The Express.
London, England, 1848-06-03 00:00:00

terters. In the navigation-law debate this process is
reversed. The majority of the members have no mon
interest in upholding a bad system of commereig
policy than a good one. The assailants of the naviga-
tion laws can therefore argue the question in of
unreformed just as they would in • re-
formed parliament; while their defenders, aware
of the weakness of their case, shape their argu-
menta not to move their own house, but to influence
the house of protectionists through which the bill
must pair after it leaves the Commons. Mr. Harm-
efoen was not so absurd and ince, • quential as at
first sight appears, when he wound up a speech
'genet the ministerial measure by declaring he would
vote with ministers. His speech was addressee' to the
prejudices of the Lords, his vote was an act of sub-
mission to the common sense of the house of which
he is a member. Viscount INemeree differed in so
far from Mr. Peen:twee, that be announced his in-
tention to vote with Mr. BERRIES; bit his speech, like
the hellion which carries the projectiles of his
protree' Captain WARNER, was meant to sail over the
heads ot the Commons and let down its stores of piled
arguments on the noble house beyond them. It is
partly owing to the peculiar strategy adopted by either
party on this occasion that we fired the npeechesagainst
the navigation laws plain, earnest, and ratiocinative,
while those of the protectioniets are so singularly
void of logic and meagre in facts. Something, too,
must be alleged for the difficulty of making out a
plausible case in behalf of the navigation laws.
There are two parth a among the supporters of the
navigation laws, each of which deterels them by
arguments totally irreconcilable with those which
are put forth by the other. One party maintains that
they beeetit national commerce : the other admits
that their operation is detrimental to national com-
merce% hut maintains that they are indispensable to
natio, el do fence. In slime puzzle-heads these incom-
patible lines of argument are so intertwined and
ravelled that they cannot distinguish bete., en the one
and the other; and they accordingly break out alter-
nately with wise sayings taken from each, the last
sentence always contradicting the one that went be-
fore it.
Were the question to be argued en commercial
grounds alone, its decision would not be difficult. It
is conducive to the mercantile prosperity of this
country that the people should be able to bus ships, and
to navigate ships, and to freight ships with the greatest
possible economy, and welt the greatest possible
security fee the safety of their goods. To a country
which manufactures largely for foreign export it is
above all others important that its raw material
should be brought to it with little expense of carriage
and in good condition; that its manufactured goods
should be conveyed to the destine d markets cheaply
and safe from damage. The avowed object of the
navigation laws is to increase the cost of carriage by
sea ; and their practical working is to diminish the
security of the goods conveyed. The avowed object
of these laws is to increase the cost of transport.
They give a monopoly to British shipbuilders.
and enable them to charge higher prices for their
vessels ; they give a monopoly to British shipowners,
and enable them to charge higher freights. This is
admitted by all the defendera of the eavigation laws.
The harden of their song is that if these laws are
repealed British shipbuilders will be under-sold by
the cheaper builders of other countrie a and ruined ;
British shipowners, unable to compete with the lower
freights which remunerate foreign shipowners, will
be ruined also. No one denies that in this way the
navigation laws increase the expense of transport.
They increase it in another by the expense they entail
on the British shipowner iu compelling him to employ
supernumerary apprentices. That the monopoly of
deep-sea carriage of which British shipowners are
possessed renders them less careful of the capacity of
the seamen they employ, and thus occasions a much
greater amount of damage to goods than occurs on
board the ships of any other coutitry was denied
stoutly in the course of Thursday evening's debate by
Mr. Itolitssose That gentleman is indeed chairman
of Lloyd's; but when Mr. Maci lae. told the house
that the chairmen's opinion on this head was
edfrect ly opposed to that of every underwriter in the
house," Mr. ROBINSON could not deny "the soft
impeachment."
The views of those theorists who argue in behalf
of the navigation laws that they are neeeesary to na-
tional defence are little, if at all, more pleusible than
those of the parties we have just been reviewing.
Their argument is in sub eance as follows :—A large
commercial marine is required to feed the royal navy ;
but without the navigation laws Great Britain would
not have so many mercantile ships and sailors as it
has; eryo, the navigation laws, although oppressive to
commerce, must be maintained from considerations of
national defence. The weak point of this argument
is the middle clause. No one who knows the cha-
racter of the British people can doubt that no navi-
gation laws are required to ensure our always having
ships and sailors in plenty. The first passion of nine-
tenths of the youth of England is for a seafaring life.
It is in our blood, inherited from the adventurers who
came seeking new homes under HENGIST and Home,
and from the Norsemen who afterwards first plun-
dered and then amalgamated with the Saxons.
" Robinson Crusoe," one of the fruits of Englishmen's
passion for the sea, has ever since its publication
served to confirm and increase this passion, and will
continue to do so. 'Sucklings might more easily be
kept from water than the youth of England from the
sea. And we are quite as unlikely to want ships as
sailors. The highest ambition of the able and steady
mariner is to have a " taut" sea-host of his own ;
the merchant will always, eaqrri,, Foribus, prefer
ships owned and manned by his countremen, as those
with whom he best understands how to deal, and in
whom (from prejudice if you please) he places most
confidence. I. is for the interest of Englishmen to
possess ships, and, so long as ships can be built and
bought, the unequalled wealth of Englishmen, the
fruit of the unrivalled juxtaposition of our coal and
iron and their proximity to the Sea, and of surerior
skill and industry the growth of centuries, will enable
Englishmen to own me many as they please. It is
to the operation of the laws of nature we have indi-
cated, not to the flimsy text of the navigation laws,
that we owe our matchless seamen and myriad com-
mercial navy. If anything, the navigation lawe,
by enhancing the price of ships, have kept down the
number possessed by the nation, and, by removing
from our seamen the stimulus of comp tition, have
retarded their progress in the higher ac-
quirements of seamanship. With regard to the im-
portance of a numerous and good commercial navy as
a feeder to the royal navy—though the truth is
strangely misapprehended and dashed with fantastic
falsehood in the minds of many—it is a truth notwith-
standing. The power of our meal navy lies in the
large proportion of thorough-bred seamen who man
its ships. All other countries are compelled to eke
out their crews with a much greater admixture of
raw landsmen—of " waiaters. But the facts to
which we have directed attention are enough to re-
move any fear that the number of our true seamen
can ever fall short of our warlike occasions.
It is upon broad and comprehensive views like
these that the retention or abrogation of the
navigation laws ought to be determined.
It is waste of time to follow all the
r;erres fidei—the petty cavillinge —by which the
sophists who would uphold these laws seek to perplex
and darken the question. As an example of their
arts, take the blunt contradiction with which Mr.
Remmers met Mr. Weesoe's allusion to a recent
piece of news from Rio Janeiro. Mr. WILSON men-
tioned a letter in which it was stated that several
British vessels were unable to obtain cargoes at Rio,
while foreign vessels were in request, owing to the
want of confidence in British sailors. Ile added that
this intelligence had been posted at Lloyd's, but unac-
countably taken down in half an hour. Mr. Routs.
sot.: declared this was false ; but, when pressed home,
he declared, after much wriggling and shuffling, that
he had applied the epithet false, not to Mr. Wt eoefe
facts, hut to the inference drawn from them.
In like manner a great pother has been raised by
Mr. GEORGE Yousre and others, about a return of
the Board of 'trade. The return purported to be a
comparative statement of the progress of the protected
and unprotected shipping of Great Britain. It is
objected to this return, that none of our shipping can
properly he said to be unprotected. Everybody
knows that, and consequently nobody was misled ;
the comparison was universally understand to be in-
stituted between the more protected and the lees pro-
tected shipping. But the best part of the joke about
this verbal criticism is, that Mr. MILNER GIBSON on
Thurclay night let out the tact that the title of the re-
turn was adopted from Mr. YOI'NG himself—from the
very gentleman w hu is sohorrified nits vrantofaccuraey
Next we are tole that some classes of shipping Lem
been placed in tile return in wier.g coluneee We
poin+ed one this lac' the day it apresred—be .re Mr.

YOUNG began his criticisms; and we shows d that, in
consequenoo of the transposition, the ratio of increase
among the more protected shipping had been made to
appear to approach more closely to that among the
less protected shipping than was warranted by facts.
Cavils of this sort are mere trifling. Such ques-
tions can only be raised with a view to distract
attention from the real merits of the case. The beat
policy is to let them go, and dwell upon the ample
evidence contained in the proofs collected last ses-
sion by the House of Commons' committee in sap-
port of the two main positions established above :
that the navigation laws are detrimental to com-
merce; that they aro not required for purposes of
national defence.

TIIAT organ of continental despotism, the Times
accuses revolutionary societies and agents with having
got up disturbances simultaneously in the several
capitals of Europe. We might with much more rea-
son accuse the monarchs, who have reluctantly con-
sented to grant liberal institutions, with combining,
all of them, to employ military force to put down
these institutions, and treat their promises like pro-
verbial pie-crust.
A fearful conflict has taken place at Vienna. The
withdrawal of the Emperor, and his committal of his
power and person to Count Bownetists, one of the
most furious abeolutists, had, of course, excited the
gravest suspicions amongst the Viennese. Ministers,
iii order to avoid civil war, and keep the monarchy
together, had despatched some of their colleagues to
lnnspruck, to keep the appearance of a constitutional
and liberal connexion with the Emperor. But Count
ROMBELLES soon tore off the mask, and, gaining one
of the ministers, a Viennese MONTECUCULT, he pro-
ceeded to edicts and acts which must produce popular
resistance, and for this the minister in 'question was
prepared with troops. What followed is reported in our
columns, and the final result is not yet known.
We unwillingly also allude to the arrival of two of
the most active officials to join Prince METTERNICII
in this country. It is performing the duties of hos-
pitality in a proper manner to receive the former
Chancellor of the Austrian empire with silent respect :
but to seek to establish the broken up Chancery of
State, of very questionable reputation, within the
precincts of this realm, would be an act of no slight
indiscretion on the part of those friends of the old
rrsyinie who attempt it, and would be highly im-
prudent on the part of our government to permit it.
Bet this, as well as the question of our ambas-
sador's
obeying the imperial summons to Innspruck
will be decided by the event of the Vienna struggle.
Whilst these military reactions are going on at
Naplis and Vienna, a similar one is said to be medi-
tated at Berlin, the return of the Prince of PRUSSIA
not being unconnected with it. This, however, is
likely to be marred or deferred by the untoward
events of Schleswig. An arrangement of difference
was there in negotiation, and it was expected that the
Prussian troops might be recalled to practise on the
people of Berlin those lessons of file quarter and
oppression, which they commenced in Schleswig and
Jutland. The presence of Russian and Swedish naval
forces has, however, emboldened the Danes; and an
action has beet. fought which must increase bitterness
and delay accommodation.
We must testify, however, that the Prussian troops
and general have behaved well at Mayence, and
under most trying circumstances. The mutual jea-
lousy and collision between the troops and citizens of
Mayence is known, and the worst results were feared.
'rhe prudence of General Vos Rises has averted
this calamity. His threat of bombarding the town it
his troops were molested, and his demand
that those who were not regularly enrolled in
the nationalguarde should deliver up their arms, were
accompanied by a proposal to the magistracy that
public peace should be restored and maintained by
the military under the direction of the civil authori-
ties. A plan was accordingly concerted, according to
which the patrols in the streets were always accom-
panied by influential citizens who were to en-
deavour by persuasion to obtain the dispersion of
unlawful assemblagia before the troops intertrred.
The general further made a report to the Diet,
assembled at Frankfort, explaining the motives of his
conduct, and seeking support in his endeavour to
maintain order. The effect produced by this con-
ciliating line of conduct is beet evinced by the fact'
tl,at, when the most violent of the members at the
Frankfort Diet brought forward a motion to the etfi ct
that the Prussian garrison at Mayence should be re-
placed by other troops, the assembly, on the motion of I
M. WELCK ER (the well-known liberal ni tuber for
Baden), passed on to the order of the day.
The excellent parliamentary tact displayed on this
occasion gives again reason to hope that the Assembly I
now sitting at Frankfort will contribute to the re-
establishment of public order in Germany. It reckons
amongst its members many names that command
respect from past services :—W ELCK ell, the historian
and jurist; HERMANN, the leading German political
economist; Prince lacosowset, who has blended
aristocratic standing with literary taste and popular
learning; Baron Vos VINCK E, a genuine impersonifi-
cation of the Saxon race—slow but sure, tearless,
and despising lies and shams of all kinds:—
these are names that command respect in a country
where intellect has its due weight; and where repu-
tation gives power. This list of notabilities is
a short one ; but, out of more than six
hundred members now assembled, each of whom
has some claim on the regard of his constituents, it
will suffice to account for the hopes with which the
assembly inspire us. Their first act is quite in keep-
ing with these hopes, being no less than a declaration,
adopted on the motion of Baron VON VINCKE, to the
effect that the basis of the assembly was the clause in
the treaty of Viennaby which a central assembly for
discussing the general interests of the Confederation
was provided, and the place named for its assembly
was Frankfort. The diet now assembled under this
clause consequently represents the various states,
but does not arrogate the right of superstaliny them.
By this declaration the prospect of a collision between
the larger states of Germany and the diet is removed.
The wisdom and temperance thus displayed by the
central German, or by the popular delegates coil, cted
in the National Assembly of all Germany, give hopes
that, whatever follies and extremes may prevail in
the old absolutist capitals, there will still be a main
portion of Germany free from them—a wealthy,
populous, and influential region, too—one to which
liberals and moderates may look and trust, to save
them, by effort and by example, from either reaction
or excess.

PLAIN, good, calm sense marked the speeches, re-
solutions, and entire tone of the great Birmingham
reform weeting. There was abundance of excite-
ment in the minds, aspects, and energies of those as-
sembled. but it refrained from breaking forth in
menace or exaggeration. The reformers are like men
about to start upon a long race, and who in the midst
of their zeal reserve their breath and economise tem-
per and strength. They gird their loins, not in passion,
but determination. They see the road straight before
them, and the goal they are resolved to reach, and
know that nothing can lastingly obstruct or prevent
their reaching it, save their own fickleness, lassitude,
or disunion.
Reformers owe Lord JOHN RessEr.i. a signal weed
of gratitude, not only for his past efforts in carrying
that Reform Bill, which modified the means
and the nominees of corruption. What they should
now be grateful for, is, his lordship having so loudly
and unmistakeably given the signal for agita-
tion, by challenging the whole country with
i's indifference to reform or to any extension of the
suffrage, and with perfect acquiescence in the wisdom
of the present system of government. That is a fair
challeng-, in whatever spirit given, and whether
meant to be irony, or defiance, or a stolid assertion of
what was not the fact, it was precisely what the
country wanted.
Lord J. Russm's assertion, if not his conviction,
goes to assume that the country is in a normal,
a secure, a prosperous state—tha. any interruption
to its content arises from casualties likely
not again to occur, and that the acme government,
following the same system, which 11118 brought the
country to the financial and social nonplus of the pre-
sent year, can go on unchanged, unmoved, and almost
uncnticised. The Prime Minister, we fear, in this,
altogether underrates the elements of disorder which
exist, the interruptions to industry which convert the
quiet working man into the discontented pauper ; the
heavy taxation with at the same time a falling revenue;
in short all the too manifest consequences of a system
of government, unequal to the difficulties of its task.
In such a state of things the middle classes have a
dreary prospect and an anxious time. If C.° working
::;asses become widely de.titute and dis-
contented, it a an the middle clue will fall