The Express.
London, England, 1849-05-23 00:00:00

Diet. declesirg that he reigns supreme during the
tempaary forfeitwe or abeyance of the royal race.
The title, however, is of lea imFor tante than the
acts of the Hungarian government, all of which have
been marked by evinon, firmness, and skill. When
the armies of Hungary, turning Presburg, and ad-
vancing upon Vienne, we re arrested by the news that
large Rosman armies had pound into Cracow, and
were ready to be drafted wherever the Austrian
empire wan most menaced, it was memory
to adopt new military plans, adapted to
each altered circumstances. Instead of &dame-
fog beyond Presburg, the Hungarians fell back,
wed as.umed the defensive on both hanks of the
Daintbe, whilst the greater portion of their army under
011011011 Y, mastering nearly 100,000 seen, took post
ca the keen Carpathian", from Gudiug to Jahlunks,
and thereby menaced Moravia, Silesia, and Cracow.
IC the Russians advance upon Vienna, as was their
first intention, °COHORT'S army could penetrate into
Moravia behind them, and not only cut
off their communications, but raise the s andard
of insurrection in Bohemia. Or were Galicia left
unoccupied by the Runians, it was equal) y open to
Hungarian invasion which, on the side of Poland, was
even more to be feared. This consideration, arising
out of the yreition of °EMMET'S army, haveparnlysed
the Russians, who seem occupied more with defensive
and precautionary. measures. than boldly asauwing
the offensive, as might be expected from the number
and vaunting tone of their intervention.
A division of the army however, said to have
reached Goding, and would seem to menace peering
behind the Wang, one of the principal lines of Hue-
gatian defence. GEOICHIT will allow no such move-
ment tabs made without an agreement, or a counter-
Moravia. Heriilierefous Oa the or'
Carpathians, lies the chief interest cf the campaign.
Hers will probably take place the most serious con-
flict between Rumens and Havgarianr, the latter
have all the advantage of concentration and position.
As to the country on the Danube, from which we
get most frequent bulletins, the island of San t
and the villages near it, the struggle there is nut
serious. The Hungarians do not muster above
30,000, and the Austrian', though more numerous, are
so completely demoralised, as nut to deserve the name
of an army. The young. emperor bee bees amongst
them, but speedily withdrew, disappointed and
ashamed at such a wreck of the oree flourishing army
that WIN DISCHGRATZ led to Path.
While Orion EY keeps the Russians in check on the
lesser Carpathian", and remains at almost equal dis-
tance from Olmutz, Cracow, and Vienna, DEMBINSKI
is advancing with a corps by Eperics to the
pubis of the north-east of Hungary. Ou
whatever side of the mountains he may meet
the Russians' he hopes to give good account of them.
His army has been swelled by almost the entire of
the Ciallielan youth, who have withdrawn from Russian
fraternisation. Food and arms, indeed, are all that
the Hungarians can require; as to men, the Sclavonic
race furnishes them a superabundance to whatsoever
region they advance. Ham has Fecund Transylvania
and its pastes so securely that there is good reason
to credit the report of the Russians having been
wonted in an attempt to pass them. Pan-
ZEL co-opers'es with him in the south, and
both are engaged in the reduction of the
fortresaes which still held out. These are Carls-
berg, Peterwaradin. Temesver, and Arad. There
was a report that Carlsberg bad surrendered. Buda,
too, is also beleaguered ; and it is considered that the
capture of these tertiaries would release 20,000
Hungarians, and so much increase the force of their
active armies.
The Huogarian government has issued an order for
the free admission of all munitions and articles of war,
as well es fur the levying of very slight duties on
all woollen and cotton goody. Count Wescu was
despatched to signify this decree to the British consul
et Bucharest. But, captured by the Cossacks, he was
turned from his route, and could not make known Ws
instructions where it was most metal for them to
have been promulgated.
Such is the position, such the prospects of Iluoga-
rian defence. There is no denying the odds against
them. Their limited territory and population are at
this moment attacked by three or four puiesent
empires; fur the troops of the prine'palities, Wal-
lachia and Binh', were turned against them, and the
resources of those principalities made moot to support
Russian armies. Prussia bus formed a corps in Silesia,
as a d.fecce against any incursion of °EMMET ;
whilst Austria and Russia =leer all their disposable
force to penetrate into Hungary. In &struggle against
such old tending and gigantic sank', it will be no
disgrace to the Hungarians to succumb. Their suc-
cessful resistance would be, perhaps, the most glorious
feat of modern Watery. The eyes cf the world are
upon them, the sympathies of all good men with
them, and what mat not be hoped from men, Provi-
dence, in sapped of a just and righteous cause, may
supply. The Hungarians fight for national, for
religious, for social, and fir political liberty.

ANY sagacious man, corsulted as to the fitness of
the present moment for agitating end advancing the
great question of electoral reform, would probably
shake his bead, and say it was by no means a fit mo-
ment. The wh;gs are in office, and thus the party,
which is the old hereditary and traditional leader of all
movements, has got a retaining fee to be quiet.
Then the industrious masers, which must be the soul
of such a movement, are, however pressed by taxa-
tion and mortified at the stand-still in all kinds of
political progress, nevertheless painfully moved by
the fears which pervade the spending and epeculatirg
classes, and the obstruction which foreign disturbance
has raised to trade. . .

Many of the middle clue are thus but too apt to
echo in timidity the cry which the conservatives raise
in design. They forget altogether that moments of
political panic like the present are the meet dangerous
of all for the public liberties and the public purse ;
fear paralyses the de Unders of both, whilst those
who prey upon both, wise every pretext to be
rigorous, retrog,a3e, and lavish. It has, indeed, been
always by plums got up on the score of danger and
infection from abroad that the tories have established
their rule, and that aristocratic parties have con
tired to cheat the people into false enthusiasm and
idle expense.
The present, therefore, is the epoch of all otte-s
when it most behoves the industrious clues' to open
their eyes to politics and their ears to information—to
associate, to keep watch upon the tendencies and
doings of their ruler!, and to pursue, ardently, those
rightful reforms which will give them and their
tumbler fellows more influence, a greater and more
direct voice in the control of public expenditure and
in the management awl distribution of the sums
which are raised.
A glence at the politics of the day will show that
the aristocratic classes are alarmed at events and at
things that nowise threaten or concern the people of
this country. What is it to us that the French pro-
claim a republic. or that the Pore and his subjects
cannot agree? Why should this be made the pretext
of expenditure with us—should make us keep up
armies, fleets, and officers ? But of this the
parties who form the majority in parliament
will not be convinced. And the only way
to drive these, if not from power, at least from that old
political track which has dragged us into the rut of
an 800 millions debt, is to make a great electoral
change, and at the same time a sage one, such as that
comprised in household suffrage, the ballot, triennial
parliaments, and a fairer apportionment of members
to coneitueneier.

Such is the programme of the association which
had its first public meeting yesterday, a report of the
proceedings of which will be found in our columns.
And a most successful public meeting it was, in every
sense—successful by its numbers, enthusiasm, concord
and order. After the chairman had fully opened the
meeting, Mr. R. OSBORNE made one of those rattling
and telling speeches of which he treats the House of
Cmmous to too few. We may not agree with him in
thinking the popular party eo null in the house, be-
cause so divided. They are divided because the
members of this popular patty are not looking
for place or in hopes of forcing open
the doors of the cabinet. For this it is
which gives discipline and compactness to a
party. But eighty or a hundred liberal members
constitute a very efficient and formidable popular
party, ready to rally and vote together on all essential
questions, even although they have no whipper in,
and indulge in the various caprices of political inde-
pendence. There is a right good nucleus, if political
and financial reformers would bestir themselves to
gather more 'tumid it.
The ea-member for Coventry, more and more
missed in the house mince the illcees of Mr. HrME
and of so many metropolitan member., humorously