The Express.
London, England, 1848-05-11 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 11, 1848.

IT strikes us that oar government is playing a very
hazardous game in defending Austria from the
attempts of the Italians to liberate their country.
Were the Austrians completely driven out of Italy, it
then might be prudent and generous to interfere and
prevent the forces or ideas of the peninsula from in-
vading the Tyrol, or the Frioul or Trieste. But for
England to interfere in preventing the Lallans from
making joint efforts to expel the Austrians from the
banks of the Adige and the Po—this we cannot but
Clink illiberal, unfair, and impolitic.
We are ready to admit that it may be desirable to
preserve the existence and the force of Austria as one
of the great conservative powers of Europe. But we
deny that the strength of Austria is really increased,
or more firmly based, by her retaining a portion of
the Italian soil, and thus exciting the continued enmity
and hostility of the whole Italian race. We have before
described the policy of our government, and the mission
of Lord Nlisro to assist in the endeavour to necare
possession of the Venetian territory for Austria.
Now, of all parts of her dominions, the Venetian ter-
ritory is that to which Austria has least right, and
her retention of which can do Austria least good and
Italy most harm.
We need not surely point out the inconvenience of
one country and race possessing all the upper part of
a great river, whilst another nation and race
occupies and shuts its mouth. The Po is the
great canal and transit for the produce of
Lombardy. Venice, at its mouth, is the na-
tural trading depot of North Italy. To give this
to Austria is merely to give it a padlock upon a
valuable chest after the property of that chest has
been taken from it. It is giving Austria merely the
power to annoy and the tendency to provoke the
Italians. It is perpetuating war between the races,
and really precluding all possibility of lasting peace
instead of facilitating it. Our government is,
however, induced to favour such an arrangement,
partly by the difficulty of driving the Austrians
from the Adige without calling in the French,
partly perhaps from the idea that Austria, still
strongly entrenched on the Adige and holding its for-
tresses, would not only be interested in keeping Italy
independent of the French, but capable of doing so.
We think,however, that it would be much safer to
up this eternal mistrust of France, which goes so
provoke the very thing we would guard against,
which not only makes an enemy of France,
of Italy. rke what we have done—we
acknowledged the Austrian blockade of
lice, whilst we have forbidden the Neap ditans to
vessels to combat and to raise that blockade.
~ the same time we have disauaded Naples and
forbidden the Pope to march to the succour of Venice,
-ving vainly tried to intimidate the King of SAR-
IA into a similar abstention. The Pope, in seek-
to obey us, has got nearly overthrown ; as it is,
has exposed his government to the greatest
shake and discredit that it has yet suffered.
Our advice has also shaken the Neapolitan throne,
t would have buried the Sardinian, had Crisat.Es
SEILT listened to us. What a position is this for
--ngland and its whig ministry—acting and negotiat-
ing in enmity to Italian unity, Italian independence,
Italian freedom? The result will probably be, our
at saving Austria, and our being hooted out of Italy
the popular execration.
CHARLES ALBERT has not listened to us. lie has
at his army on a true Italian mission, and he would
eye sent his fleet, had we not prevented that display
the naval force of Italy in the Adriatic. CRARLES
,LBERT'S military operations seem hitherto marked
skill, and crowned with success. He first drove
.40 Austrians behind the Mincio, and cleared the
western bank of the lake of Garda. lie
has now pasaed the Mincio, beaten the Aus-
trians in two places, cut off the commu-
nications between Peschiera and Verona, and,
what is more important, between Peschiera and the
Tyrol. The combat and capture of Pastorengo has
made him master of the country and of the roads
lying between the Adige and the Lake of Garda. lie
has passed that river at Pontone, and his next opera-
tion will no doubt be to get possession of Le Chiu-e;
and of the road on the left bank of the Adige, the only
way of communication between the fyrol and
Verona, and the only means of the lat-
ter city receiving supplies. The hope for the
.ustrians, then, lies in NUGENT'S 'wing able
co reduce the whole of the Venetian territory. Con-
sidering that the region is full of a hostile population,
NUGENT 'S force is scarcely equal to this. It remains,
hoWever, to be seen, whether to
King, Itanurzto,
'T NUGENT, will prove the best general.
But the misfortune is that, whoever gains, Austria
cannot win, since the success of her generals, in de-
feating CHARLES ALBERT, can have no other result
than the summoning of the French into Italy—the
very thing that we are so anxious to avoid.
-------

- -
ON Monday next ministers are to unfold to the
House of Commons the arrangements by which they
propose to emancipate our commerce from the
thraldom of the navigation laws. The near approach
of this revelation has revived the anxiety out of doors
to adopt means for impressing ministers and the
legislature with a due sense of the necessity of doing
the work thoroughly and at once when it is taken in
hand. In all our great marts of commerce, the pre-
ponderating wish, eagerly and resolutely expressed,
is that the measure contemplated by ministers may
be one of entire, immediate, nhconditional repeal.

Nowhere is this view more decidedly or more gene.
rally entertained than in the city of Lir.don. A
petition for " the total and immeiliate repeal
of the navigation. laws, and thorough revision of the
Admiralty
..r.a Viee-Admiralty laws," which has tor
some oven preparing, was yesterday put in eir-
culatiaa to receive the irtguatures of the merchants,
bankers, manufacturer", &c., of the City. It goes
largely into detail, the object of the petitioners being
to present the maleficent influence of these laws upon
the production and distrition of a
manifesto national wea
of the
lth in
all their bearings. It is, ibu n fact,
commerce of London—a solemn testimony of its
merchants against the impolicy and injustice of
these laws. This is a document that cannot
be lightly treated. It speaks the ripe convic-
tions of the leading traders of that city in
which the infinitely ramified commerce of the
civilised world centres. it is no exaggeration to
say that no extensive commercial operation can
be undertaken in Yurope, Asia, or America in
which the ekill and resources of London are not
called upon, nt sorne stage of the proceeding'',
to bear their part. In London ere to be found
traders the magnitude of whose dealings, and the
earnestness with which they concentmte their respec-
tive transactions upon some one region of the earth,
render them of more consequence in their respective
walks than any other merchants in the world, and more
thoroughly masters of all that relates to them. The ag-
gregate commercial knowledge and judgment of London
embraces a wider range, is more tamiliar even
with the minutest details, than can elsewhere be
found. It is large and catholic, yet practical in its
views. Its bias—it bias it can be said to have—is to
seek universal development of commercial enterprise,
as based upon the unrivalled productive power and
accumulated capital of the British empire. The deli-
berate capreasion of opinion about to be transmitted
by the mercantile body of London to the legislature
will be one of the severest blows which the Naviga-
tion laws have yet received—rudely though these laws
have of late been kandled.
The London petition declares that " shipping and
navigation arc the results, not the causes, of manufac-,
tering industry and aurees4gl trade." A peeptee
among whom skill an persevering industry are so
universally diffused as the British ; who possess such
an unequalled amount of accumulated capital ; whose
mineral treasures and scats of manufactures are so
easily accessible from the sea, cannot fail to command
at all times ample supplies of shipping, unless they
themselves, by fantastic and arbitrary regulations,
impede the approach of ships to their harbours. An
island everywhere env'roned by the sea, scarcely
any part of which, owing to the winding! of its
coasts and to its deep indented gulfs, is a day's journey
distant from the sea, is the natural site of maritime
tastes and habits. Navigation is a natural instinct
of the Englishman, quite as much as swimming is
of the duck. Englishmen cannot, if they would,
abstain from embracing the profession of seamen, or
at least investing their money in ships. No artificial
regulations are necessary to ensure to England the
possession of a colossal commercial navy.
No branch of the shipping interest need fear the
rivalry of competitors in any foreign country. The
ship-builders of EnLtland, apart from difficulties to
which the navigation laws subject them, enjoy ad-
vantages denied to those s
ot all other countries.
" Iron, copper, tools, machinery, coals, cordage,
paints, &c.," says the City of London petition, are
cheaper here than elsewhere. "By the unrivalled
advantages this kingdom possesses for obtaining every
kind of valuable colonial and foreign timber, it has
justly been called ' the great timber-yard of the
world.' " If the navigation laws exercise any
influence upon our shipbuilding interest, it is by
enhancing the price of these commodities they im-1
port from abroad to diminish the advantages they
naturally enjoy. Even with this drawback, how-
ever : " It it satisfactorily proved by the evidence of
competent witnesses, given before the select committee
of the House of Commons in 1847, that the British
shipbuilder as well as the North American ship-
builder have built and can at present build ships more
cheaply, taking their quality into account, than they
can be constructed in any foreign country."
This being the case, the restrictions on competition
in the carrying trade, imposed by the navigation laws,
have not even a shadow of palliation to be alleged in
their behalf. " Freight," the City petition truly ob-
serves, "is of all ethos the most i:npoitant raw
material of British industry." The danger of
enhancing freights is proved by a variety of illus-
trations. "So exorbitantly high have protected
freights recently been, that there are innumerable
instances at the present time in which freights from
continental British India have more than absorbed
the entire market value of many of our principal
Indian staples imported here." Again —" By the
repeal of the navigation laws both English and
foreign ships trading to and from this country would
be enabled frequently to carry goods to and fro,
where they are now compelled to make one of the
two voyages in ballast at great less, the British con-
sumer being obliged to pay a double cost fur freight
on the one cargo to compensate the ship-owner fir
the freight of the other cargo, sacrificed to hie
' protection: " And yet again—" The navigation
laws, by denying British and colonial capitalists
the means of obtaining cheap foreign ships when
advantageous opportunities offered, and other mari-
time facilities enjoyed by the foreign capitalist, have
virtually surrendered to the latter that lucrative
branch of industry now prosecuted on the oceans sur-
rounding our southern colonies; which oceans,
abounding in wealth, are now covered by 700 sail of
foreign South Sea whalers." One more example—
" 11; the discouraging and restrictive tendency of the
navigation laws on British commerce, &c., vast sums
of British capital have been at various periods
diverted to foreign loans and schemes, and totally
lost to its owners ; which capital would otherwise
have been profitably embarked in extending British
manufacturing industry, colonial production, naviga-
tion, trade, &c." The petitioners might have added
that the navigation laws are a principal cause of that
tendency in capital to accumulate in this country in a
more rapid ratio than the means of investment,
which is the source of those frequently recurring
epidemics of joint stock company, railway, and other
manias.
It is not only by increasing freights that the navi-
gation laws clog and embarrass the operations of Bri-
tish commerce. They compel the merchant to en-
trust his wares to carriers in whom he can have no
confidence. They augment the risks of sea-trans-
. port, and of' course the expensiveness of sea insurance.
" The recent official reports of her Majesty's consuls
in foreign porta," say the city. petitioner", " show that
the effects of the navigation laws have been
d the demoralisation of the greater number
3, of the seafaring population employed in our
commercial marine, and consequently British
0
trading ships have in a great degree lost, and are
daily losing, that preference which they enjoyed '
he among merchants at home and abroad, over those of
lie other nations."
us- The grand jury of the merchants of London has sat
Du. upon the navigation laws, and its finding is that they
,nd, arc a national nuisance. It is for government and the
the legislature to abate that nuisance without lose of time.
has

FEW people trouble themselves to read a corre-
spondence. If it be highly-spiced and very peppery
there are some among the least busily occupied of the
newspaper-reading world, who may cast their eyes
down it, to cull the " strong expressions" and other
elegancies ; and if it relate to the subject of a duel, an
elopement, or a breach of promise, it may possibly
even engage the attention of a proportion of
the fairer readers of such a journal as our
own. But, in all but extraordinary eases,
a " correspondence.' is universally voted a " bore,"
and the probabilities are that if you take any per-
sonal interest in it, and ask a friend has he seen or
read it, the reply will be, "Oh ad ! I saw some-
thing of the sort; pray, what was it all about ?"
Above all, a correspondence of compliment, civility,
apology, or explanation, has the worst chance : these,
few people look at, if they extend over half a news-
paper column ; and certainly if they go over half a
page there is no more chance for them than for the
advertisements in the Times.
And yet strange things ooze out sometimes in the
course of " a correspondence " remitted " with Mr.
I So-and-So's compliments to the editor." If a lawyer
sees all the pettinesses of private life among the
clients who bring him their complaints and grievances
for redress, so certainly the "editor" has a wonderful
. opportunity of scanning the littlenessee of public men
who want his assistance to wriggle out of a scrape them-
selves, or to set a snare for the entrapment of an re
neut. There wain the Times of Saturday, in that

lack pert of the paper whlohno one ever refers to ex-
cept in the lest necessity for something to dein a rail-
way carriage, just one of these correspondenoes, ex-
tending over three mortal columns, and ending, as is
usual in these cases, precisely where it began. Com-
mencing with a mistake, it concludes by the mistake
being set right, and both parties retaining their
I own opinion. But in the coulees of this corrsl-1
epondence there are some points elicited oC
so much general interest as to repay the trouble any I
one will take of wading through it, and as to justify
as in bringing it in a condensed form under the notice
of our readers.
The parties corresponding are the Bishop of SALIB-
BURY and Mr. HORS/JAN, and the subject of the
correspondence is the rather delicate topic of the right
reverend prelate's income. Every one knows that
the act of parliament, which constituted the
Etcleeiastical Commission, gave it power and
direction to fix the incomes of the several bishops, ar.d
to apply, as was supposed at the time, oral
purposes of the church the surplus revenues of each
prelate over and above the amount it might be deter-
mined ho should receive. Onecent occasions Mr.
lIORNMAN has exposed the glaring way in which the
right reverend prelates themselves have, as members of
the commission, evaded compliance with the act. They
have "respected existing rig hta," i.e.they have refrained
from applying the act to any bishop in possession—they
have framed their estimates on net incomes, pernsit-
ting deductions from the gro-s annual revenues which
aro wholly irreconcilable and incomprehensible—they
have arranged their nu amens in such a way that if
I: icy fix the c ,ntributionfroei a see some thousands
a year under the mark (as in the case of
they have no power of obtaining the surplus until
after the next avoidance; whilst, on the other hand,
if they fix their own payment to the see above
all justice and tiecessi!y (as in the case
of Chichester), they must go on paying
infinit urn to prelates who seem by no means scru-
pulous about taking the money. But, bad as this is,
worse remains behind. The surplus cc go to the
episcopal fund has not been applied a
to the geeral
purposes of the church, but mainly to the purposes of
the bishops thslfisselvee; whilst, in one ease—the ease
of the see of Salisbury—the commissioners have abso-
lutely put a new life into the bishopric, without
taking any measures for carrying out the intention of
the net, and have thereby di limed thems-Ives from
receiving any share whatever of the surplus revenue
of what turns out to be a very we-.lthy benefice.
Tho intention of the act was that the Bishop of
SALI,BI'ItY ould receive as his incomebout 5,9110/.
per annum.sh From the last return of the bishop him-
self it appears that on the average of seven years lie
had received nearly 14,0001. per annum, without paying
over a fraction to the purposes of the commission :
end it further seems that in ono recent year the bishop
received as much as 17,iielt., and in another year
us
much as 12,879/ , instead of the 5,000/. which alone he
oaghtto have appropriated for hisown uses. Mr. Holes-
MAN having exposed the conduct of the commissioners
in permitting what he was fully justified in etyline
this gross abuse of the act, the Bishop of SALlAltUlt'i
writes to him, not to deny his statement, but to show
him " how very erroneous" are the inferences he
draws from the facts. The way the right rev. prelate
sets about this is remarkable. Ito says, in effect :
" I admit the truth of all you say, but
you do me a great injustice in supposing that
I receive the same amounts every year. On the con-
trary, for the list four years I have received, on the
average, only 3,139/. a year." Mr. llonsot vs replies
to this, that he never supposed and never said
that the bishop's income was 17,000 t. every year ;
that what he had supposed and said was, that it ex-
ceeded 17,000/. in a particular year, and that not a
fraction of the excess had been paid to the commission-
ers. So far this is set right. But the bishop, who is
seemingly properly ashamed of the commiseiontrs,
though he profits by their doings, returns to the charge
in order to correct another misapprehension of Mr.
llottsNt AN'S, that the arrangements respecting the att.
of Salisbury were made " under his own administre-
tion." No ono can be surprised at the bishop's desire
to get rid of such a suspicion. It is bad enough to
receive a surplus amounting in some years to as much
as 1•2,000 t., which ought to go to augment the livings
of poor clergymen pining in misery on from
501. to loot. per annum, without being respon-
sible for the act which permits such a
gross wrong to be perpetrated. The bishop,
naturally very anxious about the matter, argues thus :
" The question of affixing a charge upon any see was
considered and decided by the Ecclesiastical Commis-
sioners in 1837. I did not myself become a member of the
board until the reconstruction of the commission in
18 le." Now, prima fitrir, this is an answer ; but we
must hear what Mr. Houses": says to it. His argu-
ment is this : The commission in 1837 did nothing.
To use their own words, " they made no order"
respecting the see of Salisbury. It was left
open, therefore, to do what might
right and necessary at a subsequent period. "In
ISO you became a member of the commission,
charged with the administration of the act, and re-
sponsible for the proper carrying out of its inten-
tions." Why did you not then proceed to do some-
thing? It was not until 1847 that any order was
gazetted respecting the see of Salisbury ; and is the
order fixed, with your concurrence and probably at
your suggestion,a charge of 1,850/. a year upon the see
to ho paid after your avoidance of it, it is dear
that you must pretty well have known you were re-
ceiving more than the act prescribed for you. What
does the bishop say to this? To the inquiry why he
did nothing he makes no rejoinder; the last part of
the answer he traverses, by declaring that, "the pro-
spective charge upon the see was fixed in 1846, by a
committee, of which I was not a member, and with
which I had no communication till they arrived at
their conclusion. I then told them," sacs the bishop,
" that 1 did not think the ace could afford to pay so
much"—a part of his lordship's statement to which
we aro sure every one will give unaffected credence.
But tire allegation of his lordship, that he was not
• member of the committee which decided on the
ease of Salisbury, in 1819, is by no means so fully
borne out. In the evidence taken before the par-
liamentary committee, on the affairs of the commission
last year, both Mr. KNIGHT MURRAY, the secretary,
and the Bishop of ST. AMAMI stated that every
bisho was a member of the committee, and the
formerp absolutely declared that " no business could be
completed respecting a diocese without the written
consent of its bishop.' The Bishop of SALISBURY un-
fortunately cannot get over this fact, of which Mr.
HongmAN very acutely reminds him. lam sure,"
says his lordship, " Mr. Knight Murray can never
have intended to say, that a veto is given to a bishop
on all business affecting his diocese.' No one sup-
posed ho did. But will tie Bishop of Ssi.tsee ay say,
what he does not venture to hint in his letters,
that his own written consent was not asked
and given, before the prospective charge upon the
bishopric was imposed? Until he can say that, he can-
not, we apprehend, escape the responsibility of the
act of the committee, "of which ho was not a mem-
ber " though it seems that its decision was submitted
for 'his consent, and, if we believe Mr. NIURRAY, was
not of effect without it.
Such are the main points of a correspondence which
certainly puts the proceedings of the Ecclesiastical
Commission in no improved light. How the Bishop
of Ssitseenv fares in the matter we leave the reader
to decide, merely remarking that we think he would
have bccn more wise had he followed the example
of his brother prelates of Dettiima and CIIICUESTER,
and contented himself with expressing in private his
mortification and annoyance at the unpleasant, but
too necessary, exposure, without rushing into print
upon the subject. In these observations we have
merely treated the matter with reference to the
special facts. There is, however, another and a much
more important view to be taken of it; and as Mr.
llonsat,tx puts these considerations in very forcible
language, we cannot do better than conclude by
adopting, as we do most hco rtily, the following pas-
sage from his letter:
should not he dealing fairly by your lordship did I not
say to you what I-have stated elsewhere, that in my opinion
the merely legal view of this question is too low a one to
take. I thought it involved far higher considerations than
those of strict law. Certain right rev. prelates aro appointed
to certain sees on the understanding that they are to receive
certain incomes, and parliament has entrusted to the epis•
copal bench (as ecclesiastical commissioners) the carrying out
of its act. If it be found that in the earlier stages of the
commission errors and miscalculations were made, tending
to defeat the intentions of parliament, I have hell that the
character of the episcopal bench was invo:vcd in the correc •
tion of those errors. The individual prelates in whose favour
those errors operate are bound not to take advantage of the
Haws man act which they are themselves administering; but
they ought to he the first to propose to the board to
bring back the working of the act to a conformity with its
manifest intentions.
.dreary

-----------
EVERT alteration made in a bill in its progress I
through parliament is by courtesy called "an amend-
ment" It hto this parliamentary phraseology that
we are indebted for what may be called " amendments
for the worse."
To this anomalous class 'of deteriorating amend-
ments unquestionably belongs one modification of the
Sanitary Bill to which government and the House
of Commons seem disposed to assent. The constitution
of the Board of Health originally contemplated is to
be changed. It is to consist of the chief of the Woods
and Forests, with two unpaid commissioners. The
reduction in the number of the members at the board
to three is really an amendment. It increases respon-
sibility, and therewith efficiency. But the entrusting
of the delicate and laborious duties of the board
to the head of a department which, if it does not find
him in sufficient employment, ought to be abolished
I or merged in some other, is, to say the least, question-
able, while the notion of two unpaid commissioners
has nothing questionable or doubtful about it.
Unpaid commissioners aro sure to work in propor-
tion to their remuneration—that is, a little while the
feeling of novelty lasts, and not at all after it has
worn off. Unpaid servants of the public pay them-
selves bT indul4ing their own whims and conveni-
ence. lhey think that the public has no right to
look a gift-horse in the mouth, and that their labour
is a gifi-horse. Servants for love, or for the honour
of the employment, ore always the most castly in the

lung run.
Again, the substitution of unpaid for paid offi-
cials, is tantamount to the substitution of less
efficient for more efficient. There are persons
who fur years back have made the study of the prin-
ciples of sanitary police the business of their lit-, to
which every other pursuit has been subordinate.
While engaged in preparing the public mind for the
reception of a comprehensive measure of sanitary law
—maturing its provisions so onto render it self-recom-
mended and obviating all objections—rind stimulating
government to throw its weight into the scale of
such a measure—they have thoroughly mastered the
subject in all its details. From such men the public
has uo rigl it to exact further gratuitous services,r.or are
they in a condition to give their services on such
terms. Yet these men are obviously the most capable
to work the measure efficiently ; if indeed they be not
the only men in the country capable of working it at
rill. We say nothing of their equitable claim to have
fair play given to the child of their labours by en-
trusting the first carrying of it into execution to com-
petent and friendly hands. The non-payment project
is a sentence of exclusion against such men in favour
of wealthy ditettasti or amateurs, who will make it
their plaything, their hobby-horse, overridden or left
idle in the stall as spiel n or the whim of the moment
suggests ; or to ministerial hangers-on, who are
contented to be put into any unreinunerative
office (careless of their competence to discharge
its duties), in order to estabish a claim for future
promotion to some remunerative appointment. The
non-payment clause goer' to enact that official apti-
tude shall give way to jobbing.
'there is a false economy involved in the miserable
plea of expense, by which this amendment for the
worse is supported. The expense of the commis-
skniers salaries will be saved at the coot of hundreds
of thousands of the public money, sure to be wasted
by the incompetent who will accept of a mere hono-
rary appointment, or the idle who will make their
gratuitous services an excuse for neglect. It will be
savd at the cost of perpetuating the ffering and
diseasee which the sanitary Bill issu intended to
prevent.
The non-payment clause will make a dead letter of
the bill. Ministers, i I they can <tarry their measure, ought
to insist upon carrying it as an efficient measure. It
is despicable in the last degree to purchase the putt-
ing of a law by consenting to enttralt provisions upon
it which must render it merely illusory. It is a weak
and contemptible vanity to take credit for carrying a
measure, knowing thst care has been taken to render
it inoperative. The labourer is worthy of his hire ;
and a ithout hire you will not get labourers to work
continuously and well. These are the truths which
ministers have disregarded, the principles they have
sacrificed, in consenting to modify the constitution of
the Board of Health in a manner that will render it
impotent for good. The means of paying efficient
commissioners. without increasing the annual public
expenditure, might be obtained by lopping off halla-
dozen of the supernumerary colonekies with which
the army is encumbered ; but ministerial retrench-
ment always consists in pinching the working servants
of government, while sineeurists are left untouched.

FRANC E.

PARIS, WPI)I49APAY, 105, A.
At the moment of closing my dispatches last even-
ing the assembly was still in session, and continued
their discussion until seven o'clock. I sent you the
result of their first division, which was the rejection
of the report of the committee in favour of
the assembly nominating directly an interim mi-
nistry. As the only alternative left was, that
the chamber should nominate an executive
commission which should appoint ministers, and
exercise the other functions of royalty, this resolution
was consequently adopted. The next question was.
as to the number of members to compose such a com-
mission. After several propositions it was resolved
that the committee should consist of five members,
and that the names of these should be decided to-day.
After this the Assembly adjourned.
During the sessionof yesterday the principal speak-
ers, and especially those connected with the Provisional
Government, so frequently and emphatically declared
that the question of persons had no weight whatever
with them, and that they were all for principles,that one
must have suspected, even if ho had no other means
of inf Traation, that the case was precisely the reverse,
and that in fact persons were the only thing
thought of. But we, who have hid some opportuni-
i ties of information, could see plainly enough that the
real and only question was, whether or not M. Ledru
Rollin should remain in the government. The truth is,
and it is necessary to say it, however unpleasant
it be, that M. de I.amartine has not the energy,
firmness, and independence necessary to raise him to
the level of the position into which the tempest of the
24th February has thrown him, he is himself sensible
of being unequal to the situation ; he shrinks from
the encounter of the fierce opposition of the small but 1
energetic party of which M. Ledru Rollin would in-1
Istantlybecome the leader, and desires to disarm such
lopposition by placing his opponent beside him iu the
government. This is the true meaning of all the fine 1
phrases which M. do Lamartine evolved in the
assembly yesterday.
Of course M. Lcdru-Rollin will bo one of the five.
It is not necessary to wait for the decision of to-day
to tell you that M. do Lamartine will be another. The
other three are less certain ; but the names most ge-
nerally mentioned are MM. Gamier Pages, Arago,
and Marie. Indeed I have in former lettere mentioned
these five names to you as those of the most probable
interim government, and I believe that I shall be able
in this evening's despatch to inform you that such is
the result.
M. Woloweki is to bring forward to-day a resolu-
tion for the appointment of a committee of inquiry
respecting the condition of the labouring classeucs
manufacturing and agricultural--and to report such
measures as may tend to ameliorate their situation.
It is undm stood that this proposition has been
prepared, and will be supported by a considerable
number of the representatives, among whom are
mentioned Wit. Leon, Faucher, Bastide, Duchez,
Corbar, Peupin, Considerant, Gustave de Beau-
wont, &c.
The grand celebration intended for the 11th of II
May (Sunday) is postponed.
Yesterday morning 50 men of every company of
each legion of the National Guard were called out
sod ordered to be in readiness to answer the first 1
summons. These picquets will form a force of from
19' 000 to 20,000 men. Tho post at the chamber is
composed as usual of one battalion of the National
Guard, but in a few minutes reinforcements may be
called to join it. A petition which certain clubs in-
tend to carry to the bar of the assembly is talked of.
As soon (says the' Commerce), as the consti-
tution shall be voted, several members are to
Interrogate the executive power on the measures
to be taken against the Commune de Paris, the
heads of which appear to desire to place themselves
outside the common right, in having a prietorian
guard, armed mid eqaipped. A member, whoee patri-
otism certainly cannot be suspected, was speaking of
this matter to one of they Provisional Government,
when the latter said, .' let them alone ; there are
arme which wound those who sharpen them !"

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