The Express.
London, England, 1851-07-11 00:00:00

PARLIAMENTARY DIVISION.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.
BORNEO.—MR. HUME'S MOTION.
Are,Ne4l3o;ziNcß.slo.
Hayworth, Lawmen Willcox, B.Ghia
Mr S. N. LaidartshiaLharks Whom, John
ICt WlMama, William
Bin
J. 4.
Jalma
Jabs ailbreL
Abriinekt Hume Urquhart, David
AISWAIIR Waluday, Rr L

Wit erortoo.

TO COI

• Irmil Mem it;iiiiger.-4-«ii•i;iai-ihs ems melee,
WOW wiry Tuesday sad ?rift, sieht, la U..

kr pg. • . . __ .
johortleeneeeeheeeeed fee" The Elmo," Lerner ryes* pow,
meet be el lie gees, 1., Ikeiverie•streel„ by Two &sleek as tbe
day of pailleedes.

HIGR WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Ties MT—Nantes. 4isi.
To.iteasew—lloratag, S 4 m.

- - -
LONDON, FRIDAY, JULY lt.

THE report of M. 1* TOCQVEVILLE on the pro-
Celrevision of the republic is likely to produce
tic impression on the minds of men or the
course of events. It is a cautious and elaborate
attempt to write history by anticipation. Logically
things must happen on given contingencies in a cer-
tain way. But do events generally marshal them-
selves in logical order? Above all are the expe-
dients that may be suggested to a bewildered nation
on the brink of anarchy capable of being foretold in a
schedule ten months before-hand ? A nver threatens
to quit its bed and to form for itself a new channel,
whereupon fifteen grave engineers of the most opposite
theories and predilections, sit down and agree, after
much cogitation, to the course it may with.propriety
take, and append to their chart of the corning irrup-
tion, the coxcombical mandate, " This way or
Done ! "

c majority of the commission by whom M. roe
Toeuervitils report has been adopted, admit them-
selves to be reluctant revisionists. Were it possible
to jump the chasm of 1852 in safety they would
rather try and do so, than recommend they
convoca-
tion of a Constituent Assembly, to whose plenary
powers must be committed the task of deciding the
organic future of France. But as the time approaches
when both the executive and the legislative are by law
to resign their respective trusts, and when for a
season the country is to undergo what the report
terms "an eclipse "—intense misgivings as to the
casualties that may ensue overpower all other feel-
ings, and at any cost or hazard they have come to
the conclusion that some attempt ought to be made
to bridge the abyss. But then comes the question of
what form and of what materials shall the bridge be
made? To this M. n 1 ToctsuevtLte philosophically
declines giving any reply whatever; but as to the
proper time when, and the legitimate method how,
on these points the political metaphysician is stern
and inexorable.

The sovereignty of the people is, without reserve,
declared to be above and beyond control in the es- i
sential choice between monarchical and republican
institutions. That a moribund legislature should arro- ,
gate the right to limit the discretion of a convention
chosen by universal suffrage is repudiated as wholly
inadmissible. Order and civilisation can only be
secured by a loyal submission to the will, frankly
expressed, of the absolute majority of the Option.
Yet, in the midst of this bold and strong common ,
sense,there limp about a number of paralytic scruples
about article 45 and article 11l of the existing consti-
tution, literal adherence to which is made a condition
nt to any reform whatever. Revision is
dared on the ono hand to be a necessity, if the
state is to be saved, while upon the other, it is made
strictly conditional upon the all-but incredible case of
obtaining a majority of three-fourths of the present
contemned assembly. The nation's will is supreme
once it gets leave tole) pronounced, but without the
leave of an expiring chamber the will of the nation
has no business to be thought or spoden of.
The sketch of the inherent vices of the present in-
stitution, as drawn by M. De TOCQU eel Eis about the
best part of his performance. The unmeaning
and unmanageable size of the constituencies
which renders the " whole ticket" system the only
practicable one in general elections, and thereby
gives to the dictation of the noisiest clique or club
the force of millions,—is vividly pourtrayed in a few
brief but pregnant sentences. It is plain that a
better re-distnhution of electoral rights is requisite
in France before personal fitness can be fairly esti-
mated in the representative or personal discrimina-
tion exercised by the elector. Where 100,000 men
have to name ten for their delegates, it is impos-
sible that a real selection can be made. Better
fisr that every 10,000 should be permitted to
make choice of one. The evil thus indicated
is the antithesis of that which we in England labour
under ; but it is not the less actual and operative.
Pew persons will, we think, recognise the same
cogency or clearness in the strictures which follow
on the direct method of electing a President. The
cases are in nowise similar. No man is likely to be
named chief magistrate et France who has not
already a national reputation. The contrast drawn
between the French law of 1848 and the American
law of 1789 does not we confess appear to us calcu-
lated to throw much light a.. the matter. The
federal union desired to ye the means of
selecting a safe sentinel to walk up and
gown the small power magazine established at
Washington. The intensely centralised common-
wealth of France wished for a chief a thaw!, who
should at least look ss if he was ready to lead an
army of the Rhine.
More to the purpose are the remarks of M. DE
TOCQUEVILLE on the hopeless equipoise crested be-
tween the legislative and executive authorities by
the crude constitution of 1848. " They dwell in an
eternal tets-a-tete—liable to disagree because human
and fallible—yet without an arbiter of any kind
to compose or compromise their differences."
The every-day result we have too clearly seen
in the divided and doubtful responsibility of
ministers, and the consequently equivocal right of
the majority of the Assembly to compel the cabinet
or any member of it to do or to forbear to do any
single act. Some means of obviating this defect is
urgently needed. Compared therewith, and the due
subordination of the heads of administrative depart-
ments to the representative body, the title of the chief
magistrate or the term of his office are in our judg-
ment matters of minor moment.
To do M. DE TOCQUEVILLE justice, we must say
that his essay on change is free from the besetting
sin of French state literature, for it flatters nobody.
There is not a word to propitiate the self-conceit of
the conservative majority, as little to inflate the
vanity of the Mountain, and still less to soothe the
temper of the Elysee. Without uttering any very dis-
tinct reproach, the various factions are told circumstan-
tially that after making due allowance for the difficulties
of the position, they must each and all sacrifice much
of their own way, if they mean the state to ride
safely through the storm. But with an excess of
pragmaticism., each is superfluously reminded of its
power to thwart and mar, while the community at

large is adjured to respect implicitly every such
exercise of power, for the sake and the love of
legality. Strange that so acute an observer of men
and things es IL DE Tocciunviu.a should seem to
forget that what renders loyalty to law of priceless
value is the general assent to its sanction, and that
devotion to its written forms becomes a mere idle
affectation, when through those very sanctions a
bold and honest hand like his is compelled to drive
the plough-share of fundamental, total, and revolu-
i tionary change!

WHAT has the Crystal Palace done for railways ?
The weekly returns of receipts up to the 30th of
June are now all published ; so that we aro in a
position to answer the question for the first half d
the year 1851.
But the first half is always, we must remember."
the worse half of the railway year. It is in the
months of July, August, September, October, and
November that people move about most in this
country; it is in the autumn that stocks are replen-
ished ; and in the autumn that goods are chiefly ex-
ported. In spring we are stationary, we keep to our
homesore stick to our fires ; and in May and June the
harvest has not furnished the means by which the
abundance of ono district supplies the population of
another. Moreover, in this special year, it will most
likely be during the present and the next month that
the Continent will pour its strongest streams into
London. For then all Germany has its holidays, to be
turned this year from its baths to Hyde-park; and
then'the French law and university vacations occur.
If the Exhibition has not an jet done all for rail-
ways that the sanguine anticipated, the gloomy
must not therefore conclude that railways have had
up to the 30th of June the full rateable benefit of the
great show ; for the gradually increasing returns in-
dicate that increasing numbers are coming.
Most people do, however, express disappointment
Int the returns; that is, with the pecuniary receipts.
For when the number of excursion trains that the
greater lines run is taken into consideration; when we
think of the crowds which they bring up and take
back, and the low fares at which they are carried;
the pecuniary receipts of railways at present fur
nish very inadequate materials for estimating the
number of persons actually conveyed to and froml
London. Railway companies are commercial enter-1
prima ; and even in this year we must not expect
them to carry at fares that aro not substantially re-
munerative. By doing anything of tho sort, their
directors would be sacrificing those interests of their
constituents which they were chosen especially to
support ; and would turn what is a source of profit
to all other trades into a loss to the carrying trade.
And a narrow examination into the rates and ex-1
penses of the excursion trains would probably show
that directions have generally gone nearer to the,
margin of loss than the external community has any
claim to even in 1851.
Of the average weekly receipts for the half year
ending 30th June, 18.51, striking a weekly average
of the whole amount of money taken in the half
year, it may generally be remarked that the weekly
average is under that for the half year ending 29th
December, 1850. In other words, the effects of the
Exhibition on the bad half of this year have not quits
pulled the average take up to that of the good half al
last year. Thus, the average per week from the Ist
July to 29th December, 1850, on the North Western
was 46,2101., whilst the average from the 29th De-
cember, 1850, to 29th June, 1851, was only 45,3501.
The average of the South Eastern for the same
periods was 13,7041. against 11,5651., though in the
pest half-year nearly 30 miles have been added to
its length. That of the South Western was 11,2371.
against 10,4021. That of the Midlands 23,1661.
against 20,5821. That of the Lancashire and York-
shire, 15,5431. against 15,1281. In one case only is
there a small increase in the weekly average; that
is in the Great Western, where the figures are
18,6731. against 16,8751. last half-year.
Ordinarily these two half-years arc not fair periods
of comparison; but as the present is an exceptional
year, wo have compared them, in order to get
at a formula by which to expres.s the effect
of the Exhibition on railway receipts; and it
may be put thus; it has made the bad half of the
year 1851 nearly equal to the good half of the year
18,50; and that, we submit, is a very substantial
benefit; though of course to what extent we cannot
correctly appreciate, until wo know the additional
working expenses incurred in the last half year by
excursion trains, and these, it is obvious, must be
very considerable.
The rate of mileage increase during the half-yar
is, however, very remarkable. The lowest point
on the North Western was for the week ending
January 12, when the week's receipts gave 731. a
mile ; whereas the mileage for the week ending June
29 was no leas than 1261. On the Great Western
the lowest point in the half year was 431. a mile, the
highest 061., also in the last week of the half year.
In the South Eastern the mileage figures are 331.
qpiest 65!. • in the South Western, 33/. against 69/. ;
in Midlands, 361. against 461.; in the Lancashire
and Yorkshire, 511, against 831. for Whitsun week,
when all the manufacturing districts make holiday,
but against 661. only for the week ending 29th June ;
in the Eastern Counties, 371. against 55/. ; and in the
Great Northern, 291. against 531.
If, then, the rates at which in the closing. weeks of
the last half-year the mileage has been increasing
shall be fully supported in the present half year, the
effect of the Exhibition on railway traffic may yet
reach the expectations entertained by reasonable
people. For to the impetus which the Exhibition will
give to travelling in the travelling half-year, must of
course be added the impetus it will also give to com-
merce during the commercial half-year.