The Express.
London, England, 1852-08-02 00:00:00

LONDON. MONDAY. AUGUST 2.

THE ministerial simmeas in France invest French
politics with a Dew Utmost, but whilst we see some
semblance of strength given to branches of Louis
HP rots:tees government by the adhesion of
DEOUVM DE t'llevs and M. FOULD, we be-
come conscious of a positive injury inflicted on
it by the letter of ODILOX B tRROT to the electors
of the department of the Aisne. This letter is
worthy of the character of the man whose name it
bears. More feeling and forgivinf than the senten-
tious refusals of CAVAIONAC and AUeIIER to swear
allegiance to the new order of things in France, it is
equally unqualified in its repudiation of the worthless
and shameless forgery of a free constitution. The
deceptive forms of universal suffrage and of depart-
mental elections, as it is truly said, seem only to
have been preserved for the purpose of tyranny,
and M. Rumor justly judges that the first and high-
est duty which he owes to country and to conscience
is to withhold, under all circumstances, his sanction
from a usurpation of power so unblushing, com-
passed and maintained by means so utterly beyond
the pale of ordinary law.
For many years, and under many changes and
vicissitudes, M. BARROT had fulfilled the trust of
popular representative. lie had likewise occupied
the pest ot.Minister, both under the regime of Levu
PHILIPPE and that of tbe Republic. By more eloquent
and more energetic rivals he may have been out-shone
in the cabinet and the Chamber. lint by none has
he been surpassed in consistency. A genuine liberal,
Onttos Humor has been at all times in favour of
expansive and experimental progress as contra-dis-
tinguished from sudden and total changes. One of
the earliest to resist the reactionary tendenciesof Louis
PHILIPPE after the revolution of 1830, and among
the last to warn that spoiled child of fortune of the
fate to which those tendencies were inevitably leading
him, M. II vmeor was at all times thoroughly re-
spected and trusted by the shrewd and selfish
king. It is a curious fact which, more than any of a
political kind, denotes the esteem in which he was
held by the chief members of the ORLEANS family, that
in Madame .IDet.stne's will he was named as one of
.the trustees: and how cordial was the sympathy
between that remarkable princess and her royal
brother need not be told. Few men of competent
judgment who look back at the history of the last
five years Mill hesitate to own that. had the counsels
of Reamer in favour of parliamentary reform been
followed at the beginning of 1848, all parties,
whether that of order or that of liberalism,
would now be gainers. The monarchy of
the barricades might have been exposed to
new trials of temper, but it would not have been
overthrown. The suffrage might not have been
nicknamed universal; but it would not have become
aby -word and a mockery. The conservatism of M.
Ottrict would doubtless have been humbled in the
dust, but the spectacle of Ateliers Nationaux, termi-
nating in the murderous conflict of June. 1848,
would have been spared to France and Europe.
Finally the show and semblance of a republic might
not have glittered for a brief span before the
eyes of a dazzled populace • but a great
nation would have been saved hem the
and disgrace of :finding itself in the course
of a single night jockeyed out of all its oldest and
dearest liberties.
Again in 18.11, when the practical incoherency of
the crude constitution of 184th rendered speedy but
safe modifications plainly requisite, ODILON &M-
-awr wes one of those who, like M. DE TOCQUEVILLE
and the Due de Baootte, earnestly recommended the
prompt consideration and adoption of some essential
change. Had their advice been followed, the consti-
tution might not have been wholly freed perhaps
from incongruities and errors ; but its shameful
overthrow on the 2nd December would hare been
averted, and the best and bravest sus of France
would not now be fugitives in foreign Mods, or pri-
soners on parole, mute and powerless, in their own.
But the voice of moderation was alike dhespeded
by the obstinate ultras of opposite sides. and knee
tke deplorable sequel which we now behold. The
electors of the Aisne have recently called upon their
long•tried representative to suffer himself to be
put in nomination again for their depart-
ment, to serve in the soi-diasnt Legislative
Council. M. BARI= asks significantly what could
he do there? Manifestly nothing useful or honour-
able to himself, or those who should nominate him.
Like MOLE, CAVAIG MAC, DE TOCCWEVILLE, CHAMOAR-
HIER, 7ltteas, DE BROGLIE, and a host of other dis-
tinguished men of civil and military fame, ho declines
with dignity to walk in the train of the present irre-
sponsible muter of France, or to share even in
seeming the task of conducting the affairs of the
State. They prefer to leave the monopoly of the
sham trusts and solid profits of government to the
adventurers, schemers, and desperadoes who cluster
round the steps of the plagiarised empire. Of:the same
mind appears to be nearly every man of distin-
guished antecedents in the community. To what
influence we are to ascribe the acceptance of the
foreign portfolio by M. DROCTN DE t'fieva time must
reveal. As far as England is concerned, we are not
disposed to cavil at his entrance into the cabinet of
the Elyse('; but we own we sympathise far more in
the candid and consistent spirit which has prompted
M. 001 LON BARROT to refuse the acceptance of any
post or station which would compel him to swear
fidelity to the present military, despotism whereby
his country is governed. with calm firmness he
declares his unshaken faith in the &Uhl of his
fellow-countrymen, and their capacity for consti-
tutional freedom; and he prefers to pass whatever
interval may yet elapse ere the restoration of
well-ordered liberty in the honest obscurity of a pri-
vate station. Truly the heart of the nation must be
callous that would not appreciate conduct of this
kind ; and it is evident that the existing government,
far from believing in the prevalence of such insensi-
bility, have deemed it prudent to stop in the Post-
office all copies of the Indepeadasee Beige, in which
Opium BARROT.II letter appeared.

ENGLAND is far too dependent on America for her
supply of cotton. There is too much risk in relying
on any one country, if we consider the climate and
seasons alone ; but the risk is seriously aggravated
when the country is not our own, but is inhabited
by a nation which, however friendly on the whole,
and however closely allied with us by blood and
language, has been at war with us more than once,
and might possibly some day be so again ; or, if
this risk is considered too remote, we may say
merely that there are circumstances in the position
and constitution of the United States sufficiently
unlike our own to make it undesirable that there
should be no alternative, for us or for them, but
dependence on each other in any matter of supreme
importance to either. Oar cotton manufacture has,
since the opening of the century, added a permanent
two millions—probably by this time much more—to
our population; and the necessity of drawing the
whole of our raw material from one country involves
therefore as serious a liability as any to which, as a
nation, we arc subject. There have been fluctuations
in the fortunes of Lancashire within the last few
years which show how carefully we ought, if possible,
to guard against the maintenance of millions of our
people being impaired or cut off, any year, by the
accident of a frost or a drought in a country subject
to both. When we add the consideration that cotton
in the United States is raised by slave labour, and
that the only certainty about slave labour is that it
will sooner or later booms free, it is evident that we
cannot too soon set about providing ourselves with
wide cat on-fields in various parte of the world, and
if possible, within our own dominions.
Virginia is well nigh exhausted, as everybody
knows, in her whole extent, except in that
western table-land where the cotton culture gives
place to that of corn. For many years past Virginia
has been sustained chiefly by the bre. ding of negroes
and mulattoes for sale to the south. North Carolina
is equally exhausted, and appears to have nothing to
sell to anybody. The cotton-growth is most °onside-

ruble on the virgin soils of the southernmost statps ;
and it is because they too must become impoyeriablid
that the Americium have seized upon Tekas and
Mexico, in order to continue the supply of cotton to
the European market. It is obvious that our depen-
dence would be • very precarious one, under the
best circumstances, if we relied solely on the supply
of cotton by slave labour. It is cot the production of
cotton, but the use of slave labour which wears out
the mil of the slave states; and the only thing we
could be sure of, if we had no other resource, is that
tract alter tract, district afer district, would fellow
the fate of the impoverished and deserted
lands which every traveller observes through
the whole length of Virginia and North
Carolina, so that the safety of our cotton
manufacture must, in fact, depend on the success of
American aggreu-ion, in ionizing to the United
States foreign soil hi herto tree from the curse of
slavery. It is melancholy. to the traveller to mark
the wasted fields, the ruined fences, the broken
bridges, the impassable roads, the deserted mansions
of whole states, whence Britain once derived her
annual supply of cotton, and to remember that the
latest annexed virgin soils must come to the same
pass, under the same curse, whether slavery be
called by its own name, or by the ingenious title of
" apprenticeship for ninety:nine years."
There is nothing new in this, though a recent
incident has revived men's ideas and feelings on
the subject. It is at least twenty years since the
danger was seen so clearly that great efforts
were made to grow cotton in India. Sixteen
years since, residents in India wrote us the news
that the cotton was flourishing on the table lands of
the interior, and that the roads down the Ghauth
were blackened with troops of bullocks, laden with
bales for shipment from the western ports. But
alas! those roads down the °haute have hitherto
been fatal to the scheme. Bullock carriage is not
good for cotton, under the best circumstances; and,
in this case, the injury and destruction to the pro-
duce have made the scheme abortive, and have
postponed our hopes to the formation of railroads.
The dust, the sweat of the toiling animals, the mud,
the frequent falls, made such a mess of the cotton, in
its conveyance to the coast, that little or none of
it was, by that time, worth having. We have
never given up our hope of getting cotton from India,
and plenty of it; and heaven forbid that we should
ever give it up, for it is a rational as well as a plea-
sant hope; but we cannot help seeing that it will
take years to supply us with what we want from
that quarter. By the activity of the Manchester
Chamber of Commerce great progress has been made
in discovering which are the best districts for the
growth of the cotton ; which species flourish best in
different localities; how the natives may be trained
to prepare it thoroughly fur Lancashire use ; and
what may be expected from the projection of rail-
roads into the heart of the great peninsula. Nobody
doubts what a blessing this new tillage will be to
the natives, both in itself and from the revela-
tions of their existing condition which would reach
the English mind through this new channel of
communication ; and it is certain that the free labour
of India will be so cheap in comparison with the
slave lat our of America as to overpay, very largely,
the difference of distance from Liverpool. But still
it must take years to make the railways and to esta-
blish particular species of cotton as die staple of par-
ticular districts—years to train the natives so tho-
roughly as to be able to rely on the steady excellence
of their preparation of the produce. To fill up the
interval and secure a provisional alternative to the
United States, we have been quietly studying the
globe, contemplating the zones within which cotton
will grow. M e have listened to reports from Ja-
maica ; we have sent lists of questions to the seasoned
navigators of the Niger; we have sought spe-
cimens on the Nubian banks of the Nile ; we
have examined Clausen 's patent process in Ire-
land ; we have out wistful glances towards the
plains of China, we have explored, in speculation,
the whole circuit of the globe; and now, on a
sudden, we are assured of all we want by a mail
from our own Australia.

It is great news —very great news—full of more
ono:tingled promise than the discovery. of the gold
in that country. As far as we can see it is all true
and sound. The President of the Manchester Cham-
ber of Commerce must know what cotton is,—
and from his office, and under his sense of responsi-
bility, he can be in no haste to give his
approbation to any doubtful product ; he
would rather be jealous of the introduction
of any thing infettor to the best that can be
obtained from the old wanes. Yet Mr. BULLY
pronounces the Australian specimens submitted
to him to be " excellent," " really beautiful,"
and so on; adding, generally,. that it is " well got
up," and "in perfect condition for the spinner."
At the end of the report we are told that Mr. BAZLEY
has been careful to understate his admiration of the
article, and that such specimens of perfect cotton
have rarely been seen in Manchester. Here we
have at once the product in high perfection, and
every advantage in its preparation for use in Lanca-
shire. We depend neither on miserable and degraded
slaves, nor on ignorant native Indians, whose minds
and ways are not half known tons. We are to be
ministered toby Englishmen and English women, who
know what Lancashire is, and have the diligent and
careful industry and skill which are familiar to us at
home.

When the gold fever has somewhat subsided, and
the shepherds are returning to their &eke and folds,
and artisans to the towns, • crowd of the new im-
migrants will find it best worth their while to de-
vote themselves to the growth and preparation of
cotton. While other articles are procured so easily
from America, there can be no difficulty in obtain-
ing the beat machinery for the cleaning of the pro-
duct, and many improvements, economies, and wise
arrangements, which are impossible where the
labourers are slaves, will be introduced, and must
surely give our colony the advantage over all other
cotton fields in the world.
We should, above all, rejoice if this discovery
should in the end confirm and extend our relations
with the cotton-growing states of the American
Union. We are anxious to secure ourselves from a
total dependence upon them • we prefer deriving our
supplies from free rather than slave labour ; and we
should be glad to sec our discovery hastening the
abolition of slavery by rendering slavery more tho-
roughly and unquestionably unprofitable than it is
even now. But, though we feel that the emancipa-
tion of American slaves would be the best and high-
est consequence of the production of Australian cot-
ton, we have no desire to break of our connexion
with the South Carolina and Georgia planters. If
they, by freeing their slaves, become able to improve
their lands, and keep their place in the world's
market, and save themselves from destruction, none
would rejoice more than their old English customers.
And there is • place in the world's market for them,
and the Indians, and the Australians, and all who
seek for prosperity in the only way in which it can
be permanent—by being just to all, black or white,
bond or free.

FRANCE.

THE MINISTRY.

PARIS, BATOZDAI( EYININO.
The Monilerr contains a decree appointing M.
Achille Fould Minister of State in the place of
M. Casabianca. This nomination, which has taken
the public completely by surprien,is sneceeded by the
following note:
"The decree calling M. Achille Pould to the im-
portant functions of Minister of State completes the
Cabinet. By the speciality of the selections which
he hes just made, the Prince President has wished
to give to his government the conditions of stability
and durable success (arenie) which are in the spint
of the constitution. We may hope not to behold
again for a long time those changes of persons
which east trouble and indecision into affairs."

The Cabinet is now definitely constituted as
follows:
State
Finance
Public Works Maim
Mariechew Dem
Justice
Instruction Foetid
Interior
War
Police .
Of these ten ministers the first half represent the
administrative capacity and sober views of the cabi-