The Express.
London, England, 1853-12-26 00:00:00

TO CORIMSPONDKNTS.

fludded Eddied el ••Tia• Lahr...," ....Lamm' the we
••rhwlV;' ta publ.stved every hues lay odd ►r:d olgta, .0 toot
toe pSM•

lihertroweito in•en•led far Kspefta," Lowlee Eveuor yam,
imust Ge.t tM lam*, IV. Ikniverierinet, ►y TIN uLloot as the
vubacatiurs.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BLIDGE.
Tul. DAT —lllurstng, 146. Aftirrenor., Pre.
Tio.vtakaaw —Norma, li6. pa AtterovuD, I 29111.

LOXDOX, MONDA Y. DECEMBER 26.

ON the tenth day after Lord PALMLE.STON'S resig-
nation, his deserted and disconsolate colleagues we re
•till to seek for a successor eligible in their eyes. His
vacant office had been hawked round the narrow
circle of conventional eligibilities, but n.l of them had
declined the offer. Sir Jsmes GRIIRM was of opi-
nion that the Admiralty was a more congenial berth
for him. Lord Jolts Russet'. bad no desire to en-
cumber himself again with a load of departmental
business. Sir GEORGE GREY had misgivings as to
the reception his appointment might encounter in
public. So many declinatures brought the Coalition
to their wits' end ; only one other possible arrange-
ment seemed to remain to coax Lord PAL.
11E11.41.):s back again. And accordingly his Lord-
ship has had long remonstrative visits in-
flicted upon him by diverse members of the Cabinet,
and his and their friends out of doors have been for
the last few days busy demonstrating—to their own
conviction, if not to that of their hearers—how de-
sirable it is that the noble Viscount should quietly
return to Downing-street, and how perfectly consis-
tent such a termination of the fracas would be with
the dignity and self-respect of all parties coecetned.
If the resignation of the ten days, and ire consequent
hunt for a Home Secretary, is to end, Lie the figure
of a country-dance, with the parties who have been
poussetting, swinging corners, chassiing down the
middle and up again, resuming their places to go
through the sync movements again, we have
nothing to say against it. RUSSELL, PALMERSTON,
and GLADSTONE, is, on the whole, a more palatable
olla-podrida, than DERBY, PALM ER,ToN, and DIS-
RAELI would have been—apparently the only alter.
pative. We have nothing for it but to wait in
trembling but watchful hope till time shall show
whether or not the reconciliation has been purchased
by a sacrifice in whole or in part of the promised
measure of reform. The public, indeed, will make
its remarks if Lord PALMERSTON resume office. A
public separation aid re-union, with the causes of
both shrouded in the mysterious twilight that ever
broods over Dowaing-street, will give rise to as much
damaging conjecture as a similar freak played by a
married couple. Sooner or later the Ministry will
be weakened by the present escapade ; a re-
petition would be fatal, for who could repose
confidence in men who, while occupying highly re-
sponsible offices, quarrel u tout react, then kiss and
become friends again, no one can, but by conjecture,
imagine why or wherefore? All this is obvious—is,
indeed, the current subject of remark wherever two
or three are gathered together. But little is said of
an anomaly in our administrative arrangements,
which ridiculous Ministerial squabbles like these are,
however, fisted to obtrude on public notice. if Lord
Patneestox is sought and won back it will be be-
cause a substitute hu not been found for him ; and
if a substitute has nut been found for him, it is because
the men among whom it is deemed necessary to pick
and choose are so few in number. Now, why is the
rasp of choice so narrow ? Because it is thought
absolutely necessary that in order to be a Minister a
public mac must belong to some one or other of our
half-dozen aristocratical connexions. He must be a son,
nephew, brother of the old revolution houses of BED-
FORD. C verge's'', and Co.; or he must, by wealth or
ability, and along apprenticeilip of unwavering sub-
serviency, have merited adoption into some such clan
Or college. The office of Minister in this country, like
that of Pootifex, Flamen, or Augur, in old Rome, is
practically attainable only by those who by birth or
adoption belong to a narrow circle of families. It is
high time that this servile and conventional
superstition should be put down. It deprives the
country of the services of men who could serve
it well; it encourages in the priv:leged class a cold
and supercilious habit of discouraging and repressing
rising talent; it is continually leading to petty
womanish tea-table scratching', scolding", and re-
own:illations like that which is so confidently antici-
pated in the case of Lord PALMERST,'N. It subjects
the country to ridiculous and emasculated Cabinets.
And the most provoking part of the affair is, that the
Liberal section of the aristocracy, are the greatest
sinners in this respect. From the time when " All
the Talents" were hooted out of office for inefficiency
till 1830, the Whip were kept under by the Tories,
mainly in consequence of the greater readiness of
the latter to open their ranks to receive young
and rising talent. In fact, the Tory party (so
called) of the latter half of the eighteenth and the
first half of the nineteenth century, has been princi-
pally formed of mutineers whom the morgue arislo-
cratique of the great Whig houses had from time
to time driven into the arms of the Court. In the
organisation it has till very lately retained, it was
originally patched up by the coalition between
Gwent 111. and the younger Fin to put down
the coalition between Fox and NORTU. But Pitt
owed in great part the position he attained so early
to his hereditary hold on the connexion which
originated in the discontent of " the Cobham
Cousins" at the way in which they were snub-
bed and kept in minor offices by the Whig levi-
athans of the day. Every allowance being made
for the daring and commanding temper of Pin IL,
his alliance would have been of comparatively little
value to GEORGE 111. but for his hereditary rank
among the GitEVILLF-s and their and his father's
followers. The coalition party which supported the
KING and PITT has ever since been a kind of refuge
for the destitute for ambitious rising politicians, who
were, or feared to be, kept out of employ by Whig
clannishness. CANNINGS, PEELS, CROKERS, and
Roses—orators, steady plausible " men of business,'
unblushing jobbers, all who could be useful,
were received with open arms by the Tories; while
the Whig leaders kept scowling upon
every volunteer recruit as a new rival for offices in
expectancy. A deviation from the traditionary
policy of the party led to their lesion with the Can-
ningite seceders from the Tory camp, and ultimately
to the Whig accession to office in le3o. A repeti-
tion of this violation of the hereditary practice of the
party has lately renewed the lease of their political
life by the coalition with the Peelite seceders from
the Tory camp. But unluckily these new recruits
have been trained in the school of a man ae jealously
bent upon being the one great statesman of his party
as Sir .....141,DERT WALPOLE (to whom. by the
way, he bore some resemblance in other
points), and are of course almost as little
disposed to open their ranks to new men ns the
Whigs themselves. hence it comes that we find the
Coalition Ministry, like the Whig Ministry, when a
vacancy occurs, running the round of a few place-
men who are conventionally regerded as the only
t,igib:e candidate, for office, and if an arrangement
cannot be made with them, giving it up in despair.
And yet out of the official circles you will not meet
with half-a-dozen men who do not believe—who do
not know—that, to use a homely proverb, "there are
as good fish in the sea as ever came out

of it ;" that take any dozen of Parliament
men at random, it is odds but you get as
efficient a Cabinet as can be manufactured out of
those who are assumed to monopolise all " official
aptitude" for these high posts. Look at the DERBY
Ministry. A more hopeless collection of i texpe-
' rienced men than the party out of which its officials
had to be culled cannot well be imagined. Yet from
' sheer necessity, the Aristocracy standing aloof, Lord
DERBY was obliged to dispose of the greater part of
his high offices to commoners, and all the world
wondered how respectably the least promising
of them acquitted themselves. Assuredly the
great Duke—the descendant and representative
lof the illustrious family of SMITUSON—was
the worst failure of the batch. Now, if Lord
DERBY, as the leader of the collective toryism and
narrow-mindedness of politics, gained so much by a
compulsory extension of the range of aspirants to
office, what might not the leaders of the party to
which the intelligence of the nation naturally in-
clines, hope to effect, by voluntarily following his
example ? Would Mr. Firzitov, Lord PALMERSTON'S
deputy (we purposely select for an example a steady-
going working member, little, if at all, elevated
above common-place), make • much less efficient
Home Secretary than Lord PALMERSTON ? And
yet the hereditary superstition which limits the
choice of Ministers forbids his being thought of, or
any public man of his standing. And, so Cabinets
boggle and boggle, as the Aberdeenitea have been
doing these ten days, only, it would seem, to get out
of a difficulty by coaxing back a man they had
rejected. What does this prove? Their selfishness
I first, their lolly next, and their weakness above all.

COILS are frightfully dear and—How can they be
cheapened? becomes as interesting question. Lower
freights would be one step towards cheaper coals.
Ministers intend (so Rumour says) to propose to Par-
liament the opening of our coasting trade to foreign
chipping. This is a measure we have repeatedly
urged the necessity of; seeing that whilst our
mercantile shipping for the long voyage and for
foreign trade generally is rapidly increasing, no con-
siderable augmentation of coasters is concurrently in
preparation. Any and every addition to our present
means of transport coastwise will therefore be wel-
come. It is indeed quite possible that such
a measure may not at first add very largely to
those means, and there is no fear of the
coasting trade of the greatest of all maritime
nations getting permanently into any other hands
than those of its own people. But, without antici-
pating a great influx of foreign vessels to our coast-
ing fleet as a consequence of opening the trade, it
may reasonably be expected to have a very consi-
derable effect in improving the efficiency of our own
coasting vessel,.. and by that improvement our means
of transport will practically be increased. The truth
is, that our coasting trade wants a fillip such as com-
petition
only can give it. At present it is a monopoly,
and the pressure of a little rivalry will in all pro-
bability quicken speed in loading and discharging,
and navigating our coasters, improve the seaman-
like qualities of their skippers, and promote subordi-
nation and good conduct amongst the men. Perhaps
it will also tend to a more general use of the screw
propeller, au end very much to be desiderated.
With the best coals now selling in the Coal
Exchange at 325. and even 335. a ton, this question
of the coasting trade is a matter of very great im-
portance to London and its millions, for never, we
believe, were stocks either in private houses or on the
retail merchants' wharves so low as they are now. In
June last the quotations had fallen to Ids., and as
the highest point reached in the previous winter was
only 225., and the price of fuel had for two years
before been unusually moderate, people generally
I were persuaded that coal would remain permanently
cheap..' Stocks consequently I‘ere not renewed, and
11 here, at the commencement of a severe winter, coal is
selling for almost as much as when, some forty
years ago, it was charged with 71. 6d. a ton duty. In
1813 the price of coals, charged with that duty,
was 445. a ton ; and in 1830, when it still had a
duty of some 4s. to encounter, it was only
275. 6d. a ton; yet here in 1833 it is quoted, all
Government duty having long since been repealed,
at 34e. Having had coals at 14s. in both March,
1830 and 1851, and at only 6d. a ton more in March, 11
1832, and having seen them at 15s. in the summer of
this year, we may well shiver at the present cost of
fuel.

The consumption dead in London during the last
twenty years hu gone on very rapidly increasing,
and that without much reference to prices; until
now, in 1833, we nee just double the quantity we
did in the year 1833, u a tabular statement in
another column shows.

In the present year 18.53, our consumption of
coals will have reached 4,000,000 tons, of which
probably railways and canals will have brought
upwards of 600,000 tons. The ratio of increased con-
sumption is greater than the ratio of increased popu-
lation; for during the last twenty years it has
certainly not doubled itself, and the increased con-
veyance of coals by rail has, there can be little
doubt, diminished the area supplied through London,
many districts being now served direct instead of
from the Thames. With consumption increasing at
this rate, even in spite of prices now quite doubled,
it is satisfactory to observe that metropolitan de-
pendence on the North of England and on shipping
as a means of transport is somewhat dimi-
nishing; though as yet the amount of coals
brought by railway and canal has had no effect on
the value of sea-borne coal. On the other hand, it
must be recollected, that the question whether railways
can permanently carry coal at a profit is yet node-
cided ; for though it is true present high prices give
them a profit, and a large profit, those prices, it is to
be hoped, are only accidental; and the effect of the
wear•and tear of coal traffic on railways has to be
ascertained. Nor can it be overlooked that, if rail-
ways are largely to increase their coal transport, the
number of their rails must either be increased, or the
traffic will fearfully augment the dangers of rsilwey
travelling.
Within the last twenty years the coal trade in the
north has undergone a perfect revolution. The Tyne
has ceased to retain its "coaly " pte-eminence ; many
of the collieries famous in its history have been given
up, some exhausted, others unremunerative ; and the
Wear and the Tees have become much more impor- '
tent rivers. The discovery of coal beneath the mag-
nesian limestone led to the working of much larger
mines as well as to the production of much superior
fuel, and by means of railways from the Tees a great
inland district has been opened up in Auckland,
previously a very poor and worthless district. In
that period, too, a class of middlemen who bought
from the collieries, and bold in London, has been done
away with, and coals are now almost invariably sent
south for the account of the various collieries; and so
the only charges between them and the retail mar••
chants are factorage and the abominable City Tax.
Whilst, however, the capacity of Durham to supply
coals has been greatly developed within that period,
new sources of demand have opened on it, in the enor-
mous extension of cur steam fleet, in the coke re-
quire(' for railway locomotion, and other mechanical
purposes, and in the growing demand for British coal
in foreign countries. The example of France seems
likely to he followed by Belgium, and perhaps by
Germany also ; and though, owing to the obstruc-
tions created by an absurd system of retail trade

THE EXPRESS, MONDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 26, 1853.

in Paris particularly, the recent change in the
French tariff may not greatly increase French con-
sumptiou of our best household coal, it will lead to a
I very great demand for manufacturing coal for the
purpose of supplying France with British iron. That
change will, it is said, create a demand for some
600,000 or 800,000 tons of our iron annually, and as,
; on an average, it takes three tons of coal to make a ton
lof iron, the effect on our coal trade most be very
considerable. Moreover, on the Yorkshire side of the
estuary of the Tees a new and most important iron
field is being worked, situate near • small port,
which a few years ago was created because of the
difficulties of navigating that river up to
its old capital Stockton, at a spot called
Middlesborough, where there is now a rising town
with docks, railways, and an important trade, on
what, twenty years ago, was a beach, or little more
than a fishing village. Middlesborough is in truth
the marvel of the north of England. Ironstone,
worth ten years ago Is. ad. or 2s. a ton royalty, is
now doubled or trebled in value; small needy pro-
prietors have suddenly (to their own great surprise)
become rich men; furnaces are rising up right and
left ; and there are people who deliberately enter-
tain the opinion that instead of Middlesborough ex-
porting its 10,000 tons of coal a year, in not many
years it will be obliged to import coal to supply its
iron works. Time of course alone can show how
this will be; but there can be little doubt that the
manufacture of Middlesborough iron will have some
effect on the London coal market, by increasing local
consuar„ition.

There is, however, abundance of fuel in England
to give us a cheap supply; and nothing will more
tend to reduce present prices than increasing the
means of transport, and reducing the enormous coal
freights now obtained. So if Ministers really do
intend to ask Parliament to throw open our coasting
trade, they will do a very sensible thing, and one
that London, as well as the Coal Trade, will be very
grateful fur.

THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY.

There are so many pleas in support of the demand
made by different classes of etnp/oyJs for a holiday
to-day, and they have operated with such success,
that in many quarters the holiday will be general.
The Bank of England and the Inland Revenue
Offices and other similar places, which cannot be
positively closed, will be closed to-day as much as
possible. The wharves and docks will transact no
business. The closing will be general in the princi-
pal streets. The Custom-house will be shut up. The
Post•ofce will merely perform those offices which it
usually performs on Christmas•day. Lord Palmer-
ston's refusal to allow the holiday to be extended
to the offices in his department will thus probably
occasion less real cause for dissatisfaction than would

have been the case had such a refusal taken place in
other divisions of public life.
It is a promising sign of the times that the de-
mand made for a boon to the labourers come in the
shape of a request for a holiday, and not I
for a mere gratuity. We can all. remember
something of the way in which gratuities
to labourers of most classes were spent formerly.
They were used for the purpose of mere selfish and
sensual debauchery. The pour-boire of the continent,
and the " drink your health your honour " of the
British or Irish labourer, showed clearly enough by
the very form of expression the intended destination
of the required gratuities. We have not quite
emerged from the state of society which this indi-
cates. We believe however that servants and
labourers are coming to the conviction that a better
reward for services may be found than a possibility
of getting drunk. We can tend a man to a better
elysium than a pothouse. It is a fact that year by
year the numbers who devote a holiday to purposes
of rational recreation and amusement increase in a
greater ratio than that of the increase of population.
Freedom of admission to public institutions has been
gradually extended. The working classes, by
means of cheap literature, have rendered them-
selves more capable of finding amusements
than formerly. A taste for scenery and
for those sciences that may be cultivated
in the open air has developed itself. For
merly a working man out on a holiday would take a
certain road, because it led to a particular alehouse.
It is an even chance now that he will direct his
course along it, because it leads to a good view, or
because it gives him facilities for gratifying a taste
for fresh air or something equally commendable,
which a cheap literature has brought out in him.
He can now walk into museums, and be
furnished, at a cheap rate, with catalogues
and explanation of their contents. There are
numerous means opened to him of knowiog some-
thing more of the world than when he had no other
idea of amusement than looking at it with eyes
muddled with porter through an atmosphere thick-
coed with tobacco smoke. Next year these facilities
will be marvellously increased. It is difficult
to calculate what will be the effect of the
opening of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham
on the character of the labouring classes.
They will have instruction and amusement presented
to them in their most agreeable shapes. Half an hour
spent in the building may give them a better idea of
geology than they could have acquired by a year's
study from books without examples. The same with
other sciences. The vast majority of them will
indeed never become philosophers, but they may
become cognisant of the matters of which philosophy
treats, and thus acquire tastes which may go
far to wean them from, or prevent their ever
falling into, degrading habits. It becomes a Buty
then, to advocate a holiday, when the classes who
will enjoy it have so many better modes of employ-
ing it than formerly, and when those modes are on
the increase. The augmented intelligence of these
classes is our best warrant for the probable good
effects of a slight cessation from toil, and increased,
facility of rational recreation—and we may look for-
ward hopefully to a period when a holiday will be
reckoned a certain means of national culture.

CHRISTMAS DAY.

(Berm the Examiner.)

Christmas-day, we hope, will find all Englishmen
in the usual good humour to morrow. Pudding is dearer
than we could desire—so is the Christmas fire—but there is
wherewithal to make holiday heirs.. And since this
greatest of our festivals happens this year to fall on a Sun-
day, men of business throughout the land, with almost per-
fect unanimity, have agreed that those whom they employ
shall not be deprived of the additional most welcome day of
rest which Christmas usually furnishes. We are all to
a►stain from work by mutual consent next Monday.
There is an exception, as might have been expected, but
it comes from an unexpected quarter. To a request that
the government offices might on that day be closed, we see
with regret a reply from Lord Palmerston which would
certainly have been more appropriate in the mouths of the
Glasgow Presbytery. Government, says in substance the
late Home Minister, allows a holiday en Christmas-day
only in order that the clerks may sit under their respective
religions ministers, and as they will all be able to do that in
the usual course on Sunday, he can see no need for an
extra day of relaxation. The army of Downing-street is
therefore to keep Christmas as the gentlemen of Seance
break their fast, in memory of the day when Gargaatua
was there, and all the breakfast his mare got was but
a little yawniag and gaping. We repeat that we are
carry for it.

The performance of religious duties ought truly to form
I the chief part of our Christmas celebration. But happily
we do not confine ounelves at this season to the mere cere-
monies of religion. It is Christmas for us out of the church
doors, and beyond the shadow of the pulpit. We keep it
las a yearly feast of mutual kindness and good will, which
sends its influence far on into succeeding months. Our
custom being so, we did not aspect that government, and of
sll men Lord Palmerston, would object to recognise and
sanction that general national feeling.
Christmas-day itself, however, we all have. Its beef,
its pudding, its good humour, and above all its gossip, will
not fail us. If Lord Palmerston has annoyed some of us
by the denial of one privilege, he has obliged all of us with
another, in giving us plenty to talk about. For three suc-
cessive December frosts Lord Palmerston has been doing
his best to crack and split up cabinets. He is becoming
one of the institutions of the season. In a year or two he
will take his regular place in our almanacks side by ride
with lunar and other changes. Against some den or other
in December there will have to be chronicled a Transit of
Palmerston.

Not at all cheerful is the other Christmas topic that will
be rife at tomorrow's tables. The prospect of war has just
now a dread interest, such as might belong to a ghost story
or a fireside tale of peril. Yet no doubt the best will be
made of it. Certain is it at least that an immense number
of bad jokes will be made cat of the connexion which the
wits of families will detect between Turkey the country and
Turkey the bird, aed the worst of these jokes will lime a
reception given only to the bat at other times. For the be.
ginning and end of an English Christmas is good humour,
and the strong desire of every man to please and help those
who surround him. No season ever was kept holy in a
truer way than this. There never was conceived a better,
and in good truth we may say a sublimer way, of giving
forte to a religious celebration, than the custom we have 01
consecrating Christmas as the season when, in all of us, if
at any time,

AU genetoui feelings flourish and rejoice,
Forbearance, charity indeed and thought,
And resolution competent to take
Out of the bosom of simplicity
All that her holy customs recommend.

Even in our holly and oar Cllfiltalli cheer there it some-
thing sacred, as we so interpret them. Particular customs
of Christmas may have been dropped in modern days, but
manifestly, we think, the really wholesome spirit of the sea-
son has of late years gained in strength. May it so continue,
still strengthening. May we prosper in proportion as we
keep our Christmas heartily and well—enjoying it ourselves
as hospitably as wo may, extending its enjoyment and hos-
pitality where we can, and being now, if ever, charitable
both in act and word.