The Express.
London, England, 1867-02-07 00:00:00

TELEGRAPHIC INTELLIGENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)
THE STRIKE IN BELGIUM.
DRUSSEI.ti, FELL ~ EVENING.
Tlw following despatches are published here :
Marchiennes, Feb. 6.
_ .

Four hundred miners employed at the et )al mine
of St. thvh at Montigny-on-Sambre, have struck
for higher wages. They are marching in a body to
the coal mine of St. AndrtC, in order to induce the
pitmen there to follow• their example.

Charleroi, Feb. 6, Evening.

The men belonging to the Mambourg coal mines,
at Is slelinsart, have gone to Montigny-on-Sambre,
to join the miners on strike in that locality. At
Moutigny some crowds had assembled, and as-
sumed a menacing attitude, but they were dispersed
by the troops, and several arrests were made.
The Bt.fge of this evening, alluding to the
riots, sa.. :• -" We are of opinion that these dis-
turbances will last 801110 time longer, for as soon
as the traps move to the scene of the rioting dis-
turbances break out elsewhere."

AUSTRIA.
VIENNA, FEB. 6, EVENING.

The announcement of the decision of the go-
veniment to renounce the assembling of au ex-
traordinary Diet will, it is said, be communicated
I to the ordinary Diets, which meet on the 18th inst.,
by an imperial message, which will explain that in
consequione of the settlement which has been
ar-
rived at with Hungary such an assembly is not
needed. The message, it is added, will further an-
nounce that the Emperor will convoke a constitu-
tional Ileielisrath in accordance with the February
constitution, and that to this assembly will
be submitted the now law for the reorganization of
the army, and also a government bill proposing an
amendment to the February constitution in conse-
quence of the arrangement made with Hungary.
The opening of the Reichsrath will take place
about the middle of March. The government bill
for the amendment of the constitution will, it is
believed, propose the suppression of paragraph 13,
and the introduction of a law on ministerial re-
sponsibility. It is considered certain that Count
Andrassy will be the President of the new Hun-
garian ministry, and M. Longay, Minister of
Finance.

INDIA.
tar DIRECT OVERLAND TELEGRAPH.)
BOMBAY, JAN. JO, 2.34 P.Y.

Shirtingi and mule twist unchanged. Cotton
steady ; New Oomrawuttee, 300 r. Exchange on
London, la. no.

CALCUTTA, JAN. 29.
Shirting and mule twist unchanged. Exchange
on London, ls.

LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 7, 1867.

AMERICA.
(BT ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH.)
NEW YORK, Fn. 5.

AMERICA.

The House of Representatives has passed a reso-
lution instructing the Committee of Ways and
Means to report a bill to prevent the further con-
traction of the currency during the current year.
The Inman steamer City of Paris arrived out to-
day.

(I 'ROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)
NEW YORK, JAN. 26.

There are seieral symptoms that the Republican
party is now in danger of a reverse of • similar
kind. If it escapes it, it will owe its eicape
mainly, if not altogether, to the profound distrust
of the democratic part) which prevails, and the
fear of the effects of ita return to power on the
question of reconstruction. The impeachment ques-
tion, for instance, already begins to work something
very like a schism. From various tests, which to
my knowledge have been applied to small bodies of
representative men within the last two or three
weeks, I think it is safe to conclude that the party
is about equally divided on this question. The
rigidness of party discipline prevents thisidiver-
gene° of views from showing itself amongst the
regular politicians in Congress as yet. Moreover,
the impeachment question has never fairly come
before Congress. The vote which has excited
so much sensation in Europe, and called forth
such lofty generalizations from the Times and Pall
Moll Gazette, meant nothing, as people here
know very well. Tho largeness of the ma-'
jority may have been due just as much to
• desire not to impeach the President as
to a desire to impeach him. Reference to the judi- I
ciary committee would be voted as eagerly by
those who want to stifle the movement as by
those who want to see it carried on ; for the
judiciary committee may, if it pleases, do nothing
about it, and, from what I hear, is, I should say, '
doing little or nothing about it. But whenever
the impeachment question is brought fairly before
the house, so as to elicit the opinions of indivi-
dual
members, one sees all the time that the seeds
of division are sown, and that it would not, take
much to bring them to maturity. Half the Repub.
licana Wolin into the anti-Republican ranks would
of course kill the impeachment movement.
There are also symptoms of mutiny on
the part of the freetraders. Mr. Trumbrell,
of Illinois, voted against the tariff last year
in the Senate, and his re-election was violently
opposed on this ground by the wool-growing inte-
rest a few weeks ago, but he nevertheless carried
the day; and Mr. Grimes, of lowa, also •Republican
of prominence, has made a ferocious attack on the
protectionists in the house, and announced his in-
tention not to be bullied by them any more. And
the violent language of many of the extreme radi-
cals out of doors—some of whom have begun to
talk now Sf abolishing the Presidency, the Senate,
and Supreme Court altogether—helps, in some
degree, to shake the hold of the Congressional
majority on the country ; for there is not on
earth, in my opinion, a " more sober-suited
freedom" than that which Northern voters love
and cling to, in spite of all the "gas " of orators
and lecturers. There is deep in the popular heart
a respect for precedent, for law, for expediency,
which hardly any crisis, however violent, can shake
or impair.

The wrangle over Mr. Boutwell's bill kept the
house up all night, and ended in a compromise on
Wednesday morning, by which an adjournment
took place till 11 o'clock, with the understanding
that the bill was then to be debated for one hour,
and the vote taken at the end of that time. The
proceeding has been on the whole one of the most
curious incidents of the crisis. The Supreme Court
decided in the recent test oath case that Congress
had no right to exclude a man from practising in
the Supreme Court, or any other court, by ex post
.iiieto legislation. An act excluding a person from
the practice of any profusion for an offence pre- .
viously committed, and for which he had been •
neither tried nor convicted, or which the Pre-
sident had pardoned, the court held to be in
the nature of a bill of pains and penalties, and
therefore unconstitutional. They decided, moreover,
that Congress had no right to tix the qualification
of lawyers practising in the Supreme Court under :
any circumstances. Innnediately after this decision, ,
Bradley Johnson, ono of the most notorious and
bitterest of the Maryland Secessionists, who had
served in the Southern army during the war, was ,
admitted to the bar of the court without taking the
oath, an order of the court which had been made
in obedience to the act nearly a year ago being
rescinded.

All this not unnaturally roused the anger of the
Radicals to the highest degree. Taken in connec-
tion with one or two of the previous decisions and
the known leanings of some of the judges, they
looked upon it as virtually a defiance hurled at
Congress ; and a bill was introduced by
Mr. Boutwell fixing positively the qualification of
lawyers for practice in all Federal courts. The
bill was read twice in rapid succession under the
previous question, which of course excluded all
debate ; but when it came to be read the third
time, the patience and submissiveness of the
minority gave way, and they declared their inten-
tion of making motions of adjournment, and
having the " yeas and nays called," that is, the
roll read, and each member forced to vote in
answer to his name, until the majority agreed to
allow the bill to be debated a reasonable length of
time ; but this Mr. Boutwell refused. So the struggle
began and lasted through the night, and the result
was that the minority at last succeeded in securing
the concession of one hour for the discussion of
one of the most important measures of the session.
The temper exhibited by the majority, and
some of the expressions made use of by Mr. Bout-
well, such as that "the Supreme Court existed by
the breath of Congress," have, I think, seriously
damaged the Radicals with the public, and this
violent course if persisted in would certainly end
in a split in the Republican ranks, and therefore in
the destruction of the party. The majority in Con-
gress has, as the natural consequence of its great
superiority of strength, grown more and more im-
perious in its temper as the conflict has gone on. Its
victory over the President at the recent elections
has naturally increased its confidence, and it
has now become dangerously indifferent to the
rights of the opposition. The system of electoral
districts is such that, unfortunately as I believe,
neither Congress nor the State legislatures properly
represent public opinion. The Democrats are
in the country at large in the proportion of
three to eight ; in Congress and most of the legis-
latures they are as one to ten. The result is that
the majority in the latter are cheated into com-
plete forgetfulness of their real strength. At the
last election the Republicans everywhere achieved
a triumph, but it was a triumph extraordinary
rather for the number of States which were carried
than for the total majority which was rolled up.
In Pennsylvania, for instance, out of 585,000
votes cast, 300,000 only were Republican ; in this
State the majority for Fenton, out of nearly
500,000 votes, was only 10,000 ; and in Connec-
ticut the victory was won by only about 500 votes.
In many other States the majorities were much
larger; but the general result is that the Democrats
have only about one-fourth of the representation
to which their numbers entitle them. The Repub-
lican majority in Congress is thus easily led into a
false estimate of its own strength, and has day by
day grown in arrogance, and, I will not say unscru-
pulousness, but in disregard of the opinions and
feelings of opponents. Finally, they have re-
fused to allow the minority to open their lips
about a measure which brings Congress into direct
collision with the Supreme Court, and one of their
leaders has so far forgotten himself as to say that
the court owes its existence to the breath of
another branch of the government, whose acts it
has every day to pass in review.
Now, I am satisfied that the Republican party
are thoroughly united in a determination to do what-
ever is necessary to establish political equality, and
secure protection for life and property at the South.
If it be necessary to disregard the letter of the con-
stitutionfor this purpose, they are ready to disregard
it, just as though, by no means well assured of the
strict constitutionality of the emancipation pro-
clamation, they submitted to it cheerfully. The
proceedings of Congress, as long as it keeps the
main object of the struggle steadily in view, there
is no disposition to scrutinize very closely. But
violations of the constitution which are not plainly
necessary, or legislative action which appears in-
tended or likely to produce nothing but irritation,
or which evinces an overweening disregard of the
rights of the minority, will not, I think, be long
tolerated. If the present majority does not exer-
cise its great power with more discretion
than it has recently displayed, I have no
doubt it will go the way of all powerful
majorities, and be knocked to pieces by
public opinion. The number of thorough-going
party men amongst voters is very small. The great
majority of electors really vote at each election on
the merits of " the issue," as it is called, then pre-
sented to the country, but they are not to be de-
pended on for a thick and thin support of any set
of measures or of men, and the party in power at
Washington is liable, in the absence of constant ;
watchfulness and self-restraint, to find itself aban-
doned by the country. This occurred in 1862, in
spite of the excitement of the war. The abuse of
the power of arbitrary arrest which characterised
the first year of Mr. Lincoln's administration,
coupled with the want of success in the field, led
to the triumph of the Democrats in most of the
Northern States. Seymour's election in this State,
for instance, was due to the votes of thousands of
Republicans who wished to mark their disapproval
of the course of the administration, but who, on
most other points, differ from Seymour as widely ,
SS the poles asunder.

Gold, 1374. Sterling exchange on London, 108 i.
5-20 United States Bonds, 108 i. Illinois, 1143.
Erie, 58/. Cotton : middling upland, 33c.

THE EXHIBITION OF 1867.

(nom ors arzam. conzeporcarr.)

If the Custom-house officers on the British aide
of the Channel were as liberal and courteous as they ,
are on the French side, even now before the ELM-
! bition has begun, the agitation to put in abey-
ance the regulations for the examination of
' the luggage of passengers travelling between
' England and France during the exhibition period
would lose much of its importance. Of late French
Custom-house officers have done their spiriting
gently. On landing they never peer into bags and
reticules carried in the hand. They merely glance
at the contents of your portmanteau when in the
Custom-house. If you have many packages, they
request you to open one. But when the French
traveller lands at Newhaven or Folkestone, the
scene changes indeed. Nathaniel Hawthorne has
said, " Neither the front nor the back entrance of
the Custom-house opens on the road to Paradise."
But in these days, need it open upon a bear-garden?
The disgust created in the minds of our neighbours
by the manners and doings of English Custom-
house officers is universal. They meet not only
with bad manners, but with an apparently savage
determination to carry out the Customs' regulations
to the minutest point. I heard only yesterday of
the case of a French lady who, having landed in
free-trade England, was subjected to the most un-
warrantable indignities, and to considerable ex-
pense, because her luggage contained a plentiful
supply of can de Cologne and perfumery for her-
self and her friends. This lady was asked (I can see
the dogged threatening head from which the voice
came) whether she had anything to declare. Her
answer was, no. Her reason afterwards given was
that she had not the least idea we levied a tax on
eau de Cologne and perfumery now in England.
The scene that ensued was, I am informed on the i
beat authority, a violent and painful one. As
one swallow does not make a summer, an individual
instance does not make a national grievance. I cite
the case of this unfortunate French lady only be-
cause, according to my experience of the custom- ,
houses on our southern coast—and unfortunately
for me, it has been frequent and has extended over'
many years—this lady is one of thousands. I
Make a day's journey about the hotels of Soho, and I
take down the opinion of the French traveller on
the British Custom-house. The investigation'
would bear good fruit. The first impression made
upon the Frenchman travelling in England is, most
unfortunately for us, made by the Customs' servants
of the crown. Among ourselves, we don't talk ,
about a Custom-house officer and a gentleman ; but ;
our neighbours, who have crossed the Channel, talk
about the British Custom-house officer with an irri-
tation that is inseparable from their remembrance
of England. They laugh at our free-trade England,
and bid us compare the examination of luggage in
Paris—where the octroi as well as the downer has
an eye upon it—with the examination of luggage
in London.

I was discussing this question at length a few days
ago with a gentleman who has done more, I sup-
pose, to develop the intercourse between the two
nations than any living man • and who was, many
years ago, a French free-trader, when free-trade
had hardly an inch of ground in France. It was
his firm opinion, judging of the two Custom-houses,
after daily experience running over many year*,
that there was an insuperable difficulty in the way
of putting in abeyance the regulations for the exa-
mination
of luggage during the coming exhibition
time ; and that difficulty lay in England. He be-
lieved that the French government were ready to
exempt English passengers' luggage from search at
any moment, directly the British government would
grant French subjects travelling in England a simi-
lar immunity. lf, then, English travellers to the
Exhibition be detained for weary hours in English
and French vacs d'attente,let them carry the blame
whither it is due. When a Frenchman's eye peers
into Mrs. Bull's bonnet box, let her say, " Drat
that Disraeli ! "
A discussion has arisen here on the formation and
functions of the international scientific commission,
which lies within the scope of the Exhibition plan.
The task of this commission is defined in an official
document bearing date the 20th of September, 1865. '
The commissioners were to indicate the means by
which the recent progress in science, the liberal and
mechanical arts, could be best represented in the
Exhibition of 1867. They were to show how useful
discoveries, and such international reforms as uni- '
form weights and measures, could be spread. They

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