The Express.
London, England, 1858-02-20 00:00:00

(Stamped Id• Additional.) [TWOPENCE.

TSB " PUBLIC SAFETY" BILL IN

FRANCE.

tram earkvitY ; the nun in whose dwelling an enemy rosy
have coucealed a little fulminating powder; be who in a
letter, or perhaps in ocetvareation, may have manifested dis-
content, expressed a Mama, desired a progress, said • few
manly words to clteer a friend is &spar tor the future, or may have called too NOD for that liberty which is still pro-
ailed us; any one, in sheet, who may have voted badly
(Interruption, and cries of ' Lot hint go on '), displeased a
ccesmaimary of police, incurred the hatred of • debtor, or a
&amp& servant, or of one of those professional informers
who VIM fell to appear au the mere when laws oferrs this kind
pnessd—any and all of them will be liable to the
operational the proposed ineasnis. Thal yundertake to
prove
step by etep when we come to sinews ths articles separatel
Yes, there is not one of you who I am now addterain y.g, your
children or your friends, who may not one day bad them.
solve' caught in the meshes of this law. True poliey_.,
policy really great—art emir keep itself subordinate to
morality. A petty policy only sees morals at nought. And
yet, even according to the roles of this petty policy, your
law is a bed one. What I Yen have governed the country
fur nine years ; you ere at pesos with all Europe ; you have
• numerous and highly disciplined army, an intelligent
police, and an enormous budget. Yon have intersected the
capital with etrategetical roads, and at suitable distances you
have erected citadels within the walls. No liberty exists.
The most formidable liberty al 4 that of the press, is now
nothing more than the right to say whatever may not die-
plasm the Minister of the Interior ; and yet you now coma
to oak for law, of public safety P Do you not fear that the
country may reply to you I have earrifieed for you my
Manias, my franchises, my traditions, all that I had con-
quered with my blood, all that has mode me glorious and
illustrious among nations. I have made all these sacrifices
for the sake of a little tranquillity, end now you want more.
But where will you atop f If the power which you have had
in your hands for so many years is not sufficient this law
will not satisfy you. Yon will be obliged to ark for others
still more severe; other and more terrible measures will follow
until you come to the end of things. If with the peace which
you have promised me I must be ever on the watch, ever
trembling, always struggling, I prefer the watching',
the terrors,:and the struggles of liberty to those of exceptional
laws.'

" Reject this law; not in order to commence a petty
opposition to a goverment M which you are bound, but
to give to that goventinent and to the world an
example of that policy which alone can gain the future.
The future, be assured, will not Jading to those who go on
in the old routine path of laws of presumption and violence
and iniquities of eats. It will belong to diainterested men
who, animated by preened= ideas, but knowing how to
reeteta3e their faith with the respect doe to the pest, will
sake reject the reactionists of order and the reactionists of
Meaty, the sectarians of public safety' of all colours, and
who, while doing judos to all, and especially to the disin-
herited of this world, will take vengeance on none, and will
elevate the mares without abating individuals,
" In former times foreign wars were carried on without
regard to law or humanity. The vanquished was
slaughtered, or made a slave, as it beet suited the con-
queror. But progress created the law of nations, and now
even the vanquished has his sewed rights. Hitherto we
have 'ha regard to intestine discords acted upon the old
barbarous principles of warfare. The work of the politician
of the present day should be to promulgate 'law of na,-
' for adverse parties. Certain journalists who mislead
Power by their adulation, have spoken of William 111. in
CCIODOXiOII with this bill. They have exhumed a very hack-
neyed parallel. It was fine suggested after the 100 days, by
Barrie*, for Napoleon I. Chatsanbrland had recourse to it
for Louis XVIII.; it was often repeated for Louis Philippe,
and now it is relied upon again. A very lawful lesson may
indeed be learned by studying the history of that great but
dark personage. Why did hemmed I' Was it because in
a barbarous age and just alter the termin►tion of an atrocious
repine, he maintained the laws of the Stuarts against the
pram, and two or three times anepinded the Habeas Corpus
Act which, remember, is always suspended here, for we
have never at any time hedkaarantais for individual liberty?
Charles I. had done warmth= William, and he fell. The Re-
public and Cromwell imitated him, and they fell. James 11.
outdid them all, and he M. William 111. succeeded, be-
ows he sanctioned the deolarattie of rights, and because he
proposed the Bill of Pardo= in spite of his councillors, his
parliament, and the party which bad called him to the
throne—a party which, after the unheard of persecutions
whit= it had suffered far years, had indeed grounds to be
vindictive. 'This,' says the Ulnetriousilacanlay, washis bee
title to buns.' William:III. sesoseded because, at the and of
his aids= years' reign, he had deserved from the proud and
powerful English people the =palled= of ' The Restorer
of Public Mercies: "