The Express.
London, England, 1861-08-17 00:00:00

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

A !ate edition of the &pm' is published every
evening during the racing season, containing the
results of the day's races.

THE Address drawn up by M. DZAK, in reply
to the Imperial Rescript, and voted so unani-
mously by both Chambers of the Hungarian Diet,
is now before the world, and it certainly deserves
the high eulogium unconsciously passed on it by
ono of the extreme imperialist journals of Vienna,
of being equal in outspoken firmness to the mani-
festoes of the English Parliament that resisted
CHARLFA I. There is, in fact, a considerable
analogy between the two cases. In our own
country a constitutional monarch attempted to
destroy the existing form of government, to abolish
the constitution he had sworn to support, and
usurp absolute authority. And in order to ac-
complish this purpose he naturally began by
assailing the ancient rights and fundamental pre-
rogatives of Parliament. The most essential of
these rights he first practically denied by
levying taxes on a royal warrant instead
of through the representatives of the nation.
Having partially succeeded in the forcible col-
lection of an illegal revenue, be attempted with
a high hand to justify the usurpation, and hoped
to succeed through the guilty subserviency of a
weak, intimidated, and treacherous faction. Had
the daring attempt succeeded, the constitution, and
with it the rights and liberties of Englishmen,
would have been utterly destroyed. Parliament
having lost all reel and independent authority,
would have been degraded into a court for register-
ing imperial decrees. This is precisely what the
Emperor of AUSTRIA is striving to effect in Hun-
pry. The only legitimate connexion he has with
the Kingdom of Hungary is that of a constitu-
tional monarch, bound to observe the ancient
statutes and govern according to the fundamental
laws of the realm. For a time the constitution
was violently suppressed, and FRANCIS Jones,
having established a military despotism, ruled in
Hungary as an absolute prince. However harsh
and oppressive such a government might be, it
could hardly be considered dangerous to the fun-
damental rights and liberties of the nation. Being
utterly violent and illegal, it simply suppressed
without attempting to change the laws. The recent
attempt to subvert the constitution indirectly by a
species of political fraud was in all respects farmers
dangerous, and had it succeeded, the ancient liber-
ties of the nation would have been more hopelessly
destroyed than they could have been by the
sword. The representatives of the nation have,
however, met the attempt in exactly the same way
the English Parliament met the attempted
usurpations of Csanns L They may be said,
indeed, to have acted with even greater modera-
tion, and a more scrupulous regard to the letter
of constitutional law. So far from having at all
exceeded its legitimate powers, the Diet has
throughout kept carefully within view the letter
and the spirit of the fundamental statutes it had
solemnly pledged itself to support.
This final address recapitulates in a firm but re-
spectful tone the constitutional rights which the
Mamma has attempted to destroy. All the Diet
has asked from the first was simply the fulfilment
of the legal conditions on which alone the crown of
Hungary can ever be worn by the Emperor of
Anemia. "We asked in our Address," say the
representatives of the kingdom in Diet assembled,
" for no concessions ; we proposed no new laws
"to guarantee our rights. We wished only that
" the Pragmatic Sanction, with all its conditions
" and the mutual obligations it imposed, should
"be strictly observed. We required only that
" our ancestral constitution and the laws enacted
" by our Diet, which have been suspended by
" force, should be re-established, and that the
" right of altering and repealing laws should in
"no degree be withdrawn from the Diet. In a
" word, we wish that legality and constitutional
" procedure should not half, but entirely, take
" the place of absolute force." This legal claim
the Imperial Rescript refuses to grant. The En-
'axon promises to restore only certain isolated
fragments of the ancient Constitution, and even
these would be given as Imperial favours, not as
national rights. The legal constitution of the Diet is
not even reco6mised. It has never yet been completed
according to the terms of the constitution, and
even if assembled it would, under the new scheme,
be deprived of all real power. Its ancient right
of determining all questions of taxation and mili-
tary service, all its independent legislative power
indeed, while nominally handed over to the new-
fangled and dependent Reichsrath, would be really
transferred to the Enmities and his Government.
The Diet accordingly decides in the mart
emphatic and decisive terms that it can
have nothing to do with any such act of
national suicide. "We declare," say the repre-
sentatives of the nation, " that we will maintain
" unimpaired the right of the nation to vote its
" supplies, and regulate its taxes, and military
" levies in its own Diet, and will never agree to
" the transfer of these rights to the Reichsrath."
The writers add that they are compelled to
regard all negotiations through the Diet as
broken off. They are, however, quite prepared
for the result of this serious and decisive step :
" It is possible that over our country will again
" have to pass through bard times ; we cannot
" ward them off at the sacrifice of our duties as