The Express.
London, England, 1847-07-08 00:00:00

gilt Oporto.

A mall ter the Vella Mita, British Nth& Aietts, &r., will be
mei upon** Illth July, for tramminlas by the steamer
Wailimpteem lattersewl ppm mut be specially
litsdiffeet afeeZriminilmptheue he Mezko, Akaiduras, and
the Mmeimmh. *II he mai No am the mendag at the 17th July.
the midi he Viem Opielm When, Maberm Cadiz, and Gibraltar
will be miter en the itiffsig elle 176 Alp.
The melte Mr IrWi Ark Aumelem Nerweede, and the United
*Om will be We up an the ementwe if the I9th July.
The weeneml mile kr ellrellet lIMPA,Orme, the lonian Islands,
Eints9‘9l.glenllo99.lllWillnerh Mina, rid SOUUltallitol2.
Wink 1114111 he mceuhep et the July.
Thu emetamd elewed math, limeeMee, to the Mediterranean,
=gAdeme 0#7109, 1-"tiat Ran Mmag. die., will be made up on the
a:the Mth July.
The mai ter Mew dsu Weir, Van Diemen's Land, and New
ZeMaithellt be eandle iv ea the emedne of the 3lst July.
The=Msde the Bomb.. the River Plate, Monte Video, Perm.
hop Ilnieke. i Boma Ayres, will be made up on the
alibi 4th Amps/.

TO CORTISPONDENTL
... Mortbmille Maid Ow The isrvas, Immig•• muter rpm ...t M
ai the Olio by Tin We as the Iv of psbilabOr.

MOH WATER AT LORDONAfterros. 4, AIRIDGI.
Tuts DAT—lllaniam I Ws. no 10 =WPM T
ToMossoor —Manias, 17 Mi. paaln. Abram*. 110 WA- poi 11.

LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY 8.

AT the morning sitting of the House of Commons
yesterday, the subjects discussed were the Argyle
Canal bill, on the ground of its being a public not a
private measure, involving, as it did, a grant of public
money; Mr. WALPOLE'S Registration of Voters Bill,
which was postponed ; Sir D. L EVANS'S Parliamen-
tary Electors Bill, the second reading of which was
negatived by a majority of d; and Mr. BODKIN'S
Poor Removal Act Amendment Bill, which was read
a second time. The Lords' amendments to the Ju-
venile Offenders' Bill were dissented from, and six
o'clock having all but arrived, the house adjourned.

ALL parties mast have come to perceive by this
time, that it is not sufficient to have a majority of
dull, mute voters in favour of, or in antagonism to,
any measure or line of policy, proned or dreaded.
The several changes which have affected land and
church, notwithstanding the predominance of these
united interests, ought to teach the general lesson,
that victory, even in a representative system, does
not always follow numbers, and that no conceivable
number of blockheads, however obstinate, can succeed
in upholding a cause that interferes with the wants
and contravenes the growing ideas of the time.
What have hitherto been the tactics and the fate of
ultra-conservative parties? They have elected and
put forth half-a-dozen men of talent and experience,
and given them as followers men with the smallest
possible quantity of these faculties. The consequence
has been the speedy divorce between such leaders and
such followers, the former being reduced to act the
part of hypocrites, and the latter of dupes. How
much better would it have been for both great inte-
rests had they listened to and communed with their
own choice spirits, their naturally leading men, in-
stead of placing all trust in the fools and zealots of
the cause. Indeed, as a general rule, a party
must henceforth be ready to take warning,
that as soon as its official and experienced members
desert a prejudice or a tenet, it is wise for the most
obstinate to came to a compromise. For, assuredly,
what the brains of a party abandon, the blockheadism
can not defend.

The most fatal effects produced to the great con-
servative party in this country have decidedly been
owing to the blindness and backwardness of the uni-
versities in political matters. Looked up to very
foolishly as sanctuaries of worldly as well as of
spiritual wisdom, they have misled a host of
worthy people, accustomed to revere the great
sanctuary of learning. In default of put-
ting the best ideas in the heads of such obedient
children, the universities at least ought to have put
the best arms in their hands. But even this they,
failed to do, handing forth from their clerical ar-
mouries the old rusty weapons of fanaticism, instead
of the new and keen ones of reason and persuasion,
and sending forth their soldiers to combat the demo-
cracy of the nineteenth century with the principles
and prejudices of the sixteenth.
And after all that has passed, after the signal
defeats that ultra-conservative interests have received,
it is marvellous to see how they still endeavoar to mar-
rowthe circle,and with it the means of defence. In par-
liament, indeed, conservative chiefs feel the necessity
of affecting. liberal opinions en every point not touch-
ing. the main one. But the electors of the party, and
their committees, seem to dread even the BENTINCKB
and the DISRAELI& They would have representatives
narrower still—men of a mere shibboleth—,and they
would send such representatives to a seven years'
parliament, merely for the sake of the one point they
are pledged to, utterly unfitted to further and protect
the true interests of those who elect them, or the host
of unforeseen questions which arise.
What do we behold at present ? A large portion
of the middle and mercantile class of England meet and
discuss and resolve to send to parliament men
staunchly opposed to any public favour to the
catholics, or to any other creed than their own, even
though the former be for the furtherance of
general education. This is to be the chief
business and the chief fitness of the representatives
of the middle and mercantile class of the country.
And yet we are now about to select and compose a
parliament, whose first and inevitable duty will be to
re-adjust the financial burdens of the country. A
great measure has been carried in the present parlia-
ment, the repeal of the corn-laws; a great financial
change introduced, the permanency of direct taxa-
tion. This has been in fact the removal of the
two keystones of the arch of an entire system.
They necessitate the reconstruction of the whole
building. The great difficulty and desideratum is to
fix what part each class and each interest shall have
in this reconstruction. The ensuing parliament will
the

treat of questions moat vital to interests, the
pockets, the prospects, the existence of the different
classes of this country. And yet, in the face of this,
we find the most important and numerous of thus
classes not casting one single thought on the dangers
which await them—not making one single effort for
the general struggle—ungirdiog their loins, instead
of girding them, and bent upon sending to represent
their interests in parliament men without any other
quality or thought in the world beyond polemics and
The old party of conservatives has been defeated
and broken, simply from their attachment either to
blockheads who would swallow any pledge, or cun-
ning men who would not scruple to trick them.
There is a new conservative party amongst dissenters
and protestants, which is committing precisely the
same blunder. They are forgetting the true and vital
interests, most exposed to lesion, and directing all
their vigilance towards theological interests, not
seriously menaced at all.
We do not think that any minister or statesman
will stand up to propose the payment of the Roman
Catltolic clergy, or that any minister would propose
giving even the Church et England any increase of

power over educational institutions. Public opinion is
alone a eunicient check in these matters. By therefore
electing members of perhameot exclusively ad hoe,
the middle class of this country are sacrificing their
real interests to imaginary danger. These real and
vital interests cannot fail to come under disciunion,
and when they do, it will require more than the
brainless tail of the " British Lion" faction, or of the
Biloxi,' agitation, to protect and throw the requisite
ligkt upon them.

THE Health of Towns Bill has, after three days'
discussion, dragged one-third of its slow length
through committee. The debate on the first twenty
clauses has elicited nothing beyond proof how little
honourable members know of the measure on which
they are sitting in judgment. The bill seems to get
more and more into tangle as it proceeds. Mr.
WAKLET, who, before the discussion, believed he
knew something of the matter, declares himself
argued into utter darkness. Mr. J. STUART, the
ATTORNEY-GENERAL, and Mr. HENLEY, who came to
the assistance of the house when it was floundering,
Diecoo/4-like. in the 220 sections of the Towns Im-
provement Bill, and the 112 of the Commissioners
Clauses Act, contrived, by their explanations, to
render the imbroglio utterly hopeless. It was well
the house adjourned when it did on Tuesday. The
little divertissement of Mr. HonsoN and Dr. LAY-
COCK came just at the nick of time to cover the
dire confusion of the wind-up of that day's discussion.
We cannot bat have a fellow-feeling formembers in the
glee with which they fasten on a racy bit of person-
ality or the veriest ghost of ajoke, that rises out of the
cloudy war of clauses. But the country, anxious to
see a grave measure gravely handled, will hardly be
as indulgent as the journalist Is the House of Com-
mons a place to which legislators should come to
ascertain what they are deliberating about, or one
to which they ought to bring at least a knowledge of
what the measure is which they are discussing ? It
is very easy to throw the blame on the system of con-
solidation clauses acts. We do not deny there is a
difficulty. It requires something more than a break-
fast-table skimming of three long bills on kindred
subjects to discover exactly how each affects the
others. But the task is by no means one beyond the
powers of commonly disciplined attention and average
industry.
It is not to be denied that this case of the Health
of Towns Bill is one of more than usual intricacy.
In one or two points, to which we propose to refer,
there does seem some discrepancy between the
Towns Improvement Clauses Bill and the measure
'now before the house. But, despite of this, a few
minutes' attention to what it is proposed to do and what
part of that general scheme each bill is directed to,
will,"perhaps, enable our readers, if not our legisla-
tors, to understand what Tuesday's discussion left in
such a very misty indistinctness. The proposed ma-
chinery of sanitary legislation is complex. There
are central commissioners to be appointed. There
are also provisions to be made for electing local com-
missioners. The duties, moreover, of these local
commissioners are to be generally pointed out and
determined.

The Health of Towns Bill, now in committee, pro-
vides for the appointment of central commissioners,
and fixes their powers in relation to the local commis-
sioners or the town councils.

The Commissioners Clauses Act (which is now
law) determines all that is general, as distinct from
what is special, in the constitution and regulation of
the local commissioners; fixing, among other things,
the nature of their election and rotation, the qualifica-
tions of the electors, and the limits of their powers, as
to contracts and legal proceedings.
The Towns Improvement Clauses Bill comprises
the provisions usually contained in acts of parliament
(with improvements suggested by recent inquiries) for
paving, draining, cleansing, lighting, watching, and
improving towns and populous districts.
Thus the three measures form a whole, relating to
the general subject of the sanitary improvement of
towns. The measure now in committee is the com-
plement of the two others, fixing, as it does, the cen-
tral authority, which is to see to, and aid in (when
necessary), the execution of the duties generally stated
in the Town Improvements Bill, by the local officers
appointed according to the conditions of the Commie,
aioners Clauses Act.

Infinite space is saved, and infinite trouble avoided,
by the preparation of these general acts, which are
to be incorporated with each other, and with
the special acts for the improvement of particular
towns. However intricate the mutual relations of
the three measures may appear in the hands of mem-
bers imperfectly acquainted with all of them, we are
not apprehensive that any serious difficulty will arise
in carrying out their provisions in practice. We
would, however, qualify this assertion in one or two
particulars—those, especially, which relate to the ap-
pointment of health officers. The 11th section
of the Towns Improvement Act enacts that
the local commissioners or town council shall
appoint a health officer with certain duties. The
`2sth section of the Health of Towns Bill enacts that
the central commissioners shall " from time to time
appoint so many physicians or surgeons of skill and
experience as they shall think necessary, to be officers
of health for the several towns in which this act shall
be in force, and no other officer of health shall be ap-
pointed for any such town." By the same clause, the
central commissioners are to fix the salary of this
officer, which was by the other measure left to the
local commissioners, subject to approval of the central
authority.
This appears clumsy. One act nullifies the other,
in all cases, except that of towns exempt from the
operation of the Health of Towns Bill, which will
embrace all towns brought under it by an order in
council, as all places of auy importance will soon be.
Save in this particular, we do not detect any incon-
sistency, or even apparent inconsistency, between
these three acts. The general outcry of bewildered
members that they do not understand what this or
that particular clause is to effect, or how this or that
provision of one measure is or may be af-
fected by this or that provision of another,
clearly proves that the complainants do not see their
way, but by no means implies that those to whom
must fall the execution of the measures, will be in the
same predicament. The only objection which sug-
gests itself to the bill now in committee is ene dia-
metrically opposed to all that have generally been
urged against it. It confers on the central com-
missioners no sufficiently stringent authority to com-
pel lazy or refractory local bodies to carry out the
sanitary measures which may be necessary in the
opinion of the central authority. Their inspector has
power to compel evidence, but they can do nothing
to enforce local action in consequence. This may
show, inter Olin, how little reason exists for the cry
that the bill supersedes all self-government It is
only at the request of the local authorities that the
central body can lend its aid in the preparation of
plans for new works, or alteration of old ones.
The measure as it stands appears, on a careful
re-perusal, to err on the side of deficiency, rather than
excess, of central authority. We do not charge this
on it as a positive defect, however : to many it will
be an additional recommendation. But it shows, if
the case be so, what rotten ground has been taken op
by the clamorous opponents of this bill, whose re-
maining clauses will, we trust, make more rapid way
tharoaslh committee than those which have already
P
through that ordeal.

THERE is one proposition of the Wakefield theory
of colonisation which we have never heard called in
question : that to promote emigration to a colony
you must begin in the colony itself—make it at-
tractive. This accomplished, emigration will flow
thither of its own accord. Nothing more is required,
and, if we have understood the ingenious and ori-
ginal author to whose system we have alluded, all
his other proposals—respecting the disposal of waste
lands, application of the proceeds of their sales to
form a fund for affording free passages to labouring
emigrants, &c., &c.—are merely means to this end.
Concurring entirely in the fundamental principle
here expressed, we welcome every movement, either
in any of the colonies or in the mother country, that
promises to render that colony more attractive. And
we are decidedly of opinion that the measures now in
active progress to open a line of railway from the
port of St. Andrew to Woodstock, on the St. John's
river, belong to this category.
The most repulsive feature of new settlements to
emigrants of the middle and upper classes from an
old country is the difficulty of inter-communication.
The resources of a new land can only then be fairly
developed when facilities are afforded for those parts
of it to be first occupied, which, owing to greater
natural fertility or other natural advantages (Dom-