The Express.
London, England, 1851-01-31 00:00:00

Efte erprefils.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
PeeertbesesP Weeded Pr "Tee lepreee," Larks Itemize paper,
art be et the Ogee. 104•46141211111, by Tye &elate an the
dey et validation.
MOH WATER AT LONDON BRIM!.
Ter Dev—ilerabsir, lb. 43er. ...eltereeee, Stu Ore.
To.reamow—llarallag. 410.

LONDON, FRIDAY, JANUARY 31.

Al.nosr every arrival of les from Rio de Janeiro
has brought reports; of negotiations for the re-
newal of definite commercial relations between
this country and its third best foreign customer, the
empire of Brszil. At one time the basis of a new
treaty is said to have been "greed on ; at another the
text is reported to be under consideration ; at a third
Mr. HUDSON, the British minister, is described as on
the point of signing and sealing he lug-expected
document.
But no treaty comes. For nearly six years cm
trading relations with Brazil have been unregulated
by a single stipulation ; the millions sterling
.of
British property in that so described lawless empire
are unprotected by any of thus international provisions
cm which for centuries the world has laio so much
stress; and the only safeguards of our ac ive com-
merce with the great ports of Rio, Pernambuco,
Bahia, and Para are our strength and what is much
better, the good sense and self-interest of the Brazilian
people, the stability of their government, and the
general sufficiency of its laws.
And the probability is, that no treaty is coming ;
for the best of all good reasons, that in the present
state of our relations with Brazil on other matters, it
is not the inter at of its government to give us that
commercial security which such a treaty chiefly would
establish. The Brazilians do not retaliate on our com-
merce for diplomatic and military outrages, because by
retaliation they themselves would be the greatest
sufferers. But they keep our trade in that state of
uncertainty which the means of retaliation, and the
threat to exercise it, involve. And thus the govern-
ments of two great trading countries, whose interests
are reciprocal, are to be sten playing at the noble
game of fast and loose.
This, no doubt, is very pretty practice for diplo-
macy ; but it is nevertheless very sorry work for
patio's. It cannot be creditable for a country like
England to rely for safety in its trade with Brazil
men ly on the necessities of that empire's financial
and geographical position; to say to its statesmen, as we
practically do, "If you raise your impost on British
goods, they will be smuggled is, nevertheless, and our
trade will not suffer, whilst your revenue, almost en-
tirely depeedent on customs receipts, will;" in
short, to force oar trade on Brazil, whilst
we are harrying her coasts as if they were
encrusted with nests of pirates just as thus
of Peru am with cuts of guano. There is
something in all this well calculated to impress the
world with the truth of what France charges as
against England, viz., that calico is at the bottom of
all our policy.
But Brazil persists in carrying on the slave trade.
No doubt of it ; rn spite of all that our cruisers are
doing, in spite dour capturing, sinking, and break-
ing up some throe or four hundred Brazilian vessels
of all sorts and sizes since 1843 ; in spite of the har-
bour of Jamestown, St. Helena, being actually filled
with their floating timbers ; in spite of our invading
Brazilian waters and battering down Brazilian forts,
Lagos and the Bights send to and land in Brazil as
many slaves as it can well take ; and sometimes more,
for Brazil, we observe, finds it profitable now and then
to export a few to Cuba, which seems to have almost
given up the direct trade with Africa.
The slave trade at present flourishes in Brazil
against not only the political interests and the
settled policy of the existing cabinet and legis-
lature, but notwithstanding the active repression
of the Brazilian navy. For there is in Brazil
a strong and growing feeling against the accursed
traffic throughout the empire on moral grounds;
and though, perhaps, moral considerations do not
prevail in the councils of the EMPEROR or in the
chambers of the legislature, it is very certain that
political considerations of national importance are
titers producing the same effects as morality out of '
dues.
In Brazil, as in most states, there are two political
parties, called in European parlance the conservative ,
sad the liberal, but differing widely from European
equivalents or signification. Conservatism there
means a policy tending to centralise and strengthen
the imperial government at Rio de Janeiro, and
to repress the power of the provincial as-
semblies. Liberalism, on the contrary, aims at
increasing provincial and diminishing central au-
thority. Now, however valuable local munici-
palities in Europe are, we meet recollect that in
Booth America civilisation ants commerce have been
retarded by the continual splitting sod division of
states, and that hitherto union has been one of the
chief and exceptional characteristics of Brazil. Can.
sequently, conservatism there is associated with im-
perial unity. At present it is quite predominant in
the cabinet and the legislature.
The strength of conservative principles is is the
native Brazilians, who are generally cultivate(' and
Outer"; whilst the strength of liberalism is in the
Portuguese, who are powerful is the great ports of
the empire, who there carry cm grand commerce,
inclusive of the slave trade. The political opponents
of the present Rio cabinet are, therefore, the slave 1
traders.
The first consequence of this antagonism has been
the suctment of the New Slave Trade Law in July
last, which we have before described. In conformity
with its stringent provisions, the imperial govern-
ment has Waned very forcible instructions to all its
functionaries to rower by every means in their
power .laving adveataree to Atria' ; has announced
the intention to peessests with the utmost rigour
all offences, of which it can produce evidence,
against the new law, and has commissioned some six
or seven ships of war to capture and bring in for trial
all the slavers they can take. Noe has this small
squadron been idle. Already it has seized several
slave ships; and in one of them wee found Seuhor
Foresees, the brother of the notorious person of that
name. Though the government directed his prose-
erotica, the evidence against him proved inconclusive.
Bat, resolved sot to be defeated by legal chicanery,
the Rio cabinet has directed him to wind up his
attire, and within four months to quit Brasil.
Now all this is an entirely new policy in Brasil.
It may please our anti-slavery party, or rather oar
Kest Indian party, whit now occupy the shoes of their
old and defunct opponents, to discredit its sincerity.
Bat when it is seen that the repression of the
alive trade is becoming in Broad a piece of
party 'ad political tactics, more disinterested
Unarms than our old alaveholders will find
MI immense point ir*sed. And the troth is, that
were it not that the Breath= navy is at present re-
spired at the mouth of the Plate to protect the im-
perial interests there, a much larger force would be
employed in repressing the slave trade on its own
somata. This, however, requires a little explanation.
Beermly had Owes best securely settled in the go
veseirnent of Moat* Video, in conaequenoe of our
treaty with Roue, than he proceeded to levy inordi-
sate emtribetiou on the rural proprietors I he quer-
*" hfstroOps on them; he refused to allow them
to olooffhtee their own cattle without his • • perranewa
Ili This tin hod tto kis hastiolosiso gookally took I

the hides and left the 0v.,...., —,--
their slanghtered cattle. UT of
Pe
them exactions was an i me,mdily
of the great proprietors : dler-Bande '0(4;411
are Bramlians ; and whelp Pejo neural:Q.o'e,
they received assistance .from withal. ,the trigillint et
the Brazilian province of the Rio Grande. However,
with the help of Rog" ORlar put down sod angel-
narily punished this revolt against his oppression..
Heels( done so, he then complained to the Rio cabi-
net of the part it. subjects had played in the .8 air.
'ln easmquence, ne4otiatioes arose between the two
governments; and they were in pacific progress at
Monte Video, when ROSAS chose to interfere
at Rio. In language violent and threatening,
his minister at that port demanded redress for
alleged menage against the government of Monte
Video, with which Buenos Ayres bed nothing to do,
within four and twenty hoots. To this the Rio
cabinet, in dignified terms, replied that Buenos Ayres
was not concerned in the questions under discussion
at Monte Video; and placed his passports at the
&posed of Rosas's representative, who thereupon
left Rio.
The consegoence is, that Bruit on the one hand, and
Bosnia Ayres and Monte Video on the other, are
prepariog for war. Already the former is reported to
have concentrated an army of 12,000 tom, to be
augmented to 20,000, in the province of the Rio
Grande • and the greater part of its little fleet has
been ordered to cruise off the Plate. Buenos Ayres
and Monts Video are making corresponding efforts.
And thus there is a strong probability of a renewal of
that war which, on the mediation of Lord PONSONBT,
formerly terminated in the peace of 1829.
Unfortunately, the definite relations which were
contemplated by Lord PONSONIIT'S Treaty of 1829
have never been concluded between Monte Video and
Brazil ; tia frontiers are still unsettled ; all the ele-
ments of disturbance are now just as rife as
they were before prolonged hostilities had ex-
hausted the two countries; and there is really serious
apprehension that after an armistice of 30 years'
dans.ton, the ambition and restlessness of ROSAS will
renew that war, at a time, too, when Brazil and hu-
manity need above all things peace.
As, however, by the treaty in question, war could
not be renewed except on six months' notice not only
between the belligerent countries bat to the mediating
power, hostilities will not, it is to be presumed, be
commenced until Lord PALMERSTON shall have an op-
portunity of reconciling these foolish differences, the
consequences of which—if they find vent in war—on
the payment of Brindled dividends no one understands
better than the noble Foreign Secretary ; for it is only
by husbanding its resources that Brazil can make
those payments in pesos ; what will become of them
in case of hostilities, it is not difficult to conjecture.

THE 'squires of Bedfordshire have, it is understood,
had some little d:fficolty in pleasing the farmers as
to their candidate for the seat in the representation of
that county, left vacant by Lord ALFORD'S untimely
death. This man was a doubtful protectionist, that
• confirmed Peelite; a third, though fond enough of
high reels, would not vote for an immediate return
to act of parliament prices ; a fourth was unpopular as
a landlord. Many were called, but few liked. Until
at lent the squires, in a desperate fright lest they
should not be first in the field, and that the Bedford-
shire Whigs would occupy the ground they hesitated
to occupy, selected the high sheriff of the county, Col.
Gitrtx ; the proprietor of a small paternal estate on
which he resides—a gentleman of popular manners
and antiquated prejudices ; not disagreeable personally
to his neighbour the Doke of BEDFORD, and generally
palatable to the tenantry ; in short, a " good fellow,"
with very bad political principles—just such • man
as may be found by scores in the House already ;
capital rank and file foe Lord STARLIT to command,
and Mr. Disatett to fugle to; • dummy, • pawn, a
piece to be moved just as Mr. FORBES MACKIINZIE
receives orders or Major BERERFORD chooses to direct.
If county representation have to continue • poli-
tical sham in Bedfordshire ; if the Duke of BEDFORD
and Mr. WHITBREAD have to return one member, and
the tory squires and parsons the other, Colonel GILPIN
is probably as good as another political nonentity. He
will delude the farmers quite as well as any other can-
didate that can be presented to them. But if, after re-
turning him, they find themselves just as far off better
times next year as they are now ; if they send him to
parliament and never hear anything more of him
until he return at • general election to say he has been
in the house all the interval though they never heard
of it, the blame is their own. They can, if they will,
see what county members general'', are ; how respect-
able and how useless ; and in adding to the already
ponderous mass, unleavened county representation,
they ought to know that they are only confirming
their own helplessness ; only increasing the ridiculous-
ness of their own position ; only retarding their own
progress and that of the country generally; without
in the least advancing protection.
Why, it was but the other day that Mr. FERRAND
told the Yorkshire farmers at Pocklington, the
great squires and land-owners were deceiving, delud-
ing, and acting treacherously by the tenantry of the
country* And what so dull a man U Mr. FERRAND
can perceive, ought surely to be apparent to less
excitable people. Yet here are the Bedfordshire
farmers falling into the squires' trap, simply bee Mee
it is well baited with that political impossibility--
protection. By bawling out protection, Colonel
GILPIN will secure their votes; but in the House of
Commons he will support whatever line of policy
Lord STANLEY chooses to lay down ; and though
protection may occasionally be on the tip of Lord
STANLIT's tongue, it would be the farthest of all
propositions from his heart, were he minister to-
-1:11017011.
The stupidity of this confirmed delusion on the
farmers' part, is becoming a serious refit ction on the
national character. Powerful as they ought to be in
the counties if they had a tithe of the spirit of their
countrymen generally, the farmers of England have
not in the House of Commons a single member who
really and truly represents them. Every class in the
community has a mouth-pit en there, but the tenantry
of the kingdom. The house is full of squires,
barristers, merchants, manufacturers, lords, idlers,
place hunters; it has even its doctors and its attor-
neys; but not a tenant farmer. And yet numeri-
cally they are the strongest political interest
in the kingdom. The farmers appear to deem
it treason to think of retnreing one of their own class
to the legislature. The cemsequecce is they are mis-
represented by squires.
But there are few Gaut farmers fitted for par-
liament. No doubt of it; still there are some;
and Bedfordshire has one in Mr. LATTIMORE.
Now, why won't its tenantry return him as their
representative? The small manufacturing interest
that there is in the county, viz., at Luton, would aid
them: the Doke of BEDFORD, who is a really liberal-
minded man, "a Whig and something more," could
hardly refuse hie assistance ; and, with the help of the
WHITBREAD family, themselves sprung from trade,
ft would be possible for Bedfordshire to send Mr.
LATTIMORE to the House of Commons, and to leave
Colonel GILPIN at home. The trial is worth making;
even if it fail.
Mr. LATTIMORE lie, to be rare, a free-trade farmer.
But, now that free trade is the law of the land—now
that a return to protection is politically impossible—
now that the questions of immediate interest to the
tanners are confessed by Mr. Dtenarit and Lord
MALKESBURT to be, not protection, but the incidence
and weight of taxation, an intelligent free trade
farmer would surely be • much fitter representative
for an agricaltural comity, than a mere party quire?
Party politics have never done anything to relieve the
fiscal pressure on the farmers; and yet, in Bedford-
shire, there they are about to rend to parliament a
member whose only recommendation is his exclusively
party character. What folly !
It is such men as Mr. LATTIMORI that the House
of Commons is most in want of—men that in their
own atfairs have thought for and acted for them-
selves—men of practical earience in the operation
of the poor-law, in the acteai plight of the agncultural
Jaboneer, in the eiteet on Genevan of the law of dis-
tress, in the dealings between landlords and tenants.
In Mr. Poesy scientific agriculture Is well repre-
sented; in other members high and expensive and
wetly farming u a model is represented; but the
hones needs at least one business tenant farmer to let
it into the thousand secrets, thoughts, wants, and
wishes of that class, of which at present it knows
nothing.
We cannot, of course, expect our nomination of Mr.
LATTIMORE to be very popular amongst the tenant
farmers of Bedfordshire; but there is we know in
many parts of the county a strong desire to propose
him &I lad Won's leeswoxi 0ad.4.14 we c