The Express. — 1858-02-10 (London, England)

OUR READERS.  A DOUBLB NUMBER of the EXPRESS will be published on SATURDAY NEXT, in order to allow of a full report of the important debate expected to take place on the introduction into the House of Commons of the government meaanre relative to India, fixed for Friday evening.  TER Bill of Lord PALMERSTON, leave for the introduction of which into the House of Common. was obtained last night, is not simply, ILI its title purports, and as the notice paper announced, a Bill to amend the laws relating to conspiracy to commit murder; it is something more; and this something more is of an importance which it is difficult to exaggerate. The first clause having disposed of the ease of conspiracy to commit murder, the second provides for the case of any person who, either within the United Kingdom or in the Channel Islands, "shall persuade, instigatsi, or solicit" any other person to commit murder, either within or without her Kt.resrv's dominions. This offence is declared to be a felony, punishable like the conspiracy provided for in the first clause with penal servitude from five years to life. Now, there are two points worthy of notice here : the first is the deeming vagueness of the definition of the crime and the next, that by constituting this vague crime a felony instead of a misdemeanour, power is given to the police toseize, isitAsnit warrant, any person who, according to their interpretation of the law, is guilty of " persuading, instigating, or soliciting " to commit what may involve murder on the other side the Channel. Consider the consequences of such an enactment as this. Where is the line to be drawn ? Does it not carry um back at once into a system of political espionage, unknown, thank GOD, for many a hag year in this country—a system under which words and writings were overt acts, rendering the speaker and the writer arbitrarily responsible to the judgment of the police authorities. From the obscurest victim of foreign oppression, flung penalless and destitute on these hospitable shores by the inexorable polies of the very Potentate who now edsmours against the asylum which by his own acts Its has crowded with the envenomed foes of his rule, aid the implacable execrators of his tyranny ; from the meet squalid knot of hopeless and shelterless dievaliap who jest sustain life and hatred on the bitter broad of exile among the smoky garrets of Chetiwelreet or the polluted cellars of Bt. hem them outcasts to the refined and wealthy family allele of Claremont, who in the whole range of the proscribed and the banished will be safe if this law were to pale ! Strong language in the pit of the Opera, on the pavement of Piccadilly, by the graveside of one who has passed beyond the reach of tyrants, beqaeathing to his fellow-sufferers a legacy of resistance and revenge—the emphatic protest, the vehement ejaculation, the burning utterances of sorrow and indignation and despair—ell will be the material for espionage, the subject of charge, the occasion of seizure, of commitment, of incarceration. It is not only the positive act" of high-handed violence to which such an enactment might give rise that would form a legitimate subject of regret : the mere knowledge that such a power existed would taint and poison the whole social atmosphere. We should no longer breathe the liberal air of our ancient freedom. England would no longer be the land where " come what may, a man may speak the thing he " would." And for what should we be making all this sacrifice ? Aa Lord boas Rosa= pointed out with great force and clearness, this Bill, while justly offensive to the people of England as a surrender of some of their most valued privileges, would fall infinitely short of satisfying the Emperor of the