The Express.
London, England, 1846-12-26 00:00:00

the rovoi0•

MAILS.
The mails for Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, Madeira, Cad'', and Gibraltar,
will be made up on the morning of the :Nth December.
The mails fur New South Wales, Van Lhemen's Land, and New
Zeeland will be made up on the evening of the 91st December.
The West hulk mails, including Mose for :Aeneas, llondtiras, and
the Ilavannah, will be made up on the morning of the 2nd January,
Thos overland irAils for Gibraltar, Malta, Gereix, the lonian Islands,
Mt, Men, Ceylon, India, Hong- Kong, and China, via Sout tuitapton,
made up on the evening of the id January.
The mails for Ittitish North America, Bermuda, and the United
Stales, will be made up on the evaiLig of the 4th iallUlff.
The mails foe the Breath', the River Plate, Monte Voile°, Pernam-
Woo, Bahia, Ma tetra, and Buenos Ayres, will be dispatched on the
evening of the 4th January.
The overland closed mails, eta Marseilles, to the Mediterranean,
Egypt, Men, (es lon, India, long Kong.
Est., will be made up on the
evening of the 7th January.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
Its intended for The Express, London evening paper.
Office by Two o'clock on the day of publication.

%* AtheTtisentei
must be at the

UTGII WATER AT LONDON-BRIDGE.
Tats DAT. —Morning, 43 min. pot ; Atternnon, 13 min. put 8.
Moznow—Morning, 47 mia. past 8; Afternoon, S 3 nun. past S.

LONDON, SATURDAY, DEC. 26.
THE annihilation of the independence of Cracow
and its definitive occupation by the Austrians is no
unimportant event to the European balance of power,
and is a disastrous one for those who cling to the ex-
istence of Polish nationality. But the most serious
event connected with the subversion of the republic
of Cracow is certainly the revolution, which has
simultaneously taken place in the international law

of Europe.
Up to the present moment it was considered that
the treaty of Vienna, and previous treaties signed by
many Powers, bound all of them to support those sti-
pulations, and more especially the great features of
these treaties, such as the division of Europe into differ-
ent independent states, with the fixed frontier assigned
to each on the solemn occasion of a general Congress.
It is now pleaded and asserted, however, and by the I
peculiarly conservative Powers of Europe,that treaties
in these, their main stipulations, arc so much waste
paper—that no general law exists, and no general in-
fluence can be exercised, for the maintenance of exist-
ing states and frontiers ; but that any one, two, or
three of the Powers have a complete right to remodel
and change their respective frontiers and alter the
condition of smaller states in their neighbourhood,
without more remote Powers having the right to in-
tervene and remonstrate.
This complete subversion of existing international
law, this destruction of the federal union of Europe,
and overthrow of the basis on which it stood, is de-
fended by the champions of the Eastern Powers in
divers ways. Some, feeling the necessity of preserving
a conservative character, and of maintaining, at least
the letter of the treaties of Vienna, in-
sist that these treaties have been in nowise
infringed or altered by the decision respecting
Cracow. Russia seems to take this view; and the
arguments of its diplomacy are marshalled forth in
the Frankfurt Journal. According to such pleaders,
the great stipulations of the treaty of Vienna are those,
which were discussed in common and in congress.
Thecountries which signed the treaty are olledged to be
contracting parties in these great stipulations. But
there were other questions which were allowed to be
settled amongst each other by the Powers most inte-
rested,
their settlement being accepted by the others,
and their private conventions being afterwards inserted
in the general treaty. Of such conventions as these,
the Powers, in general, who affixed their signatures
are said to be not contracting, but guaranteeing parties.
As to such conventions, they have no right to in-
terfere. Had Austria, in 1814 and 181.3, obtained
the consent of Prussia and Russia to her possession
of Cracow, England and France would not have
objected. Why should they object now—since the
changes that have taken place, are in the spirit
of the treaty of Vienna, and in the sense of Powers,
which now object ?
There is some speciousness, but no solidity, in this
latter argument. There is neither one nor other in
the first. England and France did certainly, at
Vienna, allow Austria, Russia, and Prussia to discuss
apart the question of Poland. But they at the same
time declared that a sine quti non of the agreement,
should be a certain independence granted to Poland.
Russia wanted all, would give up neither Thorn nor
Cracow ; and so wide was the difference, that all
agreed that it was better not to constitute the con-
gress, till the probability appeared of those Powers
coming to an agreement ; since, to form a congress
and break it up, would have been to set Europe once
more in flame. It was on this account, that Russia,
Prussia, and Austria were allowed to come alone
to a kind of preliminary understanding. The
terms of this understanding satisfied England
and France. They saw in it an independent
government and constitution secured to Poland,
and Cracow declared a free republic. Austria
was at the same time a territorial antagonist of Rus-
sia, and avowed herself so. In such circumstances
France and England adhered to the private arrange-
ments of the three powers, and, causing them to be
inserted in the treaty, signed it, and sanctioned them.
Is there here the shadow of reason for the distinction
between guaranteeing and contracting powers ?
Is
the relative pokition of eastern countries now analo-
gous to what they were at the congress of Vienna ?
Polish independei cc is no more. Austria is no longer
the antagonist, but the humble servant of Russia. The
latter power organises the Danubian provinces as she
will; she Russianises Poland. In 1814 western Europe

might have entrust4.4l to Austria the task of resisting
Russian encroachments. It would be a mockery to
do so at present. Consequently, what has taken place
at Cracow is as little in the spirit of the treaties of
1814 and 1816, which is one argument, as it is con-
sonant with :heir letter, which is another.
Whilst such is the astute end measured language
of the organ of Russian diplomacy, the Austrian Court
print blunders out the most crude and revolutionary
arguments. Talk to us of the treaty of Vienna, smith
the Austrian, and the sacro-sar.ctity of frontiers under
its tutelage, have not ye, lowers of the west, dealt,
with the treaty and the frontiers under it as cavalierly
as it suited you? Have you not taken Belgium from
Holland? Did not French guns drive out CHASSE ?
Did nut French and English bayonets help to
expel Don CARLOS. from Spain? France and
England have set the first example of break-
ing through the treaties of Vienna fur the advantage
of their constitutional principle ? Why should not we
kick through the treaty of Vicuna fur the ttecuri y of
our despotic principle? If necessity could be pleaded
at Brussels for the one, it can be as fully pleaded at
Cracow for the other. The Austrian politician ne
s'arrete pas en si beats ehemin. He goes further, and
mks, what if the German powers were to agree. amongst
each other to remodel their territorial divisions; if
Bavaria, and Prussia, and Austria were to agree to
make certain changes, what right would England and
France have to interfere ? Yet the partitioning of
territory amongst the German powers is written in
the treaties of Vienna, and sanctioned by them. To
this very pointed and significant argument, which we
And in the Frankfort journal also, we should reply,
that whenever Austria and Prussia shall proceed to
the absorption of the minor German states, the trea-
ties of Vienna do give France and England the right
of imterfering, if they wish to use that right. If
Prussia takes Hamburg by force, England would be
tally warranted in blockading the mouth of the Elbe.
If Austria should treat Baden and Wurtemberg as
she has done Cracow, France would have every right to
Sing her pontoons across the Rhine.
But still further than even this, doth the Austrian
political doctor go. He insists tnnt all powers have
a right to re-arrange and change their frontiers, if
they can do so by common agreement, and that the
other powers can have no claim or cause to interfere.
Thus, if the King of SARDINIA were to sell Savoy
to Lorls PHILIPPE, in order to amuse himself wits
the money, the rest of Europe ought not to be con-
cerned. If CHRISTINA W 55 to truck Navarre for a
rente, or a domain in France, that is nothing in the
world to England. Let Austria take Cracow, Prussia
Holstein, Bavaria German Switzerland, what is that
to remoter powers ? We are ashamed to repeat such
impudent and ignorant anilitics. But these are the
arguments of the great Conservative court of Europe.
To the extent asserted, such principles will
not, in all probability, be acted on. But the
mere announcement, and from such quarters, proves
that the anarchic principles, or rather the negation
of all principles, which hitherto has worked on the
middle and thinking classes of a country to the modi-
fication or overthrow of government, has now got,
like an epidemy, into governments themselves, and
threatens, not the constitution of any particular state,
but the federal constitution of Europe. The rule of
right in international matters, is avowedly at an
end. The sacredness of force is proclaimed. European
countries are henceforth to be reduced, with respect to
one another, to a state of nature. The inconvenient
covering of treaties is to be at once thrown off. And
if the new state of things, introduced by Austrian
publicists, were to be realised or represented, it would
be by a band of naked savages, brandishing their
clubs, and knocking out the brains of their nearest
neighbours, and putting the fetters of slavery upon
the weakest.
Thank Gon, the free minds and the free states of
Europe are strong enough to treat such blasphemy
with the execration and contempt that it deserves.

WE return to the dispute between the Aldermee
and the Common Council. From our former article
on the subject it will be apparent that mom is in-
volved in the conflict than lies upon the surface. The
general question of the freedom of the city, the prac-
tice of enforcing the taking .it up by fines, the right
of the Common Council to originate acts of corporate
legislation, are all more or less dependent on the issue
of the present struggle. But it is desirable not to
embarrass the subject by any discussion of these
points, at least until we have disposed of the imme-
diate question involved in the Bill which gave rise.
to the collision of Thursday ae'nnight. That bill, as we
have already explained, purported to " declare the qua-
lification of freemen of London to be elected members
of the Common Council." It does not propose any
new method of acquiring the freedom of the city.
It merely introduces a change into the qualification
for Common Councillor.
The bill which was brought in by Mr. JouN
Woof), by the direction of the court, upon the report
of the General Purposes Committee, after repealing
all the declarations, orders, resolutions, and ordinances
of the 23d of November, 1710, and the 14th of June,
1716, and of the whole of the interval between those
dates and the present time, enacts that
Any freeman of London, being a householder, and any
freeman of London, though he ',say dwell out of the City,
be capable of being elected a member, provided at the
time of such election he is and fur twelve months previously
he shall have been the occupier of a house, shop, counting-
house, or office situated within the ecard for which he shall
be so elected, and provided that he is and for twelve months
previously he shall have been rated in his own name to the
consolidated rate in respect of any house, &c , within such
ward; and also provided that during the time of his being
so rated he shall have resided in such house, or habitually
resorted to such shop, counting-house, or office, fur the pur-
pose of carrying on any art, mystery, trade, profession, or
occupation therein.
To understand the character and effect of this ordi-
nance we must refer to the repealed orders of 1710
and 1716. By these, which both purport to be de-
claratory of an ancient custom, no person can be
elected common councilman for any ward who is not
a householder of that ward. The present measure, it
will be observed, extends the qualification from actual
householders to rate-paying occupants of house, shop,
counting-house, or office in the ward. The change
is one of peculiar importance in the circumstances of
the City of London and its rate-payers. At present
few of the most important class of business men in
the city actually live within its precincts. The first
object of the merchant, hanker, extensive retail
trader, and even the higher Class clerk, is to
escape from the dense atmosphere and narrow
streets within the sound of Bow-bells to the
suburban retreats of Tooting, Stratford, Hampstead,
and such places, or the less ambitious villas, crescents,
and squares of Islington and Bayswater. Moat of
this class are excluded, under the present qualifica-
tion, from the Common Council. They are precisely
the persons who should be its most active members.
Prima facie, the change would seem a highly desira-
ble one, as tending to throw the administration of
municipal affairs into the hands of the weightiest and
wealthiest class in the city. Thus contemplated, we
are at a loss to see what democratic or revolutionary
tendency can be detected in the present measure.
We need not consider what has preceded or what is
animated to follow it. We are happily exempt front
the party feelings and unacquainted with the party
arrangements of the city. As things are, there is no
question but that the city corporate officers are in bad
odour with the world without. Guildhall is looked
an as the Paradise of jobs and jobbers. We should
expect to find a disposition in the Aldermen to second
every measure which would weaken this imputation.
The bill in question, as we have already stated,
was prepared in committee of the Common Council, II
and read a first and second time. The Lord Mayor,
acting on the advice of the Recorder, declined to pat
the third reading, and broke up the court.
The protest of the Coma of Aldermen declares the
bill to be "contrary to the customs, charters, and
laws of the city." is it or is it not opposed to these,
and if it be, is it beyond the power of the Common
Council to pass such an ordinance? The charter of
EDWARD 111., in a clause recited in our former article
on this subject, gives the Mayor and Aldermen, with
the assent of the commonalty, power to remedy. " hard
or defective customs theretofore used and obtained."
It cannot, we presume, be maintained that this
power is vested in any but the Common Council. In
all legal proceedings, where an act of common coun-
cil is pleaded, this legislative power is set out as a
custom confirmed by act of parliament, and the
Charter itself sometimes appears on the pleadings.
This peculiar power of self-regulation has, since the
time of EDWARD lIL, been constantly and freely
exercised by the Common Council. Their right to
fix and alter qualifications of all kinds has never been
contested till now. The power has always been re-
cognised by the imperial legislature, the City legal