The Express.
London, England, 1847-09-03 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPT. 3.
War 24 kings, in person or by deputy, assign rea-
sons for their acts, it is a symptom that they do not
feel themselves in a position to carry matters with a
high hand. It is on this account that we are glad to
see the official journal at Berlin devote three mortal
columns of the number published on the 30th of last
month to an attempt to demonstrate that the States-
General ought not to meet at certain fixed intervals.
This essay satisfactorily proves two things, though the
author does not seem to have been aware of it : that
the government is cognizant of the general dissatis-
faction excited throughout the nation by the re-
fusal to fix a definite period within which
the States-General must be alas:shied ; and
that the government does not feel itself strong
enough to bid defiance to this dissatisfaction. The
government has begun by demonstrating in due
logical form the inexpediency of annual meetings of
the States-General, and will end by making them the
law of the land.
The government writer in the Preussische Allge-
meine Zedung explains very satisfactorily how par-
liament comes to meet annually in England. It is
because parliament takes care only to vote every year
the supplies required by government for the year.
And parliament has it in its power to do this because
the English crown has no private property. But,
adds the essayist, the King of PRUSSIA has a personal
revenue, by law, as much his own to dispose of at his
pleasure as the private income of any of his subjects
is its owner's. The King, therefore, does not require
to ask money from his people annually, and cones-
quently does not need to meet their representatives
every year.
To a certain extent we incline to admit the validity
of this conclusion. Revolutions or reforms rarely, if
ever, give to a people, or any part of it, powers which
they did not previously possess. They, in general,
merely. cause powers already possessed to be legally
recsed,and legitimate peaceable modes ofexercuung
them enacted. The ten-pounders obtained the fran-
chise in 1831,beoneetheir clams was already sufficient/y
influential to pack the last of the unreformed parlia-
ments. Whenever there mimes beyond the pale of the
present franchise a class sufficiently numerous and
intelligent, and possessed of sufficient property to in-
fluence the elections permanently, they w ill be admitted
to participation in the electoral privilege, however re-
luctant the conservative party of the day may be—and
with all due deference to more sanguine politicians, we
doubt much whether any farther extension of the
franchise will be made till the natural working of
events brings about such a social revolution. We
agree, therefore, with the writer in the Berlin journal
that if the King of Prussia possesses funds that will
enable him to carry on the government without as-
sembling his States-General annually, he will con-
tinue to deny himself the pleasure of meeting them
so often.
But here is the point on which we differ with the
Prussian journalist : we have great doubts as to the
King's really poseessing the fends that will enable him
to carry on the government without conceding to the
States-General their wish to meet at
pre-
determined intervals. The almost universal belief
Prussia, that the royal determination to allow the
States-General to meet at all was motived by a felt
necessity for getting money votes from them, has
been strengthened by the obstinacy with which a full,
explicit, and satisfactory explanation of the actual con-
dition of the national finances was withheld from them.
If the Prussian States-General and the Prussian
people are true to themselves, the time cannot be far
distant when the government will feel itself compelled
to allow them to meet annually.
In this state of affairs it in most desirable that while
on the one band not one concession is made to the
court by the liberal party, that might enable it to
protract the unavailing. struggle, every act and word
on their part which might unnecessarily irritate or
alienate the monarch be carefully guarded. against.
The liberties and the peace not only of Prussia, but of
Europe, require this self-control on their part. The
King of Primal* has already conceded more to the
popular will than he intended at his accession, and, how-
ever unwilling, he is not in &position to refuse further
concessions. The House of Brandenburgh is quite as
much a revolutionary dynasty as the House of
Orange, or the House of Brunswick, and quite u
much enthralled to the movement party of Europe as
ei her of them. The Prussians are among the beet edu-
cated, if not, indeed, the best educated, nation in
Europe. By far the greater part of the adult male
population have been trained to arms. The profes-
sional soldiery, the men who have devoted themselves
for life to a military career, form but a small propor-
tion of the army ; and even this class are not men
upon whom an unreasoning despot could rely. The
government finances are not in the moat satisfactory
condition that could be imagined. The King
must, ere long, come to terms with hliltictople,
and some allowance may safely be for
the feelings of a monarch so circumstanced—
some days of grace allowed him. In the present posi-
tion of European affairs it is moat desirable that every
inducement consistent with the rights and interests of
his people should be held out to him to take a pride
and pleasure-in classing himself with liberal and re-
forming sovereign+, like Pins IX—to gain him for an
asserter of the right of every independent nation to
model its own institutions on the framework of its
existing social relations, free from foreign interference.

WE have on a former occasion stated our ream
for believing that on the abolition of settlement it will
be found necessary to adopt the union, at least expe-
rimentally, as the area of rating. It is, however pos-
sible to steer an intermediate course between throw-
ing the burden of relief se at present on the pariah
and substituting. the union for the smaller division.
A calculation might be made of the sums hitherto
paid by the perishes in a anion for some definite
number of years before the change, and the future
burden on the union might be distributed among
them in the same proportion. This was the prin-
ciple adopted by Sir .1. GRAHAM in a bill for alai-
toting union for pariah settlement, which he brought
in two or three years ago. As a permanent arrange-
=y however, suehpaannsEortionment would be ob-
unjust and inex 'ant. In the course of
rim while country ' had grown into towns
• astdriptdoes villages decayed, it would be impossible
=lathe obsolete pemartions of taxation. A pe-
iesijailmmt weii lm a necessary part of
mash a mess" sod is Sea end it would be necessary
le heap en account of lie number and cost of the
pewits relieved in behalf of every separate variah
But here again a new Miss* would arise. When
every pauper becomes auseable to the place in
which he temporarily resides, the same claimant
might in the course of a year be relieved by. the offi-
cer on woonnt of every parish in the union in nom-
*ion, nor would it be easy, when relief was given in
the workhouse, to fix a peculiar liability on any par-
ticular parish.
On the whole, we behove that it will be found that
if the put burdens of parishes are to be in any way
regarded in enlarging the area of taxation,it willonly be
patible to do so as a lwapwaryarraniunsat to ilealH-
lab the twenties. All shillbis ef Wanks. Omagh Air
the purpose assewdardag it awe fairly. involves an
*dimßosag the relative value of ire-1
pity, en wide all who haw previously in;
• lel* It haw ealedelsi. His hard in a popular die;
Wet eppined with poor-rates to see the compara
tive assimptiaa of ea adjoining close parish bat
do Meese* lna been probably taken meet ae-
want by every how andA parsapeiwor in either pia..
'lbw who haw tikes lenses in it Mee
oast hasp hes prepared I. ply Mike Mee Ow
telhey be pawns kr sompasalivesamedaillew


taxation in the wealthy precincts of Hyde-park. By
adopting for five years a relative sale of rating,
based upon the payments of five years berme, and
afterwards distributing the burdens of the union
equally. among all the rate-payers within it, some
I:iriximation to justice might be combined with the
on of a more convenient system.
re is another question connected with the aboli-
tion of settlement which will be found more difficult
than the re-apportionment of local taxation. The check
upon paapenam supplied by the vigilance of inter-
and rate-payers will, as we have often said, be
'Mbar destroyed. We repeat it now, not as an
arcenset in favour of maintaining the power of re-
moval, bat for the purpose of calling attention to the
nessaity of finding some substitute for it without
infringing on the just claims of the poor. As unions,
efriab we assume to be the rateable bodies, will have
as means of discouraging the increase among them
of a population likely to be chargeable, it seems
probable that many. will endeavour to protect
themselves, by showing greater severity than their
neighbours to those whom they are compelled to
relieve. When the example is set, other boards of
guardians must follow it in self-defence. A liberal
union will be infested with paupers, as the homes of a
too benevolent old lady is generally hpunted by
beggars. The reports of poor-law commissioners, and
the evidence of witnesses before the poor-removal
committee, are full of anecdotes as to the pre-
ference which the more moveable classes of
poor already show for workhouses where the
rations are heavy, and the task-work light. Without
doing other chargeable poor. the injustice to confound
them with vagrants, there is sufficient experience of
their tendency to congregate wherever a lax admi-
nistration of relief preevaiis. The poor law of 1834
unfortunately failed to make the building of work-
houses compulsory, and in consequence the exertions
of the conunimioners have in some places failed in
persuading the rate-payers to supply so indispensable
an instrument of the working of the new system.
Wherever a union is without a workhouse, and con-
sequently subject to many of the abuses of the old
law, it is found that in all the frontier parishes bor-
dering on better managed districts there is a constant
immigration of paupers, whom only be got rid of by
the power of removal, which we have throughout as-
sumed to be on the point of abolition.
When intruding paupers can no longer be sent
back to their place of settlement, every union will
have to protect itself by strict management against
every other ; and it seems not improbable that, while a
wholesome check will be imposed on pauperism, the
really deserving poor may suffer by the rivalry of dif-
ferent districts in discouraging intrnive elaiments.
Nor is it possible to doubt that the substitution of a
legal claim on the community at large for a right of
relief from his own parish, sanctioned by custom and
feeling, as well as by law, will be a loss to a poor
man. Overseers and rate-payers have, after all, some
sort of feeling for their own poor. When the act of
1846 saddled almost every parish with the burden of
maintaining strangers and sojourners, it was not un-
usual, in defiance of the law and of Somerset-house, to
relieve them more scantily, and treat them more
harshly than the old lawful parish paupers—partly,
no doubt, from spite against the law, but also from a
disposition to dislike and maltreat the intruders
disc vd effisvrer perarthirrqs:

as a good-for-nothing vagabond, that is to say, from
some other pariah.
The anti-poor-law agitators who have recently been
celebrating a premature triumph over the destruction
of the law which is not destroyed, and of the commis-
sion which is merely changed in name, will do well
to watch the tendency to increased harshness of ad-
ministration, which seems thus likely to arise from
the establishment of universal liability. We shall
not regret to see the law enforced with greater uni-
formity and more systematic adherence to its twofold
purpose, of discouraging pauperism as well as of reliev-
ing the poor. The establishment and maintenance of
all practicable uniformity in the mode of administer-
ing it will be the only security
.for the poor against a
rivalsbip of severity among neighbouring boards of
guardians. If all workhouses and all systems of out-
door relief are alike in strictness, there can be no oc-
casion for harshness or severity in any of
them. The object should be to prevent any
district from being so laxly or stringently
governed as to attract or repel the poor who
do not naturally belong to it. The distribution of
population should be determined by the abundance of
employment, and the other economical causes which
ordinarily regulate it, without any interference from
those who administer relief to the poor. It will
become, perhaps, expedient to substitute some addi-
tional watchfulness in dispensing relief for the local
jealousy which will no longer act in the discourage-
ment of pauperism. It ought net to be necessary at
this time to show, that laxity in dispensing relief is
an injustice to the poor as well as to the rate-payers.
When the law of settlement is abolished, it will be
difficult even for the peeudo-philanthropists to com-
plain of the watchfulness and uniformity which will
be necessary to protect every several district from
being overwhelmed by paupers.
We cannot help it, however, if they feel aggrieved
by the additional necessity for the supervision of the
commission or central board, which will be created
by the demand for increased uniformity of adminis-
tration. Unions anxious not to give others advantages
over them, cannot well negotiate with all their neigh-
bours to settle the regulations to be generally adopted
for the management of the poor. A general autho-
rity will be necessary. to impose the lame terms on
all the different parties ; and the interference of
Somerset-house will be as necessary to protect the
poor against attempts to drive them away by harsh-
nese, as to secure the harmonious and uniform action
of the different local boards. We have already ex-
pressed a suspicion that the ovations with which the
modification of the commission has been so ostenta-
tiously celebrated, may be intended to cover a retreat.
If so, we may hope that those who have hitherto
thrown so many obstacles, with so little effect, in the
way of the administration of the poor-law, will not
prevent it from being adapted, as far as possible, to
the pa of efficiency and humanity under the im-
pend ing change.

ON returning to look into the account between the
nation and the railways, in order to ascertain whether
an unlimited armor of obligation is due from the lat-
ter, for the powers originally granted them, we may
observe, that it has been seen that, since the con-
cession of these powers, there have been imposed
upon them extra oonditions, the value of which for
the public oonvenienco and profit would of itself
amply melee to extinguish any debt on this head.
It was thought better, as the case for the railways on
the OuneroNE Act is a strong one, to let this demon-
stration take the first place; although we think it
may be proved by the following review of the original
terms of the transaction between the state and the
promoter, that no arrear existed on this score when
throe new imrsitions were ordered; that, conse-
quently, the privilege on which so much stress is laid
es a ground for further exactions, has, in fact, been
already paid for twice over.
• • •

.
When the railways came to parliament, asking
for these powers, as necessary for their intended
works, the scope of what was demanded, and the mo-
tives adduced for granting the demand, had to be
weighed ; and were, once for all, adjusted, on the
passing of the bills. The legislature, in approving of
them, after a severe inquiry into their preambles, de-
elated, by its deliberate acts, that the public advan-
tage to be derived from the fulfilment of the pronio-
tem' schemes for these works was sufficient to justify
any encroachment that might be required for this pur-
pose on the usual rights of property in land, or of
other kinds. In other words. it said to them—" You
have satisfied us of the national utility of what you
now ask for leave to do, and, in our conviction of this,
we empower you to take land, &c., &c., oa conditions
which ensure a full compensation to the owner, in cases
where an amicable treaty is impossible." The
considerations which produced this conviction, which
ware deemed conclusive authority for the grant, could
only be such as the promoters of the schemes in ques-
tion then laid before parliament ; that is to say, a line
of railway, as therein and then described, subject to
;attain maximum tolls, and other limitations inserted
in the act, was all that the promoters were required to
furnish as an equivalent for the privileges accorded.
No further advantages were offered in exchange for
the grant ; if the original prospectus was deemed in-
sist:Meat to carry this power, the preamble of the bill
would have been declared not proved. By passing
thebill the legislature plainly and irrevocablyhuii down
the terms of the compact. It was to this effect—viz.,
that the promoters engaged to do certain things ; and
insomuch as the doing of them would be useful to the

mown

, •

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY riENING,

„.....mon,lnd not in of anything farther to
be expected afterwards, it should be- lawful for them
to exercise certain spacial powers to that end. The
case of the railways wield, therefore, be as follows :
the promises on which these powers woe giveis have
been fulfilled to the latter--tbsy bps, Wised, been
more than fulfilled. The 0011Vellit41016 they were
bound to afford have been gives; the charges at
which you required them to work have arm been
exceeded ; in fact, they have mew been emssemli
in fulL The railways have eseemiusetly redeemed
the pledge which was coneideand an equivalent for
the privileges bestowed. The iiiestmt on this head
is liquidated. At this stage it would be a valid
reason for refusing to does the account, could
it be maintained that the engagements of the pre-
amble had not been kept ; that the proved of bse►
fit on which parliament gave certain powers ha eel
been realised; that the bargain had been vitiated,
in short, by the default of one of the parties. Bat
aothing of this kind is pretended. It is admitted
that the performances of railways have more than
justified their promise of pubho usefulness; the
most invidious scrutiny has failed to show that any of
the limits of their acts have been transgressed ; and
what then, under such circumstances, is the character
of a plea for new demands, on the score of the
original privileges, granted on oertain conditions—
which conditions, it appears, have been already ful-
filled ? Every one would know how to name it, were
it described as the act of a party to a deliberate
bargain, who having agreed to give a oat& tbiag
for a specific consideration—after ha saiseimiy
declared this consideration sufficien sine
time after the price, and more than the pdse,
had been punctually paid, come upon the other
party with the demand of a further payment for
what bad been already settled. Bat even this
is not the full measure of the injustice that the Time
and other maintainers of the ” claims of the publio"
upon railways are now calling on the state to commit.
Theirs would be an exaction levied, after this second
payment also had been consented to and paid. When
Mr. GLADSTONE, at the head of the Board of Trade,
called upon the railway interest for new concessions,
in 1844, the part then taken by the state was such as
we have described in this illustration. A second
tribute was then imposed, for which no equivalent of
any kind was offered at the time by the govern-
ment, except, indeed, the distinct engagement
solemnly given (ss Mr. LAING, who was an agent
for the government in the transaction, has since testi-
fied in private) that this extra claim, if submitted to,
should be the last. The railways extant in that year
have thus bought the privileges in their acts twice
over : and what room, under these circumstances, is
left for declamations on the " national claims,"—es if
there were some terrible unpaid arrear still owing
by the railways to the public?
But the railways depend on the public for their
prosperity—it is the public patronage that supports
them. So it is, beyond a doubt: and this, because it
is more convenient and profitable to use them than to
use any other means of conveyance. But there is no
choice left us wherever a railway is opened. And why?
simply because the -new thing is so much better that
no one will continue to employ the old one ; and in
this way, by the eole compulsion of self-interest, is I
the public patronage obtained, and by this only can it
be kept. This preference, on which much idle talk
about " monopoly" has been raised, does, in fact,
place the justification of railways, who are accused of
not doing enough for the public, on unassailable
grounds. Why, then, does every other conveyance
fall dead when a railway is accessible ? What is the
secret of its irresistible attraction for travellers of
all kinds? Plainly .that it is in every re-
spect better for them than anything else they ever
had until now, or can now find : that, while it
has taken from them nothing they previously en-
joyed, it makes all their previous methods seem
worthless, by the great improvement it has effected.
Now, when it is considered that the public have had
nothing to pay for this improvement, while they have
Infinitely gained by it—that the founders have started
I it, and have been suffered to establish it, on their own
risk, and in the fair expectation of profiting by what
has been so profitable to others, and what
has only succeeded because it has been thus
useftd—when, in addition to this, it appears
that for any special privilege granted at the
expense of individuals, these associations have
already paid the equitable price, not once only, but
once and again—what ground is there for any pre-
tence of bringing in our railways as in debt to the
nation ? None whatever; unless it be laid down as
a principle that to have received much gives a right
to demand more : that the private property which
has been adventured on certain specified conditions
to the great advantage of the nation is liable at
all times to any further claims that the nation
may think it convenient to insist upon, without giv-
ing any compensation, although this may be done in
utter violation of a solemn contract, which the suffer-
ing party has exactly fulfilled. In other words that,
if JOHN has a craving for the substance of Thomas,
he has a " right" to take it if he can ; and that what-
ever Joni.; may find it coavonient to desire, is a debt
which THOMAS owes ; and which, to use the language
of the Times, it is " selfish and arrogant" in THOMAS
to object to pay, however ruinous the payment may
be. With such ethics for its guidance, what right
has the nineteenth century to was at the days of
CADE?

Partial cabinet changes continued to be the subject
of conversation in Paris on Wednesday. The ap-
pointment of M. Guizot to the presidency of the
council, rice Marshal Soult, who retiree, is decided, and
will be carried into effect on the return of M. Guizot
from Col. Vadoe, where he had gone to attend the
..4:3
Council-General. The portfolio of foreign affairs will
of course still be retained by the chief of the cabinet,
its combination with the presidency being customary,
and only departed from in the case of M. Guizot, to
whose nominal supremacy the cabinet hitherto could
not be reconciled. The retirement of M. Capin
ridaine has been for a long time settled, and only
wanted a convenient occasion. He will now be re-
placed most probably in the department of commerce
and agriculture by M. Bignon. The appointment of
M. Bugeaud to the ministry of war is again spoken
of. Indeed, General Trezel has never been regarded
br the public as anything but an interim minister.
A aeries of reports have been from day to day kept
in circulation in Paris, by which the morbid excite-
ment
produced by the tragedy of the Faubourg Bt.
Honore has been sustained. We have refrained tram I

repeating these rumours ; but some of them have set
seined such consistency as to be given with names
and circumstances in the journals, although still na-
authenticated. For several days a tale of murder
of a lady by a member of the Member of Peen, with
whom she cohabited, has been
repeated.
It is now asserted that therrtd Prince of &kraal,
son of the late Marshal Bayonet, and member of the
Chamber of Peers, has committed murder on the per-
son of his mistress,a young person who has beem lately
travelling with him. This act bas been committed,
it is said, in an access of jealousy. The author of
it is said to have absconded, haying effected his escape
according to some accounts into Belgium by the
Northern Railway, while, according to others, he is
concealed in Paris. M. d'Ecknetiht has been given to
habits of dissipation to such a degree that the control
of his property bas been transferred to a judiciary
council. The National says that the victim in this',
case is an Indian female whoa the prince brought to
France from the east, when he has passed the last
four or live years. She was struck with a knife, and
is believed to have since died of the wound. Accord-
ing to that journal the amnia has fled to England.
We have reason to believe that the female against
whom the offend has been committed is wounded,
but is not dead.

--AreTpertprevailed in Paris en Tuesday night and
Wednesday morning that the eldest son of the late
Duke de Remain had committed suicide, under the
sense of the disgrace entailed on his family by the re-
cent catastrophe. We are Loured from a certain
source that there la no foundation whatever for this
rumour.
The vohnnininui documents already published by
order of the Court of Peers respecting the Pradin of
are farther increased by a supplement which ap-
peared on Wednesday.
The Duchese Dowager of Pradin has been told that
her son died of a brain fever resulting from the shock
produced by the murder of his wife.
It was reported in Paris on Wednesday that the
Cabinet Council, held on Sunday, at St. Cloud, had
decided on ordering a part of the Mediterranean
squadron to the coast of Italy, in case the Austrians
do not evacuate Ferrara. A report prevailed that
British ships had arrived in the Adriatic, and had dis-
embarked troops at Ancona. This news was gene-
rally credited, and produced a lively emeatice.

-3, IM7.