain, an exceptional
country, a country in which it is impossible to esta-
blish the right thing, and where legislators must
far a long time be content with applying
Ws possible and the expedient. We doubt much
that the worthy men of Leeds,or of any other E latish
town, could or ought to undertake to bind either
themselves or their representatives, as to what ought
to be done in the long interval of a parliament for the
pacification of Ireland.
There lies, mort.over, the greatest of danger in re-
ligious pledges demanded at the hustings, since
such a custom divides the electors, not accord
to their real interest or political opinions, but accord-
ing to their religious or metaphysical ideas. On this
very delicate point we shall merely recall a very im-
portant historical fact. The middle classes of England,
about 200 years ago, achieved a mast complete revo-
lution, first by force of argument and reason in the
parliament, the courts of justice, the pulpit and pub-
lic opinion—the press did not exist,—and they fol-
lowed up these victories by a more decisive one in the
field. They overthrew the throne, and prescribed
the aristocracy. It was in their power, previous to
restoring both or either, to make any terms, establish
any privileges, guarantee any institution. Instead of
this they did nothing. They fines away their vic-
tories, their opportunity, their power, their
rights, their everything—and simply because
they made their religious tenets and differences their
shibboleth of political party, and went on mutually
=eluding instead of uniting with each other. The
middle class have now recovered by peaceable pro-
grim the position which they held and might have
kept two hundred years ago. We promise it, that
they will go back another two hundred years, and be-
come once more the sport of the aristocracy and the
serfs of statesmanship, if they allow their energies and
.real to be absorbed and frittered on church questions
and sacerdotal differences instead of aiming steadily
at great social and political reforms.

Tux House of Lords had evidently a great loss, or
a narrow escape, in the decision taken, not to reward
the hero of Meaner with a peerage. Sir CHARLES
NAPtEa would hare proved a military BROUGHAM.
Squally restless, equally captions, equally ambitious
el controversy, unscrupulous of assertion, insolent of
demeanour, what amusement he would have afforded
to the public! what perplexity to the noble house!
How " Lord Meanie would have brow-beaten the poor
civilians, jostled Lord CAMPBELL, wrestled with Lord
BROUGHAM, and wham called to order by the DlAN-
camoit he would infallibly have replied by giving
the he to "one PURL"

It is really painful to think. in our aristocratic age,
that men can be heroes withoat being gentlemen.
How mortifying if each an observation could be ap-
plied to the NAPIEIB! Bat we have two rare speci-
mens in the knight who snails Sir lutes Hoc°, and
in his brother knight, who offered up his friend
THOMAS YOUNG, and THOMAS YOUNG% correspon-
dence as a holocaust to Young Ireland.
If we recollect aright, the reamelliv en for not mak-
ing Sir C. NAPIER a peer, whilst mrd COUGH was
elevated to that distinction was, that the latter was

commander-in-chief, when he Won hie victory, the
former but a lieutenant-general If the role was good
for the peerage, it was good for the prize money.
But the Doke and Lord Ezmenosouou, and other
influential people interfered at the India House, and
represented with some truth that it was unfair to
deprive a deserving officer of both rewards at the
same time, that is of money and of rank ;
from the accident of his being of inferior rank when