The Express.
London, England, 1850-05-01 00:00:00

THZ EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING. MAY 1, 1850.

.Whe OrpreOL

OUTGOING MAILS.
11s West India Maila, ineluding Bermuda, Havemial,
Neese, Honduras, New Orisons, sea Mexico, and excluding
those for Madeira, Bt. Jean-de-Nisaramea, New Graaada,
ChM, and For., will be made up Immarrow morning.
The nails for Bridals North Aviaries and t►e Usitad
Bane will be made up on the evening of May 3.
The mails for Moderns, the Brasile, and Buenos Ayres, will
oe aside up on the 4th of May.
The mails for Lisbon, SOS* rd Gibraltar will be made
up on the manic g alloy 7.
TM mails rid Illnroeilleo, to Utoinediterranion, Egypt,
'•pylon, ladle, Hong-Kong, &u., will be made up on
the amnia& of May 7.

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LONDON, WEDNBSDAY, MAY 1.

PUBLIC opinions, or any portion of public opinion,
are rarely dangerous or even powerful as Magas they
are merely polatical. It is only when they come to
partake of the nature of a religion that they kindle
enthusiasm, concentrate force, and by connecting a
multitude of minds and arms in one thought and one
will, defy resistance, and sweep away the opposition
of wrong, and at times that of reason and of right.
If there should arise in a country any epochs of
political opinion, the tendencies or which appear
dangerous to a government, the first care of that go-
vernment should be to avoid giving to that opinion
the character of religion. Take socialism for example.
It is said to menace property, to aim at subverting the
existing organisation of society, and putting some-
thing else in its stead. No doctrine flatters more the
pride, the prejudices, the interests, the sorer, the
hallucination of the people. It gives them hopes of the
future and consolation for the past. It fills the place
of religion for him who has been taught none but an
ignorant, a material, and a brute one. And we are
sorry to say that in too many European countries
social am has replaced religion; the idea of per-
fecting the labouring man's condition in this world
shutting cut from sight almost all thoughts of the
next. Ilow are such opinions to be rendered as
harmless as may be ? Certainly by free discussion,
by experiments, by their own divisions and exposures,
by the refutation of earnest and disinterested
pens, by the raillery of men of the world, by the ac-
tMn, in short, of that intellectual winnowing machine
which separates chaff from grain.
Instead of this, how have the upper classes and
ruling powers treated socialism in France ? They
have persicuted and martyrised it into a religion.
Socialism in France, when in power, and when allowed
to realise, or attempt to realise its views, and to pro-
claim itself dominant, fell daily into contempt. It
became a mockery and a byword. Even when
dethroned and hurled from power it gro-
velled, and might have wanted the means
of recovery. But when promises were not
kept to it ; when the plainest principle of liberalism
and honesty was cut aide and outraged along with
solialism ; when the first geniuses of the conservative
party, the TittERSES and the Du PINS, entered into the
lists with the socialist philosophers, and were de-
cidedly inferior to them in verve and argument ; and
when this inferiority of talent was instantly sought
to be made up by a sub4titutioe of police law and
brutality for logic—oh, then socialism began to
wax st,ong, to hold up its held, to claim public
sympathy, and attract public respect.
As was ob-erved the other day by the Fanntiner,
the great geniuses of the age have rallied to it, the
tircos and the Suss—the first pens of France have
taken up its caus. , in addition to the Loris BLANCS
and the ParmfolioNs, men of great talents too, born
in the faith. The result, therefore, of a two years'
reign of conservatism, under an executive of its
choice, and a representative majority of its
formation, has been S 3 terribly to augment
the power of the popular opposition, that any hope
of arguing with it was abandoned, and the sole
mode of combaing it made to lie in the rigour of the
puce and the numbers of the soldiery.
Police and soldiers are, however, inefficient for such
purpose. They can disperse a group, put down a riot ;
but they cannot eradicate a religion, or a social doc-
trine that has been made to partake of the nature
and excite the enthusiasm of one. We know what
the French army is, how it is composed, and that
each year's recruital brings to it, fresh and unmiti-
gated, the predominant feelings, whatever they may
be, of the people. Go, combat the popular masses
and their sentiments by portions of those masses end
those sentiments, apparently modified by • few
weeks' drill.

But takime the supposition most favourable to the
party of repression. Imagine the people, or tho social-
ists u they are called, foolish enough to be provoked
into insurree' ion by the goading of the police, or by a
emir (rant of the President, and let us imagine them
to have been put down—that another June combat
has slain its thousands, exiled mcre thousand., and
devastated the capital. What then? Why, that
opinion is not killed by military conquest. The'
history of socialism after June bespeaks it. One
cannot extirpate the muses. They are not con-
vinced, no, nor conquered, by the sword.
Instead of this, we do think that freedom and fair
treatment of opinion would work the cure of all that
is pernicious in it, whilst the doings of M. CARTIER
will but make it strike deeper root into the pride, the
conscience, and the conviction of the people.
We know of no worse sign than the fact that
the party of the upper, a-d, as they call themselves,
the educated classes in Paris, have been obliged, in
order to combat the socialist candidature of EUGENE
SUE, to pat forward as their representative the low-
liest and least intellectual of their party—one who
does not represent them at all, indeed, although he
may typify their only passion, and their one idea, a
horror of emeute. The conservative party hag not
one known or respectable name that it could off r to
the el* ctors of Parisi. M. CARNOT hes been fearfully
lacerated for telling the rustic electors to return
staunch republicans to the assembly, without
ming whether they were learned or not.
The conservatives are practising what CARROT
preached. Their idea of the political champion is
that he be a good constable. The socialists of Paris
give their votes to a man of genius—a poet and a
novelist. The aristocracies of the three dynasties
unite their votes on a representative of mere physical
force. They abandon their own weapons, the intellect,
the tongue and the pen, in which they ought to have
the superiority ; and they think to overcome the masses
in a collision of bone and muscle. Is not this madneui
preposterous enough to demonstrate how ill promoted,
ill managed, and ill defended has been their cause,
and how irrevocably it is lost? _ _ _

Whilst in the act of writing, the French telegraph
has brought the expected intelligence that EUGENE
Sue has carried the election. And there comes with
the report great wailing and gnashing of teeth. One
would think the world were at its end, begause a mall
of talent and fortune, who sympathises with the
people, and prefers a republic to any of the candidate
monarchies, has been chosen representative for
Paris. And EUGENE SUE is this, rot merely
by the votes of the shopkeepers but of the
army, whose significant votes are recorded. Univer-
sal suffrage has at least this merit—that it proclaims
unmistakably the leanings and opinions of the
troops, as well as of the multitude. Againet these
united, who but madmen would meditate resistance or
a coup-tletat
There is evidently but one hope for peace and or-
derly government in France, for au avoidance of
civil war and its consequences ; —it is for the propertied
class and its notabilities to accept the republic sin-
cerely, give up reviling it and plotting against it,
and employing police to insult the public and to gag
the press. Let LOUIE NAPOLEON and his parlia-
mentary majority condescend to be true to the oaths
which they swore to the republican coostitetion, and
by making common cause, aid entering into common
councils, with the people, prevent that death struggle
between the two classes, which every conservative
act atid word have hitherto gone to aggravate and
to provoke.

Tne Houle of Commons now understands the
Ecclesiastical Commission Bill—how it is a bishops'
measure to avoid and elude the recommendations of

the committee of the house which reported in 184ti—
how its tendency is to confirm and continue the
episcopal hold that now grips the property of the
church—how it is a prelatical sham—how it is
the prrice ministers have consented to pay for epis-
mriam
nderstanding all this, nothing but large and
liberal concessions in committee, from Sir GROKOE
Oiler and Lord Joux Russui, can avert discussions

even more painful to theepisoopate, and more hurtful
to the church, than those of Monday evening. For if
prelatical power over ministerial:free agency will not
permit the kill to be improved in committee, the
whole of the irresistible easel against the bishops will
have to be repeated and reitera:e d until those "pious,
learned, courteous, and hospitable" gentlemen, who
build their palaces, keep them in repair, ornament
their gardens at the expense of religion, and speed
their 6,00 W. a year far away from the smoke of their
cathedral cities, become the objects of general indig-
nation. The peace and the welfare of the church are,
therefore, interested in the recommendations of the
committee of 1848 being fully adopted and incorpo-
rated into the bill. These recommendations remaining
uooomplied with, church reformers will batter away
until old Mother Church is shaken to her very foun-
dation. The sooner, then, the bishops capitulate on
this point the better for themselves.
Now, what is it that is required from the bishops?
Simply that they should exn.se to manage that pro-
perty of the ecclesiastical commission which a com-
mittee of the House of Commons has reported they
have mismanaged, and that they should allow its ad-
ministration to be placed iu the hands of paid com-
missioner', responsible to the public. What hardship
is there in such a requirement—what attack is there
on the church—what rude, or violent, or irreverent
interference is there in the temp militias of the esta-
blishment? The proposal is one for the hus-
banding and the improvement of the episcopal
and capitular estates fur the augmentation
and increase of the surplus applicable to the parochial
extension of the church of England—for the safety
and protection of that church. Yet against it, the
episcopate is in arms: and ministers are threatened
with the release of the " rude Borten" of ecclesiastical
wrath if they consent to a better stewardship of the
property of the ecclesiastical commission. Was there I
ever such episcopal folly—such prelatical insanity ?
Can it be that the gods are dementing those they are 4
about to destroy ?
Mark; it is not proposed to deprive the bishops of
the means of disposing and of appropriating the ap-
plication of the income of the property it is desired
to take out of their management. It is not asked
that the bishops should be denuded of those powers
of church extension and endowment which they have
as ecclesiastical commissioners. It is not sought to
take away the almost legislative functions posse seed
by that body. Nothing of this sort, however needful
it is, has as yet been suggested. All that is required
is that, retaining each authority, they should be dis-
encumbered of the mar agement and the practical
stewardship for which they are by their habits, their
number, and theer other avocations so manifestly un-
flved.

All that the bishops will consent to, is that there
shall be a small committee of four, three of which
shall be appointed by themselves, to consider all mat-
t( rs relating to the management of the property, and
to report to them thereon. Hut in such an arrange-
ment there is no security for improved administration ;
for the reports of a committee in which episcopal in-
fluence predominates, will, of course, be accommo-
dated to episcopal wants and wishes; and the jobs
now perpetrated dircc•ly by the bishops will be then
cloaked, and concealed, and defended by reports from
their nominees.

The spiritual wants of the country, Fay the bishop•,
require an exteneiim of the episcopate—more sees
and more bishops. But if the diocesan duties of the
prelates are so great and overpowering as to need a
division of dioceses and an augmentation of the pre-
lacy, with what consistency can the existing bishops
insist on burdening themselves with the management
of property in the metropolis? If they cannot satis-
factorily perform the ordinary business of their office
it is nothing short of hypocrisy to overload themselves
with extraordinary duties.
But the duties of the ecclesiastical commission are,
in truth, used as an excuse for episcopal neglect of
diocesan affairs. It was not a year ago that we had
the Bishop of DURHAM apologising to the vestry of
Gateshead for inattention to his visitorial obligations
over some local charity, on the ground that the busi-
ness of his office detained him many months yearly in
London ; and now, whilst we write, he is dragging
yourg men from the:north of England up to Portland-
place to attend an ordination. If a bishop be
wanted in his diocese he pleads the duties
of the ecclesiastical commission as an apology
for his absence ; if he be required in White-
hall-place, he regrets that the affairs of his see keep
him in the country. But, curiously erougb, his pre-
sence in London always fits iu with the fashionable
season; and his residence in the provinces regularly
accords with the pleasures and the sports of rural
life. And for nearly five months in every year it is
impne.ible to procure a legal metting of the ecclesias-
tic rl commission.

Of the debate it may be observed that not a epesker
defended the present compositicn of the ecclesiastical
commission, or quite approved of the bill sent down
by the bishops from the Lord.; that Sir Roma PEEL
was significantly absent; ar.d that the protec-
tionist leaders gave the episcop its no support.
In short, the temper of the house had, it was clear,
set in strongly against the bishops and their bill.
Lord JOHN RussELL regretted the episcopal supre-
macy, which he has not the courage to abate, in the
ecclesiastical commission. Sir GEORGE GREY'S sub-
serviency to the episcopate, which is the bane of the
ministers in their ecclesiastical policy, would not
carry even him so far as to consent to the longer
separation of the episcopal and the common funds.
Mr. GOULBURN abused and slandered Mr. Hoas-
MAN, but would not pledge himself to the details of
the measure: and neither would Sir HOBERT INGLIS;
whilst Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT, Mr. PAGE IVOOD,
and Mr. HORSMAN were all resolved to have large
and liberal alterations in committee; and Sir BEN-
JAMIN HALL and Mr. OSBORNE exhibited a quiet
determination to protect their friends from personal
assaults whilst so usefully engaged. Nay, Lord JOHN
only saved the bishops from an adjourned debate by
treating Mr. HORSHAM with decency, and promising
to place the committee on the bill first on the orders
of the day.
The sooner, then, the bishops begin to ret their
houses in order the wiser they will act. For years
they have escaped parliamentary attention on the as-
sumption that they were prudently administering the
affairs of the ecclesiastical commission. But now
that it is proved that they were wasting and spend-
ing on themselves the property of the church, it is no
longer possible for the House of Commons to pass
over their conduct unnoticed.