The Express.
London, England, 1853-10-08 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

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LO.VDOS, SITURD.II, OCTOBER S.

Tut: Peace Conference is to assemble next week
in Edinburgh. The LORD Paovosr of Edinburgh
is to preside, and it is announced that a considerable
number or foreigners will be present, to reciprocate
sympathy, return visits, and so on. Nobody can
have a word to say against any number of persons,
from any number of tuitions, meeting to enjoy hospi-
tality, and to agree that war is a great curse and
peace a great blessing ; that free commerce is
the best guarantee of peace ever established ;
that the day will come when arbitration, in one
form or another, will settle the quarrels of nations;
and that there are clear signs in ourday of a tendency
towards this mode of settlement. All this is very
desirable, and it is useful to inculcate such a ,
feeling ; and, if any gentleman need to be convinced
of these truths, let him by all means go and listen to
the good and interesting speaking that, considering
who is to be there, will certainly be uttered at tke
approaching gathering. But there is that in the cir-
cular issued by the Conference which makes it highly
desirable that both members and strangers should
re id and reflect a good deal before they commit
themselves to some of the resolutions that will be
propos, d to them. The circular states that, "in
addition to the general topics of international
arbitration, mutual reduction of armaments, non-
intervention, &c., usually discussed at Peace
Congresses, the attention of the assembly will be
specially directed, in connexion with recent events
which have so deeply agitated the public mind, to
the policy and necessity of revising those treaties by
which this country is bound to iuterfere, by force of
arms. in the affairs of other nations." That is, the
Conference will urge that we should never again
pledge ourselves as we are now pledged for the pre-
servation of Turkey ; and the words would seem to
convey a suggestion that we should back out of our
existing pledges, if possible.
This is the serious and practical part of the affair ;
and considering the want of clearness of view and
firm apprehension of the principle concerned in
the case, that exists in a large portion of
society about our share in this Turkish business,
it does appear to us very serious. Looked up to as
some of the Peace Members are for substantial and
immortal services in a great and good cause, they
have by their very merits laid themselves under an
obligation to study, to think, to clear their own views,
to take care that they comprehend the whole ques-
tion, before they invite popular attention to their op-
position to what is, if a duty at all, the most urgent
and sacred national duty of the time. To us it ap-
pears that they are in the dark as to the grounds of
our obligations, and not alive to the claims of na-
tional conscience, in a question as solemn as can come
before the existing generation.
They treat all wars as of the same kind, and de-
nounce them all in the same breath. They say that
we have outgrown war, and that warfare would
never he proposed if we only cleared away the appa-
ratus. Not to dwell on the obvious truth that, as
religion generat eaclergy and churches, so war
generates armies and artillery, and not the converse
in either case, the absence of discrimination about
the kinds and occasions of warfare renders the whole
discussion merely disturbing and vexatious to prin-
ciple. The Roman wars of conquest were one
thing ; a thing long passed away, and needing no
more words. The defensive wars which succeeded
those of conquest were another thing ; and they too,
as taking place among the leading nations of the
earth—the great powers of western Europe—have
passed away. They would never have intruded upon
this century but for the antique vices of BONAPARTE,
who prostituted to the purposes of his own unphilo-
sophical and retrograde ambition such an opportunity
of blessing his race as was, perhaps, never before,
and probably will never be again offered to any man.
To those who read their own timesby the broad day-
light of history, instead of by the farthing candle of
their own life's experience, it is clear that there can
never again be any serious and sustained warfare
among the great nations of western Europe, though
It is equally evident that they are not, on this account,
much nearer to peace and tranquillity. To the de-
fensive wars of the middle ages succeeded the wars
on commercial grounds, which lasted up to the time
of our immediate fathers; and sow that these colonial
and other commercial conflicts have ceased, the desti-
nation of modern armies is, in most countries, though
happily not in our own, to maintain political order
at home. If this were the whole ease, the Peace
Conference might have all its own way. It might
busy itself about arbitration and so forth ; and inter-
national pew would exist, and grow strong (unless
under some passing disturbance from some indivi-
dual ambition), whether they lent a hand to
sustain it or not. But this is not the whole case, as
these gentlemen ought to be very well aware. They
may keep their proposals ready for any possible (but
most improbable) revival of the last kind of warfare
that has passed away; but they are wholly and un-
questionably inappropriate to the two orders of
erased conflict that are now impending.
Of these two, the one that they propose to take in
band is the Russo-Turkish quarrel. Now the real
question in this ease is whether the Asiatic or the
European principle of government shall prevail in
Europe? And they cannot really suppose that
arbitration and disarmament will avail in such a
collision as that. The CZAR has saved us the trouble ,
of showing that arbitration does not suit his case, I T
tipy
etare Dm CLM -- Eln this gentlemanand that he can never be influenced or bound maenat hat one of its most generally re•
by it. He is the incarnation of the despotic ' spected practitioners; we might, indeed, say the
principle of government, which must and will come up founder of the school in Great Britain. lie died of ty.
against the representative principle from time to phus fever, contracted while attending a patient ha
official capaeity at the Hahnemann Hospital. Dr.
hastime, till the latter is established over the whole
broad platform of Western Europe. The warfare of Ciutraile awtal'amrisig,lantailelYasnul'actin m the Military Ifao
ve
Russia is against political liberty in the large and in Cie subeequently became a pupil of Hahneman when
detail ; and her total enginery is military. She is so in consequence of an application from Mr. Leaf,
backward in civilisation as hardly yet to have reached commended to him to come to Enifland and practise.
the ministerial stage of administration; and the Nearly years ago Dr. Curie opened the fiat
3spnalholZsedrvillegisars yr,asentideeinvAited metdioal
diplomatic method is as yet, in her case, little more Publicine n to e omit: mar
than an accommodation to the modes of Europe, and jority of the English practitioners of homoeopathy
not, u with us and our nearer neighbours, a political hare been trained in the dispensary established by
institution. How absurd, then, is the suggestion to Dr. Curie.
turn back Russia from her purposes of aggression by THE LATE MR. DAVID DREW.—By the death of
tcllarr
onftlecrannctehrey elserlefitip,of
netn.roalmnenoz in
the
proposals of disarmament and arbitration. She is of
the old world, with whole series of wars to pus emoluments of which amount to 1,2001. per acennum.
through, in all probability; and, at all events, she is Sir. Drew was also collector of income and property
not knocking at the frontiers of political Europe for tax from the officers of the court. He was much re-
admission into our civilisation, but as its be- spected, and had (we believe) been attached to the
sieger and sworn foe. Civilised Europe has court from his
boyhood.
1., M.P.—We understand that the
to meet her, not with the cornucopia in c itwu
Right Han. Elward Carswell, the President of the Deed
one hand and peace tracts in the other, but with an of Trade, at foreseen residing at Alva --011ie, his declined
apparatus such as ancient barbarism can better un- invitslon to apu
is blic diniagier it was proposedeiei set:
derstand, and be more impressed by. She must be giimve„llifv,e,sfuEry Pf the kindness 01 those who Pro-
turned hack and kept within her own hounds. It'red to pay aim so flstt.ring a compliment ; but as he
is not only our treaties with Turkey and with each had come to this district for retirement, he did_not
feel
Mewed to attend say public entertsinment.—Al
other that bind ne to this Ole It is our faith

The other kind of impending warfare is of the
same nature as to its principle, but different as to the
persons. It will not be international, nor yet exactly
civil ; but between a despotic coterie in each
country—with or without armies for instruments—
and the great body of the people they oppress. It
is not to be supposed that the Peace Conference
I would interfere in this case, in the hope of either 1 mollify isg the despots or persuading the people
to lay aside their claims. Nothing but the
1 commercial spirit run mad could propose such an
I arbitration as that; and as for disarmament, the
Iruling powers are doing their best to secure that, on
one side at least, and want no help. The war of
opinion, probably irrespective of nationalities, must,
to all appearance, soon break out, whether along the
whole course of the Danube, or oely near its mouth,
or oa the Tiber, or at the foot of the Alps, or else.
where ; and that is a struggle in which the testimony
of England must be clear and decisive, and her voice
must be shou'ed forth, as the word of command
should be by the leader of the nations, in assertion
of that principle of noo-intervention, to which France
and England are alike indebted for the successful
issue of their constitutional struggles.

THE "TIMES" AND GENERAL J.WATSON
WEBB.

In Galignanis Messenger of yesterday appears the
leading article which the Times published a few
days ago, along with and as an answer to a letter
from General J. Watson Webb, editor of the New
York Courier and Enquirer. To this article the
editor of Galignanis Messenger has prefixed the
title—" The English Press on America." We aro
not apt to take umbrage at trifles, hut really, as
forming part of " the English Press," we feel it due
to ourselves to disclaim the imputation conveyed in
this title. The article in question expresses, not the
opinion entertained by the English Press of Ame-
rica, but the vulgar, bullying insolence of
the Times at having a frank, candid, and manly re-
monstrance addressed to it by an American gentle-
, man. From all that we can learn, but one feeling
prevails on this side of the Channel as to the conduct
of the Times in this matter—a feeling of unmitigated
disgust. On one or two minor points we may dissent
from the opinions expressed by General Webb—these
points, however, being all irrelevant to the main
question at issue between him and the Times ; but
as to the temperee and gentlemanly tone of his
letter, and the genet al correctness of his views, there
cannot be two opinions. The Times, however, has
made this letter the pretext of a personal attack upon
General Webb, so groundless, so vulgar, and so
brutal, that the most drunken and depravedf bully
of the London streets might be ashamed of it. tiwth
ebullitions are not unprecedented on the part of the
Times, and arc not always confined to foreigners.
It is but justice to that journal to admit that it is
pretty impartial in the distribution of its favours of
this kind. Fur this reason we did nut think it ne-
cessary to offer any remarks on the article at the
time it appeared, inasmuch as it has long been
known that he heads of the conductors of the Times
having been turned by success, they are as impatient
of contradiction or remonstrance, and as violent in
their abusive denunciations of any one who contra-
dicts or remonstrates with them, u Lord Peter in the

" Tale of a Tub." But when a journal so widely
circulated on the continent as Galignanis Messenger
imputes to the journalists of England as a body
sentiments so hostile to our American kinsmen, and
expressed with such a savage vulgarity and viru-
lence of language, as in the unprovoked onslaught of
the Times upon General Webb, it is necessary for
our own vindication to disclaim all sympathy with
them, and call upon Galignani to retract this (we
believe unintentional) libel on the English press.
The most offensive passages of the article are, it is
true, omitted by the Messenger, but more than
enough remains to make any one endowed with
average veracity or the sentiments of a gentleman
wince at the supposition that he could approve
of such Billingsgate.

RESUMPTION OF THE LEICESTER
GAOL INQUIRE

—e—
The Commissioners for inquiring into the discipline
and management of the Leicestershire Gaol and
House of Correction, will re-assemble at Leicester
on Monday next, it is said, upon the application of
the Justices to Viscount Palmerston. It Is to be
hoped that the Commissioners will examine Sir
Henry Halford respecting a statement made by that
gentleman in a letter to one of our contempo-
raries. During the Snit investigation into
the management of Leicester Gaol great stress
wee laid by the gaoler and his friends
upon the unction alleged to have been given to their
measures in the report of the House of Commons
Committee of IMO, on Prison Discipline. On this
point Sir Henry says in the letter referred to :
" This resolution appears in the minutes of the pro-
ceedings ofthe committee to have been formally pro-
posed by Sir George Grey, at that time Secretary of
State for the Home Department. lam not sure
whether this was exactly so, as the resolution teas
prepared by myself." So Sir Henry, one of the
authors of the Leicester Gaol system, was its anony-
mous eulogist in a House of Commons Report, and
afterwards quoted that (his own Report, but without
stating the authorship) to the Commissioners as a
I high authority. Where ke ought to have been put
on hie triel he acted as assessor to the judge and
prompted his judgment.