The Express.
London, England, 1847-05-14 00:00:00

gilt erprtgO.

MAILS.
The male law Vigo, Oporto, Listen, Meddra, Cadiz, and Gibraltar,
win be node an en the morning of the 17th May.
Wan India malls, excluding these bx Mexico, ROOdltake.4
the Ilavennith, will be made up on the evening of the 17th May.
The mails for British North Americo, Bermuda, and the BMW
itates, will he made up on the ermine of the UM May.
The oserlaM wells for Gibraltar. Malts, Omen the laden
Etrypt, Aden, Ceylon, India, 1 long. iioll,g, and Mae, vie Bonthainpleg.
will -he made up on the morning of the Nth May.
The 0 closed malls, cis Marseilles, to the Medlterraaesa,
Lent, Aden, Ceylon, India, lion Kong, he, will bemede up on the
evening of the 24th May.
The mails for New south Wales, Van Diemen', Land, sad New
Zealand wdl be made up on the evening of the 31 et May.
The mails for the Brasile, the River Plate, Monte Video, Perms.
bum, Bahia, Maileirs, and Buenos Ayres, will be made ap on au
evening of the 411 June.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
ve Advertisements intended for Me /express, London meanie paper,
must be at the Godlee by Tyro o'clock on ths day of publication.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON-BRIDGE.
T. DAp—Mondapt, 21 M. punt I ; After sum. 44 min. put I.
To-Ileasow—ManNag, 9 ANA. put 2; Altarepon, 32 mm. put 2.

LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 14.

IN the House of Commons yesterday Sir H.
DOUGLAS stated that it was not his intention to offend
the good sense of the house by making any motion
on the subject of Captain WARNER'S long range,
feeling assured, after the report made by the distin-
guished officers appointed to witness the experiment,
that it was totally unworthy of any further notice.—
Dr. BOWRING having moved that the house should
resolve itself into committee, for the purpose of re-
ducing the duty on foreign wines—a proposition that
was opposed by the CHANCELLOR of the Excumton
—withdrew his motion, at the same time ex-
prep/ling his conviction that ere long the go-
vernment and the house would be converts to
his opinions. Mr. S. WORTLEY'S motion for
an address to the crown, for the appointment
of a commission to inquire into the operation of the
law of marriage, was, after some discussion, agreed
to.—Sir H. W. BARRON moved for the appointment
of a select committee on Irish fisheries, a proposition
which was opposed by the government as unnecessary
and calculated to lead to inconvenience.—After some
debate, the house divided, when the motion was ne-
gatived by a majority of 51, the numbers being 22
to 73.—Mr. HOME drew the attention of the house to
a petition from Jamaica praying for free trade, and
an additional supply of labour as requisite for the
prosperity of that island. The Loan Discount Bill
was read a second time.—On Mr. SPOONER's motion,
for leave to bring in his amended bill for the better
protection of females, the house divided, when the
motion was carried by a majority of 46, the num-
bers being 57 to 11.—On the question that the bill be
read a first time, the house again divided, when only
21 members being present, the Speaker declared the
house adjourned.

THE famine prices, to which all kinds of grain have
risen, give great importance to everything bearing
upon the supply of food. Even the politicians who
once strenuously upheld a law for the creation of
artificial scarcity—the corn law—are now forward in
the inquiry of—how are the people to be fed? It
must have been somewhat strange to have heard in
the House of Lords, the monopolist Earl of HARD.
wicxa lecturing the government on the necessity of
encouraging the importation of foreign corn, the
protectionist Lord ASHBURTON dwelling "on the in-
sufficiency of corn in this country," and declaring that
" he thought it the duty of the government to pay the
utmost attention to this subject." The former
noble lord exhibited his utter want of knowledge of
the principles which regulate the trade in grain,
when he said "he hoped that the lauded gentry
would take care in their own counties that by
I some means or other the remaining supply
of corn should not leave them." How the landed
gentry or any other notables are to prevent corn
being sold in or out of their counties, the noble mono-
polist did not condescend to explain. Probably, his
lordship had no explanation to give, and that the
sentence we have quoted from his speech on Tuesday
night is one of the genuine "no meanings," in which
landed proprietors are wont to indulge when they
talk about the produce of the soil or the trade in
grain. Now much of the present distress, so far as
regard, England at all events, is only the ugraisted
symptom of a chronic disorder of our agricultural sys-
tem. A particular kind of produce—the potato—has
failed, and then we discover how large a portion
of the food of our rural labourers end their
families that root has constituted. The de-
ficiency of potatoes has been made up by bread
so far as it has been made up at all, and though the
farming labourers have been sorely pinched, the con-
' immption of wheat has been greatly increased. No
one hesitates to admit the evils of a potato.fed popula-
tion in Ireland ; and the same thing has been going
on here to a much greater extent than any not in-
timately acquainted with the rural classes suspected.
It may be asked why have our peasantry be-
come potato-fed? And the reply must be, because the
wages are so low that they cannot live and bring up
their children on a superior food. And this leads to
the further question of why are their wages so low ?
And the response given will be, because our land is
imperfectly cultivated. There are few rural districts
in which labourers are not said to be redundant; and
yet in the very same districts the land requires little
more than the application of labour to become doubly
or trebly productive. Here, then, we have two of the
three elements of production—land requiring 0114
cultivation, and labour pining in poverty for want of
employment The connecting link, a sufficiency of
capital, is absent. Why is this ?
A short statement of some of the more recent events
of the agricultural movement, to which we not long
since directed the attention of oar readers, will supply
the answer.
On Tuesday, ten tenant farmers from various °pan-
ties in England, accompanied Lord PORTMAN, Mr.
POSEY, M. P., and Mr. Darrisott, M.P., as a deputatisa
to Lord JOHN RUSSELL, to impress upon his lordship,
as the head of the government, the strong opinion
entertained by the farming body of the necessity of
some legal enactment to secure the floating capital of
the tenant-farmer against landlord aggression; and
several skilful practical fanners strongly urged the
large and steady increase of agricultural produce that
would result from such a measure. That such state-
ments could not be made to the Prime Minister with-
out exciting his serious attention, may well be
imagined ; nor is it likely that he overlooked the
difficulties which stand in the way of a measure the
landowners represent to be an interference with their
proprietary rights.
Our readers are well aware of the general nature
and scope of Mr. PUSRT'S agricultural Tenant-Bight
Bill, and that its effect, u originally proposed. woula,
be to give tenants a legal right to claim restitution 01
some part of the capital they have invested in the
soil, should they be turned out of their farms. It
would also enable a tenant, with justice to himself, to
farm well up to the very end of his term, because he
would receive from his soccessor, or from the landlord.
compensation for unexhausted expenditure.
The shortcomings of this measure are many, .74
daily since it has been subjected to the or&s1
select committee of squires ; but still it hit
desired by the farmer,. And they are rit
is valuable as a recognition of their large but NIP
!acted interest' in the soil of this country.
Nor is there any novelty in the principle of the
measure, which has long been recognized in lhnt
defined thing—varying in every district—called we
custom of the country." The Tenant Bill, 'Wag

mac mime =touched, propose? to give to the
the value of that capital which, when
Quitting, he mast necessarily leave on the land.
fa truth, it seems as obvious that the outgoing-tenant
d a rum should be paid for his manures, his til-
lages, and his other improvements, of which his
landlord or the in-coming tenant will reap the benefit,
sa that the tenant of a house should be paid for the
fixtures and ornaments he has put up.
Nevertheless, the difficulties in the way of doing
common justice to tenant farmers are many and
formidibl opposition result from a very determined
landlord which nothing but the support
of public opinion will enable the farmers to over-
come. This bill was to have been considered
at committee on Tuesday, when we find two no-
tices intended to go to the utter destruction of
the bill; the one was by Mr. James to go
" into committee that day six months ;" the other,
by Mr. Cflatirroeuee, is Vipresent a petition from
landowners in Lincolnshire; against the bill. The
committeee was postponed to make way for a govern-
ment measure on Irish affairs, and we do not observe
that any other day has been fixed. Possibly there is
little chance of any portion of the bill becoming law
during the present session, but it is a subject that the
public must not lose sight of. The farmers will not
forget it, we know; but they want the aid of other
and less dependent climes. There was also another
notice by Mr. ROBERT PALMER (Berkshire), strongly
marking the spirit in which the landowners
receive a proposal to give the tenants a
legal right to unexhausted improvements. That
gentleman had a clause to the effect that
the valuers "shall estimate the amount of injury
or dilapidation the outgoing tenant may have caused
or suffered on any of the lands in his occupation by
means of bad or foul husbandry or otherwise;" and
that the amount of such valuation shall be recovered
by the landlord as rent ; and that where the tenant
makes no claim for improvements, the landlord may
put the machinery of the act in operation to obtain
compensation for bad husbandry.
Now when it is recollected that the bad husbandry
which prevails so extensively in this country is the
usual system, necessitated in a great measure by
yearly tenancies, the absurdity, not to say injustice, of
giving the landlords increased power against the
tenants most be manifest. The present system enables
the landowner at his pleasure to confiscate the capital
ofa good farmer. Mr. PALMER'S clause would give him
the power to mulct a bad farmer—made a bad farmer
by the landlord's restrictions—because he does not
farm well.
It may be asked, do the landlords then deliberately
seek to retain the power of confiscating their tenants'
capital with any rapacious design ? To which it
mast be said that their object is more political than
pecuniary. To cite a case in point. There is to be
a contest for the representation of North Northum-
berland, between a liberal statesman and a school-boy
hurdling, the nominee of the Duke of NORT t! HER-
LAN D. The contest will be decided by the farmers, and
it tarns upon the preponderance of the independent or
dependent tenants—the farmers with leases or with-
out—whether the elected member shall represent the
industry, the capital, and the intelligence of the dis-
trict, or whether he shall be the mere voting machine
of the local landed oligarchy. This is an important
public question; and when, in addition, it involves
the advance or stand still of British agriculture, the
more or less of human food, we are convinced that the
active liberal politicians will see that this is not a mere
farmer's question, and that the agricultural capi-
talists must not be left unaided to fight the battle of
the common weal.

THE intelligence from New Zealand which we pub-
lish this day is the most satisfactory that has been re-
ceived from these islands since the appointment of
Governor HOBSON. The strategetiml arrangements
of Governor GREY afford u perfect security for the
preservation of peace and order in the Southern Go-
vernment as any mere human arrangements can give.
And the facts mentioned in the letters of our cone-
ondents, and the newspaper published at Wellington,
show that under these arrangements, and the reliance
of the settlers in the personal character of Governor
GREY, public confidence has revived, and with it the
spirit of honeful industry,
Such intelligence is calculated to inspire contagions
hopefulness in the meeting of the New Zealand Com-
pany, which is this day to deliberate on the offer of
government, which we re-print in another column.
That Earl GREY'S proposals will be closed with by
that body we cannot entertain a doubt. Looking to I
the past history of the New Zealand Company, we
have no hesitation in affirming that even more liberal
terms would have been no more than their due ; but
looking to the entangled and complicated state into
which the affairs of New Zealand had been brought

by Lord STANLEY, his collaborateurs and predeceasing,
and by them bequeathed to Earl GREY, we do not
well see what other arrangement our present colonial
minister could have proposed.
To the New Zealand Company this country owes
that the islands of the group so named are not now,
lice Tahiti, a French dependency. While the govern-
ment of the day, after repudiating the undoubted
claim of Great Britain to these islands arising from
discovery and formal occupation, hesitated to re-
acquire them by actual settlement, the New Zealand
Company, aware of the preparations making in
France to establish' a penal settlement in the group,
braved the consequences of such an irregularity, and
by laying the foundation of • permanent intelligent
moral English community there, preserved it to the
empire.
A glance at the map of the Pacific will suffice to
show the importance of this acquisition. The New
Zealand group is of about the same extent as the
British islands. From its position it is admirably
adapted to engross the trade of the whole southern
Pacific, from Torres Straits to Tahiti, and, as • naval
station, to command the whole archipelago cluster-
ing between these points. It is situated mid-
* ay between these isles of ocean and our
Australian colonies an outwork covering the
metropolitan harbour of Sydney, or an outpost by
which the empire, of which that emporium is a part,
keeps hold of Oceania. Nor is the importance of
New Zealand solely owing to its position ; the
climate is genial; the soil, with moderate labour,
fruitful; the produce of its agriculture, mines, and
fisheries, valuable.
The rood services of the New Zealand Company
have not been limited to the mere occupation of this
important country. Their colonising operations ex-
torted from the committee of the Commons in 1844
—a committee composed in great part of members who
were either supporters of a minister hostile to the
company, or who had previously expressed themselves
unfriendly to it—this owed of approbation : " Re-
solved, that the principles on which the New Zealand
Company have acted in making the reserves for the
natives, with a view to their ultimate as well as
present welfare, and in making snitable provision for
spiritual and educational purposes, are sound and
judicious, tending to the benefit of all clamed."
In the spirit of this resolution, Earl Gaav, who
was chairman of the committee, has resolved, as will
appear from the proposals above-mentioned, to ven-
ture the experiment of employing the company as his
agent for carrying on the colonisation they began so
humanely and judiciously. The experiment is limited
to a term of three years. In justice to the company,
whose finances have been paralysed by the vexatious
delays and chicanery of former governments, ministers
place at their temporary disposal a sum of money, and
entrust to them the entire and exclusive disposal of
crown lands, and the exercise of the crown's right of
pre-emption in the Southern Government during
the term of the agreement. At the same time, security
is taken on behalf of the British public, at whose
expense the money is advanced, and at the risk of
whose interests the trial of the company's competency
is made, by prescribing restrictions on their opera-
tions, and appointing a commissioner, to be paid by
them, to watch and control their proceedings on the
part of government.
We repeat our conviction that the company will
this day declare their acceptance of these terms.
They have only to read the last New Zealand
to learn that the settlers—not makjag
Spectator
for the impediments placed in their
way by former ministers—are beginning tO
attribute their insecurity to them. It Is of
vital importance to the company to be placed
in a condition to recommence Immediately their
colonising operations. The terms offered are',
tamadvantageous than were guaranteed by,
former ministers, but they will enable them to go on
with a fair prospect of remunerative returns—a
secondary object we sincerely believe with the
founders and leaders of the company, but of conee-
Time to many shareholders. Already the tide of

adversity has turned in the existing settlements, and
the Scotch colonists for Otago wait only the omit-
may's re-commencement of operations to start fur
the scene of their labours. After two years' struggle
between life and death, New Zealand, the future
England of the southern hemisphere, is about to
commence the first chapter of its history.

We have received our Paris express of Tuesday.
The chamber continues to snub the ministers. On
M. Odillon Barrot's demanding an explanation of the
recent ministerial changes, M. Guizot wished to defer
those explanations for a day or two. Other minis-
terialists proposed to defer thent till next week. But
the chamber took M. Guizot at his word, and fixed
on Friday for these explanations. M. buchitel was
absent from the chamber.

L' Union Monarchique affirms that after this the
British ambassador and his lady intend visitim, Eng-
land on a conge, from whence, it says, they will pro-
bably not return.

Advices from Madrid to the 7th inst. announce the
arrival of the Queen and her suite at Aranjuez the
preceding night. The separation of her Majesty from
the King Consort is said to have caused great pain to
the well-disposed and loyal citizens of Madrid. Gen.
Roe de Olano has the command of the troops forming
the body-guard at the palace of Aranjuez. The prin-
cipal ministers accompanied her Majesty, who was
also visited at Aranjuez by the French ambassador.
The subject of the two detonations which we men-
tioned yesterday is reproduced in the Madrid journals.
Although at first the circumstance was regarded as
the accidental result of the play of some idle children,
a more serious origin was ascribed to it at a later
hour. Reports were in circulation on the 7th, that
two pistols were really disc at the Queen. An
examination into the affair "Te d
been commenced by
the police. It was even said that a ball had grazed
the hat of the Queen. M. Angel de la Rive, a person
employed as short-band writer, or reporter, for
El Clamor Public°, and by profession an advocate,
had been arrested and examined. He dented the
charge. El Espanol says that those who know the
life, character, and family of this individual consider
the charge as unfounded.

THE EXPRIs'BB, FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 14, 1847.

mowed the price, but the government interfered and put a
Mop to it.
MITTLENE. —At the moment (on the 23rd ult.)
that the Creek population came out of their church, they
were assailed by twelve drunken Turks armed with pistols.
One Greek was killed and two others wounded. Whey the
governor was informed of this fact, he sent troop( and
arrested six of them—the others tied.

EGYPT.—ALEXANDRIA, APRIL 30.—The Austrian
steamer from Trieste brought some members of a commission
ecru here to study the plan fur the construction of • canal to
Suss, and proceed on to Cairo. There is much talk here of
a diminution in the quarantine by France, on ai rivals from
hence, and that it wi,l take place the beginning tt June.
MEXICO.—MUNICIPAL AND HARBOUR Duns AT
TAWPICo.—The following general order, issued by General
Patterson, commanding officer lathe United States forces In
i I Tampico, s important to all merchants who hare commercial
connexions with that port. The " wharfage and sown dues"
' appear to he abolished only in so far as the trade *and from
the United States in United States vessels is concerned ; hut
the seduction of "port charges and harbour dues" to one.
half, the reduction of "pilotage," outwards mid inwards,
' from 9 to 7 dollars per foot, and the abolition of market dues,
are benefits in which all will participate :
'lead-gumtree, lied Division, Army of Occupation...
Tampico, Feb. 5, 1447. [Orden No. OSA
1. It Is hereby directed that all resolutions, ordinance., sod lamb
whirl may bereater be pored by the mann-igen( eoetesnifeee of
Tampico, shall be submitted OD the commanding officer of tbeTU. 8.
aw hut consideration seed approval, without which they shall Set be
carried into cite. ,e‘
I. !'art charges nod harbour dome are hereby reduced to olisehndf
of tho several soma heretofore established by the munkipal
miller, and the armor collected from this source edible pod weekly
to the senior surgeon of the army at Tampico for the benefit of the
hospital. • ;
3. The charges heretofore exacted on prcaloce or merehasodise of
any kind, ander the noise of wharfage and leas dues, brim en
indirect tax on Americus citizens and American trade, will rear
from this date to he made on any produce or merchandise main
front or going ta the United States In U.S. vessels.
4. The recut ,eons authorising the charges heretofore made under
of wine:et data, so far as it relates to noo.nritidenta,
hereby &bundled. Persons not residing in the town will be permitted
to mute to mar'.et, anal occupy stands on any street or plaza, where
thee mar sell butchers' meat of all kinds. poultry. game, milk, .1(11.%
frith and vegetables, and other produce, free from soy tax or charge.
This privilege will not be extended to persona living in the town who
purchase from those arriving to eel! again. They are forbidden to
monopolise any article brought to market, and they shall be subjen
to such taxes and charges r the municipal committee ray think
peeper to ,loess.
. .

S. The pnewnt rate of pilotage, Oz., 5 dollars per foot for venal,
arching, and 4 dollars per foot for those clearing. is considered exor-
bitant under the purest increase of trade, eopeclailly as U. S. steamers
frequently render their asolotance. It to, therefore, ordered that the
pilotage be reduced to 7 dollars per foot in full for pilotage inward
sad outward. The payment of this sum *bail be certified by the col-
lector betore a clearance In glee.—By order of Milor-General
Pollnow. (Mooed) Goo. A. McCau, A.A.O.