The Express.
London, England, 1847-02-02 00:00:00

TO COttRESPONDENTS.

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LONDON, TUESDAY, FEB. 2.

NEVER, perhaps, was the public mind, both within
and without the legislature, so completely at sea,
as with respect to the measures which it may be
most advisable to apply to Ireland. The conflicting
accounts from that country, the cry of starvation
from the peasant, of helpless and of choleric im-
patience from the landlord, the demand of dringent
measures from government in England to meet
the perverse idleness of the poor and the unac-
countable apathy of the rich, the plea for
commiseration, with which this was met by govern-
ment in Ireland, were sufficient to perplex the meet
cool and capacious-headed statesman. As to the
public, they could evidently make nothing of it. The
organs of the press became actually frantic with un-
certainty. One fell to whipping the Irish peasant,
as an incurable negro, and at the same time abused
the landlord for treating him in the way
recommended. Another, more charitable, but less
practicable, was for dividing the land, and giving plots
to paupers, on which they might first multiply and
then rot, like the cabbages they planted. W...ste
lands was the cry of a third ; charity, on an Eastern
scale, of a fourth. The government scheme, an-
nounced prematurely as something vast, effective, and
new, was expected to reconcile, class, and breathe a
common spirit feasibility and life into, all this mass
of crowded and confused remedies. In this expecta-
tion Lord Jolts ltusseLL'a speech certainly disap-
pointed; whether this was the fault of his statement,
or of the expectation, is another question.
And now, before entering upon the consideration of
the debate just opened, what pre-conception and
opinions do the public and the press bring to it ? Take,
for example, the Times of yesterday morning. We
do this in no spirit of controversy, but admitting
that the Times does represent a large
.portion of the
wavering and ignorant of the community.
The Times laments through a column and a half
the folly of giving away twenty millions in alms to
the lash, without getti.B say value in return. This
twenty millions in alms, by the bye, is a gross ex-
aggeration.
It expends its next column and • half in depre-
cating the attempt to get any value or return for any of
these millions by means of cultivating waste lands.
They won't pay, says the journal. But if they do not
pay interest on the money expended, they, at least, will
return food to the labourer, and will be so far repro-
ductive, which alms cannot be. The labour re-
quired is a test likewise, and moreover it is a kind of
labour which does not require an outlay of more than
it is worth in superintendence.
After having thus spent three columns to contra-
dict and neutralise one another, the Times winds
up by recommending the poor law as the only pana-
cea. This poor law is not only to feed the labourer,
but "it is to assure every farmer, who is unable to
carry on his own small farm through want of capital,
that he will have relief, but will have that relief
solely as the recompense of his labour."
Such is the prospect and the plan held forth by the
nmes. Not only are the labourers, the conacre po-
pulation to come on the poor-house, but the small
farmer too, who wants capital,—that is to say, nine-
teen-twentieths of the farmers of Ireland. They are
to have a pittance, and to labour for it. Where ?
In the workhouse. No conceivable number of work-
houses could contain the tithe of them. Oh, then, out
of doors, according to the known philanthropic
ideas of our contemporary. Pray, what is this, but the
labour rate employment on roads, or in workhouses,
or else paying the farmers to till their own farms,
which the Times exclaims against in the next
column ?

We have here said enough to show how com-
pletely the most eminent of our contemporaries is at
sea on Irish matters, and how little such writers are
in a position either to censure or criticise the
government. Did we take a review of our
other contemporaries, it would be easy to show
how utterly astray and confounded they are, just like
a pack of hounds, which have started a score of
hares, scudding off in twenty different directions. If
Lord Jour RUSSELL by his cluster of measures had
in view a similar mode of mystifying and perplexing
the press and the public, he could not have devised
a more effectual mode of doing it.
The speakers who commenced the debate last night
were quite as much at sea as the organs of the press.
And some rare representatives of extreme opinions
did rise, the one after the other, and in general so
wide of one another, that their successive outpourings
scarcely constituted a debate. First the member for
Coventry expressed the feelings of the economical
Englishman, who has heard of Ireland, but knows it
not, and who has no idea of any country, or any in-
dividual, who cannot pay his way and meet his debts.
His sole and plain mode of treating the delinquent
is, " put on the screw," as the favourite phrase goes,
send in a bailiff, and sell off all effects.
This blunt piece of John Bullism called up a
counter-sample of Irish landlordism from Mr.
BERNAL OSBORNE, a vehement and impressive orator,
who handles his tongue as an Irishman does his
cudgel,—striking right and left, friend and foe, beating
his own pate betimes, common sense often, but now
and then making so good and tree a hit that every
one must applaud. The anger of the Irish landlord
at having the principles of political economy applied
to him, was well depicted and richly expressed by
Mr. OsBORNE. And his abuse of Lord JOHN
RUSSELL was as hearty and as harmless,
as an Irish explosion of spleen so often is. None of
the measures, past, present, or future, met the ap-
proval of this incarnation of the Irish landlord. The
labour rate was a terrible blunder. But the charity
soup-pa was as bad. The provision of seed was an
absurdity; the reclamation of waste lands heresy; and
the Irish poor-law the greatest humbug of all. But
the landlord, par excellence, highly approved of emi-
gration, of clearings, of government money to be
spent in government works for the employment of
the Irish. In short, Mr. BERNAL OSBORNE'S is a
valuable speech, as a record of what an Irish landlord
abhors and demands.
After the rattling speech of Mr. OSBORNE, Mr.
SMITH O'BRIEN rose, and began in a still small voice
to calculate what a mountain of money it would cost
Ireland if England were to drag it into a war on ac-
count of the MONTPENSIER marriage. Thus the
member for Limerick brought in a long prospective
bill as a set-off against the sixteen millions which
England, he declared, was bound to pay forthwith.
Mr. ROEBUCK protested in a most philosophical
speech, which displayed about as much knowl of
Ireland as of Kamschatka. And so, English and •

\ 4

members went on, playing their nolitical battledore
and shuttle cock, throwing their prejudices ostenta-
tiously in air: one denouncing the scheme of the
other, and neither taking any account of the other's
facts, to very little purpose apparently except to
occupy an hour, and fill a column in the country's
eye.
An impartial observer, in the midst of all this, will ask,
what is the government to do—what should it have
done? It must feed the starving Irish. 'The attempt t o do
so by. requiring labour in return has failed. What
remains but eleemosynary aid? But this can best be
given by a poor-law—a poor-law which establishes
some kind of a test, and which at the same time
renders the property of the country liable to the
charge, in as far as this can be profitably or reason-
' ably done.
But, as we have all along urged,. a crude and unmi-
tigated poor-law is impracticable in Ireland, utterly
impracticable at least in many regions, where a year's
rental would be absorbed in three months support,
nay, in fact, in one month's support of the poor. The
poor-law, to be practicable in Ireland, must be borne
out and aided by gratuitous grants in times of famine
like the present, and even in ordinary times by such
supplemental schemes as emigration, reclamation of
waste lands, and railway employ.
Those who object to all these schemes, yet insist
on the application of an English poor law, would
legislate against the common rules of arithmetic,
and the laws of possibility. "Po not let the English
be fools enough to sink their money in waste lands,"
exclaim the English economist and the Irish land-
lord together : look at the experiments already
made : in four years the profit scarcely exceeds the
expenditure. But even so. Were not labourers fed,
a population located, food produced? And is not all
this better than throwing away the money in alms?
The question is not, whether these millions are to be
given or refused to Ireland. All must be given,
which is requisite to feed them. The question is,
whether this money is to be partially productive, or
totally unproductive. Oratqrs, sentimental or econo-
mical, seem strangely to prefer the latter.

WInTLVER may be the results of the Spanish
Infauta's marriage to the future peace and prospects
of her coun!ry, the accomplishment of Queen ISA-
BELLA'S marriage is likely to prove, in one respect at
least, advantageous. It promises to put an end to
that inveterate struggle and determination made by
France and the French party to keep possession of
the government by constitutional or unconstitutional
means, in order to control the disposal of the princesses
in marriage. As to parliamentary opposition, electoral
freedom, liberty of the person or the press, these were
all trodden under by the Isvuurra government,
which felt, that, whatever its misdemeanors, blun-
ders, or violence, the French court must support it,
in order to the attainment of the great irrefraga'ale
French purpose.
That purpose has now been gained. The Infanta
is married to a French prince ; the succession can do no
other, it is supposed, than ultimately fall to them and
to their heirs. And it is no longer of such vital im-
portance to retain the immediate control of the
Spanish government. The French party, and its
prooonsel, BRESSON, arc therefore relaxing their
grasp in some degree. More freedom has been
allowed in the elections. The military have not been
urged to exclude or crush the constitution by the
sword, and the consequence is, that a constitutional
party has not only shown itself in the Cortes, but
assumed the power of a parliamentary majority.
It is but justice to the Duke of CADIZ and the
young queen, to admit that they have not only
admitted and foreseen this change, but have wel-
comed it. Their royal authority has not indeed been
exercised to effect the change of itself. IsTunin has
been allowed to display, in the last days of his
government, the same arbitrary, unconstitutional, and
vindictive spirit, that has ever marked him since he
turned his Liberal coat. And his treatment of
OLOZAGA is more infamous perhaps, because wanting
the same excuses, than the severity exercised by NAR-
VAEZ towards ZURBANO and the Esparterists.
ISTURITZ has, however, worn out his usefulness. The
Cortes repudiate the servile minister, who sold his
queen to a French envoy ; and the court no longer
thank the statesman who has raised an irremovable
barrier between it and the courts of Europe, without
procuring it a friend in the Spanish nation.
Int/RITZ, therefore, is to be sacrificed. And
Count BRESSON has kindly given the queen
permission to accept what ministers the Constitution-
alists may propose, provided that MoN remain at the
head of finance, and that an old diplomatist, of whom
France may be sure, be appointed to the Foreign•office.
Were a stranger, a Puritan or a Liberal appointed Mi-
nister of Foreign Affairs in the palace of Madrid,
what disclosures might he not make, what documents
betray, to throw light on the dark proceedings of his
predecessor, and of the French court, on the subject
of the recent marriages? Such diseloeures are,
at least, to be guarded against, as long as
the wordy and diplomatic strife is still pending
betwixt the governments. A blue book from Madrid,
along with those from London and Paris, would,
indeed, complete the present diplomatic scandal.
It seems, however, that even in the humble at-
tempt to keep two ministers of this new cabinet in
hisinterests, M. BRESSON is not successful. The

Moderados, triumphant in the Cortes
and in public opinion, will not take a single
man of Count BRESSON'S recommendation. They
even repudiate Mos, despite of all his financial talent
and success, nor can all the ability of SOTOSEATOR
plead in his favour. They will have a total change,
and insist on nothing less than carrying the queen's
cabinet by storm. The Queen-mother and Count
BRESSON will, we much fear, spirit up Queen ISA-
BELLA to resist, and the consequence may be, the
prolongation of the ministerial crisis, and the deter-
' urination sf the court to resist the constitutional ma-
jority altogether.
The striking part of the situation is, that the ob-
stacle which stands, which has stood, and will con-
tinue to stand, between the Spanish queen and her
people, is the private interests of the French court
and dynasty. The doings in its behalf will not bear
the light : the party by which it works cannot exist
in presence of a free and constitutional system. And
the upshot is, that it must give way to the Cortee, or
the Cortes to it

Now that the law regulating the sugar trade is
again under the consideration of parliament, we may
profitably call attention to one of the consequences oi
the act of last session, whereby the interests of the
community are sacrificed for the benefit of a very
small section of her Majesty's subjects; and a great
loss is inflicted on the importers of sugar, without ear
great advantage to the revenue.
The injustice which we are desirous of pointing out
lies in the operation of those clauses of the act by
which different rates of duty are attempted to be
charged on the various qualities of sugar. The sub-
iect has been brought before the Treasury, and the
njurious action of the discriminating or differential
duties has not been denied, but no remedy has as yet
been promised ; it has also been suggested to the legis-
lature, but the extent of the injury not being well
understood, it has not met with that consideration
which its importance requires.
As the differential duties may not be known to
many of our readers, we extract from the act the
rates charged:
On sugar, the growth and product of any British pares-
'ion in Americo, or of any British possession within the
limits of the vast India Company's charter, into which the
importation of foreign sugar is prohibited, and imported
from thence—that is to say candy, brown er white ; doubts
refined auger, or sugar equal in quality to double refined.
for every hundred-weight £l 1
Other refined sugar, or sugar rendered by any pro-
cess equal in quality thereto, for every hundred-
weight
White clayed sugar, or sugar rendered by any pro-
cess equal in quality to white clayed, not being
refined, for every hundred-weight
Brown sugar, being Muscovado, or clayed, or any
other sugar not being equal in quality to white
Bayed, for every hundred-weight
The pretext on which these various rates of duties
were introduced into the act was, that an ad valorem
duty, or at least an approximation thereto, would be
thereby levied. Now, admitting the soundness of the
principle of ad raloreni duties, the following facts
will show, that if such an object was seriously in con-
templation when the pretext was made, it has most
signally failed.
Although the legislature has enacted one distinct
rate of duty for double-refined sugar, and another
distinct rate of duty for other refined sugar, it has
most singularly omitted to define what is, and what
is not, refined sugar, be it doable or other refined.
Indeed, the only description of sugar it has attem.a.
to explain, and to provide a standard for, is " white
clayed sugar, or sugar rendered by any process equal

1

:,

krality t white clayed, not being refined," and this
rewas chosen from a sort of sugar
ly unknown in England, from a quality
which b . never entered into our con-
s:option i'ithout first undergoing a 'process of
Tenianufac tire, and so different in all respects from
tbe sugar c-wily consumed in this kingdom, that no
Forty, how ver well acquainted with the qualities of
sugar, cola— as importer, dealer, refiner, Customs
officer, or c ..isomer, can make a correct com-
parison Is we. n them. Moreover, the particular
tercel of • .gar selected for the standard is of a cha-
racter liab!c to constant change, according to the
state of thc weathcr, and therefore, from its varying
nature, not applicable for a standard, as other sugars
bated by it may at one time be found equal or supe-
rior, and at other times inferior, in respect of any or
the whole of the three qualities of colour, grain, and
saccharine matter, of which it is assumed to be the
constant and unalterable regulator.
As the lowest rate of duty is chargeable upon
sugars of ad qualities up to n point or value assumed
tube fixe,., hut which we have shown to be change-
able, it bec •ines the study of the importer to produce
such qualitiis as shall be found to be admissible at
this rate; fur if he exceed the point in the least
degree he becomes chargeable with 2s. 4d. per cwt.
more duty. although there be no difference in the
saleable vane from that of a sugar paying the lower
rate. The importer has not, consequently, any in-
ducement to produce a good article; but the reverse ;
for the uncertainty which at all times prevails as to
the rate of duty to which any sugar approaching to
the standard =I- be considered liable, and the cer-
tainty that, if the higher rate of ids. 4d. be insisted
upon fur s sugar of merely the same market value as
that upon which only 149. is charged, the party pay-
ing the higher rate is placed in a worse position than
he who pays the lower—this certainly compels the
importer to introduce only such sugars as can with
anything 1 ke confidence be calculated upon for ad-
mission at the lowest rate. . . .

During the last seven or eight years a large
amount of British capital has been invested in India,
and in our Eastern colonies, in the cultivation and
manufacture of sugar, and a great improvement loss
taken place in the quality produced; an improve-
ment arising from the employment of a more scientific
system of manufacture ; and were it not for the opera-
tion of these difkrential duties this improvement in
quality would still advance, for the appliances now
avail:llle to the manufacturer enable him to produce
the very finest qualities. But instead of encourage-
ment being held out to him to improve, the formidable
obstacle of differential duties is thrown in his way, by
which the whole of the extra price he would obtain
for a better quality is absorbed ; and these increased
duties virtually act as a prohibition of the production
of the higher qualities of sugar.
So far, we have referred only to the effect of the
duty on white clayed sugars, or sugar rendered by
any Process equal in quality to white clayed; but
a still further check is laid on improvement by
no line bring drawn by the legislature between white
:dived not refined and other refined sugar ; the adju-
dication of which is left entirely to the judgment or the
caprice of the officers of customs; and it has happened
that sugars, which to a very small extent have been
imported superior to the standard for white clayed,
have sometimes been charged with the rate of 18s. tad
as refined; although their market value has not been
more than Is. to Is. 6d. per cwt. above that of sugars
admitted at the same time at the lowest rate, or 14s.
per cwt.
Improvement in quality in India and our colonies
being thus checked, or rather prohibited, by the legis-
lature, the finer descriptions of sugar are only to be
procured in quantities from the refiners, for whose
benefit alone these regulations seem to have been in-
troduced, and they are by this unjust act enabled to
charge an extra price for the higher qualities to the
consumer beyond that at which they would be supplied
at by the importers of nearly the whole amount of the
difference of duty payable under the act.
Now, that a large increase in the consumption of
sugar may, with confidence, be looked for from its
unrestricted use in breweries and distilleries, it will
become even more desirable than before that these
tectrictions on imports should cease; and a fair field
be opened out for the leg,timate exercise of skill and
capital in the production of the very finest qualities
It more reasonable prices than the public will be sup•
plied at, so long as au exclusive advantage be granted
to the refiner.
Nor is there any redeeming or compensating quali-
fication in these mischievous rates of duty. The
extra sum paid to the customs in the higher rates of
duty has been very inconsiderable and unim-
portant as an item of revenue; although of much
moment to the importers ; for it has abstracted his
whole profit, and the amount would have been still
=alter, but that many sugars which were in transits
at the time of the passing of the act, and which would
have been admitted under the old law at the lowest
rate of duty, have been charged by the customs with
the higher rates.
Vl'c bring no accusation against the officers of the
customs for the manner in which the provisions of
the act have been carried out, although much might
be advanced to show that consistency has not been
maintained in their decisions. Our object is to prove
that the act is unjust and inexpedient, inasmuch as
it prevents the admission of fine sugars—whereby
the community at large is greatly injured—and the
extension of production, as well as the attainment of
perfection in quality, is much impeded in British India
and the tropical colonies.

TLe diplomatic correspondence on the Spanish mar-
riages continued, on Sunday, to engross the public
attention and the press in Paris. M. Ouizot made
public, in the columns of his two semiofficial
journal,, the Debate and the Frew, his reply to Lord
Palmerston's note of the Bth January. It is remark-
able that these two organs of the cabinet are used, as
snits the convenience of the minister, to wheedle or to
vituperate England. The one is all for the English
alliance, the other all for the Russian. Yet both are
recipients of the confidences of the cabinet and the
court. There is a great convenience in this arrange-
ment. We give elsewhere, in eztesao, a translation
of M. Guizot's answer, which is dated so recently as
' Monday, the 25th January.
It will be remembered that the dynastic opposition
is the Chamber of Deputies was lately split by a
schism which threatened a separation of the left
centre, led by Thiers and (Milton Barrot ; from the left,
led by MM. Dufaure and Billanit. Whatever may be
the differences which prevail between these sections,
they cordially agree in one thing, viz., to oppose with
all their energy the present cabinet, both on its
foreign and domestic policy. These sections had
1 meetings on Wednesday and Friday in last week to
rattle the programme of their parliamentary cam-
reign. and MOM especially to decide upon the course
to be taken in the debate on the address, which was
to commence on Monday, and which will involve the
Spanish and Cracow questions. La Siiele, which speaks
the sentiments of these parties, declared, on Sunday,
that the most cordial unanimity prevailed between
these parties, and that they had resolved to oppose by
all legal means "the unworthy system at home and
abroad which had compromised the prospects of
Prance, and was corrupting the public morals.
The Cooditutionnel devoted its leading columns to
a remarkable letter from London, dated i the. 27th,
which that journal affirms to be the production of
use "who is in a position to be perfectly informed of
public affairs," although unconnected officially with
t.ities. This writer asserts the feeling against
.iGuizot to be unanimous in England ; that he
doubts whether there will be any debate on the
marriage question; that the feeling is one of universal
dirvust and unmitigated contempt and indignation.
A report was circulated and credited in the wile
des conferences of the chamber, on Sunday, to the
effect that the Count St. Aulaire had written to Paris
t°T.equest permission to leave London for France,
gas
reason the false position in which he
found himself placed towards the British court. The
ambassador says that, having lately requested an
audience of the queen, he was decidedly refused, and
no explanation or reason assigned.
The debate on the address is expected to be very,
amnted,especially on the Cracow question. Several
Puties intend to demand the production of the
diplomatic correspondence of the Marquis of Dal-
matia, Minister at Berlin, of the month of August
with the view to prove that the cabinet must
3';:ecowheen. aware of the approaching catastrophe of
theC°r° continues to rise in every part of France, and
1: Molar excitement, and consequent emerdes, are
rePremeti ; or, if rep ressed in one quarter, break
uoutr,i,ntan6o7thce, and r.._, Flour inthe Paris market has' risen
the consequent price of bread

for the first fortnight of February will be Mc.
per kilogramme, being equal to 2.1 d per pound,
or ten pence for the common four-pound. loaf.
The probable consequences of such a price of the
article of prime necessity among such a population as
that of Paris and its faubourgs are too fearful not to
awaken all the activity of the authorities to devise
and bring into operation means of prevention. It has
been accordingly arrangedby the government and mu-
nicipal authoritiesthat ticketsaretobe delivered in un-
limited number to all applicants at the Maine of each
arrondissement, by presenting which the bearer can
purchase of any baker bread of the first quality at
40c. the kil., or 2d. per lb. The vendor subsequently
presents the ticket at the bureau of the Maine, and
receives the difference between the actual price of
bread and that which the buyer has paid him.
A large sum is weekly disbursed in this way to feed
the people. Of course it comes ultimately front the
tax-payers.
. . . . .

. .
The following are the import duties to which grain
and flour of different kinds are subject under the law
just passed:
Grain per quarter. Plow per cert.
Wheat 74.1-10 I Wheat id.
Rye 7d. Rye d. 6-10
Indian c0ne........... 4d. 3-10 Indian was
Barley Barley
Buckwheat ..... .... 41.0-]0 Buckwheat
1• t• lid. (keta ... ... 1. S-I /

We subjoin a translation of the last diplomatic note
of M. Cuizot to Lord Palmerston, which was pub-
lished on Sunday in Le Journal des Debuts and La
Presse. These ministerial organs consider it unan-
swerable. "We know not," says the Myth,
" whether it will put an end to the.dispute between
the governments, hut, at all events, it is of a nature to
do full justice to the subtleties and miserable chicane-
ries to which it has been lately attempted to reduce
the question."
M. OUIZOT TO COUNT ST. AVLAIRE.
PARIS, JAN. V), 1847.—Monsieur le Comte,—Lord Nor-
manby came to corn annicate to me, on the 10th of the pre-
sent mouth, a new despatch of Lord Palmerston, dated the
Bth, in reply to that addressed by me, on the 22c1 of Novem-
ber last, to Count de Jarnae, and which he communicated
on the 26th to Lord Palmerston ; that reply, there-
; fore, reached me forty-five days after miss bad
been communicated to Lord Palmerston, and on
the very eve of the opening of our chambers.
[Expressing a wish to close the correspondence, M. Guizot
gees on to say:] Lord Palmerston, after calling to
mind that I had expressed some surprise that per-
sons pretended to be so well acquainted with the
engagements of the Chateau d'Eu, of which, how-
ever,
no official proofs are produced, whilst, at the same
time, it is on the absence of official documents that they found
their disavowal of facts and documents they find embarrass-
leg especially the memorandum of 27th of Feb., 1846. He
adds, in the third paragraph of his new despatch :
"Now, in answer to this, it is sufficient to say that the facts
are such as were stated in my former despatch, that her Ma-
jesty's government had a knowledge of the engagements at
Eu ; but had not, until after the marriages were declared,
any knowledge of the memorandum of the 27th of February;
and if M. Guinn will only bring to mind the circumstances
connected with the engagements of the Chateau d'Eu, he
will easily see that her Majesty's present government might
acquire a knowledge of those engagements without the aid
of any record in the Foreign-office." I am obliged to repeat
that the engagements of the Chateau d'Eu have not been
officially consigned to the Foreign-office, no more than the
memorandum of 1816 ; that that memorandum was com-
municated on the 4th March to Lord Abenleen, with whom
the conversations and engagements at the Chateau d'Eu
were held, and that in consequence Lord Pslmenton, who
declares himself to have been acquainted with those
engagements, ought and must have equally been acquainted
with the memorandum. It is not requisite at every change
of ministry to renew the communications made to the ministry
which goes out ; they pass from ministry to ministry as the
affairs themselves. What is there, moreover, esiteatial in
the memorandum of Feb. 27 ? It is the declaration that, if
the marriage of the Queen of Spain, or of the infanta, with
a prince a stranger to the descendants of Philip V., and es-
pecially to Prince Leopold of Coburg, became probable and
imminent, the ro% emment of the king wouldconsider itself as
liberated from all engagement, and free to demand the hand,
either of the queen or of the infanta, fur the Duke of Mont-
pensier. And this nine declaration, I have made and
repeated more than once, in the moat positive
terms, to Lord Cowley, then ambassador of Eng-
land in France, who certainly did not omit to
give an account of it to his government. [ld, Guisot
then answers as follows to the paragraph of Lord la's
letter respecting the repudiation of the memorandum.] The
memorandum of 27th February affects in no manner either
rights or pretensions. It simply declares, beforehand, the
conduct which the government of the king will follow in a
certain hypothesis. It is assuredly a clear incontestible
right, and which requires the assent of no one to make such
a declaration. We never pretended that that memorandum
was obtiyraory for the English government. We only pre-
tended that it was acquainted with it. It is a manifestation
of our intentions which we made from a sentiment of good
faith, that the English government, informed of the line of
conduct we should follow in a provided case, might, in its
turn, take account of this information in the evidence of in
own conduct. There are there nopretensions for Lord Palmer-
ston tither to reject or admit ; there is merely a resolution
of the French government, communicated at different times
and in different ways, notably on the 4th March, 1846, to
the English government, represented, at that epoch, by Lord
Aberdeen and to-day. by Lord Palmerston. Is that communi-
cation certain (rename), incontiestible ? Thatis the only ques-
tion which may be raised ; and when the facts answer yes, no
one can reject that answer. [M. Guizot then complains that
Lord Palmerston, on entering office, sought no explanations.
A quibble about the simultaneity of the marriages follows,
and is succeeded by another long quibble about the stipula-
tions of Eu, as to whether they stipulated the birth of a child
or of children to the queen, previous to the marriage of the in-
fanta. All this is utterly immaterial to the general argu-
ment.] " Her Majesty's present government (says Lord
Palmerston, § xiaare unable either to admit or to deny that
any such engagements was taken by their predecessors ;
but I will assume, for the sake of argument, that it was
and, then, I would ask who, since the condition required
by the French government has been fulfilled, anal knee
the promise of the Britieh government has been kept,
why has the engagement of the Chateau d'Eu been broken ?"
Lord Palmerston here again forgets that if the marriage of
the Queen of Spain with a descendant of Philip V. was de-
cided on the 28th of August last, it wan because the mar-
riage of the Infanta with the Duke of Dlontpensier was
agreed upon and decided at the same time. "M. Guizot,"
says Lord Palmerston (§ 12) " endeavours to establish a con-
trast between the conduct of her Majesty's late, and that of
her Majesty's present government, in regard to this matter
but there is no just ground for such a distinction. For both
governments have pursued in this matter the same course;
both governments have held eve:4 the same language, as
to the pretensions put forward by the French government to
compel the Queen of Spain to marry none but a descendant
of Philip V. ; both governments have been of opinion that
it would be moat prudent for the Queen to marry a Spanish
Prince, and borh agreed in their selectivn of the Prince 1
whom they ventured to recommend ; while neither her 1
Majesty's late, nor her Majesty's preaentgovemment have at
any given any encouragement or support whatever to the
choice which the Spanish Court wished to make of Prince
Leopold of Saxe Coburg. Therefore the memorandum of the
27th of February is in no degree inconvenient to her
Majesty's government, and could not, even if communicated
in proper time, have afforded the slightest justification for
the departure from the engagements of the Chateau d'Eu."
The French government never bad the pretension to force
the Queen of Spun to marry only a desoendant of Philip V.
But it was frank enough to declare beforehand what line of
policy it would follow in such and such an hypothesis. It
might as equally be said that the English government had
the pretension to force the Queen of Spain not to marry a
French prince. We shall not make use of such expressions,
which are as contrary to truth as to conrenonee. Every go-
vemment has the right to follow the line of policy best in
accordance with the legitimate interests of its country. This
is what we did in this circumstance; and the English
government did as much. We do not reproach them for
ft, but we loudly repel the reproaches it makes
warn us. As regards the assertion that the preceding
end the present government of her Britannic Majesty have
followed, in this affair, the same steps and the same language,
I am in the necessity of reproducing a few circumstances
(rapproehements), very simple in themselves, which will
&ow if it is well founded. On the 28th May, Lord Aber-
deen blamed Mr. Bulwer for having approved the step taken
by the Spanish government for the merriage of the Queen
with Prince Leopold of Coburg, and reproached him with
having deviated therein from the instructions he had re-
ceived. On the lath July, Lord Palmerston, giving his in-
structions to Mr. Bulwer, indicated to him " Prince Leopold
lof Saxe-Coburg and the two sons of Don Francisco
de Paula," as the sole candidates for the hand
of the Queen ; adding, that of those three can-
didates, the government of her Britannic Majesty could
only express its sincere wish that the choice might fall upon
him who was best calculated to assure the happiness of the
Queen, and the prosperity of the Spanish nation. Were
those instructions of Lord Palmerston similar to the instruc-
tions previously given by Lord Aberdeen ? Did they design
only the same candidates ? And when there was question
only of a single candidate, of the Infant; Don Enrique, Lord
Aberdeen wrote on the 22nd of June, to the Duke of
Soto Mayor "We have ventured, although without
any English candidate, without any. English prefer-
ence, to indicate the Infant Don Enrique, as the prince
who seems to us as the beet adopted choice as
likely to be most agreeable to the Spanish nation."
What in kis turn did Lord Palmerston write to Lord
Normanby on the 22nd August, as a resume, of his
recent instructions to Mr. Bulwer? It is the opieba of
her Majesty's government that Don Enrique is the way
Spanish prince proper, by his personal qualities, to beans
the husband of the Queen of Spain." Is this bringing the
Infant Don Enrique forward in the same manner as
Lord Aberdeen, or is it the same language ? M. Outset
again reverts to my despatch of the 19th of July is
Mr. Bulwer, and states that whatever may have been
my intention, the mere order in which the name of the
Prince of Coburg was mentioned in that despatch must
have had the effect of an indirect recommendation is his
favour. But M. Guizot forgets that that dispatch was a
personal instruction to Mr. Bulwer; that it was not skinned
to be communicated to the Spanish government, and that it
never was cornmunica..nl to that government by him; and
that, in the very outset of that dispatch,."l referred Mr. But-