The Express.
London, England, 1848-12-12 00:00:00

THB BMW*, TUESDAY EVIMING. DECEMBER 12, 11448.

einess, who serve not for hire bat duty. The nem-
lben 'el the prefserional soldiers are lbw. Freesia
rar
inelithershav nine to be a military monarchy, what
• Astarte may-do. But the great danger_ of any
tepneentative system in Prawn, not found.' ca rbe
nen liberal pnaciples and- defended by the mit
guarantees, is that ell the influence Wok
the wetkieg el. Rah a got,* will be absorbed'!!
funadomarise. Most people are aware that the
boded asittoorsey in the loath of Genhatrimewerhesdleme
assely destroyed, and is saperseded by a
obese/en-1n fact, by are army of phiosmen. Under
ifbi im, . lea leg rgisalgated by the King, a
kip el the maw ehaneber will Lo deal* be
it hesWasifige,whilst isdireot election
ere the oseallist an the lower ohamber—what
Dud Prombne mat dread I. this bureaucratic. Nay,
it is we In era liberals sine which object to, mid
abhor It, hat the commenial Ewa The King has pro-
mulgated a ming of fine pensiples in hi. constitution.
Bettina oosesaistobeeekeeitted to the new char.
hers, The sew dinning will infallibly he bureaucrat,
—that is, a eelledisa et eeeilises and placemen. And,
these plaisans an Is modify the constitution as they ,
please. Dan say one knobs that they will leave
the liberty et the preen bag P Ur that they will
allow their own often Aline management of the
elections to be inquired into ? Our aristocratic journals,
however, find the new royal Prussian constitution to
be too liberal. Under heaven, what would the rabid
tarns have? An hereditary hone of peers in a country
without noblesse? Are not limited electoral colleges
enacientlypooket boroughs for the crown to influence P
The Prussian landwehr is a kind of national guard,
which the nmes holds in abhorrence. In fact the
Mow proscribes all European countries that refine
to wear the feudal livery of England as it end to he.
It would be really amusing, if it were net immenern
to and Monis, which profen to representiagikk a*
non, more absolutist than the Austrian Court, NA at
lime ewe time eceniag the Prussian wir
..., tee meth talkie sabjects. For the - the
llama Chambers ea Wo proceedings the d
MOM we mast vac to the letter of ear carer
spubst at Yeasidbat.

Ws lately contrasted the expose of goveraleg oat I
colonise ander the system mewed Whore the Arid-
cat revolution, and the *Speer et goveming them at
peessat. That this etemlay was he a gather bse
to the old eyebolt these ma be little ail.
wila= the colonies also be gainers P
• few simple hots will loathe the reader to three
quid= for himself. In 1704 the egrefer
thins of the year's experts from this comer, le all
the colonies amounted to 569,9301.; in 1772 (a insolions
year at that tints) it amounted to 6,022,1321. In 1704
the value of the whole export trade at this country for
the year, including the colonises wee 600004 i is
1772 the exports to the colonise aka' were worth
6,022,1321. In the course of little mare
than half a century the power of the colonies to par-
dons the manufactures and radon of the mother
country increased twelvefold; at the end of
period the trade of the mother country with the
colonies alone was within a trifle of being equal in
value to the whole of its trade at the onamenossant.
This was no sw'den factitious increase, bet the result
eta gradual healthy development of the colonial re-
sources; and no one needs to be reminded that of all
states of society such a state of healthy progress is
the most conducive to the happiness of a community
and the growth of its intel4enos, refinement, and
morality. To corroborate this opinion we need only
refer to the earlier parts of the autobiography of
FILANKLIN and of the biography of WASHINGTON.
We are anxious to impress these facts, and the
fads respecting the comparative expense of the old
and new systems of colonial government which we
ethenitted to oar readers on the 25th of last month, on
the public mind; because we see that events are
ti impend-
aziat
which will render their knowledge imprthat in
the people both of this country and tW colusits
upon the course of action they are to adopt.
The thee rapidly approaching when the system of
whim between Great Britain sad its wlea suet
=berm satire revision. Within the last quarter
el a watery the entire power of local self.govarament
may be said to have been vented ta the in-
habitants of Canada and Nova Scotia, two of oar most
important colonies ; pretty considerable advances in
the same direction have been made in the colony. of
New South Wales; and hopes of similar concessions
(which it would be dangerous to disappoint) have
been held out to other colonies. During the same
period the constitution of society in many of our colo-
nies has undergone a material change : slavery has
been abolished throughout the tropical colonies, and
Australia is no longer one large gaol for the incarce-
ration of convicted felons. Lastly, the progress
made in the substitution of a system of free-
trade fur the old complicated and artificial
system of protections and restrictions, is en-
tirely changing the nature of our relations
to the colonies. Many years cannot elapse before all
these mutations and their consequences make them-
selves felt in demands for an entire change in the
system of colonial government ; and it is of the
utmost consequence that the people both of the cola
nies and the mother country should bring to the
discussion of these demands such an accurate know-
ledge of facts, such clear and just apprehensions of
principle, as can alone ensure their being conducted in
an amicable spirit and to a satisfactory result.
Of the old colonies of Great Britain none surpassed
in well regulated and successful enterprise the New
England colonies. Before the war of independence they
had engrossed by far the most important part of
British deep-sea fisheries, and had extended them
into regions to which the inhabitants of the old
country had never dreamed of carrying the pursuit.
They carried on a lucrative commerce with our own
West ladies, and one 'scarcely less important though
more irregular with the Spanish colonies. They were
affluent, and in consequence valuable customers of the
mother country. In their admirable arrangements
for general public education they were even at that
early period in advance of every country in Europe
and a more moral and well regulated community did
not exist. To revert to the question of public ex-
penditure, about 1765 the entire civil govern-
ment of Massachussetts Bay con annually 18,0001.,
of Connecticut 4,0001.; of New Hampshire and
Rhode Island, 3,5001. each ; in all, 29,0001. When
we look back upon the history of the foundation and
growth of these colonies, we find on the one hand
that the home government never contributed a
farthing towards their settlement ; and on the other,
that the home g4vernment allowed the founders to
organise and administer their civil government with-
out interference. The pilgrim Mhos and their
descendants passed no laws and appointed no officials
that were not absolutely indispensable for preserving
peace and order among themselves, and protecting
the community from the assaults of the Indians.
Their simple frame-work of government proved
amply sufficient, and coot little or nothing.
Contrast this chapter of colonial history with that
which relates to the settlement of New Zealand.
That colony was founded, like New England, without
the consent or cooperation of the government, by a
band of settlers containing a large admixture of the
educated middle clam. Bat it was not consistent
with the principles of the Colonial-office to leave
them alone, as the government of the seventeenth
century had left the New Englanders. The cum-
brous and complex machinery of an administrative go-
vernment, fitted for a numerous and full-grown society,
was forced upon them, and they. were denied all
control over it. The consequence is that the deve-
lopment of the natural resources of New Zealand has
in a manner yet to bo begun ; that instead of protect•
ing themselves, they are placed under the guard of
a considerable military detachment and three ships
of war, for which we of the old country pay ;
and that the 17,000 inhabitants of New Zealand pay
41,5241. of taxes, cf which 40,3061. me annually ex-
pended to maintain its civil institutions. In addition
to this sum considerable advances have been made to
defray the earlier expenditure of the colony, out d
the imperial exchequer.
For the present we leave our readers to draw their
own inferences' from these contrasting histories of two
colonies. But we will embrace an early opportunity
to point the moral of their tales, and illustrate it by
additional exempla from our colonial record's.

Tim pressure of these had times has had the
natural effect of compelling the householders of this
immense city to look more narrowly into the various
items of their expenditure than they had been in the
habit of doing in ordinary prosperous years. A
scrutiny of this description, pmweed imaltansously
by several hundred thommed heeds Wake, has,
doubtlees, given a powerful impulse to private sumo-

miss, and to the acquisition of thrifty IWO% But
this, after all, is the least d the advanagre whom have
been derived from the pastel bet whole's*, &sa-
pling through which the nation has passed. A more
remarkable result, and on. likely to be more exten-
sively and permanently beneficial, is the light which
each man's inedtlitions ea hie own affairs hamthrown
upon the intimate connexion whieti exists between in-
dividual thrift and the public economy of diadem.
Every man who attempted to reduce his r :palatine
found himself dapped short by a name of charges
which no foresight of his could redoes to say poem-
able extent. Pinch himself as hr might In other re-
opens, the burthen of general end loodtaxes remained
inexorably the mine. And when to these were added
the exorbitant payments exacted for many of the in-
dmispensable necessaries of life, such as homeroom,
e gas, and water, it was found that the career of
each individual's retrenchment had to stop wonder'
fully short of its destined goal.
Of all the local burthens which weigh down the
energies and fritter away the incomes of our mstropo-
I Man population, the most palpably mho* and oppres-
sive are the gas and water monopolies. That they
should be so patiently borne with as they are has
often been a matter of surprise to us ; and we can-
act otherwise acomint for it than by the habit
which has grown up of looking on them in the light
of regular taxes. The irregularities in their e;gle/
are often, indeed, a eabjeot of complaint.
these de not occur, we fancy most householders
imitable more at the payment of poor's rotsaid
wlise rats, whose amount it is in their power le
limit, than they do at the gas rate and wan rate ,1
over the emin. and the expeoditure of which they
panels se scaled whatsoever. For these latter are
not tame, in any sense of the wadi but monopolies, 1
among the most powerful and irresponsible that
mkt
And yet it is almost marvellous to whams the
ty with which two millions of people, re.
=ii.ridtin epees of 80 square miles, sad osesse-
g such usexampled facilities for essabhis and
malsised action against abuses of this description, Ist
year after year pass away without any decided alba
is rid dismeelvea of no monstrous an extortion.
The sum new paid 63f gas and water in the metropo-
litan diarists is net mesh sheet of a million a year,
while Ms sent el pmeisibe Os pa sad maintaining
the d waist be estimated at mans
this eure4 or at meet eanddrd, of that amount;
the dibensre all slag es net profit into the pockets
of the mamplisle.
In SIM ropes% however, there are considerable
differesses between the paeltim of Wee two name-
polies. The gm is a manufactured commodity, and
woad be open to the competition that mots in
every other manabetine. if it were not for the facin-
gs ler sombination afforded by the mode of its dis-
tillation. And es it is, that combination is always
liable to be smiled, by the intrusion of new comps
titers or the lineation of new Public at-
lentioa is likewise coastaatly send to the subject,
!thresh in a very desultory ineffective way; so that,
*the whole, there exists a sort of hops that in the
course of time the gee monopoly in the metropolis will
be broken up sad dispersed, as it has been Beady in
some of our mamilieturing cities, and that by a course
of tactics which we strongly recommend the Loa-
domes to imitate.
It is quite otherwise, we are sorry to lay, with the
monopoly of water. The very circumstance of water I
being a natural production favours the perpetuation
of the monopoly, at the same time that it enormously
increases the profits of the combining—
or we might
as aptly call dins, the 'withrtitioning "—companion
For they might temple each other if they pre-
ferred it. Some of them were rivals owe; and others
are the consolidated remains of rival companies, that
first ruined each other, and then were purchased or
absorbed by ems gigantic competitor. For, strange
to my, competition for the supply of so cheap a com-
modity of water has proved to be among the most
losing speculations that ever sharehalders clubbed 1
,
their money for. For which, perhaps, the reason
must be sought simply in the fact that it is a named 1
produotion, and leaves no margin for the exercise of
that superior shill or economy which makes all
the dfitereace between success and ruin in manatee-
marine rivalry. Be that as it may, it is melancholy to
reflect that there was coos competition in the supply
of water to the metropolis by private enterprise, and
that so badly managed was that competition, or at' ll
events so ruinous to all parties concerned, that it ter-
minated some thirty years.aio in that partition of the
metropolis among the surviving companies, which has
left its inhabitants ever since completely at their

rilerii their mercy," we may truly my, for never was
power more uncontrolled or irresponsible than that
which these companies exercise over the supply to
2,000,000 of people of one of the first necessaries of
existence. The wards of the committee of the House
of Commons, appointed to inquire into the subject in
1821, describe with sufficient accuracy their power et
the present day
Tire public is at resat without any protection even
against • farther indefinite extension of eurp, In COM of
dispute, there is so tribunal but the boards of thee„panies
themselves to which individuals can appeal ;
are no
regulations but sub as the oompanies may viduatarUy bare
imposed on themselves, end may, therefore, at say time re-
volts, for the continuance of the supply in its present etate,or
for defining the CONS is which it may be withdrawn frawthe
householder.
So far from there being any prospect of those com-
panies being called to account, and their powers cir-
cumscribed within due limits, they are on the con-
trary, taking every opportunity to extend the sphere
of their operstioes. It is only the other day that
an advertisement appeared in the papers, in which
the Lambeth Waterworks Company announce their
intention, in pursuance of an act which they obtained
last session, of incresaing their capital by 200,0001.
sterling, and undertaking the supply of Thames water
to a large section of the county of Soto
Cr
from Esher end Kingston-on-Thames to don, anal
hem thence to Lewisham. The blessings o. Metrope-1
litan monopoly are, in fact, Tepidly extending 1
them-
selves, and we suppose that shortly there will be no
potty village within twenty miles of London whose
inhabitants will not be able to bout that they pay as
extravagantly for water as the Londoners themselves.l
The Lambeth Company alone, at one fell swoop
(11 Vic. c. 7), encloses some eighty square miles of 1
the richest and most populous part of the county of
Surrey.
In the abstract, of course, there is nothing that is
not laudable in this proposal to provide the villegie-
twists of Surrey with a better and more regular
supply of water than they have hitherto enjoyed. If
there were any prospect that this Lambeth company
would be kept in order by tho dread of competition
we r
gadfortulagrat
itimialtrng city the S
conveniences on
the
pare air and healthy coocupefions of the Fountry ;
but, as experience has proved, competition in a non-
manufactured article (corn and cattle we reckon as
manufactures) cannot be carried on with emcees for
any length of time ; and so many capitalists of the
last generation, so to may, burned their Sugars by
speculating in water, that the experiment is not likely
to be Used soon again.
The existing companies are therefore masters of the
field. Their understanding with each other is of the
most thorough description, as indeed their interests
require. There is nothing to prevent their gradually
Idrawing the whole of the metropolitan counties into
their net. Their 'abject', now numbered at two
millions, will in a few years be increased to four, and
their income doubled thereby. We expect to see the
greet °ampules north of the Thames following the
example of their compeer across the water ; though
they can scarcely expect to maks so clean a sweep of
suburban eplencloors as we find catalogued in the
advertisement of the Lambeth company.
The just inference from all these transactions we
take to UN that the "apply of a commodity like water
should in no case be left to private enterprise: the
inevitable ocaesquena of such sremain being—
for the mum which we have hinted above, and
which, had we time to review the history of the
London Waterwadm, we could abundantly substan-
tiate—the estsbiliment of the moat grievous and in-
curable was st taceepsty that modern undertak-
ings admit et 'illssopply of water to all classes is
strictly aENV of
_the Sligo and the Municipality ; and
ought le be peso es snob ander the control of the
pearls as the repeins et the Toads or the relief of the
peer. item that b dew net only will the inhabit-
s lle et Ike astsepaiilen dist dela be esupelled to pay
ea as esseege 30e. per home malty he an inade-
uate gm* at unwholesome water, lout the great
sanitavy swaseres now k sentemplatke will be lite-
rally kept statiortry he leek a plmtifal supply of
the great ekie sting darmisL And all attempts to
promote dowel, Wile ening the poor will fail for
the mini rhea.