The Express.
London, England, 1847-11-05 00:00:00

-u he rpregs.

The overland closed mu W, roe Mariano, to the Mediterranean
Zrpt, Aden, Ceylon, Ind* Meng Kong, he., will be made up ow tht
swung of the oth Nov.
The mails for rum, Oporto, 11.Jahon, Meclelrs, Coil; and Glbrelta,
will be made up on the morrone of the oth November.
The West India Mails, excluding Bermuda, Nawu, liavaana,
Honduras, New Orleans Vera Cron Tampico, oral Porto Rion, and
Including three for Jar:met, Carthagens, Sonia Martha. Ch. M..
Panama, West Guest of South America, end St. Jusn.cle-Nimettllnn,
will be made up on the morning of the 17th Wet.
The mails for British North America, Bermuda, and the Unite
States, will be mede op en this !Mali of the 15110 November.
The overland mete for Gibraltar, Malta, tireeos, the loot. Islands,
Egypt,i Aden, Ceylon, India, Ilong.liong, and Chloe, via Southampton,
made tip on the morning of the 24th November.
The mails for New South Wales, Yen Diemen'. Land. and Nee
Tastand will be made up on the evening of the 30th November.
The mails for the Brands, ths Itlves Plate, Monts Video, Palma.
Woo, Bahia, Madeira, and Bosom Ayres, will his wade ap on the
evening of the 4th Docember.

TO CIOtIItSPONDENTS.
•.• ki•ertoonno laos4•1 fat Tiks &way Lamle. eraeOg paper. ooso to,
Gate. 10, loeverktuniet Toy Vetoes tb• 447 of ptibilvol..

SlOll WATS& ET 1.1./XDON-9111110E.
Sass Dsv-11101•100, 44 mta..oo 00 ; Aftwoor. 36 vale. 00., 00.
2.0.11 —Menge. ei nit- paw OP; Ibera6n.ll =A. pax 1.

LONDON, FRIDAY, NO P. 5.

- - - - - - - - -
THE Indian mail now arrives each fortnight, with
less and less of striking or novel intelligence; and at-
tention, directed periodically to our Eastern posses-
sions, finds in political events nothing to on. The
journals are full of military movements and life
—they enter eagerly into what may be called the
foreign policy of the Indian empire. But of topics of
really Indian domestic interest, the finances of the
country, its embarrassed revenue, its decaying pro-
duction and trade—of them we hear little.

A return has just been distributed of English ex-
ports and imports to the several quarters of the globe.
We are sorry to see that our exports to the East
Indies are on the decrease. Cotton, woollen, and silk
manufactures go out in diminished quantities ; ma-
chinery in increased quantity. Nor are our imports
more satisfactory, notwithstanding the hopes enter-
tained by some. Sugar does not increase, indigo de-
creases, cotton wool has fallen to nearer one-third than
one-half of what it was.
If we tarn from trade to revenue, of course we find
proportionate embarrassment, notwithstanding in-
creased conquests, tribute, and taxable population.
From certain reports laid on the table of the
house daring the two last sessions of parliament, on
the revenue raised in India, and its appropriation,
we learn the alarming growth of the annual deficiency,
&lauded for the year ending 1847 at 1,462,116/., with
a debt contracted in India of 38,627,9341.

The simple fact of a deficiency ofreceipts,althongh
of itself sufficiently disquieting, might be regarded as
a temporary pressure, which a short interval of tran-
quillity and exertion would allow us to recover. But
concurrent with this account of the financial state of
that important portion of the empire, we continue to
receive such alarming statements respecting the social
and economical condition of our fellow-subjects in
Hindostan, as dispel all prospect of speedy financial
prosperity. For many years the statements put pub-
licly forward, both by retired servants of the company,
and officers in the service of the crown, have thrown
great disrepute upon the government of India, espe-
cially on its fiscal legislation. These statements have
been confirmed by travellers, like Bishop HEBER
and others, who partly unconsciously, but always
without bias, have corroborated the testimony of others
who had served officially in the Indian peninsula. The
rain of manufacturing districts, like that of Dacca,
attested by the Bishop of Cochin, and by a peti-
tion of the inhabitants of that fine port recently pre-
sented to the Board of Control, the state of once
flourishing tracts that have returned to jusgle, and
the m'series of vast populations, of which the names
are given, and the sites pointed out by remonstrants
that only seek to provoke inquiry, are too circum-
stantial and well authenticated to leave a doubt of
their foundation in fact.

We are directed to the districts of Guzerat and
Cutch, that once supplied cotton on cheap terms
to all the world, to l)acca and other parts of
Bengal, where a texture rivalling the invisible
webs of Cos, so celebrated in antiquity, formed
a lucrative and artistic manufacture for the
natives. Both the growth and manufacture of cotton
have disappeared from Bengal. The quantity of that
exported from the other presidencies has decreased
and its quality deteriorated, and when we trace this
lamentable fact to its cause, we are bound to ac-
knowledge that to all appearance it rests with the
mode of assessing and levying the land-tax raised by
the East India Company.
The mischievous operation of a land-tax, when re-
garded as the chief soarce of revenue, can be illus-
trated from the history of the greater part of the Eu-
ropean continent, where a general land-tax subsists,
although in a comparatively mild form. Still the ten-
dency of this tax to induce governments to keep a
large proportion of the population in the state of poor
cottier husbandmen, is everywhere evident, and its
effects are deplorable. It has been on the altar of
this idol that Prussia, Austria, and France,
sacrificed the manufacturing industry and the
trade which they have of late years been
endeavouring, with the aid of prohibitions
and protecting duties, to resuscitate. A highly ,
rated land tax is too oppressive to be ventured
where rich landowners, supported by a numerous
tenantry, subsist. The collection of this description of
tax is only practicable where the peasant landowner
is too poor to be formidable, and too dependent upon
the produce of his land to demur to any bearable
charge that may be laid upon it.
But when a land-tax, being only annual is rate,
becomes in reality a produce tax swelling with the
food but diminishing with the bad, crop, it is the
bane of agricultural exertion. Every country sub-
jected to such an exaction is sure to get out of culti-
vation, and the accounts that reach us From all sides
tend to show that India is not exempt from the law.
Other objectionable taxes are those on the implements
of domestic manufacture which are so numerous and
so destructive of industry in oar eastern possessions.
We have, however, no wish here to enumerate the
special causes. That will become a duty in due time
and in fitting shape.
But we would point to the threatening danger
which receives credit from so many sources as to be a
subject of alarm, while it is an inducement to exer-
tion. Our manufacturers begin to see that the gates
of a land endowed by Providence with all the re-
sources of wealth in its soil, climate, and position,
have been closed against them. By the fiscal regula-
tions that are complained of, our merchants and
manufacturers have been made unwilling accomplices
in that great encroachment on the rights of
humanity—the maintenance of slave labour in the
United States of America. They have even been
urged to go in support of it the length of making, in
the shape of loans, advances that kept up the sem-
blance of sufficiently high prices to remunerate their
exertions. All this while we have fields relapsing
into jungle that long produced cotton at one-half the
American price ; we have had populations shrinking
in number and deteriorating in wealth and morals
for want of the liberty to put their power to its
proper use. If we enquire to what purpose this system
has been followed, we learn that it is to eke out a de-
caying revenue, and to throw a pauper population on
our hands in Asia, with all the responsibility of sup-
porting it, in addition to the pauperism which the
want of colonial markets has created at home.

EARNESTNESS in religion commands respect from
all thinking men. It is an ingredient in all that is
noblest, purest, and loveliest in human character.
Bat it does not of itself make either a kindly heart or
a clear head. Growing up in a harsh nature, and
a narrow intellect, it exhibits itself in bigotry, super-
stition, asceticism, and persecution. Men have made
war upon their brethren, burnt them,butchered them,
enslaved them, tortured them, in the name of religion.
Auto-da-fes are a product of this root, set in evil
ground; so are thumb-screws and racks; so was the
filth and frenzy of a St. SIMEON STTLITES, in the
fifth century; eo is half the ignorance of Europe in
the nineteenth. There is not a crime but has been
perpetrated in the zeal of religious belief, not an abuse
but has been defended on religions grounds, not an
improvement but has been assailed with religious
denunciations.
Religious men, and sincere ones after their fashion,
have claimed, in the name of God, a license to violate
every law of God, natural and revealed. This fact,
of which every page of history furnishes its proof,
has driven many weak heads to atheism. Instead of
rejecting the faith of the violent, the ignorant, and
the weak, they rejected faith altogether, or, at least,
thought and said they did so.

There is very little danger at this day of any honest
man falling into this error. But the faith of the
violent, the ignorant, and the weak, still arrogates to
itself as much as ever it did—still denounces as in-
fidel every practice it cannot comprehend, and charges
as unbelief every creed leas narrow than its own. Oar
consolation is, that the power of truth and charity, on
the whole, overweighs that of its counterfeits, dogma-
tism and bigotry.
The straggle between the true principle and the
false is nowhere doubtful. It is in the nature of things
that the first must overpower the second. In other
words, any other theory of the moral universe is in-
consistent with that notion of an omniscient and om-
nipotent Being which the Creator has impressed on
man's heart and brain.
Even when truth and error come together the con-
test is not always short. But when half truths en-
counter, it is certain to be long, and marked by
changing fortunes. If any one complete theory of
education were propounded all the incomplete ones
which are now tearing each other to pieces would
probably disappear. But till the perfect system
comes there will be war between the imperfect. The
victory must incline to that which involves the most
or largest truth. Vigorous as the rivalry of sects is
at this moment in England, we see an intelligent and
strong opinion growing up, which says, " There is
something in all of you, but there is something greater
than all of you—which includes you all, if you but
knew it, and harmonises you all, and neutralises your
evil, and enhances your good. You shall no longer
be allowed to occupy with your eternal bickerings the
stage which this larger and nobler theory ought to
fill. Make way for it."
All unusual displays of bigotry, on whatever side,
whether exhibited in the cause of voluntaryism, or of
proselytism, of dissent, or church of England, or
church of lime, help and strengthen this intelligent
public opinion.
Quo* Drus colt pertlere pries dementat, holds as true
of the propagators of half-truths, as of the servants
of error. . .

We have from time to time chronicled and com-
mented on such exaggerated displays of bigotry.
There was a notable example in the Edinburgh
ragged schools. There was a yet more signal one at
Warrington, the first act of which we noticed a few
days ago. On the stoppage of Warrington mills,
some benevolent inhabitants of the town set agoing a
scheme of relief, which included teaching as well as
food. An industrial school was to be opened, in which
reading and writing were to be taught, and the
books of the Irish National Board used for such
teaching. The Rein Mr. RICHARDS, a clergy-
man of the church of England, opposed this
plan of teaching. lie argued that reading
and spelling cannot be taught without religion
being taught. Religion cannot be taught, because
all sects join to establish these schools : therefore,
teaching must be abandoned altogether. In a com-
mittee of seventeen this was carried by a majority of
nine to eight, six of the nine being clergymen of the
Establishment, one a Roman Catholic priest, and two
laymen.
Such was the first act of the Warrington drama.
The report of the second is before us, extracted from
the Manchester Guardian. At a general meeting,
Mr. RICHARDS' report, or report of the sub-committee
on the schools, was re-considered. The Mayor moved
that it be rescinded: this was carried by a majority
of twenty-nine to twentysix. But on bringing up
the original report, so many amendments were moved
by Mr. RICHARDS and his party, that the meeting be-
came a scene of confusion, the report was given up,
and the Mayor next morning took the bull by the
horns, opening the school at once on the plan origi-
nally proposed. The matter of course has ended, or
will end, in the secession of Mr. RICHARDS and the
religious exclusionist&
In noticing an analogous case in Edinburgh, we
called the primary school, " the Belgium of educa-
tional welfare." All the battles are fought upon it.
The poor children who are educated in these schools,
ask for the merest rudiments of knowledge—the keys
of reading and writing. They care nothing, and
know nothing, of the subtle distinctions of sects, or
the conflicting interests and opinions of religious par-
ties. But religious partisans always fight on their
ground. Quarrels, which would paralyse the schools
in which their own children are taught, may be con-
veniently settled in the schools intended for the poor.
Meantime, those who should be pupils of the ele-
mentary school suffer, as the poor Belgian peasant
did, from the presence of conflicting armies. While
churchman and dissenter, nationalist and voluntaryist,
are pelting each other with hard words, the poor
child is left to the education of chance and necessity.
He is learning at home, or in the streets, les-
sons which replace those of the school. He is learning
very likely to lie, and to steal, to drink, and to curse.
He will and must be learning something. The mind
draws its food from all around it, by an unconscious
process like that by which the plant assimlates its
nourishment from the soil. _ _

It is painful to read the speech in which Mr.
RICHARDS defends his report. It had been proposed
to open the work of these schools with the Lord'e
prayer : Mr. RICHARDS objects to this. He would
prefer to so doing, a selection from the Book of Com-
mon Prayer. You cannot read anything, according
to this reverend gentleman, without conveying reli-
gious impressions : a reason, we should have supposed,
for not requiring the Bible as a text-book. But by
" religious," Mr. Itrensens means " dogmatic." He
declares that he cannot meet on friendly terms with a
unitarian, or a Roman catholic, or an independent. He is
certain " if in the same schoolroom with such persons, he
would soon quarrel with them." We have no doubt of it.
A school education is, in Mr. Rtensans's eyes, an in-
fidel education. Besides, the proposed school-room
at Warrington was near the Mechanics' Institute,
where " they make people forget all about religion."
Moreover, the present industrial girls' school is pro-
eelytising. The girls buy their bread at a unitarian
baker's shop! Mr. RICHARDS objects to " a system
of merely secular education as infidelity; to reading,
because, if no principles are taught, that is wrong;
and if any are taught, they will be bad ones."
Mr. RICHARDS is a type of a large and mischievous
class of zealots. Hie belief grows in a very bad soil.'
It draws its juices from bitter prejudices, and its
growth is stunted by the narrow and feeble intellect
which feeds it. We cannot conceive that any commonly
i intelligent person can be blinded by such sophisms as we
have enumerated above. The ressoningeof this class of
men stand on false assumptions, are carried on with
misapplied words, and j ump to conclusions unauthorised
even by their feeble and distorted premises. Mr.
RICHARDS is, as is usual with his class, a sad word-
spinner. " A school education is an infidel educa-
tion." What does this mean ? Let any parent ask
himself. His child is a boarder at Dr. SWISHTAICS,
or a day scholar at the new proprietary "college."
What does he hear at either of religious differences,
and the quarrels of sects? In how many schools
have we Church of England boys, and Methodist
boys, and Roman catholic boys, and Quaker boys,
side by side on the same bench ? Do they grow up
infidels from the contact ?
In fact, Mr. 'Lemnos in talking thus is talking
absolute nonsense. It can hardly be met by argu-
I went. Let any man who reads it, open his eyes and
look about him. Ale schools, now, places of religious
instruction? Have schools ever been places of reli-
gious instruction ? Can schools ever be places of
religious instruction ? Ought we to strive to make
schools places of religious instruction?
It would not be difficult, we apprehend, to answer
" No" to all these questions, and justify that answer
by explanations which would satisfy the warmest
piety, if it be only tolerant enough to see with its
own eyes, and call things by their right names. We
have left ourselves no room, however, to attempt this
at present.

THE question of tenant-right, or, in other words,
of defining what belongs to the landlord, what to the
tenant, is as much an English as an Irish question.
There is a growing feeling, we can scarcely call it
opinion, among landowners, that their interests in
their estates are not so beneficial as they ought to be.
Farmers have been urged, again and again, to im-
prove their farms ; bat now it begins to be under.
stood that much of that improvement necessary to put
agriculture on a par with other brunches of industry,
is not the proper business of a farmer. It is true that
there are plenty of men in this country whe will
undertake large and permanent improvements under
the protection of long leases, but such men always
take care to be amply remunerated for such outlays.
If landowners would improve their own land by
draining, the erection of buildings, the removal of
useless fences and hedge-row timber, and so forth, they
might let their farms for rents which would be more
than equivalent to the cost of improvement. And

farmers as a body would be far better off than at pre-
sent at higher rents, when their farms bad been ren-
dered more perfect instruments of production. This
point was very well put by Mr. LOCKE KING, M.P.
for East Surrey, at the Chertsey Agricultural Society,
when he said :
It would on the face of it be unjust to expect the tenant
to make the permanent improvements on an estate, even if
he has a long lease, inasmuch as, after all, it does not belong
to him in perpetuity ; and it must be remembered that until
these permanent improvements are made, the tenant cannot
farm the estate to advantage. Ilis capital can be employed
to far greater cuiran'age in Ais own more immediate business
of famtung. The tenant should always power a floating
capital, with the power of constantly realising his invest-
ments speedily and easily, and not have the feeling that his
capital is locked up in the land.
- - " - - -

No person with any practical knowledge of hus-
bandry will venture to assert that the division of
interest in the soil between owners and occupiers, is
not an arrangement more beneficial to the community
than the cultivation of land by proprietors. Though
some sentimental regret has been expressed at the
gradual extinction of the class of yeomen—the men
who occupied their own farms of from 50 to 300 acres
—it is altogether misplaced. Many of them went on
without enterprise or activity, constantly falling far-
ther behind in the art of cultivation, and encumbered
with mortgages, until, overpowered by the burden of
interest, they sunk into the condition of labourers ;
while others more prudent, disposed of their own
small farms and embarked the produce in the cultiva-
vation of larger farms, as tenant-farmers. Their
success as farmers has been far greater since they ap-
plied the whole of their capitals to farming, and had
none of it " locked up in the land" itself, to say
nothing of the increased extent of their businesses,
and the consequently larger opportunities for profit.
Now when a farmer undertakes the permanent im-
provement of his farm, as, for instance, by tile-drain-
ing, he sinks capital in the land which in nine cases
out of ten he might more profitably employ in direct
production, could he get the permanent improvement
effected at a reasonable extra rent. We know that
many farmers entering upon an unimproved
farm, sink so large a portion of their capi-1
tal in bringing the land to that condition
in which it is possible to farm well, that they are
crippled for years by the want of floating capital in
their proper business as cultivators. Under the most
favourable circumstances, a good farmer must have
a large part of his capital invested in the land, and it
is most desirable, with reference to production, that
that which is the proper business of the landlord, the
permanent improvement of the estate, should be per-
formed by him. There is a plain distinction between
landlords' improvements, which arc investments to be
repaid by increased income, and tenants' improve-
ments, which are in the nature of trading outlays,
to be recovered with a profit within certain periods.
Now the community has an interest in seeing not
only that both of these classes of improvements
are effected, but that they are done by the right par-
ties, because then only are they most effective in
advancing the fertility of our soil. But the land-
owners of the United kingdom are not in a condition
to do their share of the requisite improvements.
Mr. KING said at Chertsey, on the occasion before
alluded to,
My firm belief is, that it is to the landlord we must look
in the end, although unfortunately we find landlords in too
many instances weigheddown with a weight of acres, with-
out either the means or the inclination to Improve their
own estates.

Hence we find advances by the Treasury to landed
proprietors for the purpose of draining their own
estates, arc deemed to be justified by the state of
husbandry and the condition of our labouring classes.
Yet what would be said of a proposal to make
advances to manufacturers for the improvement of
their mills or machinery ? And in what respect
would such advances differ in principle from the aid
given to landlords for draining?
There is no doubt that an outlay to the amount of
at least a fourth, or a third, of the original value of
the land might be expended upon most of the large
estates in the kingdom with the certainty of consider-
able increase of income ; but the custom of primoge-
niture and the law of entail stand in the way. The
landowner is only tenant fur life, and has no power
to mortgage or sell any part of the settled estate,
though, by so doing, he might make two-thirds of it
of greater value than the whole was in its original
state. And, even had he the power to dispose of part
of the property, he would scarcely be inclined to do so
for the sake of improving the remainder, which is to
go to the eldest son. Pride of caste, powerful
though it be, cannot altogether stifle family
affection; and thus we believe that the set-
tlements of law, which place all power over the
estate beyond the reach of its apparent owner, and
the practice of heaping all the family wealth upon the
eldest son, are gradually becoming lees popular in
every civilised community. In this respect we arc
behind most of the continental nations, where entails
and primogeniture are justly regarded as badges of
feudalism. It is probable that with us the system
will receive a shock through the present disastrous
state of Ireland, where the landowners, more deeply
encumbered than even those of England, are
claiming relief from the fetters of settlements.
Our correspondent, an Irish law lord, whose
letter we published on Tuesday, says he is
owner of an estate " with a nominal rent-roll of
2,300/. per annum, three parts of which belong to a
mortgagee," and that in the present state of Ireland
all the rents that can be collected go towards the
interest of mortgages. It is clear that nothing can
relieve such nominal owners of land but a law to
enable the sale of encumbered estates, and from a
measure of that kind, the step to the abrogation of
entails altogether will not be difficult Already this
seet is attracting some attention from the public ;
and the more the various questions affecting the law
of real property are discussed, the more obvious it
will become that the power of entailing on an un-
born generation, is the grand obstacle to the enjoy-
ment and improvement of landed property.

A portion of the following appeared in a second
edition last evening.
Our Paris letters of Wednesday say that the
engrossing subject at present in that city is the
part played by, the Goizot cabinet, or rather by
M. Ginzot and Louis Philippe, in relation to the pre-
sent iatercantonal war in Switzerland. The voice of
condemnation against them is loud and general.
Their organ, the Journal des Debate, pronounces
that the Diet no longer exists; yet there is still M.
Bois le Comte the accredited minister of France to
the Vorort, which derives its existence from the Diet.
The abuse which daily fills the columns of the
ministerial press against the president and members
of the Vorort, and against the population of thirteen
of the twenty-two cantons, including the largest, the
most populous, the most wealthy, and the most intel-
ligent, exceeds all the limits of ordinary decency.
Letters, falsely dated from Switzerland, are fabri-
cated in the government offices, containing exagge-
rated statements and overcharged and offensive com-
ments, and published in the government journals.
The opposition
.journals are of course unsparing in
their reprehension of this course. The following ob-
servations from the National may be taken as a spe-
cimen of the views of their writers :

M. Ouizot may feel more sympathy for the Jesuits of
Lucerne than for the radicals of Berne and Geneva, but the
policy of a country like ours must not be at the mercy of the
personal repugnances or predilections of certain men. One
of two things:—Either France is the friend of Switzerland,
and therefore must recognise the government of the maj city,
the only power with which she is legally in relation ; or she
is her enemy, and in that cue war must be declared against
her. But as long as we have an ambassador accredited to
the vorort, the ministry cannot be allowed to say by its
lrincipal organ that there is no longer a diet in Switzer-
and. What, however, seems to us much more serious
in the attitude taken by the cabinet in all this affa'g,
and if we with diffizulty explain to ourselves the
intervention in itself, we have still greater difficulty in
explaining to ourselves the motives which have deter-
mined the choice of the French government. Where is
the necessity for France to intervene, and what
,great peril
menaces us that we cannot maintain neutrality e Switzer-
land, an ind. pendent nation, has met with difficulties among
its own members; some cantons have put themselves in
opposition to the will of the federal power; thence has
arisen a conflict which threatens to terminate by an appeal
to arms. If the Helvetic majority really desires the expul-
sion of the Jesuits, and if it has in hand the force necessary
to make its will prevail, in virtue of what right should we
oppose that course? Would we suffer England•or Russia
to mix herself up in the settlement of our domestic affairs ?
Why, then, should this liberty of action which we exercise
fully at home not exist for Switzerland ? Is that country
out of the common law, and is any power that may choose
at liberty to throw the weight of its sword in the balance to
cause it to fall on the side which pleases it most ? Treaties
have guaranteed the neutrality of the Helvetic confederation
—that is a principle of European law ; in violating it we
should expose ourselves not only to commit an act of ag-
grunion as uojwit u it would be useless, but we ohould run
the risk of lighting up war between all the contrattinir parties
in the emigres! of Vienna. Are you sure, for example, that
England would accept your intervention ? and if she should'