The Express.
London, England, 1858-03-11 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, MARCH 11.

Thrn is nothing like knowing the true ground
as which any change in our laws is advocated. The
more serious the proposed change the more desirable
does this knowledge become. The real motives for
urging on the Conspiracy Bill have now been
avowed with a frank cynicism which is calculated
to open the eyes of the least suspicious among the
opponents of that attempted infringement on the
constitutional liberties of Englishmen. The Pal-
merstonian organs in the daily press, desperate at
the announced intention of the new Administration

to abandon the Bill, have dropped the mark under
which they were so long contented to fight. The
real design of the late " English" Minister is now
openly avowed, and that design was neither
more nor less than so to change the laws
of England am to render them oonvenient
manta for the police of Franca. For the first time
in our history, conspiracy—the mere inchoate design
—the initiatory attempt—war to be made a felony,
punishable with ten years' penal servitude. The
mere charge of this ragas offence was to subject
men to seizure, and their dwellings to search. In
order to ensure detection, an elaborate machinery of
',image would have to be set on toot, each se this
country, except foe brief intervals in the worst
periods of its history, has never known. In order
to ensure conviction, recourse must have been had
to every description of objectionable proof : the
violation of private correspondence would have
become a recognised branch of duty with the
emissaries of the secret police. Words, looks
and gestures would be tortured into proofs of guilt;
and the freedom of social intercourse, whether oral
or written, world be exchanged for the caution of
distrust or the silent* of fear. Once place conspiracy
to commit a crime on the same level of legal guilt
with the crime committed—once establish an
Identity of punishment between words and deeds—
the intent and the execution—sad you not only
shake to the ground the strong bulwarks by which
seen hays sought to protect themselves against the
encroachments of judicial oppression, but you neces-
sarily admit a description of evidence and a mode of
proof which has hitherto been for ages unknown in
oar criminal jurisprudence. Let those who advocate
a Conspiracy Bill for England consider the effect
already produced by the Law of Public Safety in
Franc*. Unless we are greatly misinformed, nothing
can be more marked than the change which this
new law has produced on the whole tone of coofi-
dentist correspondence between friends on the oppo-
site sides of the Channel. It could hardly be other-
wise. Freedom of communication is a great
privilege, but a forced sojourn at Mazes, or a com-
pul•ory journey to Lambert, is a price which few
will consent to pay for it. If this law is persisted
in, the ominous silence which now broods over
France is only too likely to be broken by one of
those volcanic convulsions which mature their forces
in the gloom of enforced secresy and under the pres-
sure of political obstruction. We see what repres-
sive laws in their maturity are doing for France ; and
we resist the first step towards introducing such laws
for England.

We have already remarked on the argument ad
terrorinn to which one of our Palmerstonian contem-
poraries resorted on Monday last. We have com-
mented on the spirit, alike un-English and un-
constitutional, with which the observance of our
old forme of criminal procedure, with all
their " delays" and " loopholes," was depre-
cated, as likely to be supremely displeasing to our
" great ally." A hambler satellite of the late
Ministry has been following, hand passaus ayssiir,
in the name line. The Morning Post is excessively
indignant at the report that the Conspiracy Bill is
to be dropped by the new Government. The main
grievance of our contemporary is that the English
police are not armed with sufficient powers--that
they are not yet empowered to seize suspected con.
spirators as felons, and hurry them off at once to
gaol with all their papers, and, whatever that may
mean, " all their havings." " The law," we are
assured, " is insufficient; no Minister has hitherto
" dared to exceed the law tad violate the constitu-
" tion. Such has been the state of affairs, and such
" it is to remain." We rather hope it will. We trust
that the law, which we believe to be sufficient,
will remain unchanged, and while it does so can see
nothing to regret in the fact that no Minister can be
found who will dare " to exceed the law and violate
" the constitution."

The more closely the thing is looked at, the more
utterly hopeless and chimerical does the attempt
appear to introduce any such change in oar laws as
will satisfy the exigencies of the politicians of the
Tuileries. Their alleged object is to protect from
lawless violence the person and the dynasty of the
Emperor NAPOLEON. Cordially agreeing with them
in the object, we think them utterly mistaken in
the means. The experience of history—an intelligent
study of human nature--ought to convince all who
are capable of serious conviction that a policy of
repression is not, and never can be, a policy of
safety. Assassination is the misgrowth of despotism.
The eoereion that animates a sect or a nation with
hatred arms the assassin with despair, and screens
his crime from execration. To rule justly, wisely,
and mercifully, is the truest safeguard of runs and
the only lasting support of dynaries. LAWS of
public safety, legions of spies, the police everywhere
and freedom nowhere, may proclaim the fears, but
cannot assure the safety, of the Sovereign. We have