The Express.
London, England, 1848-08-17 00:00:00

the House of Commons. Their amount is not

absolutely very large, being 426,3671. only ; but
the spirit in which they have been made oat
is that of the extravagance which characterises
our expenditure generally. Here also, as in the
larger departments of finance, it is marked by'
lincrease. Gradually during the last three years
these estimates have been creeping up iu amount.
From .107,7851. in 1848, they ruse in 1817 to
419,4481.: and in spite of the present being a year of
great pecuniary pressure, a yeir when private per-
sons have been compelled to practise the most severe
economy—many, perhaps most, to suffer privations—
they are in 1848 augmented to .126,3671. So that the
inference fairly derivable from these accounts is, that
come what may, under the present system the public
expenditure entitled "miscellaneous" will not be
reduced.

And no wonder reductions cannot be effected—no
wonder these estimates are increasing, when we find that
the government of the newly acquired and uninhabited
island of Labuan, in the Indian Archipelago, has, in
the first year of its acquisition, to cost this country
nearly 10,000/. Well might the poet sing " dieter co
lends enchantment to the view." Why, for a similar
amount we will undertake to say the Dutch govern the
great island of Java, and the Spaniards the valuable
colony of Manilla. Labuan is at best an exp. riment ;
and what reasonable being ever thought of sending
out a governor with 2,000/. a year (when the Dutch
had Cc) lon they gave its governor 400/. a year), a
lieutenant-governor with 1,373/. a year, a "master
attendant" (on God knows what except the two
governors!) with eOOl. a year, and a police magis-
trate costing 4201. les. tkl. a year, all to test the value
of a military settlement amongst the Malay pirates
or dept for coals! This item of Labuan (9,821/. 10s.),
is really the very worst that has appeared in this year's
estimates. And the truth we strongly suspect to be,
that the whole affair of Labuan is a very gross job
hatched out of popular enthusiasm. Suppress piracy
in the Archipelago by ull means; but this suppression
does not require the expenditure of 10,000/. a-year
on a desert island ; what it wants is a good stout
frigate cr a couple of armed steamers, like the Phle-
getlion, to cruise about the coasts of Borneo,
and ke. p the Malays in order. Yet in addition to
ships of war for that purpose (lor which we have to pay
smartly), we are now burthened with governors
and lieutenant-governors, harbour-masters and chap-
lains, surveyors and police magistrates, and a long
range of public buildings to contain them and their
baggage, as if Labuan were in the temperate zone,
and afforded facilities of colonisation equal—nay,
judging by the fine year's estimates, far superior—
to New Zealand or Port 'Phillip.
Heaven protect us from the returns of other Rajah
Belem:es, if he, test of Maims Sarawak, have to in-
flict on us such a yearly expenditure. Little did we
suppose that all our fetes to, and our flourishing about,
this eastern hero would saddle the uation with 10,0001.
a year ; not forgetting his friend Capt. KEPPELL'S
pleasant cruise in the Alenander, also at our expense.
The Falkland Islands, too, are put down for up-
wards of 1,0001. a year, with not a soul on them save
those we thus send there to pay for, with not a
tree to cut down for ships use when vessels are driven
in, with no stores save those imported, with no colo-
niets, with nothing in nature to l,ok after but seals
and storms. There, also, as if for the mere purpose of
asserting our worthless right against Buenos Ayrce,
we have a governor costing 8001. a year, and, to pre-
serve his excellency from ennui, and to make up a
whist table, a magistrate with 4001,a chaplain, 4007.;
a surgeon, 3001.; with clerks, schoolmaster, surveyor;
with everything and everybody, in short, but those
which make a colonial dependency valuable, or money
worth spending—eopuheiou and produce. Lest people '
here should be insane er.cugh to emigrate to these
inaccessible, inhospitable, and valueless rocks, we keep
nn a machinery of colonial government costing
5,0e0/. a year. And yet we can look each other
calmly in the face and call ourselves the most pet°.
tits' people on the face of the earth. Far better, in
our judgment, give the ruthless lkis.ts 1,0001. a year
to take the islands off our hands • we should, at all
events, in so doing save the other 4,0001. we now
I throw away.
In like manner, and in the same spirit of extra-
vagance, St. Helena will this ytar cost us 11,5001.
for its civil government only; the governor of this
tradeless rock having ne less than 2,0001. a year, and
all subordinate functionaries' salaries being propor-
tionably large. Western Australia is down for
7,5381.; Port Essington, fur 2,721/. los.; and New
Zealand, with its wars and constitutions, its mission-
aries and its companies, its Iltinsoxs and its
FITZROYS, for the good round sum of 20,04)01.,
though the governor of this really important
colony has only 2,3001. a-year. The maladminis-
tration of our \Vest African settlements can only
be accomplished at the annual expense of 14,0001.;
and in the estimate which discloses this fact there
is an item deserving of passing comment. Our
forts on the Gold Coast are put down at 4,0001. a-year.
Now for this sum the merchants, when the coast was
left to their care' not only governed, they also pro-
tected our forts there ; hut no sooner does the Colo-
nial office retake them under its superintendence than
4,0001. a-year becomes the bare cost of their civil I
government, and their military defence is converted
into an additional burthen on patient Mrs. Mother
Country.
But certainly one of the most objectionable
in principle of all the items in these, estimates
is " No. 14, Clergy, North America,' for by it
we fiud this country is paying no less than
11,578/. Bs. Gd. for the religious instruction, in
various faiths, of the inhabitants of our North Ame-
rican possessions. At home no minister dare propose
to make any such charge on us, yet; for the
various churches of these colonies we are called on to
pay nearly 12,04)0/. a year, 4,300/. of which are
grasped by bishops, protestants, and Roman c.atho-
tics. The next item is equally indefensible ; for by it
no less than 14,0001. a year are thrown away—lite-
rally thrown away—on the Indian department of '
Canada, the price of puny sentimentalism there.
The Colonial Land and Emigration Board will this
year cost no less than 13,451/. Os. 23., of which amount
the salaries paid to the commissioners, 3,200/. a year,
might assuredly be saved, were the Colonial-office to
leave off teasing the colonies, and attend to what
ought to be its foremost duty—colonisation. But is
office Earl GRLY, who out of office censured hie pre-
decessors for their neglect of the " art," has other
things to attend to, and leaves colonisation to Lord
ASHLEY, the sentimentalists, and their anti-climax,
Irish landowners.
The sugar colonies cost us 41,150/. for their " slips,"
as the magistracy. are therein irreverently styled ; but
this sum is a reduction from last years estimate of
450/., " arising from the abolition of one magistracy
in the Mauritius;" where, curiously enough, the evi-
dence of Lord G.B ENTINelee committee informs us the
staff of magistrates and police is quite inadequate to
keep under the great evil of the island—vagrancy.
So that where we have reductions they are made in
the weong direction.
The slave trade figures off in these estimates to the
tune of 53,0001.; of which 30,000/. are required for
the:support in idleness, at Sierra Leone, of captured
negroes, who ought to be taken to our West Indian
islands, where, without costing us a penny (not even
the expense of their passage), they would at once be-
come valuable and well paid labourers. The
remainder of this sum, 23,0001., is required
to pay the expenses of our Courts of Mixed
Commission()) at Sierra Leone, Havana, Cape of Good
Hope, Jamaica, Cape Verde, and Loaada., Now, if
any of our economi-es in the House of Commons will
take the trouble of looking into the annual slave
' trade papers, Class A, laid before parliament, he will
' there find the commissioners of these cants reporting
half-yearly, for the last two years, to the Foreign-
' office, that they have nothing to do. And, in point
of fact, from the manner in which the slave trade
, is now carried on, these courts can have no legitimate
occupation. For, tither it is conducted under the
Brazilian flag, and, ea we have no right of search I
treaty with Brazil, we cannot bring ships captured
' under that flag before s court of mixed commis ion; I
or the trade is carried on in vessels which do not I
mount any flag, and in that case when taken
they must be brought before Vice-Adniiralty
courts. Yet have we to pay 23,0001. a
year for seven] courts of mixed commission,
not one of which has, we understand, coecleinned
slaver daring the last twice months. "In the year I
ust concluded," write these sinecurists at Sierra
ne, under date Jan. 27, 1847, " no case came be-
fore the British and Netherland, British and Spanish,
British and Argentine, British and Chilian, British
and Bolivian, or the British and Uruguayan mixed
courts of justice." Nothwithstanding which absence
of all business these courts at Sierra Leone cost Eng-
land in that year upwards of 6,0004 fins also, On the

31st Dec., 1847, they also report "no case" adjudi-
cated, and "no slaves" emancipated by their agency.
From Havana under date of Jan. 1, 1848, the com-
missary-judge writes " that there was no case of any
slave vessel brought for adjudication before the mixed
court of justice at this place during the last six
months." From the Cape and Jamaica and Cape
Verds the like reports of "no case" come to the Fo-
reign-office. And for this mockery of judicature we
are paying 23,000/. a year.
The estimate for consular services is well worthy of
lattention. For example, at Constantinople, where we
have au ambassador of the highest class, we have also
a consul-general, with the highest class salary,
1,6001. a year; and, as if that were not sufficient,
be has (for the purpose of throb-hand cribbage,
we suppose), a vice-consul and physician. At
Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers, our consuls have equally
large salaries, although at each of these places
our trade is quite unimportant ; and the politics, when
any arise, are, of course, conducted either in Loudon,
Paris, or Constantinople. It is however but fair to
, our consuls to remark, that the largest salaries in this
e,timate ought strictly to be transferred to the diplo-
matic estimate, for our consuls-general throughout
South America are in reality diplomatic agents. But
the latter estimate is already large enough, and its
excess is conecaled in the consular service.
Hong-Kong costs us 25,000/. a year; without
being of the least service to our Chinese trade; and
the consular establishments of the five open ports in
China, 32,4f10/.—together, nearly 60,000/. ; a sum
which can only be made up of enormous salaries; as,
for instance, 6,000/. a year to the governor of Wng-
Kong, or 1,0004 more than we pay the prime minister
at home. And, as if the salary was not large enough,
we give Mr. BONIL4II, the newly-appointed governor,
"an outfit !" On this worthless ruck we appear to
be nearly as deep in bricks and mortar as we are in
Buckingham l'alace; fur the " public works are
set down at 20,000/.

FRANC Z.

PARIS, WEDN ZSPAT, 11. 30.,

There is no domestic news of the slightest interest
this mornin;.. Yesterday being a holiday all
public affairs were suspended, but it was re-
markable that notwithstanding beautiful weather, the
promenades and the environs were almost deserted.
This circumstance is ascribed no doubt with truth,
to the state of general agitation which prevails
among all classes and all parties. The abuse sof con-
fidence is not limited merely to commercial ahairs, it
extends to the government itself in a still more strik-
ing degree. The reaction is assuming serious
dimensions, both in Paris and in the pro-
vinces. Pasties who have hitherto brooded over their
convictions individually, ate beginning to coalesce. An
organization is in contemplation; a central body will
probably within a brief space of time be established
in l'aris corresponding with similar bodies in the de-
partments. This once accomplished, they will be so
many " weld" round which isolated opinion will
collect, and the results will become apparent imme•
dia'ely. The republicans of the eve are alive to this
state of things, and they vehemently fear the explo-
sion which will be produced in the assembly in the
approaching debate on the monster report and evi-
dence of the insurrection committee.

To-day the project of postal reform came on in the
assembly. It is understood that it will be sanctioned
by that body, but not to be brought into operation
until January, 1650, so as not to strike the Treasury
with the loss of revenue, which it is supposedmust, at
least in the first instance, attend it until the present
shock to credit shall have passed.
The project of the Lyons Railway Company is also
expected to come on to-day.