The Express.
London, England, 1851-05-31 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, MAY 31, 1851.

which the landlord has drawn that conclusion, be ori
be not sound, are matters whereon the landlord has
,alone exercised a discretion; the tenant has had
no voice in it. The concession, the manner
of performing it, and the language in which
'the favour is announced, are all acts of a
feudal superior towards a dependant tenan-1
try; and such is really the subsisting relation
between tenants and their landlords on most of the
great estates of England. And that is shown by
the next passage, wherein the steward deprecates
the " mistaken notions" wider which his lordship's
tenants labour " with regard to the claims they ap-
pear anxious to submit to their landlord for relief,"
s " to allude to a few matters which ought to
Coconsidered differently by unprejudiced farmers,"
and says, " I think that tenant farmers should look
for rehef from other sources, as well as from their
landlord." He then points out some of the advan-
tages they derive from the " free trade system."
He tells them first, that the wages of an able-bodied
man are W. a year lower, though the labourer is at
the same time better able to live and maintain his
family, than when food and other articles were dear ;
secondly, that all the necessaries of life being cheaper,
the farmer can maintain his establishment at less
cost than formerly; thirdly, that the tithe rent-
charge is gradually becoming lower with the lower
average prices of corn ; fourthly, that all rates and
local taxes are becoming lower, while sonic of the
general taxes which have been paid by the tenant
are being reduced or repealed; and, fifthly, that
BOW. will go as fur in stocking a farm now as I,OOW.
would have done under a system of artificially high
prices. And he adds, "that tenants who have the
means of stocking their farms will find that under
these and other advantages they car► obtain as good
a return for their labour and interest on their capital
now as formerly. I think that many farmers who are
fortunate enough to possess capital and skill will (unex-
pectedly, perhaps, to themselves) find their condition
materially improved under the present state of
things, especially if, by a steady perseverance in the
management of their affairs, they continue to pursue
that course of economy which has seldom been
known to fail."

In the propositions contained in the above passage
we entirely concur, for we are convinced that, not-
withstanding sonic temporary inconveniences, farmers
with skill and capital have now a better prospect of
steady and permanent profits than they have had
since the first unhappy attempt was made to bolster
up prices by legislative enactments.
But it is quite clear that the tenants of the
Berkeley estate are labouring under the illusion that
their landlord must help them over their difficulties ;
and that exertion on their own parts will be una-
vailing. Here we see tho natural consequence,
alike injurious to landlord and tenant, of the state
of dependence in which the tenants are kept, that
when a time of depression occurs they look to their
landlord alone for relief, overlooking the advantages
within their reach and omitting the exertions neces-
snry to turn them to account. For this the land-
lords are as much, or more, to blame than the te-
nants. To manage a farm successfully requires that
the tenant should possess considerable capital, that
the farm itself should be in such condition that capi-
tal may be safely laid out in its cultivation ; and
that the tenant should have such security of tenure
and such a permanence of possession that he may be
justified iu making outlays with a view to compara-
tively distant returns. Now, we suspect that the
Berkeley estate does not conform to these condi-
tions. Nor is it singular in this respect, though in
some particulars its management is below rather
than above the average of that of large proper-
ties. The land, for the most part, of great natural
fertility, is much in want of draining ; the
farm buildings are very deficient ; the fields are
small and much encumbered with high hedges
and a most enormous quantity of hedgerow
timber, and the estate is sadly overstocked with
game ; while the tenants occupy only front year to
year, and are not reported to be very largely en-
dowed with skill or capital. At all events, as yearly
tenants, they cannot prudently invest capital in such
a way as not to be recoverable within a short time,
neither are their farms in such a state as to render
considerable outlays likely to be profitable. They
may take what may be culled the natural produce
of the land, but they cannot enter upon
that system of high farming which experi-
ence has proved to be the one by which
profit can be made in husbandry. And the moderate
prices likely to be henceforth obtained for agricul-
tural products render it more than ever necessary
that the farmer should raise a large gross produce.
He is a manufacturer of food, and he must do as
other manufacturers have been obliged to do before
Lim—produce more commodities at a lower price
than has hitherto been his custom. Nor would he
have much difficulty in so doing ; but unfortunately
for the farmer he can take no effective means for the
purpose without the co-operation of his landlord, nay,
without the landlord taking the initiative by improving
his own estate, and affording to the tenant that secu-
rity for his capital, that certainty of reaping where
he has sown, without which it is an idle dream to
suppose that the tenant farmer can rely on his own
exertions, or avail himself of the many substantial
advantages which the present sounder basis for his
calculations and outlays affords. Landowners will
find that reduction of rent alone will not satisfy their
tenants, or enable them to obtain fair returns for their
labour and capital. Something more is required. A
revision of the scheme on which estates are managed
is indispensable; and in place of the semi-feudalism
which clings about all the relations of landlord and
tenant, a system of commercial contracts must be
..flopted. Tenants must be enabled to rely on
their own exertions, by being rendered secure that
such exertions be not interfered with, and by having
their land and their homesteads put into such con-
dition that exertion will meet with its ordinary and
legitimate reward. It is in the absence of any inti-
mation of such aids from the landlord that the BER-
KELEY circular is chiefly defective. Had the tenants
occupied, under leases, land in such a state of im-
provement as would justify good cultivation,
and their farms been free from the pest
of game and the cold shade of innumerable
elms, nothing could have been more fair than the
abatement of rent made, nothing more reasonable
and sound than the advice given. In one sense it is
a valuable document, as repudiating the delusions
which certain politicians are striving to perpetuate
amongst the fanners, and as pointing out that low
prices bring benefits as well as difficulties to farmers.
But it fails, by ignoring the fact that something more
than a reduced rent, something which it is within the
landlord's power to offer, is required to enable the te-
nantry' to act up to the exigencies of the time, in afford-
ing a satisfactory solution of the difficulties arising
from " the present depressed state of agriculture."

THE " miscellaneous estimates" are not unaptly
named; but for it is impossible to discover any prin-
ciple of classification in them. No. V. purp3rts to
embrace the estimates for "colonial, consular, and
other foreign services." In it are jumbled together
items of expenditure which have no natural eon-
cexion, which are not even incurred by the same de-
partments, and some of them only supplementary to
other estimates. It is impossible to glean from it
what any one branch of the public service is likely
to cost.
The estimates of the expenditure on commissions
for suppression of the slave trade and for the support
of captured negroes are entered in this chapter,
under separate heads. These, we presume, are
regarded as " other foreign services." But among
the colonial items we find a vote for the support of
stipendiary justices in the West Indies and the Mauri-
tius. These magistrates were appointed for the special
and temporary purpose of guarding the transition
from slavery to freedom; their coat is as much part of
the expense annually incurred by this country to
put down negro slavery and the negro slave trade, as
the other items just mentioned. And all three taken
together convey no idea of what our crusade against
slavery and the slave trade annually costs us. They
are none of them items of colonial expenditure, pro-
perly speaking ; their objects have some bearing upon
one group of colonies; but so has the expense of
conv.et transportation in another. Why are we not
presented with a complete statement of the expense
which the suppression of slavery and the slave
trade entails upon us ? And if that expense is to
be attributed to the colonies, why is not the convict
transportation expenditure classed along with it?

This is not mere theoretical criticism : there is t
practical disadvantage arising from this higgledy-pig-
gledy, faahiou of making out the
estimates. The estimates ought to present a tabular
liar of what each department of the state costs.
Parliament would thus be enabled to compare what
is paid with the amount, efficiency, and importance
of the services received in return. It is only thus
that parliament can ascertain whether we are
governed economically or in a needlessly expensive
manner. We freely admit that " cheap government"
and "low-priced government" are not neces-
sarily synonymous terms. Cheap government is
the "best possible government at the lowest price
for which such a quality can be had. Until
the estimates are framed in such a fashion
as to show what services are provided for under
each department, and what is pmd for them, it is im-
possible to say whether we are cheaply governed or
the reverse.

The colonial expenses provided for in the chapter
of the miscellaneous estimates which has suggested
these remarks are as follows : the civil establish-
ments (in whole or in part) of the West African set-
tlements, Western Australia, Port Essington (de-
funct), New Zealand, Heligoland, the Falkland
Islands, Hong Kong, Labuan, the Bahamas, Ber-
muda, St. Helena, and Prince Edward's Island; the
clergy of North America; the Indian department of
Canada; the governors of M. West India Islands;
the stipendiary justices in the West Indies and Mau-
ritius ; and emigration. Heligoland and St. Helena
belong to the same class of dependencies as Malta,
Gibraltar, and Ascension, for the cost of which we must
consult the army, navy, and ordnance estimates.
For the expense of the home administration of the
colonies we must refer to the chapter of the miscella-
neous estimates, in which the votes for the secretaries
of state and their establishments are included. No.
V. conveys a defective notion even of the mere civil
expenditure for the colonies. It leaves us utterly in
the dark as to what the colonies really cost us.
It is clear, however, even from this imperfect esti-
mate, that this country has long been paying annually
considerable sums of money for purposes which
ought, in strict justice, to be defrayed by the colo-
nies. This year's estimate for the clergy of North
America is 7,677/. ; this is less by 3,5301. than the
estimate of last year; still, it is exactly 7,677!.
too much, for surely the good people of Canada
ought to support their own clergy. The entailing
of this expenditure on the mother country is the
more intolerable that all the time the Canadian
clergy have had their "clergy reserves." Again, the
estimate for the Indian department of Canada is
13,660/. This is to be spent upon presents and other
gratuities to the Indians and the agency for distri-
buting them. Now, these presents and gratuities
have been awarded chiefly as compensation for ces-
sions of territory made by the Indians. But the
ungranted waste lands of the colony have been
handed over to the colonists : they who enjoy them
ought to pay the incumbmnces upon them. The
vote for stipendiary magistrates in the West Indies
and the Mauritius has already been adverted to.
It amounts this year to 36,0751. It was a
fair charge upon this country in the transition epoch
from slavery to freedom, when these magistrates
were in fact honorary spies upon the planters ; but
the transition period having passed, they arc no
longer required for that purpose, and if the colonists
wish to retain their services as magistrates, let them
pay for them.
It is true that these items of expenditure appear to
be undergoing a yearly diminution, and that fair pro-
mises are being made that they will be ultimately
abolished. But the period of their extinction seems
to approach with slow and uncertain footsteps. If
government is not closely watched, they may be per-
petuated long enough.
The vote for New Zealand is 20,0001. This is
in addition to the local revenue. Now as the local
revenue amounts to no less than 52,969/. ; and as
the number of settlers in New Zealand does not ex-
ceed 12,000, it really appears that, by reducing the
government expenditure to what is really neces-
sary, the country might be saved this 20,000!. We
know that the resident colonists are of this opinion.
The Falkland Islands, with their police and gaols,
and colonial secretaries, and surveyors for the use of
the wild cattle there, are to cost us 5,000/., a most
preposterous sum. And Labuan, the settlers on
which are still counted by scores, is to cost 5,500/.,
of which 2,3001. is for a governor and a lieutenant-
governor, the island having for the greater part of
last year been administered by the surveyor without
the aid of either functionary, and without any dis-
advantage being felt from their absence.
There is one entry in No. V. which shows the use
government makes of its confused and unsystematic
arrangement of the miscellaneous estimates. The
total of this section shows a decrease as compared
with 18Zt0 of 16,8941. Government will, of course,
point to this sum as proving its economy. But
looking to the vote fir captured negroes, we find that
it is proposed to increase it from 30,0001. to 60,000!.
The additional 30,000/. is to pay for expenses in-
curred in excess of the estimates of 1848, '49, and '5O.
Government has for three years been spending more ,
than it had any right to do, and is now smuggling
through a vote for its unwarranted outlay under the
cloak of reduced estimates.

There are other points in the curious document we
have been dissecting equally entitled to attention
with those we have touched. Enough, however, has
been said to put financial reformers in parliament on
their guard, if they have any desire to discharge
their duty. But to confess the truth, we expect to
see ere long all these item voted without challenge
after midnight.

THERE was inonrDublin news letter some days ago,
a -port, and apparently uninteresting, or at least
very ordinary piece of intelligence, which ran thus:

The case of "Heenan against Clements," for the amount I
of a bill of exchange for 1,0001., which was alleged to be a
forgery, and relative to which prosecutions have been
brought and contradictory verdicts returned in London andl
Dublin, was settled yesterday by an agreement in court, the
plaintiff accepting, it is understood, 801. as part of the bill.
Involved, however, in the legal proceedings so ter-
minated lies as singular and painful a miscarriage of
justice as has of late years occurred. It is one to
which, in the course of last summer, after the re-
sult of the first trial of the above case was known,
the attention of the Home-office was called both by
a distinguished member of the House of Commons
and by this journal. Without, however, any effect;
for then the scruples of an Irish judge, equally un-
necessary and unfounded, as events have proved, were
allowed to predominate over the obvious facts which
had been established. But as now there is proof
quite irresistible that an innocent man has been con-
victed of felony, and is now suffering the penalty
known as transportation, we cannot lose a day in re-
directing Sir GEORGE GREY'S consideration to the
case of Lswis JOEL.

---It can hardly be forgotten that this young man,
being a Jew and a jeweller in Dublin, was also a
money lender. In all three characters he appears to
have had extensive pecuniary intercourse with some
of the junior officers of the 13th Light Dragoons,
when stationed in the Irish metropolis. Though )
I generally a regiment of high character, it had I
nevertheless a few .cape--graces and amongst
them way Lieut. Jonx MARCUS CLEMENTS, the
inheritor of a good Irish fortune. IVhilet
under age, Mr. CLEMENTS greatly exceeded the
allowance his guardians made him; and had exten-
sive transactions in rings, chains, watches, diamonds,
and money with Mr. LEWIS JOEL, the money lender
of his regiment, who though almost as juvenile as!
Mr. CLEMENTS himself, knew how to profit by his
contemporary's follies. Such dealings with Jews,
jewellers, and usurers always issue in hills of ex-
change loosely given, carelessly renewed, rarely
met when due, and seldom well understood by I
the military acceptor. And all this accumulation of
I "paper" appears to have characterised the connexion
of Mr. Ctv-isr.Nrs with JOEL the Jew.
That connexion and Mr. CLEMENTS'S fo..ies very
natura-y endedi n emoarraasments so great, that his
guardian, a London banker, came to his rescue, com-
pelled him to sell out of the 13th, and retire from his
creditors until a lawyer, named PutmAN, could settle
his affairs, by reducing the nominal and paying the
real liabilities of Young Hopeful. Amongst others,
JOEL was called on for his claim this he sent in,
omitting, however, in it an acceptance for 1,0001. ;
which he afterwards added. And it is about the bill
so omitted, and subsequently put forward, that jus-
tice has miscarried.

This acceptance, by a conatenation of circum-
stances, strongly illustrative of some of the dangers
of Irish banking, got into the possession of the
London and Dublin plank. That company had, it
seems, a branch at Parsonstown ; and the clerk, or
manager there, instead of transacting his employers'
business, commenced, with their funds, a banking
business of his own ; and, amongst other people,
with LEWIS JoEL. He lent JOEL money, and JOEL
gave him a lien on bills he had, including this
bill for 1,000/. In due course this roguery was dis-
covered; the rogue decamped to where all rogues go,
America, and the company received from JOEL
this acceptance on the security of which he
had got their money. When, however, it was
becoming due, Mr. CLEMENTS declared it to be a
forgery ; JoEL was apprehended ; tried at the Central
Criminal Court in January, 1830 ; was convicted
principally on the evidence of Mr. CLEMENTS and his
guardian, which was deemed so insufficient to con-
vict by JOEL'S counsel that he, having made an effec-
tive speech, declined to call witnesses; and by Mr!
Justice TALFOTRD sentenced to transportation ; he,
to the last, protesting his innocence.
With this somewhat strong and decided stigma on
the bill, the bank was, however, after due
inquiry, dissatisfied ; and, believing in its genuine-
ness, proceeded against Mr. CLEMENTS to recover its
amount. The action was tried before Mr. Justice
BALL and a special jury in Dublin last summer; the
trial lasted three days ; every point was desperately
fought for the defendant, but so strong was the testi-
mony as to the signature being Mr. CLEMENTS'S that
a verdict establishing that fact passed for the plain-
tiffs. And it was on this verdict that Mr. BRIGIIT
appealed to Sir GEORGE GREY for a pardon for JOEL,
and that we brought the subject under public con-
sideration.

Sir GEORGE GREY, principally in consequence
of Mr. Justice BALL'S report, at that time declined to
interfere. Subsequently Mr. CLEMENTS applied fors
and obtained a new trial, chiefly on the ground that
the bank had not sufficiently proved themselves
holders for value. And last week the action was
again tried. Mark the result. The bank had
strengthened their case where it was weak, by exa-
mining, under a commission, the scamp in America
who had, at Parsonstown, misappropriated their
funds; and Mr. CLEMENTS, by his counsel, volun-
tarily consented to a verdict on this bill, to which,
on JOEL'S trial, he had sworn his signature was a
forgery, for the sum of 8301., that amount being 100/.
in excess of the former verdict against him, and
costs.

It is, of course, impossible, after this admission of
Mr. CLF:MENTS and his advisers that the bill for
1,000/., on which JOEL was convicted of felony, was,
not a forgery, that JOEL'S conviction can stand. Sir
GEORGE GREY cannot now refuse to recommend
JOEL to the Qv EN for the pardon of an offence
which, it is now clear, he never committed. That per-
son must now be liberated and restored to his family
free from the taint of forgery ; though nothing, of course,
can compensate him for the wrong done him, for the
misery he has endured, for the infamy inflicted on
him—all of which might eight months ago have been
terminated had the supervision of justice been as
prompt as the administration of the law was severe in
his case.

We claim, however, no exaggerated sympathy for
the unfortunate Mr. JOEL; nor are we going to press
heavily or unfairly the facts as at last established
by himself against Mr. CLEMF:NTS. It is charitable
to suppose that Mr. CLEMENTS was only mistaken
when he disclaimed on his oath the signature to the
bill, and that the correction of this mistake has only
gradually beamed upon him. But he owes it to his
own character, to society, and to the unhappy victim
of his misapprehension and temporary misbelief, to
be foremost in procuring the discharge of Jori. and
in re-establishing to this extent the reputation of
that person, otherwise inferences most unfavourable
to Mr. CLEMENTS will be drawn from the whole
affair.

The world has no love of usurers, especially when
not Christian. But the common safety of every in-
dividual is interested in amending the law under
which Joel. has suffered, and is still suffering. If
Ihe be released, it will be by royal pardon of a crime
the has not committed; and of his conviction for an
offence of which he was innocent, there are no le-
, gal means in England for the reversal. This is a
serious want—one, perhaps, which I.Ewts JOEL the
money-lender's sufferings may happily tend to
supply. The circumstances under which the bill
was brought forward were suspicious, and the cha-
racter which JOEL had acquired, in consequence of
his numerous money-lending transactions with inex-
perienced youths, must have militated against him.

LATER FROM AMERICA.

(FROM OCR CORRESPONDENT.)

[By Illectria Telezrapb.]

LIVERPOOL, SATORDA C.
The steam-ship City of Glasgow has just arrived
in the Mersey from Philadelphia, which city she left
on the 13th inst. She brings advices to that date,
and above 130 passengers.
There is no political intelligence of importance.
The advices received by the Cambria had produced
a very favourable impression in business circles.
Trade of all descriptions was good. Cotton had
declined k to t cent. A fair business was doing
in breadstuffs. Provisions were lower in price.
Stocks and State securities unaltered.