The Express.
London, England, 1847-04-03 00:00:00

_2,,

bf pea ilisa and reward are evidently con-
lad
In the sew measures, and will be greatly
bar soca byresimselisn.
Netvrithstandingell this, it erasiet be hoped, in any
immatry, that this pollliedy et Ile army or navy can
much better.pad se camnanil than the mass of its
pmsantry. To mime mos linedhar mast be elevated.
To take an ignorant elodhansr, sA nineteen, and
ecurvert him into an intelligud agar, is too great
a task. What the peasant is, the soldier in general will
be ; and whilst the present great gulf between our up-
per and lower agricultural classes exists, the same gulf
will exist between soldiers and officers, and in this
gulf will grow that mutual contempt and hatred,
which makes such men as Lord Citantosx fear the
lower orders, acquainted with the use of fire-arms.
We should therefore send the schoolmaster abroad
into the fields, as well as introduoe him to the bar-
racks; we should enable the peasant to attain a
certain degree of education, dignity, and independence,
ere we can expect to transplant such feelings, ready
grown, into the breast of the recruit.
The Duke of WELLINGTON says, in a despatch
quoted in the Quarterly, that the ditty of a subaltern
officer is never performed in the British army, except
so far as fighting in the field. The only instance
where it is reformed is in the Guards where the
seijeants do it. Surely, the conclusion from this
should be, the necessity of encouraging promotion
from the ranks, in order to which result a considerable
change in the education of both men and officers is
indeed imperative.

THE meetings which have been held in Edinburgh
and Glasgow, with a view to promote an alteration
in the Scotch law of entail, appear to have been coin-
posed of landowners. The speakers were
proprietors ; the inconveniences of the entail
law upon which they expatiated with most unction
were those which are felt by owners of entailed
estates. The voices heard at these meetings come
from the class by whom, and for whose fancied inte-
sea* the entail system was created. They are crying
aimed to the mercantile and industrial classes. That
law which our fathers framed to gratify their, and
sae, vanity, by perpetuating estates in afew families—
that law of which you have so often complained—we
now feel a burden heavier than we can bear. Aid us
to emancipate ourselves from it.
The thin attendance at both the Edinburgh and
filassow asstirotseano proof that the mercantile and
of Scotland are disinclined to
Lasp11111111:11= appeal. Their dislike to the entail
bin has been too often and too unequivocally ex-
Cseto admit of such a @apposition. The truth is,
tty regard these laws—and not without good
twee —as specially levelled against themselves.
There is truth, no doubt, in the allegation that entails
were devised, in the unsettled eras of Scottish
history, with a view to obviate arbitrary confisca-
tions . • but there is quite as much truth in the insinn-
atioathat one kind of confiscation aimed at was that
omreinuit bodies " of Glasgow were in the
habit at lahling, by process of law, upon le&ds who
could not dor wiel not pay their debts.
Throwing eat of view these class considerations,
there can be no doubt that entails are, in econo-
mical respect, alike detrimental to all classes of
• society. They are obstacles in the way of all im-
provement. The heir of entail has seldom the means
to effect improvements on the estate, and still more
. seldom the inclination to lay out money on property
in which he has only a life-rent interest. The account
given by Sir Hew CRAWYURD, at the Glasgow meet-
ing, of the difficulties which the entail under which
he holds his lands threw in the way of carrying into
fist part of Glasgow which is situated on the south
of the Clyde a sufficient supply of wholesome water,
is only one of many instances that might be ad-
duced, in which the entail laws may affect injuriously
even the health and domestic comfort of non-
proprietors.
The paucity of attendance at the anti-entail meet-
ings may be accounted for in part by the fact that
the greater part of the community are at this moment I
heartily sick of agitation of every kind. Even thoegh
they were not, people will not put themselves out
of their way to moot a new question in. the last
session of a parliament. But apart from these con-
siderations, the movers in the entail qnestion will do
well to remember that it is not one of those reforms
that can be promoted by large public meetings and
speeches. The corn-laws, slavery, church abuses,
any wrong that is directly felt by all, may be assailed
by such instrumentality. But the abolition of entails
is one of those dry teohnical reforms that can only be
effectively urged by incessant badgering of ministers,
and members of parliament, with hard-headed rea-
soning.
The central committee for procuring exten-
sive changes in the Scotch law of entail seem,
from the public appearances they, have made, quite
competent to carry on this more intellectual kind of
agitation. By persevering until success crowns their
efforts, they cannot look for any of that Mat which
bus crowned, in our day, successful agitators of more
popular reforms; but they will confer upon their
country a benefit scarcely second to any that has been
gained for it within the memory of the present gene-
ration. It is of good augury that they have taken one
leaf out of the Anti-Corn-law League's book—a leaf
containing sound instruction for all reformers, by
whatever means they work. The fourth resolu-
tion passed at the Glasgow meeting declares that
they go for " perfect freedom in the purchase and sale
of land." Sir W. M. NAPIER objected to this
resolution, on the ground that by asking too mach
they might get nothing. A somewhat similar
discussion arose at some of the early meetings of the
Anti-Corn-law League. There were members among
them who thought that there was no chance of get-
ting total and immediate repeal, and that therefore it
would be wiser to ask something that might be con-
ceded. The reply was, that by maintaining the broad
general proposition that the corn-laws were an evil,
and that it was desirable to get rid of them, no pro-
vomtive was given to internal controversy ; but that
if any mere modification were asked, each member
would insist upon its being his own pet modification,
and union and hearty co-operation would thus be
rendered unattaivable. The success of the League
Proves the wisdom of their having acted ene=
atter view. The parties in Scotland who have
taken the field against the entail laws will in
like manner act most wisely if they rest contented
with simply denouncing those laws, and asking
for their repeal. It will be time enough to
discuss the merits of any compromise when it is
offered to them by those who have the power to make
and unmake laws. There will, in such a case, be no
harm in accepting an eligible compromise--as an in-
stalment.

will quietly take its place injure statute-book, and
become the foundation of much future benefit to agri-
culture. After reciting that it is expedient to make
provision for the collection of information relative to
the amount of land under cultivation in England and
Wales, and relative to the several kinds of produce
rained therefrom, and the number of cattle,
sheep, and other animals kept thereon, and
relative to other matters connected with agricul-
ture, the bill proposes to enact that once before
the Ist of June in every year an account shall be taken
of the particulars set forth in schedule A. That
schedule contains a tabular form by which the quan-
tity of land planted or sown, &c., is to be given under
each of the following heads : Wheat, barley, rye,
oat', beans and peas, potatoes, turnips, carrots, beet-
root or marigold vrurzei, tares, clover, lucerne and
other artificial grasses, meadow and pasture, fallow,
wood, waste, other crops if any. And under the
head of " description of stock " are bulls, oxen, cows,
sheep, short and long woolled. Here, there are the
obvious emissions of heifers, calves, and swine, which
is, probably, accidental, as we find such kinds of stock
are enumerated in a subsequent schedule. The form
in schedule A is to be filled up by all the occupiers of
land whose holdings exceed three acres, and delivered
by them to local enumerators, who are to examine the
occupiers' returns, and to cause any defects or inac-
curacies in them to be supplied or corrected so far as
may appear possible. These enumerators are to be
appointed by the superintendent registrar, one com-
petent enumerator being appointed in each registrar's
district. The duty of the enumerator will be to pre-
pare on the let of June, yearly, a list of all the occu-
piers of land in his didnct, arranged according
to parishes, townships, and so forth, and for
that purpose he is to have access to the,
different local rate-books. He is to transmit a blank
form, such as we have above mentioned, to each occu-
pier, who is bound to fill it up and return it to the
enumerator within fourteen days. Having obtained
such returns, the enumerator is to frame a table ar-
ranged according to the townships comprised in his
district, which table is to be in the form set forth in
Schedule B, and to be filled up from the returns
received from the occupiers, and transmitted before
theist of July, yearly, to the superintendent registrar
of the district. The superintendent registrar, after
examining, and, if necessary, correcting, such returns,
must transmit them to the registrar-general for the
use of the Board of Trade. The form in Schedule B,
appended to the act seems to require the total:quanti-
ties of land cropped with wheat, rye, barley, &c. &c.
in each parish or township to be given, and the seine
as to live stock. This will afford the means of com-
paring parish with parish, district with district, and,
so far, will be exceedingly valuable ; but, unless
the returns of each occupation be also stated, the plan
will fall short of effecting one great object of use-
fulness.

A little consideration of the actual condition of
agriculture will make this apparent. When we
have accurate parochial statistical returns, we
shall readily be able to see to what extent,
or in what particulars, one agricultural district
excels another. We shall have acme means of com-
paring with tolerable accuracy the husbandry of the
eastern and northern counties with those of the west
and the south—of contrasting the acreage of roots and
green crops, and the numbers of livestock, in North-
umberland, Lincolnshire, or Norfolk, with the like
particulars in Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, or Buckingham-
shire. Nay more, we may compare parish A with
parish B in the same district, and shall often find
some startling contrasts, which will set on foot in-
quiry into the causes of such contrasts. Doubtless,
much will have been gained by such opportunities.
But, great aiare the differences between the hus-
bandry. of different districts, the differences between
farms in the same parish are often still more remark-
able. And these differences occur all over England.
In some of the districts wherein the state of agricul-
ture is generally inferior, there are individual in-
stances of high cultivation not exceeded in the best
cultivated counties, while in the best districts some
very bad farming is to be met with. Now, if the
yearly statistical returns presented to the public the
striking differences which exist between individual
farms in the same parish or township, the thinking
part of the community would speedily investigate
and make known the hitherto latent causes. When
it could be seen, as we know in many instances it
would be, that a farm of 300 or 400 acres
carries as mach or more stock than all the
rest of the 6,000 acres of the parish, or that
a little occupier of a hundred acres returns
more cattle and swine, and nearly as many sheep, as
his neighbours who occupy farms four or fivefold
larger, the natural question most be—" Whence this
difference?" The answer would be almost invariably
found in the different proportions of capital employed,
treatable again, in most cases, to different degrees of
security of tenure. We trust, however, that the
more perfect information we have suggested may
hereafter be obtained under the present bill, should it
become law, for we _find, Abet power is given to the
Board of Trade to alter the forms of the returns and
tibia annexed to the bill. The enumerators, and the
superintendent registrars, are of course to be paid,
and are to be made responsible, by means of penal-
ties, for any failures in performance of their duties.
The occupiers, also, who neglect to make returns, are
to be subject to a penalty. The penalties are, how-
ever, only to be sued for by the direction of the
Board of Trade, or the Registrar-General. This will
prevent any abuse of the penal clauses, as the high
functionaries who must direct penalties to be sued
for, would only do so in -flagrant cases, or for ha-
bitual neglect. We believe that it is essential
that it should be compulsory on occupiers
to make the returns; and in that we
are Lorne out by the unanimous opinion
expressed by a meeting of practical farmers, at the
Farmers' Club, when discusang the question of agri-
cultural statistics, some months ago. One gentleman,
on that occasion, said : " Farmers are always rather
jealous with regard to the question of how many
quarters they grow to:the acre; they have a natural
antipathy to making their affairs known ;" and that,
therefore, the acreage of each kind of crop would be
the best return they could be expected to make. So,
another speaker, a land agent, said " You will find
the farmer will not tell you how many acres he grows,
nor how many quarters per acre;" and that the returns
must be tested by a responsible officer. Again, an-
other farmer said: " We know that many farmers do
not keep accurate accounts of what they grow, and
therefore, having to make a return for statistical pur-
poses would be of advantage to them." And every
persan who spoke agreed 'that the plan mast be
compulsory," and in the hands of the government.
Thus, the government bill, so far as it goes, is
good, and bee the approval of those who may be taken
to mien tae opinion of the better class of
WEIN& Whet may be the reception of the measure
with theismiseracy of pertiesalmt, remains to be seen.
The oresnd reeding of theagiss been postponed
dip lissAsr, wild like • disclaiming
WINO *laid* sr Opt ocenowit,inAhe
Mime of Oesems. The will watch narrowly
taken: by the Thee
party" on this

A BILL has been brought into the House of Com-
mons for the very useful purpose of enabling the col-
leetion of agnculturalstatistim in England and Wales.
The history of this measure is curious. During the
Anti-Coln-law discussions which preceded Sir R.
Pares prospective repeal of the corn-laws, it wee the
constant object of the Protectionist members to show
that there was no danger of high prices, or scarcity of
corn, in this country : that imported corn was not re-
quired ; that the stocks of home-grown corn were oaf- In consequence of the customary holiday of Long-
G .int for the consumption of the community ; and champs, the French Chambers did not sit on Thursday,
that the improvements then asserted to be going on isse adjourned oaths preceding day until Monday.
is British agriculture were such that free trade in A Bedded fall took place in the corn market. Flour
corn could not be required. For proving all, or some, fell S fr. per sack on Wednesday, and a reduction will
or one, of these arguments, it was asserted by Protec- no doubt follow in the price of bread for the latter
tionist members, that nothing more was wanted than fortnight of April. Advices from Havre announce
full and accurateetatistical information : and oneyronsi- fresh arrivals and a fall in the price of flour. Seller*
rent member of that party—Mr. STAFFORD O'BRIEN, were much more. numerous than buyers in the
we believe—distinctly called upon the government market. As anticipated in our correspondence of
foe some means of obtaining such agricultural data as yesterday, reports are abroad and generally credited
the exigencies of the monopolists seemed then to re- on the Bourse that the Cabinet is about to propose in
quire. The then government, having probably the Chamber a project of law for the continuance
enough on its hands, did not respond to that call ; of free trade in corn and general provisions until the
but Mr. MILNER GIBSON, as an active leader of the 31st July, 1848.
Free-traders, bad become perfectly aware how A debate, on a subject not uninteresting to English
completely full and accurate statistical information, readers, took place in the French Chamber of Peers,
on the subject of British husbandry, would scatter to on Wednesday. It was brought about by a petition,
the winds an the protectionist assertions, and he at begging the inclosure and division of common and
once announced his intention of bringing in a bill for communal property. The ministers resisted it, from its
the collection of agricultural statistics. Then came extreme injustice to the poor, who now enjoyed each
the change of government, and Mr. GIBSON became the right of pasturing a cow, for which that class'
a member of the new administration. His colleagues could not be indemnified. M. Duchatel said that,
in office understood and valued the measure he had though the inclosure might increase the produce f
promised, as an independent measure, and the bill to grain, it would diminish what was more wanting,
which we refer is the result the growth of cattle in France. The minister took
Whether, as a government bill, it will encounter the opportunity to defend the !government, much as
any serious opposition we know not, but if it our ministers do, for not having interfered to beat
ba opposed, it requires no gift of prophecy to down the price of corn in an hoar of famine; the
foretel that the opponents will be found amongst leaving trade free and uncompeted with, having now
those who, for their own class objects, first produced the best effects in ample importation. The
pointed out the necessity for such a measure. Unless speech of M. Duelist.' is a whole paragraph, and
Tided by the squires, the country party, the bill, the arguments are identical with those of the English
—*eh less complete than could have been wished, ministers.

the kart
quesbon.

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