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London, England, 1847-02-12 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, FEB. 12.

IN the house of Lords, yesterday, the Chelsea
Pensioners Bill was read a third time. The Duke of
'tension) gave notice of his intention on an early
day to move for the appointment of a committee on the
law of settlement. 'Die remainder of the sitting
was occupied in the presentation of petitions, and
conversations arising thereon.
In the 'louse of Commons Mr. M. GIBSON stated,
in answer to a question from Mr. Minix ELY, that a
bill was under tho consideration of the Lord Chan-
cellor, for enabling Joint Stock Companies to wind
up their affairs. Lord JOHN RUSSELL, in answer
to Mr. ROEBUCK, said it was the intention of
the government that the bill for granting loans
' to the landed proprietors of Ireland for the improve-
ment of their estates, and the Irish Poor-law Bill,
should pass their several stages as nearly in succes-
sion as possilEle to each other, so that they might
reach the House of Lords on the same day, or with
only one intervening, if possible. Mr. SMARM(
CRAWFORD submitted a resolution in reference to the
amendment of the law of landlord and tenant in Ire-
land; but, on an intimation from Mr. LABOUCH FRE,
who moved the previous question, that the subject
was under the consideration of the government, with
the view of bringing in a bill, the hon. member
withdrew his motion. Mr. AGLIONBY obtained leave
to bring in a bill fur the amendment of the Commons
Inclosure Act. Mr. STRUTT, in an explanatory speech,
moved the introduction of the bill for regulating the
proceedings of the commissioners, and amending the
law relating to railways, which, after some discussion,
was introduced and read a first time. On Lord low(
RUSSELL'S motion lnr going to the orders of the day,
an animated discussion arose as to pteceeding with
the second reading of Lord GEORGE BENTINCK'S
Railway hill for Ireland; Mr. SMITH O'BRIEN
urging -delay, on the ground that, if the second reading
were carried adversely to ministers, before the
remedial measures now before parliament were
passed, the consequences would be most disastrous
for Ireland. Lord JOHN RUSSELL being now, as he
was originally, wholly opposed to the bill, as inter-
fering altogether with the financial plans of the
government, called upon his noble friend either to
abandon it, or proceed with it at once, or at the
latest to-morrow : when it should have the preference
over the other order!, except the Destitute Persons
(Ireland) Bill. Lord GEORGE BENTINCK regretted
that ministers had staked their official existence on
the result at which the house should arrive on the
bill he had introduced, but accepted the challenge of
his noble friend, and would move the second reading
this day. The adjournment of the house was pre-
ceded by an announcement from the Deputy-Serjeant-
at-Arms, that a stranger had been found in the mem-
bers gallery, and was in custody ; but, as it appeared
he was a member's friend, and had gone there by
mistake, he was immediately discharged.

So, it appears that we are to have a new govern-
ment; that whilst England has put forward its most
liberal men, to care for Ireland, assuage its famine,
employ its labour, and undertake that the imperial
treasury shall pay half the cost, the Irish landlords,
out of pure gratitude for the government of Lord J.
RUSSELL and hie friends, have crossed the channel for
the purpose of taking their places. We are to have
a SLIGO and BENTIN CR, a WINSTON BARRON and
RANK'S cabinet. The Irish landlords are to become
lords of the treasury, really and metaphorically.
Under the green flag of Irish Repeal, or, what is
tantamount, of Irish exclusive interest, this would be
difficult. But Lord GEORGE BENTINCE supplies the
orange colour. And green and orange may win
the heat. It is a very odd mixture, and would make
rather a piebald cabinet. But we are in the age of
combination and coalition.
We understand the leaders of the party that are
coming in paid a minatory visit yesterday to Lord
JOHN RUSSELL. The Irish were the spokesmen, and told
the premier that they should have millions of money,
on their own terms, to be employed under their own
direction, or under that of companies whom they
patronised ; and they added that the Protectionist
party supported the Irish party in thus dictating to
government. The premier replied by entreating the
Irish party to take his seat, to assume the helm of
the imperial government, and dispose of the fulness
(or emptiness) of the British treasury in the way
they best pleased. For as the Irish gentry came
to dictate policy and measures to the government, the
government would certainly leave the Irish party to
I had the money where they could.
This conduct of the Irish landlords is certainly a
very happy step towards bringing about a repeal of
the union, and if Mr. SMITH ()Telex had any hand
in producing it, he deserves great credit for his in-
genuity. No imagination could have devised a
scheme better calculated to disgust the English
people; nor, indeed, could RABELAIS himself lave
Invented anything all
so absurd or so comical ss
these beggars of yesterday getting on horseback.
taming lords of England's government and fortunes,
AA according to the proverb, riding to Old Nick
with both.
We shall not condescend to discuss Lord GEORGE
Baarrnex's railway scheme. His lordship knows as
leach of railways as of mountains in the moon. lie
is in this instance merely one of those wide-mouthed
wooden figures, who gesticulate and pour forth words
and cyphers which others thrust into them from be-
hind. He is an unconscious machine, and knows
as little of the effects of his acts, either upon
the financial or political interests of both countries, en
be does of those of Asyria. lie is guiltless and
innocent as a child, despite him arithmetic. And it
Mould be unfair to consider him as responsible for
thus foolishly playing into the hands of jobbers and
anti-Anglicans. But there must be surely some awn
of his party able to awake themselves and him on
the brink of the quagmire into which he is plunging.
And we should equally say that there were sea
amongst the Irish, even though they were landlords
and martyrs, endowed with modesty and good seam
sufficient to make them shrink from dictating at the
present moraent to an English government the mea-
sure, and the mode, and the condition, of the charity
'hat ietland requires.
The fact is, that the country and parliament are in
this crisis paying the penalty
.of the protectionist
party having selected so utterly inexperienced a man
for their chief. Lord GEORGE BENitscit saw that
the government hesitated to enumerate Irish rail-
roads amongst its series of measures ; and he g
it inconsiderately, resolving to make it his ower.as
correspondence of the Board of Works shows, on the
contrary, how seriously and fully government consi-
dered that mode of relief, and what sound objections
it came to entertain against government grants for
anything beyond the earth-work of railways. Lord
GEOROE, however, plunged head-foremost into the
scheme—sought out hie statistics and information
after be had engaged himself, and obtained them, to-
gether with encouragement, from partieli naturally
interested in such a vast and complicatiel speculation.
The worst disgrace that oould befal English sad

Irish landlords, would be to let them embark in this
monstrous jobbery, and a.ssiime the reins of govern-
ment to carry it out. But as all parties have a suffi-
cient remnant of sense, which generally awakens at
the hour of peril, we do hope that both Irish and
English, squires and lawyers, stags and sportsmen,
will employ this morning in recovering their wits,
and drawing hack from the signal set of folly, which
they bad well nigh committed.

Is the house in Downing-street assigned to our
foreign affairs there is a set of malty fusty rooms ap-
propriated to the slave trade. The passage leading
to them is crammed with those ponderous masses of
white books which are annually transmitted by parlia-
ment to hater shops, and by " the offiec"to ourconsuls
" for preservation to the archives of their consulates."
At the end of the passage is a dark room containing
twoor three greyish-faced old clerks ; and beyond it
is the aanrtum wherein sits "the head of the depart- I
ment," who, to stimulate his energies, has elegantly I
and characteristically hung within his view slave-
irons and slave-whirs. Into this dingy apartment,
of coarse, every foreign secretary hies for informa-
tion with which to receive anti-slavery deputa-
tions, and for arguments to meet Mr. Heart's
economical notions about the expense of our
African squadron. To it he looks to be told
of opportunities of doing "something zealous that
will please the Quakers." In short, in the hands of
its chief is the conduct of England in the only matter
in which, now-a-days, she stands forth to tee world
as, to use the languare of the CtilisTositsx theology,
" a state having . a conscience." With all proper re-
spect for the abilities, industry, and good feeling of
the most respectable gentlemen who work this depart-
ment, it may be easily imagined that their observa-
tion of the actual state of public opinion here and
abroad is not so clear as it would be', it they were not
toiling twelve hours a dty among their old statistics
and reproduciar their old ideas: for certainly docu-
ments do occasionally issue thence, which show them
to be as leunentaaly he
hind the rest of he world as
was the good old lady in the fairy tale who sat spin-
ning in a garret of the palace for twenty years with-
out ever hearing of the edict for abolishing distaffs.
Here, for example, is their last production :
FOREIGN OFFICE, Nov. 11.—Sir,---I have to refer you is
the circular issued under date of May 8, 1811, to H.M.
reactionaries residing is countries where the condition of
slavery exists, acquainting them with the opinion of WM.
government, that it would be unfitting that any officer hold-
ing an appointment under the British crown should, either
directly or indirectly, hold or be interested in slave property.
In furtherance of the principle thus laid down, and in order
to prevent 11. M. functionaries from being engaged,
under any circumstances, in the purchase or sale of a slave,
H.M. government has coins to the determination of pro-
hibiting all British functionaries residing in slave-holding
countries from administlring to the estates of deceased per-
sona in caws in which slaves form part of the property of the
deceased ; and you are lierchy prohibited accordingly. You
will pubi ish this instruction for the benefit of all British stas-
es rfsident in Venezuela.—PstmEitsrox.—B. H. Wil on,
The foreign secretary's name is, of course, appended
to many papers he never reads ; and we are convinced
Lord PatsteitsvoN never rend, or at leak seriously
considered, this letter: for, if he had, so acute a states-
man would at once have seen how many nice and diffi-
cult, but moat important, questions must arise as to its
meaning. For instance, there are in Brazil several
mining companies which own and work with slaves,
and which can carry on their speculation by no other
labour; those companies are mainly composed of Eng-
lishmen, whose peculiar position as slaveholders in
such cases has been recognised by the statute law of
this country. Would the consul be precluded from admi-
nistering to the estate of a shareholder? Again, an
English merchant resident in Brazilmay,—the chances
are he must,—hold one domestic slave or household
servant; and have at his death no relative or partner
near. Is the whole of his property to be abandoned
to the mercy of strangers ? Or, to put. as we are en-
titled to do, an extreme ease : an Englishman in
Carolina directs by will the liberation of his slaves,
and at his death there is no executor on the spot. Is
the consul to be precluded from administering to the
estate? If so, the state authorities who would be
bound to interfere would, by state laws, be also bound
to defeat the disposition in favour of the slaves.
Compare this letter with the provisions of the 6
and 7 Vict, cap. 98. That statute contains one clause
which contemplates the possibility of a British sub-
ject lawfully holding and selling a slave, and another,
eepecially protecting English shareholders in the
joint stock companies referred to, as well as persons
who may sell slaves, of whom they "shall or may
have become possessed of prior to such sale, by inhe-
ritance, devise, bequest, marriage, or otherwise, by
operation of law." This act was especially enacted:
to control British subjects residing abroad. And now
the Foreign-office, of its own mere motion, steps in,
and by a stroke of the pen, repeals :his statute, and
seta beyond the protection of their country, men
whom even the enthusiasm of Lord Ititounrisst
protected by legislation.
It is no imaginary evil of which we are now com-
plaining. For no English merchant resident in a
slave state can conduct any business of importance
without becoming interested in the property which
(horrible as is the idea) constitutes the true capital of
those countries. Ile cannot take security. upon the
property of any native ; he cannot become interested
in any agricultural, mining, or manufacturing buai-
new ; he cannot even manage the affairs of his own
stores, without assuming some interest in slaves : and
if the act as he must act, his country withdraws
from his kindred her protection. No, not his
country ; for she has expressly, by statute, bound
herself not to visit upon them the unavoidable act of
their relative; but the minister of their country—a
functionary whose very title expresses that he is but
the servant of the laws, and who has thus taken
upon himself the power of exceeding those laws?
Is this the act of any reasoning being ? Or is it
but an accident of the despatch-writing machinery
of the slave-trade department?

FRANCE.—CORN RIOTS AND CORN PRICIA.-•-
The grain-riots are not yet suppressed in the provinces. Ac-
counts from Orleans say that the labourers in the forest near
that city have rises in arms, demanding money and bread,
and have extorted considerable quantities of both from the
principal inhabitants, who yield to their demands rather
than expose their property to depredation. The fall which
Wok place in the corn and flour markets within the last fort-
night was merely the result of the excessive and momentary
supplies produced by the temptation of high prices. The
farmers appear to have brought to the Paris market all that
they could, without actually emptying their stores, and
erica accordingly fell. 'T be reaction is now beginning. In
all the markets round the capital, the rise is as considerable,
and more sudden, than the fall. In a single day an increase
has taken place equal to the fall of two weeks. At Chartres,
foe example, a rise of from 21f. to Slf. per hectolitre has
taken place. This rise will doubtless continue till the end
of the month, when wheat will probably exceed 40f. per
hectolitre, equivalent to 975. per quarter, and dour to 110 f.
per sack.
SWITZERLAND.—Advices continue to be re-
ceived from Switzerland unfavourable to the continuance of
tranquillity. The struggle betyeen the cantons of the league
and the federal government assumes every day a more
threatening aspect. The agents of the absolute courts are
every where sowing the seeds of civil Ole, and organizing
resistance to the federal authorities. In the face of these
events, the constitutional states and their representatives are
pasive. In the canton of Lucerne experienced officers are
employed in fortifying all the vulnerable points. At no
previous period were military preparations carried on on •
greater scale. As there are no viable financial resources to
meet suchexpemes in the canton, it is assumed as certain that
eubeidies are received from abroad. The cantons of the
league expect measures from the diet and the vorort di-
rected against their separate associations, and more particn-
Lrty the Jesuits. They do not conceal their inten-
um to oppose any such measures by force. ,
GERMANY.—A letter from Berlin, Feb. 4th, states
that the Queen of Prussia, who was attacked with • violent
cold on the 30th ult., is still seriously indisposed. The !mi-
litia of the tth says that her Majesty passed a bad night,
and that the fever had increased. More than 1,000 persons
of eery class of society thronged the palace gateway to
immure after her Majesty.
Cosolo.—The dual sanction has been recently
ens to three important organic laws which were voted in
the last diet, viz., one introducing an improved mode of
doming the members of the diet; another, rendering the
members of the government responsible for any violation on
their part of the constitution; and a third one, imposing •
tax on the royal demesnes, towards defraying the expenses
et
the State.
Cracow.—The Austrian Observer of the Ist says:
Cracow having been the central point to which were
sent all article* and merchandise subjected by the frontier
countries to heavy import duties, or restrictive conditions
of entry, the annexation of the republic to the Austrian
raosarehy caused t difficulty in commercial transactions,
led thereby to the wants of the population. In con-
sequence, the commerce of Cracow addressed a petition to
the Austrian government, setting forth that the cessation of
the commercial privileges of Cracow was necessary as an
maatial foundation for commercial relations with the Aus-
trite empire. Several persons, however, flattered them-
selves that for some time to come a free commerce in the
aerehandise still in the entrepola would be permitted, and
tocouraied from interested motives that belief among the