The Express.
London, England, 1847-01-20 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 20, 1847.

which the Premier and his policy were offered up to
appease the anger of the Irish landlords.
Lord STANLEY was by no means so severe. He,
too, was affected with the amiable epidcmy that is in
vogue. He made few reproaches for the failure of
the late legislative measures for Ireland; admitting
that it was a country so impracticable and ex-
traordinary, that to fail in dealing with it was inevi-
table. To throw away one session in providing for
Irish evils, and have to begin another do awl. with
Irish remedies, was something co natural and inevi-
table to a man of Lord STANLEY'S experience, that
he forgave it. He would not indulge in one ungracious
remark, much less in a hostile amendment. The only
exception we shall refer to by and bye.
Then, if we adjourn from the Ilouse of Lords to
the House of Commons, we find Mr. SMITH O'BRIEN.
that speei il organ of Irish grievances, " roaring'.
with unwonted gentleness. Instead of denouncing
the Whigs, and proclaiming his mistrust of them, Mr.
SMITH O'BRIEN avowed his preference of them to
all parties in the state. They had done wrong,
but the wrong was venial. Neither did the honour-
able gentleman show any of his old inveteracy to the
Saxon. When he spoke of the Union, as a thing of
which the whole burden fell upon Ireland, and the
whole profit and enjoyment to England, the assertion
excited a loud laugh, which might have stirred the
bile of a Milesian. But Mr. O'BRIEN bore it like an

angel.
Nor was Lord GEORGE BENTINCE less Wbonnaire.
He expressed a parental fondness for the govern-
ment, and having had some share in putting the
reins of Irish government into their hands, he would
not severely criticise the mode in which they used
them. His anger, like Lord STANLEY'S, was reserved
for the millers and for Lord PaLatEßwroN, who seem
likely to be the scapegoats of Irish ill and foreign en-
mity. Even the four shilling duty was flung overboard
by Lord GEORGE, as much as by Lord BROUGRAII.
'the former declared he had been no party to any
compact, and he denied the existence of any " settle-
ment ;' so that, really, what excuse ministers can
have for only suspending what they might abrogate,
does not appear. As to scarcity, we may consider
that it has fixed itself in Ireland, inevitably, for more
than one season. And if merchants in corn are to be
induced to supply it, they must be released, at once
and tbr ever, from the uncertainties of a sliding-scale.
To return, however, to the speech of the night, or
at least of that early portion of the debates on which
we have an opportunity of commenting, Lord STAN-
LEY did indulge in a fence at ministers. He accused
them of being far too much wedded to political eco-
nomy. The ministry, to which Lord STANLEY had
lately belonged, was far above such strait-laced
principles. Where there was famine, thither they
sent corn to be sold, and thousands of letters of con-
gratulation showered upon them in return for having
forced the merchants and forestallers of grain to bring
their hoards to market at a cheaper rate.
Lord STANLEY gloried in this triumph over the
corn-merchant. And he is echoed by S. O'BRIEN,
and, indeed, by most of the Irish journals, who use
pretty much the same language prevalent in France
in the famine of the great revolution, against millers
and factors, whose stores were broken up, and them-
selves hoisted up to lamp-posts. The French gentle-
men, who hanged the millers, had an equal contempt
with Lord STANLEY for political economy, and his
reasonings are precisely theirs.
We must leave these preposterous doctrines of Lord
STANLEY to the able replies of Lord LANSDOWNE, and
Mr. LABOUCIIERE who refuted them in the Lower
House. The PEEL Cabinet had to deal, in 1845, with
distress of far less magnitude than at present. And
yet, even their interference with trade in that year
would have annihilated it in 1846, had not govern-
ment entered into public engagements which it would
have been most impolitic as well as unjust to break.
But, indeed, we do not wonder at Lord STANLEY'S
abstinence from reproach to the government, from mo-
dest feeling, when we consider his own recommenda-
tion towards the close of his set and studied speech.
His nostrum for Ireland is the introduction of capital,
and the consequent compulsion of Irishmen to live by '
wages, not land. Very desirable, indeed: but as a'
practical recommendation in the present state of Ire-
land, it is a mere mouthful of moonshine. if the pro-
tectionist chief have nothing beyond this to suggest,
he is wise indeed in not objecting to the burden of
relieving the existing difficulties still resting on the
shoulders of a liberal ministry.
The debate on the address having closed in both
houses, we must reserve our comments on Lord JouN
RUSSELL'S, and the concluding speeches, for to-
morrow.

A CIRCUMSTANCE that excited very little attention
at Westminster, but which would have been an awful
affair in Paris, was the absence of the ambassadors of
the Three Eastern Courts from the ceremony of open-
ing parliament. Count ST. AULAIRE was there
mingling his red riband with the blue ribands of our
grandees, a proof that our quarrels with France are
mere quercllea de 'anew, and that the two countries
are forcibly driven together by enmile of a more
serious kind.
Our Queen's speech, indeed, touched as lightly as
could be done, on the matter of the Spanish marriages.
It could not approve, but it refused to blame ; whilst
the sentence upon Cracow was decidedly condem-
natory.
The Spanish marriages occupied as small a share
of the debate, as of the speech. Lord STANLEY alone
thought fit to infringe upon a subject, of which it
required ample and uncurtailed information to judge.
Yet we cannot say that we differ much from Lord
STANLEY'S views. He refused to adopt Lord
PALMERSTON'S interpretation of the treaty of
Utrecht; and few, -we believe, will be found to
support it. Lord STANLEY admitted the manner of
bringing about the marriage to be a " slight and a
discourtesy" to England. And these terms become
more strong, by his lordship applying the self-same
ones to the absorption of Cracow, an act of something
more than discourtesy, one should think.
Lord BROUGHAM'S and Lord GEORGE BENTINCR'S
views of the marriages are singular and convenient.
In the opinion of both these statesmen, the English
public do not care or know a button about these mar-
riages ; and, consequently, parliament need not care
for them. This is, certainly, a new and easy road to
atatemanship : viz., to care for nothing, discuss and
examine nothing, that the people at large are not
fully cognisant of and interested in.
If such be the rule of policy, what a dreadful mis-
take was our interfering in China, or opening its
trade? How monstrously absurd are our sympathies
for Mexico ; our jealousy of Nepaul ; or our
quarrels with the Sikhs ! What care the ma-
jority of the English public for these things ?
'What did the mass of the English people care for the
revolution of 1688 ? Was not the mass of the English
people indifferent, or worse than indifferent, to the
succession and the
_prevalence of the House of
Hanover? If Lord BROUGHAM and Lord GEORGE
BENTINCK insist, that nothing but what interests the
mass of the English people should be debated in parlia-
ment, then they must begin with themselves, contract
their speeches, and suppress their motions ; for the
people of England care lea and know less about the
subject matter of them, than they do about the
Spanish marriages.
The question is not whether the people of England
care about these marriages or not ; but whether they
ought to care about them ; whether these marriages
or their results affect the future interests of England?
At all events, they were supposed by statesmen to do
PO; and they became the subject of negotiation and
of joint action between the governments of France
and England. It is necessary, independent of our
interests or hopes in Spain, to know how we stand
with France, how we have been treated by
France. We must know whether France has
behaved perfidiously or not. Perhaps we wrong
her. if so, let the matter be examined, and set
right. Let our suspicions be removed, if possible.
If they cannot be removed, and if they be proved to
be founded, let us place our future alliance and pro-
ceedings on other bases. For an alliance cannot
continue, wherein one party is not only duped, but
consents to be duped. If friendship is to be pre-
served between individuals or countries, it may be
preserved by mutual tolerance, hut not by slurring
over mutual acts of treachery.

A c %SE of no great importance in itself, but curious
in respect of the coincidence that brought it under the
jurisdiction of Alderman GIBb,, and of some conse-
quence as promising ultimately to elicit some infor-
mation respecting the state and prospects of Belgian
railways in general, and of the Great Luxembourg in
particular, was called at the Mansion-house on
IHonday.
Mr. ittsos, solicitor to the Great Luxembourg