The Express.
London, England, 1849-01-23 00:00:00

Witt Grimm.

MAILS.

Ida Ma. Wig Mandl , totheThiedlterrannon. Nutt, Ad
Perm ladle. Hang-hang, &c., will be made up on the sonlaiit
the 24th Jas.
no nulls kr Tine* OpiLlaban, Madeira, Cad* and Gibraltar
will be made op as the .1 the 27th Jot.
The malls tot aim Arasrlaa. woe the VOW Oates,
and be web ego ea deb obedege t the Vilt Jan.
The Nees Ike 14e• death Wake, Yen Dlonan'e LW, and Sew
Weal sral to node no ma the mato at the SW Jaa.
no inde Ito the Wed Omni at Akin mad Madeira will be node
so
eh thoologing at the Jan.
The Wed ladle nal* inelndlei Pornands, Nam, Havanna.
New Orleans. and Mexico, sot excluding these tor
JoisoloOkezents. New Omani; and Pars, will
beards op as the sonsing al the 2nd Feb.
.the loft Itedeths. the Bruit', and Buenas Ayres, will be
seas up en the toeing of tha 4th Feb.
The malls tea Obesity, Melts, Grew" the lonian lolanda, Pgypt.
Adam, Ceyks, Reng.liono, and
Feb
Oa douthamptamOrill
saide:ap co the see al the Idth b.

MOH WATNII AT LONDON BRIDGE
Ts. • DA, —llentis& IS Ws past 1 Aft•mem. Ws. put 1.
To Ne••••—/ilengag..11AO. nu 2 17 .. /111,1

LONDON. TUESDAY, JAN. 23.

Tea enemies of thorough financial reform and re-
trenchment wage a kind of Parthian war. Like the
modern Parthiane, the Sikhs, they one moment make
a determined stand, sacrifice life and character, and
defy facts with irrational audacity, whilst the next
they. are in flight or on their knees crying quarter, or
joining in the very hurrah of their victors.
A week ago the Tunes depicted the entire continent
as in a most alarming state. Revolution' it declared,
was war, and there was no difference between the
two. Mr. COBDEN had alleged that the very con-
to ary of this was the fact, and that European countries
were paralysed by revolution both in finance and
policy, in power and in will, and were thereby pre-
cluded from neditatiog aggression or entertaining
ambition. The news pooh-poohed such distinctions,
characterising them as certainly untrue, and scarcely
honest.

A very few days have elapsed since' and all the
danger has evaporated even from the columns of the
Times. Austria and France, those fierce revolutionary
countries, so lately about to rush to war, are shown
to be bowing to each other courteously, and seeking
to arrange ti Cannabis the internal and intra-
provincial troubles of Italy. Last week, not only was
the name of NAPOLEON BONAPARTE IL formidable
threat, bat we were bidden not to build upon the pa-
cific dispositions of the French people. " They were
small farmers, and no more, who offered no security
against revolution."
Now, however, we are told that the financial con-
dition of France renders a large disarmament in that
quarter an imperious necessity. And the same great
organ, which preached so lately that revolution was
war, has got a bran new theme, and preaches on the
text, that revolution and its armaments are bank-
ruAsptcy.
to Louts NAPOLEON, all fear of him has van-
ished. Even the Times finds him no longer a bugbear,
bat a "marvellously proper man." And we are not
surprised at it, especially when we read in the French
ministerial journal, the Petrie, the following remarks
on the late Manchester meeting, and the speeches de-
livered there by Mr. COBDEN and his colleagues :
Let England reduce her armaments, as Mr. Cobden pro-
pow, and what serious reason could France have to keep
a her rmy on a war-footing ? We will say more ; since
Ragland, applauding the addresses of the champion of the
league, attests her pacific intentions, could we not encourage
her by our example, and by entering at once into the policy
of disarmament ? It belongs to us, Frenchmen, whose war-
like character and Propagandist spirit have so long alarmed
Europe, to offer this salutary example. No doubt our situa-
tion is serious, and we admit the truth of what M. Pony
advanced. But our financial situation is more serious and
menacing than our political state ; and let us consider that
in France, as in England, no serious amelioration can be
hoped as long as the army remains or a waxfooting.
Thus, taking the declarations of that power, and
prince, whom we were bidden most to dread, and
taking the admission even of our own war-fearing
party at home, we may set about disarmament and
retrenchment without being any longer frighted
from the task by foreign spectres of our own raising.
Nor are these foreign obstacles the only ones which
vanish before the testimony of facts. When Mr.
COBDEN proposed his ten millions redaction, he
was forthwith assailed by the cavil that the
revenue of 1848 had produced no sash excess over the
expenditure of 1835, there being a considerable falling
off, which the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, would
have to make good. The reply, laced, was obvious;
as no one could take the returns of 1848 to be in any
way normal or equal to the average products, and
as there could be little doubt that the mere cessation
of depressing causes would restore to the revenues of
1849 the two millions and upwards which the die-
treaties of 1848 had lopped from them. The Times now
admits this ; it permits us to reckon on the revenue
of 1846, which it promises to combine with the
revenue of some preceding year, always setting aside
the naughty and dreaded example of 1835.
It would seem, indeed, from what transpires
in the columns of the Times, and other whig-
tory journals, that it is the intention of govern-
ment, in making some reductions, still to adhere pretty
closely, as far as the naval expenditure is concerned,
to the ideas of Lord AUCKLAND. We feel
confident that parliament will neither sanction so
enormous a force, nor the reasons given for its main-
tenance. Lord AUCKLAND declared 25 ships of war
and 7,000 men indispensable for the Mediterranean.
Now, after what the ministerial journals themselves
tell us of the pacific disposition of France and Aus-
tria, and after the somewhat dreaded question of the
succession to an Egyptian throne has been settled,
without a whisper of discord, what need there can be
of such a permanent force in the Mediterranean would
be difficult to discover.
Another maxim of Lord AUCKLAND was, that al-
though all the originalcat.seswhich led to our maintain-
ing a large naval force in the Pneific' such as the Oregon
difference, had been removed, still we were bound to
keep up a force, as large as, and in proportion to, the
forces of other nations. Thus, the acquisition of San
Francisco, and the gold discoveries of California, with
the passage across the isthmus, will infallibly increase
American government vessels in these seas. And conse-
quently England, which has discovered no gold mines,
and has ceded instead of gaining territories, is never-
theless to go to greater expense on these very so-
counts. Surely parliament will see through the ab-
surdity of such superannuated reasoning.
The obstinac of ROMS is another source of naval
expenditure, which Lord AUCKLAND declared to be
sempiternal ; for the moment that the fleet was
spared from the Rio de la Plata, he declared that it
must continue to be employed in the slave blockade
Brazil.
We do not see how ministers can come before par-
liament with such arguments as these. Did they so,
we should certainly foresee the " financial row"
that the Times threatens us with. We cannot
see any excuse in the present aspect of the
world's affairs for s greater force or greater
expenditure than that of 1835, whilst that immense
source of expenditure, the getting up a steam navy,
may be fairly stopped. Every witness confesses that
the steam navy has reached its utmost rational
development, and that in ships, materials, yards, and
means of building and fitting, the nation is at length
most fully provided. It is the very moment to halt,
to look around us, to weigh the rcqui Temente of a sailing
sad of a steam navy, to inquire into the actual necessity
el a Mediterranean fleet and a squadron of evolutionui
the channel. If all this does not bring our naval
expenditure within fair limits, then the House of
Commons and the ministry will disclose themselves
to the country as expending for expenditure's sake.
Let the same consideration be applied to army and
to ordnance. Let ne adopt the tardy admission even of
the Ames, that colonial corps are beet fitted to defend
and act police for the colonies. Let us cease to
make the Ordnance a job, as a letter in our paper of
to-day so fully shows; even the late augmentation
being merely a trick to create officers and clothing
colonels, instesf being an increase of efficiency and
strength. Let Wrenchment be set about in this deter-
mined way, we shall gain not the one or two millions,
that the limes would have us be contented with, but
the ten, which the commercial classes and their as-
sociations throughout the country insist upon, ;and
which they show not to be unreasonable.

Tan local government of Ceylon and the colonial
administration in Dowsing-street, state the
Araiumcipleg
truth wl
practical
difficult

of that
ita

dent
The
OR

th when they allege that the task of introductog
Leticia good government into Ceylonisan extremely
Resat one. The colonial element in the population
that island extends over oloW portion of
surface, and even whe knposttitutee
ly a minority in the 1 i. wasY to
Bide what kind of .
int and beneficial in r • • ted.
to natives are unqu- 'n
~ ' t
the English model ; ' r• go'