The Express.
London, England, 1853-11-08 00:00:00

THIS DAY.—Two o'CLocK.

The gold mining share market is a shade flatter
to-day for some descriptions, business being very
dull. Colonial Gold arc now quoted 7.16 to ,9-16
prom; Nouveau Monde, to prem.; Agua Fria,
19-16 to 11-16 prem.; and tlreatNugget, 3.16 to 6.16
prem.
Australian Agricultural duels have advanced to
43 to 41; Peel River us fluted to I prem. ;
North British Australasian I toe prem.; and Scot-
-1 tish Australian Investment, 19-16 to 1 11-16 prem.
lalmperial Brazilian shares hue been deok in at 61 to
I ; -St. John del Rey at 371 sail Osbreb 'st 44.

.

Eite 01:43vel;O•

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
ifterma Edition of Lamm," the time 'whine.
for
publabed every Toeediy and frothy sight, la time
for post.
•

trimmest. intended !, Ertrrig." undon Earning paper.
Wit he at the nice, lu, Bouverinatrint. by Twu o'cletki en the
day el pablintioa.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tsui Oat —blorsdbi, 7b. Aftensooe. 7k.
To4boaauw—ilcaning, Sb. Afterboon, 9h. 7

LONDON. TrESDAT, NOVEMBER 8.

Ora Cabinet Ministers meet to-day in Council.
The notion has gone abroad that the chief business
to be considered is the *election of those measures
whose urgency or importance entitles them to pre-
cedence in the Parliamentary deliberations of next sea-
Won, and to allot to each Minister his portion of the le-
gislative task. Assuredly Ministers will find no diffi-
culty in caning out work enough forParlismcnt. They
are more likely, indeed, to labour under an onlarras
des rico/Jesus and find more business before them than
they have hands to grapple with. So much the
more necessary will it be to exercise their judgment
in the choice of those measures which promise the
most immediate, extensive, and lasting benefit to the
community, and in the apportionment to each of
their number of the task for which nature and
his previous pursuits have more especially qualified
him.

The PREMIER sad the FOREIGN SECRETtIa may,
with considerable p:ausibility, claim exemption to •
considerable extent from such duties. They will
have enough to do in explaining and vindicating
their foreign policy, answering questions and parry-
ing attacks. To Lord ARLIEDEEN, in particular, the
public is entitled to look for some account of the
views he has entertained and the coarse he has pur-
sued with regard to the great question which at
present agitates Europe. The impression that some.
how Or another has come to prevail RA to differences
between him and the Liberal members of his Cabinet
on this score, calls imperatively for some explana-
tion. Lord CLARENDON will be looked to for an
intelligible account of the part which he and his col-
leagues hive taken, and intend to take, in the great
struggle for the maintenance of equity and order in
the international relations of Europe.
Lord Vahan:m.l.ov, it is understood, intends to
grapple in earnest with the great work of Sanitary
Reform, and more particularly with what must lie
at the bottom of any good and efficient system—the
improvement of our sewers and their management.
His Lordship has already given evidence of his
willingness and aptitude to undertake such a task, by
the prompt and satisfactory manner in which he has
set about the closing of intramural graveyards. This
vital measure had been trifled and dallied with by all
his predecessors ; the Noble Lord has done what
others only talked of doing. The same peremptory
energy carried in'o the wider fi. Id upon which he
is said to bo about to enter will add to the
debt of applause which the public owes him for the
good service he has already done. It is scarcely fair to
wk the Hoists SECRETARY to attend in one session to
more than this one Herculean task of cleansing those
Augean stables, our great towns, but if any supera-
bundant energy impel him to more, he can employ it
u►efully in prosecuting the inquiries he has already
set on foot into the abuses that have crept into our
prison discipline, and the maturing of some plan for
the suppression of those that exist, and their preven-
tion in future.

The SECRETARY for the COLONIES has a lighter
task on hand. Indeed, little more need be asked of
him than to abstain from interference; to leave the
Colonise as much u possible to their own manage-
ment. But he may be of essential service in pro-
moting an economical and efficient system of ocean
postage, which will greatly accelerate the develop-
ment of colonial resources, and in keeping a sharp
look-out upon emigrant ships. On this latter sub-
ject we may invite his attention to a report in another
column of the loss of 339 lives on board emigrant
ships.

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of CONTROL—Ike I
Secretary of State for the most extensive and ano-
malous of our foreign dependencies—might easily
carve out plenty of useful work. India is an ample
and almost uncultivated field for useful reforms. Sir
CHARLES, however, is probably exhausted with his
labours of last session. Little things are great to
little men. He ota;ht not, however, to lose a aioment
in patting a stop to the Burmese war and making
arrangements that promise to be conducive to the
prevention of another war in Affghanistan.
The licensing system calls loudly for reform.
Exercised, as it has been, by the justices of peace,
the licensing of public-houses has become a perms-
nest outrage on the public good. Any unfortunate
publican who incurs magisterial is sure to be
crushed; and the most worthless houses, if the
property of a magistrate, are secure of immunity.
The abuses of the licensing system are moreover inti-
mately associated with the monopoly which certain
mammoth brewers have contrived to establish by
their proprietary rights in public-houses. This
question—as part and parcel of the iniquities of
"the great unpaid"—would most naturally fall, like
Huebner, in prison discipline, under the jurisdiction
of Lord PALMLISTON. But as his hands are already
full, perhaps Mr. OtansTo,tu might be induced to
take charge of it. He could materially improve his
revenue by dealing with the subject judiciously and
vigorously. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCIIEQUE2
might also do good service by emancipating us from
the paper duties; which would be to follow up in a
worthy spirit the boon cooferred last session upon
literature and the public by the abolition of the ad-
vertisement duty.
_ _

Relief from paper duties naturally leads the mind
to the kindred subject of General Education. A
powerful argument foe an immediate measure of this
kind will be found in the late riots at Wigan. The
factory operatives, by mutual intercourse and read-
ing, give themselves au education which the legisla-
ture does nothing to improve. Such as it is, how-
ever, its oonsequessoes base been a marked mad is
abstinence from unreessaing sinless. in
resent Btrikos. Mac education might, probably,
Mop Wiese altogether. But eyes the Preston kind
of education, partial and incomplete though it be, has
not reached the dusky and grimy, labourers
underground, and hence their late senseless
and alarming destruction of property. What
has now occurred at Wigan occurred but
• few years ago in some of the iron districts. A
general strike among the more civilised operatives
reached se by contagion to those secluded districts
where generation after generation has been left to
grow up with no more intelligence or refinement
than the brats. that perish ; and the very workmen
who had est them the example shrank appalled at the
appearance of the rude crowd who flocked to their
aid from these recesses. Society cannot ho secured
against frequent servile wan recurring among these
unhappy and neglected outcasts, unless some general
pervading system of education is introduced. While
time is wasted in cavils and disputes about
secular or religions, voluntary or compulsory, the
moral gangrene is spreading and becoming more
inveterate. The active part taken by Lord Gass-
.... .4, in --”noting the Great National Exhibition,
sad 7.."7.7tr, r"!!! to Wm as the

Minister by whom this task might appropriately
be promoted.
The subject of Striker, however, has an important*
beyond what it owes to such accidental, episodical
outrages by the rudest portion of the working classes.
Scarcely a year goes past without its strike in some
district, or in some trade. Strikes are becoming •
chronic disease of our social system. A deeper and
more searching remedy than the settlement of
each special dispute that arises is required.
All the accounts which reach us from the manu-
facturing districts speak of a growing alienation and
embitterment between masters and men, ee hick, is
it become permanent, must render all arbitra-
tion hopeless. Nothing is so likely to check the
growth of so pernicious a feeling as Education
and extensive ameliorations in our partnership laws.
For example, if the social en comstatatlite, as it ex-
ists in France, were introduced here, the intelligent,
industrious, and provident workman would flied a sale
and ready means of investing their savings be tame
very enterprises which afford them employment,
while some mill-owners would find in the aggregate of
such investments better sources for the supply of ad-
ditioaal capital than many they arc at present obliged
to have recourse to. The distinction between the
operative and capitalist assets would thus be ren-
dered less abrupt and sharp, a greater community
of feeling and interest would come to exist among I
them. Peace and good-fellowship would be con-
firmed in our great industrial provinces, the ao-
cumulation and useful appPcation of capital pro-
moted, and the general wealth and comfort of
society be increased. Measures tending to such results
cannot be too soon or too earnestly taken in band.
There arc other measures which seem to cleave
immediate attention. To Sir JAMES GRAHAM might
be recommended the task of "weeding the navy," as
indicated in Mr. TRELAWNY'S letter, which we pub-
lish to-day. But the great measure of the Session—
that which is the only sure guarantee of rational and
honest legislation—is the measure of Parliamentary
Reform which the public has been led to expect.
The story now goes that Lord lons RE4SELL has
devoted his hours of rural quiet to this subject, and
is ready to submit at least an outline of his plan to
his colleagues. He and they will find the people
reasonable, provided the measure they propose be
real. But real it must be.
Here we close our review of the work which presses
upon Ministers to-day, in prospect of the next Par-
liamentary campaign. We have risen from the mere
simple and elementary reforms to that which must
be the completion, the encompassing framework, the
guarantee of all the rest. If the coming session be
not one of the most fruitful and beneficial that has
been witnessed in Great Britain, it will be entirely
the fault of Ministers. There is plenty of work for
them to do; there is a public ripe to support and

. _
encourage their efforts; and there is a Parliament,
with no lack of aptitude for work in its individual
members, if Ministers know how to draw it out.

OUR SHIPS OF WAR.

TO TIM IDITOS 07 Taal 1171145.
8114—Your naval reporter has apparently acted
upon my suggestion to the public to take stock oc-
eseionally of its floating capital ; and he has given
us a catalogue of vessels lying at Devonport which
have never yet been at sea, and which have been
built within the last 30 years. In his budget of
empty boxes are to bo found 6 ships of 120 guns;
3 of 104; 2 of 64; 1 of 78; 15 of 72; and 1 of 70.
Am I wrong in estimating the cost of these too
high at 1,0001. agu i ? If not, the arithmetical con-
clusion is that the short paragraph, which pro-
bably attracted little attention yesterday from
the general reader, contained a hit of
ships worth two million four hundred and
twenty-eight thousand pounds, about which
the British taxpayer knows no more and cares no
more than he knows or cares of Lunar Politics. But
this schedule is but a small portion of the national
stock of war shipping. The Navy list comprises 545
effective ships of all sizes, and 118 ships described as
ships on harbour service ; and among these latter I
will venture to predict there will be found a crazy
set of useless tubs, such as will find no parallel,
except, perhaps, in the waters of Canton.
The practical question is, can we make nothing of
these hulks ? Must they continue a standing source
of expense? How many of them is it deemed
necessary to copper once in five or six years ? How
often must their moorings be examined ? How
many men reside on board to watch in wonder the
silent gyration of each lumbering incumbrance of
navigation, and occasionally vary the monotony of
their existence by fishing for eels over the stern ?
How many are rotten ? How many superseded by
modern discoveries, too weak for machinery, too
bluff bowed for modern notions of speed ?
The practical mode of dealing with this evil must
occur to any one who uses the smallest effort of
common sense in paying attention to it. The Navy
must be carefully weeded. Seep all the sound ships
and those of which the form and structure are still
available in war, let or sell the rest; but, perhaps,
of the two, sale out and out, after due notice, and
without precipitation (otherwise the vessels will go
for a song), would be best policy.