The Express.
London, England, 1851-05-14 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF LORDS.—TCESDAT, MAT 13.
The Lotto CMANCILLOS 410011
R his wet at fivil O'ClOCk.
PETITIONS PESENT ED.
PAPAL AoOltismox.—By then st WINCRILSEA,
tronaNewcastle-under-Lyon,is rthampton, Rendered,
Somersetahire an/ other places; the Duke of
fIatTYLL, from Ediaburgli, signed by 43,000 persons;
Lord LANESBOROUGH. and Use kiarquis of LANS-
DOWNE, horn plasma Dot hoard ; against papal ag-
gression.
MARRIAGES (INDIA) BILL.
Lord BROUOIITON moved the soroad readies of this
bill. Legislation an this subject bad bola reoleameeded
by Sir C. Robison, Sir Samuel Domilli.oed moo
by Lord Campbell sad the proses% Lea Dbeesalloo"...ll
eeendielea bed boa gpsbeted ei Isiah. kW the subject?
soositias of the isle ■lambi et Loam, the late Lord
Advocate of dortiimak De. Larliostoo, sad others; and
they proposed diet the aterdasolaw of India should
be made soniemslie ea the starrier law of Eng-
land. Them mese LOIS Mammon in India who
were capable of selessnising nseedeges ; pia
whom
789 were Ranee setbehea. There won ales layman who
were in the babel of performing the
z=7, but the
validity of such morrlesea had boos
Even as
late as 1819 an eteeeryt woo mods et Ilapoomo Court of
Bombay to our* as sodas for weeded orrevosordise,
the ground that 1M nsZ wen ; bat the comet
held the lateens.' Mho .In • similar case, however,
the Supreme Court of had bold the marriage to be
bad. There were only mix ministers of the Scotch free
church in India, but every marriage performed by them
was liable to be questioned. To obviate all these evils, and
assimilate the law of India to that of England, the present
bill had been introduced.
The Earl of ELLENI3OROUGII did not object to the
principle of the bill, but he thought some of its details
were not adapted to the state of society in India.
The bill wee then read a second time.
STEAM COAL VOlt THE NAVY.
The Earl of ELLENBOROI:011 called the attention of
the government to certain experiments which had been
made by Sir H. De La Beebe and Dr. Lyon Mayfair, with
• view to test the quality of various descriptions of coal,
to be used on hoard steam-scuds. Ile recommended
similar experiments being tried on Indian coal, and that
those gentlemen should Nur:Ally report :ix to the liability of
the ditErent kinds of coal to spontaneous combustion. Ex-
periments should also be made at sea, and under the boilers,
because the atmosphere at sea might have some effect on
the generation of steam.
The Earl of MINTO (who was very indistinctly heard)
was understood to is that the subject had engaged the
maims attention of the Admiralty, end that the sugges-
tions of the noble earl would receive due consideration.
Various experiments had been tried, chiefly with a view to
test the relative power of various kinds of coal for the pur-
poses of steam navigation.
Their lordships mourned at ten minutes before six
o'clock.

HOUSE OP COMMONS.—Tursruy, Ne• 13.
Then- being only 21 members prtacnt at four o'clock, the
haw adjourned.

Elie enirefsis.

TO CORRESPONDENTS:

•arssad Ulnas sr" Tb Eassyss." sosuSalas • as saw lissaiaa's
Weals," Is published every Ni.m, sal !lids, WOK. t• time

tor pot.
Illonuommantotaild ON "TM Rsorms," Leedom Toole mom
moo be al Um. 446" 1.1, Nomonommet, M Two *Mock as Mo
My of mbioadm.

111011 WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE
Two MI —lderstag. M. S,M. Afters*" IL Ma.
Tammany —Wanly. IL liel Aft/T11•011. Sks. lia.

LONDO.V, B7?D.VESDAT, MAY 14.

Lase night the more voracious devriurers of news
at the clubs were rather mystified by the late edition
of the Seen. Turning to the place in that journal
where the commencement of the evening's proceed-
ings in parliament are wont to be recorded, they read
with surprise that "the Flying Dutchman won by a
neck." )lad a tyrannical government compelled the
newspapens to substitute allegorical intimations of
what was said in purliament, a. used to he done in
the early. days of looNsiee, for the Isneiftde reports
of our time ? Was Culeuel Siumoite, with Ids
motion its advertising vans and street organs, typified
by the ing Dutchman who had won by a neck ?
—or was it Mr. Ilexe, with his bill fur Parliamen-
tary Itaorm ? Further examination of the broad-
ahmt "bowed that there hail been " no house" at
the Common's, owing to the non-appearance of mem-
bers at 1 o'clock, and that the news of the York
races hull usurped the place usually devoted to the
more tardy movements of the legislature.
Various were the speculation's as to the cause
which had prevented a house from being made.
Some were of opinion that "the Times had
dime it all." Our contemporary had demon-
strated in the morning, with great vigour of lan-
guage, if not of logic, that Mr. Hums and Mr.
O'Costsot were political hromios. Perhaps hon-
ourable members, looking through the spectacles of
the Moult, had seen two O'Costoots in the house,
and hail discreetly resolvsal to abstain from legislating
at a time when they saw double. Others, less chari-
table, looked at the enormous list of motions for the
evening on the paper, and concluded that the house,
in • tit of laziness, had recoiled from such a Hercu-
lean enterprise as to go through it. The quantity
of work cut out for one evening was certainly appal-
ling. There were no has than twenty-six notices of
motions of the most varied and contradictory kind.
Mr. EwaKt had one motion to reduce the number of
members composing select committees to seven ; and
Mr. Pero another to increase the number of me.rn-
hers on the select committee on the Kaffir tribes to

eighteen.
In solar as the principal motion of the evening
—Mr. Hewes bill to amend the national represen-
tion —is euncerned, it is probable that little has been
lost by the adjournment beyond an opportunity of
witnessing some painful exhibitions of tergiversation
and equivocation on the part of professing reformers.
Want of harmony and concert among members pro-
fessing the same opinions—the utter disruption and
infinitesimal subdivision of all parties in the legis-
lature, have reached their height. Every man is
for his own hand, " like the bandy-legged smith
in " The Fair Maid of Perth." On the occasion of
the last division on the income-tax, tho very small
party of sturdy independent liberals dividod
and went to buffets. Mr. COBDEN took up the
gauntlet thrown down by Mr. Hum Last night,
Mr. 'filouvs Drurostme (of all men in the world)
WWI prepared to give Mr. Hr*E's motion for reform
the go-by, by moving that the discussion should be
postponed till next session, and even then confined
to the question of extended suffrage, bsgrkiny the
other points included in Mr. Hreiev bill. It is nut
worth while to conjecture what moved the honour-
able member for Finsbury to take upon him so
invidious a task as resisting a motion for parlia-
mentary reform, when there was Mr. Insuaint ready
to assail it with hostile arguments, and Lord JouN
Ites.4ri.i. to smother it amid professions of devoted
affection. It is enough that Str. Thoitos lltiscounE
has contributed another fact to prove that there arc
at this moment almost as many parties in the House
of Commons as members.

Shall we condole with Lord JOHN Rrssr.m, be-
cause the discumion has not taken place, or shall we
congratulate him ? On the one hand, he has possibly
escaped being compelled to be a little more explicit
as to the scope and nature of the reform he intends
to propound next session. His scheme is still as
much enveloped in obscurity as "the great Asian
mystery" itself; and mune speotanis pro magma:flea
On the other hand, hoonity have wished for an op-
portunity to repel the insidious averment made yes-
terday by the Tone*, that ''extinguishing half a-
dozen boroughs is, perhaps, as much as we are to
expect from the aunistenal measure of next sew
pion."

The confession of faith on the subject of parlia-
mentary reform issued yesterday by the Times, is
even as comical a manifesto se could well emanate
from • journal which little more than • week ago
was psectaiming the necessity of extensive changes
in our electoral system, and complimenting Lord
Joins Russeti. for having mastered courage to
attempt to snake them. On the score of household
our. contemporary roundly declares that it
I.ll= be imply •• nuisance sad • burden to the
unfortunate householder." Men don't want to have
votes: " the suffrage is positively despised:" and " in
ths present am. a things to oMw men votes is to
east pearls before swine." The reilisteibution of
the electoral districts, triennial parliaments, and
vets by ballot, are cried down by •the nnses in
language quite as elegant and emphsdc as
that we have been quoting. And t 6 parlia-
mentary reformer that was some ten days ago, 'winds
isilrinydeelaring that the great merit of Earl GUT'S
Act consisted in its leaving "an identity be-
tween the parliaments of 1831 and 1832;" and urging
r an insuperable objection to any parliamentary

reform that we can only have " a new pathologist on
the set 7 serious condition of throwing way the old,
one." The Times might extend thiii orgy/went even to.
dissolutions. Parliaments, it might say, ought never
t) be dissolved ; fur we can only obtain " a new par-
liament on the very serious condition of throwing
away the old one."
The Times enjoys the reputation of being a trust-
worthy political weathercock. If we may judge by
the way it points at present, parliamentary reform is
as surely wmdbound as a fleet in the chops of the
Channel with strong gales from the eastward.

IT is now upwards of two years since the present
government advised the QUEEN to issue three royal
commissions of somewhat cognate characters, and
having objects of a similar tendency. The first was
a commission to inquire into the best means of in-
creasing the value of church property; the second,
to inquire into the best means of subdividing large
parishes ; and the third, to go carefully through the
reports of the old parliamentary commission on pub-
lic charities, and to see what could be done for the
improvement of those foundations which had not
already been engulfed in that bottomless pit—the
Court of Chancery: all three very useful and proper
objects of investigation, and of legislation too. Let
us, then, see what have been their results.
The first commission has made two reports, in
which are several important suggestions and proposi-
tions for settling the vexed question of church lease-
holds, the sum and substance of which are, that a
right of perpetual renewal of ordinary lands shall
be secured to the tenants on payment to the eccle-
siastical freeholders of something like 371 per cent.
of the actual value of the estate leased, with higher
terms in cases of building land and mines. And in
reference to these reports a bill has lately been in-
troduced into the House of Lords by Lord CARLISLE,
professing in its preamble to carry .out their recom-
mendations, but, in reality, imposing much higher
terms of perpetual renewal. For, in round figures,
and amid 4 a labyrinth of words and clauses arranged
in perplexing disorder, it substitutes SO per cent., or
half the actual value of the land, for the 371 per
cent. proposed by the Church Leasehold Commis-
sioners. _ _

This measure has, of course, caused much interest,
both in and out of the church; and it is contended by
many persons in the establishment that 50 per cent.
is too small a proportion to derive from the rental of
church lands; whilst, by the lessees out of the church,
it is argued that to demand so much is really to con-
fiscate a certain amount of their property ; and that
the legislature ought not to exceed the recommenda-
tions of the report made under Royal authority, for its
information and guidance.
The question so in controversy is, no doubt, a diffi-
cult one. On the one hand, the church could run
out these leases, generally of only 21 years' dura-
tion; for the tenants have no legal right of re-
newal. But, if the church were to proceed
to that extremity, it would probably lose
rather than gain income ; for the tenants, not
being liable to impeachment for waste, would
of course, in the meantime, exhaust and ruin the
land, and return it at last worthless, for the next
half century at least, to the church, without a tree, a
hedge, a bush, a blade of K 11111.9, or a shed on it.
The case is, then, clearly one for a fair and equit-
able compromise. The ecclesiastical freeholders of
this property are, under the influence of modern
legislation, which is making them stipendiaries of
the Ecclesiastical Commission, fast ceasing to be
under that pecuniary necessity and compulsion to
renew, for the sake of the fines, every seven years,
which they were formerly subject to, and wherein
hitherto lay the security of the leaseholders for re-
newal. So that, unless the latter can get the right
of perpetual renewal secured to them soon by legis-
lation, the price they will have to pay for it at a
later date must increase in value, as the longer they
wait, the more the church will want. And though no
pastrami:meta of the ultimatesettlement of the question
can destroy the moral right they have to retain a
large interest in the lands they have so long enjoyed
and over which they possess almost the power of de-
struction, still, the sooner terms arc come to, the
better for all parties.
Whether Lord CARLISLE'S bill contains such terms
as the church and its tenants ought to accept as a
settlement, is a question we will not at present ven-
ture to express any decided opinion on. For, in all
probability, the measure has been prepared rather to
bring about an arrangement than to be carried
through parliament this session. And, if so, we can
only urge the subject on the leaseholders attention
and determination—for it is not a question that will
bear indefinite postponement, at least to their ad-
vantage.
The second commission referred to has also, our
readers know, made a report; the main recom-
mendation of which—a great auction of the Low)
CHANCELLOR'S 700 livings—was so preposterously
absurd that everyone laughed at what had neverthe-
less the sanction of a leash of bishops. But, in addi-
tion to this report, there has been great talk of a
bill prepared by this commission, which was to do
wonders in the way of parochial subdivision. As
yet, however, it has been all talk and no wool. For,
though we have had two or three bills, apparently
coming from Lord AsniEr and his associates, they
have grown "small by degrees and beautifully less '• '
until the bill of 1851, also in Lord CARLISLE'S hands
in the Lords, comes out a miserable shred of a mea-
sure, to haunt like a ghost the slumbers
of Mr. Envoscars's good intentions; which
have been marred, defeated, and ruined, no doubt,
by as vilely composed a commission as ever
indicated whig complicity with episcopal craft.
Such a bill, though now under consideration,
is not worth a moment's thought ; its only possible
use is to give Lord CARLISLE, the appearance of doing
something in the Lords ; so there we leave it.
Of the third commission, composed almost entirely
of lawyers—that, we mean, relating to charities—all
that the public knows of it is that it has recom-
mended the institution of half-a-dozen Chancery suits
about some small, peddling wretched charities, the
abuse of which, under a wholesome state of law, it
ought not to take half an hour to correct and put
right ; and these suits are, we suppose, dragging
their slow and costly length along, with a score of
others of more formidable pretensions and more ex-
pensive habits, all prosecuted in the name of the
ATTORNEY-GENERAL.

Now, far be it from us to deny that considerable
properties have been rescued from long-confirmed
alums and applied to the best of all causes,
education, by means of suits of that sort; for we
know what has been accomplished at Birmingham,
at Wimborne, and a host of other places; and we
look forwurd to what may be achieved at St. Cross,
when Sir ALEXANDER C.OOYBURN, or some of his
successors, shall at last have brought Lord Gen,-
FORD to boor for his waste of that noble foundation.
lint that knowledge's not inconsistent with the opinion
that all that has been accomplished has been done at
a very scandalous cost; and it is, therefore, with
very great satisfaction that we observe some impor-
tant returns are about to be moved for, to show the
number of Arroaxxv-Gxxxn.u.'s charities gaits in
progress; the results of those which have terminated;
, the expense of both classes; and the general cost of
the machinery so snugly pat in motion on this
subject.
It is now ten years since the last return was made
to parliament on this important subject, and from it
we learn that tho ATTOILVIT-GENEILAL and his
lawyers had no fewer than 203 charity suits of one
sort and another pending in the Court of Chancery
in Hilary Term, 1841, and that in two years their
coats had reached the enormous sum of 12,121 L 12s. Bd.,
reduced on taxation to 11,7941. 4s. td. And if liti-
gation and colts have during the last ten years gone
on at that rate, it is high time parliament should know
something further on the subject, and what have been
the practical results of these costly proceedings.
No doubt these suits have, at enormous expense
to the charities they affect and at great profit to the
lawyers who are employed, produced some benefit.
But in another point of view they have done much
harm ; for, with the Court of Chancery to resort to,
and with that court blocked up with them, a real
and thorough reformation and re-adaptation of the
old charitable foundations of England to the wants
and necessities of modern times have been prevented.
And though two years ago a commission was ap-
pointed to devise some -better machinery, so be-
lawyered was it, that its only result has been to
incrtues the number of Chancery suits previously at
work !

Such are as yet the only coasequenoes of these
three royal commissions; and they won't mare the
royal documents involved in their issue from the