The Express.
London, England, 1848-02-05 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

THIS number of STAMPS issued to the DAILY NEWS
by the authorities of the Stamp-office, during the year 1847,
was: _ _

From JAL 1, to Duc. 31, 3,447,009
This, we believe, it within eight per cent, of the number
issued to the Morning Herald, Morning Chronicle, and
Morning Post, ALL PVT TOOETHEA.

In addition to the above, issued to the DAILY NEWS,
Mornina Paper, there were issued for the Evening Edition,
THE EXPRESS,

From JAN. 1, 10 DEc. 31 778,714
Which wu more, we believe, than were issued eialer to the
Globe or Standard, Evening Papers.

•e• AdeoreMemento I otenuled ter "She Express," London evettlehg P•P"..""l
og eho . oe.l. Ilechrene.nock by Two o'clock on tile doe of publteatsoa.

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fats Pei-11 Pram. If lals. pan . Afteracoe..sl mis. pat
[a-Moomow—Mewing. 14 ale. past . Afterstoes.

LONDON, SATURDAY, FEB. 5.
THE intentions of the government with respect to
the increase of military expenditure are to be made
known in ten or fifteen days (on the 14th or the
18th). The same speech which gives information on
this point will also acquaint the public that it is
saddled with a five per cent. income tax, which will
not only meet the deficit of the past year, but pro-
vide a handsome surplus for the coming one.
The idea of, at such a moment, sinking in anticipa-
tion such surplus, so raised, upon soldiers or arsenals, I
in defences or militia, is certainly the most ill-timed,
gratuitous, and insane expenditure that ever govern-
ment fell into.
For some ten years the tide of events, the intrigues
of courts, and the mistakes of politicians have been
driving France against England, and exciting Eug-
land against France. At this moment, in the year
1848, events have taken a quite contrary direction.
They are driving France against Austria and
absolutism, and in a cause which can give
rise to no jealousy between France and England,
both of which are, or ought to be,interested in Italian
freedom. For the ten years that the French were
clamouring at ns, we never dreamed of fortifying or
calling out militia. And now that the French let us
alone, and universally hail us as brothers and honest
fellows, for our frank support of Italian liberty, this
is the moment we meditate arming against them.
Never was anachronism so preposterous.
A writer in the Times informs us how we were
within twenty-four hours of war with France, for
the insult offered to Mr. PRITCHARD. We beg to
believe, in contradiction, that we were ill no
danger whatever. The French Minister, aware that
every concession which he made would weaken him
before the Chamber and the public, was determined to
make the very minimum of concession which would
satisfy England ; and as soon as he found that, he
made it. The idea of M. GUILOT seriously intending to
provoke Lord ABERDEEN to war is quite as prepos-
terous as the calling out the militia in 1848, when the
whole world must laugh at the prodigious folly of the
act.
What possible cause of quarrel we can have with
France, we cannot in any way conceive. The Tahiti
business is over, and the French are well sick of
Oceania. Any menace to Morocco is removed by
the capture of ABD-EL-MASER. The right of search
irritation is removed. In the Plata, France and
England have no collision. Greece is too insignificant
to be really worth a protocol. There remains but one
field of serious difference, and that is Spain. Now,
we admit that Louis PHILIPPE has behaved badly
sad treacherously in the peninsula, and moreover, I
admit that the MONTPENSIER marriage was a I
thing to be prevented. But once achieved, nothing
is left but to make the best of it. Should
the duchess survive her sister, the present QUEEN,
how can we pretend to exclude her from the throne?
And if so, how can we exclude her offspring, if she
have any, and the QUEEN have not ? We do there-
fore think that, in Spain, as elsewhere, England, like
other countries, should accept the faits aecohylis.
The Spaniards are no longer children. They are very
well able to look to their own interests, and assert
their own independence. And if they are not
equal to the task by this time, we shall never
be able to render them so. Let us not,
therefore, permit Spanish affairs to remain as an
eternal subject of division between us and
France, but let us state clearly that our frank disap•
probation of the past does not extend to hostility for
the future. Were such known to be English senti-
ments, we will be bound to say that not one single
particle of hostile feeling towards England would
exist throughout the whole breadth of }ranee. And
we might economise our millions and our war spirit
for times and for foes whim might seriously require
them.
Notwithstanding the very fair prospects of lasting
peace, if England will but grasp them instead of
frightening them away by idle armaments, we are
still in favour of a military organisation of
the country ; because we believe that such
organisation would not only preclude a re-
newal of such panics as the present, but
would furnish the means of a great reduction
of military establishments. When, during the war,
the French really menaced this country with inva-
sion, the threat was met with 300,000 volunteers.
A similar threat, seriously believed, would now raise a ,
million. Herein lies our strength. We cannot be-
lieve that it requires any lengthened training or
service to make a soldier. Even the militia law of
training to be put in practice, supposes that a month
suffices. But what war can ever arise without a
month's warning? Whilst the rudiments of military
discipline, the handling of a gun, the motion and
evolution in columns, might be taught every youth in
the country as a part of his regular education, and
would thus; render the final or supplementary train-
ing an easy task. The common soldier trade is,
thank God, no mystery, and does not deserve to be
raised to the rank of profession or handicraft. The
militia system goes on the principle of its being a trade,
to be learned and practieed.by the refuse of the popula-
tion; and these are to be paid during half a century of
peace, in order to present to the enemy, in case of
war, precisely that portion of the people least in-

tweeted in the defence of the country, and cons;
quently with least spirit to undertake it.
Moreover, the whole syb.em of the militia laws and
their squirearchy, belongs tu." the last age, and is, in
fact, a gross insult to this. It :10 longer harmonises
with any other institution, and, inriL'ed, Can no longer
be looked upon as national. Nor would i: be much more
incongruous with the spirit of the timer, to call forth
the old feudal ban and arriire ban, than to ssod down

is to lord-lieutenants of counties to enrol
their poorer truants, and to make their poor relations
officers, and then to dub a force so raised by the title
of a national militia.

THE protectionist patty is a Sinhad, and Lord
GEORGE is its Old Man of the Sea. Ile sits on their
shoulders like a fate. They may disclaim him, but
he will not be disclaimed. lie will hold his place
through the session, as he would keep the saddle in a
burst across country. The party may wince, rear,
kick, bolt, or shy. He will only ram his recalci.-
trent steed at more breakneck questions, lift it
through a deeper slough of statistics, and use double.
thong and persuaders more ruthlessly, for its rash at-
tempts to take the bit in its teeth and run away with,
or unseat, its experienced jockey. He has already
taken the bread of \Vest Indian grievance out of the
moutlui of Mr. HERRIEs and Mr. HOPE. A desperate
cause requires desperate men ; and there is not a pro-
tectionist in the house who can lead his forlorn hope
up to the bristling batteries of free trade, to mount an
impracticable breach, like the captain they are fain
to repudiate, but must rely on in spite of themselves.
But the Dratccansir of the country party sur-
passed himself on the opening night of the paella.
mentary season. We were familiar with his extra-
ordinary feats of statistical prestidigitation. We
have all seen him on many previous occasions poll out
his unaccountable yards of figures' and fling about the
house his clusters of complicated calculations, as Haut
HoiILF.R produces the mysterious bouquets from the
apparently empty yet inexhaustible hat. We were
familiar with the surprising transformations hat
facts and reasonings underwent in his hands; the
hey-presto with which he annihilates millions, and the
coolness with which he catches the bullets tired at him
by the CHANCELLOR or THE EXCHEQUER out ofiliS own
gun. We were almost tired of seeing him as a Ri3lo
SAMEE, keeping any number of fallacies in a
dazzling whirl, swallowing the most formidable facts,
and balancing the heaviest results on the most
ricketty statistics. But Thursday night was his first
appearance in the character of a protectionist NAPO-
LEON, with his schemes of territorial encroachment,
his haughty dictation of terms to Lisbon and Madrid,
and his cool proposal to annex Cuba and the Brazils.
If there is any probability of Lord GEORGE being
installed dictator, the sooner we look to the national
defences the better. Ile would think nothing of in-
volving us in a European war for sheer love of peace,
or of enslaving the white world to bring about a ge-
neral black emancipation. What will the BCITONS
and STURGES say to their new associate?
But Lord GEORGE will get his plaything. The
committee ho asks for will be given him. The
CHANCELLOR OF THE Exenyouen declares what go-
vernment intends to do, and what it intend' to re-
fuse. It will stick by the bill of 1616, into which
inquiry is going to be made. It will grant those facili-
ties for the immigration of free aegroes, which alone
can render just the relations of capital and labour in
the West India islands. Sir CHAS. WOOD warns
Lord GEORGE not to expect even the ridicultts tens
that the mountain of the blue-book generally gives
birth to. The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER says,
very fairly, " You ask us for an inquiry, which we fore-
warn yon will have no practical effect. If you think
the inquiry worth making, wader three conditions,
make it." It is to be hoped that, after this frank
avowal, no more time will be wasted in talking about
the matter, and no disappointment expressed when
the inquiry turns out to be barren of results.
' There es business enough before the house which
must be done. There is the procession of the north-
country sailors to come elf, against which the LORD
MAYOR ruthlessly closes the City gates. This refusal
will perhaps procure us the imposing pageant of
20,000 blue-jackets, conveyed up the Thames, from
the Pool to Westminster, in tr.eir owu boats, bearing
the navigation law (laid in state), to the gloomy
strains of the Dead March in Saul, and welcomed by
Lord GEORGE and Mr. G. F. YorNo at the Palace-
stairs. Lord GEoRGE must clear out his brains for
the reception of the salt-water statistics, which
scores of panic-stricken owners and hundreds of
indignant shipbuilders are getting ready to shoot
into that omnivorous receptacle, his lordship's
memory.
Now the British planter has got his inquiry, the
British shipowner must fight for his navigation laws.
Lord GEORGE'S aid will he necessary to import into
the house the evidence of last year's committee, which
Mr. RICARDO has analysed ready to his hand.
It will be well for the country that these free-trade
fights should be disposed of as soon as possible. When
a principle has been conceded all time spent in
struggles against its application is lest time. The
navigation laws are logically defunct. 'llie heart of
protection ceased to beat when the corn laws ex-
pired, and its extremities have no business to
resist quiet and decent interment. But behind the
array of dead protectionist arguments, into which
prejudice and panic are invoked to put a gal-
vanic show of life, there wait for the settlement
of parliament questions of real vitality, interests
which have a right to be listened to, and which will
insist steadily on that right. There is a determined
corps of law reforms, with captains chosen, and
weapons ready, to enforce an entrance into the statute-
book. There are sanitary measures, backed by sound
reason, humanity, and science, and heralded by that
ghastly array of disease, suffering, and crime,
pleaders whose voices must be heard. The abris of
a shattered system of protection must be swept from
the floor of the house, to make room for these
new and clamorous applicants, for whom all
parties, whig, conservative, and protect, onist, have
ears, or should have. If the state of the revenue
forbid for the present that general re-adjustment of
taxation which policy and justice alike demand, its
pressure may at least be mitigated by that stringent
and comprehensive legislation for the health of the
masses which, insipid as it may seem in comparison
with subjects which stimulate the political palate by
the piquant sauces of bigotry, prejudice, and per-
sonality, is yet probably the weightiest matter that,
in the present disposition of the public mind, can
employ the attention of parliament. It offers an in-
stalment of indirect education, where all control of
direct education is denied to the governing body.