The Express.
London, England, 1848-06-16 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, JUNE 16, 1848.

day, how it was hie intention to enforce respect to
jot demands.
- -

Ina sugar protectionists ask for a protective duty
of 10s. per cwt. for six years, and for the enforce-
ment of the West African coast blockade during that
time, in order to increase the price of slaves in Brazil.
They ask to be enabled to sell their sugar for 10s. per
cwt. more than they could] if obliged to compete on
equal terms with foreign sugar growers, and ask at
the same time that means shall be adopted at the
national expense to increase the cost of production,
and coneequontly the price of foreign sugars.
The full amount of the tax which the sugar protest-
tionists ask to have imposed upon the people of Gras
Britaiu—not for the legitimate occasions of govern.
went but to increase their own private gains—
cannot be exactly ascertained ; but there are
etine wherefrom an aianoxituating estimate may
be made. The quantity of sugar entered
for home consumption in 1846 was 3,231,916 ewts. ;
in 1847 it was 5,790,4:42 ewes. Let us take the
average of about 3.300,000 calm. As there can only
be one price of sugar in the same market, a protective
duty of 10s. per cwt. wot.ll yield 2,730,000/ The
proportion of foreign sugar in the five millions and a
halt of hundredweights consumed is somewhat less
than a million; so of this sum rather more than
2.250,0001. would go into the pockets of the British
sugar planters in the elle pe of increased pi ice s,
and rather less than eeto,ooo/. into the public trea-
sury. The extent to which the price of foreign sugars
would be raised by the operations of the blockading
squadron we have no means of estimating, but what-
ever it might be it would increase to a corresponding
extent the price of all sugars in the English market,
and consequently be a tax to that amount on
our sugar consum rs. And the whole expense of
maintaining that squadron comes out of the pockets of
the English tax-payer. The annual expense of that
squadron is stated iu a return made this session to the
House of CUTUUIOI.I t,l be 301,6231. But Lord J.
HAY, when examined by the slave-trade committee,
candidly stated that this was an under-estimate. All
the vessels furnished with :ic, saes to capture slavers,
and occasionally engaged in that task,are not included
in it. The item of deteriutation in the hulls of
vessels, and the wear of steam-engines, is greatly
under-rated. And no account is made of the bounties
on captures, or the expense of mixed-commission and
vice-admiralty courts. It is confidently maintained
by disinterested and eampeteut judges that our efforts
to suppress the slave trade by force cost the country
every year considerably upwards of a million. It is
obviuue, therefore, that it the prayers of the protec-
tionists be granted, they will coat the country annually
a sum which cannot be lees than 3,230,000/., and
may be nearer 4,000,0001.
This transference of about four millions every year,
from the pockets of the general public to those of the
parties interested in the erotection of British sugar,
is ostensibly asked only for six years ; but in this
limitation of its contineunce those who ask fur it are
obviously insincere. They do not believe that they
will be in a better condition at the end of these six
years to compete on equal terms, or under a dimi-
nished protection, with the foreign sugar growers
than they are now. JACOB Oatmeal, the mouth-
piece of the West Indians, admits that
the plan of supplying free labour to the
West Indies from Africa by immigration does
not succeed, these colonies will not be able to
compete with foreign sugars if the protection he asks
be diminished ; and he speaks of this immigration as
a mere experiment, as to the success of which he is
extremely sceptical. The East Indian sugar growers
do not complain of want of labour, and do not pretend
to expect that they will be in a better condition to
compete with foreign sugar growers six years hence
than they are nosy. Past experience has shown that
so long as oer sugar growers are protected, they will
not beliee e teat the protection can ever be withdrawn,
tied will not make ney exertion to enable them to get
on without it. If tile protection is to last only for
six years, it sill do those who ask for it
ro goad ; and the return to a protecting duty of 10a
per cwt. would ruin many. On the faith of an act of
parliament orders for sugar have gone out over nll
the world based upon the existing duties—orders, no
doubt, also in anticipation of the led. reduction to
ti..;:e place in July ; and, this being the case, it is the
opinion of all acquainted with the trade that the im
position even of un ea protective duty would be
attended by wide-spread bankruptcy. Even the
sugar protectionists would not ask for what cannot
benefit themselves while it is sure to ruin others. The
six years they speak of are merely meant as a foun-
dation for a claim to have the term extended at the
end of that period, and the protective duty ultimately
made pet manent.
That tl.e parties who ask for a return to high pro-
tective duties on sugar are insincere in the pretence that
they wish for them only to alleviate the pressure they
mud experience during the transition from a restricted
to a free trade, is apparent from one remarkable fact.
The residents in the sugar colonies are unanimous in
their expression of the opinion that if there is to be
free trade in sugar there must be free trade in every-
thing else. And the first specific application they
make of this prineieh is to the carrying trade. They
demand that the repeal of the navigation laws shall
accompany the repeal of the protective duties on
sugar. But the principal witnesses who have been
produced before the lords' committee ou the naviga-
tion laws, to express an opinion that those laws ought
not to be repealed, have been selected from the iden-
tical great West India houses in this country who are
moving heaven and earth to obtain the re-imposition
of the 10s. duty OR fore ign engem The very men
who ask for this protective duty are exerting them-
selves to defeat the measure which of all others would
enable them to do without it. Can any one believe
that these men are siecere when they pretend they
only wish a temporary protection ?
We have of lete Maud the movement in favour of
Mr. Heath's motion for parliamentary reform called
in certain quarters the factitious result of a local
organisation. If ever there was a movement de-
serving of this appellation it is that clamorous one
which is now aiming at the repeal of the Sugar-
Duties Ant. That the West India body have a
central organisation in London is notorious ; and the
principal persons who figure at all the recent meet-
ings of the sugar proactieniets belong to this organi-
sation. Ever. the so-called meeting of the East India
Company is no exception. Several of the prominent
orators have a deep stake in the West India colonies.
say, the truth is, that the deepest dabblers in the
speculation of growing sugar in the East Indies and
Mauritius are houses which, at the first appearance of
decay in the West, left the seemingly failing house
with rat-like precipitation, and transferred a consider-
able part of their capital to the East. Eatensive
failures of no very distant date were fruitful in strange
revelations on this head. It was shown that they were
mainly owing to these houses havirg, without increas-
ing their capital, entered into extensive sugar specula-
tions in the East Indies, while they did nut relinquish
those speculations in the West for which that capital
was no more than adequate. And we have seen some
of these parties present themselves as advocates of
high protecting duties on sugar alternately in
the character of members of the West India and of
the East India interests, in order to delude the public
into the belief that the parties interested iu protec-
tion are more numerous than they really are.
It is impossible to look at the active interest which
the leaders of the corn protectionists are taking in the
sugar question, and at the manner in which leading
sugar protectionists are lending themselves, in the
capacity of witnesses, to whitewash and bolster up
the navigation laws, without seeing that infinitely
more than the mere question of sugar protection is
now at issue. Any, the slightest concession in the
matter of the Sugar Duties Act will be the first step
in a retrograde movement towards the false system
of protected trade. If even a temporary arrest-
meet of the progress of the diminishing
scale of sugar duties be granted, this concession
will be made the ground of further demands. The
majority of the Hasse of Commons who make the
concession will thereby avow their apostasy from the
principles of free trade; and this apostasy will pro-
duce in due time its fruits—the perpetuation of the
navigation laws, and the re-enactment of protectivel
duties on corn. The great principle of free trade is,
perilled on the issue of the contest respecting the sugar
duties, and the slightest wavering or yielding on the
part of the free traders in parliament will give vic-
tory to the protectionists.
The questions of protective duties on Elarc-labour
auger, and the maintenance of the coast blockade of
Africa, are simply and solely questions of free trade or
protection. It has been proved beyond a doubt that all
our efforts to put down the slave trade by fiscal
enactments or by force have proved unavailing.
High duties on slave-grown sugar in England cannot

shut it out from the market of the rest of the Isserid
and so long as there is a market for slave-grown
sugar our efforts to suppress the slave trade by force
cannot stop it, though they increase immeasurably
the sufferings of its victims.
Such, then, being the position of this important
question, it is not without grave alarm that we learn
ministers are giving indications of a wish to compro-
mise it. Lord JOHN RUSSELL
may rest assured that
even by so seemingly slight a concession as suspend-
ing the declining scale at its present rate of Gs. tor two
years longer, he would endanger the cause of national
and liberal commercial policy. And ho would incur this
risk by tampering with the existing law to
an extent that can have no sensible effect
beyond deranging bargains already concluded, and
introducing a baneful element of uncertainty into all
commercial relations. As to the consistency of such
conduct on the part of ministers, really, after what
we have witnessed of their conduct in other respects
it would be hyper-criticism to cavil at any incon-
sistency into which they may fall. ll•it we shall be
curious in that case to learn how Earl GREY will
explain his conversion to protectionist theories in the
face of his despatches to Governor LIGHT of the let,
and to Sir CLIARLES GREY of the 14th, of April last.

IT is little more than a year ago since Mr. DUN-
COMM moved for leave to introduce a bill to repeal
the rate-paying clauses of the Reform Bill. In doing
so he made a moat effective exposition of the hard-
ship which they entailed upon the voters in bo-oughe,
and complained of the injustice of subjecting them
to a condition precedent to the exercise of the
electoral right from which the county voters were
exempted. But he was met at the very thresh-
hold by the unqualified opposition of the govern-
ment, Lord Joins Resew. delivering in its behalf
a constitution.' homily to the house, wherein he at-
temteed to show that the inequality complained of
was more imaginary than real, and that the conditions
which had been annexed to the right of voting in
boroughs had been resorted to in order that the state
might have a guarantee that the 101. householder was
a man of some substance, analogeus to thut which it
had that the forty shilling freeholder was not a mere
man of straw. Neither party, therefore, had a right
to complain, both giving as slender a guarantee
to this effect to the state as it was possible
to ask from them. In addition to this, the
noble lord insisted upon the constitutional right of
the forty shilling freeholder to vote irrespectively of
the payment of taxes; and upon the constitutional
practice which had always subjected the borough
voter to the condition of such payment before voting.
But to do away with this difference between the
two classes of voters was a proposition which
to his lordship seemed totally inadmissible, and
the very first opportunity was taken of telling
Mr. Dueeoettie so. Shortly afterwards, in the
course of the debate, Mr. Weeeev having taxed
the government with not being sufficiently explicit,
and taunted it with the silence et the ministerial
bench, Sir G. GREY expressed his astonishment that,
after the unqualified opposition which, on behalf of
himself and his colleagues, Lord JOHN Besse:Le had
offered to the bill, it should have been th..ugttt excise
eery that any other member of the cabinet should say
a word upon the subject. This was little more than a
year ago, and the notice which stands upon the paper
for to-uiebt is as follows:
L.rd to repeal so much of the txistina
IsAs r, es the ps) went of iv:seised taxes as a condi-
tion for the reirittration of parliamentary electors.
How widely his lordship must have opened his
eyes within the year! Or is it that the moral hurri-
canes whirls have recently shaken the earth to its
foundations have so cleared the political atmosphere
that he no longer sees things in obscure outline, but
in their real proportions? Has chartism Ind
anything to do with his conversion pru hullo to
the doctrines of Mr. DeNeoeftte? Whatever may
be the cause here is the fact. His lordship is about to
throw the practice of the constitution, tin which he
insisted before, to the winds, by abolishieg, to some
extent, the corstitational distinction wheel txi.ets be-
te 4:en the borough and the county vent.. llut it
there was any truth in that portion of his former doc-
trines which regarded the two classes of voters as on
an equality with each other, in respect of the guaran-
tees which they gave to the state, how is he to settle
the account with the forty shilling freeholder, seeing
that he is about to disturb the happy balance in favour
of the 10/. householder?"
Difficult as it may be to forgive the sudden
conversion of a minister of state, we are equal
to the task, on tee present occasion, and con-
gratulate his lordship on the step which he is
about to take. But let us measure our grati-
tude by the boon which is to be conferred
upon us. The rate-paying clauses are either defen-
sible or indefensible in tots. If they are defensible,
why touch them at ali ? and if indefensible,
why leave any portion of them intact? To repeal
them altogether would be but a trifling boon. But
small as it may be, his lordship proposes to give
us only the half of it. It is only so far as regards
assessed taxes that the change is to be made. The
payment of poor rates by a day certain is still to
remain a condition precedent to tee right of voting in
a borough.
It would be needless for us here to dwell upon the
argument that you have no right to disfranchise a
man for an omission for which the law already pro-
vides you with a sufficient remedy. It is worth
while, however, to consider to what extent we are to
be benefited by the proposal about to bl.
submitted. The Times, in misrepresenting the
other day, unwittingly no doubt, the aims and
objects of the leaders of the new movement,
asks, what good after all would be secured to us from
the admission of 100,000 additional electors within
the pale of the franchise? We candidly confess that,
from this alone, but little advantage would accrue.
Now, what does Lord J. RUSSELL propose to do ?
From a return moved for in 1816 it appears that the
number of persons omitted from the lists of voters for
that year in England and Wales, by reason of the
non-payment, within the specified period, of sews& d
taxes, was 18,873, being 31 per cent. of the total
number of borough voters on the register in England
and Wales for that year, which was 331,547,
and only 21 per cent. of the total number of
voters, including county and borough electors, on
the register, which was 828,923. Yet this
is the per tentage which Lord JOHN RUSSF.LL pro-
poses to add to the franchise. Taking the 77/nes'
estimate of what the addition of 100,004) votes to the
electoral bode, would do, the value of the proposed
government measure may be ascertained by the fol-
lowing formula. As the addition of 100,000 voters is
to no goad whatever, so is that of 18,e73 to about the
fifth part of no good. Again, let us see to what
extent it is calculated to reach the real evils of the
present system. No le:s than five-sixths of the whole
number of voters emitted from the register in Eng-
land and Wales for the reason above alleged were
omitted from the lists in Finsbury, London,
Mary lebone, Lambeth, the Tower Hamlets, West-
minster, and Wolverhampton. So far as these
five-sixths are concerned we rejoice at the
prospect of their being placed upon the register.
But their being so is about all that we shall gain by
the proposed change. The evils which pervade our
electoral system will not be touched by it. The five-
sixths alluded to will only add to the number of elec-
tors in constituencies already sufficiently large to be
independent. The great majority of the smaller bo-
roughs, which are divided between corruption and
local influence, will not be affected by the measure,
there being but few of them, as appears from the re-
turn quoted from, in which it will cause any addition
to be made to the register. To add a few more elec-
tors to the registers of constituencies already suffi-
ciently large and independent (too large, in fact) is,
then, all the advantage which the country will gain
from this new measure of reform.
Does Lord Joliet RUSSELL really think that this
will satisfy the public? The desire for reform must
be very great and general, else, with his avowed pre-
dilections, and with his recorded opinions of last year,
ho would have doggedly resisted it. Having yielded,
can he possibly stop short at the paint to which he
has recede d ? This proposed concession would have
been something to have been wrung by a private
member from an obdurate government, but, as a re-
form volunteered by the cabinet, it is pitifully
inadequate. But perhaps the noble lord in-
tends to go with the stream, and is now merely launch-
ing his bark. If so we accept his measure as n step
in the right direction, and as such only we trust
that it is intended. A change proposed in the con-
stitution of Virginia was objected to by Mr.
RANDOLPH. A friend remarked to him that the
alteration intended was but a slight one, " A rat-
hole might let in the ocean" was his reply. If Lord
done Rtteseet intends to try the experiment, and

keep his eilaninespen until the waters flow in, good
and well; if he ilsolgiss his measure as a seton, which
will not be closed until all the bed humours of the
constitutional system are drained off, we wish all suc-
cess to him as a political peestitioner. lint if his
purpose be otherwise, if he take his stand upon this
measure as the limit of concession, it will be but the
signal for the surging tide of public opinion to throw
him and hie cabinet, like scum, upon the boob.

FRANC E.
PARIS, THURSDAY, 1110 A.M.

My despatches of last evening anticipated almost
everything of importance contained in the journals of
this morning. The proceedings of the Executive
Commission yesterday, the ministers and their par-
liamentary supporters, of which I informed you,
are the subject of general comment. It appears
that much vacillation was manifested by the go-
vernment as to the course it should adopt, in con-
sequence of the vote of the assembly admitting
Prince Louis Iluonaparte, and surrrounding that per-
sonage with the inviolability of a representaiee.
After the first meeting in the committee-room, which
I mentioned yesterday, the government came to the
Assembly, and the President announced that M.
Pascal Duprat desired to put some questions to the
members of the government, and proposed that the
debate, of no great intenst then in progress, should
be suspended tor the purpose.
The Assembly, however, perfectly knowing the ob-
jectof the interpolations,resolved that the debate should
not be interrupted, and that the government and its
iends must wait. The cabinet then evacuated the
assembly, and again retired with its friends to the
committee-room, to consider what it was best to do.
ISome thought that they had better do nothing but
keep their places; others proposed to demand a
dire, t vote of confidence ; others proposed a declare-
,ten on the part of tho assembly that the vote ad
miffing Prince Louis did not imply want of confi
deuce in the executive government; others main-
tained that if the executive government really thought
the reeoenition of the character of a representative in
Prince Louis was incompatible with the public tran-
quillity, they ought at once to resign without further
parley.
Before these conflicting opinions the government
hesitated and returned to the Assembly without any
decision. Towards the close of the day M. Pascal
Duprat (as I informed you last evening) postponed
his interpellations to this day. The executive earn-
misslon and the ministers are now holding
another council to deliberate on what they
shall do. The assembly meanwhile seem to regard
their proceedings with supreme irdifferenee, if not
contempt. In the Salle des Pas Pe-clus yesterday
evening a group of representatives were talking of
the threatened resignation of M. Ledru Rollin, when
several or them turned on their heel, crying " Quo
diable l'emporte!"
Inquiries as to who arranged the affair of Mon-
day were so urgently menaced yesterday, that
M. Clement Thomas discharged himself of the
responsibility by producing the written or-
der of M. de Larnartine to beat the rappel.
At the moment when the environs of the assembly
were completely cleared and surrounded by a "cordon
militaire," a dozen drummers were kept under the
open windows of the hall, beating the rappel in a
place where the guards had already been called out.
M. Emilie Thomas, whose t xtraerdinary enleee-
meat " by the order of the Minister of l'ublic Works
will be remembered, after having in vain demanded an
investigation into his coeduct with relation to the
charges preferred against him by the government,
and published in the Mialiteur, has sent a letter to
the public journals, in which, after complaining that
he Should he charged with the heavy responsibility
of the faults and want of skill of sonic men whom he
was " obliged to obey, to that point at least
where conscience, that sovereign law of honest
and honourable men revolts against arbitrary power."
lie say!, " The furietiens I fulfilled 1 nee, pted gratui-
tously because I thought that it was a debt that every
good citizen should pay to his co':ntry. The accusa-
tions of orgies and debauch must fall before the fact
that my mother has Lever quitted the pavilion at
eloececux during all the time that I stayed there,
and that she has constantly presided in the house and
at the table of the ateliers Nationaux." lie then speaks
of the dilapidated condition of the pavilion of Mon-
ceaux, and says that so far from his apartment hav-
ing been decorated with precious pictures and rich
ornaments, he had not a single lomeing•glass ; his
table " was what it should have been, plain and
simple ; all grades of the ateliers ;salaam% con prove
this." Ile thee goes on to refute other charges of
extravagance, and concludes by saying, " 1 intend
soon to publish an account of my conduct of the
ateliers national's, which I am convinced will fully
justify me in the eyes of my fellow-citizens."
The sub-committee of Public Works has proposed
an amendment on the railway project, as follows :
Art. I. Declares that the repurchase is of public utility.
Art. 11. Authorise' the Minister of Finance to carry it into
effect. Alt 111. The repurchase shall be on the (allowing
cowlitions, viz.: Ist Class—The railways of Paris to St.
Germain, to Versatile, (rive droite), Vers-iVes (rive gauche),
Strasburg to Bale, Paris to Orh ans and Corbeil, Rouen,
Rouen and lime, Paris to frontier of Belzium with branches
to St. Quentin, Calais, and Dunkirk, Orleans to Bordeaux,
Orleans and the Centre. The shareholders of these lines
shall be paid after an average of the prices of the shares for
twelve months before the revolution of February, in stock,
at the average price of the same twelve months.-2nd Class :
The railways of Montereau to Trqes, Avignon to
Marseilles, Amiens to Boulogne, Paris to Srasbourg,
Paris to L)ona, Tours to Nantes. The sharehold-
ers of these lines shall be paid on the same
basis, except that the average of the 18 months pre-
ceding the revolution of February shall be taken. The
shareholders who shall not accept tic se terms shall be cone
pelted to refer their claims to arbitration, the amount
awarded being alwa)s payable in stock. The state to have
immediate possession.
In other respects the project is adopted.
The government displays great activity in the in-
vestigation of the " Buonaparte plot." Besides MM.
Layty and De Pors;gny, whose arrest I have already
announced, it is now said that are order has been
issued to arrest Mrs. Eleanor Gordon, an English
lady, known as a friend of Prince Louis, and who
figured in the Boulogne affair.
M. Tremblaire, who conducted a review in the in-
terests of the prince, M. Thomasin, the printer of the
pamphlet of M. Layty, and 1)r. Savesnieres, a French
physician who took part in the Polish struggle of
18:11, have also been ordered to be arrested.
Yesterday morning the walls of Paris were pla-
carded with a profusion of addresses, signed, " Louis
Napoleon Buonaparte," to the electors of the Seine,
the Yonne, the Seethe, and the Charente Inferieure.
They are dated London, June 11, 1818.
The Gazette des Tribanaux states, as I informed
you yesterday, that the Minister of Justice had; on
Monday, sent orders to the procureurs generaux in
France, to search for, and, if found, arrest M. Louis
Buonaparte; but that on Tuesday, after the vote of the
National Assembly, a counter order was sent off.
The 5-sous banquet is postponed to the 14th July,
the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille.
The Commission of the constitution is at length ap-
proaching the termination of its Labours. It has
decided on two points of importance: The magistracy
are to be irremoveable. This was much debated, but
was at last decided on as a guarantee of the independ-
ence of the judges. The " juges de pale" and the
counsellors of tho " cours de cremation " and " des
comptes" are only to be elective: the first by univer-
sal suffrage, the latter by the National Assembly.
The constitution is to be revised by a special as-
sembly, elected by universal suffrage in all France,
every four years. The members of this assembly are
to meet under the title of delegates, and it will be
their duty to render perfect the constitution. It is
said the report of the committee will be made to the
Assembly early next week.

A letter, received with the despatches of our corres-
pondent states that the entire population of Bonlotus
assembled ou the evening of Wednesday, about the
hour that the Folkestone steamer arrives, expecting
that Prince Louis Napoleon would arrive in it, and
prepared to give him an enthusiastic reception. They
were, however, disappointed.

The Madrid mails of the 10th have brought us
des itches from our correspondent. Although that
capital exhibits the external aspect of tranquillity,
revolution is believed to be fermenting there, and
plots against the cabinet and its head are the constant
topic of conversation. The decision which had been
taken to dissolve the contract of the government with
the Bank of St. Ferdinand was revoked.
Our correspondent informs us that the report
hich prevails of the Queen's pregnancy is not so
utterly destitute of foundation as former reports of n
similar nature have been. The evidence on which it

is grounded, may in the opinion of the royal medical
advisers, proceed from other causes; but it is certain
that the Queen herself believes that she is iu that
condition.

--31auat0. ;ear 10.—Thrce per Cents., 211 mei; after 11.1.., 211
cull. 1. Ire per Cents ,13 paper; alter 301.4, 121 tun. Ilaat,e% 3
paper; after Wm, 41 cub. Coupocia,3 cub. Rank of St. F' erdlund,
70 cub ;73 paper. Exchange on London, at 00 dam 11 paper.

The Naples maila of the Bth have brought de-
spatches from our correspondent in that city. A
body of 2,000 troops had been sent into Calabria by
sea, and had landed at Reggio and Pizzo. They
Ibund no sign of any organised insurrection there.
No preparation had yet been made at Naples for the
elections, and the people manifested the greatest
apathy, few taking the trouble to qualify. A body of
gend'armes had landed at Naples, who had
come from the coast near Comenza, aid had been di,
covered by the insurgent population.
Advices from Sicily announce that the French go-
vernment has acknowledged that of Sicily.
The American Commodore Read applied to the
government for permission to winter in the harbour
of Syracuse.