The Express.
London, England, 1848-04-10 00:00:00

movement, got up by the mere itch to be as valiant
and as froward as our neighbours, and to imitate and
follow those, who have never done anything hitherto
but follow us—a misbegotten revolution or riot like
this, the child of vanity—can surely not be cd, onde-
scended to, much less perpetrated or attempteby
Englishmen!
This much to the people of the morement. Those
brigaded for resistance will get counsel from more
competent authorities. But as to the curious and the
anxious, and to the immense majority not enrolled as
constables, or sworn es revolutionists, we should say,
clay at home. Serve the Game of peace and order by
not even approaching a possible scene of turmoil.

Although we do not look for any serious disturb-
ances in the course of the present day, it neverthebest less
may, be useful to advert to the measures, judged
and most advisable by experienced men, who have
studied popular imeutes, for defeating and neutral-
ising their effects in populous cities.
For this purpose, the reader will pardon our re-
verting to the events of the last six months in Paris.
It is well known, that Louts Futures had for a
long time previous to February had notice of an in t
-
tention to excite a popular insurrection, if not agains
himself, at least against his successor at the moment
of his succession and of the demise of the Crown. The
monarch applied, in consequence, to a well-known
veteran officer, :Marshal GERARD, for a plan to prevent
an Itneute. Marshal GERARD drew up one ; and had
it been fully acted on, the KING of the Faerieit would
probably have still been on his throne.
The marshal advised, whenever an inseille was ex-
pected, to occupy the main points of each district with
an armed force of national guards and of troops of the
line, so as to render impossible the raising of a single
barricade. The points were indicated, their modes
of communication one with another specified, so that
Paris would have been covered with an immense net-
work of a force, armed for order, beneath which thetur-
bulent population could not have stirred. In the districts
where the wealthy and the mildie class predomi-
nated, national guards sufficed for the duty. In the
more populous districts, the squares and open spaces
were to be so many camps, the provisions for a supply
of food and ammunition, were to be sufficient for
several days.
The peculiar habits of Londoners, and of an Eng-
lish population, render each precautions unnecessary
and impossible. But the principle is to be marked,
that every district provided for its own defence, that
each citizen looked to the quiet and order of his own
street and his own neighbourhood, and that crowds,
even of the most orderly citizens, were not allowed to
meet or muster, when each might, in his opinion,
deem his presence was wanted.
A mob of people must almost infallibly be defeated,
provided they can be got to attack and to assume the
offensi.e. This was all that BONAPARTE, required.'
Ile managed so in the days of the sections, that the
mob should be the attacking party, he, the general,
standing on his defence. lie therefore finished the
revolution at a blow, by what CARLYLE calls the
" whiff of grape." Later French revolutionists
learned by that lesson, and almost invariably stood
on the defensive, till they had wearied out and de-
moralised the authorities and the troops, and then at
the last moment rushed to triumph. To take from a
mob, therefore, all chance of success, it should be de-
prived
of all chance of getting or maintaining a de-
fensive position. Such was the recommendation of
Marshal GERARD.

THE Provisional Government of France has got an
easy way of dealing with railroad companies or
masters of large establishments. The workmen in
these establishments refuse to work, and refuse to quit,
nay, threaten to destroy. The companies apply to
the government, which answers, that it cannot help
them, and that all it can do is, to take the establish-
ment and its working into their own hands. There is
no replying to such an argument, no resisting
such an injunction. The company of the rail-
road between Paris and Orleans, the most flourishing
in France, has just succumbed to these menaces and
this necessity. The want of order and obedience in
the workmen was rendering the railroad unpro-
fitable. And the workmen, no doubt, behave eo on pur-
pose. They preferred being government employes to
being the day labourers of a company. The com-
pany meted wages by their profits. Government can 11
mete wages by the political and physical support
which strong arms can give, if called upon. Then, in
government employ there is hierarchy, the chance of
rising, the possibility of retiring pensions, of
gaining favour and promotion by other qualities
than industrial capacity or activity. It
easy to see that this system will gain ground, and
that all labour that can become government employ
will soon be so. Such a system renders, of course,
all produce or manufactures for export no longer prac-
tcable, unless the commodities be such as France has '1
the monopoly of producing, such as wines. It, at the
same time, must raise the price of all commodities for
the owner of land, on whom moreover a much
greater proportion of taxation falling by the suppres-
sion of private industry, he must raise the price of his
produce, or produce less. The inevitable result in the
establishment of a strong prohibitive system, of con-
sequent contrabandism, of difficulty of livelihood, de-
preciation of property, and genetal impoverishment, is
too evident.
The Provisional Government is, however, most
anxious to escape these consequences, and fall short
of their lengths. Thus M. Louis BLANC was most
anxious that, whenever any of the great railroads
lapsed to the state, in the way that the Orleans line
has done, he should be allowed to administer it. M.
GARNIEN PAGES, however, put in his claim, for he
too is a convert to communist ideas. The majority of
the Provisional Government has, however, refused to
ive up the newly acquired railroad to either M.
Louis BLANC or M. GARNIER PAGES, but has en-
trusted its working to M. MARIE, Minister of Public

Works.
This modest arrangement was necessitated by the
impossibility of finding funds in any way for the
purchase of the railroad of the company. The lowest
calculation of the sum required for the purchase of
the railroad would be from forty to fifty millions of
rentes at five per cent. And even this would be in-
flicting a loss of fifty per cent. upon the companies,
the five per cents. having been sold at fifty. To
avoid this, as well as the consequence of loading the
public debt of France with another milliard, the go-
vernment have imagined to create a new kind of stock,
to be called boos de chemin de fer, and Lord Nort-
MANDY has been asked his opinion on the subject.
These boos would bear 4 per cent. per annum, hy-
pothecated on the receipts of the railroads.
It would certainly be severe enough upon railroad
proprietors to be assigned a maximum of 4 per cent,
when perhaps some of them had bought shares at
nearly three times the original price (the holders of
Orleans, for example). But there is at least one ad-
vantage in the scheme, which is, that if it fails, and
the country rights, the companies may more easily
get back their property.
It is, indeed, most unlikely that the railroads of
France would vive any profit in the hands of go-
vernment. The necessary consequence of their pas-
sing into the hands of the state would be the raising
the salaries and lowering the tariff. The expense of
traction on the Orleans line had already increased
in
1847 over 1816 from 1 franc 20 centimes to 1 franc
73 centimes per kilometre and per train. If this has
produced more diminished profits, the administration
by the state would soon annihilate them. Such plans
and difficulties if they paralyse the old lines, of coo. se
preclude all idea of new ones. It must be mortify-
ing to France to find the revolution come at a time
when the Germans had almost completed their great
strategic lines, and when France had scarcely com-
menced those destined t.) unite its metropolis with the
Rhone and the Rhine.