The Express.
London, England, 1851-06-20 00:00:00

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4. The right of the bishops to subject their subordinates
is a special exami nation, and to punish them according to
ha canon law.
6. Tele abolition of the examination prescribed by the
state for'seminarists.
6. The abolition of the right of sanction of the govern-
ment in filling up vacant cures.
T. The abolition in the exercise of the ecclesiastical penal
jurisdiction of the right of appeal to the secular tribunals.
This *hall extend from the simple remonstrance to the re,
mond from office and the loss of emolument. Every at
tempt to appeal in these matters to the secular authority
shall be looked upon as an act of disobedience to the legal
authority of the church, and shall be punished by excommu-
nicatio laattsee sententia.
8. The establishment of seminaries for yo aBl boys.
9. Episcopal sanction for the nomination of masters for
religious education in the colleges and universities.
10. Abolition of the right of placct of the Secular autho-
rity as regards the 7.u'etication of papal bulls, of briefs, and
pastoral letters of the bishops to the members of the
clergy.
11. Permission for the bishops to preach to the people
in public, and to hold exercises for the instruction of

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MOH WATIN AT LONDON BRIDON
Tffn th. lbs. Afterioce, be.ifr
Taxossor—Morning. 6i.55m Attenitosi Th. 17m,

LONDON, FRIDAY, JUNE 20.

"HAPPY is the nation," Says the Fretiais historian,
" whose annals are vacant." In the olden time, chro-
nicles were, substantially, little more than catalogues
of remarkable misfortunes. A singularly abundant
harvest was either not noted at all, or disposed of in
a sentence. Seasons of scarcity were topics of
eloquent lament; but of those of abundance nothing
seemed to be predicable. We are passing from this
melodramatic tone of national thought by degrees.
Great facts are recognised as such, and their teaching
is listened to, although they do not make their
appearance sword in hand; and events are beginning
to be placed in the first class of national interest
and importance, though unsullied with the dust of
ruined cities and unstained with human blood.
We arc still too prone, however, to overlook the
gradual and the peaceful, and to be fascinated with
I the more startling and transitory, though generally
far less consequential circumstances that are
around us. Our very language betrays the
love of exceptional and personal matters above those
that affect whole classes of society, or even entire
communities, for the better or the worse, silently but
seriously. Not to instance the royal family affairs that
arc continually dignified with the high sounding
name of " revolutions," the tidings being brought "by
express," and announced in sentences of gasping
brevity ; and the Significance of which, past, present,
or to come, is probably limited to the grief of some
score of ruined flunkies, who henceforth must work
for their bread; we are apt to apply such terms as
crisis, for example, to the sudden break-up of a
cabinet, or'• the sudden break-down of some great
commercial combination. The idea that a crisis may
come and go gradually, and without disruption or
catastrophe, we hardly realise. Yet, that it may do
so is certain, as a recent instance may suffice to
show.
For several months the state of the cotton trade
has been one calculated to cause apprehension and
anxiety. A succession of deficient crops had ren-
dered the supply of the raw material scarce beyond
any example; and the accounts of the produce of last
year's yield tended still further to aggravate the evil.
The consequence was that, during the winter, the
price of cotton wool rose both in Liverpool and New
York, until at length it exceeded rid. per lb., or
nearly double the ordinary value. Speculation had,
of course, no inconsiderable share in bringing
about this result. But the practical dangers atten-
dant upon it, were not on that account the less for-
midable. Beyond a given point, it is certain that
those who convert the raw material into yarn cannot
continue to work their costly machinery with profit.
That point once passed, it was obvious to all who
understood the subject that the owners of spinning
mills must be working at an absolute loss. How long
they could hold on in this course rather than stop
their steam engines and disband their " regiments of
industry," was a question nobody liked to ask himself
or his neighbour. From week to week the price
continued undiminished, and from day to day the
employers with signal prudence and courage con•
tinucd on the one hand to keep their mills open, and
on the other to purchase just enough to feed them
withal. A different course in either direction would
have been disastrous in the extreme. Had any con-
siderable section of the manufacturers, yielding to
the apprehension of a still further rise in price, com-
menmd laying iu stocks even for a month's consump-
tion in advance, the effect would have inevitably
been to ensure the enhancement of market value
from the fear of which it had sprung. And had the
employ-era lost heart and prematurely given up the
struggle, an amount of loss and misery must have
ensued which it is difficult to estimate adequately.
By abstaining from even the most legitimate specu-
lation, and at the same time persevering in the work
of production without immediate profit, the employ-
ing capitalists of Lancashire have not only averted
infinite mischief from-society at large, but as it now
appears, have secured themselves against any loss
beyond the minimum that was possible under
the circumstances of the case. In the month
of April the American market began visibly to " give
way." More accurate estimates of the produce of
last year's crop became daily better authenticated.
In the course of a few weeks a fall unparalleled for
its extent and rapidity occurred. From eightpence
the price of cotton wool declined until it reached
fivepeucc. As it fell the manufacturers were content
to derive the partial benefit rather than grasp at
ulterior gain. No check was consequently given to
the downward tendency. The benefit of returning
abundance in this prime necessary of industrial life
was thus diffused, by degrees, amongst all classes
connected with this department of trade. There
was no drawback, no revulsion, no collapse. A crisis
of extreme peril has passed over, not only with
safety, but with credit and with honour to those
whose fortitude was most keenly tried.
But the cardinal fact remains to be noted. Had
the enhanced price of raw cotton, re-acting on the
price of the manufactured article, caused a serious
diminution of consumption, the great experiment
to which we have alluded could not by possibility
have been attempted for as many weeks as it
was carried on successfully for months. Had stocks
accumulated as well as cost more in their production,
the loss would have been wholly insupportable by
the manufacturing capitalist, and he must have ceased
to weave and spin. But far from this being the case
—tluinks to free trade—the exports of all descrip-
tions of cotton goods during the spring of the pre-
sent year not only equalled but exceeded those of
1850. The quantities in the two periods are stated
in the returns of the Board of Trade to have been
during the first four months of

pirate.
12. Permission to collect men and women for prayer, for
contemplation, and for self-denial.
13. The reinstatement of the bishops in the entire enjoy-
ment of their ancient penal jurisdiction as against such of
the members of the church as shall manifest contempt for
ecclesiastical ordinances.
14. Free communication between the bishops and Rome.
15. No interference of the secular power in questions of
filling up the appointment to the chapter of canons.
16. Independent administration of the property of the
church and of foundations.
17. Solemn protest against the separation Of church and
school.
If one wants to see to what length Roman catholic
pretensions go, even in old constitutional countries,
the constitutions of which are directly averse to their
pretensions, we have but to read those worthy
brethren of Bishop WisEmsx, who, like him, the
agents of Austrian re-action, proceed openly to the
annihilation in protestant countries of those guaran-
tees which were the consequence of the Treaty of
Westphalia.
If the Protestant princes of Germany were not the
most pusillanimous of wretches, unworthy descendants
of those who bore their name and authority in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and who knew
how to hold firm by a principle and fight for it,
instead of making professions and sneaking out
of them, such an insolent series of demands as
those made by the prelates of south-western Germany
would be strenuously answered. The demands of
those prelates are no less, than that a constitutional
state shall abrogate all constitutional rights, make
the catholic clergy permanently independent alike
of the school, the government, and the courts of law,
constituting an imperiton in imperio, a band
of Roman catholic and Austrian subjects in the
midst of the oldest and most protestant states of
Germany. Their demands go to no less length
than to demand that the nineteenth century shall re-
trogade to the fourteenth. And this demand, with
the influence that upholds it, is precisely the same
which has excited such agitation amongst us, which
has insulted the throne, and which finds amongst
English traitors to the reformation most remarkable
applause and abettal.

PETTY legislation is generally mischievous; and
above, all petty legislation on a large subject is to be
deprecated. For small matters, on which there is no
precise or positive law, it is far better to let persons
interested make their own agreements, or trust, iu
the absence of special agreement, to the ordinary
prevalence of common sense, than to enact peddling
remedies, which, in nine cases out of ten, lead to
more practical inconveniences than would arise from
the nun-existence of a remedy ; and in legislating on
small portions of a great question, which demands,
and sooner or later will receive comprehensive
treatment, it commonly happens either that the evil
is aggravated and ultimate amelioration rendered
more difficult, or, " something " having been
dour, public attention is for a time diverted
from the eta itself. Besides, not unfrequently even
in the amending of a law confessedly defective some
job is perpetrated, or the selfish purpose of some grasp-
ing and dominant interest served at the expense of
the general welfare.
Of the class of petty legislation where no legisla-
tion at all is needed, we have abundant examples
every session; and of the second class, where petty
enactments aro made about some small details of a
great grievance, we lave but too many and too fre-
quent instances. Of this sort was the Landlord and
Tenant Bill, introduced by Mr. MeLLINGs, which was
considered in committee at the morning sitting
of the House of Commons on Wednesday. No
ono can doubt that the relation of landlord and
tenant in regard to land and for agricultural pur-
poses, is most unsatisfactory. That is admitted by
nearly every lawyer and land-agent in the king-
dom ; it forms the ordinary topic of complaint
amongst farmers, is the theme of the market
table, aid peeps out at agricultural meetings, even
in the presence of the landed magnates who uphold
the existing anomalies of the law of landlord and
tenant. And even the landowners themselves
scarcely regard the present state of the law as satis-
factory, though they shrink from any fair and ra-
tional amendment of it, and grasp at every means of
exercising increased control over their tenants. True
it is, that in grasping at such power they are seeking
a shadow at the expense of substance, are retaining
legal rights which prevent and impede the applica-
-11 tion of capital to land in the degree that would natu-
rally take place, and thereby lose great and direct
advantages that would, under a reasonable state of
the law, accrue to themselves. But this is no uncom-
mon characteristic of narrow and selfish legislation.
Many attempts have been made of late years to
amend the law of landlord and tenant, so as to give
increased security to the capital of farmers and
induce them to make their investments in husbandry
With more confidence than they usually do ; and
moat of these attempts have either failed altogether,
or have ended in giving to the owners of settled
estates some power of partial escape from the fetters
of an entail. A committee of the Lords, too, recom-
mended some alteration in the law of agricultural
fixtures. The whole subject is unsettled, probably
requires more consideration and discussion, in which
the views and wants of farmers shall find place as well
as those of their landlords, before anything like useful
and comprehensive alterations can be made. In this
state of things Mr. MULLINGS brings forward his
little remedial measure, which contains a very
serious aggravation of an existing evil. A person
holding land from an owner who is only tenant for
life, has no claim against the next taker of the estate,
except a certain right to " emblemeats," that ;is, the
right to cut and carry, away yearly crops which
may be growing at the death of the tenant for life;
and the remedy Mr. Mt LLINGS proposes to give is
that the tenant may hold on to the end of his current
year, paying a proportionate part of his rent to the
new taker of the estate.

1850
1851

442,105,204 yards.
493,911,710 „
while the declared value of the former is stated
at 6,598,0991., and of the latter 7,337,9821. So like-
wise in cotton yarn : the quantities were, in the first
four months of
1610 38,900,783 lbs.
1811 42,630,783 ~
of which the declared values arc given at 1,822,6621.
and 2,031,2811. respectively.
♦What a commentary this on the mighty change of
commercial policy on which we have hardly se yet
completely entered! What a refutation of the doc-
trine of over-production of which wo have heard
10 much.

This is merely what in most cases is practically
, the arrangement made in such cases, and an act of
parliament to render it compulsory is almost supere-
rogatory. That clause was readily agreed to. The
secoad clause, which proposed to give the same sort
OUR readers probably remember that Hesse Camel, of right to the executors of the tenant for life him-
a protestant state of Germany, was, in consequence of self if he should be in the actual occupation of the
the struggle of its inhabitants tomaintain their ancient land, was negatived without a division. The sting
constitution, handed over to the Austrians to conquer of the measure, however, was in the third section ;
and to crush. Ono effect of that conquest we long and this section was probably the real object of the
since pointed out; it has been to render the catholic promoters of the bill. That clause enacts that
priesthood of that region predominant, and to en- growing crops belonging to a tenant, seised
courage them to demand that ascendancy, and those and sold under an execution at the snit
immunities, which arc incompatible with any go- of the tenant's creditors, should, so long as
vertunent, more especially with protestant, or with they remain on the farm, be liable to be
tolerant, or with constitutional government. distrained for rent which may become due to
The state of the law in Hesse, as of every civilised the landlord after such seizure and sale. Now,
and even semi-free country, subjected ecclesiastics to the law of distress, the power of the landlord to seize
the lay courts in criminal and penal matters. The his tenants' goods for rent, and to sell them in
monopoly of education was taken from the priest- priority to all other creditors of the tenant, is one of
hood, though
,fur anrceilknece was allowed them. the principal obstacles, probably the chief obstacle to
Clerical appointments, whether of curates or of the investment of capital in farming, by means of
bishops, required the sanction of the government. temporary loans and accommodation, in the same way
All these guarantees it is now the effort of the as other trading businesses are carried on. The
esthetics of Hesse and Franconia to fling off, under farmer, of all the traders and manufacturers of this
the patronage and with the aid of Austria. Lord country, is alone confined to trade with his
CowLEY has sent to the government the einem- own unassisted capital, because he can offer
stances, and their demands, in a document just pub- no such security to a creditor as other traders
lished by order of parliament. They come from the can give—for his whole means may bo swept away
Bishops of the two limos, Wiirtemberg, Nassau, by his landlord. The admitted effect of this law is
Homburg, Frankfort, all protestant states, and of to induce landowners to accept tenants of inferior
Baden, of which a considerable portion is catholic. capital,because, come what will, the landlord's rent, is
The Hamm Gazette repeats, in accordance with the
The
which has been published under the title of •
always safe, and thus a lower standard of means and
te 1401 is to be found in the business of ~ The Assembled Bum been
the ecclesiastical province of
the lient-BAin to the several governments," the following'Amery wen ought to A lower order of men,
demands prefierred by them :and a more numerous class of tenants, are thus
I. The repeal of all religions concessions made since brought into competition for farms, to the detriment
March, 1848.
2. The tea nomination to all ecclesiastical ample of the farmer of skill and capital, forcing up rent;
and benefices by the several bishops in their respective dio- erzgricultuial distre
unduly,nts and being mainly answerable for the loud out-
coal.
3. The limitation of the rights of patronage. prices are at all depressed. And the landowners
of awe always hear when