The Express.
London, England, 1851-05-15 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY 15.

ONE of the most remarkable features in continental
politics at present is the universal horror of England
and dislike to this country entertained by the great
conservative parties. Of old, however guilty of con-
stitutional government, of laws securing individual
liberty and a free press, England was still looked up
to as a country that could unite a respected mo-
narchy and an aristoerac3, enjoying a fair share of
influence, with a vast deal of popular privileges and
democratic spirit. This admiration of Englund has
been quenched in the bosom of the champions of
order in foreign countries; the peculiarity of this
new school of turyism being to class constitutionalism
and socialism in the same category of crime, and to
seek for security and good government exclusively in
the two divine rights, that of legitimist kings to
fetter the will, that of priests to dominate the con-'
science. _

Lord PALMERSTON said a few words, the other
day, in parliament, as to the state of Rome and Italy
being very unsatisfactory. His lordship could
scarcely have said less. And yet the journal that
is the avowed organ of M. GUIZOT assails Lord
PALMERSTON, with a virulence and with language
such as it might employ towards the most sanguinary
sans culottes. Nut NlErrEnNiciz, in his most palmy
days, could have stood out more fiercely for the im-
maculate government of the I'otE, than the scribes
of the protestant M. GetzoT. All that has been
done in Italy during the last two years; the King
of NAPLES' system of government; that of the l'oer.;
that of Tuscany, handed over to the censorship of
the Roman priesthood; that of Lombardy, crushed
by 80,000 soldiers—all is good in M. Guizofs eyes.
The only black spot on the fair map of Italy is
Piedmont, which compels the priesthood to be
amenable to law, and which maintains its constitu-
tion.

When such are the views and principles of foreign
policy and influence avowed by one of the great
sticklers for monarchy in France, and indeed
not disavowed by any of the monarchists,
rational men are driven to exclaim, may
France, above all things, escape the infliction of
monarchy. For monarchy in France no longer!
means what it did in that country, or what it does
with us, the great guarantee of peaceable and constitu-
tional government, the cope-stone of the rights of all
classes. In France it means despotism—civil, mili-
tary, and religious. It means a consolidation into a
regular and permanent system of that war against
the people which was M. Gutior's maxim in office,
and which maxim led him and his country into its
present abyss.
It must be confessed that the French monarchists
are well met in fury, folly, and extravagance by the
socialists, who take precisely the same view of the
struggle in progress that M. Gurzur himself does.
He considers it a state of war in which the upper or
dominant class must keep its foot on the neck of the
people. They would put the foot of the people on
the neck of the hitherto dominant classes, and to
consolidate their triumph they do not meditate less
than a total change in every rule, every grade, and
every motive power of society. If the most radical
of the American democrats were masters of France,
they would really find little change to make ; they
would merely have to enjoy legally the power and
influence which fortune had sent them. But the
French socialist dreams of changes and revolutions
that the wildest GsVireo never imagined. Ile en-
tertains certain views respecting property, capital,
credit, and the rights of labour, which the middle
and the propertied classes are prepared to resist with
the bayonet, either in their own hands or in the
hands of the soldiery, whom they support for the
purpose.
There are thus in France two extreme parties,
which are for making war upon each other, and
which have made preparations for that war. These
are the monarchists and the socialists. And, in
truth, if these two come to dominate the more
rational and quiet parties which lie between them,
a civil war of no ordinary fierceness must brew:
out in France, and a civil war of no very certain re-
sult; for nothing can be more divided than the
opinions of the soldiery. Therein still, however, a very
large, and,we believe, increasing portion of the French
who are opposed to social experiments or changes,
and also are equally opposed to any restoration of the
monarchy—whether of Louts XIV., Louts XV., or
of the grand NAPOLEON. Such a monarchy as that
which exists in England they would accept. But
there is no passibility of any such existing in France.
For any monarchy would be obliged to stand up and
fight against the socialist republicans: and it mast
either be beaten, or forget itself in the hour of
triumph. To the republic alone are confined the
chances of peace and the possibility of moderation.
Constitutional government can exist in no other
form.

Hence one great idea gains ground daily in the
convictions of the middle and moderate classes,
which is, the necessity of accepting, supporting, and
rallying to the republic orto arepublic. Anything else
leads to a struggle, a violent arid a doubtful one;
and the middle and the moderate class would be cer-
tain to be the first victims of either wild socialism or
of ultra monarchy, whichever triumphed. The juete
milieu of 1852 is in fact the republic. Such men as
M. TIIIERS and M. DE BROGLIE rallying to such a
' principle tells how imperative it must be. M.
Tunas indeed would set aside Louts NAPOLEON at
once, as dangerous. M. DE BROGLIE would indulge
him in four years more reign, as innocuous. But in
truth the re-election or non-election of LOUIS NAPO-
LEON is not a matter of such vital importance. A
monarch he can never be. And four years further
tenure of presidential power, instead of adding to his
stability, would leave him with still less root, and
still less claim than he has already gained from the
three years which he has so utterly and incompre-
hensibly, but, we believe also, so inevitably thrown
away.

Tae conservative leaders are getting ready for
their last struggle with liberalism, in the same way
that CiIDEoN prepared for the Attack on the Midi-
anite camp. They arc expelling from their ranks
all who have any lingering misgivings or hankerings
after compromise. They are reducing their numbers
to make sure that there are none left among them
but men who will stick at nothing. The work of
elimination has begun, as a protectionist contempo-
rary.gave the whole world to know, yesterday morn-
ing, in the following words:
At a very numerous meeting of the Conservative Club,
on Monday, two gentlemen, one of them a distinguished
member of the bar, were requested by an immense majority,
taken by ballot, to retire from the club, on the purely poli-
tical grounds that in the estimation of the voters the gentle-
men referred to had ceased to be conservatives, as the term
is understood by the club. We heartily wish that the rules
of the Carlton would enable that club to follow this excel-
lent example.

In common justice to many unfortunate gentle-
men who may still imagine that they are conserva-
tives, but who for lack of an authoritative standard
of conservative doctrine may unawares have imbibed
heretical tenets, the thirty-nine articles of conserva-
tism—the true faith of a conservative, " as the
term is understood by the club"—ought to be pro-
mulgated forthwith. The ardent prayer that the
Carlton would follow the example of its neighbour in
St. James's-street, with which the above announce-
ment clown,
.proves that latitudinarian views have
made extensive inroads in the bosom of the conser-
vative church. Many doubtless have erred in
ignorance, for want of proper instruction in the
principles of their party ; more care ought to be
taken to teach them what theee principles are.
Were we not afraid of being accused of undue
curiosity about what is no business of ours, we might
be tempted to enliven a wish to know with what
forma and ceremonies the Banhedrim of the Conserva-
tive Club carry into effect their sentence of this

greater or lesser excommunication. Are they bor-
rowed from the uppallin,• ritual used on such occa-
sions in the Romish church ? Or have hints been taken
from the still more awful solemnities with which
SPINOZA was ejected from the Jewish communion ?
Or do the Club simply adopt the good old English
practice of drumming the condemned out of the camp
to the tune of "The -Rogue's March ?"
A natural curiosity is also felt as to what the
opinions may be which are inconsistent with tho
character of a conservative, "as the term is under-
stood by the club." There are men who pass cur-
rent in the world as conservatives who oppose any
legislation on the subject of papal aggrmsion, and
there are others who seek to make the Ecclesiastical
Titles Bill more stringent. Again, there arc conser-
vatives (as the term has hitherto been received) who,
like Lord STANLEY and Mr. DtsnAm.i, are disposed
to come to a compromise on the head of protection ;
and there are others who, with the Duke of RICH-
MOND, shout "no surrender." Which of these are
the real Simon Purrs! Which are they of whom it
is said to be desirable that the rules of the Carlton
would enable that club to turn them out of doors?
It will be an imposing body this same conservative
party, when all but the truly orthodox have been
excluded from its ranks. Select and exclusive in the
last degree, the small immaculate remainder will pre-
sent a spectacle as august us the Roman senators
awaiting in their cantle chairs the advent of the
Gauls ; or the relics of the defeated patriots, of whom
Moofte. sings in his "After the Battle," that they
" stood faint and few, but fearless still," waiting till
the first beam of morning " should rise and give
them light to die:" or the Ihn.o of the same poet
with his chosen band of tire-worshippers prepared in
their last extremity to light their own funeral pyre.
These are associations of sombre augury, but really
it is impossible in this wicked world of ours to enter-
tain more cheering anticipations of the fate of the
stern patriots who, like the more zealous of the Ca-
meronians at Bothwell Brig, arc resolute to deny
even the melancholy privilege of fighting and fulling
along with them to all who are not perfectly sound in
the faith.

It must be a consoling reflection to these resolute
men that there is one among them marked by the
hand of nature for a leader in such extremities. SIB-
THORP looks the character exactly ; nor is the it
man unworthy of such a high destiny. Were his
strength of Will equalled by his range of intellect,
what a man that would be! There is a solemn energy
and pertinacity of purpose about the colonel that
would be sublime were it not that the trivial topics
and aims with which his mind is capable
of dealing stand in such grotesque contrast
with them. What with his high tory doc-
trines and his rigid notions of economy- ho
looks like a cross between InsultllVME
and a cavalier of the age of " the great rebellion,"
after the execution of the King. lie makes his
attacks upon advertising vans and street organs with
a ferocious intensity of purpose that reminds one of
a hero whom in externals he much resembles—the
daring Knight of La Mancha in the act of charging
the windmills. What a subject for a picture will
SIBTIIORP make with the faithful few left, when the
excommunications have been completed, grouped
around him! Their last struggle will have a tragic
pathos about it, that must cast into the shade the
conspirators against Caesar anticipating the time
when their " lofty scene" would be acted o'er " in
tongues unknown and nations yet unborn." A
fervid orator at the Drury-lane protectionist meeting
expressed a wish that his party might be allowed to
hold a convocation in the Crystal-palace if Colonel
Sin-moue would but promise not to break anything,
it would be an admirable arena for exhibiting „the last
of the Conservatives" to an assembly of spectators
numerous enough to be worthy of the august
spectacle.