The Express.
London, England, 1847-09-25 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPT. 25.
Few statesmen have made their way through a
more formidable mass of envy and difficulties than
M. Gutzon. All his life mingliug with that class of
men who, from birth, from their profession as courtiers
and hereditary trade of functionaries, are wont to mo-
nopolise office and the management of public affairs,
M. Gutzon found each successive batch of ministe-
rialists most anxious to make use of his talents and
experience, but equally anxious to keep down or set
aside the individual M. GUIZOT'S was a mind of too
much power, too much philosophy, his tastes too
literary, and his aims too independent, not to alarm his
official frieuds. And though secretary too Minister
of Justice some thirty or forty years ago, . GUIZOT
was soon driven from politics to the professor's chair,
and, in order wholly to neutralise him, silenced in
that chair. Under the Restoration and the rule of the
old BOURBON court this was not so astonishing. Bat
even in better and more liberal times M. Ourzor has
had to struggle against similar envy and depre-
ciation.
ge We do not speak of the hostility of his avowed and
political opponents. This has been above-board,
natural, and honest. And, indeed, his greet rival,
M. Tnieits, labours himself, and has laboured, under
the Mae difficulties and obloquy. And the fact, how-
ever inconceivable, is, that although M. Omar has
been really the first and directing minister of his
country for a long series of years, yet he has never
been allowed to have the honour or wear tke title of
prime minister. It has all along been found neces-
sary to keep a mere wooden, however gilded image,
to wear the title and paraphernalia of prune minister,
though the reality and responsibilitrea of power re-
mained with Gutzon. Of late years Marshal Sourr '
was known to be so sunk in health and
wandering in mind as to be utterly inca-
pable of attending even to the minor affairs
of his own department, mach less to the grave
cares of prime minister. Still the French conserva-
tive', even the ministerial conservatives, refused to
acknowledge M. GUIZOT as their chief. Were there
any very eminent, eloquent, first-rate men amongst
those objectors to M. Gilroy's supremacy, oae might
have at least understood it. But the rivalry has been
made up merely of mediocrities, the hostility simply
of the " blockheads against the brains."
One personage has amply profited by this enmity
to M. Gutzon, existing amongst his own party and
supporters, which has acted as a counterpoise to pre-
vent the minister from becoming too formidable and
dictatorial. This is no ether than the King
himself, whose personal friends have ever
been amongst the foremost to dispute M. Outzor's
supremacy, and to affect setting up for themselves.
These difficulties and obstacles have had a fatal effect
on M. Ourzor's own policy and fame. They have
forced him into subserviency towards the court and
its dynastic views, which, were he the independent
minister, he most probably would have disregarded or
overcome. The precipitation of the MONTPENSIER
marriage is evidently the fatal and the wrong
step of M. Orizor's political career, a step which
drives' at once France from England and from
liberalism, and throws it out of the straight path into
a whole labyrinth of crooked courses. The policy of
that marriage is the sacrifice of the interests, the
alliance, and the prosperity of three great countries to
the mere nominal aggrandisement of the house of
Orleans, an object so plain, that the countries cannot
perceive the fact and itsconsequences without sacrific- ,
tag the origin of the ill, that very dynasty and family,
to which it has been sought to restore its old supre-
macy of the last century.
This act, with the unscrupelona mode of its achis' me-
znent, has been the great blot of M. Ouncrr's minis-
terial career. It is at the same time the contradiction
and the undoing of all the policy of his previous years
of office. lie assumed power expressly on the condi-
tion and with the purpose of re-knitting the bonds of
amity between England and France, and of re-
storing that alliance of the West, which,
broken or interrupted, at once abandons all
the rest of Europe to the machinations and
encroachments of the Eastern Powers. The imme-
diate conserence of the MONTPENSIER marriage was
the absorption of Cracow. The second consequence
threatens to be the extinction of a moderate liberal
movement in Italy. Spain itself must be strait-
waistcoated into acceptation of the MONTPENSIER9
and should it be found that these Spanish quarrels
widen the breach still more between France and
England, which the mere talk of a royal divorce
cannot fail to do, Russia may seize the opportunity
for prosecuting herdesigna on the Bosphorus—designs,
which nothing but the friendly understanding between
the two great maritime and constitutional countries
can prevent.
Is the placing of sir ORLEANS on the throne of
Spain worth all this? Such is the question that pos-
terity will ask of M. GUIZOT, if his contemporaries do
not. But, however strongly we condemn that fatal
and irremediable mistake, as well as the defiance
of good faith and the outrages upon common decorum
and morals with which it was perpetrated, we
cannot but render due tribute to the talents of M.
0111ZOT, even in the encomsfal management of this
unsmwpuloes achievement. RICHELIEU or Caoisaut
could not have been greater masters of intrigue. M.
()mem haeshigher claims and talents—all the endow-
ments required to shine as a constitutional statesman
rather than as a court politician. Onboth pleas he is
fully entitled to the post of prime minister. Let us re-
gret that all his eloquence, his constitutional straggles
far the cause of liberalism, his former efforts to establish
good fellowship between France and England—none
of all these could obtain for M. Omar that high and
supreme office, which he has at length triumphantly
won by pandering to the selfish ambition of his
prince, and sacrificing to that the peens, the alli-
ance, and the tree interests of the liberal and civilised
countries of Europe.

MIL JOHN O'CONNELL is getting. up his family
and party steam, ani publishing a variety of addressee
—one a most ferocious one against the landlords,
another against England, demanding more millions.
The latter is an old story, too oft repeated. The pro-
fessed object of the first is to caution the Irish
people against resistance to the law, and against
lighting the battle of the landlords. Mr. O'CONNELL
charges the landlords with contemplating the wis-
eacre of the people. According to him, they wish
"to clear their estates by the massacre of the people
under the weapons of the soldiery and police, and by
the natural horror of such an event to wring from
the government some relaxation of the strict demand
for repayment of government advances." This is
certainly a heavy charge for an Irish member
to bring against the proprietary of his country.
Whether Mr. O'CONNELL ti charge be true
point of substance, or whether it be the ca-
lumny of an agitator, on the present state of the
facts we will not offer any opinion. We should
be sorry to harbour so bad an opinion of any influential
class in Ireland as Mr. JOHN O'CONNELL would lead
us to adopt of the landlords; and on the other hand
we should regret to think so ill of the public character
of a gentleman, who has been returned unopposed for
two cities, that frem sorry purpose, or from a habit of
reckless imputation, he deliberately and publicly at-
tributed to the owners of the Irish soil the cool and
circumspect atroc of ROBESPIERRE. The tone and
language of this address from Mr. JOHN O'CONNELL
are seigestfis of many grave reflections. He repre-
hends as strongly as he can the interested agitators--
the landlords. He wishes to unveil their real pur-
poses, and to dissuade the people from listen-
to their counsel & " Their only hope is,"
he says, 'peaking of the landlords, .' if you

can be driven into • wild insurrection, and
by the spilling of your blood, and the waste of
your lives, either the number of applicants be dim'
nished, or a mitigation obtained Of the pee
demands upon the land." It has probably not oc-
curred to Mr. JOHN O'CONNELL that others, besides
himself and the /Cane Inlanders, may desire to • ad-
venture in Irish agitation. Why should not the
landlords have as good a right to get up • delusive
cry about the threatened confiscation of their
as Mr. lons O'CONNELL and the repealer. to pro.
ebbs that England is unwilling to attend to Irish
grievances, and incapable of amending the Vaal
condition of their country ? Under the name of
" repeal" every sort of stupid falsehood has for many
years obtained currency amongst the Irish populace.
Gentlemen have passed themselves off as patriots,
and buttered their bread on both sides by
means of " repeal. " Place - hunters, through
means of this hollow cry, have ousted from
parliament men of tried character and ad-
mitted services who scorned to enter parliament
under false pretenees. By means of this delusive
cry the public name of Ireland has been disparaged,
and the integrity of Irish politicians made universally,
both in Ireland and England, a matter of question.
Men have enlisted with the avowed object of dismem-
bering the empire, and with the reel purpose of ad-
vancing their own petty interests. While yelling for
the return of a parliament to Dublin, their main object
was how they could get moat from the dispensers of
patronage in Downing-street. Mr. JOHN O'CoNNELL
has doubtless heard his father tell the story of a
former Irish politician. " What! Would you sell your
country, HARRY ALEXANDER?" " Aye ! and d—d
glad lam to have a country to sell." This most dis-
gustig of all trades—carrying one's politics to
markent—has for many years been pursued with the
most shameless effrontery in Ireland.
We long since foresaw that the patriotic discovery
of (to use the words of an Irish wit) "gentlemen
without an acre of grass land finding a milch cow in
their country, which they milked accordingly," would
be turned to their own advantage by many of the
upper classes in Ireland. Embarrassed proprietors
and dissipated spendthrifts are glad enough to find an
excuse from being made to contribute to the poor, by
raising a hollow cry of " confiscation." They are
only copying the example of those repeaters who
scouted liberal gentlemen from the hustings and
shouted down the voice of reason and reflection by
means of the repeal cry. Some of the landlords may
think themselves justified in getting up a cry by
means of which they may preserve their incomes
from the tax-gatherer. Just as some insignificant
persons, by a dishonest profession of popular
politics, and by the en.ployment of base ar-
tifices, have obtained an ignominious though
lucrative notoriety as members of parliament, so,
by a false alarm of confiscation, the overburdened
proprietor hopes still to retain his pack of hounds, or
still to keep his carriage and horses, safe from taxa-
tion for the poor. ' Property will be destroyed"
1 cries the man whose real sentiment is, "If this goes
on I must give up giving claret at my dinner parties."
" A parliament at College-green " bawls the person
whose highest and sincerest feeling on public matters
is expressed in the words, " Myself an M.P."
In former times too many of the Irish gentry were
proficients in the ALEXANDERIAN art of edling their
country to the best advantage for themselves. The
modern Irish " patriots," while avowing different
purposes and representing popular interests, have
copied the old Irish aristocrats, in keeping a strict
eye to their own interests. Like the dishonest
radical so poignantly drawn in Sir Bta.writ
Lvrrox's satirical comedy of "Money"—the Irish
popular leaders might say, "that they are in favour
of the greatest happiness of the greatest number i"
but in their political calculations the greatest number
is number one! With the places of the old Irish
aristocracy the political adventurers of the repeal
party have got the vices also, though they certainly
do not wear their polities with that jolly air of rakish
good fellowship which the senators of the defunct
Irish parliament were accustomed to display. The
dishonest repeal member, in closely copying the.parlia-
mentary vices of former Irish politicians, reminds us
of the thievish valets found dead during the great
plague of London in their master's infected clothes.
But the contagion of political dishonesty, more
than other epidemics, is terribly infections. When the
1 landlords of Ireland see "the patriots" taming the
, science of politics into a wretched instrument for
popular delusion, why should they refrain on public
grounds from cajolery of the populace? Some of
' them would readily say, in self-defence, that legiti-
mate public opinion was set at defiance in Ireland ;
that gentlemen affecting to guide the public destinies
had reduced popular delusion to an established system;
they would probably strive to clear themselves from
Mr. JOHN O'CONNELL'S imputations of contemplating
the massacre of the people by asking, whether the
scheme of politics by which men like Mr. JOHN O'CON-
NELL thrive, ever practically recognised the dangers of
violent agitation of the populace, of incendiary
speeches addressed to the popular ear, and of
sophistical pieces of declamation upon the imagi-
nary causes of Irish suffering, attributing all the
evils of the country to England, and making other
assertions equally false, and unscrupulous ? Pos-
sibly in their self-defence from the charge of in-
difference to the people's blood while contemplating
resistance to the rates, the landlords might reckon up
the number of lives lost by what, in a bold figure of
speech, has been called " bloodless agitation." They
might show some curious research in psychology,
by calculating with metaphysical subtlety the con-
necting influence between fierce and inflammatory
harangues and reckless deeds of savage violence.
The statistics of the hulks and the gallows would
give them some shocking facts illustrating the remark
of the Marquis WELLtsLET, "that between theincrense
of Irish crime and the continuance of political agita-
tion there was a closely connecting cause." They
might in rejoinder make out a very plausible case why
Mr. JOHN O'CONNELL and the repeal members should
be the last persons to preach puritan morals at them.
Thus they might go on throwing dirt, each copying
vices belonging to his antagonist, one yelling " Re-
peal," the other shouting " Confiscation;" and both
vying who would get most by raising a hollow cry or
a false alarm amongst the people.
Let the events of the next month tell whether Mr.
lonic O'CoNNELL's charge against the landlords be a
true bill, or • reckless piece of vituperative e x
don, like too many of the addresses from Conciliation
Hall. In some of the advice given by Mr.
JOHN O'CONNELL we concur, though for different
saaeams. lie tells the people to pay their rates,
be arise to spite the landlords, "and not give the
to the cruel landlords to bring the police and
to slaughter you:' We tell them to pay
their rates, because it is expected that honest men,
We to pay, should faithfully keep their engage-
ments. He tells them to be panful, " because,* says
XL JOHN O'CoNNELL," in peacefulness they will ac-
complish, fuliyand 'immediately (!) the glorious work
ataipaL" We tell them to be peaceful, that hi-
de/illy nay have its labour unsasuled—that capital
mew be employed without danger—and that the
foias powers of society may be successfully developed
amongst a people blest with many noble qualities
and virtues, whose failings and foibles have too long
been the chief stock in trade of the proficient. in the
Alexanderian art of selling one's country with a
joyful spirit!

THAT an Englishman's word is as good as his bond
is a boast which we often hear made, and, in many in-
stances, no doubt, on good grounds. The average of
honesty may be higher in England than in most con-
tinental countries. English travellers tell us that it
is so, to a remarkable degree, among retail dealers.
Ignorance is not so unmercifully fleeced in London as
in Paris, Borne, or Vienna. One reason of this, how-
ever, may be that English shopkeepers do not see in
foreign customers (as the Caithness fishermen in the
herring shoals) a special provision and gift which it
is sinful not to take advantage of. Perhaps if the
summer brought to London or Edinburgh its periodi-
cal influx of wealthy Frenchmen, and millionaire
Germans, the case might be altered. With the cir-
cumstances of the continent we might have something
like the continental laxity of retail trading. In a
word, oar insular position may have more to do with
oar fair and equal dealing than any inherent honesty
of Anglo-Saxon nature.
There is hardly a calling or class in Great Britain
but has its recognised and tolerated code of immo-
ralities and dishonesties. Social ethics are lax on the
subject of umbrellas. The most chivalrous of collec-
tors, whether of insects, books, prints, autographs,
or any other of the thousand and one objects of mo-
nomania, would scarcely leave a brother collector in
the same line within reach of his treasures, unwatched,

THE laiiagrl

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matisiabi where they can maps detection ;
&raises and picture-milers are proverbial for their
Panic faith : contractors pat in bad work where good
work is to be paid for ; brewers and publioans take
strange liberties with malt and hops. Who is safe
against boss-dust in his bread and sloe juice in his
post, glees wood in his new dining-room table, or
lettuce-lea: in his cigar ?
Without going so far se the late Mr. Access, andl
maintaining not only that adulteration is everywhere,
but that most adulteration is produced by poisonous
materials, we cannot but fear that there is a very
rotten seam running through that portion of society
which lives by supplying the wants of the rest. We
are apt to console ourselves by supposing that as every
class has its rogues, so the honest section of the bal-
ing community has nothing to do with the trickery of',
its dishonest element. Such a faith, however, is ra-1
ther shaken by revelations like those which have been
in part already made, and in part are threatened, as
to the conduct of the wholesale dealers in the drapery
business, who obtain goods from the manufacturer
and supply them to the retailer.
Time revelations have been prompted by the re-
boil of the wholesale houses to-comply with the ap-
parently extravagant demand of • the retailers to
tarnish 37 inches to the yard instead of 38. Insinua-
tions and charges were made during the struggle for
this purpose, affecting the character of the wholesale
houses. A meeting to investigate these allegations
has, we are informed, taken place within the last few
days, "in the presence of several exporters and others
interested in the question."
It is the practice, it appears, for wholesale houses
to warrant the quantity of the goods furnished by
them. These warranties are, in most cases, found to
be utterly worthless. " Reels of thread warranted
100 yards" have been found to measure 921,
89, 88f, and, in some cases, even 25 per cent.
less than the quantity indicated by the stamp ;
while in no single instance did the measurement
reach the full standard." The deficiency in quantity
of other goods is found to be much greater even than
this. It is natural to blame the manufacturer for
such deception. He retorts the blame on the whole-
sale dealer, who makes such roguery the condition of
his custom. The wholesale houses justify themselves
by the breathless competition which cuts down the
profits of honest trade to a loss.
The mischief of this dishonesty does not end with
the home market. Loud complaints are raised by
our foreign customers. Leipsic is specified as one
seat of such complaints. The foreign merchant has
trusted to the proverbial honesty of England, and
burnt his fingers. Malpractices, not exactly of the
same kind, but equally roguish, have seriously
affected the market of our cotton goods. It is im-
possible to say bow far the mischievous effects of each
unfair dealing may reach. But the diminution of
foreign and the loss on home trade is, after all, the
least important consequence of our dishonesty.
The dealers who resort to these practices are unite,
and very important ones, of English society. They
are among the largest employers of labour, and their
immediate example is potent among men who must
be aware, to a considerable extent, of the trickeries
they enjoin or sanction. It is impossible that a
society tainted with the muter-vice of lying can
really and permanently advance itself. Private vices
are not public benefits; though the aggregate force of
honesty be greater than that of dishonesty, as doubt-
less it is in this country, still the dishonesty is a drag
upon progress, and a stumbling-block, all the more
fatal for being unseen, in the path of improvement.
There is no sudden remedy for such a disease. It is
radical, and can only be cured by radical remedies.
The universal hope appears here as everywhere else.
Education, real education, different from even the
best of that which we have been accustomed to call
by that name, is the only thing from which we can
see any prospect of good. Practices, like those which
have been brought to light in one branch of trade, '
prevail more or less extensively in others. The
middle classes of England (it is not too much to say)
stand in need of real education as much as her highest
class or lowest It is this middle element of the social
system which most affects its general character.
Until it is purged and elevated, we may work as we
will, but we work in vain. We regret to see so little
in any clam which announces a true conception of
what education ought to be, as compared with what
education is. But the conviction of such a false and
low estimate of education, is a text from which to
preach patience and not despair. If it help us to see
the vast work which lies before the reformer, it may
also point out to him the best direction for his efforts.

A portion of the following appeared in part of our
last evening's issue :
Our Pans despatches contain no intelligence of
general interest. M. Ouizot, now president of the
council, went to Compiegne, where the king and
royal family are staying, on Wednesday, and
wee expected to return to Paris yesterday
(Friday). The journals are filled with lamentations
at the news of the expected decease of M. Coletti, on
whose public character the most unmeasured eulogies
are given. He is pronounced to be " the greatest
citizen of Greece," and " the most illustrious of her,
eons."

The Madrid mails, with the journals and corres-
pondence of the 18th, have arrived. The announce-
ment will be read with profound regret, that an
order has been sent to the frontier to forbid, on
any pretext, the entrance of Espartero into
Spain. Such is the miserable vacillation of purpose
exhibited by the knot of contemptible intriguers who
constitute the cabinet of Madrid.

The internal commotion. under which Italy is
doomed to suffer from the discordance between her
people and her princes, are likely to continue, notwith-
standing the examples hitherto presented by the states
of the church and of the grand duchy of Tuscany.
This is deeply to be lamented, not because it can stop
the tide of progress which has set in, for no-
thing human can do that, but because it must
deprive those changes, which are inevitable, of
that peaceful harmony between the elements of the
state, which is at once a guarantee for their rapid con-
summation and their permanency when accomplished.
We regret to say that the last advioes indicate the
return of discord, when it was hoped that harmony
had been established, and incipient dissension, where,
hitherto, the utmost unanimity and enthuaium have
prevailed.
The hesitation and vacillation which attended the
late concessions of the Duke of Lucca is favour
of constitutional reforms will be remembered. That
prince has again taken a step which, it is
much to be feared, is the harbinger of another re-
action, although covered with pretexts and excuses
which give it a different colour. It appears that
about the 10th inst. his highness withdrew pri-
vately from Lucca to Mara-Ducale, at which place
he signed a decree, on the 12th,appointing the council
of state to act as a regency daring his temporary
absence from his duchy, which had been rendered
necessary by the state of his health, which, in the
preliminaries of the decree, he declares requires abso-
lute repose. He confers on the council full
powers to conduct the government in his absence,
under the presidency of the Marquis Mumma,
and desires that, in accordance with his motu-proprio
of the Ist inst., it shall proceed with such reforms as
it shall deem to be expedient,—following rather than
preceding the measures taken in Tuscany.
This decree, together with an ordonnance of the
council, accepting the regency, was published in
Luca on the 11th, where it produced the greatsst
irritation. The leaders of the liberal party proposed
that it should be taken as an abdication, and spoke
of sending a deputation to Floreuce,to urge the Grand
Duke of Tuscany to assume the government of
Lucca. It was reported that the Duke of Lucca
had retired to Parma.
The journals of Leghorn to the 16th, and letters
to the 17th have arrived. The regulations for the
national guard had been published, and had created
much disappointment, owing to the distrust of the
people which they manifested. Not only are all the
labouring classes, peasants, and artisans excluded
from ordinary service in this body, but the nomina-
tion of officers of all ranks for the first three
years is vested in the sovereign, and even
after that period a most restricted power of
selection is given to the body itself. Even the
sub-officers (such as non-commiadoued officers in re-
gular troops) are to be appointed by the commanders.