The Express.
London, England, 1848-02-21 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS MONDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 21, 1848.

the exi-

following the principles, and comm.—.
genies, of his liberal friends.
The five per cent. income tax, without a word al
even regret spent on the necessity of taxing tempo-
rary income in the same ratio with the anneal totems
of realised property, and without the slightest move
in alleviating the burdens which customs and excise
stiU throw on the industrious classes—all this was is',
' the spirit which protectionists must admire. It was
I a budget after their own heart. And if Mr. BANKER
and Lord GEORGE BENTINCK did not fall down and
worship it, we can only say that they are the most
aageateful of mortals, and most slippery of politicians.
Then, again, if the financial arrangements did not
se completely chime in with the views of PEEL, still
I the military outlay came backed by the irrefragable
authority of the Duke's name. And the minister might
have fairly counted on the adhesion of the party. Yet
not one single word was uttered during the im-
portant debate on Friday night by Sir Ito-
DERT PEEL or his party. 'Whether they. approve
lof the estimates, and participate in mistrust of
France; whether they are cold as ilusse, hot'
as Dissaett, or lukewarm as Mr. FRANCIS
Damao, there is no thermometer to tell. Lord JoHN
RUSSELL remains at this moment as uncertain as to
I the numbers or combination of party which are to I
assail hie estimates, es he was on Friday morning.
And the country knows as little what it has to hope
lee fear from Peelite wisdom or astuteness, as if there
were neither parliament nor publicity amongst as.
The protectionist leaders were more frank.
IThey could riot shake off the old tory, govern-
I mental feeling, that an administration requires
armies, were they but to support its diplomacy
abroad; but Mr. BANKER and Mr.NEWDEGATEwereas
ardent as Lancashire itself for economy. And could
Mr. COBDEN, confining the range of his terrible fire
to the member for Buckinghamshire, have flattered the
quondam protectionists a little more on their inde-
pendent patriotism and hereditary economy, he
would have enlisted every man of them and carried
them off to Manchester.
The silence of the PEEL party was perchance owing
is part to its being in the very same condition as the
protectionists, viz., its leader compelled to asse
ont,
th in
a great measure, to the increased expenditure f e
solitary estimates, whilst the mass of Sir Honesty's
followers, under Lieutenant LINCOLN, was ready to
make such an onslaught upon Lord JOHN and his
military fervour, as they had done a few nights ago
upon Lord GREY. Nay, perhaps, they were more
anxious than even Mr. BANKER to become disciples of
Mr. COBDEN, and to rally behind the member for the
West Ridiug. Was it modesty that prevented them,
or merely irresolution ? Or is it part of their nature
to barrow in the earth, so as to hide their
windings and manceuvrings from the daylight
They are doing this with regard to the press, wh
it is universally believed that the old whig organ has
been purchased by this party, and that the Morang
Chronicle is at this moment used as a nest to hatch
with its old liberal warmth the tory eggs of cuckoo
LINCOLN. Sir ItoBEItT Peet. himself is not famed
for frankness ; but he never condescended, at
least as yet, to such mean shine, dark dis-
guises, and strange alliances, as those now prac-
tised and meditated by his party, or at least by what
once was his party. For, as we said last week, hir
ROBERT proposes giving upthe reins, and abandoning
the driving-box, to Lord LINCOLN, in order to book
himself in the easy and covered seat of an inside
passenger.
We dwell upon this attitude of the PEEL party, be-
cause it. is evident that their determined opposition to
the estimates would unseat the ministry, and
because this question is as evidently cue be-
tween the Augurs, or the initiated members,
of the political world; the " profane vulgar "
like ourselves, being left quite in the dark. Noting
can be more evident than that Lord JOHN RUSSELL
has not alleged any sufficient reasons for so decided a
political move as calling the nation to arms, and em-
bodying its militia; and as Lord JOHN RUS-
SELL is a prudent statesman he must have
reasons for such policy, reasons of which the
public has no cognisance. The statement of the
prime minister is, therefore, a very tacit and feeble
appeal to the great public. But to his brother augur,
Sir ROBERT I'EEL, on the opposition beach, Lord
JOHN RUSSELL addresses himself significantly, "Take
the responsibility, if you dare, of stopping these ar-
maments. They are not meant for war, in all probe:
ihility ; but we have negotiations pending, and con-
tingencies not far off, to meet which we deem this
inexplicable d' monstration of ours indispensable." If
the brother augur to the left of the SPEAKER does
not admit the cogency of this appeal, it must fail;
and we are exceedingly anxious to learn what that
brother augur will say.
For our part we do not think that there exist suffi-
cient reasons, whether occult or overt, for the increase
of military expenditure. There appears no possible
contingency in France, in Spain, or Italy, to call for
our rivalling other countries in such expenditure.
France, it is alleged, has 29 000 seamen in pay,
and therefore so ought we. But as the true supply
available for the necessities of thirstis not the running
water, but the reservoir it comes from, so the true
strength of a naval and military force is the reservoir
from which they may be supplied. The reservoir of our
navy is the merchant service ; the reservoir of our
army, a labouring class, well conducted, well fed,
interested by their condition in their country's welfare,
and enlightened by education to have that welfare at
heart. Join to this a certain knowledge of
the use of arms and the rules of discipline,
and the population alone will form the
most impregnable of " national defences." To look
to such reservoirs ; to make the soldier and his class
in the population, more on a level, more capable of
interchanging conditions, to aasimilate in a far greater
I degree our naval awl merchant service • to open to
the latter the honour and emoluments of 'the former,
and make the navy a national service instead of an
aristocratic nursery :—these would do more for the
true military strength of the country than storing
small arms and gunpowder, and calling forth the
militia.
It is utterly impossible but that the immense
budget of 55 millions, coupled with a 5 per cent.
income tax, will have the effect of setting a thousand
eyes to peer into the items of expenditure, and a
thousand voices to cry for reduction, wherever redo°e
tion can be found feasible. With the interest of the
debt none will meddle, but even the Consolidated
Fund will not escape overhauling. India being per
manently pacified, the five regiments which Lord
HARDINOE has sent home will probably be considered
a needless addition to th home force. Whilst the
Irish constabulary, the coast guard, and the pension- '
ers, may be treated as a very effective force, which
might enable an equal number of the regular army to
be dispensed with. Instead of twenty millions of
military expenditure, the more popular members or
the House of Commons will probably demand a
tary force and budget, more approaching that of 1838
and 1839, than continuing 1846 and 1847. They
will probably consider the miscellaneous estimates
swelled by a million too much, and that in all, five
millions, without inconvenience, might be lopped
[ from the proposed expenditure of 1848.
Still, to meet the excess of past. expenditure some
important change in taxation is required. If
eammon fairness in lieu of party strength be
consulted, a property tax, in lieu of in-
creasing that upon income, would be that which
levery disinterested statesman world propose. And
Ithis, with a just extension of probate and legacy
duties, would not only provide a revenue to meet the
fifty millions of expenditure, but would allow of some
great and signal boon to the commerce of the country,
such as the abolition of the assessed taxes, or the
diminution of the tea duties, and the revival of the
China trade.
It is only by great measures such as throe, that a
minister or a can hope to keep their hold upon
party
the country. And so plain is the policy
.of adopting
them, that we may be sure that when rejected or run
counter to by the government, their rivals will catch
at it ; and that a PEEL will never be wanting to take
up the policy and the place that a RUSSELL, if true to
himself, ought to have occupied.

TO-MORROW night Mr. Hurn moves for a select
committee "to consider the beat means which Great
Britain can adopt for mitigating the hereon of the
slave trade, and providing for its final extinction;"
and to the appemtment of this committee her Ma-
jesty's ministers are, it is understood, prepared to
assent. The proposed inquiry is, however, regarded
by many—by.most, we should say—who have really
studied the subject, as unnecessary ; and the motion
will not therefore be allowed to piss without opposi-
tion by the old opponents of our present suppression

system, amongst whom of course Mr. RIMS ti
meat prominent and best informed. The modes ill
indeed a somewhat curious one : for ever sloes
the peace we have been pursuing a sy4em
which has cost the country twenty-live millions
sterling at least, into which, by slow degrees, we
have gradually bent the rest of the world, and with
which the good repute of our Foreign-office is un-
comfortably but inseparably associated; yet, now
comes Mr. Burr, with an inquiry, the perusal of
which must lead a stranger to the inference, that
we were only about to be provoked by the enormi-
ties of the slave trade, to see if we cannot adopt
means for its suppression. After having spent nearly
a million a year for the last thirty years on a sys-
tem, we are now about to inquire whether we have
been spending the amount on a good system. The
inquiry comes rather late in the day ; more especially
when all thinking men have reached the conclusion
that we have been throwing away our millions on
the very worst system that could be devised. But
as assent to the investigation is to be taken as an
admission that doubts on the wisdom of our policy
have actually penetrated Downing street, if not the
Foreign-office itself, we must not, we suppose, be
I hypercritical as to the terms of Mr. ilurr's motion :
for they may break the fall of those whom the nation
has an interest in tumbling down softly.
We incline, however, somewhat strongly to the
opinion that the inquiry which will be entered on is
superfluous. All that need be known on the subject
is known ; two committees of the House of Commons
have at distant intervals brought forth all the facts
needful to form an opinion on ; and the consequences
of two commissions appointed to remove objections to
the present system have demonstrated that its vices
are too inherent to be removed by any tinkering.
Still, as there is much ignorance to be removed, much
prejudice to be abated, end much information to be
popularised—and as there is smell chance of parlia-
ment putting an end to the system this session—the ,
appointment of the committee will, we suppose, have
o be regarded as a step, though a short and most in-
adequate one, gaited this year.
It will be necessary, however, that great care be
taken in nominating the members of Mr. Hurr's
committee; and we have to suggest to the honourable
member the propriety of placing Mr. CODDEN'N name
on the list. For, occupied as the member for the
West Riding of York is at present with the subject of
national defences, he will find this, though a subor-
dinate, a very important item in that subject. tinder
the guise of suppressing the slave trade, a large
sqmdron is maintained on the coasts of Western
Atrict and of Brazil. Abandon our present system,
and one million sterling at least might be saved in the
annual estimates—a sum of great importance, when a
five per cent income tax is staring as in the face.

Our Paris despatches of Saturday have arrived.
A Cabinet Council was held on Saturday, as was
pposed, to decide on the course to be taken in rela-
-- 6- 66.. ...farm demonstration to be held on

Tuesday.
The l'resse states that the drawing up of the lut para-
graph of the address, before being definitively settled in
counc,l, caused a grave dissension hetwe'n
M. hereto and
M. Dclessen. It did not appear to the latter to be
tither politic or prudent to raise the question of legality
of the banquets in the discussion of the address. The
opinion of the keeper of the seals, it is said, triumphed over
that of the prefect of police, whereup in the latter gave in
his resignation. This took place in the latter days of De-
cemlver; the offered resignation still elista, and M. Dries-
Bert has only consented to the adjournment of his retirement
until after the banquet.
The guards, both night and day, have been doubled
at the Tuileries.

The new Sardinian constitutional ministry is com-
as follows: Foreign Affairs, Alfieri da Sastegno ;
IHome Department, Adv. Giovannetti ; Public In-
struction, Huoncompagni; War, Gen. Fransini Pub-
ilc Works and Commerce, Count Cavour ; Grace and
Justice, Sclopis.
Advices from Rome of the 10th state that Count
Pietro Ferretti had just left that city for Naples,
where, it is supposed, he may be useful in an ar-
rangement between Naples and Sicily, if, as expected,
the Pope should offer his mediation. On the preced-
ing day a council of ministers had been held at Rome,
when the following measures were recommended to
the Pope: To direct all the troops of the line upon
Romagna; to give publicity to the acts of the Con-
sulta ; to invest that body, en some cases, with a deli-
berative vote; and to conclude immediately a political
league with Tuscany and Piedmont.
The official journal of Venice announces the conclu-
sion of a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive,
between the imperial government of Austria and the
little duchy of Modena. The idea of Modena defend-
ing Austria from the attacks of foreign powers is
supremely absurd. Of course this treaty is a mere
pretext to enable Austria to occupy Modena with her
troops, and virtually annex that principality to the 'I
Lombardo-Venetian kingdom.
We have already announced the intelligence re-
ceived by telegraph that the Grand Doke of Tuscany
had granted to his duchy a representative constitution
in harmony with the institutions springing up in
the states of Italy with which he is surrounded. The
following is the proclamation by which his royal
highness has signified this measure to his subjects:
By our /ile' proprio of the 31st of January last we made
known our intention of endowing the country entrusted to
our care with a national representation, which, while it
satisfied the public desire and the necessities of the times,
should preserve to the Tuscan family that political adminis-
trative principle to which it is indkbted for its prosperity,
and which should enure to it those guarantees necessary to
insure its future happiness.
This thought had already been conceived by our immortal
grandfather. Circumstances have till the present time pre-
vented his projects from being put into execution, hut we
feel happy to recall to the minds of our people a recollec.
tion so glorious for us. It is also with heartfelt satisfac-
tion that we see ourselves about to endow our country with
this national representation which was already the subject
of our study and of all our former pre occupations. Tuscans,
your trust in me shall not certainly be deceived. At this
solemn moment when I feel my love for you increase, do
not allow yourselves to be led astray by the suggestions of
impatience, wait a few days longer in peace, and thus faci-
litate the accomplishment of those projects which are to
secure your future destinies. I intend to bestow upon you
those liberties which you are perfectly prepared to receive,
and which you have so:well deserved by your conduct. You
this day give me the glory of being the author of an essen-
tially Tuscan institution, which is, at the same time, in per-
fect conformity with the general interests of Italy.—Given
at Florence, I. eb. 11.—Lcorom.

MALTA, FEB. 13.
The lovely daughter of Baron Sant, one of the haute no-
blesse of Milts, and a near relation of the new bishop, took
it into her aristocratical head to fall de,perately in lore with
a youth who kept a shop directly under her busily balcony.
Knowing that her parents would never consent to her
union with a " knight of the yard," she took the extreme
measure of walking off with him one fine morning last
week, to • friend's house in the country, thence (as the
youth Foliate tells the tale) she compelled him to take her
to his parents' house, at Florianna, where she stall remains,
setting father, mother, brother, sister, bishop, and everybody
at defiance. Have Polacco she will ; return bolus she will
not. Her father, the baron, applied to the governor ;
said " let them marry." The bishop (Sant) has forbidden
the clergy to perform the ceremony ; and the baron (father)
is going to law, up get hack his daughter. The young lady
is " needle " sixteen years old.
A court-martial assembled on the 7th, on board her Ma-
Be-
jesty's chip Trafalgar, for the trial of Lieutenant N. B.
dingfield, supernumerary-lieutenant of her Majesty's steam-
sloop Hecate (Com. Moorman), charged with negligently per-
forming the duty imposed upon him, by quitting the deck
whilst in charge nithe watch on the morning of the 6th of
January, 1848. appeared that Lieutenant Bedingfield
wee called at four, a.m., by Lieutenant Willoughby ; that
the mate of the weird), Skeed, wu on deck at five
minutes after four ; that Lieutenant Bedingfield called to
him " when turning out," Mr. Skeed, look out, I'll be on
deck directly ; that he ghostly after saw a person, whom he
took to be Lieutenant Bedingfield, walking the quarter deck,
at ten minutes past four. The night was too dark to dis-
tinguish accurately. The commander's bell rung at twenty
minutes to five. Mr. Skied went down to the commander's
cabin. He salted "where is the officer of the watch ?" Mr.
Skeed replied on deck. Commander asked who is the A
boat
officer
of the watch. Mr. Skeed replied, Lieut. Bedingfield.
came alongside at that moment with a liberty man. The
commander inquired what noise that was, and on being in-
formed, desired Mr. Slued to send the officer of the watch to
him. When Mr. Skeed w,nt on deck the officer of the
watch was below, in his cabin. Mr. Skeed went down to call
him ; meanwhile, the commander came up the companion
hatch, and called for the officer of the watch. He came up
' at the moment, when he was placed under an arrest.
The court adjourned on Monday, and re-assembled the
following day for the defence. After this was read by
Lieut. Bedingfield, the court retired, sad after deliberating
nearly two hours re-amembled, and pronounced the follow-
ing verdict, vet, et sib., " Guilty ;" but, under the circum-
stances of the case, it only sentences Lieut. Bedingfield to
be severely reprimanded, and admonished to be more careful
in future; and he is hereby severely reprimanded accord-
ingly. It is said that Commander Moorman has applied to
the admiral for a court-martial upon Lieut. Willoughby
upon some such another charge as the above, and that
the admiral has reamed it. Lieutenant Willoughby
will, probably, leave the Hecate disgusted with the service,
that removed Commander Moorman from the Rattler to put