The Express.
London, England, 1849-11-12 00:00:00

ght Orono.

OUTGOING MAUL

Vie Wait ladla Mai* oral edies Bermuda, lievaaaa,
News. Noodures, New Orleans, aad llesfoo, wd iseludlas
glen tar Madeira, Bt. Jusa.daNieareiva. New Graaada,
asd Peru. will be Rada up is Nor. 17.
The mot oath So. Lisboa, Biala, sad Gibraltar will be
made yea Nee. 17.
11te asIYM Gibnier, Mks. Greene, the beim
Sipper, Caploo• Wk. WA Ghia. eie Seatheaspora, will
tra made op ea the wawsitigi .70.
TM ms m vie Mermidrau to the Mediserreates, Bpppt,
Goyim, lad* Newieor, 6e., will be made up is the
mei* °IMF& IN.
The mils it Madeira. the Brealle. sad Buena Ayres,
will be nada ep ea Dee. 4.

MOM WATTS AT lANDO3I
TKO Dar —l6endos, MIA ..... Afters Tm. 111 211
w...asav-4kneas. 12A altarans. I b. 1)4.

LONDON, MONDAY; NOVIIMBER 12.

Wz shall, perhaps, startle the reader by the asset-
lion that one of the first and principal things requlsite
for the due working of a free and representative
system in any country is a well-defined law of treason;
not merely that statute law which is enforced by
penalties, bat that law of castes, expediency, and
, which all are bound to respect, and which
society itself will punish with marked disapprobation
when infringed. This his become cf imperative
necessity in colonies and dependencies, where, Yawns
law of the kind be not established and reco
constitutional liberty of any kind will be Liner to
lapsable, and tyranny and anarchy will irrevocably
and alternately prevail.
Everyone mutt remark the immensely increased
difficulties which have seeing up in the way of
governing any country fain another country, be it
ever ei little separate in distance, habit, history, or
tongue. The great reason may be the ignorance of
the gocerning couotry, and the habits of tyranny ge-
nerally =whined with Ignorance. But this is
not the sole reason. Another, equally influen-
tial, is, that the colony or dependerey, attributing
to the mother or sovereign country. all the ills
" which governments ire heir to," conceives a hatred,
in the indulgence of which sentiment all other
sources of rational action are absorbed, and, instead of
having recourse to those moderate arid constitutional
mesas of resistance to the errors of government, by
which states, like our own Ragland, have risen to free-
dom and prosperity,they fly at coca to the extreme of
disaffection, the weaker =entry =legit' weakest and
worst means of defects, the sword, whilst the moral
and argumentative weapon must have ensured it final
triumph.
One of the most active cams of the backward
state of Ireland, as well as of Canada, has been that
the great amount of freedom granted for the salutary
purpose of legitimate complaint, fair enlightenment,
and constitutional resistance, has been so often per-
verted into menaces of rebellion, and appeals to phy-
sical force, however remote. It may be that Ire-
land, and that Canada, have been driven to
this by feeling that constitutional agitation was
thrown away—that the legislative bodies endowed
with imperial powers were too remote or too
prejudiced to be influenced by any thing less urgent
than apr :Imre rebellion. Wherever the fault lies,
it is evident that whilst such a state of things exists,
thepesoe and security indispensable to commercial or
agricultural prosperity and developaseat cannot exist.
As long as the Irish cry repeal, meaning by
repeal separation, and es long as the Canadians
cry annexation, as the meet obvious and forcible
means of furthering their wishes or their pas-
sions, be those what they will, so long govern-
ment can be nothing but an idle succession of cod-
cilia' ions and ooercions, alternating like sainehine and
storm over an ocean, doomed to be ever restless, ever
treschert and ever sterile.
We a-e as much lovers of freedom as any. Bat
nevertheless we must say that government is utterly
imprssible in any country, in which it is usual and
allowable for a numberof reen,revertable or irreepret-
able, to get up and publicly impugn the very basis on
which all government stands, and openly repudiate
allegiance. When this can be done with impunity,
it will he done, not seriously, but as
the means of mere agitation and annoyance.
Men will be found to throw cif allegiance in a
pique, and to denounce the onion between two
great countries, because their amb tion or their self-
love arc not gratified. We must say, that in the In-
terests of liberty this should not be allowed. We ad-
mit that there may be, that there are, cases of wrong,
of breach of contract, of extremity and outrage,
which fully warrant a dependent country in flinging
off the yoke. The case of Hungary is one in point.
But resistance to established government, cr flinging
off of old and hereditary allegiance, is one of the greatest
of crimes if it be not manifestly one of the
first of duties. And any such idea should be long
dormant, long suppressed, digested, and combated
in the, breast of a nation, and never I stoned to or
avowe much less acted upon, until the necessity for
it had swelled into an universal sentiment. Bat no
individual or class should be allowed to broach it
publicly, in order to propagate it, and acquire adhe-
rents to resistance and rebellion amongst the timid,
merely from the forbearance or the weakness of
government.
For our part, we are named at the mild way in
which the organs of conservative opinions in this
country have greeted the cry of annexation from
Montreal. Were these writers consistent with them
selves, the denouncer' and calumniators of Bernie-
MO and Rotuma would have passed severe judgment
on the annexationists of Montreal. Instead of this,
they have treated treason u venial, and loyalty as
an old song. In this they have deserted their prin-
ciples and their posts, and show that they are only
hangmen where they know they have 200,000 men
behind them, and only cone rvative and vindictive
when it requires no courage to be so.
It is said of woman, that to hesitate is to fall. And
a nation's allegiance is like a woman's honour: the
mere mooting of separation is the greatest step to its
achievement; and those who propose it there and
those who admit it here are, the former assuming, the
latter =seeding, the great point in dispute. Such a
manifestation ought by every means to have been
prevented; and the goverment, which, with a popu-
lar party in power, his cot prevented it, stands at
once self-convicted of imbecility and unfitness.
As long as a people are subject to the crown of
Great Britain, they should be made to respect it, and
to pay it at least public deference ; and this for their
own sakes, more than for the crown. For nothing
can be so deleterious to a country se a semi-state of
rebellion, one in which treason is a pastime, and mock
insurrection the habitual game • where no'hiog is
serious, nothing sacred; whore =aerial reform or calm
consideration of political questions is impossible, and
where fools, like the 12APINZA1111 and Oltalcre, are
enabled to take the lead, and to keep the eyes of the
country fascinated and fixed on their mad antics, like
Riedeca in entranced worship of some dancing dervish.
With respect to Canada, it is pain that the pre-
sent western must be altered altogether. The Guyer-
nor-Generalship and the Goversor-Oensral are evi-
dently both humbugs. The Legislative Assemblies of
Canada bayonet the respect of the population, divided
as it is iato large and distinct muses, none of which
am content to put up with the position of a mino-
rity. Of late years, too, the most important
changes affecting the oolooy. hays been
by the Impe=liament, in which orw:ssfidest
which the feel they can have neither
influence ear power. They are right, therefor. in
the combat= that the representative system le falsi-
fied with regard to them. The benefits and the
weetdap et that representative system ought hp be
Riven them in reality. We ought to cease to =dad
them in their commercial and fiscal arrangements.
If the cum of their remaining so inferior to the
Unit= States nate in the absence of local and self-
administratim, let them have it, and hsve it to the
full. Let the erten of a Bride American federationtbe
adopted. Mr. ROEBUCK has ably drawn up the out-
line. And, by ting the sere provinces of
Canada all that Mesa possibly get from Anieriee,
let us ahead= ear incisively imperial policy, and
war seta/ pealestisa. If, under mash e rourostaness.
the Maeda =said lastly separate from Great Bri-
tain., sew lase, sew &rase and our mortification will
be lees. Bet we lame that, on tee contrary, by
these mesas the Ommilisas may be kept for a very
long pedal is =mind =Mention to the British
crows, bed tier a t=ai huger in real alliance with the
British pupae.
!kismet, hsweemr, render the terms of this alliance
fa. We mat render, at the same time the laws of
allegiance plebe and Wet on their being observed.