The Express.
London, England, 1867-08-10 00:00:00

gilt erVrefifi.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
Amassment§ intended for " The Kxpress," London Evening
=must be the Mee, 10, Bourerle-street, by Two
at
en the day of pubileatton.

DRURY LANK
Nrewnoo, THAT RASCAL JACK. Messrs. Rouse and
Neville : Mesdames Alleyne and Th —To conclude with
THR GREAT CITY. Messrs. Cowper. M•tntyre. Villiers. Irving,
Rena% IL Rignold,& Warner Mesdames Robertson dt Le Thieve.

HAYMARKET.
THIS Eyymmo, THE LOVE CRANE. Messrs. Chippendale,
Nova, Ryden, Kendal, Clarke, Weathershy, Are. ; Mesdames
Sedgylrk, Chippendale, Burke, Re.—TO ?AKIN ANU BACK
YOR L'S
—An
EE. RIFLE, AND 110 W TO UsE 11'.

PITSCIMPR.
Testa Mins°. THE DAY AFTER THE WEDDING.—THE
.MAN 0' MIMI E. James Harebell, Mr. Herman Vezln Messrs.
X Pace, Forrester, Gresham, Maclean, and !Merton . Mimes K.
Stuart, Nelly Moore, &c.—And THE CLOCKMAKItit'n HAT.

STRAND.
Tits Femme, REVtadr4.. Mesas. Emery, Panetta, Moh-
nen, and dwatikomugh ;*Wars Ada dlraulodrough and John-
stone—And THE LATINT KDITION F'RA 'RAVI/W.
Mews. Thome &James ; Mesdames llolt, Newton, &c.

BRITANNIA.
Ter Emma, SCARLET DICK; OR, THE ROAD AND ITS
RIDER.4.—The Champion Skaters; Mr. C Wundenan. Little
Zeolite: Jessie Nena ; and Mr. J. liumpton —And JAC/L
LANTKRN. Mr. Reynolds and Risen. Miles.

NUM WATER AT LONDON BRIDGL
TEDI DAT —Morning. 46. 58•1 Afternoon, 10h. Us.
TO-111011011—Murulai, 11h. Itai Aneruoce, lA. 4bn.

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 10.

Ora Liberal friends over the water take so kind
and warn, an interest in our parliamentary reform, I
that it would be most ungracious to abstain from I
reciprocating the sympathy, and remarking from
time to time what progress our neighbours have
made in working their way out of that arbitrary and
repressive system which they have suffered for
nearly sixteen years to something like a rational
and civilized condition of responsible freedom and
independence. Some writers, who look at every-
thing foreign through a magnifying glass, are apt
to exaggerate the importance of political changes
in old countries. Perhaps it is rather a favourite
habit with French democratic writers to forget that
England had made her great revolution, exhausted
her pretenders to the throne, traversed all known
phases of legitimate and illegitimate government,
of armed resistance, of blind reaction, of destruc-
tive change, of deceitful restoration, of luxurious
degeneracy, of vigorous renewal and persistent
consolidation of public liberties, a century before
France convulsed the world with the throes of her
new birth. They are apt to worship their
own Revolution of 'B9 as the grand charter of
mankind, in blessed ignorance of the fact that all
the doctrines of their revolutionary legislators
had been long anticipated by English political
philosophy. Having sacrificed their revolution
to military conquests, their constitutional
monarchy to selfish and corrupting monopolies,
their self-ruling commonwealth to a solitary
will, having descendiA from a privileged con-
Ott-16nel a 4; fillmter u *
suffrage at a bound, and established personal
government on the broadest basis, they are good
enough to assure themselves that England, without
a single analogous characteristic in her history, or
in the genius of her institutions, or in the tempera-
ment of her people, will go violently down the
steep of democracy into the sea of anarchy or des-
potism, because once in five-and-thirty years half
a million, more or less, of intelligent and inde-
pendent non-electors are added to the constitu-
encies. M. Pezvoirr-Partaeoi is one of those
alarmed and disinterested admirers who, from
the heights of a desdrinaiie Pisgah, strain their
gaze on that Plate milieu of a limited mon-
archy which is a perpetual mirage to the disin-
herited children of the Revolution of 1830.
There is something almost pathetic in M. PREVOST-
PARADOL'S enthusiasm for the principle of mino-
rities in our new Reform Bill. Most English
Liberals object to the principle, for this, among
many other reasons ; that the minority of wealth
is already over-represented by its pocket boroughs
and its nomination counties, while the minority of
intellect can always make the practical energy,
not the epicurean dilettantism, of its convic-
tions felt through the majority of the
largest constituencies in the country. But our
ingenious French sympathiser—who can blame
him for desiring the representation of minorities?
Whilst he is writing about England he is sadly
regarding a country in which universal suffrage
is administered by half a million of functionaries
moving like a single puppet at the touch of a
Minister's hand in Paris—of electoral districts
which are liable to be shifted by a Prefect on the
very eve of an election, to prevent Liberals from
acting in concert ; he is thinking of a country in
which the majority of the electors, except in the
largest and most important centres, are inevitably
represented by the nominee of the Administration,
and the minority by a candidate who cannot get
his voting papers printed, or his address to the
electors stuck upon a wall, or hold a meeting, or
even form a committee of his supporters. No
wonder 31. PREVORT-PARADOL sighs for the repre-
sentation of minorities in a country where, if
minorities were represented in the Corps lAgia-
latif, the independent Opposition, instead of con-
sisting of some twenty-five members, would count
at least one member for every considerable
intellectual, commercial, and industrial centre
in the Empire. The representation of minorities
in Franco might have saved the Second Empire
front its worst calamities and mistakes. But we
beg M. Pnevierr-Partanot to remember that under
the Monarchy of July the entire electoral system
wax an unadulterated representation of minorities
--of minorities which collectively amounted to
sonictliiiig like 250,000 electors. It would be pain-

ful to remind M. Pasvosv-Pssanox of the result
of that remarkable example of his favourite
principle in full operation. We leave to him
to admire at his leisure the cause of that cata-
strophe ; he cannot regret more bitterly than we
do its effect.

We would rather congratulate him and all who
look anxiously to the future of the Liberal cause
in France upon the results of the recent elections
for the Councils-General of the Departments.
Unless we are greatly mistaken, these elections
indicate a revival of public spirit beyond all ex-
pectation. Let the semi-official journals rejoice
if they will over the indisputably large, the very
large, majority of Government candidates re-
turned. The Comitififtionnel will delude very few
people in France as to the relative value
and significance of these elections. It will
delude no one out of France. Disinterested and
dispassionate observers abroad will fix their atten-
tion upon the mmHg of the contests in the great
centres of intelligence and industry ; not in holes
and corners where local influences are paramount,
and the promise of a grant of public money acts
like a spell upon a population who look upon a
Sub-Prefect as a second Providence, and upon M.
le Fillet as the personification on earth of
the Supernal Powers. We look at such places
as Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Dijon,
Lille, Toulouse, Toulon, Avignon, Narbonne,
and when we find there candidates of the Liberal
opposition either victorious by largo majori-
ties, or holding their own with candidates of the
Government, it is impossible to resist the conclu-
sion that the Mexican disaster has not crowned
the edifice of fifteen years of personal government
in vain. And believing as we do that the peace
of Europe depends in a great degree on the reco-
very of freedom in France, we salute these
triumphs of the French Liberal Opposition with
a satisfaction only second to that with which we
hail the prospect of a reformed Parliament at
home.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)

The Times again rejoices over the conversion of '
the House of Commons to the principle of the represents-
tioa of minorities. Much to its surprise it has stood alone,
and it sincerely regrets it, in its vindication of the prin-
ciples of representative government.—From the crowd of
" innocents" which are waiting the annual massacre, the
Times selects the Metropolis Traffic Regulation Bill
as one on which the government ought to insist
on passing before the prorogation. Alderman Lawrence
has, however, given notice that he will move its rejection,
and Mr. Labouchere will move that it be referred to a
select committee. —A third article in the Times gives, from
sonic papers which have been presented to parliament, the
principal details of the story of the two Jews drowned at
Galati. If such a crime as this, observes our contempo-
rary, escape punishment, the government of the P:incipal-
ities will speedily lose the favour with which Europe was
inclined to look upon it.
Discussing the present position of Parliament in regard
to church rates, the Daily ?es expresses regret that the
House of Lords did not take the opportunity offered them
by Mr. Hardeastle's bill of settling nt once and for ever a
very troublesome question, in the only manner in which a
settlement can be permanent. If the power of compulsion
were done away with, an end would be put to every prac-
tical grievance; but it might not affect the sentimental
grievance, which the unfortunate delay of substantial
justice, and the pretexts advanced for that delay, have
awakened and fostered in the minds of many dissenters.
That the power of levying church-rates is of any real use
to the church, its position in towns and districts where
they are not levied, and the example of the nonconformist
denominations, make more than doubtful. Another
article in the Daily News is devoted to a review of
volume of lectures by Mr. Goldwin Smith, and to the
many lessons which political men of both parties may
draw from them.

Although there was nothing in the Commons' debate,
ands nothing in the Commons' " reasons," to alter the
judgment which the Lords have formed as to the utility of
voting papers, the Herald thinks there is something in the
lateness of the season and the strength of the majority by
which the Coulmons rejected the amendment to induce the
House of Peers to abandon it.

The &tendon! also says it is the evident duty of the
Lords to yield, and it does not doubt that they will
do so.

The Star says the representation of minorities must be
made the battle-ground of the mows, for in it lurks the
utmost danger to liberty. To have the minority repre-
sented by the Peers, the minority represented by the
county members while the people a the counties are ex-
cluded from the franchise, the minority represented by the
small boroughs, and the minority insured a new represen-
tation in the great boroughs, is rather more than tte mt-
jority of the people of England can patiently stand.