The Express.
London, England, 1864-04-22 00:00:00

THE DANISH QUESTION.

(non ova owe oceiguroinurr.)
FRANKFORT, Aram 20.
Count Beust arrived here yesterday, and was
inaugurated in his new dipity as the first Federal
ambassador by a splendid dinner given in his
honour at the Austrian embassy. He is the right
man for such negotiations as are likely to goon in
London, where all parties agree to do the least
possible harm to Denmark, and want only to obtain
proper guarantees that the same dispute shall not
be too quickly reopened. Neither Austria
nor Prussia intends to take one laurel)
from the Danish crown. The majority in'
the Diet has long ago thrown the Duke of
Augustenburg overboard, and Denmark ought to
know by this time that no other power is at her
disposal for making good her supremacy over the
Germans in the Duchies at the rusk of a war which
Napoleon himself has styled " the most dangerous
and calamitous in which he could engage." Count
Beust is full of shifts for arranging questions
where both parties stand ou vested or
pretended rights, without wishing to injure
each other materially. The solution can, as
things now stand, be no other than that
of providing a good government, which will prevent
provoking conduct on both sides, and enable Ger-
mans and Danes to live in peace under one ruler,
with as few common institutions as possible.
It seems that au agreement between Austria and
Prussia and the Diet exista already on the following
points :—A common legislative assembly for the
duchies ; Rendsburg to be a federal fortress ; the
Eider canal to be enlarged, so that ships can go
through from the German Ocean to the Baltic. The
conferences will at all events have this good result.
that both parties will plead their cause and
will have to prove tbeir grievances, and public
sentiment in England, which has been biassed in
favour of the Danes as the weaker party, without
entering thoroughly into the merits of the case, will
then be enlightened, and the opinion will gain
ground that the Danes have not altogether played
the part of the lamb, but have justified by wanton
annoyances the feeling of hatred prevailing against
them among the Germans in the duchies. The
scope they give now to their right of blockade, by
preventing even the intercourse between neutral
ports in the Baltic, must prove to all seafaring
nations to what extent they use a contested right.
It will not be difficult for the German envoys to
prove that all their doings in the Baltic are against
international law and the stipulations of Paris in
1856. Already the Prussian Chambers of Com-
merce have petitioned their government to occupy
Jutland, and to raise contributions there to indem-
nify them against the unlawful depredations of the
Danes; as far as the impending armistice will
permit, this measure will now be resorted to. The
fall of Duppel has illustrated by a new example the
obstinacy of the Danes. They would not agree
to the armistice, conceded on March 7, by
Austria and Prussia at the instance of England,
and, probably enough, the conference will, give
other instances of this obstinacy, which has been
the source of all the misfortunes which have
befallen Denmark in 1807 as in 1814, as well as in
the peasant day.
The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg has given an
illustration of the childish vanity natural to such
petty princes. Ile was one day a spectator of the
siege of Duppel, and on his return he bestowed on
himself by a ducal decree his own military order for
bravery.
The eldest eon of the rich Elector of Reese has
been released this week from prison here, where lie
had been confined almost a year for debt.

THE EMIGRATION TO THE UNITED
STATES.

(From the Daily News.)

THZ continuous outflow of large numbers of our
industrious fellow-countrymen who seek to better
their condition in the New World is still marked
by incidents which make it desirable that public
attention should, from time to time, be directed to
the movement. As long as emigration,wbether from
England*, Ireland, is stimulatedby merely natural

agencies—•s long as it proceeds from the desire to
earn higher wages, to acquire laud, or to rejoin
friends who have gone before—it will be, on the
whole, a salutary process, notwithstanding some
necessary and disagreeable drawbacks. Such has
been, and still is to • large extent, the character
of the emigration that has taken place from Ire-
land, where neither the dissuasions of the popular
priesthood, nor the anti-Federal tendencies of •
majority of the newspapers, avail to keep
back either the young or the middle-aged
from embarking for Boston or New York
to share in the prosperity of which
they read in the letters of kinsfolk and
acquaintance. The emigration which takes place
from Lancashire is directed, like that of Ireland,
almost exclusively to the United States, and there
is hardly a family of the working classes there that
has not some near relative in America. It was so
before the war began, and since then all the
motives which prompt men to emigrate thither
have gained strength. Labour is at an enormous
premium in the States. Nearly 500,000 men
have been withdrawn from the productive industry
of the country within the last twelve months, and
the drain still goes on. In agriculture that exten-
sive use of machinery as a substitute for manual
labour in which the Americans have taken the lead
somewhat mitigates this inconvenience, as far as
the Western States are concerned, although even in
agriculture the want of men entails great loss.
But the war has also made considerable gaps in the
ranks of skilled labour, the high bounty on
enlistment having attracted thousands of mechanics
into the army. The result, as our Special
Correspondent at New York writes, is that
" carpenters, masons, smiths, upholsterers, cabinet
"makers, printers, shoemakers, carriagemakers,
" and machinists have become • sort of privileged
" class, and one has to dance attendance on them,
"and sue them with bated breath to have the
" smallest job done at their own price." Our
Correspondent adds, " I doubt it in any country or
" in any period • man is so valuable as he is here
" just now." And English operatives employed in
the States are sending home precisely similar repre-
sentations. No doubt there is another and a
more shadowy side of the picture: we are not, how-
ever, balancing the arguments for and against emi-
gration to the United States, a course which we have I
never felt at liberty to recommend, but simply
stating the causes which are at work to promote it.,
From the moment that a number of persona in
these islands desired to go to the United States, in
order to escape from circumstances of more or less
difficulty, it was certain that a class of men
would spring up to speculate in their value as
labourers, and tempt them by illusory offers of
assistance to place their capacities and their
persons completely in their power. In Ireland
we have seen Mr. FZINZY and his contract system
at work aide by aide with the natural and safe
agencies of emigration, and we have since heard from
Boston of the condition of distress and despair to
which our countrymen have been reduced in oon-
sequence of having inconsiderately placed them-
Delves at the mercy of strangers. Our Special
Correspondent in Lancashire has recently exposed
• similar velem, which interested parties are oar-

Tying into effect in the cotton districts. Some of
our countryman in the neighbourhood of Manchester
are preparing to leave England, after signing a
contract of this kind :

Hawing noshed of A. a, of —, State of —, Militia
States of America, the sum of —, the lame being the
mrpeess of anal and passage of myself and family to
Boston, Mats of Maas., U.S. of America, by the steamer
—, from Uverpool, England, to Portland, Maine, we,
the undenigescl, hereby pee to repay to the said A. B.
the abovementioried rem within ninety days from this
date, in gold enrreacy, or laboor.

Obviously this is • contract intended to put the
emigrant completely in the power of the agent.
Suppose the emigrant to get work of the most
remunerative character at the very moment and
place of landing, and apply himself to it most dili-
gently, he would still not be able tosave enough to be
in • position to repay the cost of his own outfit
and passage and that of his family within a period
of ninety days, in which the term of his voyage is
included. Oar Correspondent expresses the con-
viction that, if the women and children carried to
the States under a contract of this kind are wanted
for the mills, the recruiting officer and the bounty
are intended to solve all difficulties as regards the
men. The supposition ,is as probable as any
other, though it does not need a state of war and
• demand for recruits to make such • contract
valuable to the agent in a country where wages
are excessively high. How the contractor shall I
realise his profit when he has landed his bondman
will depend on local and temporary circumstances ;
but it may be safely assumed that he will dispose
of his victim in the most remunerative market.
We are informed that it is very doubtful whether
the tribunals of the States would interfere to en-
force such • contract as that quoted above.
But our countrymen ought not to place them-
selves in • position to depend on that security, and
in any cue the contract would prove • source of
embarrassment:and annoyance to the emigrant who
had accepted the onerous obligation it records. It
is absurd to speak of the crimps who prowl about
entrapping our countrymen, as being " Federal
"agents." They are simply speculators who would
as readily dispose of their human prey to General
LEE'S ea to General GRANT'S recruiting sergeants.
They are men who, if there had been no secession
and no war, would, in all probability, have been
employed at this moment in buying and selling
slaves, some of them as white as the Lancashire
operatives whom they now seek to lure into their toils.
Provided that their trade be stopped in good time,
it matters little whether it be done by the warnings
and exhortations of Mr. SPENCE and his friends,
from hostility to the United States, or by any other
agency and from any other motive. For our own
parts we should prefer to see some of the Lanca-
shire organizations friendly to the United States
turned to account in order to prat an end to this
scandaL Equitable and legitimate contracts under
which Englishmen engage to go out to the States
and accept employment there, have been familiar
to some of our trades for many years, to the ad-
vantage of both parties. Under present circum-
stances, the principal point is to provide • means
by which any person proposing to emigrate under
a contract may ascertain whether the person offer-
ing employment represents responsible parties in
America ; and the next, to see that the contract
offered is not such an one as would reduce the
emigrant to the position of • coolie in the West
Indies. This work of supervision is one which
we should think might be very usefully assumed in
Lancashire by the local members of such an associa-
tion as the Union and Emancipation Society,which
must by this time be greatly relieved of concern
for the primary objects for which it was estab-
lished ; but any society, or any agency for dif-
fusing information, may do much to defeat the
wiles of those who seek to traffic not only in the
labour but in the liberties of our countryman.

MUSIC.
THE SHAKESPEARE SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL

The tercentenary commemoration of the birth of
Shakespeare is divided lato two distinct portions, the
one in the metropolis, the other at Stratford.
The London Festival includes a "Grand Herdic
Jubilee" (whatever that phrase may mean), at the
Royal Agricultural-hall, Islington, on the 21st, 72nd, and
23rd instant. Os the 21st Out night) there was a concert
of Shakespearian music; to-day there is to be a "Magnificent
Character Ball sod Masque, sugpdive of the Royal Revels
giver, by Godley Furl of Leicester in b °Garr of Quern Elisabeth
during her visit to Kenilworth Castle;" and toroorrow
there is to he, at the MON *re, a "Grassi MiNcellusecus
Entertainment and Mood:* Demanitastion of the Working
Classes." There is, moreover, to be, this evening, another
concert of Shakasaaarain made at Ett. James-hall ; and ko-
morrow evening there will be dramatic performances, morn
or lam Shakespearian, at all the theatres in Leedom. All
these entertainments have hem arranged under the direc-
tion of the National Shakespeare Committee, and in aid of
the fund for • national monument.

The coacert at the Agricultural Hall hat Right was
hardly so brilliant an affair am might have been expected.
The hall was not one-fourth full, and the large empty
spaces in every part of it gave the enormous building a
somewhat dismal appearance. There was, however, a good
selectioa of mimic connected with the plays and poems of
Shakespeare, very well performed and heartily applauded,
There was a host of vocil performers, including Madame
Sherringtou, Miss Stabbech, Madame Sainton-Dolby,
Madame Fenny Haddad, Miss Palmer, Miss Heywood,
Madame E. Williams, Miss Cicely Nott, Madame Pampa,
Mr. Porten, Mr. Thomas, and Mr. Renwick. The name of
Mr. Sims Beeves was in the programme, but he did not ap•
pear, and his absence was apologised for on the score of in-
disposition. There was a small orchestra, who played two
Shakespearian overtureo—Maclarree's Borneo and Jtilid,
and Nieolaes Merry Wires of Windsor. The manic wee
chiefly vocal, consisting of bongs of Arne, Stevens, Weld,
Bishop, ka, which delighted farmer generations, but are
now, unfortunately, falling into oblivion. The first set of
774 e Tempest was resitsi by Mr. Phelps, with Purcell's inci-
dental music; and the ooneert concluded with Matthew
Lock's Sae old music to Madera.

The concert, taken altogether, mast have been interesting
to those whose taste for oar own national music ham
not been spoiled by the growing predilection for foreign
novelties.

UNIVERSITY INTELLIGENCE.

CAMBRIDO& Arm 21.
THE VISIT or THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF
WALES.—At, a congregation this day It wee arranged by
grace that the prise poems and exercises be recited ia the
ou the 16th of June, on which day it is un-
derstood that their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Primers
of Wake will be parent. At the Name cougregati Mn.
Vim-Chancellor (Dr. Cookaa, Mister of St Peter'so•) ; the
Muter of St. John's (the Rev. Dr. Bakers). Dr. Bidet
Oahu; Mr. Power, Pembroke; Mr. Day, Caine; and Mr.
Blom, of Trinity, were appointed of a syndicate to make
fitting arrangermaris for the reception of their Royal
Highnesses. It is at present understood that their Royal
Highnesses will arrive on the 13th, that the public celebra-
tion will take place on the 16th, and that the royal guests
will depart on the 17th. At the seine congregation the un-
dermentioted decrees were conferred( :—LLD.: Jima'
Ogilvy Millar. Christ's College. M.A.—Jemse Curtis
Leman, Ckre Collage ; Frank Heath, Trinity Hall ; Hoary
Gary, Corpus Christi Collage ; Francis Wane Cornish,
Edward Compton Austen Leigh, Gimp Tuthill
William James Bo^ King's llege • Frediebk Bleeketf
De Clair, Jesus Wlege ; Philip Joke Hensley, John
Twoetyman, Richard Augustine Chudleigh, James Larkin
Heehaw, Christ's College ; Charles Hartwell Horne Cheyne,
Joe Foster, Jolia Francis, St. John'. College ; Freacie
Elliott itchiest, Gerard Frames Cobb, John Roche
Days/. Claude Smith Bird, Mk& Moodie, Thomas
Edward Baue, Charles Evans Newborn, Richard Hairy
Wingfield by, Trinity Oollep ; Nathaniel Coniford,
Robert Tilbury, Herbert Oldfield Francis, John Con
Edwards, Emmanuel College ; Andrew Ikaiiehamp Stark',
Mden C
o,
M. A. (in their abases).—WilliamEra Ward, Triaity Collage ; James Orem sad Edward
Madden Drawer, St. John's College. (Mr. Gran is mei.
dent in lad* Mr. Greater in New Zealand, sad Mr. Ward
in India]. LL.M.—Charlesj Braes Howbeit Trinity
College.