The Express.
London, England, 1846-09-21 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, SEPT. 21.

r is not DON CiRLOS who has escaped, but his eldest
son, the Count de MONTEMOLIN, in whose favour he
lately abdicated his own pretensions. Thu Count has
bowed an address to his followers, and is on his way to
Spain. A better time could not have been selected to
fling this new ingredient into the cauldron of discord.
Never were the numbers and the zeal of those pre-
pared to risk lives or exert utmost efforts for the sup-
port of ISABELLA, fewer and smaller than at present.
Let us for a moment look back, and regard the
foundations which Esear.vtato laid to ensure the
solidity and popularity of the Queen's throne. lie de-
feated the Carlists; but even in defeat conciliated their
most able leaders and most practical men, separating
them from the bigotry of their chief. lie established
a free and fair representative system, confining the
military to their just position in the state. The suc-
cessful defence against Caulks had been in a great
measure carried on by the population of great cities,
armed and determined to defend their walls. For the
Carlist armies overran Spain, and successfully disputed
the opea country, whilst they could never hold any-
thing larger than a village. Gratitude alone, therefore,
no le,s than liberal feeling, dictated that the citizens
of the Spanish towns should retain their arms, their
natior.al guard, and their municipal liberties. On this
point it was tlsat ESBARTERO and CHRISTINA, EXAL-
T IDO and .Monsstano, quarrelled. ESPARTERO tri-
umphed fur a time. But France flinging its weight
into the scale against him, whilst England held aloof,
not only was he overthrown, but the constitution
with him. The national guard was dissolved, the
citizens disarmed, and the system of government re-
lapsed to that of FERDINAND: in other words, to
the intimidation of the people by the army, and of one •
portion of tke army by another.
This system, established by the influence and advice
of France, might nevertheless, however impatiently en-
dured, be considered as but temporary until now. Even
those who bowed under it might hope that, in time,
the Moderados would relent, and restore something I
more than nominal freedom. But the Queen's mar-
riage, effected by this party without the least
effort to conciliate the rest of the liberals; and
a concomitant marriage with the son of the
King of the French, to whom or to whose
offspring must almost necessarily descend the
crown of Spain, considering the peculiar and well-
known
circumstances of the two marriages ;—these
things, with the return of NARVAEZ, show too clearly
that the present system is to be permanent, and that
the existing tyranny, instead of maintaining itself by
the plea of necessity, and as a mere means of restoring
tranquillity to the country, is, in fact, nothing but a
scheme for rendering Spain, its court, and cabinet,
completely dependent upon France.
With such a prospect before the eyes of thorough
Liberals and Spaniards, the Carlists again threaten
to appear on the scene. We know not what degree of
liberty they may offer, and we do not think that Spanish
Liberals would accept any boon of that kind from them.
But it is pretty clear that if they do re-appear
in Spain, and gather together any imposing force,
arms mast be trusted into the hands of the citizens
to resist them ; and those citizens are just as likely (and
with more immediate provocation) to use their arms
against NARTAF2 as against CARRERA. The Legitimist
party, however, will have many difficulties to contend
with, cre it can muster a respectable force. The
Basques are lukewarm and weary. The Catalonians
arc more ripe for revolt, but they do not present
that mass of united population which rendered the
Basques so formidable. It would require consi-
derable funds to gather and discipline followers;
and France would struggle might and main,
nay, would pay to counteract such a rising. France, at
the same time, would do this single-handed. Louts
PHILIPPE. has destroyed the Quadruple Alliance; or,
rather, confiscated it to his own family advantage ;
so that England would look on unconcerned in any
future struggle between the Carlists and CHRISTINA.
This alone, the real neutrality of England, would be
an immense advantage for the former.
The great hope of the legitimist prince must, how-
ever, be in the dissensions of the Liberals, in the dis-
affection of a large portion of the army, and in the deep
discontent of the civic population; which, if unarmed,
could not resist a Carlist attack ; if armed, would not
bear a NARVARZ government. Barcelona is with dif-
ficulty kept tranquil by the furious tyranny of BRE-
TON. Saragossa is in a similar state of feeling and
coercion. We know _the jablic sentiment of
Madrid. To resist at once the Carlists, and this unani-
mous execration of the liberal citizens of every town,
is a task utterly beyond the powers of QUEEN CHRIS-

TINA, General NARTAFS, and Count BRE.+SON. The
French, to be sure, may intervene; and French
bayonets, having once protected the execution of
limo, may, with about the same honour and in the
same spirit, protect the nuptials of the INFANTA. But
the entrance of a French army into Spain would
be viewed with more resentful feelings than even
the invasion of 1823. For the crusade was then un-
dertaken to support a principle, at least, although an
illiberal one. Now, it would be merely a repetition
of NAPOLEON'S invasion, for the purpose of placing a
eon or a brother on the Spanish throne.
Whatever may betide, Louts PHILIPPE has cut
out ample work for himself and his progeny for the
next twenty years in the Peninsula. With 100,0001
men required to civilise Algeria, and 200,000 indis-
pensable to communicate the same benefit to Spain,
the house of ORLEANS will be badly situated to resist
that general hostility which it has now created
throughout Europe. In fact, the NAPOLEON of Peace
has fallen into precisely the same trap as the NAPO-
LEON of War. Singular it is, that the self-same bait,
the crown of Spain, should have enticed and hooked
the two leviathans

A DOCUM ENT has been transmitted to us by our
Dublin correspondent, which places in a striking
point of view the appalling state of destitution
prevailing in some districts of Ireland. The paper
was drawn up by a well-known and influential
resident in the county of Clare ; and is authenticated
by the signattires of the respectable parties (several
of them clergymen) who collected the information by
personal inquiry, while acting as members of the re-
lief committee of the district to which it relates. It
embodies a collection of tables showing the resident,
population, and the food on which they have to de-
pend, in twenty-seven townlands in the south-western
part of Clare.
The potatoes in these townlands have been utterly
destroyed, and the peasantry arc left entirely
dependent upon the corn lands, small in ex-
tent, producing this year, in every case, corn of
an indifferent quality, which has moreover in
some of the townlands suffered from blight. The aggre-
gate of the tabular statements for the whole twenty-
seven, shows that there are in them 2,616 families,
containing 14,414 individuals, dependent for• subsis-
tence upon 2,019 acres of bad corn. In the town-
land of Dough there are 449 families, containing
2,342 individuals, dependent upon 80 acres ; in the
townland of Doonbeg there are 53 families, contain-
ing 355 individuals, dependent upon acres. In
only seven of these townlands, are there provisions to
nerve the inhabitants for a month or upwards ; in only
one of them are there provisions fur two months.
The average is less than provisions fur twenty days ;
some have only provisions for eight, seven, five, or
even two. On a rough average, twenty fami-
lies in each townland have no corn at all. With
their potatoes perished all their resources.
We dwell upon these figures, since it is only by such
a process we can enable Englishmen to compre-
hend the appalling features which scarcity assumes
in Ireland. Throughout the greater part of that
country, the peasant's stock of food is in all seasons
so scanty, that what would cause merely privation
among better-fed people, is famine there. And this
potato blight, withering the staple food of the country
into dead sea-apples, brings home to us, on the other
side of the Irish channel, within a day's journey of
the wealthy commercial centres of Liverpool and Glas-
gow, a prospect of destitution and hunger unsurpassed
by what we have read of in Indian failures of the
rice crops.
- - - - • -

The time which is left the landlords of Ireland to
work in, if they would avert famine from their
dependents, is numbered by weeks, and in some
instances by days. As Mr. O'CoNsami. says, in his
letter to the editor of the ElVlaing Post, " Let
it be recollected that the one thing wanted at present
is food; that the pressure for food is immediate;
that the supplying of food cannot be postponed with-
out the utmost inhumanity—nay, cannot be postponed
with safety to any class."
The letter to which we refer is a model of the kind
, of address which a man possessed of influence like its
writer's ought to issue at such a time. It is brief
and business-like; telling the stern truth of the state
of the peasantry in us few words as possible. "It is
quite true," says Mr. O'Cosxs.i.l., " that many
faults may bo found with the Government plan ;
but then it is rapid of execution, and rapidity
of action is, under existing circumstances, of the
most vital importance." The plan suggests, he
observes in another part of the letter, "the mode of
obtaining food by earning wages : such wages to be
paid for the execution of public works." By a brief
enumeration of the complicated ►egal questions which
would be raised, were the cry of some landlords who
seek to shift the burden from the ir ow n shoulders, listened
to, he quietly puts aside their cavils. He urges all to
do the best with the existing law instead of proclaim-
ing its defects to a starving people. " Let us inspire
in that people a confidence in our exertions, and con-
vince them that we will leave no practicable means
untried to preserve the country from famine and
pestilence."
Mr. O'CONNELL indicates very clearly the mode of
operation under the act. The presentment sessions
are bound to meet on the day mentioned in the pro-
clamation; having met, they are bound to make pre-
sentments for works within their districts; the Lords
of the Treasury are bound to advance all sums without
specified limits ; the Board of Works are bound to put
the works presented in operation without delay ; and
the repayment is not to commence until 1847, " so that
the landlords are by the act left all their resources for
the present year, untouched by the payment of any
rate." Mr. O'CONNELL recapitulates the remedies
competent against presentment sessions disobeying
the law, concluding his enumeration with the
sirmufi-
cant words : " It is, therefore, to the last degree im-
probable that any sessions will refuse to make pre-
sentments."

Under any circumstances we would have augured
the best effects from this address, which in its hurry-
ing brevity and straightrorwardness is more like an
action than mere words. It impresses us like some
one pushing us forward. Our confidence is increased
by the better spirit which, even before it appeared,
was beginning to show itself at the presentment
sessions held under the Lord-Lieutenant's proclama-
tion. The sessions of Upper Ormond and Skibbereen
voted the necessary works promptly and in the best
spirit. The session of Raphoe was under the neces-
sity of adjourning, to allow time for the officers
of the Board of Works to offer suggestions
but the landlords appeared willing to do their
duty. Nowhere has the conduct of the gentry
of Mayo been imitated, who met with their doors
closed against reporters, and appointed a depu-
tation to " enlighten " Lord JOHN RUSSELL on the
propriety of exempting the landlords from contribu-
tions to the national relief.
The peop'e of England and Scotland will grudge
no degree of liberality on the part of Government,
that may tend to relieve their suffering brethren in
Ireland. But the landlords of Ireland must be given'
to understand that the people of England and Scot-
land will insist upon every precaution being taken to
ensure that the relief finds its way to those who
really need it. They will not tolerate the transfer of
advances to find employment and food for the starv-
ing peasant, by some jobbing or juggling into
the pockets of their landlords. They know
that the landed proprietors of Irelard have long
been accustomed to rely upon Government loans and
grants for the means of making improvements of
various kinds; they know that under the first act
passed last session, to provide employment for the
suffering Irish, the special object of relieving the
people was to a great extent lost sight of, in the fear,
shamelessly avowed in many eases, that if they did
not join in the first rush upon the fund, even when

there was no destitution in the district, they might not
obtain what they called " their share of the grant."
They think, with the intelligent editor of the Dublin
Evening Poet, that the land in Ireland can maintain
the people, and ought to be made to maintain the
people ; though they will grudge no advances re-
quired to meet the immediate and urgent destitution
of the Irish poor.

AGRICULTURE must now undergo a transition,
which should base been accomplished thirty years
ago. Then it would have been comparatively tusy
and natural. Nor is it now necessarily dittkult.
The subject has, however, become somewhat com-
plicated and mixed up with political and party
prejudices or antipathies, which have no proper con-
nexion with the interests of agriculture. Every true
friend to agriculture will strive to separate it from
such connexion. The questions which affect has-

bandry are purely economical ; though it may some-
times be necessary, for the sake of explaining or eluci-
dating the actual state of English farming, to refer
to Protectionist errors, as one would refer to bad
seasons or a general blight, because they have pro-
duced permanent effects. They are facts which
cannot be overlooked or forgotten. But we earnestly
deprecate the maintenance of ideas which Pro-
tection has perpetuated, though it did not originate
them. Whatever the immediate or temporary prospect,
farmers must no longer accuatom themselves to look fur
high prices. They should go for quantity without refe-
rence to price, and they cannot go far wrong. Letthem
believe, if they will, that wheat may be as cheap as
the wildest exaggerations of the parliamentary Pro-
tectionists have suggested, but let such belief only
stimulate them to increased production. They will
find the increased produce a reality, and the threat-
ened low price a mere dream.
We could give innumerable instances iu evidence of
the truth of our position, that the farmers who have
disregarded mere price and looked to quantity for
profit, have been for the last thirty years the only
successful farmers. Nor will that fact he seriously
denied, although the consequences which flow from it
may be overlooked or evaded. It will be admitted by
Protectionists that men of large capital, enterprise,
and skill, may enter upon or continue the business of
husbandry under low prices with a fair expectation
of profitable results; but they say: " What is to
become of the many, perhaps the majority of farmers,
who are insufficiently supplied with capital, and who
have exhibited small signs of enterprise or skill in
husbandry ?" This view of the subject we know
to have induced many excellent persons, who were
unable to resist the general arguments used against
the Corn-laws, to abstain from joining in the free-trade
movement. It was the real pinch of the question
amongst farmers ; and it was the most difficult
part of the free-trade argument, because its explana-
tion required the power of taking wide views of the
state of husbandry, not usually possessed by farmers,
in combination with an intimate acquaintance with
, fanning details, seldom acquired by any except
farmers. The supporter of the Corn-laws was told
that farmers must depend less upon grain and more
on stock ; and he at once jumped to the conclusion that
all except the richest lands would be converted into
pasture, and that thereby the employment of half the
peasantry destroyed. Or again, when the obviously
deficient capitals of most farmers were referred to, the
Protectionist assumed that free-trade in corn, and na-
tural prices, would cause all such farmers to be displaced
to make room for a new class of farming capitalists.
And upon these assumptions the most harrowing pro-
phecies of agricultural distress were based. There is
not the slightest foundation for these predictions of
evil. Free-trade is now attained ; and a little busi-
ness-like attention to the real circumstances of hus-
bandry will show how baseless are all such predictions.
In the first place it must be observed, that, although
the principles on which alterations in the system of
fanning will take place in every district, are the
same, the particular mode of working out the principles
will be infinitely varied. Fur instance, the farmer
who occupies a farm of not very good land, one-third
or one-half too large for his capital, must, if he means
to farm with profit, take ouc of two courses : he must
either give up a part of his land, and, applying all
his capital to the remainder, adopt a higher system
of culture upon the smaller area; or he must introduce
a longer rotation of crops, keeping some of his land
two years in grass, and sowing green crops more
extensively. Under the latter plan, he would:probably
breed stock, both sheep and cattle, and only crop such
a proportion of his land with grain as he could manage
to prepare and manure perfectly. A third mode may be
mentioned ; namely, borrowing the additional amount
required forcultivuting the whole farm highly; but that
involves considerations in connexion with the tenures
of farmers which we reserve for future discussion. At
present we will assume the farmer to have such:a secure
possession of his farm as will induce him to lay out his
capital with confidence. Now one of these plans, or
some modification of them, is the mode by which
farmers will have to meet the necessity of increased
produce. Whether the plan adopted be more elabo-
rate cultivation of a fifth or sixth part of the farm
cropped with grain, instead of a half, third, or fourth
part, while the remainder is applied to rearing stock,
and so kept under a gradual course of preparation for
grain ; or whether it be by concentration of all the
farmer's capital on a less quantity of land ; the result
will be to give increased employment for labourers,
and larger returns to the farmer. In either ease the
foundation of improvement must be more stock kept
to supply additional manure, and more perfect tillage
of the land actually under grain crops.
On many estates landholders might, by a firm and
discriminating re-arrangement of their farms, secure to
their tenants and themselves the great advantage of
apportioning the size of the farms to the amount of
capital possessed by the respective tenants ; and
the benefits to all parties from such a re-arrangement
would soon become so apparent. that any slight dirt-
satisfaction which might exist at first would speedily
pass away.

In nearly every backward district, it is certain that
the first steps must be taken by the landowner, if only
to remove impediments to good cultivation which the
tenants have no right or power to remove. A few
practical illustrations of this, drawn from a source
not to be questioned, some of the prize essays of the
Royal Agricultural Society, will fix attention on
several of these points. In most of these prize
essays the writers rather overstate than otherwise
the condition of agriculture in the particular districts
they are describing ; therefore. wherever they admit
deficiencies, such admissions may be taken as pre-
vailing too generally to be passed over.
Thus, in the essay on the farming of Kent, in the
sixth volume of the society's journal, the writer, in
describing the extensive clay district known as the
Weald, after having stated the absolute necessity for
draining before any improvement of the land can be
usefully undertaken, shows that there is a prelimi-
nary obstacle to draining in the hedges and timber-
trees with which the district superabounds. He
says: . .

"Before draiainr can be successfully carried out in the Weald and
other inclosed portions of the county, the small fields must be en-
Larded by grubbin r hedges and feline trees. Not lets than an eighth
of the entire aces of the amble land of this extensive district is
occupied by hedges and tries, taking into calculation the ground that
is injured by their roots and -bade. Many of the fields consist of
only three or four acres ; the mere mechanical ili,advantag.
therefore, of cultivation are obvious, especially when it Is considered
that upon this heavy soil four horses are cruelly worked at length in
ploughing. The corn, too, near the hedges is always of a very info-
rior quality, as well as deficient in quantity, being much injured by
birds and lodged by winds. In showery harvests it is always sure
to be damaged by sprouting, and In frequentle worthless. In
small fields a large proportion of the ground eon.lits of headlands,
which on an adhesive soil in wet seasons are made into a perfect
puddle by the turning of the horses employed in the various pro_
ceases of cultivation ; the ground thus becomes useless. ' Lose tat-
to.-I,' as they are aptly termed, not unfrequently occur inwet autumn.
in small inclosed fields where light and air arc in a measure shut out,
and the important process of evaporation is as a consequence greatly
impeded. Thus. nearly a whole year's expenses, and perhaps a
dressing of manure, are almost lost. There are many thousands of
norm in the Weald of Kent which cannot, under existing cirrus.-
stanres, be euttirated without a positive loss, that might be made to
yield of most kinds of rocs a foil areroge of the kingdom. It is a
mistake to suppose that this portion of the county is in itself so muck
beerier to the rest in the natural productiveness of its soil,"