The Express.
London, England, 1848-07-13 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 13, 1848.

. _
LONDON, THURSDAY. JULY 13.
We heard with much pleasure the indignant pro-
test uttered by M. LAMARTINFI against the last cf the
one thousand calumnies or accusations levelled against
him in his own country, and sedulons.y echoed here.
What one is least anxious to part with is the belief
in the existence ot a character uniting genius
with virtue, eloquence with disinterested patriotism,
and poetic imagination with prosaic honesty. His-
torical critics have be: n so successful in picking to
pieces and destroying the reputations of those who
dominated revolution, that the natural instinct of
hero-worship was marred and thwarted, at least
for liberals, by the disrobing of their idols. and the
discovering how much there was of mere dross, or
something viler, in their composition. The greatness
of LANIARTINE, therefore, and the success with which
he chained and led popular passions captive by the
sound of his voice and the eloquent lightning of his
mind, was the redeeming feature of this last sorry re-
volu.ion. We have, therefore, clung—and do still
cling—to the belief of LAMARTINE'S purity and noble-
nese ; and his retirement, as was noised, to foreign lands
before the breath of calumny unanswered, was to
us a subject of regret and mortification.
Few, however, wilt demand for the ex•chief of
1 the provisional government the meed of being a
1 consummate politician. His tenet of "by the people
and for the people" is no very practicable one. And
his attempt to conduct a revolution by mastering and
humanising, yet accepting and humming, its spirit,
was a task almost too hopeless to be called statesman-
ship. Still LAMARTINE undertook it; and during the
space of two months performed almost miracles for
the acco—plishment of that task. And we think it a
great pity. either that the national assembly did
not continue to put trust in him without
demanding his instant abruption from the popular
party, or that he himself did not instantly retire on
becoming convinced that the assembly was bent on em-
ploying other than conciliatory modes for the reco-
very of the great influence of the middle and enlight-
ened classes.
However overwhelmed by disaster and perplexity,
the French may be very grateful for having in each
crisis found the man best fitted to lead them through
it. In February they had LA3I.IILTINE, his reputa-
tion, his eloquence, his enthusiasm. A soldier
then would have been useless: a mere statesman
would not have been ob,yed. In June, when the
hour of military struggle had arrived, the fit man
was not wanting either, and CAVAIGNAC, though un-
tried, and promoted chiefly through the sagacious
choice Of LAMARTINK himself, at once assumed the
command, and achieved what MAIIMONT failed in,
and what BUGEAUD shrank from. Unfortunately,
each government cannot avoid partaking somewhat
of the character of its founder. LANIARTINE'd go-
vernment was more imaginative thlnra
pctical—more
full of promise than of act. t was feminine
in feature, like the statue of Liberty, to
which the galley-slay:a cap gave the semblance of
ferocity rather than the firmness ot manhood. Ge-
neral CAVAIGNAC'd government is, on the contrary, all
moustache and sabre. He treats the liberty of the
person and of the mese es cavalierly, as if France
were already nothing but a barrack. His judicial
procedure smacks of martial law. And what is worse,
its future policy seems to assume intimidation as its
principle. Government is to bo carried on in mistrust
of the population, and a permanent camp, containing
a large army, is to be established under
the walls of Paris, ea one of the normal and ne-
cessary concomitants of government. All this may be
as necessary to General CAVAIGNAC as conciliating
the communists may have been to M. LAmAirrtsz;
but if the French can only escape truckling to the
mob by truckling to the army, they are in fact but
giving themselves a change of masters.
We know not a more melancholy or more degrad-
ing
.fate for a country than that which has befallen
Spain, which, in its inabili y to establish free and
civilian government, has falLn under the domination
of a few officers. Spain has an excuse for so falling,
the whole power of France having been
exerted to precipitate her into this gulf.
But if the large majority of moderate-think-
ing men in France dwindle down to mere mode-
rados, who live by the breath of a court, and the
regime of the sabre, that will be the moat miserable
of all terminations to French efforts to attain consti-
tutional liberty.
We have, however, very great confidence in Gene-
ral CAVAIGNAC. Many of his acts prove the very
bent and most liberal intentions. His desires are evi-
dently to keep attached to him the moderate republi-
cans, but he is nevertheless evidently. drifting away
with the assembly from republicanism altogether.
This would not be of so much consequence if every
step he takes in the monarchist direction did not take
from his side a follower, and did not increase the
ranks of a large and formidable democratic opposi-
tion, which, if allowed to get intelligent chiefs, will
soon find partisans both amongst the citizens and the
soldiers, and would then prove far more formidable
foes to deal with than even the desperate and demo-
ralised population of Paris.
Meantime the chief men of the assembly are en-

gaged in dimensang the constitution, and abetting
the contrary systems of one chamber or of an upper
and a•lower one. The arguments and the testioutay
in favour of a doable chamber are so convincing and
overwbisM that it is difficult to conceive the plan
not bsiss ted. The French, too, rotes all the
machinery requisite for the election of a senate t their
de tal councils would return a very eminent
body of msn, possessed, too, of all the influence, talent,
and experience required in such an assembly.

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POLITICAL philosopitsra amid legislators must find
some medium between Pittiratom's maxim of
" all property being robbery," and the English maxim
that property is inalienable from a family, however
prodigal, reckless, and foolish may be the possessor
or successive possessors of that property. Did the
property merely regard the owner or the family we
might tolerate the law by which a man can ensure
his descendants against all the weaknesses and mis-
fortunes of humanity. But the state and the country
demand something more than an epicurean capacity
for enjoyment in the owners of property. If it
waive the demand of intelligence or morality, or com-
mon
prudence, it must at least insist on the reality of
that wealth which is the sole dependence of the
poorer classes of this country for employ and provi-
sion. We shut out the labourer !roll the ulna
in this country to make him dependent for his daily
bread on the pay of his daily task. We are
bound in return to look to the natural some
of that pay, the substance and capacity of
the landholder, and see that it do not dwindle to a
shadow ; for if it does, the peasantry of a country
must dwindle with it.
Even in England this necessity is fast forcing itself
on the consideration of the legislature ; but in Ireland
interference can no longer be delayed. There the
law has bestowed such care in enabling the pro-
prietorial classes to strengthen and perpetuate
their hold of the soil, and at the same time
to exempt them from all care of themselves, of the
land, of the population, of the country, and in fine of I
the future, that the landlords having begun by pau-
perising the peasants, have ended by pauperising
themselves. It was complained of Irish tenants in
the late famine, that they would neither cultivatef
the
ground nor give it up. This conduct, complained o
as so monstrous in the tenant, is precisely the present
conduct of the landlord, a conduct moreover not of his
' but absolutely forced upon him by the state of

the law.
Tha SOLICITOR-GENERAL has shown himself en-
dowed with the thorough spirit of a reformer, in
coming forward boldly to cut the knotty net-work,
in which law holds the properties of Ireland. All
previous attempts at setting the land of that country
live, and giving it a bona fide proprietor, merely
patched and complicated the system already existing,
throwing the onus of reform upon the func-
tionaries most prone by habit and by precedent to
defeat it, viz., the CHANCELLOR and his officers.
The transfer of land was rendered impracticable
not merely by entails, and mortgages and com-
plicated titles, but by the enormous expense of
every step, and especially of the great preliminary
of acquiring accurate information. To hope any
remedy for these from the Court of Chancery alone
was idle. And, therefore, the SOLICITOR-GENERAL
carved through the difficulty, proposed to allow any
mortgagee to bring an incumbcred estate to sale, and
to enable the new purchaser to acquire an indefeasible
and parliamentary title in a very short space of time.
The mere lawyer class, however, and the sticklers
for landlord theory an supremacy rather than for
landlord interests, willd neither of them hear of tho
bill, which, if it be passed at all, will no doubt be
pared down and rendered nugatory. The necessity,
however, of boil fide and full proprietorship of land
is making itself too strongly felt to dmit of laws
for the establishment of that principle not being
forced on the legislature.
We perceive that the report of Mr. Pusev's com-
mittee declares it " desirable that states under settle-
ment should be endowed with every practicable privi-
lege for their advantage which is attached to abaolwe
property." Here we see the practice of settlement
and the law of entail, under which the actual owner
of the property has only a restricted interest and
limited power, are sought to be set aside pro tanto
by the landowners themselves.
The addition to leasing power in the hands of the
life proprietor may be of some value in England,
where tenants are not wanting, possessed of skill and
capital, an I ready to invest both, when the tenure
tempts or satisfies them. But in Ireland the farmer
class are not extant, and have to be created. Landlords
there require wealth, as well as free powers over their
properties ; and to give them these can only be done
by such a renewal of the landlord class as will give it
substance, respectability, and sinew.
Nor is there here any uprooting or confiscation.
The landlord class itself must desire, and perceive it '
necessary to their very salvation, that their number be
enlarged, their wealth increased, their condition
altered, and that piles and foundations be driven and laid
for the maintenance of the class against the popular
tide, in order to its not being swept away by either
moral or physical revolution.

VIE cue against the imposition of tests in aca-
demic institutions is in the present day as complete
as reasoning and fact can make it. Nothing is re-
quired but determination on the part of the
advocates of truth to make the cause succeed.
An article in the Edinburgh Review gives a
remarkable proof from the Edinburgh University
of the utter impossibility of legislation to effect
an unjust purpose for long together. The Scot-
tish 'lest Act is, we find, practically of no effect. In
spite of the most stringent enactments to prevent the
admission of any teacher in the university, except
those who subscribe to the Confession of Faith of the
Scotch church, for more than half a century both in
Edinburgh and Glasgow, Episcopalians, against whom
the act was specially directed, have during all that
time constantly held chairs in the university without
being required to take the test. "In the Edinburgh
University, at this moment, the chairs of Moral Pui-
losophy, Rhetoric, History, Music, Mathematics,
Natural Philosophy, and, we believe, the Practice of
Physic, are hdd by Episcopalians—P.ofessor WiLsoN
and Professor FORBES being the twomost distinguished
names." A curious example of the pernicious effect of
the sacramental test is added in an extract from Mr. I
HERoN's "Constitutional History of the University of
Dublin."
Triers have been many among the Fellows of Trinity
College, Dublin, who dated their prote.tantism from the
time when they " turned (apostatised) for scholarship." The
apostasy for scholar hip in Trinity College, even now, ex-
cites but little surprise. Of those who thus conform, some
remain in their new creed, and even become ministers of the
established church ; others,on theappiration of the live years 1
during which the scholarship lastern to the profession of 1
the catholic faith after having profanedtu with unholy lips the
sacrament of the endwise. This latter class enjoys the
nic manse of quinquennes from the live years during which
they were protestants.
The moral effect of these indecent acts of apostasy
in the highest educational institution in the island,
must be most prejudicial. Is not this virtual denial
of the highest national education to seven-eighths of
the population of Ireland, ot itself sufficient to account
for the adhesion of so many of tho highest classes in
Ireland to the cause of repeal ?
" Catholic judges are on the bench," says Mr.
HERON, "catholic magistrates have broken rough the
exclusiveness of the old Irish squirearchy, catholics
fill the corporations, catholics speak and vote in the
parliament of the realm, and catholic privy councillors
advise their sovereign. Is it not so plain that it is
only in Ireland one would have to say it, that it is
moat expedient for the interests of the state that those
men permitted to rise through abilitytothe highest sta-
tions in the land should not in their youth receive an in-
ferior education ? These men should not in their youth
be galled by sectarian exclusion, and be almost com-
pelled to carry with them through life the resentment
thus excited at the time of their education."
The catholic gentry are by the operation of the test
thus excluded by law from obtaining the best educa-
tion in the country. " The system of education," says
Mr. HERON, " is grand and comprehensive ; but there
is one fault—the university of Ireland is exclusive,
not national. It is considered by its rulers to be the
divinity school of the protestant church, not the uni-
versity of the nation. Could the most subtle inge-
nuity devise a better scheme for the manufacture of
repealers and rebels than this ?
-We have quoted these facts from the review, not
that the argument against the imposition of tests in
our universities requires assistance to bolster it up,
bat that those of our readers who have not paid at-
tention to the subject may see that the acknowledged
evil consequences of the said imposition in the Uni-
versities of Oxford and Cambridge have their parallel,
and must necessarily have their parallel in any uni-

where a like custom prevails. The altered I
of national lits in modern times. is such that
wiry grounds upon which testa *ere formerly
osed now furnish argnasents for the abolition of the
Came. When the great majority d the nation pro.
*mei the mama faith-10On Owe who dissented re-
ligiously were &impel necessarily political enemies,
foes to the peace and quiet of the country, every. regu-
lation calculated to keep the administration in the
hands of those who really represented the nation was
:notifiable. Both the Boman Whelks and the puritans
were politically opposed to the constitution of the
nation. A religious dissenter was almost presum-
ably a political foe. The possibility of uniformity in
religion was so far from being denied that the recol-
lection of not a few would reach to a point when that
uniformity really existed, or existed with very slight
qualificauons. The disputes concerning religion were
the causes of fearful calamities. Men we
b re tol
d of
sof a
time when nations were not agitated y this e.
They sighed for the ancient times of peace ; they
longed to reproduce the times of unity. Each party
would necessarily be bitter against its opponent, as
standing in the way of quiet and repose. " See,"
cried the zealous Anglican, " were it not for this
heretical Romanist and this pestilent Puritan this
fair realm of England would be fulfilling its destiny
in tranquillity." Any person who does not eve that
however justifiable these reasonings may have been
then they are totally inapplicable now, mast be
equally ill acquainted with the histories of both
periods. A mere glance at the facts will establish

OW Case.
The archbishops and bishops of both provinces, in
the year 1562, met in convocation, and agreed upon
certain articles, which have ever since been printed at
the end of the prayer-took, "for the avoiding of di-
versities of opinions, and for the establishment of con-
sent touching true religion." The monarch lent his
whole aid to the undertaking, and in the declaration
prefixed to the articles avers that he will not "suffer
unnecessary disputations, altercations, or qneetions, to
be raised;" he therefore ratifies and confirms the said
articles, requiring all his "loving subjects to continue
in the uniform profession thereof, and prohibiting the
least difference from the said articles." He says in
another part of the declaration: " We will not endure
any varying or departing in the least degree." It
would not be easy to find a design so solemnly under-
taken and so maerably frustrated. Every person now-
a-days, three hundred years after these articles were
drawn up, thinks just as he pleases with respect to
the articles, and expresses his opinion with the utmost
freedom. Far from testifying the edifying unanimity
of the archbishops and bishops of both provinces, and
the whole " clergy," in the year 15e2, our ecclesiastics
of the present day do not hesitate to hold and to
publish the moat contrary opinions on every funda-
mental position established in the articles. If the
unanimity alluded to be not a pleasing historical
fiction, never was there a greater alteration in any
society than is presented by the appearance of the
church of England now and the church then.
We
are quite certain, that leaving oat "t! a bishops and
the whole clergy," and taking simply the four present
archbishops of ling:and and Ireland, we should, by
asking each of these prelates to state in succinct terms his
exposition of the articles, obtain lour "bodies of doe-
trine" which would differ no less from each other
than from the meaning attached by the framers of the
articles to the several propositions contained therein.
If we were to obtain a similar exposition from the
rest of the bench of bishops, and arrange them in
parallel columns, the variations would simply em-
body nearly every form of belief which has ever
yet been professed In every Christian society.
And yet the test of subscription to these
articles is kept up in our universities. What is the
consequence? From day to day these eetablishreents
become more and more sectariau in character. Their
supporters cannot stir beyond the precincts of the col-
lege walls without being reminded that the circum-
stances wh;ch warranted the imposition of the test of
articles are vanished; that circumstances have arisen
which call loudly for the abolition of the test ; and
that if they continue to endeavour to stein the torrent
of popular opinion they will soon be swept away by
it. The wealth, the power, the intelligence, the
energy of the nation, are no longer vested in tho mem-
bers of the church. The church is not co-extensive
with the nation. One by one the barriers which
kept dissentients from the church from parti-
cipation in legislative and administrative privi-
leges have. vanished, and it is impolitic to en-
deavour to maintain the old privileges, and
impossible to succeed. The nation is now placed
in opposition to the church. A methodist, a baptist,
a Roman catholic, feels that he is an Englishman;
his nationality is as intense as that of the stoutest
Anglican churchman, and he complains, and rightly,
that his right as an Englishman to receive the best
education which the institutions of his country can
give is unjustly withheld from him by the church.
He tells you that the most cutting confutation of our
claim to be considered the freest peorle in the world
is founded upon the fact that our constitution, which
admits all classes of Christians to all offices of trust,
makes an exception with respect to education. Dis-
senters may be members of the legislature or the ad-
ministration, but they shall not be properly educated
for each at the great national educational establish-
ments; for they maintain that these are national
establishments, and that their exclusive possession by
the church is an injustice.
The vulgar identification of the church and universi-
ties (says the reviewer) arises from a most important fact
which must nevertheless not be rested upon as a right:
namely, the usurpation of the universities by the chrical
order; a revolution which was brought about so gradually
that the state was long unaware of it, but it has net been the
less detriau ntal to the intellectual and theological interests
for which alone universities exist. The connexion has been
injurious in another way. On the distinction taken by
Adam Smith, a rich church drains the universities of its most
eminent men of letters, while a poor church is drained by
them. Voltaire observed, accordingly, that a Father Porret
was the only professor they had ev, r had in France whose
works were worth the reading: Adam Smith supporta this
conclusion by adding that in England the church in the
same manner, by the temptation of its benefices, was conti-
nually draining the universities of their best and ablest
members. "An old colleg, tutor, who is known and distin-
guished in Europe as an eminent man of letters, is as rarely
to be found there as in any Roman catholic country." A.
c,nnexion which produces such effects might well be left to
natural tendencies, already strong enough, and not to ba
fostered and pampered by artificial wan.. The universities
have no interest as universities in bribing their members into
the church. Quite the contrary.
I Most heartily do wo join in the last conclusion.
The question of the necessity of religion as a vital
I portion of education is a large and important
I one, but it is essential to observe that it is
not connected with the subject of the imposition of
tests. I. may be very much to be desired that the
communication of knowledge should not be disjoiiied
from religious and moral instruction, but this object
cannot be wholly attained in a national establishment
of education. The nation is, politically, a unity : reli-
giously, it is composed of various elements. Any un-
due preference of one of these elements is au injustice
to the rest. When the church of England has brought
the whole island under its own discipline, then it will
have a right to claim to connect its morel and religions
instructions with the intellectual tuition afforded at
the national universities, arid not till then.

FRANC..,.

PARIS, WEDNESDAY, 11.30 A.Y.
The Assembly has voted, by an immense majority,
the establishment of a permanent camp of 50,000 men
in Paris. It is determined to protect the capital from
a new insurrection, to which those still look forward
who covet pillage, and whose disappointed ambition
or abortive utopian schemes render them discontented.
The project of M. Jules Fevre to declare the private
domain of Louis Philippe the property of the state,
has been adjourned by the Assembly until the govern-
ment shall express its opinion upon it.
A project is in contemplation for establishing a
system of medical treatment of the poor, which it is
calculated may be done at an average cost of 3 francs
per head per annum, invalids being attended at their
homes.
The club of the republican party in the Assembly,
which sits in the Palais Royal, has come to a resolu-
tion that it will use all means to carry the project of
the constitution through the Assembly without
serious modification. This club consists of aboat 200

members.
The following official statement has been issued by
the government respecting the insurgent prisoners :
The judicial proceeding relative to the events of June
Proceeds rapidly. 3,000 prisoners have been interrogated
by the examining magistrates. So soon as the examination had
been sufficiently advanced, four military commissions were
appointed to determine, atter investigatton, to which of the
classes specified by the decree of the 25th of June, 1848, the
prisoners severally belonged. This is putsued actively, end
16E4 primmer' have already been set st liberty. until this