The Express.
London, England, 1853-08-04 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, AUGUST 4.

VIENNA having been made the scene of diplomatic
negotiations about Russian aggression, the eyes of
Europe will be turned there for some time to come. I
The plea for this Vienna aogement is twofold. The 1
Czan refuses to treat save through the intervention of !
Austria—and, geographically, the situation of Vienna I
affords greater facilities for simultaneous reference to
the capitals of the West and the metropolis of the
East. And if a speedier solution of the European
difficulty—for such it hat threatens to become—could
be secured by this new arrangement, nobody would
be disposed to complain. As the days of summer pass
away, it is felt upon all hands that cele- I
rity in the conclusion of the affair by the,
intervention of the allies is more than ever demanded
by the general interest, and by international honour.
A few weeks more wasted in solemn trifling, and the
result, as far as Turkey is concerned, will probably
become irreparable. It is a grave responsibility for
those who have permitted four months to elapse with-
out doing any act sufficient to convince the invader
that there was any serious intention of intercepting
him in his path of encroachment and aggrandisement.
His assurances were trusted by Kings and Ministers,
while they were received with doubt and derision
by the clearer sense of the people. And his acts
of violence and perfidy have hitherto been
tolerated by Courts and Cabinets long after
they have evoked reproach and denunciation
from the free intellect and free hearts of every western
public. It is high time that diplomacy, if it would
not be branded with the ma'k of self-stultification,
should wake from its idle dream, and prove, ere it be
too late, that it is not utterly ineffectual and rlfete.
Few, however, who are at all acquainted with the
temperature of the political atmosphere at Vienna
will argue sanguinely of the result of the change we
have noticed. Instead of the vigour and ability of
Lord STRATFORD, the initiative in the consultations'!
that aro now taking place will, as far as England,
is concerned, devolve on the inert and incompetent
Peer who has for some time so lamentably
ill represented Great Britain at the court of the
Emperor FRANCIS JOSEPH. Lord WESTMORELAND
may be fit to direct an orchestra, but he is assuredly
ill qualified to lead • congress. He neither pos-
sesses his own confidence, nor that of his employees,
in the degree necessary for so difficult and delicate a
task. And his sympathies arc too well known to be
devoted to the cause of Absolutism to enable him to
command that salutary respect as the impersonation
of hie country's spirit, u Bich it were desirable that
Russia should be made to feel on such an occasion.
If anything be left to the discretion of such a man
we may be sure that the opportunity will be thrown
away of making anything l:ke adequate terms of
compensation or redress to the insulted and out-
, raged Porte. Happily Vienna is now near Paris
and London, and we may therefore conclude
that ample and constant instruction will front day to
day be transmitted to the French and English am-
bassadors there from their respective courts. As for
any influence of an independent kind to be exercised
by Austria or Prussia in defence of the SCLTAN the
notion no longer finds credence anywhere, save in

the columns of official, journalism,—and even there
seems to be uttered with faltering and misgiving.
There are but two Powers in Europe capable of curb-
ing the dishonesty of the common enemy, and the
closer they draw towards each other, and the more
entirely they learn to rely upon each other in the
great quarrels of the world, as well as in its more
peaceful affairs, the better it will be for both. But it is
abject delusion or miserable ecception to tell the
people of France or England that they may rely
upon Austria or Prussia in any league that may be
formed for the defence of European freedom. Nei-
ther the Government of Berlin nor Vienna desire,
perhaps, to see any change in the territorial settle-
' ment of the continent. Still less have they any
motive for wishing for further aggrandisement of
their imperious patron. They will, therefore, assent
sincerely enough to propositions calculated to soothe
the ruffled vanity of the CZAR, and to appease the
I rage of plunder and conquest which ho has so reck-
lessly kindled among his uncivilised subjects.
Prussia can have no motive in desiring to see
Russia stretch forth her arms further to-
wards the west ; and Austria is as little
anxious to see a new flag planted south
of the Danube. But no intelligent man, whether at
Stockholm or Stamboul, feels that any reliance can
be placed in a day of exigency on the firmness or
fidelity of the German absolutist powers. Russia
overlooks and overbears their every thought and
purpose ; and confident in their virtual vassalage, she
thinks only of how she may have 'to reckon with
England and with France.

It seems to be now understood that the discussion
so long postponed by the fears of Ministers in the
two Houses of Parliament will be no further depre-
cated by them, and we have reason to think that in
the course of the ensuing week steps will be taken
for bringing the whole subject of the Eastern question
before both Chambers of the Legislature. The views
of parties and of statesmen may thus at last be fully
elicited. Nothing but disappointment and detriment
seem to have followed the obsequious silence of Par-
liament on a question which emphatically deserved
and required an expression of the national will. Dest
potistu has seen its advantage, and has taken it, by
pushing the outposts of invasion further and further
every day, and maturing new schemes of distraction
and embarrassment in the regions whose possession
it covets. And now we hear of an army of observa-
tion formed in Finland, and of active preparations
making in the naval arsenals of the Baltic. No
doubt Russia will instruct her representa-
tives in London and Paris to declare
that there is nothing she desires more than
the integrity of Sweden, and the independ-
ence of Denmark. But the undiplomatic world
cannot be mesmerised into forgetting that Sweden
has already been mutilated by the voracity of Russia,
and that the succession to the Danish Crown has by
a recent treaty been brought within no distant view
of her insatiable ambition. If France and England
aro not prepared by this time to speak plainly and to
act promptly, the Baltic as well as the Eueinc is
destined to become a Muscovite lake.

On the other hand, it is cheering to b;hold the
daily increasing symarrieby and good will of the two
great nations of the West. The days are gone when
either w li endure the revival of schemes ef seve-
rance and hostili,y to gratify dynastic or oligarchic
prejudices. The French arc uur nearcet fawn's, as
we are their best neighbours; and if it be true, as it
is rumoured, that the French ships of war now
lying at rest at Cherbo.arg ara ready to join our
squadron at Spithcad, whenever the signal shall be
given to do Sc, the people of this country will hail

such a demonstration with combined strength and
wisdom as one of the happiest omens of the time.

THE idea of opening a Crystal Palace in Sutton
Park, for the benefit of the people of Birmingham
and the surrounding district, has received hi arty
approval. At a meeting of the chief citizens of Bir-
mingham, on the 26th ult.—before noticed in these
columns—the particulars of the plan were stated by
Mr. BEALE, with whom it appears to have originated,
and his staternt nt seems to have aflbrded entire
satisfaction to his hearers. Birmingham is less
urgently in need of an airing-ground, and also of
means of recreation, than most of our manufacturing
towns; and the movement is the more gragying, be-
cause it shows that the taste for fresh air and inno-
cent recreation " grows by what it feeds on." If
that industrious population were sunk in filth and
disease, drowning care at the pothouse, and knowing
nothing of life beyond its dreary and feverish
drudgery,—as life is in some places,—we doubt very
much whether such a scheme as the present would
have been proposed to them. it is much other-
wise. Birmingham has its fmlts, like other places;
but it is notorious that it has some evident advert-
, tages, owing to the civic wisdom of successive gene-
rations of employers and workmen. In .1832 the rest
of the kingdom.heard with amazement that there had
not been a single case of cholera in Birmingham.
i The position of the town explained something of the
wonder,—the place being built on undulating ground,
which affords unusual facility for drainage. flow it
may be now we know not, but twenty years ago it
was said that there was not a street in the town from
which the country could not be seen at the one or
the other end. Since that the inhabitants have got
their fine botanic garden ; and their town-hail, with
its great organ, and its threepenny concerts in the
wiater,—an admirable amusement (the music being
really good), and much relished by the artisan
audience which fills the hall. They have
a good school of design. The early closing
movement was carried on very zealously at Birming-
ham, and the claim for the Saturday afternoons; and
the temper and reason of employers and men were
highly creditable throughout the controversy, and in
the final arrangement. In the present critical times,
when capital and labour aro falling out, from the
changed condition of the labour market, the people
of Birmingham are experiencing the advantage of
the enlightenment afforded, for half a century past,
to the working class, by means of superior and
abundant schooling (in comparison with most towns),
and a wise encouragement of intelligence afterwards.

The men discovered, long ago, the advantage of
piecework, where the nature of the business admits
of that sort of agreement. Much of the work done
iu Birmingham can be so paid for; and the inclina-
tion of artisans for it has remarkably cased such op-
position as there has been on questions of time and
wages. For many months, while strikes have been
going on in some places, and painful disputes in
many more, Birmingham appears to have
been free from trouble of that kind
though so busy that work has gone on through
many a nigkt, along whole streets. The men are
aware that Birmingham employers seldom grow very
rich,—that the business of their town is one of great
activity and mass, with small profits. Partly through
this knowledge, partly from their sensible willing-
semi to be paid by the piece, and partly from the ge-
neral enlightenment which places Birmingham
artisans high in their class, they are not throwing
away their time, temper, and future prospects in
strikes, but taking care of their interests in a better
way, and, as seems to be understood, prospering to
their own satisfaction and that of everybody else.

But their numbers have so increased that new
wants aro arising. It appears that they once had
gardens which have been taken for town purposes:
and some new open space for recreation has been
talked about, and looked for, for years. But the
value of land in the neighbourhood of such a town
seemed to render any project of the kind utterly
hopeless. It was a case for railway solution ; and
Mr. BEALE. now announces that the solution has been
found. The Sutton people have a vast park, wild and
charming, with its ancient thorns and ponds, and its
breezy common surrounding its old-fashioned woods.
Such a park the Sutton people have; and they have
long sorely wanted a railway to the town. The Bir-
mingham people sorely need a park, and are the people
of all others to make the least difficulty about a rail-
way. So the nerds end the powers being brought
together, it seems probable that every body will be
gratified. Sutton will yield up a portion of its park,
at a nominal rent, for dr., longest term of lease.
Birmingham will use its cower with the Midland
Railway Board to obtain the few easy miles of rail-
way required: it will engage to build some sort of
Palace of the Arts, and to supply it as such places
are supplied in our day ;—so attractively as to be
certain to remunerate the railway board for convey-
ing passengers at the lowest fares. There seems to
be little doubt that the thing will be done.
The great interest to observers will be in watching
the filling of the building when it is erected. The
artisans of the town have a far greater knowledge of
art and familiarity with the best specimens of it
than, probably, the working class of any other 'I
English town. Their department in the Great Ex-
hibition afforded evidence of such training. Whether,
on this great opportunity, their inclination will tend
to beauty of nature or of art, or to which most, it
will be interesting to observe. The workman who
works with a flower in water before him or an open
volume of dried ferns will probably wish fur a winter
garden at Sutton, or lose himself in the weedy re-
cesses of the park, looking for trailing plants or I
flowering reeds that he may transfer to steel or em-
boss
in silver ; while another may ask for all the
statues that have ever enchanted the world ; and
another may seek suggestion from all the grotesque
products that can be brought from barbaric lands.
Whatever their tastes, there will, no doubt, be plenty
for them to learn and please themselves with. Such
at least is the evident intention of the
scheme. Ono thing to be earnestly hoped
and early looked to is that there shall be
no Sabbatarian oppression in this case. Any one
who should interdict the use of this privilege on
Sundays cannot know what he is doing. Aud yet he
ought to know, for it is no secret what the public-
houses
are in all our great towns every Sunday ; and
the Birmingham practice of 31unthiyiny is only too
celebrated. For mercy's sake, let the Birmingham
artisan speed away from nil public-houses—away to
the airy common, and the intellectual feast which
will be in the midst of it. We suspect that one of
the very first results of the new scheme will be sober
Sunday nights and industrious Mondays. CALVIN
was wont to play bowls on Sundays after church.
We wish his disciples would honour him in this as in
other things. Instead of' this, see what they do in
teaching Sabbatarianism to their very children, to
it whom they give anything but a Sabbath temper ;—as
when the little fellow who came home tired from a
long service, took his recreation in the form
of holy anger against the flies in the window, and
pulled their legs off, t' because they were walking on
a Sunday." See what they have done in Virginia,
in preventing the negroes from dancing. No negro
of their converts dances ; and all go solemnly and
sadly to worship ; but then—what happens then
why, they are plunged into the wildest madness of
gambling. If dancing is a sort of heaven to the
negro, the fierce passions that attend gaming are as-

suredly his hell. Our artisans, however, are neither
children nor negroes. They are men who have a per-
feet right to spend their Sundays as they please. We
1 should say that the Birmingham men have a right to
Sutton l'ark on Sunday, if on any day ; and we hope
that both the principle and the policy of opening it
to them will be lift unquestioned. It is as an ex.
ample to other towns that this Birmingham move-
meat is especially interesting. We hope every
`centre of manufacturing industry will dilicover that
there is some park within reach, by railway or other-
wise ; and that every such town has a Mr. Bral.t:
among its citizens, to conceive, ponder, and mature
the plan.