The Express.
London, England, 1846-12-14 00:00:00

royal domains of Spain and Brasil to provide for his
children, who otherwise might starve -en the patri-
mony of Orleans. Such are-the evening dreams and
visions of the Tuileries. .
But dresming.apart, the reality of the ease is, that
neither one alliance nor the other is for the present
within reach of the court of France. The moat pro-
found mistrut is entertained towards Louis PHILIPPE
at this present moment in every court of Europe.
There is not one that would trust him, not one to may,
" GOD bless him r not one that durst enter into an
offensive alliance with him. That league between
"France and Russia which is dreamed of, is one for the
occupation of the Rhine and of Savoy by the one, of
Consttinople by the other. These are not the tasks
of add y. They would require years to prepare, to
mature, to conceal, and could only be attempted by a
perfect, intimate understanding. between the two
courts, not for one season, or during one tit of spleen,
but during years.
How could the Czaa, having observed Louis PHI-
LIPPE'S conduct and fidelity to the alliance with
England, trust the fortunes of his house and empire
in an alliance with such a prince ? An alliance with
the French court should resemble a league in the
middle ages, into which all enter fully armed, nume-
rously attended, and all mistrustful of each other.
Regular precautions were then taken against the dagger
and the poison bowl. And even these did not
an
pre-
vent treachery. In our modern days monarchs c
take no such precaution. They must rely on the
honour, and sincerity, and durability of the govern-
ment with which they league, and if they cannot do
this, they must abstain from alliance.
All the vaponrings, therefore, of the Presse aborut
the Russian alliance, all the pettish and visionay
menaces of the same consummation indulged in by
the monarch himself, are idle. Before the French
court and government can effect, before they need
think of any alliance whatever, whether with Eng-
land or with Russia, they must first recover what they
have lost—a character for honesty. For it is flagrant
want of honesty, which at this moment places them in
such a situat ion, that other powers have nothing to hope
or fear from thorn. France is too isolated to threaten
or to make war with effect, and too deservedly min-
trusted for any alliance whatever to be possible. All
that remains, therefore, for the country, or rather for
its government, misrepresented as the country has
been by its government, is to lie by for some time in
that isolation, that locus penitenlie, to which its
own acts have exiled it, and there recover something
like a character that may be trusted. Until that shall
come to pass, it is dually preposterous and idle for
a French Minister either to menace war, or to
proffer alliance, to any of the powers of Europe.

SUFFICIENT experience has been had of the working
of English politics to establish, almost as an axiom
thereof, the certainty thatany class which takes counsel
apart from the rest of the community, and affects exclu-
sive interests, will infallibly be beaten down, and have
its claim disallowed. The landlords, with all their
power and prestige, have paid this penalty, and those
who pinned faith to them have evidently gone all
astray in their calculations. We see no way for the
agriculturists to extricate themselves from the slough
into which they have fallen, save for them to blend
more with other classes, and the high and low of
them to divest themselves of that uniform or that
livery, which have acted as such unfavourable
distinctions.
Let landlords consider themselves capitalists, which
they really are; and tenant-farmers mere traders,
which they indubitably are; and join the rest of the
community, instead of congregating in holes and cor-
ners to complain of the world, and the times, and the
legislature ; to flatter each other, and to slur over
the real grievances and defects, which prevent them
keeping pace with their countrymen in progress and
in prosperity.
It is a fact too manifest to be denied that the great
mass of the agricultural population has, for these
years past, been totally unrepresented, either in par-
liament or before the public. It has chanced, or been
compelled, to follow leaders utterly incapable, from
want of wisdom, disinterestedness, or talent to afford
support, mete justice, or even fairly speak th e truth.
So much so, that never has a body of men been so
hustled, bamboozled, betrayed, and driven to all
points of the compass save that to which they
imagined they were tending, as the agriculturists
of England.
So great has been the folly, the inconsistency, the
incapacity, of that party and its leaders, that no
question can be brought forward avowedly agricul-
tural, that does not at once meet with disfavour and
distrust, because of the utter lack of wisdom and
statesmanlike qualities in the men who represent
that body. A more complete example cannot be
offered than by the utter failure to get up anything
like an agitation in favour of the repeal of the malt
tax, at a time when tea can at once excite this agi-
tation, and in a few weeks command the attention
of the public, the cabinet, and the legislature.
The very way in which the thing is set about,
marks out its event and fate. Meetings are called, at
which farmers care not to attend, and to which
only such spokesmen crowd as want to get up
a little " political capital" for the elections.
Even they are not able to affect the due degree of
sincerity and zeal required to dupe their hearers.
They perfectly well know how utterly hopeless and
impossible is the repeal of the malt tax, especially in
the way in which they set about it, and which has in
their eyes that invaluable quality for agitation, viz.
impracticability. It is in this respect almost on a par
with agitation in the sister kingdom.
Mr. O'CONNELL demands 30,000,0001. of the state
to prepare the soil, and sow the seed for the next
year's crop of Ireland : the country party is about to
consolidate all its weakness for an attempt to repeal
the malt tax, It is really difficult to say whether
the learned gentleman who agitates Ireland is, or the
bucolic gentlemen who wish to protect England are,
the more unreasonable. Probably, however, the
latter : for it is scarcely possible to conceive so astute
a person as Mr. O'CONNELL serious in a demand so
outrageous: it is merely one of those thousands of
propositions which he ventilates, apparently that the
winds may dissipate them—another flight of exagge-
ration, in which he expects no one to follow him.
While about the country party there is a stolidity of II
earnestness, a stupidity of seriousness, a recklessness
of practicability, which forbids the ascription of
its suggestions to any mere indulgence of
the fancy. They mean to unite in support of a re-
peal of the malt tax—so Moir organs tell us—so their
minor organisations broadly state. There seems,
however, to have been some hesitation ere agreement
and concord on the point were reached. The more
business-like of the party—the men in all probability
who had, as ministers, shared in the responsibility
of keeping revenue and expenditure on a level, would
appear to have had some difficulty in seemingly
consenting to such a scheme of tactics for the ensuing
campaign. But at last they h-tve yielded to the
denser force that propels them downwards—the
STAN LETS, the EGLI NTONS, the DISRAELIS have
given way before the BUCK INGIIAIifI, the MILEsEs, and
ithe BAN EBF-S, who are to reign supreme in the
councils of the country party.
That the malt tax will not be repealed, even should
the country party defeat or overthrow the government
on the question, is felt instinctively by all rational
men ; and e nee supports this common-sense
feeling. ThelOtsell of Commons, once within the
last twelve years, hastily passed a resolution condem-
natory of it, on the motion of its present opponents ;
lad immediately afterwards revoked and rescinded
the resolution. And the leaders of the country party
must know that what was then done will be again
repeated, if need be.
What, then, is the meaning of this announced
attempt ? There can be little doubt that it has a
d design. Firstly, the squires and • the far-
mebre to be comforted for the withdrawal of pro-
tection from the foremost place in country party tac-
tics. That withdrawal, unaccompanied by any great
line of impolicy, might exhibit the hollowness and
worthlessness of the combination a little too clearly.
So, under the guise of doing something, the repeal of
the malt tax has to be substituted; and with this
Xatipols and Taper cry, the agricultural interest has
to be amused. Bat there is, in the announcement,
'raft, and a deeper object. Though there may be
se anions intention on the part of the chiefs of the
protectionists to repeal the malt tax,they will be very
serious in their endeavour to overthrow the present
government by a pretended anxiety to repeal that tax ;
and, in point of fact, they intend, if possble, to upset
the cabinet, and seise on place on this very
question. Their intentions and expectations may be
absurd; but they exist. Lord STANLEY has OEM
more intimated his willingness to assume office and

THE EXPRESS, MONDAY EVENINth *DECEMBER 14,

form • Protectionist Govervetent, if the wporianiti
arise and the creation of the Oppeetanity is what vs
principally sawed by the clisOrbanee of tbis•ci
don. Lord Eourreow has, during the Tee*, bawl
organising_ the Scotch Protectionists ; and Load
Geonos BENTINCR has not been idle in England.
Money to meet the general election, that cannot be
far distant, has been subscribed or promised ; and a
vigorous assault on the Whig government has been
determined on. So, at least, we are assured on com-
petent authority; and it is added that not a few of the
112 who last session adhered to Sir ROBERT PEEL,
will next session give their general support to Lord
GEORGE BENTtNCK.
And this, we believe, is what the contemplated at-
tack on the malt tax really means.

THE French government has formed a more
modest estimate of the extent and value of its inter-
ference with railway management, than the panegy-
rists of that interference on this side of the water.
In the ministerial report tin he King, prefixed to the
regulations promulgated last November, all pre-
vious regulations are spoken of as merely provisional
and experimental. Even this statement, however,
claims too much credit for them ; had illusory been
added to the two characteristics above cited, the
description would have been nearer the truth.
It is quite tree that their acts of concession bind
all French railways to conform to such general
regulations as shall be issued by the government.
It is also true that this power of regulation is
reserved to government by the laws of June,
1842, and July, 1843 ; but it is equally true
that the only regulations issued previous to the
15th of last November were simple ordonnances
signed by the Minister of Public Works, and left to
be enforced by the Prefect of Police. The legality of
these ordonnances was contested in more than one
instance, and the tribunals decided (and the Court of
Cassation confirmed their decisions), that seeing the
ordonnances had not been promulgated as adminis-
trative regulations in conformity with the acts of
conceesion, they could not be deemed obligatory. Indeed
but for these decisions it is not easy to conceive how
the railways of France could have been worked at
alyl. The provisional ordonnances were framed upon a
sstem which had been found to answer on the St.
Germain railway. Only imagine an attempt to sub-
ject our great lines of railway to the same special
rules which had been found useful or innoxious on
the Blackwell line; to enforce the same arrangements
on those lines which are almost exclusively devoted
to passenger traffic, and on those which derive the
greater part of their receipts from goods traffic.
The French government, however, is of opinion
that the time of provisional regulations has passed ;
that the French railway system is sufficiently de-
veloped, the experience government has acquired of
its detailed workings sufficiently matured to warrant
the promulgation of permanent general regulations.
The examination we have been able to make of these
regulations does not incline us to concur in this view.
They appear to us to be more theoretical than
practical, to contain much that is nugatory, and much
that is positively obstructive.
For example : it is laid down as a general rule that
no train is to be drawn by more than one locomotive.
To this regulation, however, several exceptions are
allowed. An assistant engine may be used to sur-
mount an incline too sharp for the powers of one :
or two engines may be employed when an
unexpectedly great number of passengers ren-
ders an unusual number of carriages necessary
in
one train; or when a train has been accidentally de-
layed beyond its time; or when a strong wind, or
the effects of rain or frost on the rails, prevent a
train from getting along at its average speed. The
exceptional cases are so numerous, and so vaguely
described, that a railway company, so minded, might
with perfect safety attach two engines to all its trains,
notwithstanding the positive prohibition of such a

practice.
Again, the regulations ordain that care shall be
taken to prevent the falling of cinders from the engine,
or the escape of sparks or flames from the funnels. To
these directions is added a frank confession that no
means of carrying them into effect have yet been in-
vented. It is added, therefore, that the engineers are
only. expected to do their best to prevent the falling
of cinders and escape of flames or sparks. Can there
be more solemn trifling than to promulgate a law
which the legislature confesses in the law itself can
neither be complied with nor enforced.?
If these and similar regulations were mere nullities,
it would be loss of time to comment upon them.
But with a view to enable the government police to
enforce these illusory precepts, registers of the most
minute description are to be kept by the company,
and every doubtful point is to be referred to the
Minister of l'ublic Works. Now, as there is really
no test by which it can be decided whether or not an
engineer has done his best to prevent the escape of
sparks from the funnel, or whether a certain amount
of hoar-frost warrants a detention of five minutes,
every question between the managing body of a rail-
way and the government police may be carried by
appeal to the Bureau of Public Works. And every
one knows the difficulty of obtaining final decisions
from government offices.
It is desirable that this, the real position of govern-
ment railway management, in France, should be
known. It has become a cuckoo-cry that French
railways are better managed than English, and better
managed because they are subject to government con-
trol. We are not inclined to admit that they are better
managed ; but conceding this point for the sake of
eminent, we deny that the better management has
been the consequence of government interference.
Hitherto that interference has been merely nominal,
and the recently promulgated code which we have
just been describing seems designed for no other end
than to expose the managing bodies of railway com-
panies to vexatious litigation.

The leading journals of Paris of Friday and the
preceding days devote a considerable portion of
their columns to the agitation, which is steadily
progressing. in France, on free-trade. The organs
of the various partizans on the one side and on
the other are taking up their respective positions pre-
paratory to the approaching contest, and it is a cir-
cumstance favourable to the development of truth,
that the discussion seems likely to be free from the
bias of political parties. Thus, of the journals under-
stood to express the opinions of government, some fa-
vour,while others oppose the proposed reforms, and the
same diversities of views are observable among the
organs of the opposition. In the discussions which are
in progress, reference is constantly made to the contest
which preceded and led to the great commercial reform
in Great Britain ; but the cases are in most respects
different, and in many opposite. Ia Great Britain the
agitation originated not in a general desire for free-
trade, but in the resistance of the manufacturing in-
dustry against the oppressive operation of the mono-
poly of the corn market given to the landed interest
by. the import duties on gram. In France, this
does not exist, at least not to any extent to
injuriously felt. The amount of grain produced in
France in ordinary seasons is very nearly equal to the
consumption of its population. A supplement of only
a third per cent. on the gross production of the country
obtained from abroad is suffieient, save in excep-
tional seasons like the present, to satisfy the
wants of the population, and in the exceptional sea-
-1 sons every necessary facility to obtain the additional
• supply necessary from abroad is obtained. The agita-
tion for commercial reform has not, therefore, as in
England, arisen with the manufacturing industry ;
does not affect the producers of corn, and is not op-
posed by the landed interest. The opposition, on
the contrary, to all improvements of the tariff, pro-
eeeds, in France, from the very classes which, n
England, originated the Corn-law League, and ulti-
mately triumphed through the instrumentality of Sir
R. Peet In England, the agitation began with the
cry for " cheap food," which waa sure to bring with
it wide-spread and irresistible popular excitement, and
it ended in the establishment of general commercial
freedom. The abolition of the corn-laws was the
aim of the agitation and general commercial reform
was its result In France the agitation has began
where in England it ended. The question there is
not the removal of restrictions on food, but the relaxa-
tion or total repeal of those numerous fiscal restrictions
which impede the operation and check the growth of
those manufacturing industries which some of them
were designed to protect and foster. The agitation,
therefore, in France is not as popular as it mu; in
England, but what it loses in the number
of its partisans, it gains in their rank and
intelligence. In England the agitation com-
menced below and ascended gradually and with
difficulty to the higher strata of the popula-