The Express.
London, England, 1848-09-06 00:00:00

conveys bat au insinuate estimate of the time de-
voted to bruiser by the 666 members of the Hoses
of Commons lase their 'meeting. Daring the saga
there have met 44 paha) memaittees with an average
of 15 members on each; 28 eked= committees with
6 members es each ; 14 railway committees with 6
aesthete as each; 17 private bill ammittess with
6 members on each; and 112 other committees, 6
of which had 6, and the rest S members each. There
have mat in all during the series 216 committees
regains, 1,301 member, to constitute them. If the
work had b. en equally divided, every member of the
house must have menace two How ones
the 112 " other committees" maim unknown, but the
103 sat among them 1,231 days (fora Walla hoots
each day), or upwards of 11 days on an avenge. If
all tho members of the House of Commons bad
worked equally bard daring the session, they would
have gone through 168 nocturnal meeting! averaging
7 hours each, and 12 day meetings averaging 6 hours
each. But scarcely more than one-half of the mem-
bers have been really working men, so their days and
hours of toil may be about doubled. Upwards of
thiec bemired of the chosen statesmen of the lead
have been labouring in their wadi= of legislators
168 days for 12 hours per diem during 24 of them,
and for 7 boars per diem on the remaining 144.
Still this (eves wen the committee and housework
of
the Lords sided) conveys but an inadeqoate idea
of the quantity et Intellectual sesehinery that hes
been set to work to maks laws daring the
seam, and the time that It bee been kept going.
Witnesses have been examined; clerks and
others in the government of have been est to
cal!, arrange, and digest papers from their archives,
to be preeetited to parliament; members have crammed
for speeches, and wasted the midnight oil in pre-
paring reports; lawyers have bees employed to pre-
pare bills, draw briefi, make speeches, bully witnesses,
and perste committees; private conclaves of minis-
terialtste, protectionists, Irish members, or inde-
pendent libelee, have held long councils on the
tactics they ought to adopt; bay-bodies of all oar
bodies
interests," spirituous and spiritual, locomotive and
obstructive, have been scouring about, making demon-
strations and canvassing members. The imagination
recoils in d* spair from the attempt to conceive the
amount and intensity of activity of mind and body
which has been evoked during the ten monthesession
to toil in the task of legislation.
And what is the result of this soonsons, inane, and
protracted pother ? Some hundred of matter-of-ferm,
routine bills, or technical amendments of existing
laws; some half dozen emasculated message of
Mrutility ; a couple of coercive measures for be-
•al the certain acidities of two millions to the na-
tional deb:, with • " hanging gale " of, it may be,
double that amount left unadjusted; and speeches,
a mero abridement of which fills some 1,200,
eolamts of 0 Hansard," measuring 800 feet in length
by two inches in breadth. This is "much ado shone
nothing" with a vengeance.
This doll, plodding, and laborious waste of time is
not palliated by the present circumstances of the
community. Parliament alma pretend that it
has done nothing became there was nothing to
do. The rebellion in Ireland has indeed been con-
temptible, but there is a universal ipirit of discontent
and uneasiness pervading that island, and the causes
which have evoked this troublone spirit are known by
a msj ority of the leg isleture to be thedl-adj sated balance
of institutions w ith opinion and with the economical
audition of society. There is mush uneasiness and
discontent in Great Britain, remelting from similar
causes existing here too, though to a less extent and
with leas intensity. Ministers, when they convoked
parliament before its usual time, confessed by that
very act there was much urgent work for it to do.
Not one of its members questioned the propriety of
their being assembled at an unwontedly early period
of the political yar. Yet with so much important
and pressing business demanding their attention,'
ministers and members of parliament have conspired
to waste their time in solemn trifling.
The result has been exactly what might have been
anticipated from such shameless proceedings. - The
members of the legislature, worn out by their aimless
and resultless toils, have dropped off, till a smaller
number was left to be present at the prorogation than
common civility required should attend their sove-
reign on such an occasion. The financial statement
of the CHANCELLOI OP PRI EXCHIQUER was made
to 34 members of the House of Commons ; and at
the division on the pausing of the Commission of
Sewers Bill on Monday night, there mustered only
4 peers to vote spinet, and 6 to vote for the measure.
Parliament has not been prorogued, it has evapo-
rated. _ _ _

The closing solemnity was huddled over in a man-
ner that showed the actors felt the hollowness of the
business they were shout. Most of the ministers had
previously departed, leaving to their sovereign the
tiresome formal task of proroguing parliament. The
CHANCELLOR. OP THE EXCHEQUER and the SECIC-
TART OP livers for the Colonies had not even
the arnual fish dinner with their pressure.
The Lord of the Treasury bad already crossed
the Irish Channel, and the rest were dispersing in all
direction'. The circumstance that the wonted time of
proroguing was anticipated by a full hour, looks as if
her Majesty had felt some irritation at her ministers'
detaining her in town to go through a mere form,
while they themselves were scampermg off like school-
bop let loose in search of pleasure.
The speech prepared by ministers for the Quer(
was worthy of all the other circumstances. Its his-
tory of the past is barren and beggarly ; its glance at
the future freezingly devoid of promise. The neu-
tralised bill for the sale or encumbered estates in Ire-
land, the Sootch entail bill, and the sanitary bill,
which even ministers confess to be only " a founda-
tion," are all the measures of genera! importance
the speech can enumerate as having been
passed into laws. To swell out this meagre catalogue
the acts for the prevention of crime and outrage in
Ireland, and for the temporary saspenion of the con-
stitution in parts of that island, are pressed into the
service. Nay the Irish poor-law, the work of a former
melee, and 'he charitable contributions from other
parts of the empire, with which parliament had no-
thing to do, are squeezed into the speech. The
only promise for the future, if it deserve the name,
is—" I shall avail myself of every opportunity, when
the exigencies of the state may allow, for enforcing
economy." This is rather a threat of continued
extravagance than a promise of retrenchment. The
speech concludes with a promise that if the people
respect the law and obey the precepts of ragim
their liberties "may be perpetuated." This again is
rather a warning to take care that their liberties be
not diminished, than a promise that their urgent re-
qoests to have them extended shall be granted. Lord
Joni RUSSELL formerly talked about finality; this,
his latest royal speech, is finality. The spirit of re-
form has been exorcised from him and his colleagues.
=itubear the same resemblance to a reforming
that the pillar of salt did to LOTS wife; and
they have been subjected to the metamorphosis for
the same effeLoe—for wilfully and obstinately looking
backwards instead of f

Box in ems time@ of social convulsion and poli-
tical change, the news received by each @accoutre
mail from America is not without its interest. In

connexion with one point at least it realises the pre-
dictions in which we indulged a short time aro,
showing, as it does, the fresh oomplications in which
event after event is involving the all-absorbing ques-
tion of slavery. •
Since the arrival of the last mail the question of
slavery how adv..nced another step ; at all events, the
position of parties in respect to it has become more
defined and unequivocal. It will be remem-
bered that the mail before last brought
us the news that the bill, which had
passed the senate, with a view to effecting • com-
promise on the subject of slavery, as regarded the
new] -acquired territory, had been peremptorily re-
by the House of Representatives. The ma-
ty it was certainly not large, but, con-
sidering the nature of the question, and the balance
of parties, it was both decisive and significant The
fate of the bill was a triumph to the north, and a
proof to the south that, though slavery, within
existing limits, might be secure from external attack,
the attempt further to extend it was pregnant with
hazardous contingencies.
Had engem adjourned leaving the (motion as it
then stool, the influence which it would have exercised
on the prvidential election would have been both im-
portant and curious. But one of the fruits of a more
than usually protracted legislative semi= bas been
to
Baal being the qnation, by tally two steps, nearer its
The first of these was the achievement of a new
tifampls by freed= and the north, in the case

of the bill fee the organisation of a antacid
government in Oregon. There was eosethieg
at wee incenahrent and orsiaidal is
the poei-
tisn which the loath assumed towards this
bill, an attempt heist
_made by the slave-holding in-
terest to infringe the Miami compromise in favour
• siouey—by proposing to leave the negation of
slavery or ao slavery in Deeps open for decision by
the future inhabitants et the ternary. Now by the
MiSPOOIi compromise, slavery was absolutely and for
ever prohibited in all the territory Deluging to the
United Beata north of 36 deg. 30 min. north latitude.
The southern boundary of Amities* Oregon, is al
deg. north of this line, and the whole of it is oon-
&cogently included in the territory which was to be
fur ever exempted from slavery. Yet it was in
reference to this territory that the south
proposed to depart from the compromise, and leave
the establishment of slavery in Oregon an open ques-
tion. This condoct wee inconsistent, inasmuch as it
is era this compromise that the south relies for the
permission to establish slavery in the newly acquired
territory south Cl the compromise line. It relied
upon the compromise to establish slavery south of the
line, at the same time that it sought to depart from it
fur the bare chance of its establishment in Orgies.
Its conduct was suicidal, beaus, should the north
now manifest a disposition to disregard the compro-
mise it can plead the presedent set it by the south.
It may be urged kr the south, that it was not in
the expectation that there was any chimes of slavery
being established in Oregon. that it took this course,
bat with a view to setting an example on one side at
the line, which the north could net well refuse to
imitate on the other. Seeing the north so moth
averse 03 the legislative enactment of slavery in the
territory south of the line, it may have despaired
of extending the system to that territory,
unless some new principle of action were
struck oat, which weed involve a similitude
of action on both sides of the line. It therefore pro-
posed that oongrese should abdicate all control over
the subject, and leave the inhabitants of the territory
to the north to elect freedom foe themselves instead Cl
slavery, and those of the south to elect slavery, if they
saw fit, in preference to freedom. But they have been
bathed in this attempt, an event which, in the I
exercise of ordinary foresight, they should have
anticipated. Nominally, the course which they pro-
posed was a new one—virtually, it was the
same as that from which they professed
to depart. The option proposed to be given to
Oregon was as sure to result in the exclusion of
slavery, as that proposed to be extended to New
Mexico and California was certain to result in its
introduction. The north would have gained nothing
by this, the south -everything. But the latter now
labours under the disadvantage of failing in its at-
tempt, after having incurred the responsibility of br-
iny the first to depart from that very compromise on
which it has again fallen back, and behind which
t now seeks to fortify itself. Had it consulted its
true policy, it would have held the north bound to
that bargain, by itself preservir g inviolate its terms.
The unsuccessful issue of this attempt at a new
compromise is another triumph to the north—whilst
it is, in every respect, a far greater triumph than that
which preceded it. In addition to being defeated,
the south has obliterated the old landmarks of the
question, which it was its interest to have preserved,
and which it is that of the north to remove. The utter
unsettlement of the whole question, gives new
strength to the north, the policy of the south being to
keep the north bound by the terms of its agreement.
The south, in the furtherance of a shallow policy,
attempted a coup neat, which failing, tt falls back
upon the old terms from which it has departed, and
to which the north may not, in future, be disposed to
pay any great deference. This second triumph is all
the greater, too, when we consider the mode in which
it has been obtained. In the former case the house
refused to adopt the bill of the Senate; ; in the
latter the Senate was compelled to adopt that of
the house. In the one case, the north withheld its
sanction from the proposition of the south, in the
other the south was compelled to assent to that of the I
north. Freedom has thus attained over slavery, se it I
were, a negative and a podded triumph. Its first
was a successful defence, its lam a suooessful ag-1
✓oam
By the mail which has just arrived, we learn that I
the question has advanced another step. In assent-
ing to the oregon bill, which he did in the spirit of,
the Missouri compromise, the President transmitted
a message to congress, giving his reasons for so doing.
With the constitutionality orunconatitutionality of that
document, we have here nothing to do. Our interest in
it is confined to its contents. It appears that con-
jointly with his reasons for assenting to the bill, the'
meresge virtually informs Congress that the Presi-
dent would hare vetoed it bad the territory
affected by it been south instead of north of the
compromise line. In other wads, he adheres to the
compromise in excluding slavery from Oregon, and is
prepared to adhere to it, in extending the system to
California. As regards the latter determination, he
may be regarded as impersonating the whole youth.
The position then unnamed by the slave-holding sec-
tion of the union is that of the compromise. bo far
as regards one party to the dispute : if the north has
not taken an equally defined position sgaiost the tom-
promise it is fist doing no. Be it observed that in re-
jecting the proposition of the south as regarded
Oregon, the north did not stand upon the compromise,
but upon the determination that slavery should not
bave the remotest chance of extending itself to
that territory. In other words, its opposition
to that proposal typified its determination to
resist the further extension of slavery at all.
Practically, it " kept the compromise oat of
sight, whilst it adroitly left the south to depart from
it. Now that the south has again fallen back epic
it, it cannot tie the north down to it, by anything
that the latter said or did with reference to the
Bill. On that bill the south alone placed
itself n a false position.
The whole interest of the question, then, tarns upon
I the view now entertained by the north of the binding
nature of the compromise. What that view is, so
far as the abolition party is concerned, it is not
necessary to inquire. But the majority of the
people in the north are not abolitionists' in the party
sense of that term. Is the opinion of that majority
embodied in the remarkable speech pronounced by
Mr. Weser= on the subject? If so, the parties are
already directly at issue—the south insisting "al the
compromise, the north determined to disregard it.
How soon in this, has the example set by the month
been imitated! _ _

But, in disregarding the compromise, is the north
to violate the terms of a solemn bargain P
clord answering this question it is well to
inquire what were the terms of the bargain. They
were briefly, that the territory north of a certain line
should be fire. They were not, in addition to this,
that the territory moth of that line should be the
reveres of free. The south, however, bold that this
was so manifestly the spirit of the bargain, that it
is as binding upon the parties as if it had been em-
bodied in its text. To this the north object, and inter
olio, upon emetitutional grounds, maintaining that
such a construction of the compromise is ut-
terly at variance with the whole spirit
of the constitution and the views of its
founders. The constitution guaranteed slavery
from external attack within existing limits, bat did
not contemplate either the aatuisition of new terri-
tory in the south, or the extension of slavery to such
territory if acquired. Notwithstanding this ter-
ritories in the south have been acquired by purchase,
intrigue, and cooquest, and over a portion of them
slaver, hasalnady been extended. This, eaysthe north,
is in violation of the whole tone and spirit of the con-
stitution, and if the compromise gammons it, the own-
promise itself is null and void, as no act of congress can
annul or contravene the fundamental law of the land.
Thus, even if by its very letter the Compromise Act
guaranteed the extension of slavery to the territory
south of, and guaranteed its exclusion from that
north of the line, the north holds that it did that
which it had not the power to do. The question for
it then to decide is this—Congress having, as it main-
tains, no power to contravene the constitution, shall
it be permitted so far to depart from that document,
as to extend ths institution of slavery to any portion
of the newly acquired territory P To this question
the north seems inclined to give a decided sad unani-
mous negative.
The north boa thus two geMusda, on which it 'may
disregard the anspromise—first, that the south set
the example of departing from it ; and, secondly, that
the compromise, as interpreted by the south, ii uncon-
stitutional, and, therefore, null and void.
Thus we mealy* that this long vexed question is
at length advancing by rapid gentles to a solution.
The new petition of the two parties may be found
in the President's manage andifir.Wsserxes speech.