It is strange that a man, apparently so clear-headed, should not perceive that the law of England has been broken wherever a step has been taken by Russia in advance, and that the means to repress Russia is to restore law in England. Instead of this he suggests, at page 102, "That if England has any chance of redeeming her character she should put herself at the head of a European Confederation, as the Director of the energies of Free Europe, peaceful because too strong to be molested. The great armaments of Russia and Germany mean menace, their alliance means menace, the attitude of Russia in the far East and South-East means menace; menace not only against England, but against the free states of Europe; and it is to be feared that England will remain inactive until she finds herself one day-stripped of her foreign possessions, her trade ruined, with nothing but her strip of silver sea and her volunteers to console her." A man who is so clear and right on some points and so vague on others should not be neglected. Will no member of a Foreign Affairs Committee address him through his publisher, and instruct him on the several points of the Corn Trade, Constitutional Remedies, and the Right of Search? S. E. R. England and France among the ARTICLE IN THE UNIVERS." THE great French Catholic organ has broken the dead silence of the Continent, and given the word of warning to France respecting the sealing of her own doom by the new scheme which opens at Brussels. It presents Prussia and Russia as the conquerors of France and England, now preparing to impose on the smaller States Conventions which shall chain the feeble and leave free the hands of the strong. "For us," it goes on to say, "it is our duty to retain the plenitude of our action and not to add a fearful postscript to the act of suicide to which we consented when our signature was appended to the Declaration of the 16th of April, 1856. "That Document forbade la Course,' that is to say, "forbade the Maritime States to employ at least one half of their power," and this "by respect for private property." "Merchandise is to be sacred-but grapeshot for the workman and the peasant!" To show the importance of privateers, it says: "During the recent intestine struggle in the United States two or three privateers of the South inflicted on the North losses valued at six milliards of francs.” The Univers has placed under the eyes of its readers, and consequently under the eyes of the colleagues of France's master and Prussia's slave, the Duc DECAZE, a warning from Mr. URQUHART; and that not drawn from his recent writings or those published in French, but from the scathing reply to Mr. COBDEN in 1862, which closed the lips and stopped the pen of that agitator. "To establish a distinction between public and private property, that is, between a nation and its Government, is monstrous in principle and impossible in effect. Were it possible, external war would be converted into an internal one, part of the subjects giving their blood to reduce an enemy to submission, whilst a part violating their allegiance and incited by the lust of gain, would be selling their aid to that enemy, causing the death of their fellow-citizens, the probability of military disaster, and the possibility of entire extinction. They would be doing so with the certainty that the knowledge of such a situation would end by constraining their own Government to sacrifice to Foreign Powers all they chose to demand.” The Univers concludes by saying that behind Mr. DISRAELI there is an English people, little disposed (if the resolutions passed at numerous meetings of workmen may be taken as an indication) to submit to the diplomatic designs of Princes GORTCHAKOFF and BISMARCK. An additional Reason against the Presence of an English Representative at Brussels. THE Congress is being opposed mainly on the grounds of what may be expected to be proposed at it to the injury of this country. There still remains the whole region of subjects which are not expected and which have not been mentioned. After what occurred at Paris in 1856, it is clear that any subject may be introduced. We here record again the words by which Lord CLARENDON justified the Declaration of Paris in the House of Lords; words of the highest significance and which alone should prevent any British Minister from consenting to sanction such an assemblage : "If we had confined ourselves within the strict limits of our attributions we should have lost the opportunity when the representatives of the principal Powers of Europe were met together for discussing many important subjects." What the Foreign Affairs Committees are Doing. We are compelled by press of matter to postpone a list of the petitions, sent up by these bodies, which either call for the abrogation of the Declaration of Paris, or protest against the appearance of a British representative at Brussels, or against the Malay Straits Courts Bill. Many have been presented, but many remain to be so; our list, therefore, would be very incomplete. It is most worthy of remark that the Committees had begun to move in the question of our maritime rights several days before the Russian Congress was known. This appears by a letter from the Preston Committee, dated May 7th, reporting to the other Committees a visit from Mr. URQUHART after many years absence from England, the principal object of which was to tell them that they must now make a greater effort than they ever had made before to obtain the repudiation of the Declaration of Paris. Thus stimulated, they at once drew up the petition on the subject which appears in our columns. The obtaining of signatures to it and the other against the Congress has been but a small part of what they have been engaged in. Letters to public men have occupied the hours after work, or taken from work, of these men who depend for their livelihood on their daily toil. If we could have undertaken to print such letters, they, together with those we have seen written from one committeeman to another, or to the general secretary in London, reporting their proceedings, would occupy at least the whole of this Review. We have not space even to report their number, and can only give an idea of what is going on, by mentioning some incidents. Thus the Keighley Committee, always foremost in the field, have printed a long letter of a most original and striking character, and had already, on the 20th of last month, sent out 200 hundred copies of it to Peers and Members of Parliament. At Newcastle they have not been less busy. There, not having the means of printing, they have written at least fifty letters, enclosing with each the admirable pamphlet published on the Right of Search during the late French and German war, by one of their members, Mr. DAVID RULE. Mr. SINGLETON and his fellow-workers at Preston are not less ardently at work. Manchester and Stockport Committees also. Some of the most zealous of the individual men are to be found in places, the name of which is little known, as South Shields, where Mr. RICHARDSON is a host in himself. A most encouraging thing is to find several names appearing which are entirely new to us, and also places wakening into activity again that were quite dead. This change has generally taken place by the arrival in such town of a member from another Committee, who has at once begun to operate on his new neighbours. There will thus soon be a good Committee again at Bristol. At Birmingham what has occurred is quite without precedent in the annals of these bodies. For there it is not merely that the Committee has been reformed, but that five other bodies among the working men have been induced to take up the subject of Maritime Law, and to work upon it. These bodies had drawn up a memoir for Mr. DISRAELI and sent it to him on the 1st of June, while still in ignorance of the forthcoming Congress. The document so sent surpasses anything that has yet been produced on the subject of Maritime Law, by the number and authority of the quotations it gives from lawyers, statesmen, and historians. It in fact contains at once the law and the history of the casethe whole forming such a body of evidence that it does seem impossible for the man, to whom has been entrusted the honour and the fate of both the Crown and the people of the country, by means of whose existence he has been raised from obscurity to the highest station-it does seem impossible, we say, for such a man, having read that paper, not to resolve to act on this emergency, as he naturally would who had such a case to produce, and such traditions and precedents to appeal to. The paper in question will be inserted in this Review on another occasion, as it is now impossible to find place for it. But, meantime, there has emanated also from Birmingham another document, which is still more marvellous, the subject treated of being that of Congresses. It is from the Birmingham Liberal Conservative Association, signed on their behalf by SAMUEL BARMORE as Chairman, and WILLIAM REEVES as Secretary, and is dated the 23rd of last month. From it we have selected an extract, as it is impossible to insert the whole in the present number. The Birmingham Liberal Conservative Association on the International Congress at Brussels. In 1856 a Congress assembled at Paris to make peace with Russia. The Protocols are as interesting as CHATEAUBRIAND'S "Congress of Verona," some extracts therefore follow :— "Count BUOL proposes that the presiding of the labours of the Conference should be confided to Count WALEWSKI as an act of homage to the Sovereign whose hospitality the representatives of Europe are at this moment enjoying. "Count WALEWSKI proposes, and the plenipotentiaries agree, mutually to engage to observe complete secresy respecting everything that shall pass in the Congress. "The plenipotentiaries have received no other commission than to apply themselves to the affairs of the Levant, and they have not been convened for the purpose of making known to independent Sovereigns wishes in regard to the internal organisation of their States. The full powers deposited among the acts of the Congress prove this." (Protocol 22.) Nevertheless, they did discuss the internal affairs of Italy, Turkey, &c., and with the result of bringing about a war between the allies, France, Austria, Sardinia, Prussia, &c. (wars of 1859, 1866, 1870), and a permanent occupation of a part of Turkey by a German prince, and permanent intervention in the whole Empire, and further assumed the power of altering the Law of Nations by declaring that privateering is and remains abolished, and that the neutral flag covers enemies' goods with the exception of contraband of war. (Annex to Protocol 23). The only excuse for this latter "Declaration," as stated by Lord CLARENDON, was love of debate. He said :-"If we had confined ourselves within the strict limits of our attributions we should have lost the opportunity when the representatives of the principal Powers of Europe were met together for discussing many important subjects." (Lord CLARENDON, House of Lords, May 22, 1856.) FROM THE SECRETARY OF A COMMITTEE. June 26, 1874. I confess that, from the first, I have rather looked at the announcements of the Congress with satisfaction, and for these reasons: I foresaw that it would furnish just the necessary fillip that the committeemen required to spur them into activity in respect to the Declaration of Paris. For I fear there was a danger of lassitude and uncertainty creeping upon them whilst waiting for a signal to begin work. So far as it rested with me, I refrained, until Mr. URQUIART's arrival in England, from encouraging them to begin, for I considered it every way better to wait for his coming to give a direction to what was to be done. There were also other reasons. Some time ago Mr. — was very urgent to begin the attack, but as it appeared to me the time was inopportune. After such a cataclysm of parties as the general election furnished, we should have met with no attention. For some time, among the party in power, there was the rush and contention, from the highest to the lowest, for office. The beaten Liberals were broken and apathetic. And then commenced the race between the representatives of the clique, interest, or theory, each clamouring at the doors of the Ministerial Offices to gain a hearing, whilst at the same time the Ministry had to arrange and decide, almost on the moment, upon many important measures, such as the Budget, &c. But now the case is changed, the Parliament is settled into its place, there is nothing vastly important before it, and there is every chance of gaining attention. I was certainly amazed at the apparent absence of their usual sagacity, on the part of the St. Petersburg Cabinet, when such a vague and uncertain announcement as that respecting the Congress, appeared. For, unless they leave the Foreign Affairs Committees and their friends out of their reckoning, which I think would be unwise of them to do, they must have been certain such an announcement would stimulate the activity of those committees. And, further, they funished us with this assistance in working upon members of Parliament and the general public, that now it is not we who take the first step. We shall not have at least at first to ask them to attack the enemies' position, but only to defend their own, and so many would much prefer that. But, the struggle having commenced, it may not be so difficult to convert a defence of our own position into an attack on theirs. It appears to me to be a great mistake to have made any announcement at all until the arrangements were complete. Questions that ought to be asked in Is the Government going to send to the Brussels Congress? If a representative is going whom is he to represent? What instructions will be given him? The new code proposed by Russia, although not known to the House, is known to the Government; will the representative be sent to oppose the acceptance of such code or to support it? Will England be bound by the conclusions of the Congress, even should her representative not have agreed to them? Government by Law versus Government by Party. TO THE SECRETARY OF THE KEIGHLEY FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE. Sunny Bank, Highgate Hill, London. SIR,-The sudden Dissolution of Parliament has taken away everybody's breath, and in the surprise every man seems to have taken leave of his senses. In order to recover ours, it will be well to examine what there is peculiar in the case, and what duties devolve thereby on a Foreign Affairs Committee. The Foreign Affairs Committees were founded by Mr. URQUHART during the insanity of the Crimean War, in order that, in our foreign relations, government by Law might be substituted for government by the Foreign Minister. In domestic affairs our object must be similar; namely, to substitute government by Law for government by Party. Seventeen years ago, a remarkable dissolution of Parliament took place. Lord PALMERSTON had, in time of peace and without provocation, bombarded Canton The House of Commons expressed its opinion that the act was unjustifiable, and then, instead of committing the criminal to the custody of Black Rod to be tried by the House of Lords for making war without authority, it voted the money for carrying it on. Lord PALMERSTON punished the members for their pusillanimity by a penal dissolution. The expense of their re-election must have cost them a million sterling, a punishment which they would have avoided had they performed their duty. The present is not a penal dissolution. The Parliament has lasted five years, its dissolution next autumn was expected; its dissolution now will stop electioneering intrigues, which would have occupied several months; the expenses of the candidates will be lessened, and with these the corruption which these expenses engender. The weather is mild, and the election, though in January and February, is not a hardship. So far there is nothing to object to in the advice which Mr. GLADSTONE has tendered to Her Majesty the QUEEN, and which the QUEEN has accepted. But Mr. GLADSTONE is not only a Minister of the Crown, he is Member for Greenwich. The modern practice aims at uniting in one man the contradictory functions of a servant of the Sovereign and a tribune of the people. Having advised the QUEEN, in his capacity of Minister, to dissolve the Parliament, Mr. GLADSTONE proceeds in his capacity of head of a faction to call upon his constituents, and through them, upon all the constituencies in the kingdom, to elect such a Parliament as will keep him and his colleagues in office. Last year Mr. GLADSTONE brought in a Bill for the regulation of University Education in Ireland. The House of Commons, acting within its undoubted right, threw out this Bill. It threw out the Bill not as an indirect way of saying that it wished Mr. GLADSTONE to give up the direction of |