The Express.
London, England, 1866-07-13 00:00:00

HIGH WATESAT LONDON BEMS

THIS DAT —Morning. 2h 27m Afternoon, 2K 52m.
To-Moaaow—Morning, 311. 17m Afternoon, 3K 41m,

LONDON, FRIDAY, JULY 13.

THE welcome lately given in the Guildhall to I I
the King and Queen of the BELGIANS was some- I
thing more than ceremonial. It went beyond the 11,
formal courtesy which the chief of a friendly I ,
nation may always reckon on receiving should he I
visit these shores, and which would not be with- '
held from the King of PRUSSIA or the Queen of
SPAIN. At the same time, the greeting was poll- I
tical rather than personal. If the Royal visitor
had been, or could by possibility have been, Lao- I i
FOLD I. instead of LEOPOLD 11., it might be easy
to misinterpret the nature of the feelings roused I ,
by his presence. As the husband of the English
Princess whose anticipated accession to the throne
was one of the cherished desires of the nation, and
whose early and mournful death has consecrated
her memory, and as the sage and friendly coun-
sellor of the younger Princess whose reign has
realised the expectations which were entertained
with respect to her cousin, the late King of the
BELGIANS had personal claims, which during his
life he did much to strengthen and nothing to
forfeit, upon the affection and respect of his
adopted country. His successor can, in the na-
ture of things, have no such hold upon the hearts
of Englishmen. Bzlgian by birth, of mixed French
and German descent, Catholic in faith, Austrian in
marriage, he is as completely foreign to this
country as any member of any princely house in
Europe ; and he is only connected with the Eng-
lish Royal family by the SaxE-Coanto blood which
flowsin the veins of every Royal and Imperial family
in the Old World and the New. In the short period
which has elapsed since his accession he has had
no sufficient opportunity of displaying his capacity
and integrity as a constitutional ruler. The ex-
ceptional cordiality of the welcome lately given to
him was in part a tribute to the virtues of his
father. But it was even inure emphatically an
expression of cordial respect for the country of
which he is the representative, and of interest in its
future well-being. In Belgium the nation sees a
miniature England on the Continent. The success
there of institutions derived from and modelled
upon our own goes far to refute the misgiving
entertained in some quarters that Consti-
tutional Monarchy, as it now exists among
us, is adapted only to the accidental circumstances
of a particular people at a particular period of its
history. When the enemies of our form of
government point to its collapse and overthrow,
or doubtful working, in France, in Spain, in
Greece, and elsewhere, it has been a consolation
to refer, in reply, to Belgium. The satisfaction
with which this is done is not diminished by the
fact that the independence and liberties of
Belgium are not merely due to the indirect
example of English institutions, but are, in a
great degree, the direct creation of English policy.
There is nothing in the history of Lord PAL-
MERSTON'S long and varied and incessantly active
career on which his countrymen look back with
more pride than on his exertions for the establish-
ment of the new monarchy, of which he was, in a
certain sense, the fotmder, and of which, while he
livei, he was always the jealous guardian. His
name, scarcely less than that of the first King of
the Belgians, is a historic link between the two
countries.

If the liberties and the prosperity of the
Belgians are valued by us who see them, they
must be doubly dear to the populations who enjoy
them. The reception which awaits the young
ruler in the progress which he has just commenced
through the great cities of his kingdom may well
be enthusiastic and devoted. Belgium, for cen-
turies proverbially the battle-field of Europe, has
for a generation been its peaceful garden. The
essentially industrial character of the people, to
which in the remote periods of history England
owed the beginning of her manufacturing great-
ness, has now almost for the first time had ample
scope, and the encouragement of security. Material
progress in agriculture, in manufactures, and in
commerce, purchased across the frontier at the
expense of political and intellectual liberty,
have been in Belgium united with it. The
strife between the opposing principles of freedom
and authority, which was formerly waged with all
the devastation of war by Austrian, Spanish,
French, and Dutch armies, is now confined to the
bloodless struggles of Parliamentary parties. The
transfer of power is not to and from a foreign
monarchy, but from a falling to a rising minister.
The contest, of which every Catholic country is the
scene, between the liberal and the clerical parties,