The Express.
London, England, 1851-05-20 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, MAY 20.

A WEEKLY contemporary is curious to know
whence the hidden resources of protectionist finance
arc likely to be found. When the income tax and
malt tax, or either of them, shall have been dis-
pensed with, as a mode of relieving the landlords,
and when certain items of local taxation shall have
been placed on the Consolidated Fund, by way of
pacifying the over-rented farmers---where are the
necessary millions per annum to come from ? What
manner of new burdens can be devised that the
people at large will bear ?
We do not desire to over-state the case, and there-
' fore omit altogether the additional difficulty, which
would arise, were the retrogrotloes likely to be
hampered by the volunteer bu 4 propounded sonic
time ago by Mr. Disitaett. ne of the most con-
spicuous features of that memorable imprudence was
the re-establishment of a sinking fund to pay off the
national debt at the rate of 3,000,000/. a year. That
could only bind its author, and could only have been
embarrassing were that author suffered to retain in
office the post of leadership which he has been
allowed to occupy in opposition. But this re-
tention of pm-eminence, should the party ever
attain power, seems less than ever probable.
It is an acknowledged maxim of aristocracy to
keep no faith with parvenus longer than it is
needful or convenient so to do. While nobody better
than GRANBY or NEWDEGATE wu to be had the
right divine of the eloquent intruder to bear rule
was hardly questioned. With hazy hopes of win-
ning over such a man as Mr. GLADSTONE, the ques-
tion was put in abeyance ; but that right hon. gen-
tleman having peremptorily refused to entertain in
February last the idea of imposing a new tax on
bread, the supremacy of the member for Bucks once
more seemed to be secure. A new and more
formidable competitor, however, has since ap-
peared in the person of Mr. WALPOLE, . a
man of character, learning, and discretion, second
only to Mr. Disnsem in parliamentary eloquence,
and, above all, regarded by those with whom he is
identified in general policy, as one of themselves.
The first distinct intimation of this change of posi-
tions and priorities appears to have come, singularly
enough, from the opposite party, and from no less a
person than the prime minister. Mr. WALPOLE
having given notice of a series of amendments on the
Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, a communication was made
on behalf of the government, through the AT-
TORNEY-OENERAL, to the learned gentleman,
with the view of ascertaining how far the
two principal parties in the House of Com-
mons could arrive at some agreement regarding
the chief provisions of the bill. A proceeding of this
kind could have no meaning, had not Lord JOON
RUSSELL believed that tho person thus addressed was
competent to speak and act fur others as well as him-
self On such a question, the sentiments of any
isolated individual could be of little interest or im-
portance in the eyes of the minister. It was mani-
festly not to the member for Midhurst, therefore, but
to the forthcoming leader of the Tory party, that Sir
ALEXANDER,COCKBURN was sent. Of the result of
his mission we arc not speaking here. 'the fact and
its avowal is all that we are just now concerned with,
and the general consequences to which it obviously
tends

It may be that during their prolonged sojourn in
the wilderness MosEs will still continue to guide the
ungratefuls, and that the regime of Josituv will not
commence until the long-delayed period of their
passing over Jordan. But the administration of the
latter will at all events be unfettered by the promises
of hiu predecessor. Party iu ready at freolucnt inter-
vals to avail itself of the benefits of political insol-
vency. It puts without scruple all its dis-
honoured bills into a schedule, swears roundly that
payment is impossible, and then without a blush
asks for permission to open a new score with the
credulous and simple. It is in the oversight of this
facility that we differ mainly with our contemporary
already alluded to, in his estimate of the difficulties
of protectionist finance. The question will not turn
on what Mr. lltsunEtt has said in the name of an
irresponsible opposition, but what Mr. WALPOLE will
hereafter say in the name of a responsible ministry,
supposing such a change to come about next year.
As for the present. there seems but little symptom
of a second renunciation of office this session,
by its present occupants; and of the next, at such
a distance, who seriously thinks? lint should it be
so fated that either through want of courage, or the
faculty of conciliating support, the whigs should let
fall the reins they have hitherto somewhat loosely
held, we doubt exceedingly whether we should ever
hear a word within the walls of parliament about
sinking fund or malt tax repeal. These may be all
very well as stock pieces for grumbling, when there
is no likelihood of being taken at ones word ; but
Lord STANLEY is committed to neither of them, and
he is not very likely to choose as his alter ego in the
Commons any ono who is.
Let the farmers ponder well then over this signi-
ficant fact, that the only measure to which their real
leaders are pledged, as far as the remission of taxes
is concerned, is the cessation of the income tax,
which three out of four of the tenant class through-
out the kingdom do not pay. This is the snm and
substance of protectionist sympathy for the landed
interest, a direct relief to the owners of land, with a
certain incidental and partial alleviation of the bur-
thens borne by the occupiers. And how is the defi-
ciency thus threatened proposed to be made up? By
a five shilling duty on corn, which in years
of scarcity the farmers would not need, and which
in years of plenty would be wholly insufficient to
enable them to afford those exorbitant rents with in-
secure tenure, which is at the bottom of the whole
question. A five shilling duty simply means ten per
cent. more rent for the landlord at the risk of the
tenant, and the cost of the labourer. It would be
just enough if attempted to paralyse enterprise,
destroy confidence, and set the kingdom in a flame ;
but for the tenant farmers it would prove, were it
carried, a miserable delusion, a fallacious and fugi-
tive boon.

THE Times congratulates its readers, English and
European, on the restoration of the Diet of Frank-
furt, not, indeed, with the powers with which it
was endowed in 1814 and 1815, when it tolerated
constitutions and admitted the independence of the
lesser states, but with that hill tyrannical supre-
macy which Austria obtained over that assemblage
of princely delegates, and by which it destroyed the
independence of every lesser state, abrogated the
liberty of the press, and nullitiod the first and last
principle of constitutional government, the right of
the chambers to refuse the budget in any state. It
was this execrable system of tyranny which chiefly
caused the Germans to rise in 1848, and which
prompted them to destroy that most odious, bigoted,
and retrograde despotism which Austria had esta-
blished at Frankfort.
That there should be found a living being, except
some mercenary scribe of Austria, who could dare to
return thanks in England before its public
for the restoration of such a state of things, is so
marvellous a sample of the impudence of an English
journalist, and the ignorant recklessness of an Eng-
lish public, that in truth it is worthy of figuring
with any monstrosity in the Great Exhibition.
The Times, indeed, which in its bigot preachments
of the most retrograde and most brutal system of
tyranny, is aecustomed to thrust in an excuse to save
appearances, adds, by, way of comment to its jubilation
on the restoration of the Diet,that if it turns out merely
the old Diet, with its old imbecility and oppression,
it will do no good. But the Times knows right well,
that if the new Diet at all differs from the old, it
will be in the greater stringency of its despotism,
the greater narrowness of its council, its
power of action orer the minor states. With Prussia,

and with Prussia the protestant principle in Ger-
many, annihilatedand humiliated, with thefour kings
chained to the car of Austria, what is, what can the
Frankfort Diet be, but the cabinet of Vienna in
a delegated shape ? As to M ISTEUFFEL or the
King of Paessis, every one knows that their show
of resistance is mere humbug. The people of Ger-
many have not a friend, a champion, a liberal or
sympathising mind in the Diet of Frankfort.
The first principle of that Diet is, that representa-
tive states cannot reject a budget. Hesse Cassel has
been martyrised, crushed, decimated, and eaten up
for having dared to adhere to that principle. And the
Times gloats with joy at the triumph of the Austrians
over the liberal resistance. And after the triumph
of despotism has been completed at Cassel, at Ilam-
burgh, and at Frankfort, the Times has the hypo-
crisy to take for granted that there will be con-
cessions to constitutionalism, and to good and libe-
ral government, from Austria. It expects this with
just as mach sincerity and truth as it promised a
lenient and constitutional administration of Sicily by
the Neapolitans, or of Rome by the Poet:. The
Times has poured forth its congratulations on all
these conquests and restorations of tyranny. It
Ilpraised them, lauded them, flattered them, stood
sponsor for their good intentions. And even after all
these governments, like Rome and Naples, have given
full proofs of their barbarism, their brutality, their
'imbecility, the Tinos has not yet one word of blame.
That journal gloats over the degradation and the en-
slavement of the European mind.
The fate of Germany and of its smaller states is
precisely that of Italy, as seen at Naples, ltome, and
Florence. The re-establishment of the Frankfurt
Diet is tho finishing stroke. It is a simple declara-
tion that north of the Alps, as well as south, the
state of politics and governments which prevailed in
1846 and 1847 has been restored.
And the nmes would have the English people
believe that this is good. It would have the English
politician trust to it, as peace. It would cajole the
English manufacturer and merchant, by holding out
Austrians a land of free trade and no custom-houses,
when its only possible proposals for uniting German}•
are to raise the liberal tariffs of the north to an al-
most equality with the prohibitive ones of the south.
It lauds even the adjunction of North Italy to
the German empire, although it knows that the
North Italy of Austria now necessarily drags after
it Tuscany, the Romagna, and in fact the whole
peninsula, from which it has already succeeded in
excluding no small portion of our trade. We
are indeed not amongst those who are much moved
by the bugbear of Italy being blended in the same
empire with Germany. We know there ore natural
impossibilities, which to brave can never tend to in-
crease
but to diminish strength. Italy can never be
the appendage of Germany or Austria. And the
more Italy is treated as dependent, the more cer-
tainly will it seize every opportunity to free itself,
and consequently the more expense and force will it
demand to keep it even quiet.
The question for Austria is, in truth, not whether
it shall appropriate Italy, hut whether it can keep
Germany. Al c must say, we deem it incapable of
either. Even by means of the former Frankfort Diet,
when it tyrannised over the rest of Germany, it still
drew from it no strength. When war seriously
threatened, Austria confined all her efforts and'
anxieties to her own paternal dominions. It may'
now create a more compact military organisation on
paper, with more stringent rules of obedience on the
part of the lesser powers to the great, and on the
part of the real Germans to the Croats and Sclavo-
nians. Rut all this will not create real strength.
This will not unite a German army, with a German
spirit, to resist an anti-national foe. Such an army, in
the present state of men's minds, would not fight, or
would turn their arms against their generals and
courts. The military force, organised by the new
Diet, would be chaOs at the first war. Instead of
combating an army of French republicans, the Ger-
mans would embrace them. And Germany, instead
of being rendered a bulwark by Austria and Russia,
against the democratic ideas of the west, would.
on the contrary, form in its oppression and
dissatisfaction a tacit alliance with them. The Ger-
mans would welcome anarchy itself, rather than live
another half century crushed under the hoof of that
most brutal of the human species, as our Italian
letters show, the ('roat soldier.

We admit, however, that the Times, which sung a
Laurent ode on the restoration of the King of NAPLES
to absolute power, which marched triumphantly
on tho' baggage of the French commander as he
entered the stlects of Rome, and hailed the restora-
tion of the POPE—we admit that in all consistency
the same journal and the same writer may singits man
on the restoration of the Dietof Frankfurt. But we beg
to inform Englishmen, that there is not one intelligent,
industrious or moderately liberal German who does
not stare in amazement at the sentiments of the
Times as far more befitting the climate and the ideas
of Siberia than those of Englund. And we at the
same time beg to inform Germans that in this wide
city of two millions of Englishmen, they would not find
two men sufficiently ignorant or sufficiently base, as
to adopt the opinions of the Times respecting
Germany.