The Express.
London, England, 1855-03-01 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS. THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 1, 1855.

THE NEW RETURN OF NEWSPAPER
STAMPS.

The return of newspaper stamp jut Weed gives
he following results:
First Quarter. Seeond Quarter.
Deily News . 319,191 348,044
Morning Herald . 303,000 299,000
Morning Post . . 206,000 226,000
Morning Chronicle . 162,600 186,600
Express . . 177,133 198,389
Globe . . . 176,000 196,000
Sun . . . . 108,000 192,000
Standard . . . 103,000 104,000

for the Government expenses of Victoria in the year
1835, and in them we find the publics works—includ-
ing permanent council chambers and " new public
offioss"—pnt down for no lease sum than 1,380,0001.
For the farther expense of buildings new post-office,
12,0001. is appropriated; towards the erection of a
custom-house, 18,0001.; and for quarters, offices,
and stables at the gold-fields, 50,0001. We have
been accustomed to grumble at the yearly ex-
pense of our houses of parliament, and of royal
stables; but the good people of Victoria have
two or three parliament houses building at once,
and stables to which, considering the respective
means of the countries, those at Pimlico and Windsor

are of trifling cast. With a revenue last year short
by nearly one-third—the total expenditure having
amounted to 3,564,0001., and the total revenue to
2,479,0001., leaving • deficiency of 1,085,0001.—the
Government of Victoria proposes to expend this year
1,360,0001. on public works alone, from taxes amount-
ing to upwards of 4/. a head, which is unparalleled in
the annals of royal extravagance in France, or of
oppression in Hindostan.
The Government of Victoria is as generous to others
or itself as it is unjust to the people ; or rather its pro-
fusion knows no bounds. It proposes to grant
155,0001. for education ; 26,0001. for sanitary purposes ;
7,8001. for ecclesiastical purposes; 12,6001. for
scientiflo purposes; and under the convenient head of

miscellaneous—including 49,0001. for the Govern-
ment printer—it asks for 74,0001. One inch item,
however, doe* not suffice for the insatiable financiers
of Melbourne; and,under asecond head of miscellaneous,
643,0001. more is demanded, including no less than
44000/. tamest interest on loans on aooount of revenue.
Enormous as was the expenditure of Victoria in 1854
more than 1,000,0001. above its revenue, the excess
being more than equal to a tax of 31. a head on every
living soul in the colony—the Government proposes
to expend in 1855 no less than 4,801,2921., or nearly
1,300,0001. more than in 1854. Appropriating to its
use a part of the land fund,destined to carry immigrants
lint* the colony, it cannot make out a revenue for the
year within 1,000,0001. of the expenditure; and the
Government proposes to exceed its expenditure by
nearly one-fourth. In the most reckless and profligate
period of our great war, we never had an expendi-
ture equal to that of Victoria, in proportion to our
population and wealth. In that time of exigency,
it was on one occasion thought excusable to exceed
our revenue by a sum more than equal to one-half of
it; but in Victoria the expenditure is for a season of
peace, and will cause, if continued, a greater expen-
diture next year. At home we are supposed to be
the heaviest-taxed people on the earth; bat our
colonists in Victoria have a pecuniary burden to bear
more than four times as great as ours.
The natural consequences of this financial mis-

management are beginning to show themselves. The
Government proposes new taxes which promise still
further to cripple the trade of Victoria, and they are
already exciting discontent and opposition. To keep
up its resources it must levy the license tax for the'
diggers with the utmost severity. Mr. LATROBE
was compelled to wink at some deviations from his
'exacting rules ; the present Government must enforce
them. Not merely discontent and opposition, but
collision, is the consequence ; and the latest accounts
from Melbourne leave that colony, we regret to s .y,
in an alarming condition of riot and disorder. The
diggers and the Government are in conflict, and all
the military—including sailors and marines from a

ship of war—at the Governor's disposal have been
marched off to the diggings. There is at once, we
think, an end to any chance of retrieving the bank-
ruptcy that
.followed from the overtrading with

Melbourne.
We have been accustomed to hear the recklessness
of unprincipled adventurers unsparingly condemned;
but, if we do not judge erroneously, they never did
half u much mischief u the sober, steady, legisla-
tors and governors of Victoria have done. We ex-
pected that they should have been warned by the
evils caused by crowds of unscrupulous speculators
who have preyed on the wealth of the gold
digger., encouraged them in profligacy, and
converted the colony that promised to be
the labourer's Paradise into the labourer's Pan-
demonium. But the Government on wkich the
people were taught to rely for sage counsel—for
example and protection even against themselves—
have augmented all the evils of wild speculation by
an expenditure unequalled in the world. It hu be-
come accordingly the parent of extravagance, conten-
tion, and disorder. It is not at home and in the
Crimea only, then, that our system is breaking down ;
it is breaking down in Australia. There were great
disasters at Ban Francisco after the rush to California;
great fires, great disorder., and some murders ; but
there was never such reckless extravagance and each a
conflict between the authorities and the people as are
ensuing in Victoria.
We were told that the great advantage of the
English gold colonies was their settled government,
which provided for the hurried immigration, and pre-
vented disorder. But the settled government and
even the constitutional Government turns out to be a
failure. The deliberative Assembly has sanctioned
all the expenditure of the Government : it had even
sanctioned, it is said, a greater expenditure than the
Government had incurred ; adding another to the
many examples already on record, that paper consti-
tutions are of far less importance than the spirit of 1
the people for whom they are made. Constitutional

Government has collapsed in Victoria, from the
people there having indulged in an exaggerated
degree the vice of wasting the public money, and
regulating society by minute measures, which they
carried' from Europe. The faults, the terrible faults,
committed by the Executive Government and the
Legislative Council in Victoria are only exaggerations
of the faults committed by our Executive and our
Parliament.—Daily News.

WITH LIMITED LIABI-
LITY.

MR. CARDWELL has intimated, that if the new
Government will not take up his Bill for the Amend-
ment of the Law of Partnership, he will endea-
vour to carry it through himself. O■ a recent
occasion, we reviewed the several objections urged
by those who are opposed to the admission into
oar commercial system of the principle of limited
liability, we exposed the fallacies or assumptions oa
which they are founded, and demonstrated their
insufficiency. Having in this manner disposed of
the negative, we now turn to the affirmative of the
proposition; and we purpose stating, in part at least,
the reasons which have satisfied us that partnerships
with limited liability may not only be safely intro-
duced, but are even required for the emancipation of
the productive classes from the bondage of capital
in this country.

Subject to certain modifications which the exigen-
cies of commercial affairs have necessitated—those

exceptions being themselves evidence of the inex-
pediency and obstructiveness of the old system—the
general law of England is, that each pertner,whether
dormant or avowed, should be subject to an unlimited
liability for the sots of his co-partner in the business,
and for the obligations of the firm. The effect of this
law has been practically to give a monopoly to
capital, to restrict in a great degree legitimate enter.'