The Express.
London, England, 1848-11-23 00:00:00

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abeatey and
"We lear la produce
Mali& Tape and undefined in
purposes, financial as well as ether reformers
very easily m ted. Aedthose interested
the ..i.t....71;v7Z. present lavish system are
r 'to raise a cloud of prejudice and obloquy against
esfernisrs who seek improvement by the only means
Which an effect improvement, vix.—ohange.
There never was a thne,perhsps, more favourable
foe retrenchment than the present, when the govern-
ment of every state in Europe which can be said to
possess a government, is so absorbed in the difficulties
of its domestic affairs, that all foreign policies, except
in the way of judgment, of good or bad wishes, may
be said to be suspended and when, moreover, the
finances of every countrj are so utterly deranged,
that the imperative rule must be, and is, to provide
for the absolute necessities of the state, throwing tee
superfluities overboard. We see in the naval esti-
mates of France, in which the commissioners declare
ihe expenses to have been doubled, without effi-
ciency being increased, that fur this and for every
reason the largest diminutions are recommended.
Against the aggression of foreign power, never,
in fact, was Englar.d more secure ; and never
did it stand in need of less expenditure in
armaments, unless indeed her governing partite were
to ran a-muck at foreign liberalism, and quarrel with
their neighbours because they happen to be republi-
can or Bonapartist. But we do not sleep ct even our
governing parties of this. They will be quiet. Their
object will be to preserve an armed neutrality, and
keep up a large force, not to ewe foreigners, but to
keep and feed supporters at home.
It is against this policy that financial trimmers
are called upon to exert themselves, and they can
only do so with 'access by coming forward and
laying fully before the nation not only the source
of their grievances, but the mode in which Iht y
would propose to remedy them. The cry
of whig and tory is, and will be, that calor-
MON want merely to disarm the country, to disor-
ganise its government, and thus to leave it exposed to
the attacks of foreign end domestic foes. As it is
not the wish of the reformers to reduce the military
establishments of the country twitter what the teleigs
themselves thought amply sufficient for its detente
and respectability two or three-and-twenty years ago,
it would be as well, at once and formally, to say so.
During tho lapse of those years millions and half
millions have been gradually, one might almost say,
surreptitiously added to our military expenses, at one
time under one pretext, at another time under. arother.
First we were hidden to dread Russia as a giant
which was to swallow up our eastern possessions, and
ear Mediterranean interests. Then we were to anni-
hilate the Pacha of EGYPT for directly or in-
directly playing into the Czar's hands. Our effort,
I is these directions flung France into ill-humour, and
then we were told to beware of Louts rniuree. So
that when a French minister proposed a new ftet
even upon paper, or ordered a new vessel on the
Cocks, we instantly ordered two.
I Surely the events of 1848, it they have served to
no better purp tee, have at least shown the utter fut.-
:By of three teas. If the Cz in was ambitious he
would surely have shown some symptoms before now.
If Louts l'inuers was so formidable, surely his
government would have shown more stamina. Some
years back we thought Syria worth quarrelling for.
Who thinks so now ? A shorter time back we
thought it worth a great effort to free Spain from the
domination of Louis PHILIPPE. Yet Loris Pul-
-1 LIPPE is at Claremont, and we have not made
any advance with Spain. We restored her
I throne to the Queen of PORTUGAL, and the
result is, that whole) regiments desert her beggarly
service in contempt, in order to go marauding under
Carlist leaders into Spain. We mediated in Italy, and
RADLTSKI mocks us. The King of NAPLES enter-
tains for as sentiments equally reverential. And
even CAVAIGNAC, so inclined to be of ^word with us,
his at last found us such an inert weight that even he
has resolved to settle the Monkvidean question alone.
In the face of all these things, with nothing for us
to do in Europe, forbidden to interfere by the
national sentiment of England, and never sinning
against that injunction without encountering failure
and contempt, what do we want wi'h a
greater military or naval force than we had
two and twenty years ago? What more re-
quirements have we for it ? at wonders have we
done since with our increased estimates ? Or whittle r
have gone the ten millions a year, paid extra by the
people of England, to support their interests, dignity-,
and honour? Were we not quite as dignified in 18:16'.?
Our int- reies quite as well cared for ? Our honour
quite as much respected? Whatever of these ten
millions have been spent in materials, in war steamers,
or experiments, subsist, and are, we hcpe, available
for an emergency. But what need of adding to Base
stores of idle implements, or of continuing to man
barracks and wooden walls in defiance of a foe like
France., which is at this moment too much afraid of
its own shadow, to think of waning with us?
Lithe financial reformers from all partsof theking-
ism come forward with the unanimous cry, that the
estimates be reduced to the scale of 1836. Less
would not be worth a national effort; nor would it
be difficult to show that this economy can be en-
forced without detriment or danger to the service or
the interests of the country. With ten or eleven mil-
lions to dispose of, in the alleviation of the bur-
den of our over taxed population, every interest
may hope to have its share of that alleviation. And
if all interests combine in insisting upon it without
'minding the selfish an I malicious cries of " revolt"•
tionary and subversive" with which whig and tory
organs never fail to assail the champions of economy,
they will carry their point; and if, thereby, they do
not make the government of the country progress in
economy or liberalism, they will at least bring it back
to that degree of e c •nomy which it naturally reiviied
in the years immediately following the passing of the
Reform Bill. If we may not advance from this car-
dinal point, it will be at least something to keep true
and close to it.

Went the historical review of the working of the
ele-live system in the borough of St. Alban's, which
the reader will find in this day's publication, we com-
mence an analysis of corruption which we propose
to carry into every rotten constituency in the empire.
Every one knows that we have a representative
system, but very few know its real nature. It
may astonish some to hear that one fourth of
the legislators of the empire are returned for burghs
which are either utterly corrupt or subject to the in-
fluence of persons or of families. It will surprise still
more to he informed that many of our constituencies
are at this time infinitely more corrupt than before the
passing of the Reform Act. But so it is. One fourth
at least of the constituencies of Greet Britain require
at this time another administration of "the Russell
purge."
Every sort of anomaly is presented. Not only, is
the detect transparent in the constituencies, but it af-
fects the legislature. The whole kingdom suffers ;
and no one gains by it It will not be difficult to
show that whilst the legislature is deteriorated in
character, the individual members of it suffer in for-
tune,and the constituencies they represent are degraded
by the demoralisstion which the operation of the system
inevitably occasions. Take St. Alban's as an example.
Since the Reform Act the constituency of that borough
has decreased, and bribery has so much in-
creased that not a single election has occurred
that has not been won by corrupt influences.
But this is not all. The cariclidab s for what ought
to be an honourable distinction have been mere vic-
tims of an infamoue description of plunder. Several
, have been ruined; nearly all have been injured in
fortune and in reputation. Nor has the system given
birth to talent or distinction. With a solitary excep-
tion, not a single representative for St. Alban's'
since the passing of the Reform Act, has ob-
tained any parliamentary prominence. To whom,
then, has accrued the benefit? Not to the
borough; that hie become more and more im-
poverished as its rate books will exemplify. Not to
the electorate ; they have only fallen from the lowest
depth into • lower still at each succeeding contest.
Not to the wagerers of property ; power has fallen
from their hands into these of parties who will clothe
dirty work of " managing " the "roughs." If this
be a sample of one class of our boroughs is it not im-
peratively necessary a change should be effected ?

From the work which we this day begin we will
not desist until we have thrown upon all the
rotten constituencies of the land the same un-
sparing light we are throwing on the iniquities of St.
Alban's. IVe belii ve that by so doing we shall confer a
gnat public benefit. The minds of the people may thumbs