The Express.
London, England, 1861-12-26 00:00:00

1111111 ways" AT WIIDON BUNN&

rum in7.7.7Aiwa:a.7 $k 11..
to•aliebill—ataulog, Altarsess. w 500.

LONDON, THURSDAY, DEC. 21;.

Tat r reverence for a noble life departed con-
mists, not in pursuing the memory of its works and
virtues with sterile lamentations and the tardy
homage of unavailing regrets, but in observing
with a dutiful fidelity the admonitions of • great
and good example, as though the society of
the living presence were interrupted rather than
withdrawn. It is in this spirit, we conceive, that
the institutions and enterprises to which the
lamented Panice CONSORT lent not only the charm
and grace of his sympathy, but the conspicuous
sanction of his active and intelligent co.opse•-'
tion, should be conducted and sustained hence-
forth by the distinguished men who in his life
time enjoyed the high privilege of being his fellow.
workers in endowing England with the culture of
all the civilising arts. Among the many titles to
the gratitude and affection of his adopted country-
men upon which the sanctity of an untimely death
has set its consecrating seal, there is probably
none which belongs so peculiarly and exclusively
to the perfect Christian gentleman whom all
Europe mourns, ea the conception of those
grand International Parliaments of Peace, of which
the Exhibition of 1851 was the initiation and the
type. The good seed sown eleven years ago in
Hyde Park has quickened and sprung up in many
lands, and now the sower himself has gone to his
reward ! Just when the bread that was cast upon
the waters is coming beck again, the kindly hand
is cold, and it is for others that the honour and the
reward of labours and difficulties converted into
benefits and bleiriap are reserved. The ancient
epitaph, Beteefeeiewde pertraiwirit, belongs to the
monument of a Patues who had the heart to discern
the better destiny of all mankind, and to spend his
days in adding • stone to the infinite temple of
the Future. In an age when war is still the trade
of Monarchs and the rage of peoples, there lived a
Piusca beside the throne of an Empire great in
war as in peace, who was content with the calm
glory of bloodless triumphs, and of victories for
which no tears were shed.

Surely it would argue a poor respect for the con-
stant purpose of that privileged sixistence--privi -
lewd, it may be, even in that swift, sharp stroke
of fats which we deplore—to talk as if the insti-
tutions he founded and the enterprises he
initiated must parish with him. Prejudice, jea-
lousy, detraction, all thus malignant fumes that
obscure the grimier dignity and simplieity of
living worth, fly off; but the works are not buried
from our sight; they remain our sacred heritage.
The IDTIAXATIONAL ELMISITION, which is to be
opened at South ffeneington in May, 1862, will
be saddened by the most poignant sense of an
irreparable loss. One absent figure will be more
present to all minds on that occasion than all that
meets their sight. Yet if the Patsies could
have translated his latest wishes into words,
it may without presumption be believed that ho
would have owned some human comfort in the
thought that the work of his predilection should
grow and prosper, and that to such a living
memento of pure aspiring', all nations should being
the contributions of emulous genius and handiwork,
even as loving mourners deposit on a ten years'
grave the isini.,rt.ties that symbolise eternal hopes.
The splendour and success of the coming Exhibition
will be the meet fitting testimony to the exalted
and enduring character of the Pantas influence
among us. Already in the desolate anguish of be-
reavement, the unfailing instinct of affection had
divined this duty, and we are assured that it Is
the desire of our SOVIOLZION LADY, with and for
whom all English hearts are stricken, that
the work that was so near the Pattice'A heart
should be thoroughly fulfilled. In truth, thanks
to his. inspiring energy, this Einterrtor is become
the work of all the civilised world, and not of
England alone. English capital guarantees the
cost, constructs the building, and dispenses the
hospitalities and the honours. But the British Coin.
mission is acting only as the Executive in calling
together and entertaining the representatives of all
the sciences and arta, wheresoever cultivated, that
enlighten and enrich humanity. The Tanner's idea
of an International Exhibition, as it struck that
serene and earnest mind, and as it has taken shape
and form in actual experiment, was an idea of
universality and unity ; an idea too capacious and
tun expensive to suf!..,r the risk of vulgar failures or
Irll!writinta. The very largeness of the original
Manliest certified the durability of the design.
Nor, indeed, is this to be said of the International
Exhibition only—it is almost equally true of all
tho other subsidiary undertakings inspired by the
mime spirit and tending to one object, on which
the Parv.•x Coimoar bestowed BO much of his
busy leisure and his disinterested solicitude.
All that is really national end lasting in the
establishments at South Kensington is directly
due to that high and generous ambition. If the
purpose of the founder has been clogged with
some parasitical growths, we must remember and
excuse the difference between creatures end
creators.

This is an every day story in all old countries
when patronage of some sort is necessary to the
cultivation of tbs beautiful; and in England, we
know, a vested interest springs up, like a gourd,
in a single night. It will be no matter far
regret if some vested interests which have
made a " business " of Art, and a job of
dilettantism, are reduced to justify their self-
importance by their proper merits, and to prove
that they are indispensable to t►e prosperity and
permanence of institutions which they neither
orivinated nor sustained. But the Partcr CoNtIORT
lives for England in his works, and in the light
and wartath of a genius dedicated to all good
and public uses, and, therefore, a " possession
for ever."

I Few things have more puzzled those who, with
only an average acquaintance with American
affairs, wish to think well of the people of
the United States, than their way of talking
about acquiring Canada. It is quite true
that it is an established habit in America
for political aspirants to promise Canada to
the citizens, and for the citizens to assume that
the acquisition of Canada is only a question of
time. It is quite true that since the existing
American revolution took form the American
SECRETARY of STATE has repeated his former
assumptiosis about the duty and expediency of
annexing Canada ; and that public men who should
be wiser and more scrupulous than Mr. SEWARD
has ever shown himself to be, have fallen into his
way of talking on this matter. When a leader of
the Abolitionists like Mr. WENDELL PHILLIPS in-
dulges in profligate political talk of that kind,
Englishmen may well ask what it can mean, and
whether the Americans imagine the Canadians
ready to make a part of the Republic, or whether
they propose to seize the country first, and pro-
pitiate the inhabitants afterwards.
Unreaeonable as the talk of American orators
is, it is intelligible to those who knew Canada a
quarter of a century ago, and who have known the
United States since. American audiences and
newspaper readers are apt to linger upon bygone
facts and ideas ; and, on the other hand, their
orators and journalists are at once disinclined
to drop incitements which have once been
effective, and very apt to believe what is conve-
nient at the moment. Thus we hoar something
about annexing Canada every few weeks or
months, though it mounds as strangely to us as it
would to our Danish neighbours to find our
Members of Parliament, or Lord &MULL, or our ,
teetotal lecturers referring to an approaching time
when Denmark would have become English. How
could such a practice obtain a footing in America I
Certainly not through the vanity of the Re-
public, only or chiefly. Great allowance is to be
made for that complacency of which we bear so
much, and for the other aspect of the same com-
placency—the sincere pity which the Americans
feel for everybody who does not live under their
Government. They live far away from the old
countries of the civilized world ; they see nothing
in their own hemisphere to compare with their
own prosperity ; they are not, as a people, con-
scious of the defects of their own polity, nor
aware of any political advantages, or social sope-
riority of any kind among nations whom they sup-
pose themselves to have outstripped as far in all ,
ways as in the acquisition of wealth. They are,
in short, a young and successful nation ; and they
have naturally taken for granted that an old-
fashioned colony hitherto slow in its growth
would be delighted to become a glorious group of
States in their glorious Union. But this general
notion and universal complacency would not have
' sufficed without some definite facts to support
them.

Meantime, the ascendancy of the Southern fac-
tion had introduced a new policy of annexation
for the support of slavery. Texas was stolen,
Mexico was humbled, Central America was being
got ready, and Cuba attacked, with this object ;
and the Northern men, especially anti-slavery
men, made arrangements for adding a Free State
to the Union for every Slave State added by
the South. They would cut up their new north-
west territory into five States ; and then there
was Canada, where tens of thousands of fugitive
negroes were living already—Canada must be had
for the beet anti-slavery and really Republican
reasons. If the Moxaos doctrine was to hold
good for the South, it must hold good for the
North too. Hence men who should have been
wiser and more scrupulous have talked too often
and too long about possessing a country which
does not belong to them.
All this, however, would have been mere moon-
shine then, as the talk about Canada is now, if
Canada had been then what it is now. We must
remember how lately it is that a thorough good
understanding existed between the great Liberal
party in the colony and the mother country. Long
after there was a great Liberal party there, and
long after it had apparently obtained good govern-
ment, it believed that it was out of favour at
home, and that it was cheated in practice of the
benefits which had been granted in theory. There
was perhaps no season of deeper despair in Canada
than that in which the people of both races found
themselves little the better for the reformed
methods of government, and regarded as disloyal,
while the confidence of the home Govemment was
given to the minority who had kept their liberties
out of their hands to the last minute. While
such were the terms on which the colony and the
mother country were living, it was natural that
the A mericans should speculate on the disgust and
disappointment of the great majority of the
people of Canada. Their mistake has been in rot
observing the effects of constitutional government
from the time of its having fair play, and of the
citizens being satisfied that their political lot was
in their own hands.

The commercial classes in Canada had other
grievances when they felt the first effects of free
trade, before the Navigation Laws were repealed. In
the English market they were beaten by the Ameri-
cana, weighted as they were with heavy freighe ;
and in the American markets they were met by
protective duties ; so that they suffered at both
ends of their line of traffic, while their neighboum
were profiting by the new free trade from which
they were excluded. This was a strong bribe to
them to place themselves under the same system
which was apparently enriching the Americans.
At the same time immigrants were pouring into
the United States in preference to Canada, stimu-
lating jealousy on the one hand and emulation On
the other. At sue!: a juncture there were no doubt
1 many Canadians disposed to listen to invitations
to enter the Republic, and things were then said
which are quoted now by Americans, and received
by hearers who have not kept up with the march
of events, and have never been told how the Ca-
nadians enjoy their virtual independence and self •
government. The Reciprocity Treaty, however,
turned the fortunes of Canadian trade long ago ;
and the repeal of the Navigation Laws fairly
opened the European market to the colonists.
They and the mother country are on a good under-
standing. Their self-government has been im-
proving, while that of the United States has been
deteriorating through the evil influences of slavery;
and only discontented and belted partisan leaders
now revert to the old proposal of trying Republican
institutions at the cost of merging the existence of
Canada in that of a Republic now suffering under
a more formidable adversity than Canada ever
knew.

No honest statesman, who is careful to under-
stand what he speaks of, can henceforth pretend
to believe that Canada is disloyal to England, or
envious of the United States. The loss of primary
liberties on the American aide has been even
greater than the gain of free government on the
Canadian. Any implication with slavery, such as
has always existed in the United States, and has
been much aggravated within twenty years, is
thoroughly odious to the Canadians. It must be

(long before the progressive prosperity of the Ite- 1
public can be restored, while present events indi-
cate a turn of the tide of immigration into Canada.
It is also far from agreeable to the colonists to be
spoken of as • prey which the Republic can appro-
priate at pleasure ; and they resent the assumption
that they must be willing to merge their political
existence, as soon as invited, in • system as yet
vitiated by an evil which spoils its working,
and which must break up the constitution, as well
as the rnion, before it can be got rid of. The
English race in Canada are as pleased as the
Americans to work out their own political
course. When American statesmen and Ameri-
can citizens perceive this, as they soon will,
there will then be an end of the insults to
England, to Canada, and to the good sense and up-
right principle of the American people which
aspirants to the Presidentship and unscrupulous
party orators still venture to utter, for the pur-
pose of gaining over the vanity of the young nation
to their interest. Meantime, even such • alight
review of the wrongs and reliefs of Canada within
the memory of our own generation may serve to
account for the strange audacity and wrongheaded-
ness with which • politician and an agitator here
and there still undertakes to answer for the will
and the destinies of the free and loyal people of
Canada.

CU Court.

OSBORNE, Dec. Z.

The Prince of Wales, attended by Major-General
the 800. R. Bruce and Captain Grey, arrived at Osborne
yesterday afternoon, from Windsor Cud'.
The Duke of Brabant and the Count of Flanders accom-
panied the Prince of Wales. They were attended by Count
de Limy and Major Burnell.
Their Royal Highnesses will leave Osborne to-morrow for
the Continent.
The Prince of Wales remains at Osborne.
The Queen had some hours' sleep last night, and in
tranquil this morning.

The Duke of Newoutle has left tows on a visit to the
Earl of Clarendon, at his seat, The 61.07114 Watford.

According to previous arrangement a solemn
religious 'orrice wu held at Berlin on Mooday at the
chapel of the English Ministry, in the Monbijon
Palace, on the occasion of the death of the Prince
Consort of England. The Crown Princess attended,
accompanied by the King and Queen, and there
were also present the Prince and Princess Charles, the
Prince and Prince's Frederic Charles, the Issodgrarine of
Heme-Philippatlud-Flarchfeld, the Primness Alexandrine,
Princes Albrecht (son), George, and Adalbert, Prince An.
mien of Wertentherg, Prince William of Baden sad Duke
William of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Prince and Princess
Itadsiwiil, Field.biarthal von Wrangel, the Town Com-
mandant (Lieut.• General von Alveneleben), Adjuteuste
Generals von Alvenaleben and von Manteuffel, the Ministers
of State and the members of the diplomatic norm, General
Sentinel, of the English service, and several high court
officials. After the service their Majesties conducted the
Crown Princess back to her palace.

The Marquis and Marchioness of Exeter have
loft Grosvenor-square for Burghley Hall. Stamford.
The Earl and Countess of LichSaid are expected
la tows in a few days ham Shugborough Park. Stafford.
- . _ _ _.

Lsdy Franklin, the widow of the great Arctic
navigator, has been visiting the Sandwich Islands, in the
Penile Ocean.

F. Perkins, Seq., the mayor of Southampton,
hoe given this Christmas fifty tons of coals to the poor, ►
supply of tea sod sugar to the inmates of the almshouses,
sad of muff sad tobacco to the inmates of the workhouse
is that town. The inmates of the jail sad debtors' prison
wore also regaled with a dinner of roast beef and plum-pud-
din on Christmas-day ►t his worship's expense.

Some Sue specitneun of musk, blackwoutl, myrtle,
tad other Tasmanian woods adapted for cabinet work, are
oo their way to the great Intern►tional Exhibition In
London.

When the lad mail left Australia, the Great Es-
hibitioa of specimens of the productions and maanfactures
of Victoria had been opened at Melbourne. In order to
give an idea of the quantity of gold which had been ex-
truded from the colony, sad which amounted at that time
to upwards of twenty4ix million ounces, or 1,498 cubic feet,
• pyramid of light metal, with gilt facing, was about to be
pot in the exhibition. The base is 9 feet square, and 24
feet high, sad from this will spring • pyramid 48 feet in
height. The aboweessatiesed quantity of gold would form
• solid pyramid of such dimensions.

Thu Northern Iniy points out the disadvantages
of a title :—" Sterne bad (or professed to have) a theory
that cam's thwarters were determined by their names.
We as helimed to think there is something in it. U Mr.
Smith O'Brien had been only Mr. Smith, and not
Mr. O'Brien. we should probably have had no Ballinprry,
and the peace of 1848 would not have been disturbed.
If the O'Donoghue of the Glens were Mr. Brown or Mr.
Tompkins, he would pondbly be as foolish as he is low ;
but his folly would Mks some other form. But such a title
is not to be thrown away. To be called 'the pliant
yotieg chieftain' by the Horning Nun—Smith or Jones
could not be '• gallant young chieftain'—and to be corn.
pared with that more illustrious definite article, 'The
too much for • head not naturally vary
strong. 'The O'Donogbue's ' name has been his ruin."