The Express.
London, England, 1850-08-28 00:00:00

Vile erpreofs.

OUTGOING MAIM

The wile for British North America, Bermuda. sad the
Gaited :Oates will be meads up cm the 'seals( of August 30.
The Wert ladle Mails, ezahidlas Noadures. Nasals, Sa
swab aad lamed (St. Gormless), end 'winding Yeas
sell, New Orsuads, sad Grey Tows (8: lam de Nicaragua)
will be made up ea the semis( of September 2.
The made kr Maxim will be made up on September 2.
The made for Maderia, the Semliki. sad Buenos Arm, will
be made up es the emalag of Sept. S.
The malls mid Mensillee, to the Mediterranean, Egypt,
Ceylon, fella, Hearlioas, We., will be made up ea the
amiss of B.s. 7.
The suds for Savannah. Bandana, Nassau, Jeemel,
Chill, sad Pent,will be nude up oatbentoraimg ol p
t.Set. 17.
The mails for Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, the looms a
bpt, Coyle'', India, and China. Boatkaaptes, will
eard' up oa the morslag of Sept. 20.
Tb• nails for Lisboa, dipsia, sad Gibraltar will be made
tap ea September 7.

OWN WATIIII A? LONDON =WO&
Ty e Day -11niftt.i .. )0... &M.... 51. fee.
-- 11. Mn. Altimmais. IL Se.

LONDON,IVEDNESDAT, AUGUST 28.

Ir assemblies of men were to be ridiculed and
scouted because they merely debated and expressed
opinions, without comingto any practical end, we fear
that parliaments, and senates and synods would have
but rare chances of meeting with respect. After all,
the most practical thing that even venerable
parliaments do, is to advance sad enlighten
opinion. For this must be awakened and matured
even in our own country, before parliament can ven-
ture to pees a fined decision or vote. Such has been
the progress of mast questions with us : years of talk
—mere talk—put forth like annual leaves, the fruit
not appearing nil after the lapse of perhaps a quarter
of a century. To test the truth of this we have but
to examine the progress of all great questions
amongst us—electoral reform, abolition of
slavery, catholic emancipation, or free trade.
Who, then, will say that a three days'
talk in St. Paul's Church of Frankfort
on the question of how war may best be obviated and
prevented, is lies useful or practical than the month's
discussion in the same hall on the constitution for
Germany, or than a week's debate at St. Stephen's on
the merits of Signor Peciereo ?
For our part we cannot see why the extinction of
war should be so very Utopian. All the wars of
Europe hitherto have been occasioned by that
thirst for aggrandisement and influence which
was natural to sovereigns and to nations, at a time
when frontiers were unfixed and national development
had not reached its limits. European states hitherto
may be regarded se a Pet of young powers, sowing
their wi.d oats, and indulgirg in every freak of
ambition, or in indulgencies of a hot temperament.
But the natural frontier of each state and empire
might now be traced by nay impartial hand, and as
soon as each race and people have the voice which they
ought to have, and must have, in the fixing of their own
destiny and limits, national frontiers will coincide
with pol.tical ones. It is impossible not to foresee
and be assured of this great consummation. In
1848 ea:h people of Europe who did not enjoy their
national demarcations made a great dash at thrm.
The effatt, the rude rush of physical force and military
violence, failed before the ola military and despotic
governments re-organieed. But the cause and the
rights of etch people will now be taken up and fought
by opinion and discussion, by free thoughts, and by
a more or less free press, until the force of ideas carry
what the popular and ill-armed hordes failed to do.
It is a great matter that these ideas should not
germinate in the minds of the people alone, or ferment
in the breasts of one or two isolated countries. What
is most to be desires' is, that grave, reflecting,
em.nent, benevolent, and pacific men should show
themselves as entertaining these views, as devoting
themselves to these ideas, so that the great work of
progress and reform should be not left to local dema-
toga's or class malcontents, but that the people should
feel, there was a mass of superior and philosophic
minds caring and providing ice them. The language,
to be sure, of the philanthropists collected at Fugal'.
fort, was confined to Lord FsuceaNes exclamation
of Peace, pesos! But the eminent orators of the
Frankfort St. Paul's Kirk knew and felt, as much
as Lord FALKLAND did, how pesos can only be
secured in conjunction with national rights and popu-
lar liberties. It was not possible or permitted
indeed to preach such a truism as this at
Frankfort. But the mere, general, and load
pretest against military influence, habits, govern-
bent, and expenditure must be powerful in awak-
ening civic and industrious taxpayers to more eco-
nomic modes of conducting government as well as of
influencing Its policy.
Mr. Coartax, in the speech which he delivered in
the first day's sitting of the Peace Congress, confined
himself to the proposal for terminating all interna-
tional differences by arbitration. It is • pity that
the delicacy of the question and the limited freedom
of the country where the Congress was held,
prevented him from illustrating his theory by one of
the most apt and striking examples that history could
afford. This is the present dispute between Denmark
and the German duchies of Szhleswig and Holstein.
If ever there was a cause, to decide which definitively
and satisfactorily war and violent means are power-
less, it is this. The German and the Scandinavian
races can never hope, whether aided or un-
aided, to subdue each other. The differences
which have set them at variance have been
created, not by the people themslves, but by
the feudal laws of Europe, which have been so
confused in their ordering of the succession to the
throne, and in the divided and complex allegiance
which they enjoin, that the moat pacific and loyal
people in Europe have been and are literally driven
into resistance and civil war, first by the absurdity of
their law makers, and then by the violence with which
it is sought to change and amend their laws.
If ever the arbitration of impartial and quiet men was
imperative, it was here. hatted of which there has
been a mediation, which has changed and wavered
during its progress, not from conviction in respect of
justice, but merely as one side grew stronger and the
other weaker, a media'ion conducted on the sole prin-
ciple of expediency, which thus widened the dif-
ference and created a deep distrust in the justice
and fairness of England. Had the cue been re-
ferred to any personage or power disinterested in the
quarrel, a solution might have been attained, as well
as a permanent reconciliation of two races, now doomed
to the continuance of mutual aversion, inveteracy,
and war.

But how indeed can Danish, or German, or Medi-
terranean differences and questions be more than
patched up temporarily, u long as Russia is per-
mitted to fling on all occasions her sword into the
scale? As long as one power is permitted to do this,
there is little use in others declaring that
they will abstain. And there is little profit
in establishing that great and truly c3neervative and
wise doctrine of non-intervention, as long as there is
a despotic., a wilful and formidable power in Europe,
whore stile principle and practice is to interfere and
intervene in every question, and in every country,
whether that question be of domestic or of foreign
policy. To establish non-intervention at the present
epoch, it would be necessary not merely to practise and
to preach it, but to form a league to enforce it ; a
league of commou safety and general freedom, which
would deter any power, even the mightiest, from in-
termeddling, officiously or ambitiously, in other
people's concerns.

Tux reputation enjoyed by a public man in foreign
eenotries is not always the beet test of his fitness
for high office in his own. The present President of
the United States is a remarkable example of this.
The names of many American political leaders are
familiar aa household words in the mouths of the
men of Europe. But to not a few English politi-
cians and political writers of considerable pretensions
MILLARD nutmeg was scarcely known even by
same when elected Vic... President of the Union.
lime when, on the death of General TAYLOR, the
Presidential *Alice devolved upon Mr. Finutonn, the
English public was favoured with numerous edify-
ing remarks upon the phenomenon of an obscure and
unknown man (such he was assumed to be) attaining
to the highest place in tlie republic. The CLAYS, CLAY-
IONS, and WEIZTEILS were known beyond the limits
of their own country by their participation,
durieg long public lives, in stirring events
alb e 9 tog the interests of other cluntrles,
besides their own. The CASSEk Forma, and others
of their clam had acquired notoriety if not fame, by
their activity is agitation. The commentators to
whom we are rehiring confounded mere notoriety
with high piddle shouter i they forgot (or were