The Express.
London, England, 1849-07-03 00:00:00

ever, one or two nib eets of very great importance, on which
it was necessary that they should bring measures before the
house, and state the grounds on which they were proposed,
u well as what part of them it would be desirable to pass in
the present session of parliament. The most important of
these related to the question of lights and pilotage. (Hoer,
hear.) His right hon. friend the President of the Board of
Trade was anxious that he should be enabled to explain to
the house his general views on the subject, and at the same
time the general views of the government, without proceed-
ing to legislate in the present session, with regard to the
amendment of the laws relative to the mercantile marine.
He proposed, therefore, that the house should sit at 12
o'clock on Tuesday the 10th for that statement. On Monday
next he should propose likewise that the house should take
into considerat ion the amendments on the Incumbered Estates
bill. The bill for facilitating the transfer of incumbend
atates had been printed with the Lords' amendments. The
Greater part of those amendments were, as he consider:: ,
improvements on the bill
hut there we. the Ter;
i ugnest importance, which required the most deliberate •
con-
sideration of the house. He should propose the considera-
tion of all those amendments on Monday next. He did not
know that there was anything on which he could now state
further the intentions of the government. There were many
bills of less consequence which must depend a good deal on
the disposition of the house to forward them in the course of
the present year. (Hear, hear.) It was not necessary, he
thought, that he should on this occasion make any further
statement on the subject. He trusted that there would be
no objection to taking at once the third reading of some bills
that ware not opposed ; but it was not his intention certainly
to press forward the stage of any bill on which there was
likely to be any discussion, having promised the hon. g.htle-
man opposite (Mr. Disraeli) not to threw any obstacle in the
way at Lis bringing krward his motion upon the state of the
country. (Hear, hear.)

Mr. OSBORNE observed that the noble lord had omitted
• very important bill—the bankruptcy bill—from Lis
catalogue.
Lord J. RUSSELL raid he intended to have stated that
the bill w.s under the consideration of • select committee.
Mr. F. MACKENZIE inquired what was to be done with
the Health of Towns (S:otland) Bill, and the Public Health
(Scotland) Bill.
Lord J. RUSSELL did not wish to give a definitive
answer with respect to those bills.

Mr. HUME protested against the government taking the
Tuesday mornings from private members. If the house met
at 12 o'clock it would adjourn at 4or half-put 4, and it
would be late in the afternoon-6 o'clock—before they re-
'mumbled, when it would be impossible properly to discuss
any great question, suck as the Irish church, and many
others. Ties noble lord Laving deprived them of their
Thursdays now wanted to rob them of their Tuesdays. All
their indulgence had been thrown away upon him. Really
the noble lord appeared to have no conscience. (A laugh.)
Mr. GLADSTONE said there was another measure, in
adeition to that relative to pilotage and lights, which he was
in hopes the right hon. gentleman the President of the Board
of Trade might have introduced in the present session—a
measure greatly affecting the comfort of the Kamm of
this country—relative to the Merchant Seamen's Fund.
(Hear, hear.) It was too late, he was aware, to hope that
any bill could be passed on the subject in the present ses-
sion ; but he trusted that it •as the intention of the right
hon. gentleman to lay some Lill on the table with regard to
it, because it was quite clear that whenever it should be
laid upon the table it would require great consideration on
the part of the country. (Hear, hear.)
Lord J. RUSSELL said he was linable, in the absence of
his right bon. friend, to answer the question at present.
Mr. HUME said that, on the 7th March last, he moved
for a return of the salaries of officers in the publi, offices.
He andeistood that those salaries were so numerous in some
of the offices that they had been unable to make out &return
he four months. If any of the public offices were so over-
burdened with clerks, be should move that those parties be
dismissed. (A laugh.) In April last also he moved fur •
return of pluralities, and that had not yet been received.
Lord J. RUSSELL said the reason why he imagined
many of the returns to which that hon. gentleman re-
ferred had not been very speedily made, was, that the con-
current business of the departments fully took up the time
of the clerks. The hoe. gentleman should move to increase
the number of the clerks, in order that the returns might
be made more quickly. (A laugh.)
Mr. HUME thought the noble lord misunderstood him.
He wanted merely • copy of the pay bills—the amount
which the different clerks drew from each office. It was a
mere pretence to say there was any difficulty in the way of
furnishieg it. (Hear, hear.)
After some unimportant conversation on various points
of public business, the Turnpike Roads (Ireland) Bill, the
Marriages in Foreign Cuuntries Facilitating Bill, and the
Sewers Acts Amendment (No. 2) Bill, were severally read a
third time, and passed.
ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION BILL.
On the motion for postponing the committee en this bill,
Mr. E. DENISON said he understood the reason given by
the noble lord for postponing it was the sitting. of the com-
mission on the subject of leaseholds—in his opinion a per-
fectly good reason. He wished to ask, however, for an assu-
rance that that commission might make its report during the
recess, and that the bill, in ha amended shape, should cer-
tainly be introduced in the next session of parliament.
Lord J. RUSSELL said his belief was, from all he had
heard, that the commission would report during the recess,
and that he might hope to bring forward the bill early next
sesuion. (Hear, hear.)
The other orders of the day were then gone through
seriatim, for the purpose of being postponed.
STATE OF THE NATION.

Mr. DISRAELI said he rose to impose that the house
should become a committee to consider the state of the
nation. He did so because, in his opinion, great and gene-
ral distress prevailed in this country, and because he be-
lieved that that great and general distress had been progres-
sive since the formation of the present government. The
noble lord and his colleagues had possessed the government
of this country for three years uncontrolled and uncriticised.
(t, Hear," and a laugh.) They had passed all their mea-
sures. They had not hail to encounter an organised opposi-
tion. (Hear, hear.) No body of men had enjoyed the go-
vernment of this country heretofore under circumstances so
favourable as those pone-seed by tho noble lord and his col-
leagues. (Hear, hear.) That being the case, one w.a in-
clined to contrast the situation of England at the present
moment with what it was at the period when
the noble lord and his colleagues assumed the
reins of power. He need not real to the recollection
of hon. gentlemen the condition of England, at
the commencement say of 1846. In all its rela-
tions profound tranquillity prevailed throughout Europe ;
and if one of those critical conjunctures that
would always occasionally occur in the complicated transac•
dons of great states did arrive, so great was the influence of
England, and so justly great, that the friendly mediation of
our canatey invariably resulted in the amicable settlement
of the questions at issue. (Hear, hear.) At that moment,
also, our colonies, after suffering great vicissitudes, had re-
conciled themselves to the new position in which they were
placed ; and great, and, as some thought, insuperable as
were the difficulties with which they had to contend, there
existed in our colonies a quality which he feared no one
could pretend existed at present—a quality to cope with
them. (Hear, hear.) At that period, the commence-
ment of 1846, our export trade had reached an amount
which never before had been achieved in that branch of our
commerce. At that period those various classes that formed
what was popularly called " the agricultural interest," were
prospering, not so much by the enjoyment of what was
called " high prices," but by being able to extract from the
soil a greater quantity of produce than they had for many
beears, and being sure of a market where that produce could
be disposed of. At that period, too, Ireland, if not entirely
satisfactory to those who were its real friends, if still it were
the victim of political empiricism, and the only cure for its
evils was still considered to be sending it messages of peace,
wee, nevertheless, compared with its present state, in one of
comparative happiness. (Hear, hear.) Finally, in her Ma-
jesty's exchequer, there existed a surplus revenue of
between 3,000,0001. and 4,000,0001. sterling. (Hear, hear.)
Now, he apprehended, that no gentleman in that house, on
' whatever side he sat, would rise and sweet that the
characteristics of the present period were of a similar nature
to those to which he had adverted. European tranquillity
and English influence seemed to have disappeared together.
(Hear, bear.) Our colonies were many of them ruined—
all of them were discontented; some of them were, or had
been, in insurrection. (Hear, hear.) Our foreign trade had
fallen off, from the commercial year ending at the commence-
ment of 1846 to the commercial year terminating at the
beginning of this year, in declared value, to the amount of
7,000,0001. sterling. Our once prosperous agriculture was pros-
trate. (Protectioaist cheers) Ireland was absolutely in a
state of social decomposition. (Renewed cheers.) And as
far our revenue, the surplus of 3,000,0001. had been succeeded
by a deficiency to the same amount, which had only
been terminated, not by an act of the cabinet,
but by the interference of that house, an interference
which he was now calling for on a still greater
wale. (Hear, hear.) The remarkable circumstance was,
that that prosperity, the absence of which we now
so much lamented and to which we looked back
with such longing eyes, was, when we were in possession of
it, the source of the greatest discontent. When we were en-
joying all than advantages to which he had referred, the
people of this country were sorely dissatisfied. Not satisfied
with the largest foreign trade that this country ever enjoyed,
nothing would satisfy us but becoming the workshop of tne
world. Instead of being contented with the English farmer
who was drawing a greater quantity from the soil than any
farmer in Europe or America, he was denounced daily as an
unskilful sluggard. Notwithetandiag all the sacrifices that
had been made by our colonists, sacrifices which no
body of men ever yet before incurred with equal
spirit, they were told that they must make still
greater exertions. Not satisfied with possessing an ample
surplus revenue, they were told that the tea duty must be
taken off immediately. Let them look to the state of the
able-bodied poor as it was recorded during the year 1846,
and up to the latest period at which any authentic returns
had been received from the poor-law authorities. A most
I startling result would be at once observed. He appealed to
documents the evidence of which could not be for a moment
untested. They were authentic reports and statements
signed by responsible men. He would refer to ne
anonymous letters—no fragmentary statements furnished
by unknown or concealed individuals. (Hear, hear.) He
woad not call the attention of the house to any non-official
documents or other illegitimate sources of argument ; and he
trusted he should not be met by any such unfair answer on
the part of the noble lord. He appealed in support of his
emetic= to the reports of the poor law commissioners. What
were the statements which they had furnished respecting the
conditien of the labouring classes. Contrastiog the two
periods of 1846 and 1848, the numbers of able-bodied paupers
bad increased from Lady-day, 1846, to Lady-day, 1848, no

m
able-bodied peUl‘reinigll sit (bean
wmga6es.n3e7r2ae :loony. within
el.elrnotft:
lees than 74 per cent.
f
quarter ending Lady-day, 1848,
(Hear, hear.) The increase of pint
into account, was 41 per cent.; whilst the increase in the
expenditure for the poor in the same period was no less than
p
25 per cent. (Hear, hear.) In the quarter ending on Led
er
alryi6e,
of
the number of able-bodied paupers had swelled to 664i,000,
In the quarter ending Lady-day 1846, the number. of
of all classes receiving relief were 1,332,000. In the slim:
period of 1848, the numbers of the same class of paupers bad
increased to 1,876,000. The expenditure for the r.:ief of
the poor during the year ending Lady-day 1846, amounted
to 4,954,0001. The last report tarnished by the ne.r Law
Commissiosers stated it to have swollen to the minium of
6,180,0001. (Hear, hear.) The poor law mum'.
had drawn up a tabular statement coot', tha
state of tweln purely agricultural ;,00 -"l'ng
n -41 with tint
eisanufacturing counties between •,os was 1846 ut.
6 and 1848.
The first fact adduced by theAm from this Comparative
state:
meat was that the incree:so of paupers in the twelve menu.
factoring districts was greater than in the twelve wield.
tural counties, end that this was caused by the immigration
of Irish. But, alu, if they examined the Poor-lan Como
minimum' returns from the purely agricultural distticee,
the house would fled the result, if not quite se mourigul, at
least equally alarming. 'I he increase in the poor rates be-
tween Ladyday, 1846, and Ladyday, 1848, in the twelve
manufacturing districts, was 391 per cent. in the gress ; but,
even if he di iucted Lancashire, which was the focus where.
upon the Irish immigration principally concentrated itself,
the increase in the rates would amount te 2.5 per cent within
the period selected. The average increase of the rates in
the twelve agriculture counties within the, period cited was
161 per cent. In Herefordshire, which was whoiiy free
from the influence of manufacturing agencies, the inere ire In
the rates was 21 per cent. ; and in another
purely agricultural county—lie was sorry to say that
with which he was connected—namely, Buckuighaniehire—
the poor's rates had increased between 1846 and 1848 no leis
than 22 per cent. A year bad elapsed since the last pow.
law returns had been tail on the table, and consequently no
official or authenticated statements could be Mania to.
His hon. friend, the member for Montrose, had
given notice of an amendment upon his motion. His
bun. frier.d was rather fond of giving notice, of
amendments, and, perhaps, it was fortunate le lied
done so on the present occasion, for he had he et cal-
1, ction that his hon. friend had ever succeeded in any (meet
his amendment.. Mr. Fox tired to say that a ganil It r en-
joyed two pleasures—the pressure of losing and the plea-
' sure of gaining. Perhaps, his hon. friend enjoyen the tint
of these pleasures. (Hear, hear.) He had annoueced his
intention even before he knew what hie (lit. Doreen's)
motion was to be—(hear)—and from some chance OlOATVL-
ti:ne which fell from him, he (Mr. Disraeli) apprehended
that his amendment had no definite form, but would
he based on the fact, that the resolutions which
he was about to bring forward had not been previcusl laid
on the table of the house. He had not that degree et self-
confidence and self-complacency which many more able and
experienced persons were entitled to posse's. lie sew now
in public what he had always said in rivate—that it this
country was to be governed on whig principles be, to one,
preferred that it should be governed by the whips; bet, as
he believed their whole system was a pernicious sys,tue—es
he believed they had identified themselves with a rime of
policy which was occasioning the decay of this o uteri_
as he believed it was in his power to prove that, as ta- ss te,
could, in a public discussion before an assembly like rte. pre.
sent, he gave them a frank, he hoped not ungeve tee, but
uncompremieing opposition, and took this epporte, i.e., on
the part of himself and his friends, of laying before chi 1.041
and the country the reasons why they were in opts tetiee.
lie had placed befire the house the state of the a thing
classes of this country at the present moment; he app aled
to that as the justification, not only as the justifieatioe, but
as the urgent cause of the investigation which he wes erbium
the house to eater into, and the vote which he hop 4 they
might record. He wanted to know why there mis suck a
decline, why there was such a deterioration, in the sty
of the peopie of England ? He wanted to know wee then
was an increase of able-bodied paupers in England. after
three years, to the amount of 74 per cent ? Lt t t. et be
explained. He wanted to know why there was a relit eve in.
crease in the general mars of the pauper population, are is the
expenditure for the relief of the poor in this country ? With
the permission of the house he would endeavour to di raver
the causes of the deterioration of the people—cause- we tch he
considered a bane to the country. He wanted to knit i telly
was this increa'e of pauperism in England Who, when
we had a right to expect, according to the p irons
in authority, not only the maintenance, but a
vast increase, of the prosperity which we were
enjoying, the result should be the lamentable pieturt which
he had drawn without exaggeration, from the reeerei of our
official authorities? The first resson that he wool I ti bee,
he would not say the principal, but one of the psi tipel
reasons of the distress of the country he apprehend. 4 to be
the decline in our foreign commerce. A reduction, in three
years, of seven millions of exports, would, hon. gentlemen
would easily understand, occ mien great distress, awl be a
principal means of diminishing the employment of the
people. By an official document upon the table of the house,
it appeared that in 1845 and 1846, in round numb rs oar
exports were 60 millions. In 1848, they were, in round
numbers 53 millions. He recognised in that diminutiou of
our exports one of the principal causes of the distress or the
country. He need not remind the house that miring
all the period when we were called on to Enke very
great changes in our tariff, daring the whole of
1845 and 1846, when the country was agitated Ice savour
of constructing the commercial system of this country
on new principle., railway investment had been going on
ter a long time, and no one who pictured the great pros-
perity that would arise to England from this change in oar
commercial system, no one told us at the same time then
great results would have been inevitable, that simultaneously
they were pursuing a course which would prevent their
benefits accruing—on the contrary, the greatest autrterities,
the ministers of the day, the very men who were the authors
of the change of the tariff in 1846, were the prime Annuls-
tors. (Hear, hear.) They did not consider that these in-
vestments were injurious to commerce, and he was
of the same opinion as three great authorities—lie did
not believe they were. He believed it happened, in
the case of the railway investments, as it happened always
when corneal(' got into a scrape' that they were tonic
struck, they turned round and abused earls other ; reed the
middle class of whom they heard so much, who told us that
the only people to govern the country were the principal
authors and originators of this investment—those were the
persons who, when results occurrid which they had ~,it
ticipatcd, turned round and foisted en railway investments
all the evils which he believed occurred from other causes.
They might account for the year 1847 as they liked
by railway investment or over.spsculation, when they
had, by supporting railways, to stimulate commercial eta-
prize, but they could not alter the tact that in the yea
1815, when they maintained that the noon' had cum.
nished in consequence of continental convulsions, as tar as
an opinion could be formed (and it was a very impotent
item) there was a very considerable incense. There was
another reason why he doubted whether there had been a
diminution of exports. He was indebted to the tight boa.
gentleman, the president of the B and of Tema, for the
completion of this return, moved for in 1847 by a airmen
of the house—viz, the entire imeorts and ex-
ports of the years 1847 and 1819 the es'
turn oaly going to 181 G. Now he was wail(
of the total exports; they heti not got a return of exports fa
detail to different countries; but he held the °Mist reiunt
of the total exports of the United Kingdom, and he find
that, in contenting this mech maligned year of 1848, dt.
year of continental convulsione, with the great yews 1845
and 1845, there had been no diminution in the minden of
goods exported. The official value of geode denoted their
quality ; the average of the exports of ISIS and 1815
wu
133 millions. (Hear, hear.) The total exports of the put
1848, in consequence of continental convulsions, wen
132,904,0001., nearly the same figure ; but mask 'him 46'
ficant fact, that the average of 1845 and 1846 on the de lad
value was 594 millionth but the declared value of ISIS was
only 53 millions. (Hear, bear.) That was the impertent
consequence, full of instruction, and he recommended the
house, and especially the advocates of free trade, eon fatly to
consider the result, and what was more, if they pima/
could, satisfactorily to explain it. There were, he thought,
65 articles of export enumerated in the tables of the Mord
of Trade, which had been recently laid on the table.
iatioFrom
this he found that 1849 exhibited a great depreca
price ; that a larger quantity of goods was exported from
this country in the four months of 1849, compered with the
first four months of 1848, but that theme goods had been ex-
ported at a much diminished nrice. lie lotted in sten
articles of these papers that there had been a slight si pee*
elation. There were 17 articles whose gross value cos' o.?
given and not the quantities, and therefore it was cot e‘iclAT
what was the appreciation or the depreciation. UP lass
forty-one articles depreciat. d, which were told to forrigness
in the first four months of this year in round numbers far
13 millions sterling, last year there would have he re-
ceived, at the same prices, 14,685,000/. sterling. On t
as
seven articles appreciated there wee an increase of ice
the amount of 44,0001., and if he took fifteen snicked
which the quantities were not enumerated, and distribetea
the appreciation and depreciation according to the relative
quantities of the other articles, there would be a further eines-
ciation of 175,000/., and an apprecietien of 36,0001. But I°_e,
summary was this :—After allowing for the appreciationt
these exports of the first four months of 1549, which, he ens
glad, exhibited such eatisfectory evidence—such couplet••
demonstration of the revival of trade, to the amount of one
and a half million sterling—there warerOlitiVely a net depre-
ciation of price to the amount of 1,738,0001. Now, he sr euld
mention two or three of the great items upon which this da
reciation took place. There was a depreciation in cett z
goods exported, as compared with the price of letB, of
646,0001.; upon woollen gouts exported in 1819,64 CM-
pared with
the peace of 1848, of 295,0001. ; upon linens es-
ported, of 103,0671.; and upon metals, of 426,0141. What
wee the result i The result was this: that the Beebe
labourer was giving more labour to the foreign production
than what he gave last year, at the rate of 10 per cent. upon
these exports. It had been said, that the priithiplee
upon which reciprocity was based were Woo-
erovertible as far as they went, but that !hey
only applied to the direct trade between newel.
and that inasmuch as the commerce of the world
wss
mainly carried on by indirect trade, the system of rte cipro-
city could have little or no influence on the general neduct
of affairs. But he was of opinion that the critics who were
so prompt to metre this observation were little acquainted
with the theory of reciprocity. It was raid that it they pat
a countervailing duty on the products of Russia it mien:
diminish our markets in Brazils, and that by allowing tzh.
Russians the means of paying for the products of Brsile
we were increasing the means of that country to berme
customers to ourselves. But if we went to Brazil It we
_ezr,
found there a hostile tariff, as well as in Russia. (~Hr .0
Ile had heard the distinguished member f tume
West Riding, while dilating on the value of the ho
of
market, form his estimate by ascertaining the quantity