The Express.
London, England, 1849-06-27 00:00:00

mends that will be made by men who, suddenly
thrown out of their routine existence, oe.ther know
well what they would be at, nor how to set about it,
traditional maxims of administrative policy are
worthless. The politician', both of the colonies and
tins mother country, must cadeovotw to ascertain their
real position, with a view to originate institutions and
adopt a policy suited to their Ti quirements.
The recemities of the time demand at the hands of
the British legislature an entire revision of our sys-
tem of colon government. A change in the rela-
tions of the colonies to the mother country, closely
anal •gous to the change which has taken place in the
relations of private citizens to the general govern-
ment, is inevitable. lithe legislature do not systema-
tically prepare to render the transition safe and
smooth, it will be accomiTshed amid violence and
confusion. At the moment that such a crisis is im-
pending over our national dynasties, Sir WILLIAM
MOLESWORTH his come forward to exhort the legis-
lature to the discharge of its duty and to indicate the
means of saccessfully discharging it. And be has per-
formed his task in a spirit and with an ability every
way worthy of so_great an occasion.
Sir WILLIAM MoLsnwoant's speech, in moving
for an address to the Crown to issue a commission of
inquiry into oar system of colonial government, is one
of those rare specimens of parliamentary eloquence
which make epochs independently of the success or
failure of the motions which they preface. The tone of
the speaker was elevated and dispassionate as that
of a recluse philosopher, his matter real as that of a
practical statesman. He struck at the system, not at
the men who administer it, thus prudently avoiding the
arousing of personal self-complacency to oppose him.
He evinced a perfect mastery of all the complicated
details of his subject, and of its bearings upon every
other branch of national policy and almunstrative
government. He has taken up the theme where the
lamented Cnestss Butuut left. it, and curled it a
stage farther. His speech, to the ample and exact
report of which in our parliamentary proceedings we
invite attention, deserves to be reprinted as a manual
of colonial policy.
There is one of his arguments, however, to which
we must mote particularly advert, inasmuch as it
seems to us conclusive in favour of an entire change
in our system of colonial government, altogether
irrespective of the state of puolio feeling in the cob-
inn. The great uses of colonies are to supply new
and extended mute's for our snrpins produce, and
to afford eligible homes for our surplus population.
There are two classes of British colonies : those (the
UnitedStatei) whkhhavebroken loose from the imperial
union, and those which still retain their allegiance to the
British crown. The former cost us nothing for govern-
ment or protection ; the latter have, in the course of the
last fifteen years, cost us at least 80,000,0001., leaving
out of account what they have cost us in the form of
protective duties and restricted trade. The former
hive, during these fifteen years, absorbed an amount
of our surplus population about equal to that absorbed
by the latter ; and the value of our annual export; to
the former is about a million and a half in excess of
the value of our annual exports to the latter. Under
our existing colonial system, those colonies, with
which we maintain the most intimate and friendly
connexion, have proved the least profitable.
Mr. Hawn, with his wonted flippancy, may call
the statistics and arguments of Sir WILLIAM MOLES-
WORTH vague, and his proposed commission of in-
quiry illusory and impracticable. But reflecting men
will not be satisfied of the justice of such criticism by
the pert common-paces of the Under Secretory.
The urgency of the crisis will make them feel the im-
portance of Sir WILLIAM MOLESWORTR'S proposal.
the more that it is opposed in a tone of self-sufficient
official hardihood and ignorance unsurpassed since the
days of Lord CASTLEREAOIL He affected to sec in
the proposal to enquire into a system an intention to
interfere with its administration. He stooped to mis-
representation, and accused Sir WILLIAM of seeking
to cast off the colonies. These petty artifices con
leave no lasting impression. The majority in favour
of the previous question will not prove a final nega-
tive on the inquiry demanded by Sir WILLIAM
MOLESWORTIL

Cfte Court.

The Queen, the Quell of the Belgians, end Prince
Albert, accompanied by the Prince of Wales end the Princess
Alice, took a drive yesterday in en open carriage and four.
Lieut.-Colonel the Hon. C. B. Phipps attended on horseback.
Eta Royal Highness Prince Albert, attended by Lieut.-
Colonel the Hon. C. B. Phipps and Colonel Bouverie, in-
spected **Moors in Hyde-park yesterday.
liar Royal Highnem the Duchess of Rent visited her Ma-
jesty yesterday.
His Royal Highness the Duke of Carob: idgs visited her
Majesty the Clasen of the Belgians yesterday at Buckingham
Palace.
His Royal Highness Prince Albert presided yesterday af-
ternoon at a meeting of the Commission for Promoting and
Encouraging the Fine Arts, in the rebuilding the Palacft of
Westminster. His Royal Highness arrived at three o'clock,
attended by Colonel Bativerie. The Coramicsionen present
were the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Burl of Cerlirle,
V,s 'oust Canning, Lord Colborne, Lord Mahon, and the
Hight Hon. Sir Robert Peal. The Secretary, Mr. Haglike,
wee in attendance. The meeting broke up at half-put five
o'clock.

A deputation from the Aborigeres Protection
&peavey, consisting of Mr. Shirley Woolmer, the Rev.
Charles B. Oribble, and Aug. W. Hanson, Captain Pieta,
Mr. James Bell, and Mr. L. A. Chamerooz to, Secretary to
the so. iety, had an interview with the Right Hon. H.
Lam:there:yesterday at the Board of Trade.

(From last night's Gazette.)
ST. JAMES'S PALACE, JUNE 26.—The Queen has
been pleased to appoint the Honourable Elizabeth• Frederica
Lennox, to be one of the Maids of Honour in Ordinary to
Her Majesty, iu the room of Lady Caroline Somers-Cocks,
Tel ed
J:
T. AMES'S PALACE, JUNE 26. —The Queen bee
been pleased to appoint Frederick-Temple Lord Dufferin
and Ctanebnye to be one of the Lords in Waitiog in Ordinary
to heresig Majestned.y, in the room of George Sholto Earl of Mor-
ton, r
FOREIGN-OFFICE, JUNE 23.—The Queen has been
pleased to approve of Abdullak Effendi, as Consul, at Man-
chester, for the Sublime Ottoman Porte.

ASSOCIATION FOR THB PROTECTION OF
BRITISH INDUSTRY AND CAPITAL.

Yesterday, in pursuance ofrry üblie notice, a meeting
of a connected with the a cultural, commercial, colo-
nial, manufacturing, and ehipptag Interests, and favourable
to the principle of protection, was held in the Theatre
Royal, Drury-lane, for the purpose of receiving the report
of the provisimal committee, appointed at the meeting held
at the Hall of Commerce, in the City of London, on the lot
ult., of considering the rules and regulations to be proposed
for the 'management of the s.esonation, of completing its
organisation, and adopting such further steps as might be
deemed advisable. The admission to the meeting was by
tickets, and, although it was attended by a very respectable
class of persons, it might have been contained in a much
smaller building than the specious one selected on the occa-
elm. The number of persons present at no period of the day
'needed 1,600. The pit of the theatre was tolerably well
filled, but the vacant intervals in the boxes and gallery ware
nOMISTOIIII, and there was nearly a total absence of ladies.
Soca alter 12 o'clock the Duke of Richmond, accompanied
by a considerable number of the vice-presidents and proud-
neat members of the woociatios, appeared upon the plat-
form, which was, as usual, placed on the stage, and took the
chair amid loud eheering.
The CILLIIIKAN said that he bid eempeated es take the
ask ea that asisies, althoseh M see d& have ebbed that
it wee Mil bp Nee who was mere impale then Woolf of
performing with Maoism the datisswhieh aseemsrily would
devolve on him, the mesa mgedelly, as he repelled to say
that he was then lambs( under isdispesitiss, whish sag-
gated to him that his meet pendeat melee wadi be he
&main from
staking...l=as preseelings. Bat
clime was no Miami( whisk mold
induce him Is drain what he seduced to
be his duy M his sovereign sad his country.
(Chests.) shield be mery bleed that any
individual should be able te with truth that he was luke-
warm des the cause of ptJ ILw to native industry. (Re-
newed &sera) He would ~kb by stating that the re
port whisk had been draw* up by the committee appointed
at the messing held at the Hall of Commerce, would be read
b the seenetery, and it moaned for them to say whether
of it or not.
ha" =WART then read the report, in which the
=f elt the seeesiedoa linos its comity were
instiarrabis Isegth ; the nessmity es
ties Wow peatostimdsb to resin the raven of bee trade
mom% end fine their yeameMes te mines ask Mega
woe ioshtel es, sad the duly sestiflstiog le the hole of
the esiodaties was otiosely wed. • lengthy lid of the
aeons of the viseiwesiasse and members of the moseidies
Waft been sanciansil by Mr. Rigge. tees mat mester the
=sol the report was resumed; sad aerisiell by
the pews& of the pletesdoeht pity as belse
mot pershieg, sal theme el the easi•eors-lavlrsty so bike
be guide el raW aseadowee.
The lled af7l•1401111711T laid that, la seissloseh
with the request of We mobil bleed to arse the
reeiladso—" That the NMI 116 ree~
Ibis*, elms of hie Chess the Dube of IfiesmaMisisrit
peoliese, end If the sebisioes sad gisibleild mood Is as
report to be eies-yruM^ be thestfally Wield ; ieWl
that the yoribiesel ftio already oreolhoil lie ei;
lesls endorse theb seniees *lse "mud admit*
trossesistiesoilds 'Oast SO oil to *sly sillibaa".

It was be their recollection that the first attempt
made to tweak through the protective laws ewer the ora-
tion of which England has arrived at en uteasmeled pitch
of prosperity wag made in 1841. when Sir Hobert Peel came
into office; but when Parliament met in 1842
they were eonstautly assured by that eminent states-
men, whose avowed intention in dissolving Parliament
ONO 10 ascertain the upinioes of the people of England on the
salted of protection, that he wool respect the verdict of
the people, and ceetince to defend the cause wraith he bad
until then defended. Soon afterwards, however, he made
11 SOW changes in the law as respected protection by altering
11111 dodo en corn and other articles; but although there
IMO NM who opposed those measures as being injurious in
*de madesey, Ito one anticipated the extensivety ouenous
eseneepences of which they were the precursors. (Bear,
hasp) He was not one of those who wished a minister to
be obstinate in details, but he certainly thought that be should
be intently obstinate in matters of principle. (Hear, hear.)
The man who was obstinate in details was unfit to govern
a great country like this; bat the man whose prin-
ciples were unsteady was not only more unfit to
govern, but infinitely more dangerous to the best laureate of
the country. (Hear, bear) Mr. Cobden and the free-
traders, however, knew their man much better than his own
followers. They knew that his character was composed of
that malleable material which would not resist constant pres-
sure. They consolidated their forces, like able generals, and
attacked and tarried, one after the other, nearly all the land-
marks and defences is hiels protection had established. (Hear,
hear.) He thought that the snexess of the free-traders was
owing Use to their numbers, than to the fact that while they
were united, their opponents were scattered and without
organieation. (Hear, hear.) The defeat, however, which
they had received, sad the way in which it had oc-
curred, strikingly admonished them of the value of
union and of the necessity of taking a leaf out of their
adversaries' book and saseung combination by combination.
They were paralysed by an amount of treachery before an-
known in this country, and it was not surprising that for a
time they stood inactive and unresisting. (Hear, hear.) But
in the cabinet of which he had spoken with so little scruple,
there was, however, one man too much of an Englishman,
and too jealous of the glory of a name which his ancestors
had rendered illustrious in the historical annals of the coun-
try, to lend his sanction to an set which he believed to be
equally disgraceful to the government and himself. Lord
Stanley had stood alone. (Loud cheering and waving of
ha•s.) He resisted the torrent of innovation alone, anti he
said if these changes are to be made at least let them not be
carried into effect by as who have always opposed them.
(Hear, hear.) Acting on the motto of his ancient family
t• sans changer," he wee unchanged, and while others were
(plaiting before the threats of Mr. Cobden and the free
traders, Lord Stanley came forward and placed himself at
the head of hie betrayed and discomfited party—(renewed
eheering)—showing that in publi
c, as well as in private life
his path was ever lighted by the upsetting star of
honour. (Loud and continued cheering.) There was
another man of whom he could not speak without
emotion—who had employed his early years in pursuits
which serious minds might characterise as trading, but who
nobly came forward to the rescue when malicious of the
impending ruin which these measures were calculated to
produce and never ceased to show the love by which he was
animated for England—her prosperity, interests, and honour
—until summoned to that bourne where all such feelings are
forgotten. (Hear, hear.) Bat, notwithstanding the efforts
of Woo two noblemea, their antagonists had scorned their
resistance, and be (Lord Malmeebury) well remembered that
three years ago protection and the protectionists were talked
of as things obsolete and gone by—as faded into matters of
history. He would not condescend to answer such irs;nu-
ations, becalms the present meeting was a sufficient
reply to them. What had been the consequence of
those measures which they now complained of ? The
pear had ripened, and would shortly fall. All that
they had prophesied was about to happen. The
agricultural interest was is such a state of dirrese, that he
could not dud words to expr.o the sentiments he felt, not
only with respect to agriculture, but also in reference to
other interests which were affected in a proporionate de-
gree. (Hear, hear.) In 1841.2, the average price of corn
was about Ms The price had now feller, as he found from
the papers of the day, to 445., being a hill of 20 per cent. on
the value of the property of the farmer. The diminution
must be the some on the rental of the landlord, and also in
the wages of the labourer ; and there was not a town in this
country which would not feel the effects of this sudden re-
duction in the price of corn. Nor was it enoug;i for the
firmer and the landlord to share the loss. The depreciation
of 20 per cent. amounted to the full value of wages laid out
en a farm. The wages of labourers had been
diminished in agricultural districts, and great numbers of
bands had been turned off by farmers and landlorde, both
of whom were obliged to cut their coat securing to
their cloth. What is the state of the agricultural
counties as regards the value of land ? It was in vain Lr
Lord Orey to say—as he did the other evening is the Howie
of Lords—that farms were being let at the same rent that
they were formerly. He (Lord Nialenesbury) would chal-
lenge him to prove that he bas not had farms white he could
aot let, and that he has not been obliged to re-let those farm
at a crmparatively low rent. (Hear, hear.) It could not
be denied that the agricultural littered was in a state of
panic. This was the first great interest that had been sacri-
ficed by the repeal of the worn laws. What was the next ?
One of the greatest and most glorious possession., of which
this country could boast—the West India colonies. if there
was one jewel in the British crown brighter than another, it
was this valuable poseseion. The merchants of those colo-
nies, der acquiring large fortunes by their industry and
enterprise, had contributed to the prosperity of this country
five millions in time of peace, and in time of war they
had afforded to us the means of paining the mastery
of the ocean. But free trade had not done enough. To use
the words of one of those statesmen to whom he bad alluded,
the capital was wanted to the pillar of free trade, and hav-
ing ratted that capital, they crowned it by a repeal of the
navigation laws. That glorious piece of architecture had
been demolished. The House of Commons had been pleased
to pass a measure which, in his conscience, he considered
not only an act of great injuries to the people of this
country, but the most dangerous measure that ever was
I passed by the British legislature. This was the last crown-
lanachievement of those who advocated the doe-
of free trade. What reason did the free
traders 'midge for all this ? Their cry was, Lat
everything be as cheala:r poesibleat —drive everything down
to the lowest possible e." Th would douhtl. tea be a
perfectly sound principle for a government in its infancy,
but they had to maintain the power of an exeunt monarchy
—to buy food of a very different kind to that which the
quake of modem date wished to administer. (Hear, tear.)
The country was weighed down by a debt, the interest unon
which auseanted to twenty-eight millions A year. The
policy el this country had always been to make
foreigaep pay as much as they could make them pay.
Keay pumas who advocated free trade were doubt-
less mum of honest intentions, and they we re
sera the Mal in the hands of others. These men told them
that pentestive duties were ruinous to commerce, to agricul-
ture, and to the general prosperity of the country. They
would say that it was in spite of protective and political phi-
losophy that the countrygained had its surpassing greatness.
Be contended that this country had raised itself to
Its present position by protective laws. They were told,
however, that that was cot • natural and normal policy, but
be trusted that the time wield
thwry weed beONOloomonotog—(hear, hear)—for it never
WOola toms until Englishmen ad lost that =einem of
heed ad mbedme of heart by which they were dietin-
Mbelithseghbeat the world. It was clear that some-
mil le Mae be check the movement by which the
intonate of the msantry were so deeply affected, or a me
tion whisk boasted of being the cradle of liberty, the
palace of {ballades, the hems of affluence and peace,
would ere less be
_redeem& te its " normal and natural
state "—a rosur4sarilwa Mend In a northern au. (Loud
cheers.) The noble lord concluded by moving the first re-
solution.
Major BERESVOILD, in seconding the resolution, briefly
explained the objects of the association, which he sewed the
meeting was by no means a selfish or groping Isom but
merely a defensive co-operation to protect the hulls of in-
dustry, and to ward off evils which bed both proved, not by
theory. but experience. Having Meted at same length on
the injurious effects whkelua contowlei IWO the only fruit
of free trade he osselndell by With, OR all who had
the prosperity of the *matey at bout to join that asso-
ciation, and the MUD of pretested and regenerated England
would triumph.
The resolution was then carried maniathasly.
The Marquis of DOWNINEURB propowl the second re-
solution, whisk was as Mims
That the agileelterids of Weed sad the labourers they employ
treat this mamma raked In as pre* diMenity end distress,
as's sel
wldb Dina as MeeW e woad small= et the pby the pels_the meelMr to
i-
humi-
dly; thet se. a Maserim
mos atom of hedge widen, ell* bee the greedy merraneted
the miereles eel dlieeseree el Weedt eel is mime In protec-
tion be andel NOM the esmpst 15 of eeemblie semperatively
nateasid, dr rob dies peem ise roe et Zerellk ermiree. *odes-
I *aim of egebniewat tiseema ere bee e diebile. ar era ft be
mew that Imbed an be remora ken her pent deplorable
seehtico.
neared the meson g that he wield let have intruded
hheself epos the attention of the aloft, were it not that
be bed • Lege property at stake la Irelead as well as a eon-
eihweleis mussy of land in a teeteis gamier of this csuo try,
sad his duties es a landlord he would be
erhethed of himself, as utterly mmindful of the interests of
his Mamas, if he did not pallidly stand forward to identify
himself with the present movement, and in emphatic tons
"No more free trade." (Chem)
lii. BLLMAN, a brew in tha county of Boatel. De.
mailed the resolution, and stated that every old screed
that ahem did exist in this enemy to a certain extant.
The only question that could be raised upon the subject was
mto the same of that distress, gad the best rmedy for it.
Cesleg teem the sweaty of leers, he wee is a posetion to
othr thebeglaien wpm the Nab et attars in that part of the
country, and he was eeey to say that the distress was such
as they weld smelly haiMvs. It was perfectly unparalleled.
How had this esemthil I By the f.ed•Won of foreign
corn not sthleet Se the essae duties that were
rid bY Plea
strossMlrma. (Hear, hear.)
The Ma. to give them ea Blue-
trades of Latie=al *Mem la his scanty by pasties eat
the *Sothis obi* had edema lima the hep hubs. TM
pqmsat of them datide bed linen sad sad bash
were 'Moroi Me that they &sold be oath bead big
• eat db. Is Tolman M the el property la
the eterW
_et illeges, le Wight be la MMs a stream-
stance bad themest In his own we. Ice eta year
1848 he was shred le pa nkthe a hem, sad Wore doing so he
shed a pertinhe tined gilds vbaeur be thseakt lie amid
loot the play if fib SAW P.S. Ms Mead- mail by
medmililinget et the were of fa Robed Peg when b
the est of MS, width words were to this
Ike the stet *Mainly will never he a party to
math law whisk wt make this'oo y dependent apes say
other 11•11.11 he ib estheistaise." Bellewleg that shag ebb
waiter Wiva Peg add ast to guilty souk tnaelvey