The Express.
London, England, 1849-12-14 00:00:00

Vie el:000.

OUTGOING MAILS.
The imile for Drama North America sad the Milted
States will be made up this main, Dee. 14.
T. Was India Maio,o:chain Bermuda, Herannah,
Naomi, Honduras, New Orleans, and Mexico, and including
*MO fit Maleire, St. lsan.cle-Niaarassa, New Grenada,
ChM, and Pim will be despatched on Dee. 17.
The nest mils for Lisboa, Spain, and Gibraltar will be
mods up on Des. 17.
Ths meal dr Gibraltar, Malts, Greece, the lonian blonds,
*opt, Ceylon, India, and China, iris Southampton, will
be made op an the morning of Dee. 20.
The Imes *id Kamilla, to the Mediterranean, Egypt,
Ogle*. India. floor Kong, to., will be made up on the
man of Dn. 24.
Tbe Mid Ist *aerie, the Braille, and Buenos Ares,will
be mob ip en Jan. 4.

ILNIR NAT'S AT LONDON POLIDON.
Tim I is.
Teiseeary—Yeasiag, IL ........ Altitessa. ab. 4/..

' LONDON, FRIDAY; DECEMBER 14.
Ir reason and right were synonymous for the law
of parliament, we need not disagree about tree trade.
Parliament once persuaded and having registered its
deliberate conviction in the form of law, there ought
to be no room fur farther questionno need of
further testimony. But there is still in the land that
which obeys not law, and which without scruple
would *A parliament to stultify itself. To baffle the
plotting@ a that eordid insubordination effectually
and for ever, there is one, and one only way i—to render
parliament a full and free representation of the
people.
Landlordism openly conspires against our immature
commercial liberty. 'Twelve months have not elapsed
since the poor and industrious millions of these king-
doms were permitted to eajoy, tor the first time
during five and thirty years, the luxury of a loaf of
bread untaxed ; yet already Dives and his spend-
thrift fraternity busily scheming how LAZAIII7B may
be cheated of his crumb..
The industry and enterpriseof the land—but just re-
covering from the prostration caused by famine at
home and coefusion abroad, and with renascent
energy and buoyant hope. preparing for a new de-
aide of thrift and toil—is startled by the half-
forgotten shout that so loeg was privileged,
per kgem terra, to bid it " stand and deliver!" But
though the accents of extortion be unchanged, the
habit of submission is. The days of acquiescence in
hereditary spoliation have passed away for ever.
While the old flood gates held together, the volume
and forte of the current were unknown; but once
swept away, 'lis vain to try to narrow spin the
course of the emancipated stream.
Landlordism plots and schemes spinet the life of
trade. We ask not how shall its machinations be
defeated, because we know that come what will the
people of this country have silently revolved that
a tax on corn in the shape of rent they never will
again be induced to pay. But we ask,—what mach
esneerne the peace and safety of the empire, and con-
sequently the weal of every occupied and toiling clam
of the community,—how shall the treason of landed
oligarchy be crushed, and the highway of industry be
cleared of its partisan and fdatory ambuscades ?
" Black-mail in the shape of a re-fixed duty on
corn !"—pay it we won't, that's all. Nay, but that's
not all ; we want to be rid of these Rob Heys,
and to be left to follow our day's work in
peace. How is that to be done ? We
can't afford to be always under arms. We love
peace and a quiet life—not perpetual strife and
struggle. Commerce, manufacture, agriculture itself,
demands, above all things, to be assured firmly and
finally of the ineustrial policy of the state; and
without such assurance the neare cannot seem other
than a lottery, as the past has been.
One remsoy there is, and only one. Let the legls-
Wine be ideatified with the nation—with its uni-
versal, instead of its partial industry—with its diffused
as well as its amassed wealth. Let every man who
shares the burthens be endued with the franchises of
the state. Let every ra'epayer have a vote for the
representatives of the people. Local liabilityinva-
riably.implies imperial contribution ; for notoriously
there Is not a householder, however humble, whose
dwelling is rated to the support of the poor, who does
not consume to a greater or lesser extent those
articles of subsistence whose 'rice largely consists of
either customs or excise duties. Let local rating,
then, be taken as the easy, obvious, and self-
correcting test of co-liability to the public
burthens, and of political co partnership in its
risks and gains, its welfare or misfortune.
And then—when this is done, and the laborious many
are re-invested with those long-lost rights of citizen-
ship which their forefathers enjoyed, then let landlord-
ism call for the dissolution of parliament annually if
it will.
Liability to rating is but a modern rendering of
the olden phrase, whereby all men who paid
seat and let were summoned on a given day
to choose fit and worthy persona to serve in
the Canintons Howse of Parliament. For " the Com-
mons" had their own house then, and a very churlish
house it was in matters of taxation. Monopoly was
no doubt as greedy and prodigal
_ in ancient days as
now ; but, se long u it had but one-half of parlia-
ment at its disposal, it was obliged to be content with
the mere waifs and strays of power. Its resources
were comparatively limited, and its credit low. Few
that had money would lend it to individual land-
lords, and the system of pawning the future
taxation of the country was impracticable, so
long as the Commons House of Parliament
was, in spirit and in truth, a House of Commons.
But from the day when the franchises of the reople
were made away with, and both chambers of the
legislature became assemblies of landlords, prodi-
gality in the expenditure, excessive taxation, and an
unlimited system of mortgaging the resources of
generations yet unborn, became—and have continued
to this cay—the standing impolicy of the empire.
The corn law was but • chapter in this
Book of Abuses. We have torn it out,
and burnt its unhallowed leaves in the
fire. But if we would have done with the
recollection of it, or the danger of an attempt to in-
terpolate a new edition of a hateful and corrupting
law, we must insist upon the restoration to the tax-
payers of these realms of the right to name the tax-
leviers; and landlordism shall never hear from us
a word in depreciation of general elections as often as

No farther back than Tuesday last we end
to disabuse oar protectionist countrymen of their
fixed idea that Great Britain alone, of sea-going na-
tion', had renounced the policy of the navigation
laws ; that all other countries regarded this step as a
Quixotic freak, not to be imitated but avoided. We
then showed that, in point of fact, only four sea-going
countries still adhered to the navigation law policy,
and that in two of these—Belgium and Holland—the
restrictions of their navigation laws were, in so far
ea we are concerned, little more than nominal.
We confess that, sanguine though we have ever
been that the bold and liberal of this coun-
try in abandoning its navigation law, would ere
long prove contagious, we did not expect, when
writinglthe remarks in question, to be enabled, ere the
week was at an end, to announce that the little that
remained of a restrictive navigation law in Holland
had bean made less. Yet so it is. With the excep-
tion of the discriminating duty on tees imported for
home consumption in native vessels, Holland has
reed all that remains of her navigation law.
event is moat important for the general com-
merce of the world at large ; but in another point of
view it serves to illustrate the beneficial tendency of
the Rhona system of commercial policy which our
country has initiated, and to which, let protec-
tionists indulge in what delusive dreams they please,
it is henceforth and for ever devoted.
What meet immediately concerns °emir's is the
effect that the step taken by Holland will have upon
our relations with the Netherlands Indies. Hitherto
all goods imported into Java in British
and other foreign ships allowed to trade with
that colony have been subject to double the duties
imposed on goods imported under the Netherlands
Reg. Great doubts were entertained whether the
half duties said to be paid on goods imported in
NetherLumie ships were not evaded by some juggle or
other ; and there was presumptive evidence that goods
imported by the ships of the Netherlands Maatachappy
(or company) paid no duty. Foreign ships have hitherto
been entirely excluded from the Spice Islands. New
poets are by Ws menenru of the Netherlands govern-
ment laid open to om.shipa and old onee made KO-
eessible on more equ:table and less onerous ti rms.
The Netherlands govirna:ent has thus borne witness