The Express.
London, England, 1847-01-27 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JAN. 27.
IN the House of Lords yesterday, the Royal Assent
was given, by commission, to the Corn Importation
Suspension of Duties Bill, and the Navigation Laws
Suspension Bill, the only public business before their
lordships.
In the House of Commons, Mr. FIELDEN, after a
short discussion, obtained leave to bring in a bill to
limit the hours of labour of young persons and
females in factories to ten hours a day.

Tim task of the British parliament, as regards Ire-
land, is evidently two-fold. There is a momentary
calamity to be averted—millions have to be preserved
from starvation ; which is the first task. The second
is to devise measures, not only to prevent a recurrence
of such a calamity, but to enable and to teach the
people of Ireland so to apply their labour, that they
shall not only be freed from the risk of famine, but
find in that labour a source of wealth.
The ministerial statements made in both houses
of parliament address themselves chiefly to the
first part of this momentous undertaking. They
leave out of sight the second, although by far the
most important part. By following this mode of pro-
ceeding, opposition is for the present disarmed and
cavil is conciliated into cooperative deliberation. The
eloquent and feeling speech of the Marquis of LANS-
DowNE charmed even from the lips of Lord STANLEY
the denunciation of inconsistency which he would will-
ingly have hurled against his political rivals. Itcaused
the rigid look which announces Lord Bnovo HAM'S me-
ditated onslaughts to relax, and forced the wearer to
take refuge from his angry thoughts in a burlesque
description of the working of the decried Labour
Rate Act.

This Act wee denounced without inquiry into
the cause of its inefficiency in principle, or its
erroneous application. All were satisfied that
it did not provide a suitable remedy for the pressing
evil, and it wee therefore rejected on all hands. The
temper thus manifested in both houses is evidently
an echo of the feeling prevalent out of doors. The
country in general is most anxious that the moment-
ary. sufferings of the Irish should be relieved. Un-
easiness and alarm are only manifested when the
prospect is held out of applying no radical cure; in
which case a periodical recurrence of distress may
infallibly be Predicted.

By the course pursued, ministers have secured to
themselves a most advantageous position. They
have gained the sanction of their fiercest adver-
Birks to the general course which they desire to
adopt; they can, therefore, safely admit any sugges-
tions on points of detail which those opponents prove
in the course of the discussion to be desirable.
It is, however, evident that the distinction prac-
tically drawn by the ministerial lenders between the
t portions of their task, rests solely on the relative
urgency of each, and can only justify a precedence in
point of time for the calamity of the moment. One
principle must be carried out both in the temporary
and the permanent measures to be adopted, if the
relief now about to be administered is not to frustrate
all hopes of lasting improvement.
If the landlord in Ireland were, like the farmer in
England, the employer of the agricultural poor, there
would be no question respecting the policy of the
choice made of h;m as the distributor of relief. But
the terms of the contract between landlord and
tenant make each class independent of the other.
The Irish tenant is not supported by his
landlord, nor can he obtain any effectual aid from
him, except in the shape of a reduction of rent. The
landlord's prosperity depends, in fact, everywhere
upon the skill and capital which the tenant possesses ;
upon the judgment with which he employs his labour,
or the labour of others, in the land entrusted to him,
and on the capital invested in tools and improvements
for the cultivation of the land. Now, the tenant to
whom the Irish landlord has entrusted the care of his
1 prosperity, and upon whose skill and capital he is
dependent, is a wretched cottier, not possessing skill
or capital to cultivate more than a potato-garden.
If the landlord have not directly given the land
to such a tenant, he has given it to a middle-
man, who has done so for him. The as-
sumption was, in 1031, that the occupiers of
land employing no labourers in England did not
amount to one-third of the whole number. In Ire-
land it is stated that the holders of land not employ-
ing labourers were at that time in the proportion of
three-fourths of the whole. It is not improbable that
the relative dispmoortion has since then very much
increased. Sensible and independent landlords have
probably endeavoured to extend the size of holdings.
But the additior. to the number of cottiera lots has
been undoubtedly large.
The different effect of a failure of any crop in the
two countries is therefore to throw two-thirds of
the loss in England upon the landlords and farmers
employing labourers, and one-third upon the tenants
not employing labourers. The latter share diminishes
to a small fraction, if we assume, as we well may,
that the allotments on which no labourers arc em-
ployed in England are mostly composed of gardens.
In Ireland, on the other hand, the loss is thrown,
for the far greater part, on three-fourths of the
tenants. The landlord loses only his rent, and this he
has a claim for in the next prosperous year. The
Irish tenant advances his expenditure in (his own)
labour, in manure, in stock, in seed. This advance is
made in England by the occupying landlord or the
large fanner. If the crop fails, the English landlord
must borrow on the security of his land. The tenant
in both countries has only the value of his lease,
when he has one. Hence the attachment of the Irish
tenant to his holding in adverse circumstances. His
stake in his lease is strongest when he has lost
all beside. Here, too, we have the origin of the
"tenant right" in Ulster, that is to say, in that part
of Ireland where land is let at will, and for short
terms, at a fair rent.
The risk incurred by the mass of English land-
lords is, further, less than the stake risked in labour,
seed, manure, and stock, by the Irish tenant, in the
proportion of the fewer hands required to till a farm in
England, when compared with the number of tillers
on the same extent of surface in Ireland. The differ-
ence is probably not less than four to one. The
number of hands employed in agriculture is more-
over continually diminishing by improvements in
farming in England, and by the rapid drafting off into
trade and manufactures of the agricultural labourers.
The number of tillers of the soil in Ireland accumulates
rapidly, because trade and manufactures take people
off the land but slowly. In process of time the
English labourer must come to be better off than the
Irish cottier, whatever their comparative situations
originally were. And this we now know to be the
case, since the Irish tenant prefers the wages of the
relief committee at 10d. per diem to the cultivation of
his small farm.

No permanent improvement can, therefore, be
expected in Ireland until a due proportion be esta•
blished between the cottier tenantry and the culti-
vated surface of the country. It is to effect this
change, we presume, that several of the projected
measures are intended. The creation of new holdings
by the reclamation of waste lands will afford
means of clearing estates encumbered with cottier
tenants, without committing injustice on the present
tbased
of land. Such clearance evidently must be
upon two contracts, the acceptance of which
the government, as mediators, can enforce. The
cottier who receives a larger lot of mountain or bog
land, drained or irrigated by the landlord or the Board
of Works, must fully and finally renounce all right
and title to his former small holding. The landlord,
who is thus enabled to resume lots, and to consolidate
them into farms on which drainage and irrigation are
practicable and likely to be remunerative, ought to be
hound to relet these parcels in lots of sufficient size.
If government advance capital for improvements, the
crown can, and indeed must, secure itself against such
a mode of reletting the land as would risk the destruc-
tion of the new investment.

Were lands to any extent freed, on terms so advan-
tageous to the cottiers, from superabundant labour,
many of the cottages now standing might be
used as habitations for farm labourers. These con-
solidated farms would then be attractive objects for
farmers with skill and capital, who would be glad to
rent them. In this manner, the objection raised by
Lord STANLEY to the feasibility of draining, on account
of the opposition of the small tenant, would be ob-
viated. The tenant now feels more practically
than the landlord, the difficulty, and perhaps the absur-
dity, of draining on a small scale.
- •

The proposed facilitation of emigration must be
viewed in the same light. It will help to take a num-
ber of hands, at present ill-remunerated, off the land,
and, by creating a demand for labour, will improve
the condition of the labourer. But, in proportion to
the efficacy of three measures, the importance of
another suggestion of Lord STANLEY'S also increases—
the creation of railroads, the precursors and promoters
of manufacturing industry, will do even more than
the reclamation of waste lands to produce a demand
for labour. Were English capitalists, by the
encouragement of a temporary guarantee of interest,
or of advances in the shape of Exchequer bills, or, as
is now taking place in Austria, by the participa-
tion to a certain extent in shares of the commis-
sioners of the national debt, induced to em-
bark in the construction of railroads in Ireland,

not only would positive value be obtained for
any outlay made, but the amount to be expended
in actual temporary relief would be very much
lessened. Much capital will unfortunately be kept
idle in England until those foreign complications
which have clouded the sunny atmosphere of peace
to which we have long been accustomed. are cleared up.
Ireland with its aid would become accustomed to the
creation of a new description of property besides
the land. This would lead to similar exertions in
other directions. Savings, instead of being hoarded,
or what amounts to the same thing, sunk in un-
profitable investments in land, would ultimately be
placed, as in Scotland, in local banks, facilitating the
growth of credit, or would be invested in improved
tools and machinery, multiplying the effect of that
labour for which a fitting field was provided.

The aim and object of even the temporary measures
adopted for relief ought steadily to be the freeing of
agriculture fropt the superabundant hands that have
thronged into it. A diminution of agricultural risks
and an augmentation of agricultural profits can
alone be achieved is this manner. We con-
fine our observations tom this all-important
point for the present. All thit details of the
government plan become known, we shall have fre-
quent opportunities of extending them to subjects
depending on this principle. We claim for our-
selves the priority of the assertion that the case of
Ireland is not exceptional in Europe. A map of the
regions in which famine now prevails would show
them to be those in which the ground is tilled not by
farmers with labourers, but by small cattier,. The
districts where farms are large are not distressed.
Where the lots cultivated are small, even the fact
of the cultivator's being the owner of the soil,
instead of a tenant, which is the case in France
and on the Rhine, is bf no practical use to
him. The credit to be obtained on the security

of ten or twelve acres is not great. The main source
of distress everywhere is the fact that the mass of the
people have staked their circulating capital, consisting
of thei r labour, their seed, and often or thcir stock. on the
crop which has failed. This is no fitting risk for a
poor man to run. The experience thus obtained will,
we hope, amongst other things, serve to show the uti-
lity of riches, of accumulation, of capital. If it
teach those who have so much to lose as the Irish, this
Rhenish, and the French peasant have lost this year,
to leave this risk to those who can better support it,
they will indeed have found some " use" in the adver-
sity they have unadvisedly brought upon themselves.

Tile greatest anxiety is felt throughout the country
as to the steps that are being taken for carrying out
the New County Courts Bill. We have received, and
receive daily, numerous letters from clamorous corre-
spondents eager to know what has been done, what
remains to be done, when the courts will be settled,
the officers appointed, unruly customers brought to
book, and bad debts made a thing of the past. The
preliminary arrangements are in progress, and many
of the judges are appointed, hut we know as little
as our correspondents, of the period at which the
preparations will be completed, or when creditors
may expect to enjoy the benefits of the new
jurisdiction.
Pendinz this desirable result, we are anxious to
notiee a suggestion, which seems to have great reason
on its side, that these courts should, if their common
law jurisdiction be found to answer, have extended to
them a control over petty cases in equity.
This suggestion, besides its inherent reasonable-
ness, acquires weight from the disposition at work in
and out of the legal profession to facilitate the transfer
of real property and simplify the General machinery
of real property law. This will bang under the
operation of equity a class of properties which, with
the old and cumbrous practice, never could come
before the notice of the courts at all, except at the risk
of utter annihilation. The trunk of the elephant will
pick up a pin as well as tear up a palm-trey; but the
Court of Chancery is not so accommodating.
To all persons interested in properties of this
description the advantages or disadvantages of
Chancery jurisdiction are, at present, unattainable.
Many such, deterred from litigation by a benevolent
solicitor, or friend made wise by experience, may be
fur from feeling the gratitude their exemption should
have excited in them. They want equity and cannot
get it. It is not enough to tell them that the expense
of it is ruinous. They have a ready answer—" It
ought not to be ;" and really we do not see how the
answer is to be met. We may quote to them the
fable of the monkey and the oyster. They will tell
us we need not choose our judges from the genus
simia.
Many will maintain that this virtual exemption of
small estates from equitable jurisdiction is a blessing,
as it discourages litigation and leads to matters being
settled out of court, the equitable adjudication of
which would have led to bit erness, and heart,.
burnings, and social disruptions—quite as serious
evils as the expense of a Chancery suit. Bat
it is very properly observed on this point in
The Jurist, "Whatever might hare hire the weight
of such an argument, the principle of it was given
up when the legislature passed the County Courts
Act; because it is obvious, that every argument,
which is applicable to the alleged impolicy of per-
mitting equity litigation in reference to small matters
is equally applicable to show the impolicy of permit-
ting general litigation at law about 20/. debts. And
as the legislature has declared that it is politic to give
the means of settling such legal questions, so ought
it, if the existence can be shown of a mass of equi-
table claims incapable of being settled by any exist-
ing jurisdiction, to afford to the people the possession
of a competent tribunal for such matters."
Now, just as we are safe in saying that there is no
superior common law court for debts under 201., so
we may assert, securely, that there is no equitable
court where property under ten times that sum, or
2001., is concerned.

Is there anything in the nature of equitable claims,
or equity law, which should render dealing with
them, in such petty cases, a matter of peculiar diffi-
culty for courts identical with, or similar to, those es-
tablished by the 8 & 9 Viet., 95? We do not see
anything to justify us in concluding that such diffi-
culty exists. Practically,: it would be found, we ap-
prehend, that the equity law involved in the mass of
such eases would not be beyond the powers of such
men as the judges of the new courts ought to be, if
properly selected. The knowledge of real property
law which such an extension of their jurisdiction
would require, is possessed by most of the younger
men at the common law bar already. Where it is
not, :it could be acquired without any great ex-
penditure of time or labour. The possession of it
might be made a condition of such appointments.
We have not heard that the legislature has received
any hint of the desirableness of such an addition to
the functions of the new courts. Whether they, have
or not, we shall be glad to have aided in bringing
the matter forward. As the equitable jurisdiction of
the Court of Chancery has grown up to its great
height, since the period at which county courts were
of real importance in England, no argument can
be drawn from antiquity against the admission
into these courts, in their revived form, of equit-
able claims below a certain value.

We recommend the suggestion to notice, as one
which appears reasonable and practicable, to meet a
class of cases, at present the opprobrium of the
courts of equity, which, in their instance, can only'
be called "equitable" on the well-known principle
of "hams a non lurendo."

THE Birkenhead commissioners have applied to
parliament for a bill to enable them to supply the town
with water and gas. The irquiry before the surveying
officers delegated to receive evidence on their bill,
terminated on Monday last, in so far as the supply of
water is concerned, and the inquiry relative to the gas
will come on next week. From the circumstances
under which tho application is made, it is not im-
probable that the decision of parliament in this CAM
may become a precedent for many similar eases. Bir-
kenhead is already supplied, and well supplied, both
with water and gas bye private company, of which
Mr. WILLIAM JACKSON is the principal representative.
A few years ago, when the Birkenliend commissioners
refused to encounter the trouble and expense of sup-
plying the town with these necessaries, Mr. JACKSON
came forward almost single-handed, took a lease of
seventy-five years from them, formed the company,
constructed works at an enormous expense, and has
supplied Birkenhead with gas and water as well as
any town in England. Mr. .I.icKsoN, on behalf of
the company, offers to apply to parliament for a
bill to extend their operations; to give the inha-
bitants a reduction in price as soon as their profits
exceed 4 per cent. ; and to supply water gratuitously
for the following purposes :
For cleansing and watering the streets. For cleansing the
public ..ewers and drains. }or the public wash-houses and
baths for the poorer classes. For the fountains in the public
market. Fur cleansing the public abattoirs. For the pub-
lic buildings solely occupied by the commissioners. For the
bridewell. For public troughs, for watering tattle landed
from the steamers. For public urinals. For extinguishing
fires. For a public infirmary or dispensary.
The Commissioners nevertheless persist in following
up their application on the abstract principle that the
supply of water and gas for a townn• ought to
be a public trust in the hands of the magistracy.
Even assuming this view to be correct, it is pre-sup-
posed that the magistracy fairly. represents the viewh
and interests of the community, whioh from the
constitution of the Birkenhead Commission, may
be questioned in the present case. Our own
experience, however, would bad us to place more
faith in the powers of a company represented by such
a man as Mr. JACKSON, and stimulated by regard to
their own profit and popularity, to supply the tows
well, than in the languid, routine efforts of official men.
Apart from this consideration, too, there appears to he
something very like a breach of faith on the part of the
commissioners, whop having held out to Mr. JACKSON
and his associates the prospect of a fair remunera-
tion for their enterprise, now, when these gene
tlemen have shown that the undertaking is
possible, seek to bilk them of their reward.
Psidie benefit never can be proi:loted by prirate
wrong. But now that arrangements for im-,...
proving the sanitory condition of towns are be-
ooming fashionable, it is not impossible that we may
l'requentir And diem made the pretext for defrauding
individuals of the reward due to their intelligent sad
really public spirited entity*. , This consideration
takes the Birlopikeddmfeebilt of the class of mere
local measures, dial Imparts to
.it.ithe importance of
one which involvella public principle. For this reason
alone have we noticed it.

I