The Express.
London, England, 1851-05-02 00:00:00

to do, their real aim was not avowed, and the ad-
joarnment of the house from Wednesday until
Friday was proposed on a different plea. Sir
ROBERT ;SOLIS wanted " a mimic holiday."'
People wished to enjoy the Exhibition without
being hurried. Very well," rejoined Lord JOUR,
.‘ then you may take till six o'clock instead of
four, and as the Crystal Palace will be closed
at seven, uo one can complain that he has been de-
frauded of much of his ticket's worth." It might
have been supposed that after this friendly pinch in
the car the mist' uctives would have desisted from
their unreasonable attempt. Hut it appears to have
required the arithmetical logic of a division to con-
vince them that the House of Commons entertained
no disposition to rescind the policy which it has so
frequently affirmed of entire political equality for
men of all persuasions and all creeds. Time enough
had already been lost during the earlier portion of
the session, and within a week from the expiry of
the usual Easter MOM, it seemed too bad to ask for
an extra holiday on any of the grounds assigned.
In the tumult of other contraverisim embracing a
wider sphere and enlisting more numerous sympa-
thies, the claims of the eons of ISRAEL denizencd
amongst us have of late been apparently forgotten.
It is evident, however, that public opinion has in no
way receded from the point in favour of the perfect
and unqualified concession of civil rights, which it
bad long since reached. The jealousy of oligarchs
and bigots may not be assuaged towards this
most inoffensive class of the community ; and
party, somewhat at fault for watchwords, may con-
tinue still to mingle the cry of political persecution
for religion's sake with that of protection to agricul-
nun for sake of high rents. But the mind of the
sober, clear-judging, and religious people of these
kingdoms has lung since been definitively made up
oa the questioa; they wish for no sectarian exclusions
or privations, and abolished by their inflexible will
they are certain ere long to be.
Mr. Newt/M.ITR performed the melancholy part
last night of preaching an obsolete sermon to a dead
congregation.• It is a singular peculiarity of pro-
tectionist rhetoric, that it is always delivered wider
the apparent conviction that the audience and the
orator both belong to a period about thirty
years gone by. The looks of unaffected
wonder which each antiquated escapade excites
in the countenances of the actual listeners, fails
wholly to startle the declaimer of superseded saws
from his prosaic dream. The occasional cheers with
which he is saluted do not strike his cur as ironical ;
and he ploughs the sterile sand of decomposed de-
lusions with as much energy and perseverance as if
a real growth and fruition of thought could, once
again, follow front his toil. It has ken said by an
exquisite critic, that self-forgetfulness is the true
frame of mind for a poet or an orator. Measured by
this test, nothing can be better than the parliamentary
opponents of the Jews; for they never seem capable
of being made to comprehend that they
live and talk in the year of grace MI,
and that laws are no longer made by two hereditary
chambers, one nominated by the other, and both
sworn to think and act only in accordance with the
'May-nine Articles. Mr. NEW DEGATE'S speech
against the second reading of the Abjuration Bill
might have done very well in the days of the LIVER-
roiI. administration, when corn laws were enacted,
and Merlons caused little embarrassment to those in
power. Hut the admission of persons of every creed.
except the oldest of them all, into the legislature, and
the rendering about a fourth, or perhaps a third, of
the House of Commons practically responsible to the
middle class of society for their conduct, renders all
such appeals to the nn longer extant religious unity
even of professed opinions in parliament, out of
place, out of date, and, for all useful purposes, out of
the question.
The debate, if debate it can he called, was miser-
tilde in the extreme ; and the division may be and
to have been in keeping with the debate. Mr.
Got mains repeated for the hundredth time his
stock arguments against being liberal and just under
any circumstances ur to any body whatsoever. Mr.
likurefi enlivened the discussion for half an hour,
by reminding the tortes of some unpalatable truths ;
but he seemed unto them as one that mocked, and
set up Colonel Slummy to answer him by jokes of
the most unlaughable sort about the Crystal
Palace, and other equally relevant topics. Lord
JOHN'S few words Ili conclusion were to the pur-
pose. and pledged the government anew to the
policy of thorough civil freedom for men of all sects
and &nominations. Ile believed that the opinion of
England was for and nut against this sacred prin-
ciple; and so say we.
In a house numbering little more than half its
entire numbers, the bill was read a second time by a
majority of only 25- a considerable falling off from
last year. The announcement was hailed with ostenta-
tious glee by the Protectionist minority. With
what feelings must Mr. Disievett have heard their
cheers!

NOTHING so easy 11, 4 to indulge in raillery at the
expense of the " Great aggregate meeting of Roman
Catholics" in Dublin, and nuike it a handle for in-
sinuations depreciatory of the intelligence and
judgment of the people among whom such a display
could be tolerated. But we have read the history
of these islands to better purpose. We have studied
minutely the local history of Scotland, in particular,
fur the find forty years after its union with Eng.: II
land, and we unhesitatingly declare that the politics
of the Scotch, who have contrived to pass themselves
off of late years as models of sagacity and prudence,
were every whit as turbulent, aimless, childish,
and we fear we must add as fertile in
unprincipled demagogues, as Ireland has been
since its union. Habits of practical political
exertion, tempered by the external show of
deference to high principle, even when the heart
is corrupt, are not acquired in a day. The im-
pressions left upon Insh politicians by a cen-
tury of an ascendancy parliament, in which two
factions of plausible jobbers did their utmost to cor-
rupt themselves and their countrymen, are not to be
effaced but by time. But there is a fund of genial
shrewdness in the Irish character, that convinces us
the turbid stream will work itself clear at last.

If, therefore, we advert to the puerile and bragga-
docio absurdities of the Dublin meeting of Tuesday,
in language more plain than pleasant, it is not to
pinder to the anti-Irish prejudices of a certain class
of English readers, but simply and sincerely to try
if we cannot shame some of the high-spirited, intelli-
gent, and educated gentlemen, of whom, beyond all
doubt, Ireland can boast, out of their habit of coun-
tenancing such exhibitions, and affecting to sympa-
thise with them.
We put it, unhesitatingly, to many of the gentle-
men who were present, and who took a part in the
proceedings, what fruits can they expect from a
shindy that exceeded everything fiction records of
Donnybrook Fair ? Poor Mr. Jon O'Cotssem.
was in imminent danger of not having life enough
lett in him to die on the floor of the House of Com-
mons. The pathos of his own re-reiterated vow to
do so—the mock-heroics of Mr. Sarni O'Brttrzt in
the House of Commons' coal-cellar, were cast into the
shade by Mr. O'Coxx ELL'S magnanimous vindication
of his antagonist, Mr. Lte vs, from the suspicion of
having given him the bloody nose, with which,
after many interruptions, he presented himself
to commence his harangue. " He begged to assure
the meeting that the handsome wound which deco-
rated his faee—(alluding to a bruise on the honour-
able gentleman's nose)—was not the work of Mr.
Ler.vs." The majority of the meeting appear to
have been favourable to Mr. O'CONNELL, stiil, it is
nut creditable that in a meeting of his own party, the
son of the O'CoNNELL should have to struggle for a
hearing against a Saxon immigrant through a hail-
storm of fluty-cuffs?
The most unpopular ministry one can conceive
need wish for its purposes no better opposition than
a party which, in the full consciousness that the eye of
the public is upon them, can observe no more decorum
in meetings composed exclusively of their own mem-
oers. And such ebullitions of mere boyish turbulence
can starcely injure them more than the puerility of their
declamation. There is something transparently un-
real in the whole of their agitation. They vow that
they will vote against ministers, right or wrong, to
show their anger ; that they will bite off their own
noses to spite their faces. And all the while it is
clear as the sun at noon-day that they either cannot
or a ill not carry this absurd threat into effect. They
cannot unseat Mr. JOHN O'Cosrosia, although he
has too much sense to submit to such dictation : they
have, indeed., compelled one of the most intelligent
and universally respected of Irish members-14r.
4GIN-40 throw up his seat in disgust, but in lieu

lof him they have got an avowed whig partisan, to
hid defiance to their commands to vote black is
white.
Their exaggerated wl • • g about religious perse-
cution rings as hollow as their anti-ministerial
threats. ho man—not the most ultra-protestant—•
has whispered a wish to deprive the Roman catholics
of one civil or social right. Their property, the
free exercise of their worship, their political privi-
leges, are wassailed. But their priests, or a section
of them—have attempted to exact the same implicit
obedience from protestants that is yielded to them
by their own flocks—they have attempted to trample
upon the law (be that law right or wrong) instead
of appealing to the legislature for a change ; and this
encroachment the protestants arc resolute to resist.
Civil liberty consists in the conformity of law to the
will of the majority, and in the freedom of the mino-
rity to assail that law by amument, ridicule, or vi-
tuperation in order to persuade the majority to alter
it, so long as they keep their hands to themselves
This liberty our catholic friends .in Ireland amply
• themselves can scarcely deny that they
possess
made a liberal use (not to say abuse)
of it.
If they would examine their own language and I
sentiments, they would see that they are trying to
exact from protestants what they certainly arc not
prepared to concede to protestants in return. Their
own priests and laity have of lute been busy making'
converts, yet they denounce in the most unmeasured
terms the efforts of protestants in the west of Ire-
land to make converts from the Romish church.
They complain bitterly that protestants do not
on all occasions speak in a reverential man-
ner of things which itomanists hold sacred. Ilas
the Tablet, have other Romanist organs in the press
and pulpit, been particularly choice in the language
with which they assail all that protestants hold dear
and venerable ? The right of reciprocal propagand-
ism is one which sincere religionists of all sects
cannot give up: it could be wished that controver-
sialists would uniformly curry on their disputes in a
decorous and loving spirit ; but this is too much to
be hoped from fallible mortals; and, assuredly for
the punishment of neglect of this Christian duty,
neither Romanist nor Protestant have any right to
throw the first stone.