The Express.
London, England, 1868-11-26 00:00:00

ELECTION BIOTA

Tun election of Piaeteztrr for the United
States has just pawed over without, so far ae we
know, a single act of violence; while the elec-
tions for the Parliament of England have been
eignalia.ed by atrocities whioh stamp them with
disgrace. Those who still regard American
institutions with pious dread, and who profess to
consider the pnblio manners and customs of the
Republic to be immeasureably inferior to
our own, may find food for useful ro-
flc in the contrast suggested by the
ction intelligence this morning. That a
violent death should make a man a martyr, no
wetter how incurred ; and that a ringleader in a
rtiret Mewl should bo followed to his grave by a
procession of priests and magistrates,could,we may
bore, only happen in one oountry in the world..
But Ireland has not enjoyed any monopoly of riot-
ing during the last fortnight. At Newport and
the towns of Monmouthshire houses have been
guttc,l and streets have been the pitched battle-
fields of the military awl the people. In South
Staffordshire a violent and tumultuous mob was
only dispersed by a troop of dragoons galloping
an:ong them and cutting right and left with their
swords. In Leicestershire, and at Barnsley, in

Yorkshire, the police and the mob have boon
fighting as desperately as if they were soldiers
in opposing armies. Such is the news to-day !
Such has been the kind of news we have been
reading for many days. There is something in-
expressibly hardening and lowering in the com-
mon occurrence of these brawls. Our boasted

auperiority over the other countries of Europe is
dragged in the dirt ; and Mr. DISRAELI'S " No
" Popery" cry is proved to be es brutalising and
dangerous as when shouted by Lord thongs
Goa Lore long years ago.

_.__ _ ~_

IVASON r. WALTER.

Tus written judgment delivered yesterday by the
Loup CHIEF JtrErme of ENGLAND gives formal legal
authority to a practice which has been long estab-
lished by custom. That Parliamentary debates
should be fully reported and freely commented on
is essential to the proper working of Constitu-
tional Government. So thoroughly is this known
that it has never been thought necessary to affirm
the right by statute ; and the privileged character
of such reports and comments has not
until yesterday been laid down by authority
simply because it hail not been seriously
impugned. The standing orders of the house
prohibiting reports of its proceedings are still
maintained; but as Sir ALEXANDER COCKBURN
remarked yesterday, " the members of both
" Houses would deplore as a national misfortune
" the withholding of their debates from the
" country at large." He was careful, however,
to add that a garbled report, or a report of de-
tached proceedings, or even of a single speech
published with the intent of injuring individuals,
would be still held unlawful. The whole judgment
affirms, therefore, that which ordinary men have
been taking for granted all their lives. Despite

technicalities and traditions of the old
time, when notes of the proceedings in
Parliament were taken by stealth, and
when Dr. JouNeon reproduced whole debates in
which each speaker spoke the English of the
Rambler, the common-sense side of the question
is the constitutional and legal one. A free par-

liatnent is not to be made the instrument of injury
to any private citizen ; but its acts and words are
to be submitted to the judgment of the nation.
Beyond the mental gratification to be derived from
the perusal of Sir Aumaenint Cocinuttres lucid
judgment, and the knowledge that what is, is
technically, as well as morally, right, ther3 is no
very absorbing public interest in the question just
settled through the action of Mr. WAsoN. That
which few reamenable people doubted has been
placed beyond the possibility of dispute; and a
formal precedent is established for what has been
carried on with tolerable success without it.