The Express.
London, England, 1851-05-30 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 30, 1851.

trived to keep them at peace. (Renewed laughter
and loud cheers.) The honourable gentleman then
ed to criticise various details in the debate.
sat it had not been denied that when tranquillity was
restored in this district, and there were no men in arms,
these tribunals still pursued their dreaded course, and
there were executions by the score—not of chief., not of
priests, not of leaders of the rebellion, but of the poor
peasantry of the country. (Hear, hear.) But, if they
were to believe the statement of ministers, all this discon-
tent, disappmhation, and disgust of the proceedings, was
essentially factitious—had been made up by some discon-
tented cotery a year after the event,—sent over the
water to Englund,—fostered in the House of Commons,—
and brought forward merely as a means of party annoyance.
They haid been told that public opinion in Ceylon itself
was not at all arrayed against these proceedings ; that the
press was silent, or did not disapprove of them ; that it was
only in England that the press was so venal and corrupt as
to do so ? But what said the Examiner of September 23,
1848, the government paper of Ceylon, the paper familiarly
styled there Lord Torrington 's paper ? The Rebellion
Butchery" was the title of the leading article. (Hear,
hear.) It expressed feelings of sorrow and humiliation at
hearing that 17 persons lay under sentence of death at
Kandy who had been recommended to mercy by the Chief
Justice, and implored the governor to spare the lives of
these misguided people. It stated that 21 persons had al-
ready been shot under the sentence of the courts-martial, to
the horror of every one in Kandy, and called on the rulers
to stay their hands from slaughter by arresting these
bloody proceedings, which were a disgrace to a civilised
country. (Hear, hear.) How then could the government
say that no public feeling, as evinced by the press in that
country, had been expressed against the proceeding. of the
military courts ? The circumstances of these courts-mar
tial were fresh in the recollection of every one in the house.
He looked upon them as perfectly unjustified, and as dan-
gerous to our tenure of our colonies. Of all others this was
a case in which the parliament of England should interfere.
Lord Grey bad declared, in April last,—" I will not hesitate
to express my opinion that true humanity was consulted by
the measures of my noble friend." It was bemuse he
(Mr Disraeli) did not believe that the interest. of true
humanity were consulted—because he believed that the
policy pursued was a policy of panic; that it resorted to
desperate measures, which were unnecessary and dispros
portioned to the exigency; and that the consequence of en-
couraging such policy (aa would be dune by allowing it to
pass uneriticised and uneensured) was indeed perilous to the
empire, ho should support the resolution of his hon. friend.
(Cheers.)
Mr. BAILLIE rose to reply amidst loud and general
cries of "Divide." Ile said the proctors of Ceylon had
been charged with refusing to defend the priest who
was tried. The question arose out of a statement
made before the committee by Sir E. Tenncnt ; but
Major Lushington, in reply to a letter from the governor,
stated that the prisoner had addressed himself to Mr. Wil-
mot, a government officer, and nut to the proctors. The
alteration in his resolution as to the numbers of persorut
tried had been occasioned by the various reports from the
colonies. Sir Herbert Maddock stated that 18 hail been exe-
cuted, and 146 altogether had undergone punishment. The
reports sent by Cul. Drought and Lord Torrington, each
contained statements differing from this.
The house then divided--

For the resolutions 202
Against 202

Majority for Ministers
The announcement was received with loud and protracted
cheers from the ministerial side of the house.

STAMP DUTIES (IRELAND) CONTINUANCE
DILL
This bill was read a third time, and passed.

BRITISII WHITE 11EltRING fISLIEILY BILL.
Thin bill was read a second time.

The house thou adjourned, at a quarter to threo o'clock.

ghe erpregiO.

regretted its too exclusive terms of union. So long
as it occupied that neutral position, the pecuniary
results of the QUEEN'S Letters reached even 30,000/.;
but gradually, as priestcraft and its sure accompani-
ment, hostility to the state, have been gaining ground
therein, the collections under the regal documents
have been falling oft; until at last 30,000/. arc all they
have produced ; and, though this decline and the con-
current withdrawal of hosts of old subscribers may
to some extent have been compensated for by
tractarian liberality—and tractarianisin always finds
money for its objects--still the pecuniary prospects of
the National Society are seriously endangered by
the false position it has assumed—nay, unless re-
leased from that position by the adoption of Lord
ROBERT GROSVENOR'S resolution, a crusade against
its claims to pecuniary support, either by indivi-
dual subscription or by a QUEEN'S Letter, must and
will follow.

But the adoption of that resolution is not all that
ia necessary on Wednesday. What is further wanted
is that a sound resolution be committed to the care
and for the guidance of a committee friendly, not
hostile to its spirit. Quite as, if not more, import-
ant, then, is it that the annual vacancies which now
occur in the committee should be properly filled up.
No claims of church dignitaries for re-election on this
emergency ought to be allowed to prevail over the
necessity of providing fur carrying out a great prin-
ciple by proper men. And before Lord Itolimir
GRoSVENOR.S resolution can be said to be really suc-
cessful, the whole tone and spirit of the committee of
the National Society must be revolutionises"; for a
mere change for the better will not be sufficient.
Less than thorough will not do it."
At present, the prospect of the movement thus
boldly headed by Lord ROBERT GROSVENOR and Sir
JOTIN PAKINGION is very favourable. Numbers of
those who at first assented to the claims made by the
committee of the National Society in its correspond-
' ence with the Privy Council, now that Mr. G. A.
1/I.:Nisox has shown them to what such claims
logically lend, wholly repudiate and reject them;
and amongst this class it is to be hoped
will be found Sir W. I'AGE WOOD, the
Solicitor-General of the whig administration, which
has so resolutely asserted the right of the laity in
education. In Liverpool, Manchester, and other
largo towns, there exists a strong desire to aid in
suppressing the offensive pretensions put forth; and
from them there is every reason to expect parties
will come up to support the resolution. Many of
the country clergy attached to the protestant and
comprehensive character of the Church of England
who can ill afford a journey to town, have resolved
to incur it rather than be in any way nr in any
degree responsible for a continuance of the present
state of things. Aud with a little energy and activity
from other 9uarters, the victory is certain.
But activity must be the order of the day, and
exertion must be made, for noiselessly, butcagerly, the
church unions throughout the country are at work to
reassert on Wednesday the principles they have suc-
ceeded in making the National Society adopt on its
two preceding anniversary meetings. There is,
however, still time fur all who take an interest in
checking priestcraft in its career to become members
of the society; and all that such people have to do
to enable them to vote in support of Lord Itouv.fir
GaosvExou's resolution is to pay a guinea before
Tuesday, and attend at the Central School-!louse in
Westminster.

MAT master politician—w•hoec supremacy is
owned by almost all the kings, whose influence
is felt by all the governments of Europe, and whose
übiquitous hand may be seen alike in the wording
of a Siberian ukase, or in that of a leading article
in a London journal—the Uwe of ltussts, is said
to be prepossessed for the present by one
exclusive idea. This idea constituted his
sole anxiety and aim in his conferences with
the King of PRIN:,IA at Warsaw, as it will
absorb all other cares at his conference with the
minister of Austria and his four royal dependents at
()lmutz.

The Emperor of Russia, who saw nothing but
Hungary in 1449, and did not turn his eyes from
Germany in 1850, in the middle of 1851 can contem-
plate no object, save France. The Emperor of Russi
has the great advantage common to all monomaniacs.
lie pursues his one idea, whatever that is, for the
time being, unswervingly, directing to it his whole soul,
vigilance, and power. The EMPEROR has all three.
But what he wants is a true appreciation of the state
of other countries, and of the spirit of the times.
The Emperor NICHOLAS, like Lord .111Ettozz.v, and
the writers on foreign policy in the Times, bus not
stirred one peg, nor learned one truth since 1815.
That is the great epoch of their political science; the
Congress of Vienna, and the Frankfurt Diet, are with
them the nr plus ultra of political wisdom. Nieno-
LAS, however, is more consistent and honest in his
efforts than his English gossips and allies. For whilst
they would renew the Holy Alliance, and the anti-
Gallican league, which in 1815 was truly that of
people as well as kings, the good but purblind
Russian supposes that France is what it was in
1814, and that Germany, with a little compression,
may be also forced back into the old stone jar.
The Russian policy is, therefore, nothing but a
monstrous anachronism. A statesman endowed with
a grain of wisdom, might surely say, let us settle the
affairs of Germany in some fair, and solid and satis-
factory way, which will allow of its development,
which will content the people, and gratify within
rational bounds their love of unity and their desire
of freedom. Doing this, German statesmen and
sovereigns might go on the supposition that France
did not exist, or was too busy at home, to mind foreign
interests or impulses.
The sapient Russian, however, takes himself,
and insists on German sovereigns taking also quite
another view. Germans, he says, are nobodies.
They are a flock of sheep or a herd of slaves. Kick
them and crush them, tax them and gag them—they
are of no account. But look to France. The French
must have a revolution in 1852. Revision or no re-
vision of the constitution leads to revolution, and
when that devil has again broken loose, it will as-
suredly fix its claws upon Italy, and drive its teeth
into Germany.
Never, we believe, was so glaring a mistake. The
French, we arc confident, will settle the question of
their executive without revolution or collision.
There is some blunter, but the dream and
the thought of every man, aye, even of the
soldier, is peaceful adjustment. For the very
soldier knows less than even the civilian, what
the military element itself put in fermentstion might
produce. Even if there were revolution, what tri-
umphant party could dream of aggression or war ?
Certainly not the .44.s•islists or Red Republicans—
they mock at the idea of conquest, and contemn the
soldier's trade ; the Bonapartists :—they do not
form a party; and their chief has shown far more
wish to embrace the knees of European despots than
to beard or to invade them. None of the monarchic
parties desire war. And we may depend upon it
that u long as the rest of the continent leaves
France alone, France will leave them alone.
But that Russian policy, which prevails all round
Europe, is not contented with this view. It will
have France considered as a bete feroce, against
which governments are to league ; and whether such
leagues may not end by offending the French, and
rousing their sensitive nature, may still be doubted.
In the meantime, all we know is that the sole pre-
occupation of the crowned heads at Warsaw was how
best to resist aggeesiaa from France. We do not be-
lieve the King of PRUSSIA at all affected by the fears
of his imperial relative. But, as the Czar NICHOLAS
might indulge io a vein of thought and policy far more
disagreeable to Prussia, it was evidently the cue of the
King of PRPASIA to humour the CZAR, and to affect
to join with considerable zeal in the new Holy Anti-
Gallican alliance. Forming a league for an end that
will not be reached, for a purpose that will never be
required, is very harmless policy ; such, we dare say,
was Prussian policy at Warsaw; such, we dare say,
' will be Austrian policy at Olmutz. And the four
Kings of Bregents, with him of Wurtemberg at
their head, will no doubt draw their swords,
swear once more fealty to the imperial houses, and
eternal enmity to that French imperialism which
put their crowns on their heads and made them
what they are.
The great object, however, of those fidgety
politicians who foresee for certain the overpouring
of the French volcano in 1852, is how to get
the French out of Rome before that dread
period arrives. Our readers have perused the Roman
note to Austria. The . greatest pains have been
taken to render the position of the French untenable
at Rome. Bravoes have been hired to insult and
assassinate them. And then, when the French

blood was up, the Roman police besought the aid
of the French troops to beat, hustle, and insult the
Roman population. The French general GEMEAU,
who seems as brainless es Olin Nor, has been
the dupe of their matueuvres. We doubt, however,
the final success of the plot. It seems as difficult to
get the French governor out of the Castle of St.
Angelo as it would be to eject Louts NAPOLEON from
the Elysee. The result would be scarcely worth the
risk.

The French are thus equally an embarraa where
they go, and where they do nut go. The patriotic
party in Italy abhors them, and the absolutist
party equally suspects and would be rid of
I them. There are, in truth, at present, no
more inoffensive or unambitious people than
the French. AU they want is to be allowed to
manage their own affairs as they think best ; not to
have their toes trodden upon, nor to see that the in-
fluence and authority abroad allowed them under
the monarchy is denied them under the republic—
' this the French will not stand, because they consider
it an insult. But the idea of making a league against
France is the most preposterous of modern absurdi-
ties. A league against Russia, or against Austria,
might have sonic reason in it. But renewing that
against France is but another sample of the pre-
vailing epidemic of this age, which is to resuscitate
all that is stupid, monstrous, and retrograde iu the

We trust the French will have the good sense and
magnanimity to laugh their enemies to scorn, and
that the English will have nothing to do with that
superannuated twaddle in the shape of foreign policy,
which is to be found at Warsaw, in the speeches of
Lord ABERDEEN, and the columns of the Times.

FRANCE.

PARIS. TEMRSDAT EVININO,

It is probable that no motion for the revision will
be presented before the vote on M. Morin 's motion,
which is expected to take place on Monday next.
The committee on the Municipal Bill adopted
yesterday a series of resolutions relative to the regis-
tration of citizens for the municipal elections. In
each commune a register is to be kept by the mayor,
on which are to be inscribed all Frenchmen having
attained their majority, who have satisfied the law of
recruitment, and resided three years in the commune;
all Frenchmen who have residjd three years, but not
satisfied the law of recruitment; all Frenchmen who,
having satisfied the law of recruitment, and not con-
tinued their residence, have returned to establish
themselves afresh, and have resided for at least a
year; lastly, all functionaries and religious ministers •
for life, whatever be the term of their residence.
M. de Larochejacquelin has addressed a manifesto
to the electors of the Morbihan.

The report of M. Moulin on the procedure to be
established in dealing with motionsfur the revision is
such as already to give the Elysee a foretaste of those
impediments which its plans scent destined to meet
from the Assembly. The project submitted by the
committee, and laid yesterday on the table of the
Chamber, proposes that a committee on revision
shall be appointed in the bureaux eight days
after the presentation of the that motion. A
month is allowed the committee to frame its
report. If the motion for revision be rejected
it may be renewed at the expiration of three months.
If the motion for revision should be renewed at the
expiration of three mouths after its rejection, a fresh
special committee shall be appointed in the same
way, and under the same conditions as the first.
That is to say, that the second committee shall be
also allowed a month for framing its report. Now
if this project be adopted by the Assembly,
the renewal of the motion for revision may be de-
ferred till the middle of October. If it puss then,
and at the two succeeding monthly intervals, by the
required majority of three-fourths, a law may be
brought forward before the end of the year for fixing
the period of the new elections. The Bonapartists
arc naturally vexed at the tedious delays accumulated
by these provisions of the committee. They will try
to reduce the interval before renewal front three to
two months.

Great have been the labours of Nlontalembert and
de Broglie to bring over the legitimists to some com-
mon proposition for revision. But hitherto these
efforts have only served to reveal the deep schism
which divides the two great fractious of the majority.
The legitimists scout to a man the motion for
revision formulated by the Rue des Pyramidcs. First
they quarre! with the form, and point out the imprac
ticability of its adoption, which would be merely an
affirmation by the Assembly that certain of its
members, with certain views, beg it to declare
in favour of revision; whereas the form should
declare that the Assembly demands either total or
partial revision. Now, as the last paragraph of the
111th art. limits the operations of the constituent
to the task of revision, for which it is convoked, the
legitimists hold that it is essential for the Legislative
Assembly to specify clearly, beforehand, in ease the
revision should be partial, what particular clauses arc
to be changed. Of course a precise declaration of
that sort would not suit the book of the Bonupartists,
who only want a motion for the revision to be voted
by as large a majority as possible as a base for agita-
tion dunng the three succeeding months. The
clearer and more defined their views the greater their
interest in clothing them at present in the vaguest
expressions. The object at the present moment isi
to arrive at a fresh stage of the question without any
sacrifice of footing on either side of the two fractions.
Hence the impracticability of coming to an under-
standing, as the legitimists insist on keeping the
words " total revision," and look on the omission of
the qualifying adjective as equivalent to a complete
abdication before Bonapartism. Here, then, for the
moment the matter rests, and no compromise is

The article of M. Granicr de Cassagnac is the
most daring and vigorous appeal to the government
to cut the Gordian knot of the situation, which has
yet ventured to appear even in the licensed
colums of the Constitutionnel. The outline of his
argument is worth giving :

Nothing is so easy, according to this writer, as for a new
power to be strong after a revolution. In times of security
• people is stiff-necked to the greatest government; in peril
it is submissive to the smallest. Look at the beginning and
end of the empire, of the restoration, of the government of
July ; they flourished under difficulties, and died when the
difficulties vanished. All that a new government has to do
is to find the current of a nation's wishes, and throw itself
with resolution into the stream. What more instructive
instance than the directory ? All France rallied about five
obscure men, so long as they stuck to their mission of
restoring order, security, law, religion; all France abandoned
them when they became indolent and disunited. Or take a
Later page of history,still fresh in all minds. What power was
ever more absolute than Oen. Cavaignac. The country was
literally at his feet. But when be became blind to the wish
of the nation, and embraced the policy of the clique of the
National, he sunk into obscurity. Like a traveller who
arrives too late, he sees far a-head the coach which he
might still have driven, but never will drive again, unless
it upset first. But what is it that France wishes now ?
She spoke her wish by the organ of 63 councils-
general last year ; she is speaking her wish in countless
petitions at this moment, from all the great commercial
cities, from all the communes of France. Millions of
voices cry from the four winds to the President and parlia-
ment, that France wishes not to be strangled in the coil of
an absurd constitution. What France wishes is to change
a constitution when it is bad, and to keep a ruler when he
Is good ; to belong to herself, and not to coteries ; to make
pretenders wait till she calls them, instead of choosing their
own hour to obtrude their pretensions on her. Such is
the wish of France. As to the means of being saved
she is not squeamish, any more than a drowning man
is particular about the shape of the spar that is
flung to him. Let the government have but a grain of that
sort of faith in the state of public opinion which made
Durand air " If as [made triumph at Paris' I will march
agamskit with four men and a corporal." In setting out to
give satisfaction to the wishes oft ranee, let the government
take the start without counting its followers, Before the
end of the expedition a nation will be at its heels. In con-
clusion, a word to the cabinet, which is meant for warning
and not opposition. Those who study the public mind with
attention will find that there is very little enthusiasm fur
that abuse of representative government which may be
called parknientorisme, nor for that tradition of the
exam noreratio even
nsof 'B9for thatwhich
e wet te:yliedthe ltiaew noafttanalgguuy
31. Nowhere do the people take any of these things
for their flag. Therefore, to make any of them the base of
a policy, and the condition of a ministerial career, when
1852 is at the door, and concentrating the eyes of all France,
is as silly as the prate of the Byzantine theologians in Santa I
Sophia, while Mahomet 11. was battering the walls of Con- I
stantinople. It would be much to be regretted if Front* I
stood on one side and the cabinet on the other ; if, while the I
country demanded, with the passion of despair, clear, ener- 1
getic, decisive measures, the cabinet were screwed down to '
s and questions out of the sphere of public quips-
tErs7What France wished was to be saved. Such is '
briefly the substance of this outspoken appeal. 1

The results of the expedition against the Kabyles,
as detailed by the Moniteur, given elsewhere, are
such as to justify the fears of those who pointed out

the ruinous increase of expenditure which would
attend the moat successful campaign, The ministry
will be obliged to apply to the Assembly for a con-
! siderable addition to the budget of war.
To-day being the feast of the Ascension, the
'Assembly held no sitting; neither was there any
Bourse.