The Express.
London, England, 1848-08-10 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 10, 1848.

they should sit in pediment and represent them-
selves. The present grim of election admirably ac-
complishes this. This industrious elector is partly in-
dependent, partly dependent : he would consult both
feelings in his choice of a representative, were he free.
But the open voting compels him to consult merely
his dependence, and to give his vote to the interests of
another class and another person than himself. The
ballot is proposed, as a way to rescue him from
political slavery. But against it the interested elect-
live class again steps in, and pooh-poohs the proposal
as un-English, and unmanl7. It is then, un-English
for JOHN BULL to have a will of his own in politics.
And it is more manly to be dependent and vote against
one's will and interests in trembling cupidity, than to
have political independence, and exercise it. For our
part we do think, that these insolent sophisms upon
the ballot, seeking to convince the Englishman of
the manliness of being a slave, are about the moat
tin-English thoughts and words in our national mind
and language.
We are really quite ashamed of the space which this
merely 'esthetic or tasteful argument against the ballot
occupies in English debate. We certainly should not
hear of it, could any more rational objection be urged,
or durst the real objection be stated. The true aim
is, to keep those that are socially dependent politically
so. The ballot is in fact a measure of political eman-
cipation. Lord ALTIIORP took a lordly, but a liberal,
view of it. He said, the ballot would not emancipate
the dependent. They would vote as before, and it
would make no change; why, therefore, not gratify
the people who ask it by granting it to them ?
Lord ALTIIORP appears to us to have been in a great
measure right. Still it would make a difference.
The ballot would emancipate the farmers in the
country and the tradespeople in the town. And the
result would be, not probably that farmers or trades-
people would elect other candidates than they do
row, but these candidates would be obliged to conci-
liate their constituents in a different manner. Inti-
midation would cease, for it would produce offence,
not submission. The elective class durst no more
overrule the religious. nr commercial, or moral feelings
of the electors, but should consult them. It might not
change the persons or even the party of candidates, but
it would materially change the political conduct and
necessities of members of all parties, and would bring
the parliamentary and the middle class, the elective
and the electors, into a closer bond of sympathy and
union. We know of no result more desirable.
Lord Jolts ltes'eLL, however, sees no such effect
as likely to result from the ballot. He does not con-
descend to examine small consequences. lie regards
things in the mass. lie thinks, that no further reform
can be granted, except a big reform, and that the
ballot would infallibly draw after it, like so
many satellites, the remainder of Mr. }lucre's
propositions. Lord JOAN will resist them all, and
in this hie speech, we must say, was by no means so
liberal as the speech in which he answered Mr.
HuME. For then he promised at least something. Now,
he hells forth nothing, and deprecates the smallest
changes, as leading to a large one. The electoral
theory developed in the minister's former speeches
seemed to admit that the more the franc‘iise was ex-
tended, and the more the people were fitted to receive
and exercise it, the better. On Tuesday Lord
JOHN RUSSELL fell upon a much narrower and
more antiquated theory. This is, that the
elective franchise is a trust, for the exercise of
which the elector is responsible to public opinion.
Fur our part, we consider that an elector in giving
his vote is simply called on to consult his pri-
vate interests, and the public interests as compre
heading his private ones. He is an elector by virtue of
his possessing a certain property. And as it is the
foundation stone of the constitution that no money
shall be levied on an Englishman's property without
his own consent, given through his representative, we
hold that all Englishmen, wno have wherewithal to be
taxed, have a right to vote. That right may be limited
from consideration of the ignorance, or other inca-
pacity of the holders. But the franchise we hold to be
essentially a right, not a trust. If it be a trust, it
must be given, and in this ease by whom ? If it be a
trust, it might be taken away, or limited, or centred
in a corporation. There can be no question about it,
' save one of expediency, or, as parliament seems to
have it, of decorum. Political rights, according to
this doctrine, an Englishman has none.
According to the working of the system, however,
the franchise is indeed a trust. It is the nominal
liberty of franchise given by the elective class assem•
bled in parliament to the electors, on the condition ct
the electors serving under the dependence and intimi-
dation of the elective. Would it not be just the same
for the elective or parliamentarian class to elect them-
selves? It would be less roundabout, but it surely
would be the same in theory, and in result, as the
present fictitious and humbug system of representa-
tion. It is the ballot that would put a little English
manliness and truth into things, but the dominant
aristocracy will not hear of it. What they hold out
for is fiction—fiction of right, fiction of interests,
fiction of functions, fictitious responsibility, fictitious
divisions, and, to crown all, fictitious representation.

THE wholesome practice of the Beard of Trade,
which, by the issue of its bulletins, reminds the
country of its real condition, put us yesterday in
possession of a document of more than usual ir.te-
rest at this juncture, The " Trade and Navigation
Return," which extends from the sth January to the
sth July, 1848, embracin g a period of sufficient extent to
justify a somewhat decisive comparison between the
commerce of the country during the present and
former years. It enables us to read in the unrhetori-
cal but precise symbols of arithmetic, the actual
incidence upon our national condition of a pos-
ture of foreign politics without any parallel in
the experience of, at least, one generation. We
have been all of us talking. in general terms,
and more or less under the influence of caution
and common Fence, of French disorganu-ation,
Italiab
uncertainty, and Danish wars, since the beginning of
the year, and upon one topic of the discourse there
has at all events been a remarkable unanimity of con-
clusion. Each man has cherished his hopes or his
fears of this or that political adventure, but all have
agreed with one consent that no imaginable state of
things could be more prejudicial to the industry of
the revolutionised countries on the one hand, or to
the commerce of our own islands on the other.
When the detailed retort of the geographical distri-
bution of our exports to the present time is made up,
we shall be is a position to trace statistically how tar
the campaigns of CHARLES ALBERT, the wronghead-
edness of the King of PRCSEIA, the Hight el NIETIER-
NICH, and the establishment of the French republic,
have caused a deviation from the tenure of our foreign
trade in former years. The present returns are not
without their use even for this purpose ; but the order
of facts which they record rather concern the
domestic industry than the foreign dealings of our
population.
The fleet thing to be considered in perusing these
returns is the evidence which goes to prove whether or
not the male of our own people have been well or ill
provided for—whether they have been able to con-
sume as much tea, and coffee, ant sugar, and tobacco,
and spices as they have consumed in former
years. Next to this comes the necessity of
tracing with becoming assiduity the increase
or diminution in the supply of those vital ele-
ments of manufacture, without which the ingenuity
and the wealth of Lancashire would perish for lack of
snatenance. And lastly our curiosity may be directed
to those special features of the evidence wch indicate
some extraordinary departure from the current of com-
mon experience.
Placing before us the present document with these
views, and bearing in mind that it conveys to us the
results of the first six months of the present year,
compared with the corresponding half of 1847, what
are the facts?
It is impossible in the first instance to overlook the
amazing discrepancy between the importations of
grain during the last year and the present ; and
when this part of the table is dissected, it leaves a
result not altogether free from important novelty. If
we compare the importations of the four principal de-
. - -

fore, mainly assuaged by the primitive agriculture of
the Ohio and the frontier state'. But there is this I
farther fact—that even out of so great a calamity
some good has arisen. It is plain from these figures
that Indian corn and Indian meal havebeoome already
en important article of Transatlantic commerce. Not
three years ago our cornfactora were almost totally
unacquainted with the great staple cereal of the
American agriculturists ; and it is now in the highest
degree probable that we have witnessed the com-
mencement of a revolution which, in the end, will
substitute to a great extent the produce of the inte-
rior territories of the Union for the potato as the
habitual food of a large section of our poorer
population.
Pursuing the investigation upon articles of consump-
tion, the difference between 1848 and previous periods
is in no case very remarkable, but as a general rule
the quantities taken into use this year are less than
during the year preceding. Thus we have consumed
30,000 cwt. of butter, 200,000 lbs. of cocoa, 600,000
lbs. of coffee, 200,000 gallons of rum, and 100,000
gallons of wine leas than last year. In the articles of
tea, tobacco, fruit, and sugar, there is either no dimi-
nution or a trifling increase. It must be observed,
however, that the arrivals of foreign cattle have been
upon a much smaller scale since January, 1848, than
during the similar halt year of 1847. The comparative
cheapness of prices at SoLthfield, and the unsettled state
of the eastern corner of Europe will adequately ex-
plain the pause which has taken place in a branch of
trade so far under the influence of &progressive expan-
sion.
As far, therefore, as can be collected from these re-
turns, there is no reason to suppose that our industri-
ous classes have been subject to any extraordinary
privation in their command over the necessaries
and luxuries obtained from foreign or colonial sources,
nor, onthe other hand,is there any evidence that their
facilities as consumers have been greater than in
former years.
The figures which relate to the supply of raw ma-
terials, exhibit a more ag.eeable comparison. It was
one of the worst complications of last year, that while
our granaries wereempty,so wei eour docks and ware-
houses—that we had neither ooro to sell. cottuu to
manufacture, nor linen to weave. Whatever may be
the issue of the harvest and the incipient potato
blight, this year, we may at least congratulate our-
selves upon the possession of raw materials upon
which to expend our labour and exhibit our ingenuity.
Upon several important articles the :ncrease is most
Thus—

1847. 18111,
Floe
Hemp
Tallow ......... 157,040 „ 1147,110.10 „
Palm oil
and upon one of the following commodities the in.
crease is still greater :
1817. 1848.
Cotton wool 2,303,000 lb.
Wool sheep's) .. 21,927,0001 h.
There are some articles which indicate very expres-
sively the re-distribution which has taken place in the
industry of Europe; thus:
1847, 1848.
Skins, kid
" lamb
Silk, waste . . - ...... .. 3,723
„ thrown
Here we have a diversion to our own shores of a
description of raw materials which have formerly
found their way to the bank of the Seine or the
Rhine, and the general conclusion of this part of the
return is borne out by a subsequent section of it,
which shows the '• exports of foreign and colonial
produce."
These are a few of the comparative results of these
exports:
1847. 1848.
'Odin°
.0
Steel, fine
Silk, raw
Silk, thrown
Cotton
Cotton 220,026 .... . 195,961
And if we follow out this line of comparison by
tracing the distribution of those commodities which,
under the title of " British and Irish produce," con-
stitute what is commonly consilered to be our real
foreign trade, we shall at once be able to elucidate
the causes which, at the same time, have diminished
the volume of that foreign trade, and also mitigated
the extreme depression with which it was threatened.
If we divide the cla-sification of table 3 into two
groups of finished fabrics acd prepared materials,
we have the following results:
II:41581D nowt& 1847. 181 g.
Cottons
Hardware — . 1,196.000 939,000
Linens
Silks
Woollens
--
£15,904,000 /13,213,000
Upon these five articles there is a falling off of
2,700,0001.
rilLl•LiD ILLTOJAI4 1817. 1848.
Cotton 1 arn
Linen ditto
Machinery 511,000 398,000
Wool
Woollen yarn

51,U23,000 £3,197,e00
And upon these additional five articles a falling off of
very nearly a further million. The whole difference
between the exports of 1847 and 1848 is 4,000,000/.;
and on the ten commodities we have enumerated
there is a decrease of 3,700.0001., or a decrease equal
to eight-tenths of the whole declension to be ac-
counted for.
Now it is quite plain that it is the decrease in the
prepared materials which has saved us from a further
decrease in the finished p.oods. France and Belgium
and Saxony have taken fewer bales of goods and cases
of hardware, and they have also taken fewer
tons of twist and carves of machinery. They
have been worse customers in one sense, but
in another settee they have made some amend-
ment by throwing themselves entirely upon our
means of supply. We shall be mistaken if the
further returns of the year do not contain additional
traces of this novel state of things.
We must not gift these returns without pointing
out the dire effect of the war in Schleswig and Italy,
upon the navigation of those countries. The followi..g
are the entries inwards of vessels of the respective
flags of

1847. 1848.
prna.la, Ships
Oerman Stan., do. 879
ISO
Italian States, do.

PARIS, WEDNESDAY, 11 A.K.
The Presse, under the head of latest intelligence,
states that M. Gustave de Beaumont is to be sent to
London in the capacity of minister plenipotentiary.
The motives of this departure are described as fol-
lowe: M. de Tanlay was, it appears, met list Satur-
day in one of the streets of London con-ersing with
M. Guizot ; to this meeting is ascribed the immediate
superw_iding of M. de Tanlay by M. de Beaumont.
Three couriers started late on Tuesday night for
Vienna, Turin, and London. A fourth was sent to
Constantinople, with instructions to General Aupick
to demand his passports and return in twenty-four
hours if the Ottoman Porte and he still refuse to
recognise the French republic.
Tee negotiations, which I mentioned yesterday as
having been opened between the parties in the
Assembly for the suppression of the documents and
evidence taken by the committee on the insurrection,
and which forms continued of the report alieady
published, were yesterday, and in
consequence of them, meetings were held last
night by the different parliamentary clubs. The result
has been a failure. No terms of compromise could
reconcile the moderate party to an outrage on public
justice so monstrous as that which such a proposal
would involve. At the meeting held last night by
the moderate party in the Rue des Poictiers, it
was resolved unanimously, that the printing of
the documents should be supported without
regard to consequences. The grounds declared for
this resolution were—let. That the documents
and evidence constituted in part the substance of the
report, and formed the justification and the only
justification of the committee against the charges of
partiality, injustice, and falsehood already against
them, and-2. That the
demanded by one the parties

fifteen members, there are four who lean tl the opi-
nion favourable to suppressing the evidence, and it is
understood that the Bishop of Orleans has undertaken
to move an " Ordre du jour motive," which snail do
justice to the conduct of the committee in the dis-
charge of its duty, and order that the do-
cuments and evidence taken before the committee shall
be banded over to the Minister of Justice
without being printed, he to act upon them as the case
may require. 11 of the 15 members of the Com-
mittee are, however, opposed to this course, and insist
upon the printing of the documents.
It is stated that before producing the report the
Committee took the precaution of reading over a
second time to the several witnesses all the
charges contained in the evidence of an inculpatory
character. This proceeding was taken in the presence
of the judges d'iostruction. These depositions, there-
fore, have been twice sworn to.
It is believed that the result of the matter will be
that the documents and ev.dence must be printed and
circulated.
A courier from London arrived in Paris yesterday,
with the assent of the English government to the
basis of the mediation in Italy.
The Messager says :—" There is at this moment
among a ctrtain minority an active effort to place M.
de Lamartine in the President's chair of the National
Assembly."

MADLIN Aco. 4.—lbree per Cants, 19y earn; after Rohs, 19 Irif
nab. Flee per Cents., II paper; after Bohn, 101 cn.h. Pun:es.
4 paper. DIRCOIII2I 01 cotes, 7 7f per cent. kl:ch►nge on London,
1,0 oafs, 45 paper.

ITALY.—The Patric; says: "According to a
letter received to-day by one of the representa-
tives, the divibion of Savoy, composed of two regi-
ments, forming an effective force of 6,000, have been
cut to pieces, after a most obstinate battle. Only 8
officers arc said to have escaped with their lives."
The following appears in the Patric of Florf nee of
2nd inst., under date of Leghorn the Ist. A steam-
boat arrived from Naples, announces that the English
fleet presented itself before that city, desiring that the
Neapolitan fortress should first salute its flag,
and giving two hours to the Neapolitan Go-
vernment to decide. The same time was given
to the King to Mew the Sicilian pris.ners
taken by the Neapolitan ship under British co-
lours. The fleet had claimed 450,000 ducats as an
indemnity for the damages of British subjects at
Naples on the 13th.

TURKEY.—GREECE. —By the Levant mail we
have received the journals and correspondence of
Constantinople to the 25th, and of Athens to the 28th
ult. The cholera was diminishing at Constantinople,
the number of cases becoming every day fewer and
less virulent.
At Athens the bank had become reconciled with
the governmpnt, and agreed to assist it and be as-
sisted by it. It was to be freed from the obligation of
paying its notes until the 16th April, 1849. The
amount of notes in circulation was from a million and
a half to two millions. A loan of 500,000 drachms, at
3 per cent., was accorded to the government upon
the deposit of 500 shares belonging to the government,
the loan to be reimbursed the 16th of April next,
failing which, the shares are to become the property
of the bank in exchange fur the forfeited loan. Sir
Edmund Lyons bad buffered a severe accident on the
21st by a fall from his horse, but was recovering at
the date of these advice,.

Our Malta correspondent, under date Aug. 2, writes
that at Cairo the number of cases of cholera were 140
daily, with about 40 deaths. In Yassy upwards of
200 were dying daily.

GERMANY.

PRUSSIA.—We have dates from Berlin of the 7th
August. Whilst the Frankfort constituent assembly is
still for war with l)enmark, the Prussian govern-
ment, who are more indisposed than ever to take their
cue from that body, are still indulging in the hopes
that the renewal of hostilities after all will not be ne-
cessary, and are still quietly carrying on negotiations
in order to realise those hopes. That part of the
recently published Russian note in which reference is
made to the Schleswig-Holstein question has not
escaped the attention of the Berlin cabinet, which,
moreover, does not appear to attach much importance
or value to a French alliance, as many members of the
constituent assembly in Frankfort do.
The majority of the compositors at Berlin still retain
to return to their work. They appear to have plenty 1
of funds. The cotton printers have also resolved to
strike, in consequence of their employers having re-
I used to give work at half wages to the unoccupied
portion of the trade. The workmen demand also the
diminution of machine work, and the consequent in-
crease of hand work.
It is officially stated that the plenipotentiaries of
the Central Rhine Navigation Commission have re-
solved not to allow any steam-vessels to navigate
that river, except such as plied on it before the Ist of
August last, and such as ate now being constructed
according to agreement. Accordingly, no new
licenses for the navigation of the Rhine will be issued
for the present.
Considerable discontent prevails amongst the pro-
vincial mercantile classes in consequence of the indis-
position of the ministry to encourage the establish-
ment of private banks. This discontent is increased
by the inability of the Royal Prussian Bank to afford
accommodation. It is notorious that that bank, it
called upon to meet all outstanding claims upon it,
including the refunding of its capital to its share-
holders, would show a considerable deficit. On several
occasions it has been obliged—instead of giving as-
sistance to the state—to demand and obta,n assist-
ance from the national treasury, having, during the I
last two years, received not less than five millions of
dialers from the Stantssehafz.
The 7th instant being the day originally appointed
by the central minister of war for " manifesting"
homage to the Vicar of the empire, all the democratic
clubs and unions went in procession to the Kreuzberg,
where tremendous cheers were given for German
Unity, the Vicar of the empire, &e.
The following is the official account of the financial
sheet of the bank of Prussia, for the month of July :
ACTIVS. Thaler&
Stamped coin and luau 11,460,000
Tremury notes and loan notes
111100 of exchange 11,071,500
Lombard hilt. 13,853,200
State bonds, various claims nod setlee 13,106,900
?YEW
Bank notes in circulation
Depotita of capital 19,905,500
Loan of the state, In Tmasua7 tweils, after de-
ducting 4,ooo,ooothalers 1,110,000
Chums of the Treasury, pulite stsbilstuaents,
and private pentane. fte. 4,8515,200
According to the Zenon's-Halle of the 6th, four
cases of cholera have terminated fatally in the hospi-
tal of La Charite in Berlin. The epidemy is spread-
ing in Gallicia.
AUSTRIA.—From Vienna oar dates are of the 4th
of August. The Bann of Croatia was not able to come
to any definite arrangement with ministers on the
Croatio-Hungarian question previous to his deportee;
for Agram. Both parties, however, that is to say
the Hungarians and the Croatians, have appointed
plenipotentiaries to carry on the negotiations. One
of the chief demands of the Bann is that the Hun-
garian ministers of war, of the interior and of foreign
affairs, shall he unconnected with the Vienna cabinets.
Considerable excitement, and a sort of uncertain
dread of a coup-de-main with part of the imperial
partisans, still prevail in this capitaL Nothing .is
known as yet respecting the Emperor's determination
with regard to his coming to Vienna. As for the
rumours of abdication, Ike., they deserve mention
merely as rumours. The Diet has decided that the
committees to be appoiated for drawing up the pro-
ject of the constitution shall be composed of three
members from each of the ten governments of the em-
pire, se that Gallicia with its five millions and a half
of inhabitants, and Bohemia with its three, will not
have more weight in the committees than the smallest
province. This decision will materially tend to
strengthen the German "element
The German Minister of War, Von Schmerling,
has again sent in a protest to the Sardinian Ambassa-
dor - the annoyance of the Sardinian fleet