The Express.
London, England, 1848-04-03 00:00:00

lower house, the Irish are literally unrepresented in
the upper. It would have been much fairer and more
liberal for government to have kept to itself the right
of choice, by which means the great aristocratic par-
ties at leant would have been in some degree repre-
sented.
That the principle of election already applied in the
eases of Ireland and Scotland may and must be also
applied in England, if the upper home) is
to be regenerated, and is to have any solid or per-
manent bas, there cannot be a doubt. The question
is, who are to be the electors, and what the circum-
scription of the elected? Reserving the right of all ex- 1
isting peers, except those who can be proved bank-
rupt, or guilty of baseness, in a court of honour, and
even admitting the right of their next heirs, is it not
a question of justice, as well as a means of strength-
ening the upper house of parliament, to admit into
it those eminent men, who have attained the
summit of English society
.by the acquirement of
wealth, the possession of intelligence, or the ma-
nifestation of gentile, in such a way as shall satisfy
an enlightened body of electors? It is seldom until
the decline of life that such men attain the eminence
or leisure that would allow them to take part in a
legislative amembly. They are then too old and too
fond of ease for the trouble of the House of Commons.
That the liouse of Lords would gain by their presence,
need we adduce the example of Lord Asunueroe, or
the name of hundreds of sages whose experience and
co-operation, however splendidly successful is hut n pri-
vate, and,one may say, public life, have been out
from parliament ?
We have uo objection that the House of Lords
should now, as it did at first, represent the large pro-
perties of the country, interspersed with men of prac-
tical experience and administrative genius. But why
should this property be exclusively landed ? The soil
of England is too narrow for the in vestment of the
immense wealth that has been reared, and which is as
valuable as permanent, and at least ought to be as
productive of ease and as suggestive of high and dis-
interested thought and principle to its owners, as any
land can be. The lordly sheep feeder and mutton
vender may still sneer at the calico printer, but he
shakes hands with the loan-dealer and the capital-
ist. And whether he does or not, why should
our laws and institutions continue to base themselves
on land? BOLINGBROKE wrote, indeed, that "the
land was the boat, and the moneyed people only the
namengers." Considering that, as passengers, they
have been natives of the boat, as much as the
crew, the only mode of fitly replying to such an
impertinence, is by a mutiny.
'fliers is, however, no need of this. We have no
objection to an upper house representing property,
but let it be no exclusive kind of property. Thus,
whilst in former times the magnates of a
country might be assembled in no very spacious
court, it was easy for the sovereign to
look around, judge, and select who were the
fittest men to sit in the upper council. Neither sove-
reigns nor ministers can now pretend to such omnis-
cience, norcan they hope to exercise such great and
extended powers with effect. The crown must call
ebction to its aid. And here, again, let electoral
rights be based on property. Whosoever has looked at
our financial state, and at the weight of debt incurred
in the last generation, must have come pretty
nearly to the conclusion, that a great portion
of the weight of the debt must be Hung
upon the possessors of vested and realised
property. It is a heavy weight. A list of
the possessors of realised property must be made. If
this, striking off minor figures, be declared also the list
of the electors for that proportion of the House of
Peers which is to be elective, the house cannot but
fulfil a character, which it by no means does at pre-
sent, viz., represent the solid property of the country.
We do not say that this is actually the best plan,
but it certainly is one, that in liberalising the House
of Lords would at the same time add to its strength,
and enable it to have a voice and a part in the affairs
of the country, in which at present it appears but as a
superannuated and ill-humoured critic, with a timid
and obnoxious ref°.

LORD JOCELYN has given notice that he will ask
the Premier certain questions to-night relative to the
present condition of Ireland. Without precisely anti-
ticipating the terms in which such interrogations may be
pat, we may safely assume that their drift and object
will be to obtain from an authoritative source such an
assurance of the vigilance and strength of the govern-
ment in Ireland as may tend to quiet the fears of cer-
tain portions of the community, and to restore their
accustomed confidence to those who have momentarily
been led to doubt the stability of order and of law.
' It is manifestly reasonable that the legislature
I should be fully informed upon a subject so important.
If the law be inadequate to its own defence, it ought
forthwith to be amended ; and its inadequacy would
in truth be at once palpable and unpardonable, if any
rational doubt could be entertained of its power to
make amenable those who set it openly at defi-
ance. It may doubtless need more than ordinary
patience to endure with equanimity the imperti-
nence of mountebank treason. But, after all,
there is so much that is ineffably ludicrous
in the bellicose twaddle of the Confederation, spouted
once a week under the protection of the police, to a
ticketpurchasing audience, that we are constantly
tempted to ask ourselves whether the whole concern
is not a merciless travestie of the rhetorical excesses
of a real revolution. From the sublime of M. LA-
MARTIN E to the ridiculous of Mr. MEAGItEIt, there is
but a step ; and all that it is requisite for staid and
sober people to bear in mind is, that the one is
real, whatever it may be worth, while the other is
mere mockery and make-believe. Nothing is so un-
like the bulletin issued after a battle as the programme
of a review of troops not yet enrolled. Let this also
be remembered—that the whole of the public discus-
sions which eventually led to the overthrow of mo-
narchy in France were scrupulously kept within the
limits of the law. There was no rattling of tin
swords—no invocation of foreign valour and foreign
aid to stimulate the laggard step of native freedom—
no vaponring vows of preference for the scaffold and
desire for the dungeon. Not a single word of
Gana, trumpets, blunderbusses, drums, or thunder.
AR was plain prose and peaceable—a mere demand
in constitutional terms of a specific organic reform.
And why ?—because the great majority of the French
people and the deputies and others who uttered their
legal and rightful demands were in earnest: and
earnest men do not hector and storm, or resort in
desperation to hysterical expedients to rouse the
sluggish sympathy of their followers. But what is to
be thought of men who begin their proceedings by
handing the government reporter a chair, and conclude
them by recommending the peasantry to get pikes,
and the artisans to get guns, for the purpose of over-
turning the authority of the Queen ? Of their sin-
cere design to bring matters to such a pass, as that an
outbreak would not be impossible, we have no doubt ;
and of the wish entertained by some of them that such
an outbreak should actually take place we have as
little; but how these gentlemen can expect their dis-
ciples, or the residue of mankind, to believe that they
intend to take any part in such a traissactioo,
surpasses, we own, our comprehension. The
,TONES and FITZGERALDS of 1798, however'
I}lnftuarded in their social hours, carefully
avoided the use of any public language likely to com-
mit them prematurely with the authorities of the
I day ; they held their deliberations secretly, and kept
even the records of their conspiracy in an enigmatical
dialect, contrived for the special purpose of baffling
government espionage. Yet they were aasuredly not
wanting in courage, personal or political. Their ob-
ject confessedly was to protect themselves as heads
and chiefs of the projected insurrection until the
hour of action should arrive, wherein they knew their
presence would be most indispensable to its success.
What would they have thought of a " United Irish "
speech addressed to the police?
While the leaders of Young Ireland are thus endea-
vouring to break into prison, their rivals at Concilia-
tion hall are as anxiously trying on their parts to avoid
perilous contingencies. As the former run: ahead of
their forlorn band, so the latter lag behind,—oat of
indictment range. In nothing is the lack of hereditary
tact and skill more painfully discernible than in the
scenes that have recently occurred in the Repeal
Association. In nothing was O'CONNELL'S marvel-
lous power over the multitude more conspicuous than
in the facility with which, after having for months
promised them the approaching advent of all manner
of good things, he could suddenly postpone indefinitely
the realisation of their hopes, and send them unmur-
muring though empty away. Mr. JoaN is u ready
and reckless in his undertakings, pledges, and
guarantees, that after a few more subcriptions,
speeches, sad resolaikas, the railleahun of rerml may