Six weeks since Europe was calm. The slight agitation for a paltry reform in France hardly ruffled the smooth political surface. Cracow was forgotten. Portugal was silenced. The strife in a corner of Europe-in Sicily - alone broke the public peace. There were movements amongst cabinets, and sufferings in the circles of commerce, but treason was scarcely whispered in secret, and the great monarchies of Europe calculated on surviving the century. The change from this stillness to the storms and hurricanes of March has been tropical. There was scarcely a warning visible in the sky, until the tempest swept away the throne of the barricades, and changed the entire political aspect of Europe. Britain has hitherto escaped the course of this agitation for change and reform. It has become a refuge for Royalty as heretofore it has often been a shelter for baffled patriots. It has been made the refuge for capital, for there is no doubt that very large sums of money have been recently invested in this country as in a bank above the suspicion of danger. This confidence of foreigners in the stability of our institutions is shared by our statesmen. The Whigs will not admit the possibility of violence in this country. Something may occur in Ireland. The presumed tendency to skull-breaking was supposed to be excited in Ireland by the mad essays and theories of a few wild writers and orators. Fears were entertained that, on St. Patrick's eve, Dame Street | might be converted into a Donnybrook, and the Earl of Clarendon made suitable preparations for a great event. The day passed, and in peace, but it was followed by the melancholy farce of arresting three parties, who could have given heavy bail, but were dismissed on finding security for £200 each to meet their trial. Sedition, like other commodities, is lowered in value. A gentleman may talk or write seditiously now, and give bail for two hundred pounds. The amount of bail is a guide to the gravity of a charge. It is the prices current for crime-the security given by the accused that they will meet the charges to be brought against them, "and bide the consequences." The amount of bail is, therefore, presumed to be something more important than the punishment legally attached to the offence. A personal security for £200, and the security of two individuals for £100 each, cannot imply a serious crime when taken from a man in Mr. Smith O'Brien's position; and we do not comprehend the policy of arresting any man, of tolerably affluent circumstances, on a

ance.

An

charge of sedition, from whom the magistrates are to take a personal bond for £200, and two securities in £100 each, for his future appearMr. Meagher, the second of the arrested parties, is like Mr. O'Brien, rich — or if not rich in possessions, he is wealthy in prospect, and would find no difficulty in forfeiting £400. Mr. Mitchel, the third, is the proprietor and editor of a weekly journal, "The United Irishman." The charge is worth the bail taken in his case, and commercially the speculation may suit his purpose. This Mr. Mitchel is not, we presume, from the "Native" Irish stock. His name is English or Scotch, and not Irish. He designates the Earl of Clarendon, Englishman, and so on; but if Ireland had always been preserved for the Irish, we do not think that Mr. Mitchel's father would have been ever a quiet citizen and minister at Banbridge; or that he would have been a frothy declaimer and turgid writer, dating from Trinity Street, Dublin. We can conceive no imaginable reason against the Earl of Clarendon's residing, and, if he pleases, trading, preaching, or writing in Ireland, that is not equally applicable to Mr. John Mitchel, of “The United Irishman," and who is merely a disunited Englishman of the thickest Saxon blood. offence of this nature cannot be expiated by the lapse of one or two generations. An Englishman's children are not French in sentiment, feeling, or fact, although they may be born in Boulogne. The descendants of a clerk in the Hudson's Bay Company would not be American Indians, in virtue of their birth within the territory of the Chippewas, or any other tribe, with a yet more unpronounceable title. The only difference we can perceive between the Earl of Clarendon's case and that of Mr. Mitchel, of "The United Irishman," is in favor of the former. If he should settle permanently in Ireland, he would bring capital into that country; and any property that he might obtain would be fairly and fully paid. We are not quite so certain that this was always the case; or that some century or two since the proprietors of land were not dispossessed because they endeavoured to form Young Ireland parties, worshipped the Green, and did that wicked thing which Mr. Mitchel | only proposes. The tawdry affectation for "nationality," "old languages," "Celtic customs," and "Celtic rights," exhibited by men who have "Saxon" burned into their foreheads, is supremely ridiculous. We find one personanother notable Saxon-writing in great enthu

The charge of sedition, so far as it is applicable to Mr. Mitchel, will not involve long pleadings. He prints and signs a full and particular confession in his journal, on Saturday the 25th ultimo. He calls his journal a nuisance if there were law or Government in Ireland. The question left for the jury is thus narrowed. It becomes altogether a question of fact. Is there, or is there not, any lawful Government, or any law in Ireland? Our notion, that there is rather much Government, and indescribably too much law in Ireland, differs from Mr. Mitchel's; but a jury will decide the question.

There are a few facts connected with the position of the people in this country to which our rulers, taking warning from the fate of other Governments, should seriously address their attention. The Young Ireland party talk of being supported, in their soda-water bottle and cold vitriol war on the soldiers, by bodies of sixty and a hundred thousand peasants, from the south and west. The proposal of soda-water bottles for hand grenades, and the employment of cold vitriol for a missile, is Mr. Mitchel's. The proposition is bold, but the practice would not be brave. Work of that nature may be followed out by cowards, but would be forsworn by any set of men driven to fight for freedom by oppressors. It suggests a horrible thought to a Government in difficulty; and if Louis Philippe had employed its ingenious author as a master of cruelty in his operations, he might have defended the Tuileries with success. state of Dublin alarmed the Government. Grave preparations were made. Ten thousand men are said to have been stationed in the Irish metropolis. There must have been some cause for this assemblage more urgent than is apparent to the uninitiated; and we have been informed that an idea of overpowering the castle prevailed amongst a number of the Dublin mob.

The

must be injurious to business, must reduce the quality, increase the price, and limit the supply of the necessaries of existence. The political economists of Dublin err in supposing that they can hot-press manufactures into existence, unless at the consumers' cost; and the hundreds of thousands of consumers who are represented as full of anxiety for a march on Dublin are not likely to be ignorant of that fact.

There are, notwithstanding the reasons that exist against disturbances, other reasons for anticipating them, not duly considered by stockjobbers, and, what we fear is worse, not duly weighed by statesmen. Revolutions in one kingdom produce their counterpart in other lands. There are echoes of all great tumults, sometimes surpassing their originals in volume and sharpness. The substantial causes of revolution in Italy, France, and Germany, do not exist in Britain, in Ireland, or in their immediate colonies. The base of our constitution is too narrow to rest upon, and yet too wide to justify revolt; for the elective franchise is distributed amongst a great number of persons, and might belong to a still greater number, even in the present state of the law, if they felt any interest in its possession. The imperfections of our constitution are glaring and irrational; they are too conspicuous; and yet the means of agitation against them are open; while it can be scarcely doubted that a great combination of the people in favor of any particular change will be successful. Revolt in favor of speculative and political opinions is only justifiable when the means of public instruction are proscribed, when the expression of public feeling is suppressed, or when that expression is utterly and absolutely hopeless. A case of that nature cannot be made out under British rule; and, therefore, revolt would be wickedness, because unnecessary, and

tute of employment, hopeless almost of bread, with a dark present, and a gloomier futurity have exhibited a mass of moral courage in patient suffering not to be rivalled by those who have braved a sudden death before a pike, or behind a barricade. Their existence, their wants, and their patience, are great testimonials to the strength of feeling in favor of peace and order prevalent in this country. But our legislation, tried in misfortune, has failed to meet the crisis. Its duty was, and is, not to find unprofitable employment, but to develop employment for the idle, wherever that can be done, without permanent loss. There are many sources of employment open. There are rail-ways unfinished, and yet sufficiently near completion to furnish ample security for the capital now requisite for their construction, which would take off for a time a large proportion of the idle population. There are lands waste in all the three kingdoms, but especially in Ireland and Scotland; and the Whig Government have already recognized the propriety and justice of demanding back these lands from their present proprietary at their present value, unless they proceed with their improvement. To this course objections have been made by those who say that money might be lost by the speculation, if the Government turned land-reclaimer on the national account. To that we answer, that money is lost at present in supporting as paupers, men and their families who want work rather than charity. The money is assuredly lost by one course; it could only be lost by another. That, however, is unnecessary. Money, if possible, should not be lost under any circumstances; and the Government has only to offer these lands for sale, in order to find immediate purchasers. The entail laws prevent the improvement of land, the employment of labor, and the increase of produce. The Lord Advocate of Scotland is endeavouring to save the entail laws of that division of the empire by changing and improving their character; but reform is lost upon a fabric which is entirely rotten. The entire abolition of the practice, reserving the rights of existing individuals, would lead, undoubtedly, to a series of improvements on half the estates of the country; absorbing labor for many years, and increasing largely the resources of the empire. That object can be effected, and these advantages can be gained, whenever the electors, or any large portion of that body, instruct their representatives on the subject. Practical reforms of this nature are always accomplished when the constituencies are seriously desirous of effecting their arrangement. Experience has shown that nothing resists them. The laws which the aristocracy deemed necessary for their existence have been

repealed. Privileges that were deeply cherished have disappeared; and there is no valid reason to suppose that a system which evidently prevents the employment of laborers and the increase of produce at home can be supported against the remonstrances of any large body of the electors.

Our financial burdens hang unduly on the producing classes. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will have a large deficiency on the quarter ending on the 5th of next month. He has had deficiencies on several past quarters; and if matters run on at their present rate, we shall increase the national debt by two and a-half millions annually; and yet there is not a new and indirect tax suggestable. The middle classes have spurned the idea of 5d. more per pound on their income, and defeated the Ministry. They might, with equal ease, have asked for and obtained an extension of the legacy duty to real property. That step would have produced the requisite money, without adding the last straw to an unequal load. The annual value of real property in England is estimated at £85,000,000 yearly. A tax of five or ten per cent. on that sum, and the additions from Scotland and Ireland, would produce five or ten millions annually. This tax might, if imposed along with a legacy duty, seem to press heavily on property; but it is often politic and wise to forfeit a part, in order to save the whole. When society becomes disorganized by an event, by a large riot or a successful revolution, property suffers more than the premium that might have been requisite to prevent discontent. The owners of property in France must be acquainted with that fact. The French Provisional Government have not waited the assembling of a representative body to add 45 centimes to the property-tax. The first financial movement of the revolution is an additional impost of eight millions sterling on property. It would have been better for men of property to have anticipated this necessity, and to have taxed themselves when that was within their power. The peasants of Germany are waging war against castles, because their owners have been too niggard with their own contributions, and too free with the pockets of their serfs. Property in this country has acquired an artificial value from our commerce, onr manufactures, our peace and order. It rises regularly in price at each successive transfer. The movements of the Legislature never check this rise. It continues and will continue, while confidence endures. Capitalists may construct railways without obtaining returns; but they cannot make and open them without adding greatly to the value of land. It is erroneous to say that any railway is a fail

ure. The shareholders may be convinced that it has failed; but there never yet was a railway made that did not add its cost to the value of the circumjacent land. Speculators may sink mines, erect furnaces, establish manufactories, and construct harbors, without gaining any thing but vexation. Their works may not repay them, but they increase the value of land.

These facts have to be considered in apportioning taxation, and they are forgotten. All men receive personal protection from the State, and all should contribute to its support. Some men enjoy personal and property protection, and these men should contribute on both accounts towards the expenses of the protective, and, in our case, the fructifying power. This is an arithmetical truth, forgotten always when Chancellors of the Exchequer produce their budgets a truth that should be now remembered and respected, when everywhere the unrepresented people are constituting themselves a direct power in the State.

We neither deny, conceal, nor palliate, the sins of numerous classes of those who have no property against their own interests and those of the State. They are undeniable. The industrious classes, as they are termed, are three those who can save money, those who can hardly live, and those who only live under the subtraction of absolute necessaries. The latter class consist chiefly of the peasantry in various districts, and of over-done trades - hand-loom weavers are an example. The middle class contains a large number of artisans, who can live, and do nothing more than live, by any exercise of industry and ingenuity. The first class use money thoughtlessly. They forget the power that rests in money; for, taking one or two sets of men in the aggregate, we believe that they could have purchased, by the possible sav ings of the last three years, a large interest in the works where they were employed. The railway laborers, since 1844, might have purchased the shares that necessity has thrown on

the market. The value of shares would have been thus sustained the works would have been carried forward- employment would have been secured; and the permanent comfort of the laborious investers established. The same result could have been obtained in the iron-works. The railways made an unusual demand for iron. The prices paid for labor were comparatively high; and, it may be fairly assumed, that ere now a considerable interest in iron-works might have been secured for the workman, sufficient to have prevented quarrels and strikes regarding wages for the time to come. These classes must be taught must be taught; for here rests the blunder-they have not been kindly taught the peaceful way to power and competence.

There is an interes' attached to political questions now more visible than for many past years. France gives an exhibition of the effects of a political tempest in its mildest form. The revolution of February was done with less bloodshed than any other great national revolution accomplished by force. The people forbore from revenge. They respected life and property. They only proscribed the guillotine and ruined the bailiffs. And yet credit is destroyed — cash payments are stopped-- work is scarce—tradesmen are distressed · and the operative classes suffer severe privations. A revolution attended by more exceptionable circumstances would have produced still more disastrous results.

There are in Britain and Ireland many wrong things to make right; and a strong desire amongst the unrepresented to participate in political power. That feeling may become too ardent to be repressed. The obviously increasing multitudes of unemployed, and the halforganized societies of dissatisfied men, may attempt to do for themselves that which the State should accomplish, if the warnings of the times be neglected; and the Legislature squander in idle discussion the weeks or months given for bold and necessary work.

-Tait's Edinburgh Magazine.

Biographie de Louis Blanc. 1848. Orgunization du Travail, par Louis Blanc. 5th Edition. 1848. Discours de Louis Blanc, au Luxembourg, sur l' Organization du Travail. 1848.