The Express.
London, England, 1849-02-03 00:00:00

likely to evened, the antiquated divisions of whig
and tt
ly
ad Se 'divide stalemate into two schools,
dosMinalsrl the old and the new.
Teas *mine at the middle of the war, until very
Wally at Indira policy, and from the very eom-
monnsmnit. oat edosial and Irish policy, have been
feuded es the principle of Caney, that is, of
dosimulng sad of the strong arts. Oar Eoverasente
have known no argument bat might, their language
has summed the invariable ten* el the powerful a-
iming the weak, our counsels to grewunente have
bean Milady% ardour almost undisguised motives were
what we ired likely to promote the pride, power,
and wealth of Britons, at the expense of rivals or de-
',lndents.
We have, in fact, enacted the part of beasts of prey
—magnanimously, no doubt, at times, and lion-like.
So is uch so, that we shall infallibly make a very
heroic figure in history, especially if history be written
byEnglishmen, and of the mother country. We did
this, however, and maintained this ascendancy by
superiority of intelligence, of freedom, of wealth.
Bat we have ceased to monopolise any of these things.
Oar own colonists, as well as other countries, some
of them formed oat of our own colonies, are as intelli-
gent as we, to question our pretensions, and wealthy
and powerful to resist them. We must give up ascen-
dancy, we must give up intimidation. Indeed, we
have given up intimidetion. We can no longer in-
terfere efficiently to put down by force or raise up
by physical support, any party in any foreign country.
And the question is whether, having abandoned inter-
ference or intervention for any great purpose or any
great cause, we had not batter abandon it also in small,
and instruct our foreign secretaries to let the conti-
nent alone, and our Colonial Secretary to allow the
colonies in as far as possible to manage their own
affairs.
In the course of the debate on the Address the
co'onial question, however important, was but
slightly touched upon with the exception of some
remarks from Mr. HUME and Mr. HORSMAN. The
foreign and the financial questions in conjunction were
discussed. And we have Lord Joao Ru-sett's de-
termination to tread pretty much in the some path as
hitherto, more softly and cautiously, perhaps, by which
means we arc to have all the expenditure and anxiety
of the old system, without its dignity and power. We
are to maintain a military force, as of old, to
govern Ireland and Coxed* with permanent armies,
and keep war alive on the Indus and at the Cape.
And we are to have a navy, at seven or eight millions
a year, lest the four millions of the French naval esti-
mates should enable the pacific ministers of that
country to quarrel with us, on what ground and
with what arms it is impossible to state.
Lord JOHN Rossett pleaded that we could not go
back to the military force of 1835, because we had
since acquired a new colony that required 1,800 men.
But if we are to acquire new colonies, without paci-
qiug old ones, where is our progress—where our state-
manship? Has not Canada been quieted since then? In
our improved relations with the United States, what
need have we of such armies? Why has Ireland not
been quieted since ? And why does it require 40,000
men ? Because the party of ascendancy in land and
creed will not part with any essential poi tion of its
monopoly in tither.
A more unsatisfactory speech than that of the
Prime Minister we have seldom read. It is that of
a statesman seeking to stave off difficulties—not
meet them; of a man desirous to conciliate personal
enmity, but without the courage to yield to rationel
demands; of a minister seeking to yore au jour le
jour, and resigning himself to dream of effort, with
the reflection " that enough for the day is the evil
thereof." The somnolent weight of Lord JOHN'S
policy and speech renders him and his party in
truth a kind of night-mare upon the House of Com-
mons, which lies suffering, and uneasy, and dissatis-
fied beneath it, but which is too benumbed and
helplets to make any effort to shake off.
If Lord done Russem. mesmerised the house, Mr.
Disaaau exerted his usual powers of counter-excite-
ment Like most clever people who speak a great
deal, Mr. DisitAztt uttered some sense at.d much
nonsense. His nonsense was by far the most success-
ful with the house. What could be more just than
his reproach to ministers, that they had no plan or
policy
.for Ireland, and that they merely came to hide
their ignorance and irresolution in a pal:amen-
tary committee? What more conclusive than his
denouncement of mock mediation, and his exposure
of the nullities of our diplomacy ? The fair conclusion
from Mr. DISRAELI'S arguments was, why maintain
diplomatists? Why continue to meddle? Why keep
up a military force to intimidate ? He fully proved
that we wanted none of these things, yet he would
keep them up. For what? For show, apparently.
Mr. DISRAELI could not tell us to what profitable use
he would put an overgrown army and a multitudinous
diplomacy. It was not, however, the arguments of
the able orator that captivated the house,
but his epigrams. His " republic without re-
publicans," and •• empire without an emperor," were
received as wondrous specimens of wit and
sense, though we must own we can discover neither.
It is to us a painful sight to behold a man of genius
and cultivated mind, foremost amongst a party of
Englishmen—to see him get up in parliament, take a
review of Europe and its throes throughout 1848, and
find not one cause or object worthy of either respect
or sympathy, save the acts of WISDISCHCIRATZ and
RADETsKI. The IMMO taste must prefer the age
of Manila: to that of CICERO, or the reign of a
Persian Satrap to the heroism of TIIMILAOCLES, or
the wisdom of SoLoe.
Whilst Mr. DISRAELI sus thus straining every ab-
solutist principle and exerting every nerve to keep at
the head of the protectionists, who after all rt paid
him by a far more niggardly meed of adhesion and
applause, than even the generality of the house,
Lord STANLEY indulged in a trick of very questionable
fairness. Alter virtually abandoning the mein points
of his spoken amendment, those of foreign policy
included, on which he had most expatiated, he divided
on a minor point. He had the got rid of a number
of his opponents, and they were mustered with diffi-
culty to save the ministry from defeat.
Lord STARLIT'S is a good and well known sporting
trick—to lose two heats and win the third—but one
scarcely expected to find it resorted to in the House
of Lords.

and seamen depend foe their daily bread; and it is
risking an amount of Britielt capital invested in Brasil
of not less than five million. sterling.
No wonder, then, that L3ropoo.l is uneasy—that
Manchester is impede". Their anxiety is most natural.
And it will be only a simple act of the commonest
daty to their eonstitaents for one of the t epreenta-
does of th me towns to seek the interference of parlia-1
lint to avert impending dangers. To assist, them, in
the appeal that must be made to the legislature, we
propose to state, on competent authority, the steps by
which discord, instead of amity, has become the mbar
racterntic of our relations with BraziL
Before, however, proceeding to do so, it will net
be unprofitable to observe that of all the American
states, Brazil is the only monarchy in that quarter of
the globe—a fleet entitling it to some favour in Euro-
pean estimation; that its population have preserved
this form of government in spite of surrounding
example and the temptations of a long imperial
minority, and of a weak regency, and that
ISCRISTChy in its tarn bast preserved =OW
tilated territories and homogeneous provioses
to the Brazilians—facto entiting it to ear
sympathy and !expect; and that the public faith of
Brazil stands unimpeachable in the money market of
London—a fact entitling it to our confidence. Nor
ought it to be forgotten that for nearly twenty years
Brazil gave free admission to the fabrics of this coun-
try whilst we rigorously and insultingly excluded its
produce from our ports ; and that now, when pro.
yoked by an attack on its independence, it still hesi-
tates to pick up the weapons we have thrown away-
finis entitling it to no small consideration at ear
hands.
The great difficulty in the way of a new treaty of
commerce with Brazil was, it will be recollected, the
West Indian cigar monopoly. Before it Sir HENRY
ELLIS retreated, daring the Pen. administration,
from a fruitless mission to Rio. Scarcely, how-
ever, had that monopoly beca abandoned, and all
commercial obstructions to a treaty been thereby
removed, when a new difficulty, quite as insuper-
able, was created. The slave-trade stipulations be-
tween the two countries had, in the haste of the
British negotiators for their completion in 1826, been
so unskilfully drawn and were so unscrupulously acted,
on by our squadron as to have become a constant sonmel
of irritation and altercation. Possessing imperfect
powers, our foreign ministers were constantly de-
manding further concessions from Brazil, and as con-
tinually jastifying the most patent infractions of
existing stipulations. Of the occurrences (to use a
neutral word) that kept public opinion in Brazil ie
constant excitement against the suppreeion system,
none were more irritating, and therefore more pre-
judicial to the success of our efforts, than the
searches, the seizures, and the consequent collisions
between Brazilian and British forces which took
place in and about the Brazilian coast; and
which our readers will possibly have some, though an
inadequate, idea of from calling to mind the hot blood
always on the simmer on our own coasts by the in-
vasion of French fishermen ; or by supposing that we
chimed a right to follow or search for French smug
glers in French pone. Altercations respecting Bra-
zilian slavers seized under Brazilian batteries ; Bra-
zilian rural mayors persisting in committing as pirates
English officers caught in Brazilian rivers ; a Bra-'
Titian gentleman killed by a musket shot fired
in the very harbour of Rio from an English
vessel in the suppression service ; such things
as these wero perpetually in the atmosphere.
Till, at last, Brazil finding reclamation. uselesa, and
determined not to submit to condemnations on grounds
she had not authorised and to seizures in her own
territorial waters—in 1845 put an end to the right of
search, as it was granted she bad the right to do.
Caron unately, Lord Aceenees misconstruing (we
write the word on the highest authority on subjects ,
of international law at the English bar, whose opi-
uion on the question lies before us) the first article of
the treaty of 1826, induced parliament to pass en
act (8 & 9 Vie., cap. 122), authonsing British cruisers
to capture, and British Vice Admiralty Courts to
condemn, Brazilian vessels engaged in or equipped
for the slave trade. And it is this statute which now
forms the insuperable obstacle to a new treaty of com-
merce with Broil.
Against it the Imperial Government protested in the
most solemn way as an infraction of the treaty of
1826, and as au outrage on its rights as an indepen-
dent sovereign state ; transmitted copies of its pro-
test to the courts of its allies ; and formally announced
to our government its determination not to conclude
any commercial relations whilst the enactment was in
existence. Notwithstanding this pnnest the act has
been carried out in the most stringent manner ; and
for every vessel seized under its authority Brazil
claims for its subjects pecuniary compensation from
this country.
It must not, however, be for a moment supposed
that in terminating the right of search Brazil desired
for its subjects the power or opportunity of running
riot in the slave trade. Scarcely had she terminated
the stipulations end. r which that right had been exer-
clad and abused by this country, than the Minister
who has so long and so worthily represented Brazil at
the court of London, laid before Lord ABERDEEN the
project of a new slave trade convention, which would
have restored the right of search ander proper guaran-
tees against the invasion in its exercise of the terri-
torial waters of the empire. This project was (we
entreat attention to the fact, for it cannot be denied)
declared by Lord ABERDEEN to be in the main satis-
factory; and his lordship undertook to procure, on its
being signed, the repeal of the offensive statute. Ere,
however, it could be reduced into a formal shape,
Lord ABERDEEN had ceased to be Foreign tiecretary.
But he had, we repeat, given the assent of the British
government to the principles of the project presented
to him byßrazil.
Lord Panmititsroo, in succeeding to the Foreign-
office, not merely approved of the act of 1845 • he
announced his regret that its penal provisions had not
been extended to the persons of Brazilian subjects, as
well as to their property. It will, therefore, create no
surprise, when it is added that he summarily rejected
as perfectly inadmissible the Brazilian project which
Lord ABERDEEN had approved ; and determined on
sending Lord Howimai on a special minion to Rio
with a counter-project.
Lord HowDEN is, as every one knows, a fine
dashing, hands-me, and, in every sense of the
'MERE is, we are not at all surprised to hear, a word, a gallant man ; accomplished in the world
growing feeling of impatience in Manchester, Liver of fashion, but having no diplomatic experience ;
pool, and Glen° cat the state of our commercial rela- fitted perhaps to adorn a court, but little
Lions with a country in whose friendship and goodwill calculated to negotiate successfully a treaty of com-
those towns have sodeep an interest se in Brazil. And metal'. He had, however, claims of a personal nature
the now acknowledged and notorious failure of Lord on the whip, and they were liquidated by detch-
Howneres mission to the court of Rio de Janeiro, ing him in a frigate to Rio on this minion. Though
together with the prospect of heavy differential duties warned that he most fail, Lord HOWDEN appears to
on the admission of British manufactures into that have resolved on carrying things with a high hand. On
empire after January, 1850, render it probable that it reaching Rio he remained two days in that port with-
win become the duty of one of the members for Man-
out condescending to take any notice of the Monarch
Auger to bring the subject under the early. considei a- to whom he was accredited, and passed on to the
of the kgislatttre. This course is, indeed,
Plate without an effort even to interchange the cote-
the more imperative, because it is apparent lion
tesies of social life with, much more topay the respect
due to, Royalty. Nor was his personal conduct at Rio
from the character of the recent negotiations
during his subsequent residenceat all calculated to "-
between England and Brazil, and from the
nut hu pohtical mission. Of that mission saffies it to
position in which their termination has left the
executive governments of the two countries, that say, that it consisted in presenting to the Brazilian go-
vernment, not the heads of a slave-trade treaty for
nothing but a strong expression of parliamentary
discussion and negotiation; but a convention
opinion will lead to the arrangement of relationsfor signature : in which,
about which there never ought to have been any all aeadY PrePared
serious discussion, still less any prolonged delay. so ran Lord HOWDEM3 instructions, not a comma
Here are two monarchies, between which political had to be altered. It was, of course, contemptuously
rivalry is geographically impossible ; between which rejected; and the rejection accompanied by a refusal
there exist traditions of old friendship, and has been to entertain any proposals for a treaty of commerce ;
an interchange of modern good offices ; between wk. se notwithstanding hints were given that it might be in
subjects thew are the most extended trading con- the power of British diplomacy to protect the pro-
ne:loam countries mutually useful and beneficial to vince of Rio Grande fiom the ambitious designs as-
each other; having no tariff disputes or differences; crises to Rms.
having no interests, political or commercial, hostile to Ted treatment roused the national resentment of
each other ; but, on the contrary, having every motive the Brazilian legislature ; it conferred on the execu-
that can urge nations to permanent concord and to Live government power to place a differeatial duty of
settled amity ; both having constitutional govern. no less than 33 per cent. on the goods of those
meats of kindred form. Yet these two kingdoms, countries which had not interchanged with Brazil
thus situated, thus formed for commercial intercourse, the most favoured nation privilege. And this power
have for the last eight years been in vain endeavour- the Brazilian government has decided on exercising
ing to conclude a treaty of commerce ; and this, al- from the Ist January, 1850.
though for the last four years there has been no dispute Such is a faithful outline of the existing relations,
as to its terms and conditions. Nay, worse still ; the or rather non•relations, between England and Brazil.
chances now seem to be that, instead of such a treaty, On which country they inflict the most discredit we
retaliating duties will be imposed on the trade of one ; are ashamed to say. Bat after this statement it will
and that by the state which, in so doing, will pro- be in vain to urge ft at it is the pro slave-trade obstinacy
claim its unwillingness to resort to each a means of of Brazil with prevents the conclusion of a treaty
asserting its own dignity and independence. which would give stability to our commerce with that
No one can regard this as a satisfactory state of empire, and some protection to the immense amount
things. In truth it is most discreditable to the go- of British property there. For the want of such a
vernment of whichever monarchy its mules are treaty neither free-trade exaggerations nor slave-trade
attributable to. It is alienating from each other two cupidity are at all responsible. It is entirely owing to
countries having every inducement underheaven tube that principle of diplomatic interference in the internal
friendly; it is endangering a trade of vast importance affairs of other countries in support of which huge
to our manufacturers, and a demand for labour on armies are maintained and immense fleets in every
which at least a hundred thousand of our artisans ocean are excused.

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 3, 1849,