The Express.
London, England, 1851-11-24 00:00:00

Um faroretifS.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
• erisod Edifies re" llie E 2 Free asoisialag roe etteires
" am, Tends, see Friday eight, toms
of
pod.
A.Fron
be mended for "The eptons." Loodas Iltresionr wet,
snot be st the °See, 10, liestirehetteelOy Two o'clock es the
day of v 4160003.

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LONDON BRIDGE.
le. Aftsmaa. 11. Um.
-Aturasis. 346 SOn.

LONDON, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24.

IT is my natural and Very that the Earl
of SHATTERREZY, when,with r.tetiovue CHM:mice,
as a sanitary tour in the manufacturing districts of
Lancashire, should wish to see and speak to his old
elielstelle, the short time operatives; and it is very
pleasant and encouraging to find that they, notwith-
standing his compromise of their extreme desires
by which they were once so much offended, should
receive and welcome their old patron and leader with
respect and affection. This is very agreeable, and,
in its way,very useful too. The operatives of England
are essentially so worthy a clam, so accessible to the
influence, not merely of reason, but of sentiment—
are so naturally inc4ned to loyalty and piety, that to
know them is to respect them. That knowledgeis what
Lord Seisrresneee Is so pre-eminent lyand favourably
distinguished for. lie knows, and therefore he re-
spects, the operatives of England. They, on their
part, appreciate Lord SHAFTY.sBURY's interest in and ,
regard tor them: they believe that he desires to be
their friend ; they ere grateful for all that he has
attempted on their behalf; but they arc too quick-
sighted and intelligent, and know their own wants
too well, to bestow their entire confidence in him, to
adopt his siews as the standard of their happioess, or
to suppose that he has entire possession of their
ease. They respect his heart, though a cold and an
austere one, more than his head. 'They always listen
to his counsels with earnestness and attention, and
frequently benefit by his advice. But nevertheless
they are quite aware of Lord Siterresoexe's one-
sidedness and puritanism.
And those, with all respect he it spoken, are his
lordship's great defects. lie sees a great deal of the
popular ease, but he does not see, and he does not
care for, the better half of it. lie labours and works
and wearies for success. in matters very interesting;
of considerable social importance ; and most capti-
vating to the sentimental portion of mankind; and,
though really an ambitious man and desirous of ex-
ercising greater power than he already possesses, it
would lw very uncandid to deny to Lord SHAFTES-
BURY the merits of zeal, earnestness and pecuniary dis-
interestedness. But he wants moral comprehensive.
tress. enlarged logical powers, high courage and
great national objects. lie would make, if he could,
the country good, clean, severely pious, and frigidly
puritanical. But there he would stop; there he
would turn his hand from the plough. Neither has
be, apparently, the least idea of the effect which free-
dom, and liberty, and political power would have in
promoting the best of his own aims. His reliance
on the inclinations and capacity of the people to im-
prove themselves, when, under more favourable cir-
enmetancea, they have the, means, and when stimulated
by Kreuter self-respect, such as the suffrage would
inevitably create in them, is very small.
'lle truth then is that Lord SHAF rx:-.BuRY is not
a statesman in the proper sense of the word ;he has
no politic.tl theory or great principles on which to
form a nation or to make it play its assigned part
is the world's great drama. lie would make it slink
quietly through exist( nee. lie would give the
working classes time to wash themselves and nurse
their ehilllmn, to say their prayers and go to church
(all of which are excellent in their way) ; but just as
Le never joined in tlw gnat efforts to give them
cheap bread until their masters and employers had
really won it for them, so now, when they are, it is
to be hoped, on the point of winning the franchise
for themselves, he omits from his consideration that
great element of their improvement. and talks to them
of the imniense advantages of constant supplies of
Goad water.

And that 14 quite Lord SHAFTEsarRY'II style. lie 1
is for ever putting the small cart before the great 1,
hone. lie bade his audience at Manchester fall on
their knees and thank heaven Inc the Short Time
Bill. if they were better off, it was mainly because
of the Short Time Bill ; if they had not, in the ter-
rible tear lala, been revolutionary in their move-
ments, it was the Short Time Bill ; if they had the
opportunity of spending their evenings by their own
Inside, it was the Short 'time Bill; if they were
more religious, happier, more domestic, more loyal, I
sad in any way improved, the Short Thor Bill had I
done it all; and, as the author of that measure was I
Lord Suit-moo kV, in praising Goo for these its I
Makings, they could nut, of course, forget him. I
Now, the fact really is, that the Short Time
Bill has as yet been quite inoperative. The I
demand for manufacturing labour has, under the I
influence of free-trade, burn so great, that the opera- I
tires have had command of that labour market, ;
in which, so long as the bread monopoly lasted, they
used to complain they were slaves to the " money
power." The short time measure may be a good or
a bad law; but hitherto it has not been tested. 'the
fears of those who opposed it have not, as Lord
SHAMISIa KY says, "been falsified by events;" for
events suberequeot to its enactment, and which were
then tar from certain, have averted its operation in
the actual eireumstances in respect of which those
apprehensions were expressed.
Wages base out fallen with the price of bread as
the protectionists predicted; the demand for labour
has concurrently risen, and has very generally raised
wages; and the operatives of Englund arc at this
time, and have for the last four years been, what
may be coarsely but expressively termed, feeding.
'They are eating. sir; by heavens, how they are
catiug r was the significant answer of a large cm-
player of labourers to an inquiry the other day as to
the state of the people in Lancashire. And such is I
litendly the case. labour being in demand, wages
being good, and provisions remarkably low in
price, the improvement of the people in every respect
during the last few years has been prodigious. So
that, when Lord SHAM:Ma:RP attnbutes this im-
provement in Manchester primarily to the Short
Time Bill, all that his mistake shows is, that he
magnifies his own little mole hills into huge moun-
tains, and cannot rise to a comprehensive view of
what he really does take a sincere interest in.
No doubt, however, Lord SHAPTKAarIa spoke
handsomely and patronisingly of free-trade and
cheap bread, but he treated them as subordinate
matters to short time and cold water. Being butter
off, they ought, he told the operatives, to be more
domestic in their habits; to improve their homes;
to spend their evenings by their own firesides ; to
bring up their children in habits of order, cleanli-
ness, industry, honesty, and piety. All very excellent
and admirableadvioe, and not to be disparaged because
it is to be found in every spelling-book and copy-
head. But what don It all amount to in the
present juncture, of public strain? Lord Swerrns-
acne is a politician, a public personage, an hereditary
legislator; a man who, in these qualities and cha-
racters, has devoted himself to the study and care
of the operative classes, who boasts that he knows
them ; who states that whilst continental Europe
was in a blase he had no fear of them, who
tells them that he loves and respects them, and
who asks in return their confideuee. Now, such
• person, so situated, ought to have some
opinion on the great question of extending the
political suffrage to this class ; and, having an opinion
thereon, he might surely, when again, after an in-
terval of years, addressing his Manchester t' bre-
Wen," have told them what it was. Silent on the
point, the inference is. that Lord SitsrrESßUltY
thinks water-works, good drainage, and earthenware
piperige, constant supplies of water, and the abolition
of cisterns and ball-cocks, of far greater moment than
the suffrage.
If Lord SHAFTEABURT thinks so, his audience,
and the great mass of Manchester operatic c%
do not. Dirt, filth, disease, and excessive mor-
tality are inseparable attendants on arbitrary
government; and just in proportion as a nation obtain,
popular government, so dues sanitary reform La
improvement advance within it. The dirtiest people
is Europe are the Russians: the cleanest those of
England and Franey, and they are the freest also.
Extended political suffrage would promote mu
nicipal activity; and it is by municipal agency
that gnat improvements, nachos Lord SaarrEsaulett
advocates, must be undertaken in this country. He
tails the workpeuple of Manchester that they have

reason to be proud of the oceporation of that city.
So they have ; the corporation of Idanchester is a
.73;
noble specimen of municipal ad • on. Bet
why ? Because it hm a mighty. puldie ion &tits
Deck. It is a vent to public °mist lis wpalid
elsewhere: and the political enrage is that .aenf.
Give us that, and we will iikilifer be as alma.,
.----s.,..______-_-_

anti domestic, and happy,Nni giihrrEintii-
wishes ; and as rationally pious also; though not,
perhaps, after the fashion of puritans, but as men with
clear heads and honest hearts usually are.

iThe

Is PROTECTION really dead, or is the fox only uleep ?
No sign of life has foe some time been visible in the
once turbulent and talkative agricultural body. It
lies inert and passive, uttering just now no wand
of hope, or threat, or even complaint. The price of
wheat has not started up; on the contrary, it begins
to evince symptoms of settling permanently at a
very moderate figure. Oats and barley, indeed, seem
to have risen pretty much to the average level below
which they had been depressed chiefly by the influ-
ence of panic during the years 1849 and 1840.
Cattle and sheep are everywhere saleable at
highly remunerative prices ; and all the minor
descriptions of farming produce are proportiolz
affected in the same way. Even as
wheat, the increased yield wherever there has
improved culture has gone far to compensate for the
smaller returns per quarter. All this no doubt 001 I•
tributes to render the season unpropitious for a con-
tinuance of pro-corn-law agitation : and, as we have
already said, actual agitation for the restoration of
monopoly there is none.
We more than doubt, however, whether a good
harvest and en increasing demand for provisions
raised at home, for flax and wool and food for horses,
—we more than doubt if all these great and
general compensations fur the loos of a parliamen-
tary price fur wheat, alone account for the
remarkable lull that we now witness in the
political importunity of protection. That the far-
mers are gradually awaking from the landlord
illusion, that a reversal of free-trade is possible, we
do indeed believe. But how can those who hoped
to live and thrive on a popular deception be disen-
chanted of its merits? The duped may be unde- '
ceived, bit how can the jugglers afford to abandon
their legerdemain ? The gulled may in great num-
bers perceive that they have been imposed upon, and
the voice of hunger and misery which seemed to come
out of the poor-looking fellow in the crowd, ip point
of fact came from the sleek and well-dressed young
gentleman who flourishes about the platform; and
what are ventriloquists to do ? They must live by
their tricks, or sink into obscurity and commonplace
industry. They must relinquish notoriety and the
lazy luxury cf an existence dependent on the credu-
lity of the multitude, for the frugal fare of private
life and of an honest calling.
Looking at the matter in this point of view, it
would rather seem that the less agricultural distress
was really felt, the more urgent nerd there must
manifestly be of loud and angry talk about it. The
better things are among the practical farmers the
worse for the talking landlords, who set up
for their deliverers and economic redeemers.
I What chance can there be for a protectionist
clutch at power, if the occupiers of the soil once be-
come used to steady . and moderate prices for wheat,
as a fair ground for insisting upon a reduction of
rents, and tithes, and taxes? One would imagine
that in so great an exigency every effort would be
strained to distract attention, if not to regain influ-
ence; and that any breeze, however wild or peril-
ous, would be invoked in preference to the horrors of
a dead calm. And so under ordinary circumstances
it would be. But the state of affairs with the fol-
lowers of Lord DEanst and Mr. DISRAELI is some-
what peculiar.
We are approaching a general election, and the
leaders of the landlord party have in weariness of
heart declared that if in the new parliament there
shall not appear a clear majority of monopolists, free
trade must be accepted as a fait aremnp/i, and the
attempt to overthrow or undermine it must be finally
and for ever laid aside. But how is this majurity to
be obtained? Obviously not by setting the plain
issue of high rents and dear bread, or low rents and
cheap bread, fairly before the nation. Fur such an
appeal the conscience of the Carlton, dml though
it be, tells it that but one answers is possible.
No such alternative will, therefore, be put
broadly to the country ; for on none such could the
landed oligarchy hope to win. Anything and every-
thing else will consequently be relied un for the
time being rather than protection. That being the
real end and rim, nothing is to be said about it for
the present, or the less the better. The busy millions
arc not to be disturbed at their hearty meals—the
heartiest meals they have eaten for many a day—by
any greedy cry of monopoly. They arc, if possible,to
be lured to the hustings on some wholly different
pretence, and thus it is fondly dreamed that
stores of protectionists en mavine may slip into the
parliameut of 18.12. The poor old fox is dead, quite
stiff and cold, good people : trouble yourselves about
securing your larder door, and fastening your farm-
yard gate, no more.
To us it looks as though the old rogue was only
asleep. At all events, we are sure that the people
would be very great simpletons if they suffered
themselves to be thrown off their guard by what
may, sad we believe will, prove to be no
more than a feint. It would be rather lute
to discover that protection had not been aban-
doned, when a majority had been obtained in favour
thereof, or of what is insidiously called "its equiva-
lent." The siding scale of 1813, or of 1826, or of '
1842, may never again be heard of except in after-
dinner orations in remote and ignorant districts of
the country. But what signifies the name, if the
thing be secured ? What avails the relief from a
bread-tax levied on the industry of the nation in
order to swell the incomes of the oligarchy, if "an
equivalent" is exacted from industry, pocket in
another way ? If the principle of compensation be
once admitted by the legislature, all that has
been gained in the last ten years, will be again
in jeopardy. If a duty on corn imported was not a
legislative fraud—committed upon the many by the
few—we had no right to insist upon free-trade, and
we must prepare to give bark one loaf out of every
three to the landlords. But if a tax for rent on the
chief necessary of life was a statutable act of extor-
tion cud sordid wrong, then we owe the owners of
landed property no compensation whatever : and we
must take care to vote for no man at the coming
elections who does not give a positive and distinct
exposition of his views and his intentions upon this
vital point of national policy.
Lord Deafer is too expeneneed and expert a poli-
tician to raise unnecessary alarm ; and his accom-
plished lieutenant, the member for Bucks, has long
been coaxing the remorseless Reviund to cease his
pursuit of plunder in the old form, and seek
"an equivalent " elsewhere. " Why not get rid of
direct taxation entirely and lay duties instead upon
all imported goods?" But until now the astute ad-
viser has oftener been snapped at than thanked for
kis pains; nor do we suppose that anything but the
tardy conviction that the last chance for a restora-
tion in some shape of landlord taxation would be that
afforded by a crafts- use of the next general election,
would have ever induced Protection to submit to shut
its eyes, and to be hung up for a time as if it were
actually dead.

The Master-General and Board of Ordnance hare
recently issued an order extending to the Ordnance corps
the plan forms ily adopted Inc tho army in general, for in-
vestiug in • sayings bank, for the beneht of the orphan
chiolren. the sums accumulated by the savings of deceased
soldiers. Messrs. Cox and Co., the agents for the artillery,
have accordingly been instructed to open an orphan savings
bank account tor the Ordnance corps.
DINNER To MR. CRAWFORD, M.P.—At a meeting
of the reform committee in Rochdale, held on Wednesday
last, it WHOA resoised that the farewell dinner to Mr. Shar-
man Via% fur& M.P., shall take place en Friday, the sth
December. The dinner will be given in the Public-hall.
Mr. Bright, M.P., will be present; and it is expected that
Mr. Cobden. M.P., and senate other members of the House
of Cumin -n., will also attend.—!f 'Arlie:ter Ezussmer.
HYPRE.ENTATION OF Chit KNWICH.—Mr. Montagu
Chambers alinunces his intention id offering himself as a
candidate on the first vacancy occurring in the representa-
tion of the borough. Mr. Chambers refers to BP proba-
bility of an elide contest by the appointment of Admiral
Daunt is to the command of the Mediterranean
Kentish Mercury.
THY. LATE L.tOT WARD.—The Ostend steamer
of Friday brnuaht over the moral remains of Lily Ward.
•ho dna at Selkwalbach, in the duchy of N,111•414 on the
I ith inst. They were accoinplrded by Lord Ward And her
lanysliip's father, Mr. Hubert D. Burgh, who have bees
In attendance en her during her painful illness. The re-
mains were forwariltd on Saturday tnght to Hinkley, near
Dudley, in Staffordshire, the burial place of his lord chili
family, where they will be Interred ti-morrow.

FRANCE.

IN !artless Eiminto.
npon'tliii: torah 'Hill of the MIM-
I
tee was ' med. .4the propos!** wr
•, that the six Stint& domicild of
in the„esjoinuine *V Ise
A •groved ky.
__ ......._ of the atiiyor and two sosessors,.vras
then adopted without opposition. The next clauses
recommended by the committee purported that in
cases of a domicile of adoption, where a residence
of two years was required, the proof should be,
first, by
_payment of taxes ; second, by the decla-
ration of ancestors or descendants, brothers or
sisters living in the same house, and third by the
decimation of masters or employers with respect to
111“1111111 or workmen living in the same house with
Ordr arrator or employer, or in any building used by
or kissing to him. This is substantially the same
mode of proof es that required by the law
71'Z.. It has always been protested against by
the supporters of universal suffrage as being as fla-
grant a violation of the constitution as the three
yews domicil... M. Failly proposed to leave out
these clauses entirely, and to admit the same proof
of the two years' domicile as had been already voted
with respect to the six months' domicile. M. Failly
though a legitimist repeated the arguments of the
Mountain. He asserted that ander pretence of proving
the one condition of domicile the committee had
introduced another condition, namely, that of paying
tares. His amendment was, however, opposed by his
brother legitimist, M. Vatimesnil, who being on this
point supported by his fellow-committeemen. who
had deserted him on the question of a two rod do-
micile, succeeded in maintaining the clauses et the
committee by 363 votes against 206.
The leading topic at this moment is the bill of tiro
council ofstate for defining the responsibility of the Pre-
sident. The Mountain, in its present mood, is half is-
dined to lend its ear to a design which, ft
successful, will dissipate much of the advan-
tage gained by the rejection of the Questors bill.
This manceuvre is nothing more nor less than
to subjoin an additional article to the Bill of the
Council of State, confirming and regulating the As-
sembly's right of direct requisition of the troops in
case of the President's impeachment. Some such
provision may be easily argued to be essential, since
in the event of a bill of attainder being passed the
President's functions would immediately cease, and
the executive power pass at once, de jure, to
the Assembly. The bill first elaborated by the
Council of State is a corollary of the 68th
article of the constitution, which provides gene-
rally for the impeachment of the President,
and adds these words: "A law shall deter-
mine the other cases of responsibility, as well as
the forms and conditions of the prosecution." 1 have
given in a previous letter the outline of the bill,
which has been framed expressly to trip up the Pre-
sident in such manmuvres as seem inseparable from
the exercise of a centralised power, such as the pro-
motion of his own canvass for the presidency by
petitions and other means. M. Thiers and his com-
peers are therefore straining every nerve to get ap-
pended, as an additional article to the Council of
State's Bill, the Assembly's right of direct requi-
sition of the troops, which lett ambiguous by the con-
stitution was implicitly denied by the rejection of the
Questors' Bill. _

SATIIEDAY EVENING.

To-day the Assembly met in the bureaux to exa-
mine the bill of the council of state, on presidental
responsibility, and to appoint a committee to report
thereon. The committee chosen consisted of the ful
lowing representatives, whose names I give in the
order of the bureaux : Michel (de )iourges), Pascal
Duprat, Crcton, 116 chard, Crbnieux, Berrycr, Jan-
vier, Monnet, K Arago, Dufaure, Cembarel de
Lcyval, Jules de Lasteyrie, Marc Dufraisse, Laboulie,
Pradie. The composition of this committee
is decidedly hostile to the executive. Only
five, Michel (de Bourges), Pascal I)uprat, Cre-
mieux, Arugo, and I'mtlie, all of whom be-
long to the Mountain, voted against the questors'
bill. The committee contains three legitimists, four
Orleanists, two members of the tiers-midi, and six
members of the Mountain. But the must remark-
able feature in it is that the famous Jacobin, Marc
Dufruisse, figures on the list. This is the clearest
proof that while the party of M. Thiets and the
300 accuse the Elyse() of conspiring with the %loan-
tain, they themselves lend their hands for a par-
liamentary maineuvre to democrats of the reddest
die. Marc Dufraisse was chosen to the 13th bureau
by a coalition of anti Elyseatis merely bemuse he
was one of the only members of the extreme left
who voted in favour of the proposition of M. Base.
The communal electoral law, after a series of
languid debates, has been completely thrown into
the shade by the bill of the Council of State on the
responsibility of the President and all civil agents of
the executive power. I observed yesterday that this
bill would to all intents and purposes open up again
the scarce-elosed wound of the Questors' Bill, with
the disadvantage for Louis Napoleon that a largo
proportion of the Left will vote i n favour of
the former measure, even amended, so as to recog
nise the Assembly's right of direct requisition. Iu
fact M. Pradie, authur of the proposition which
served as base to the Council of States' Bill, laid
yesterday on the table a series of amendments, the
object of which is to confirm the Assembly's right of
direct requisition, and to give a penal sanction to this
right. These amendments form to-day the chief topic
of political conversation, and are so important that I
give them here in full:
The proposition of the questors, notwithstanding the re-
peated declarations of its honourable author., has been coo-
sidered as capable of producing consequences politically in-
calculable by a large number of representatives of all shades
of politics, who have oppased the measure at the same time
that they approved of its principle. They have thought,
rightly or wrongly, that such a proposition might become a
cause of serious complications. To avoid this inconvenience,
and to give to the vote of November 17 its true significa-
tion, it has appeared to us that the law of responsibility
being an organic general law, conceived in the execution of
the 68th . article of the constitution, and not with

a view to the present or any other political situation, would
offer a perfectly natural occasion, without exciting any rea-
sonable umbrage, to decide the question of principle raised
by the 32nd article of the constitution definitively. We
have therefore the honour to propose to the Assembly the
adoption of the following amendments,: To frame the Ist
paragraph of the sth article, under the head of responsi-
bility of ministers, in the following words, " Ministers may
be impeached as principals or accomplices in the crime of
high treason mentioned in the 68th article of the constitu-
tion in case they shall throw any obstacle in the way of the
Assembly fixing, according to the terms of Art. 32 of
the constitution, the amoont of military forces ne-
cessary for its safety, and of disposing of them."
And to add to the 6th article, on the responsibility of the
agents of public authority, the following clause ;—" Officers
and commandants of the public force, and other agents of
authority, shall lie considered guilty of high treason, and
punishable as so guilty, who, in the special case provided for
by article 32 of the constitution, would, by refusing to obey
the direct requisition of the Assembly, make it impossible for
the Assembly to fix the amount of the military forces
necessary for its safety, and to dispose of them. Tho
direct requisition of the Assembly being only applicable to
the special case provided for by the 32nd article of the con-
stitution, the unity of command will slatternly encroachment
but will on the contrary he guaranteed by the article that
wu propose, since this article presuming an extreme case
suppo-es the treason of tho executive power, and brings
under the orders of tho legislative power which in that
case would alone represent the country, the forces necessary
to maintain order and public tranquillity, and to cause the
, laws to be respected." And, lastly, to add the following
' article :—" The President of the National Assembly can '
call on the Minister of War, and on all the general officers
I of the army, to have posted up in the barracks, and to
place on the order of the day of the army, any part or the .
whole of the present law." I hereby withdraw the clauses ,
of my, proposition relative to the privileges to be granted be-
yond the common law to public funcuonaries nn prosecu-
thins against tin in.—PRADIE.
In the Assembly to-day the discussion of the com-
munal electoral bill was resumed. The whole interest
of the house was, however, evidently concentrated in
the discussion going on in the bureaux upon the ex-
citing question of the responsibility of the President
and his ministers. The various clauses of the bill
were got through with great rapidity amidst inde-
scribable confusion. The Assembly voted that they
would pass to a third reading of the entire law by
441 against 229.
The indirrence of the Assembly to the debate on
the Communal Electoral Bill has arisen probably from
the feeling that the bill on the third reading will be
entirely et the mercy of the parties which have
hitherto abstained from voting on it.
The portion of the Paris and Strasburg Railway
between Bar-le Due and Commercy, a distance of 23
NMI opened to the public the day before yes-
terday. The authorities of Commercy gave a grand
banquet on the occasion, at which the Prefect of the
Meuse. Baron d'Hervey, one of the directors of the
company, the Engine,ns or the state and of the com-
pany, the Sub-Prefect, and the principal inhabitants
of the town, were present. A part of the branch line