The Express.
London, England, 1848-06-10 00:00:00

The omission is significant; it is demons..___
the badness of the cause of protection, of the unscru-
pulousness of the protectionists. Had the committee
ventured to discuss the condition and prospects of
India they would have shown the rottenness of the
system of protection in all its deformity. For if India
having soil, labour, and capital cannot compete with
Cuba or Brazil without protection, how vain is it to
hope that the West Indies ever can! And how de-
lusive to take a six years protective duty !
A third omission is equally remarkable. The com-
mittee was appointed " to consider whether any and
what measures can be adopted by parliament for their
relief." Now, the single recommendation it has made
—a 10s. protective duty for six years—is not put for-
ward by the report as a measure of relief, but as a
means of " securing time for bringing into operation
the intended measures of relief." But what these in-
tended measures of relief are the committee has not
considered, and the report does not announce. It refers,
indeed, to the labour and vagrancy questions, but it
'eaves them exactly where it found them ; it develops
no plans, Buggers no measures—nay, does not even
press these subjects on the attention of parliament : it
is helpless to benefit the colonies ; it is powerful only
to injure the mother country.
The report is, therefore, like an award which has
not decided on the matters referred to it—void ; it
has only so partially fulfilled the terms of the refer-
ence to the committee that no reliance can or ought
to be placed on its solitary recommendation. It was
upon a full and comprehensive consideration of the
whole sugar question, in all its various and varying
parts, that the legislature resolved that protection to
our tropical possessions should be abandoned. It is
not, therefore, on a partial, halting, and inconsistent
consideration of that protection, that protection will
be revived. The report of the committee is worthless
—useless for all practical purposes ; its recommenda-
tion can only serve the purposes of faction and encou-
rage the clamours of prejudice.
The majority of the committee appear, indeed, to
have been conscious of the defects of the report ; for,
failing in all other arguments, they attempt to create
feelings of alarm. They are, forsooth, apprehensive
that free trade in sugar will produce dear sugar by
diminishing production in our own possessions. Ths
fear is an idle and a selfish one ; it mums that under
the influence of free trade, production in the colonies
must diminish, and that production in foreign coun-
tries will not increase with an augmenting demand;
but for these two monstrous assumptions there is tot
the shadow of a reason assigned. All experience eon- I
tradicts the probability of such a result. Has the
abandonment of cotton cultivation in the West Indies
led to dear cotton ? Rather, was not that aban-
donment the commencement of the era of cheap cotton,
and of the cotton manufacture in Europe? We rely on
the United States for supplies of cotton. Why
should we fear to rely on Brazil, Cuba, Java, Siam,
Manilla, China, and India for sugar, even if the West
Indies ceased to raise a ton ? But will free trade ruin
sugar culture in the West Indies ? No; what will
ruin it, if ruin have to come, are the fears and sense-
less
apprehensions of those interested in the islands—
their fond and foolish reliance on extraneous support
—their want of that indomitable spirit of Saxon
perseverance which succeeds everywhere save where
the former prevalence of slavery has paralysed it.
This is a truth which ought at the present moment
to be proclaimed everywhere and on all occasions.
Since the movement towards the emancipation of
1 English commerce commenced there has not been a
time when it was more necessary to keep this truth
influentially in the public mind. We are in danger
of a retrograde step. The solemn decision of parlia-
ment that the sugar trade shall be thrown free by
degrees in a few years is threatened to be reversed.
An influential public man, who has hitherto been the
most resolute promoter of this reform in our com-
mercial policy, has all at once " turned his back upon
himself," and is now labouriog to undo his own handi-
work—at the risk of breaking up his own party—
with as much stubborn dogmatism as he formerly
refused even to listen to arguments tor delay. Unless
the frcetraders in and out of parliament assume an
urgent and uncompromising attitude the burden of pro-
tected sugar will again be laid upon our backs—faith
will be broken with those who have entered into specu-
lations and contracted large engagements in reliance
on an act of parliament—every tambour-frame-worker
' and washerwoman in the three kingdoms will be
taxed, because the West India planters can neither
persuade their mortgagees in this country to take
more moderate interest nor learn how to induce their
free labourers to work on reasonable terms. Nor will
the evil s'ep here. The re-imposition of a high pro-
tective duty on West Indian sugar for six years will
be made a pretext at the end of that period for
making it perpetual.• The relapse into protection in
the case of sugar will be the signal for a rally to the
protectionists in corn and every other commodity.
And all that we shall have in return will be addi-
tional evidence, in the case of the statesman alluded to,
that obstinate dogmatism is not incompatible with
the most pitiable infirmity of purpose.

GERMANY.

PRUSSIA.— BERLIN, JUNE 7.—The King of
Prussia was meant by nature to be a protestant pope,
or at all events a kind of archbishop of Canterbury
for the dominions of which, by some cross-influence.
be was born to be the king. While the whole of
Prudsia's institutions have their very existence in sus-
pense—while the position of Prussia in the Germanic
nation is doubtful—his mind is taken up with his
crotchet of patching up a Prussian church, somewhat
like the church of England, out of the incompatible
materials of the Lutheran and reformed (Calvinistic)
churches. The creed is to be the orthodoxy expressed
in the language of German mystical metaphysics ; the
Prussian minister at the court of London is to com-
pose the litanies; and the King himself undertakes
the dressing of the clergy. The Preussischer Stoats
Arnieger, of this morning, contains a ministerial re-
script relating to the convocation of an " Evangelical
National Synod."
COLOGNE.—Our correspondent writes as follows
COLOGNE, June 7.
It is generally reported in this city that the salaries of all
state employe's exceeding 500 thalers (about 751.) will be re-
duced 25 per cent. Much distress prevails in this place, and
employment of the most laborious and of the humt.lest kind
is sought for by men who in better times gave constant work
to several individuals. I have had quietly pointed out to me
two or dace labourers engaged in repairing the Rhine dykes,
who had even " sate down at good men's feasts." At Aix-
la-Chapelle, too, it is not uncommon to see still respectably
clad men drawing carts filled with sand. All this is sad-
dening in the extreme, and unfortunately there does not
appear any better prospect for the present. A want of con-
fidence is at the bottom of nearly all the distress which pre-
vails, and confidence can only be restored by the various
governments adopting an honest and straightforward course
of policy, with an unshaken resolution to abide by. and
develop, the popular concessions wrung front them or volun-
tardy made. A contrary course of policy will keep the con-
tinent in excitement sad in agitation for years to come—and
then the grand crisis !
Since the withdrawal of the prohibition on the export of
corn from Russia, great quantities of rye and wheat have ar-
rived at Konigsberg, and have caused a further depression of
prices.
The typhus fever is still raging with intensity in many
parts of Silesia. In the Pleas district alone
thousandstog of child
orphans. Many rich and noble families have fallen victims
to that terrible disease, which was chiefly, if not solely, en-
gendered by the melancholy destitution of the poorer classes,
' another warning to the wealthy, far and near, to bestir
themselves in time in aid of their necessitous fellow-creatures
AUSTRIA.—VIENNA, JUNE 4.—The official journal
of this morning contains a ministerial proclamation
announcing that the constituent assembly for the
empire (consisting of one chamber only) is to meet
in Vienna on the 26th of June ; and giving instructions
respecting the mode of conducting the elections. The
members are to be chosen one for each district of
50,000 inhabitants or thereabouts, by electors appointed
by the voters in each district. Every Austrian citizen
(not labouring under any legal disability) of 24 years
of age is entitled to vote, except labourers for daily
or weekly wages, menial servants, and paupers.
The Danish government has officially declared that
shi sailing under the Austrian flag will not be
molested This declaration has given much satisfac-

tion in Trieste.
Strange to say, the amnesty or rather the great
extension of the amnesty . for the individuals im-
plicated in the insurrection in Gallicia, is blamed by
the liberals for its extreme latitude. In fact, not only
political offenders, but many persons imprisoned for
real crimes, have been liberated by virtue of its pro-
visions ; for example, an officer and two accomplices
in a murder have been amnestied. The Emperor, it
will be seen therefore, has rather overshot the mark,
and passed from one extreme to another.
HAMBURG, JUNE 6.—There have been no further
hostilities between the Germans and the Danes since
the Duppel affair • the Danes are on their islands of
Alsau and Fulln;n, and Um v.ue %;1 war and