The Express.
London, England, 1852-01-23 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, JANUARY 23.

TttE most dangerous opposition, the most serious
peril to Louis NAPOLEON will, in our opinion, pro-
ceed from that very clam which he has taken most
pains to favour and to make his friend. That clam
sonsists of the monied men, the people possessed of
capital. those who suffered more than all others by
the resolution of IN-IN, who were mulcted and
menaced by the socialists, and who, even under the
republic which they dominated, telt too uneasy and
insecure to speculate or turn their fortunes to any
advantage. Lorts Nsrou.os's government, it es
very evident, does its utmost to please this clam, and
to profit by it. They have but to ask in order to
have. And whatever laws, monopolies, prohibitions,
grunt of public works, or favour they may require.
they are certain to obtain. In return, they have but
to profess Bonapartism in lieu of Orloanism, to !
exercise their influents: through the Elysiv rather
than through the Chamber. 'fo keep their factories
is activity, public works contracted for, the popula-
tion employed, the exchange free from panic—all
this the monied ease arc expected to do.
But, after all, if there is one thing more
than another that ill comports with despotism,
it is money. It demands a free and a fair
play that no favour, no protection, can give it;
and its prosperity is to be procured by that total absti-
nence from interference t hat despotism, and, above all,
igneratit despotism can never reconcile itself to. Take
fur example, the greet sugar question, so important'
and difficult a one at present in all European com-
munities. The Assembly, lately dissolved, discussed
the question with great attention and care, and
passed a decree, which they considered just to the
consumer, and a compromise between conflicting
interests. 'fins decision, solemnly come to after long
debates in the National Assembly, has been cancelled
by one stroke of the dictator's pen. " We" understand
sugar and the sugar duties better than the represen-
tatives of the people. And Lolls NAPOLEON or
Monsieur DE MOUNT accordingly issue their ukase
about sugar, just as the Om might legislate on the
matter of tallow or of twist.

What great commercial community could tolerate
this. No doubt the change will benefit some. But
it is equally clear that it must prove prejudicial to
others And the numbers hurt by privileges or
favouritism in legislation arc infinitely more nume-
rous than those who are benefited or obliged. The
same may be said in dealing with capitalists of tel
kinds. If a railroad or a loan be given to Mr.
ROTHSCHILD, out of which he makes an enormous
premium, all the monied public is wronged. If it
be taken to another than Mr. ROTWICHILD, Mr.
Itoritsenttn deems himself wronged. There is but
one way of escaping obloquy and enmity of this
kind. It is to have a government responsible to •
representative assembly. And in this manner only
an a government meet conflicting and powerful
exigencies.
In countries such as France and England at pre-
aent are, where so much is to be done, where so much
is expected, where there must be so many errors,
and where the very acts that are most beneficial
necessarily work so much individual harm, there is
no prince, no minister, no government, that could
bear the inevitable odium, and the weight of inevita-
ble failures, unless it could shift responsibility on
the broad shoulders of the public itself, and of the
public representatives. What despot could have given '
as reform, repealed our corn laws, or emancipated
Roman catholics A celebrated writer of our age,
CARLYLY, has placed all his hopes in the advent of a
great man, with dictatorial powers, with discern-
ment to see what was required, firmness and ability
to accomplish it. It was impossible for speculative
politicians to make a greater mistake. A dictator
may do for poor, undeveloped, grovelling people, that
want to be taken by the hand, delivered from the
weight of an aristocracy, or defended against foreign
foes. But a rich, developed, varied, dissentient,
moire multitude would tolerate no such state phy-
sician, who would but vainly attempt to tamper with
their complicated ills, and vainly look for force to do
it withal.

There never has occurred an instance of an ad-
vanced, developed, wealthy, and active nation ever
submitting to a regular despotism. The Czar Nl-
ellot.as reigns uncontrolled because his realm is
poor. Austrian despotism lives on a little longer for
the ammo reason. l'ut Frankfort or Hamburg under
a despotic naynne, and we should soon see their rich
men leave them, their speculations subside, and their
trade dwindle away. When a police minister can send
his myrmidons into a stock exchange, who take all
the sellers and pack them off beyond the frontier in
exile, because they were
i willing to part with public
securities at a low price, there s an end of money
dealings or commercial enterprise in that country.
1.01:13 NAPOLEON'S system of government is
Prince SCHWAIMENSF.RO'S without the decorum. We
will not at present speak of its insolent espionage
and interference with the social meetings of the
better classes, it. proscription of the educated, and
suppression of all their organs and all their publica-
tions. We will not speak of its cruel dragonnades
of the peasantry, its wholesale deportation of the
ignorant and the educated together, without trial, or
Indeed without a crime. We say that even if all these
could be overlooked and pardoned by the classes they
affect, yet the tyranny and interference, the dishonest
favouritism and more dishonest spoliation, that will
befall the monied and commercial classes from a govern.
sent that must be needy and which is responsible only
to the mob of a barrack yard—these alone would, in
no considerable length of time, destroy it. Or, if the
military government moored; the commercial pro-
sperity and persevering activity of the country would
disappear, and thereby spread a discontent in all
classes that no army could suppress.
There is no country in the world in which the
monied class, an it arose, has not contrived to fling
up entrenchments and raise bulwarks around it to
protect property, not merely landed property, but
commercial, floating, industrious wealth. But what-
ever exists of this in France is for the moment ut-
terly defenceless and completely at the mercy of a
government of adventurers and spendthrifts, which
an the hour of necessity would no more respect the
Bourse or the Grand Lirre, the treasury deposits or
the savings bank funds, than the most Multi° com-
munist that ever frightened the unfortunate slaves
of order.

DURING the controversy that has now been so
many weeks pending between the machine manufac-
turers and their empiurgs, the interests of one clue
of men, though terribly implicated in the result of
the struggle, appear to have been totally overlooked.
Nothing has been said, and little seems to have
been thought, by either party of the " noweeekity
men." Yet the fate that was to overtake these Work-
men ought surely to have found place. in the anew
sion. In number they were greater—it is said talks
proportion of more than two to one—than the WWI.
hers of the Amalgamated Society ; in skill they wen
not inferior; and their destinies were equally bona
up with the general prosperity and continuum d
employmei!t, or rather, indeed, far more so, sinew they
could not in time of destitution fall back upon the
supplies contained in that military chest, whose
stored treasure so much encouraged the pertinacity
of Mr. NiterroN's disciples.
The Amalgamated Society having personal objects
to gain; having vanity and consistency at stake;
and having, who knows? some dazzling prospect in
view of securing to themselves the masters' share of
profit in addition to their own, by some to-be-in-
vented device for newly "organising labour,"—natu-
rally enough ignored the claim and looked very un-
feelingly on the sufferings of their fellow-workmen.
There has, in fact, for a long time, been something
more than coldness between the two elutes. The
members of the society were piqued at the refusal
of their companions to cast in their lot with them;
and the " unattached' workmen viewed the
ings of the society with the natural fear angrorsell.e
. which all must feel when men in all respects their
equals assume the possession of exclusive rights and
interests. We mi consequently in no way sur-
e

(prised to find that neither Mr. Newsom in kis
speeches, nor the Amalgamated Society by their'
acts, testified the slightest regard for the companions,
whose very subsistence they were coameonsising.
We were, however, both surprised and grieved-
to find that the employers .testified an equal
unconcern. The non•society men were void
'of offence towards them. Nay, by declining
to become members, by absenting themselves
from the meetings, and withholding their signatures '
from the manifestoes of the Executive Council, they
had decidedly deserved well of the master manufac-
turers. Yet, though not associated with the crime
of the Amalgamated Society, they have borne more
than their share of its punishment. The employers
have visited with the mono measure of retribution
the guilty and the innocent, their enemies and their
friends. Who, then, can wonder that the latter have
at last shown some degree of resentment at the in-
justice to which they have been subjected? Against
their interest ; against, as we believe, their secret
sympathies, we find them now beginning to make
common cause with their brethren of the society. At
a meeting numerously attended, recently held in
Laiubeth, a resolution enjoining the non•society
men to use every effort in their power to favour
an amicable settlement of the question was
rejected, and an amendment, pledging them to ac-
cept "nothing less than the Amalgamated Society,
do," was earned unanimously.
Prudence as well as kindness might have impelled
the employers to make some distinction between
members and non-members when they found the
controversy with the Amalgamated Society coming
to extremities. The fact that a good two-thirds of
the hands had given no adhesion to the pronismeia-
Intent° against piece-work and overtime, was at once
most gratifying in itself, and afforded the masters a
ready means of keeping all their manufacturing
operations fully going, or nearly so, while proving
their perfect independence of all dictation from the
men. Misled, as we fear, by harsh feelings, the prin-
cipals have foregone this wise and still available course.
Closing their workshops inexorably and indefinitely,
they have involved in suffering vast multitudes who
have never deserved it, and have, besides, afforded to
the Amalgamated Society an immediate triumph in
the consciousness of having caused all the mischief
they threatened and hoped to inflict.
Even now, we hope, it is not too late for the em-
ployers to rescind their determination. Why should
not the firms whose vast forges, in London or Man-
chester, are now cold and silent, re-open their doors
to the bands who have never belonged to, or will
abjure, the Amalgamated Society? Work is to re-
commence, they promise, as soon as the " notices" I
are withdrawn by the men. What is to prevent
their beginning at once with such men as have not
signed the notices or sworn allegiance to the Executive
Council on whew authority they were issued? Prac-
tical difficulties may perhaps stand somewhat in the
way. It may not be cue, or even possible, to work
successfully with a skeleton corps of men. But the
experiment is at all events worth trying. The
damage will probably be less; and the chances of a
speedy and satisfactory termination to the dispute
will be much enhanced by such a proceeding. Not
only will the masters thereby perform an act of
justice to thousands of innocent men, but they will
deprive the Amalgamated Society of its great stimulus
in obstinacy, by showing that its power to stop produc-
tion isnotsogreatas it expected. With the workshops
once more open, moreover, a locus penitenti-e will be
offered to all members of the society whom want,
dissatisfaction, or a returning sense of propriety may
inspire with a wish to resume their labours. Before
the "strike" has lasted long we think it matter of
certainty that such desertions will bo numerous. If
the masters are wise, they will take care to keep
places open where the deserters may find refuge;
nor, under the circumstances, does it seem that the
terms upon which they are to be allowed to resume
their duties need be made too severe.