The Express.
London, England, 1849-08-24 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, AUGUST 24, 1849.

nufectures from the continent of Europe—
even on the incredible assumption that Fritnee,
Prussia, with North Germany, Holl►nd, and
Belgium, coull to persuaded to join them. And
the press of England, recur.) in its island
fortress, will continue to wage war against the
desprtic principle. There are Austrian and Rus-
sian ministers still alive who have had experience of
the power of that pram; who remember the time
when dirndl's Geist der Zeit, published in Lon-
don, dealt the first deadly blow to the power of
NAPOLEON in Oermany.
Though we look with calmness and confidence to
the ultimate result of the seemingly impending con-
test, we are not the less alive t 3 the terrible and pro-
tracted sufferings which must precede it,if the eastern
bulwa,k of Europe has been levelled in Hungary.
The agonies of thoec communities destined to supply
bntle-fields and combitauts for the strife—the minor
but

On the whole the canduct of the emancipated rail-
way comment' ties has been judicious se d busies sa-like.
Tne majorities have not allowed angry or vindic-
tive feelings to divert them from the grist ob-
ject of restoring their affairs to a sound and
healthy condition. New blood has been infused into
the various managements, without pris=ing inch en-
tire changes of administation as must have deprived
the companies of the services of experiencedmen4Old
servants have been retained with new associates
placed as checks upon them. Arrangements con-
cluded under the old dynasty have not been rescinded
merely beanie they were concluded under suspicious
circumstances or by unwarrantable *gender. Like
sansible, practical men, the shareholders have de-
termined to f.co their actual position and make the
most of it.

It was rot to be expected that everything
should go off smoothly in such numerous meetings.
Men invested with delicate and difficult charges soon
learn the tricks of office, endesecur to concede a
minimum of publicity, and are apt to push concilia-
tory measures too far. On the other hand, indivienals
unencumbered by responsibility are always for push-
ing their right to extremes, and, not satisfied with the
publicity which is useful, aim sometimes at that
which merely gratifies anger or indulges gossip. Be-
tween parties ea differently circumstanced jealousies
and antigonism necessarily arise, which in railway
meetings, i.e in the councils of all democracies, occa-
sion interruptions and clamour. But the wrar gling
in the meetings referred to has never exceeded what
sterns indispenzable as a safety-valve for poccant
humours, at d by concessions on both sides judicious
conclu ions hive uniformly been reacted.
The most delicate and difficult discussions have
ari-ea out of the mutual relations of the different
companies amalgamated by the intrigues and jobbery
of the ancien regime. Wherever tetra has been an
appearance of undue advantage gained by one com-
pany, there has been a natural rec.lcitration on the
p art of another. Where the bargains had been twi-
rled in all due legal form, all parties, however, have
judiciouely acquiesced in th- icevitable. The arrange-
ment betwein the Great North of England and the
York, Newcastle, and Berwick, was in an exceptional
poei:ion, owing to unaccountable end suspicions irregu-
larities in the minutes relating to it, and the ex-
ecution of deeds. Matters seemed at one
time verging towards the dangerous issue
of a law suit ; nor is that contingency even yet she-
gether impeesible, though it is to be hoped that the
voice of justice and common sense may yet avert so
irrational a procedure.
The York, Newcastle, and Berwick have resolved
to bring Mr. HUDSON to book, and to that end a
bill is to be filed in Chancery. The provoca-
tioe has certainly been great. It appears that he had
been duly receiving his dividends without having
paid either deposit or galls; and that the
terms of arrangement be offered were too
I Ay to be entertained. This certainly justifies the
recourse to a suit in Chancery, greatly though that
proceeding have tie appearance of throwing the
helve after the hatchet. It is not improbable, how-
ever, that Mr. HUDSON, when ho sees the company in
earnest, may mend his offer—always assuming that
he has realised sufficient to ensib'e him to do so. Of

still serious suffering which embarrassed and par-
tially interrupted inuustry and commerce may entail
on our own inviolate and inviolable island—are enough
to stir up the most bitter and vindictive feelings
against the despots and camarillu whose bloated
pride provokes the contest. And to the last we cling
to the hope that its fall extent may yet be averted—
that Hungary has not yet hopelessly fallen as Poland
fell befsore it.

IRELAND begins to feel as if the spell of her adver-
sity were at last broken. The harvest, though later
on the other aide of the sea than on ourt, already
wears the glad look of ripeness. In the eastern
countit s many golden fields are felled ; and in the
greater portion of the kingdom another week of sun-
shine will suffice to render reedy for the sickle what
the rail' neither of the last month has gradually
matured. The oat and barley crop will be healthy
and abundant. Wheat has, upon the whole, bet n less
ex'eatively planted this semen than formerly ; bat in
general it also promises well, and is ',tinder it may
be looked upon as nearly sits.
Of green crops, mure especially turnips end mangel
wurzel, a greater breadth lira been sown this year
than was ever known before. Peas and parsnips
likewise in many distrie's occupy, though in subor-
dinate degree, a fitting portioi of the soil. All of
these were resorted to as substitutes in some sort for
the once universal potato; and had they failed,
while it appeared once more to revive, experience,
however insufficient, would have probably contributed
potentially to confirm the prejudices that
among the /meant farmers had been shaken
by the last three years, and the ruinous
alternation (for rotation there was cone) of
two crops would have been resumed. On the oe.er
hand. there wee, and to settle extent there is still, a
danger arising from the rare abundance of the potato
crop contemporaneeusiy with that of turnips. The
het, r were doubtless sown chiefly in the hope of
realieing a remunerative price for human food. If
not required for that perpeee, they can only be made
useful fur feeding sl'ep ; and these unfortunately are 1
much reduced in nurebers,as art- also horned cattle. Had
there;bne, therefore, as much lend devoted to the pota-
to this year as there has often p-evionsly been, or had
no symptoms of blight manifested themselves during
the preterit BE 11S30, it is possiele that the gembling
chance might terse been resorted to next year with
renewed infatuation, er d the eali.'ary lessens which
calamity hid inculcated might have been hastily for-

. _
that, however, ecnsidcring how money got as his has
been is apt to go, there may be reason to donb*.

woten.
For the old nioneeist of the soil has net yet
shown itself free of tam' and Mitre. Where plants d
early and in open grounds reining can indeed be
mere inch& or sound twat the too ;:nportstnt rant.
But in hardly say oler variety of e'rearristine_ has
it altoaether escaped ; and in most places where
the planting was 1. te, t! c se. d tn.:hang( d,
or the shelter of ti e- s too near, there
has been a loss of part, if not of the whole.
Where such is the ease Ito surces3 of other green
crops h-s rarely been anti-c' ; ri this, a`t: ciarh dis-
tress may and must he anticipated next s .ring to re-
cur in particular Irea`i'its, its advtet win probably
be much longer &term d, and its pievalence much
more narrowly circumscribed.
On tite whole there is erop'e reas-n to regard wilt
ennfidence and hope e physical condition of tbirgs
in Iteliud. Sore and yrotract das the period of
trial has been, we brgia to fe 1 that its teee‘rirge
will not have wholly been in vain. It w.or Ibmolutt iy
indiepansable to the safety of the occupiers of land
that some great and permanent change should
tako place not oily in the teanderd of their pecuni-
ary relations with the owners of the soil, but with the
merle of its culture. So long as a factitious price for
wheat was created every now and then by tic opera-
tion of tl.e corn laws, that price was sure to be gam-
bled for by the hard.drivett tillage farmer. And so
long as half al arcs of newly br. ken-up grass lar d
would secure his household food for eleven months
out of the twelve, the tot Wareing expedient was
certain of being r•Sji ttd to. From these two 13311tC3S
sprung that matveilens stream of Irish rack-
rents which no r:asoning marld cheek, and no
warning induce plea to b here eculd ever fail. Pro-
tection was diminished, yet rent, did sot fall. The
competition for laud continued aver rising with Cs
in. Tease of population, at d their credulity in the pos-
sibility of eking out existe: es as their ferefsthe,s hrd
done. The landlords traded on this credulity to tl..e
protracted degradation of the peastntry, and to their
own eventual ruio. It anal of the corn-laws rccdertd
the growth cf wheat in a as h c'imate such us Con-
naught, or on light soil ilk ! that of Ulster, a &six rate
risk instead of en equal locery, and the rep:ated
failure of the potato first abo:ished con-acre, and
subs quently antihilated to a very gre.A detrce the
old ciao tition for land. The question with land-
lords in Ireland now is, nct who shall we give our
farms to?—but, where can we find solvent tenants to
take them at conting,nt abetment.? Even these
will not do. Certain abeemen's and certain tenures
are likely tobe exacted with resolute caution, as the only
terms on which tenants will embark in future in t Mtge
farming enterprise. The people are growing thrifty
by experience ; and the proprietary are becoming sel-
lers in an op:a market where ;the competition of the
world regulate& the prim:, instead of patentees cf the
soil, having a right by law to hold as much as they
pleased in their own hands, and to extort whatever
they chose for the remainder.
When first the vision of this their new position
broke in upon the hereditary jobbing class, the met-'
cenary thought instinctively occurred to them of
turning all their lan Is into pasture. The week of
extermination was with this design fearfully accele-
rated, and the horrors of the last three years were
aggravated in too many instances by the barbarities
of wholesale eviction. The human occupants of
the soil Wan no longer paying ; so it WU re-
solved to try what sheep. or oxen might do.
Already, howaver, it begins to be felt that
in their haste to overtake false rents they
forgot that it was necessary to have fools enough as
of yore to give them. There does not exist in
In land a class of speculative farmers with large
capital; and the smaller farmers could better afford to
till than to tend cattle. The landlords cannot afford
to let their farms lie ask in the hope that Scotch or
English agrieraturistrMay some day or other go
over and bid for them; and thus if the people are but
cautious and circumspect in their future dealings,
they will be able to obtain land at a more reasonable
rent, and for a more reasonable term than for some
time past they could have done.

THE PENINSULAR MAIL.
The Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamer
Capt dn J. Soy, attired at Southampton
vertercay, and landed Ler male in charge of Litut.
Politick, Admiral y agent. She brings the South-
ampton rort:on of the India mail.
The Hindostan, during r her homeward voya
in , ex-
per:enced fine weather the Mediterranean, with
sung rortherly winds ; from Gibraltar to Cape
Fini 'core. and np the Quarrel and in the Bay, winds
rem the eastward. Her dates of sailing were, Alex-
aadru, August 9; Malta, 13th; Gibraltar, 17th.
The ruratcr of pv,sengers brought by the Hindos'sn
was 77, r.moni,st whom was General Elici, from

litr freight cors'sted of 159 packages of specie,
calm. 100,770/.; 38 bales of silk, 9 cases of opium,
1 pa:kage and 7 barrels of elephants' tusk% 38 pa:k-
ola s lk, 55 boats of ditto, 38 p.cksges of tor-
t';seshell, 1 bin of crocodile, and 102 packages of
merc-attlise.

Ir we have not been forward to comment on the
proceedings at the various railway meetings now in
progress, it bas not been for want or interest in, or
attention to, them. But we have confidence in the
judgment of Englinkmen, and their power to help
themselves out of strapts when roused to a Wag of
their real position and the necessity of action. Recent
revelations in the railway world have effectually
shaken shareholdery out of their good-natured drowsy
disposition to be led by the note by railway magnate!.
We have no doubt tf their ability to set matters
right, if 1 fc to themselves, and believe that they will
do so all the sooner and better if not distracted by ex-
traneous volunteered advice.
A special interest, however, attaches to the aggre-
gate of railways which constituted the nucleus of
Mr. Runsou's operations—the central dominions, as
it were, of the late railway potentate, from which he
stretched out his arms to incorporate the Eastern
Counties into his territories, and waged offensive
warfare against the Great Northern. Though still
determined to persevere in our system of non-inter-
!lrene., so long as a wider public interest than that
of the shareholders is not directly concerned, it is
not in human nature to resist throwing out a few
remarks on the deportment of the federated republics
which have thrown off the yoke of the Louts
Pnu.vrE of railways.