ministers know that every topic in the Royal Speech will be the cause or the pretext for a debate, in which each man, amidst a large body of wranglers, will deliver, without fear or restraint, his own mind, foolish or wise, factious or loyal; and therefore they are tender of supplying the materials for conflagration. The French Emperor, on the contrary, knows that he is the only man in his dominions. who is at liberty to speak his mind, and is able therefore to trust a gagged Parliament with every topic which he chooses to bring before it. The Speech is pacific in its character; directs the minds of the vast and lively population of France to objects of national improvement, and seems thereby to take the right way to convert an usurped throne into a permanent sovereignty. A vast field for French enterprise offers itself in Algeria. Hitherto France has discovered little skill in colonization; but there is no reason why it should not as much excel in that as it does in almost every thing else which it undertakes. The state of the money market appears to improve; and it is easy to believe that, with the usual elasticity of the finances of that country, she will find money enough for peace, and, if necessary, even for war. We should not like to see the low state of their finances the only barrier between us and a French invasion.

A debate has been raised in the House of Lords by one of Lord Derby's most vigorous speeches, as to the justice of the present squabble with China. On the one hand, it is contended that the vessel boarded by the Chinese was, in no legal sense, British; that an especial license granted to it had expired; and that our chief officers there usurped the rights of the Crown in declaring an unauthorized war. Each of these statements is unhesitatingly rebutted by Lord Clarendon. It is deeply to be lamented that the pretext for war should for an instant admit of a doubt. The justification ought to be clear as day, for burning cities and shedding human blood. Whatever are the other injuries of the cannonade, we deeply regret to hear that, in the recent bombardment of Canton, the Printing Press establishment, together with the types in which Morrison's Chinese Dictionary was printed, and a large stock of various important works, were destroyed. It is possible that war should, in some cases, and in the end, do good; but she is, to say the best, a tardy benefactress, and her first approaches and results are often of a most disastrous character. A chance ball may destroy the labours of a generation.

The intelligence as to the course likely to be pursued by the new American President is as yet of an uncertain character. If he mean to shift and bend it, so as to satisfy all the crochets of his many-coloured party, it is impossible to say to what point of the compass he may turn. But if he is a real patriot—a man of the good old Washington stamp, he will be a friend to peace abroad and anti-slavery at home. It is affecting to contemplate to what an extent the destinies of nations appear to be committed

to single hands. Hereditary monarchs are born to their office, and can with difficulty escape from it. But he must be a bold man who, seeing all the mischief which abused or perverted authority may inflict, yet seeks to ascend a throne and to wield a sceptre. We should think that an American President must often wish himself a private citizen.

It is strange that while thousands are clamouring for work and wages in England, we should have ample colonies in Australia crying out for labourers, and offering to pay them almost fabulous prices! The question has been properly raised, whether or no the Government duly encourage Emigration to Australia. One correspondent of the " Times" has gone the length of announcing that the Treasury has in its hands at this moment large funds for emigration, collected and transmitted to this country by the colonies themselves. This declaration we are disposed to designate by Lord Palmerston's word-" romance.' But the truth can, we suppose, be instantly ascertained by a question in Parliament. In the mean time, the expense of emigration to the opposite side of the world must be enormous. And who is to pay it? Australia has now parliaments of its own, and we are pleased to see that the question of promoting emigration is one of the first questions which is debated. This, by the bye, is a strong evidence in itself that the alleged treasures in the hands of the Home Government. are a mere fiction, as such a fact would be sure to find its way into such a debate. Should the colonies really send home sufficient passage-money, the difficulty is removed. But suppose they do not, is the State then warranted in sending out a superfluous population at the rate of £20. a-head?

We should be truly sorry, knowing its infinite importance to the mother country as well as to the Colonies, to raise a single needless objection in the way of emigration to Australia. Neither have we the smallest doubt as to every honest and efficient labourer finding both ample employment and high wages on that side of the globe. But however good the fruit, it may hang on too high a branch to be gathered. Labourers would, no doubt, reap a rich harvest there, but their ways and means largely exceed their necessary expenditure.

Let us next look at Home news. Parliament has assembled. The most prominent topics of debate in the House of Commons have been what may be called Sir J. Pakington's "Mutual Concession Bill" on the subject of Education; a Motion of Mr. Locke King's, on the extension of the County franchise to tenpound leaseholders; and Mr. Spooner's annual motion on the Maynooth Grant. The House were far from looking with a favourable eye on the first of these propositions; and to us it seems full of the most serious objections. Its permissive, instead of obligatory character, would raise interminable debates in every parish to which it was proposed. The exclusion of a

positive religion from the school system, would call forth a thousand jealous feelings as to whether the master was or was not offending against the rules laid down. The Committees would become battle fields of Church and Dissent; and, in the end, the grossest tyranny would be exercised by the dominant party. Subscribers would fall off,-individual zeal would be extinguished, -many who would rejoice otherwise to instruct the poor, will refuse to do it at the point of the bayonet. To our own mind, the duty is every day more obvious, of cleaving to the existing Privy Council scheme, but expanding it so as to assist those parishes which are least able to help themselves.

The movement against the Maynooth Grant is every day gaining more adherents; because Irish Popery shows itself in its true colours, and because the fact is becoming more palpable that the Grant is contributing to educate a body of clergy more corrupt in doctrines and less friendly to Great Britain.

Sir William Clay's Motion on Church Rates hangs like a cloud over the House. In the mean time, two Returns have been made to Parliament, showing that the champions of the no-Rate system have largely exaggerated the number of reluctant rate-payers. The point is more fully to be determined whether, after all, the people of England are indisposed to pay rates for the support of their churches. If they are, we still cleave to the notion, that the building should be sustained out of the County Rate or the Consolidated Fund, and the expences of the service paid by the seatholders.

These more general questions being disposed of, Mr. Disraeli unfurls more distinctly the banners of Party, and comes down with Mr. Cobden and Mr. Gladstone, to encounter the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the ground of the Budget. Misery, they say, makes strange bedfellows; and certainly these three gentlemen could scarcely have been expected to seek their resting-place on the same pillow. Mr. Disraeli was rather more sportive than convincing; but Mr. Gladstone's speech appears to have risen to as high a level as any of those he has delivered. It is impossible for us to enter on the details which such a discussion involves. But we have convinced ourselves that Mr. Disraeli's objections were purely those of a partisan; and that Mr. Gladstone's strong and eloquent declamation was mainly prompted by the fact that Sir Charles Wood's proposal appeared to trench on the financial system when he himself was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The majority for Ministers was so large, as to leave little doubt as to the general success of the measure.

In the House of Lords the main discussion has been that to which we have already referred on the Chinese War. Lords Derby and Lyndhurst, with even a part of the truth on their side, are formidable antagonists; and the ministry in the House of Lords are obviously weak in debaters. Lord Derby made a CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 231.

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solemn appeal to the Bench of Bishops, as those especially to be regarded as the ministers of righteousness and mercy, to arise, as one man, and put down this war. And we so far echo the wish as to say that, supposing them to be convinced of the injustice of the war, their voices ought to be the loudest in the controversy. But Lord Derby's statement of the real causes of this miserable conflict appears to us to be one-sided; inasmuch as he almost ignores the habitual violation of Treaties on the part of the Chinese, and the next to insuperable difficulties thrown by them in the way even, of legitimate commerce. It is undeniable that no nation has a right to force upon another a drug such as opium, destructive to health and to morals. But it is a more doubtful point, whether the nations of the world have not a right even to demand from the one nation where it happens to be produced, an article of produce which is essential to the general welfare. Take the case of Peruvian bark. And next take that of Tea. The produce of the tea-plant has become, like bark or potatoes, almost a necessity to the world. But if so, have not the nations a right, according to this view of the case, to demand it of China upon fair payment? In addition to this more abstract view of the case, it is plain that the Chinese have shewn a contempt of every Treaty in which they have engaged, and, as it seems, are not likely to discharge their duty, except with the lash over them.

- Several discussions in both Houses of Parliament have again raised the question of the Crimean War; and the judgment to be past on the individuals the most prominent in it. Much, as we think, has come out to justify almost every complaint of the Commissioners, of Inquiry appointed by the Government, and even of the "Times" Correspondent, as to the mismanagement of the war. But it is also every day more obvious, that gross injustice has been done, by almost all parties, to Lord Raglan. His calmness, courage, devotion to his troops and to his countryhis magnanimous endurance of the insolence of the French commanders-his wisdom in counsel and his force in battle-have all come out; and the fresh records of them have, among other effects, served to bow down our heads with regret that we should have yielded too ready an ear to popular outcry, and have condemned when we ought to have justified and applauded. He has himself, we doubt not, from all we hear of his private character, passed into a world where human praise is superfluous; but we rejoice to cast a few flowers over a grave on which many of us have trodden with careless and irreverent feet.

A report has gone forth that the Government, alarmed at the defeat of a valuable supporter at Newport, on the ground of his avowed intention to support the measure for the desecration of the Sabbath, have signified their intention of resisting Sir J. Walmsley's motion in Parliament. Let our readers consider the following statement,

which we borrow from the Paris Correspondent of the "Guardian" newspaper, and see what those pure delights and innocent Sunday recreations mean, of which the would-be creators of a new Sabbath in this old-fashioned Protestant country are apt to boast:

"Yesterday being Dimanche gras, or the last Sunday before Lent, the day began, selon les régles, with a bal masqué at the Opera in the earliest hours of the morning, and terminated with the procession of the Bauf gras. The Grand Opera, where these monster, and, it may be added, with equal truth, monstrous entertainments are held on Sunday morning-' doors open after midnight.' are the words of the advertisement-being now a strictly official establishment, withdrawn from private speculation, and under the direct controul and management of the Ministre d'Etat, who authorises all performances, and makes good all losses-it is to be presumed that the Government regards these early 'festivities' as a wholesome recreation for the people,' a good beginning of the day, and an inducement to that better observance of the Sunday, about which so much has been said of late. I wonder whether M. Achille Fould, like a conscientious Minister as he is, took the trouble to walk as far as the Boulevards-only to the Boulevards, not into the bal masqué-on Sunday morning, to see how the system worked upon the public, for whom it is intended. The sight outside was certainly lively, if not exactly what might be called exhilarating. Huge gas illuminations, flaming forth in letters of fire the name of the place of entertainment, blazed at the corner of the Rue le Pelletier, and, pointing out the way to the Inferno' beyond, seemed to proclaim without blushing, that 'Per me si va tra la perduta gente." The streets, generally silent at so late or rather early an hour, swarmed with crowds, and with such crowds! While the cafés, instead of closing, as usual, soon after eleven o'clock, remain open all night and were now filled with revellers, and with such revellers! Women, or what seemed to be such, whom one would shrink from designating more specifically, flaunted about in mountebank costume and paint, attended by masked cavaliers (for the police restrictions against men wearing masks in the streets and cafes seem to to be no longer enforced in these days of liberty') every way worthy to be their companions and protectors. It required a far stronger stimulan than the mere imagination-and, to judge by the thriving business of the cafés, such additional means of hallucination were not spared-to clothe such a scene in poetic colours, and make it seem the revel of the earth, the mask of Italy.' The streets were crammed with the pickpockets, thieves, prostitutes, roués and mauvais sujets, for whom this Sunday morning's entertainment appeared to be fittingly and officially' got up, and by whom, in company with that sprinkling of fashionable male and female intriguants and intriguantes who take advantage of its licences, its pleasures seemed to be appropriately enjoyed and entered into.

"You will accuse me, I fear, of becoming an inveterate grumbler, misanthrope, and pseudo-satirist in thus speaking of the delights of that Carnival time,' the memory and picture of whose mirth has been handed down to us by so many pens and so many pencils. It was but the other day, you will say, that I was denouncing midnight masses; and now I appear to be no better satisfied with midnight waltzes; so that, whether the people be praying or dancing, I am equally unwilling to be content. I am obliged to own that neither such praying or dancing, or perhaps I should say, the times and places and modes of them, as I have lately witnessed on the public occasions alluded to, seem to me to be at all conducive to the results they respectively pretend to have in view-to raise up and aid, in the one case, the real religious tendencies and devotion of the people, or, in the other, to add to and freshen their honest recreations and mirthfulness. You cannot hold village fairs in Bartholomew-square; and the best progress which the age can make, is to part with customs which have become wholly perverted. It is bad enough when such things are allowed to continue on the score of tradition,