The Express.
London, England, 1849-08-20 00:00:00

OUTGOING MAILS.

The mils, aim Marseille', to the Mediterranean, Egypt.
Ceylon, India, Hong-Yong, dm, will W nada up on
August 24.
The sails fur Vigo, Oporto, Lisboa, Madeira, Cadiz, and
Gibraltar, will be made up oa August 27.
The West India Mails, including Bermuda, Havanna,
Nassau, Honduras, New Orleans, and Mexico, and excluding
those for Madeira, St. Jean-de-Nicaragua, New Granada,
Chili, aad Peru, will be wade up on Sept. 2.
The mails fur Madeira, the Braids, and Buenos Ayres,
will be made up on Sept. 4.

NIGH WATS& AT L0717/611 BRIDGE.
Tar 1543-Itorslag. le mile. pest 7; Anemone, =la pre &
To-Awsuivr —/Asealsg,ll7 Na. pre 8 AINOMIKO, 17 ails. pen 4.

LONDON, MONDAY, AUGUST 20.

IT would be difficult to give a truer picture of our
present state of politics and our present administra-
tion than M. DE LAMARTINB has involuntarily given
in his late History of the Revolution of 1818, when
describing the men and the influences who governed
France previous to the catastrophe, and by their ig-
norance produced it. The first thing that undermined
security in France was, according to LAMARTINE, the
monopoly of power by a small fraction of notables and
families who, through their influence with the electors,
dominated the government, and who made use of go-
vernment to dominate the electors. The whole nation
felt, and tvery portion of it, in its own clue and its own
district, had daily proofs that government was in the
bands of a coterie. It is q tits needless to point
out in this the resemblance between Eastland and
France. • .
Had this coterie monopolised talent as well u in-
fluence, political skill and experience as well as
weight, the danger would have been lees, and jea-
lousy innocuous. But when want of talent, of fore-
sight, and of political skill, marked the reigning
families of statesmen—when session after ses-
sion passed without one idea being started, one
amelioration completed, or .e remedy formed,
the people began to fear that the state was
led by the blind, and might tumble to perdition.
Prodigality was the chief means of government.
Whatever humour started up, whatever scheme was
proposed, was invariably admitted, provided it led to
expense. The number of the interested and the
salaried thus increased and swelled the followers of
the government, making it believe itself strong,
whereas it was in reality adding to its own weak-
ness and its unpopularity with the body of the
nation. The sole aim of the government was to keep
in power. And in order to keep in power it looked
merely to the parliamentary public, to the few hundreds
that bad political votes, leaving the muss, that had
no political interests, to commune together publicly
and privately, to complain, to mature disaffection, to
listen to subversive theorists, to place hopes in a
social as well as a political revolution. The ground
was mined under the feet of the government, and
government knew nothing of this, reposing upon its
laws of repression, and the rigour of its police.
Had the French enjoyed and practised the right of as-
sociation, the habit of public meeting and leaguing, re-
volution would have been unnecessary and impossible.
The middle ranks would have met, talked, and passed
resolutions publicly, their acts and arguments reach-
ing the tar of sovereign and of minister. The la-
bouring class itself would have mingled in such re-
unions, and taken the opportunity of such an audience
to make known its grievances. And M. °vizor
might here have learned that of which his secret
pollee failed to inform him, the disaffection and effer-
vescence of both classes united, if in nothing else, at
least in abhorrence of him and his system of govern-
ment.

M. GUIZOT had more right, more reason to think
himself strong than the whigs. He had a larger and
a firmer parliamentary majority. Yet we all now
know that be was sleeping on a volcano. And yet his
igroring the danger was not more owing to himself
than to the sentiment of the political coterie around
him. When one of M. Gutzon a colleagues spoke the
session before his fall of the advisability of come
reform, murmurs from the French whig benches met
the point. The same has befallen Lord Jonsr Rue-
SELL himself. How infatuated the French were
is shown by TA--MARTINE, who declare, that a very
small measure of reform indeed would have
contented the middle classes, and rendered
_

revolution impossible. It was the forced silence
of the people on one side' and of the minister
on the other that precipitated it.
The greatest thanks are due to those amongst us
who enable the middle classes to combine for con-
sideration of their material and moral grievances,
and for discussing the beet means of remedying them.
If their grievances be really light, the exposure of
them cannot but deprive them of danger ; if they be
really oppressive, it is better that each should tell
where he is too sorely pressed. This, however,
is merely what popular associations can do in their
fitst gatherings and proceeding.. As they grow
more mature, they must labour in the collec-
tion of the statistical and economical know-
ledge, which affects the great questions they have in
hand. They must do the work that parliament or its
committees will not do, end point out the conclusions
which parliament cannot finally demur to, when
they come supported by an overwhelming array
of trued argument and irresistible fact. It was thus
that the Anti-Corn Law League agitated, stirring up
ratiocination and kcowledge, setticg brains working,
far more than exciting passions.
Thus must act the great association for parlia-
mentary and financial reform, of which we so
lately recorded the combinA meeting. Their great
aim must be not merely to give vent
to just discontent, bat to indicate the justice,
the necessity, and also the means of applying
a remedy to it. Every year adds new proof
of the insufficiency of parliament; the very mode
of proeeet:ing in which admits that questions must be
sifted, prepared, and matured ere they come before it.
If the nation itself, or the classes interested in any
question of reform do not undertake ?his by the
means of association, these questions will never ad-
vance; nay, will perhaps not come before parliament
except in the shape of a revolutionary demand.