The Express.
London, England, 1847-03-04 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 4, 1847.

against the three absolutist courts, and France'
alternating between false friendship and open
enmity
One plain fact dominates our foreign policy at
present; and this is, that we cannot quarrel at the
same time with France and with Russia. To this it
is replied most often, let us be friends with France
and defy Russia. Before wo try this it would be well
to ascertain whether this is possible, or reliable. We
have been dupes of France in one alliance, that re-
specting Spain. Should this encourage us to enter into
another alliance with respect to Russia, in which, was
England to be deceived or sacrificed, the result would
not be merely insult and mortification, but total de-
struction ? Those who propose to us that bold game
must know, that in so playing we stake exislence and

empire.
The question, therefore, is, at this moment espe-
cially, not one for dilettanti. It may, indeed, make a
very pretty libretto for amateur performers to sing
from. For our part, we have no objection to attend
and applaud. The music is excellent, the sentiment
generous and touching, the moral irreproachable, the
corps is one of unrivalled brilliancy and talent; but, in
this season of public distress and curtailed rents, we
cannot afford a box for the season. Besides, there is
not time: we have relief committees, and sanitory
meetings, and mechanics institutes, and ragged
schools, washing•house and lodging-house establish-
ments for the poor. Where are the time and the
money for a Polish opera?
Yet we do not yield to any one in anxious desires for
the restoration of Poland, for the rehabilitation of the
Selavonic race, and fur the establishment of an em-
re in which that race shall predominate and ders
ltrj!
itself. That this must take place, we fet-.1; con in
It is in the nature and the ft,': al of things, in the
growing er:aglitennient of nations, and of the thirst
for independence which grows with it. But,
whilst foreseeing and desiring that great consumma-
tion, we feel, what we have long since declared, that
the restoration of Poland cannot be effected by the
arms, or alliances, or conquests of the west. It is but
just to protest: it is wise and generous to protect the
existence, cherish the hopes, and honour the 'Silt
of that great body of the Poles in exile. But it
more than idle to fill either them or ourselves with
inflated expectations of our arms or our threats being
able to withdraw their country from the gripe of the
three eagles of three puissant empires, all of whose
talons are foxed in the heart of Poland.
The government has done its duty. It has sent a
dignified protest against the absorption of Cracow.
Mr. HUME would have us go further, and enter upon
a diplomatic war with Russia, based on the principle
that all the stipulations of the treaty of Vienna are
broken, and that some 100,0001. paid annually by
England under that treaty to Russia must be withheld,
Now, let us consider a case, in which the treaty of
Vienna was more flagrantly broken than in the case
of Cracow, although it was broken for liberal and
popular advantage. This was the separation of Hol-
land and Belgium. The absorption of Cracow could
not be more displeasing to England and France, than
the severance of Belgium from Holland was to
Russia. That severance was completed by the armies
of France, and the countenance of England. Ituasia
looked on in anger •, bat the Emperor saw, as we
ought to see, that there was no dignified or politic
medium between war and acquiescence. He there-
fore acquiesced in a signal breach of the treaty of
Vienna by the events and the powers of the west, and
that breach was thereby sealed up.
Now, with respect to Cracow, is it not better to
follow the example of Russian policy? If we think
war advisable, and likely to attain the end
of Polish independence, let us declare it. Or
if continued remonstrance, diplomatic bickerings,'
and a refusal to execute on our part the
remaining stipulations of the Treaty of Vienna,
be likely to lead to any good end, let that
course be adopted. But to vent spleen, for the mere
sake of venting spleen, would be puerile ; whilst to
quarrel with Russia, Austria, and Prussia, at a mo-
ment when we can scarcely preserve the form of i
diplomatic intercourse with France, is, if it be any-
thing more than empty words, atter insanity.

Some of the anomalies, in relation to land, which
exist in this country are most striking. A commer-
cial people, whose enterprises eminently require the
most free disposal of all kinds of property, find all the
landed property of the nation fettered by bastard
feudalism, and a system of practical entails which,
effectually puts such property out of the sphere of
commerce. And, as a secondary effect of the same
came, our soil is not half cultivated. Net only Ile
there vast tracts of improvable land now lying Aso.
late wastes, bat three fourths of the land usually eca-
sidered to be in cultivation does net produce one half
the food for man and beast, which, with very mode-
rately good farming, it might be made irs do. While
we have laud demanding only steady quietus of capi-
tal, farmers willing, nay maims, is improve their
fortanes by rural enterprise and capitalists ready to
second that enterprise by the supply of the needful,
capital ; and wlsile the popalatiise is every day press-
ing more and more closely on the means of subsie-1
tome, there are the haughty and ignorant prejudices
of the landowners interposed between the people-an!'
abundance both of food and of employ.
We hear, occasionally, various sentimental whia-
ings by landed gentry over the conditioa of the work-
ing population ; and interference with wages is soma
cases, and potato patches or some other quaskery
in others, are advocated as nostrums. Bat let;
any man of reflecting mind, possessing the eye
of a farmer, go through rural England—let him tee'
our peasantry—a peasantry more energetic than any
in the world—pining on 7a., 9a, or 10s. a week, while
the land requires nothing but the " might that slum•
bets in the peasant's arm." aided by the capital tenant-
farmers are willing to bestow had they secure sod
rational leases, to become doubly and trebly produc-
tive ; and then let him remember that it is the absurd
selfishness of the body of landed proprietors which
alone necessitates the continuance of this moral and
physical wilderness. Will he not set down their
sentimental professions of zeal for the welfare of the
working classes as something worse than error ? And
here let ns remark. in passing, that the most ardent
advocates of factory bills, and such restrictions on
manufacturing labour, found in the ranks of the land-
owners, are those who come from districts which
exhibit most strikingly the effect of the landed system.
Lord ASHLEY, the ten-hours agitation leader, is from
Dersetehire, and his family estates afford the worst
specimea of the worst cultivated county in England.
It is, however, only a question of degree, for the bad
pre-emineeee of Dorsetahire husbandry is rather acci-
dental; three-fourths of the land in England, situation
and opportunities considered, being as disgracefully
ill cultivated as Dorsetahire.
Now, the root of these evils is the system which
permits land to be entailed on an unborn generation ;
and this, as we remarked on a former occasion, is no
less foreign to the principles of our law than it is to
the genius of our industrious people. It is true that
our lairgirers have been ever desirous to fetter the,
disposal of land, and to retain from age to age
that feudalism which the judges, more true to the in-
terests of the community, have, from the earliest pe-
riods, endeavoured to counteract. And a moderate
attention to our nation's history will make this per-
fectly intelligible. The fetters and trammels were
imposed by the Norman conquerors ; the industrial
energy which has striven to defeat or evade such
trammels has been, and is, Anglo-Saxon. Until a
comparatively modem period our legislators have re-
presented the Norman, oar judges the Anglo-Saxon
race. Hence has arisen mach of the complication
and difficulty of our law of real property. We shall
not carry back our readers into the learning of early
entails, or show how the judges, by holding that
when the possessor of an entailed estate had com-
plied with the condition of having issue, he
became master of the property • or how the '
legislature met that by direct enactment- We
shall simply remind them that by a resolution laid
down by the judges in SHELLEY'S case, where property
was given, in the then usual form, to a man for life,
with remainder to his heirs, or to the heirs of his body,
or his issue, such words were to be deemed words of
limitation and not words of purchase. The effect was
to make the tenant for life, by force of the superadded
limitation, tenant in fee or in tail as the case might
be ; as a tenant in tail could, by means of a ficti-
tious suit (invented by the judges to bar entails),
acquire the absolute ownership, this had the practical
operation of destroying entails. Then the limitations
were altered from the " heir," or " heir of the body "
to the "first sou," or the "children," and these words
being deemed words of purchase, that is implying a
direct gift to "sons" or "children," as persons
named, enabled the landowners to escape the former
decision and establish the present system of entails.

Yet it is now a legal maxim that " the law abhors
a perpetuity ;" and, by force of judicial decision alone,
the law is firmly established that land cannot be
settled on mote than one unborn generation. If more
is attempted, the whole is void. But the permission to
settle property on one unborn generation, has practically
nearly all the evils of unlimited power to entail.
Nothing can be done by way of settlement on a mar-
riage to secure to the unborn children of that marriage
the succession to the property, and, at the same time,
prevent such unborn children disposing of the pro-
perty when they shall succeed to it. And such chil-
dren, or, in the more common case, such eldest son,
by steadily refusing to deal with the property during
the parent's lifetime, must, if surviving the parent,
`be entitled to the absolute ownership. But, in fact,
there are various motives which induce eldest eons, as
soon as they come of age, to concur with their fathers
in resettling the estate, to render it inalienable for
another unborn generation ; and so, from age to age,
unless some accidental circumstance happens, the estate
continues in settlement, producing the least possible
benefit to its possessors or the public. No imaginable
advantage is gained to any one, but a morbid gratifi-
cation of family pride or individual vanity. For
persons, who have themselves acquired great wealth,
are often as anxious to perpetuate their name, and
to found a family, as the descendant of a long
line of ancestral landowners is to perpetuate
his family. Of this, the Thellusson case affords a
remarkable example, and it produced an act of par-
liament, in accordance with the true spirit of our law,
to limit the period during which property may be
accumulated. What is now required is the applica-
tion or the same principle to entails. The will of
PETER THELLUSSON, a man who made a great deal of
money by buying up the jewels of the distressed
French emigrants at the time of the revolution,
limited his property, so that the income should be ac-
oumulated for so long a time as by law property could
be rendered inalienable; that is, for any number of
lives in being, and until some one then unborn child
should attain twenty-one. The method he adopted
was to direct accumulation during the lives of all his
children and grandchildren, and of such of his grand-
children who might be born during his own life, and
after the death of the survivor of all those persons, to
convey the property in portions to the eldest male
lineal descendants of his sons ; and in order to pre-
vent the accumulation being stopped, he gave the
property ultimately, in case of failure of issue of his
sons, to the crown. This case was contested ; but the
right to direct accumulation during the same time
for which property can be settled, was established to
be valid in law.' The result, however, was, that the
evils of thus tying up property to accumulate became
so apparent, that an Act of Parliament (39 & 40
Geo. 3, c. 98) was passed, which expressly forbade
accumulation for anylonger period than the life of the
person making the settlement, and the term of twenty-
one years from his death. As a proof of the length
of time be which, under the law, property may
still be settled, though not now accumulated, we may
mention that this man, TuaLLussos, died in July,
1797, and that the first person who is to enjoy the
property under the will is now an infant. N,Ar the
entailment of property, to a great extent, Owes it
out of the reach of enjoyment, and renders it deem-
paratively little utility to the community ; arid differs
in degree only from the settlement for
l. -ecesssulation.
Now it has been wisely thought fit to 'Aerfere to pre-
vent such an excessive accumulation as is obviously',
mischievous; and why should not ti.te evil of etitAi&
be dealt with in the same way ? We Crust that tie
propertymwftlinttlyhisaprkTiestiintedonrebiloldl wte"lllaheier it dues or
deal
the public injury from eritin'A is 'nuking deep ins•
presmon upon the mind of ,be eeetTeueity.

The Paris journals one. the Paris talk of Tuesday
were all about the Guiz• R Nomnanby reconciliation.
We can venture to affirm that most of the state-
ments which have br an circulated respecting the in-
tended ottion of the Ottoman Porte against the re-
gency of rediTans are 'inaccurate. A note has been lately
sent by Prince Mel.ternialt to Count d'Appony, acopy of
which has been delivered to M. Ouizot, in which the
cabinet of Vienna declares that if any offensive mea-
sures should be taken by the Porte against Tunis, and
that there should thence result a misunderstanding be-
tween these towers which are disposed to protect the
regency on the one hand, and England and the Otto'
man government on the other, Austria would employ
every means in her power to prevent a collision from
taking place, leading, as it might do, to a disturbance
of the peace of Europe, and the embroilment of two
great nations who should be instrumental in its main-
tens:sloe. The note contains the further assurance
that Austria will offer her mediation in any difference
• that may arise between England and France.
We have been further assured that the reported
mpedition from Constantinople will not be undertaken.
The report that the Prince de Joinville has de-
parted to Toulon to sail for Tunis is unfounded ; the
object of the prince is to make the cruise which he
usually does at this season of the year.

The journals and correspondence of Madrid of the
25th ult., were received in Paris on Tuesday. Queen
Christina was expected to quit Madrid for Paris on
the Bth.

El Clamor Publico statee, on the information of
persons connected with the royal household, that one
of the objects of the Queen mother in visiting Paris,
is to be present at the acemAchemcni of the Duchess
of Montpenaier, which is expected to take place at the
end of June.

The debate on the address was continued without
I interest in the Chamber.

Advice. continued to be received of Carlist demon-
strations. The town of Guysona was surprised on
the evening of the 16th, by a Carlist band. The gar-
rison were forced to surrender their arms; the town
remaining in the possession of the insurgents from
one until four in the afternoon.

The susceptibility of the Madrid cabinet respecting
the sentiments supposed to be entertained by Eng-
land in regard to the struggle now taking place in
the Peninsula, may be perceived from the following
paragraph, taken from the Heraldo, of the 23th ult.,
a journal which is well known to be the organ of the
government:
If England wishes ito preserve the legitimate influence
which she still exercises is Spain and Portugal, if she wishes
to turn that influence to account, if she wishes the two na-
tions of the Peninsula is feel towards her that gratitude with
which she formerly inspired them, it will be necessary to
dissipate every suspicion of her good faith, to western
us that the British government is incapable of over.
turning the established order of things, and of giviag
support to retrograde ideas now abhorred throughost
the Peninsula.. England must not forget that she has
to deal with two nations whew very reverses have yen.
dared them more jealous of their independents, who are
prepared to defend id at every risk, sad who would seek sup-
port elsewhere if that power turned against diem. She
must not forget the discontent that wee felt in the country
at the words pronounced by a foreign tribune, sad which
seemed to menace us that the claims of a pretender would
find support. If England Aloes not wish to lee the last trace"
of her influence 'snob from the Peninsula—if *beldam' not
wish to see our ports closed against her mercantile reduc-
tions—darn dues not wish to hear curses uttered against her
name, from the Pyrenees to Lisbon, she must cease to en-
courage, by her mictivity, the losensate projects of the
enemies of the thrones of Isabella 11. and of Donna Maria."

Zbe <Spurt.
Her Majesty will hold a Privy Council on Tues-
day next, the flth inst., at Osborne House, Isle of Wight.

ANSWER or H. R. H. THE PRINCE ALBERT TO
TEE SENATE or CANDRIEOII.—. Mr. Vice-Chancellor and
gentlemen of the Senata,—l thank you for the kind terms
in which you have apprised we of the result of the recent
election for the Chancellor,hip of the University of Cam-
bridge. I need scarcely observe, after so recent and public
• deelarativn of my sentiments and feeling. with regard to
my nomination so a candidate for that office, that the pro-
ceedings which have subsequently taken place have been
entirely without my sanction and privity. The intention to
propose me as a candidate was not known to me until a pe-
riod
when the time for the election was at band ; and when
the arrangements for ascertaining the muse of the
University were already completed, I could only have
suspended their program by a peremptory declaration,
that under no eireurastrusees would 1 consent, if
elected, to accept the office of diesueller ; and such •
declaration I did not deem it respeedal ft the University to
make. The election has now tenants& and a majority of
the University, including a very greettaesaber of its mem-
ben most eminent for their servile, le the Charch, to the
University, and to the cause of literature mad science, declared
in hvour of my appointment to the vacant office. It is incum-
bent therefore on me to notify without delay the course
which under these circumstances I shall pursue—l have re-
solved to accept the trust which the University is willing to
coefide to me. In forming this decision I have been in-
fluenced by a respectful deference to the wishes of a majority
of its members, by a great unwillingness to involve the
University in the probable necessity of another contest ; but,
above all, by an earnest hope that through a melons and
impartial discharge of the trust which I undertake, I shall
succeed in establishing a claim on the confidence and good-
will of else whole seadmicil body.