The Express.
London, England, 1849-08-18 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY

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MOM 1114TIZ AT LONDON Fl
44 oda pot I Afterains, le Ws. pr.
II Ida. ), Aftermos, OS pis L

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST, 18.

be the metropolis the freehold land movement is
rapidly and steadily gaining ground. The oommittee
for promoting the acquiWtion of the forty shilling
franchise. in connection with the MetropoThan Finan-
cial and Parliamentary Reform Association, is every
day enrolling new members. Oar readers will hare
leaned from a report published in yesterday's Daily
News that the St. Pancras Freehold Land Associa-
tion has been extended into a Marylebone association.
Similar movements are in actual progress, or being
originated in ocher metropolitan districts. The
tredrsmen, the artificers, the members of the liberal,
professions in London, can thus in the most legitimate
end constitutional manner render the home counties
as reliable garrisons for the liberal canoe as the metro-
politan boroughs.
The Times has recently affected to patronise this
movement—as usual with that journal when it coon-
tenances any liberal effort, for the purpose of disparaging
and rendering it suspicious. If, says our cont-m-
-porary, by me ne of these asecciations the elective
qoalificagon is within the reach of every industrious
lab2orer, what need of further electoral reform?
This insidious question is put with a twofold ob-
ject. On the one band it is hoped that the in-
sinuation may induce many to be satisfied with as
the right to vote for themselves, and to desist
from their advocacy of general pat liamettary re-
form. On the other it is hoped that the earnest and
enth aiutic prrliamentary reformers may be deterred
from joining the freehold land asaociatioes, by being
led to regard the extension of the 40s. franchise as an
evasion of, or substitute fora searching parliamentary

reform.
Eith rof these views would be grossly erroneous.
The extension of the suffrage by the augmentation of
40s. freehold. cannot be an efficient substitute for
electoral reform. It is only in England—only in the
counties of England that it is available. There is no
40s. franchise in Scotland or Ireland. There is no
401. franchise in the boroughs. The extension of the
40s. franchise leaves two-thirds of our constituencies
unaffected. And even though its range of influence
were not thus limited the extension of the 404.
franchise will not do away with the unequal
distribution of electors among the constituencies, will
not remove the anomaly of a Marylebone and a Bir-
mingham returning only the same number of members
as two pocket boroughs with their 100 or 160 voters
each. lbe extension of the 40e. franchise will not
give the poor and honest Tatar the prJtectinn of the
ballot. The extension of the 40s. franchise will not
give the people that incessant control over their repre-
sentatives which short parliaments alone can bestow.
The extension of the 40a. franchise luster can be a
substitute for Mr. Ilcut.'s plan of partamentary

reform.
But the extension of the 40s. franchise will 133
a real and a great gal., to the liberal cause. There is
a numerous minnrity—if it be always a minority. —in
every squire-ridden county, eager to emancipate
itself, if it saw th^ way clearly. To the aid of this
depressed minority the extension of the 40s. fran-
chise would enable us to bring the aid of a numerous
nnenfranchised class resident in the villages and
towns of each county, and in the great cities in or
near it. Men who are timid when they stand
alone become hold among a crowd of kindred spirits.
The voters, aided t a the county electoral rolls by the
extension of the 40s. franchise, would find numerous
allies prepared to welcome and co-op3rate with them.
By the extension of the 40s. freeholds a majority of
the county representations of Englend might be
secured to the liberal cause. Such a reinforcem nt to
the phalanx of real, earnest, practical liberals al-
ready in the House of Commons, backed as they
would be by the popular cry from without, would
wrest from ministers, in the present dislocated state
of parties, many valuable concessions—in Vme, among
others, that of • comprehensive systematic electoral
reform.
The gaining of the English counties by the re-
formers would weaken the clerenders of the existing
unequal and corrupt electoral system, even mare than
it strengthened the assailants. The counties and mill
boroughs are at present divided between the landed
and the monied members of the aristocratic factions.
Each section supports the other in upholding a system
in which both find their account. The extension of
the 40s. franchise would tell to a far greater extent
against the landed than against the monied jobbers in
electoral abuses. It would derange the balance of
the two elements of the body of parliamentary cor-
ruption. The landowners would become disgusted
with a system which worked only for the benefit of
their millionaire allies; and, as in 1830, the zeal of
some of them would wax cold, while others would
actually turn and assail the system by which they no
longer profited.
The extension of the 40.. franchise can never be a
substitute for a thorough electoral reform ; but it is
the best and readiest peaceable and constitutional
means of obtaining such a reform. It is the sharp•
edged wedge which must first be driven into the hard
anknotted body of parliamentary corruption.

RIOT IN
THE HAMPRUSSI AN TBURO.-COLLISION
ROOPS. WITH

A summary of the following was given in the
Express yesterday :
HAMBURG, Atlover 14.
The Bavarian troops returning from the cempeign
arrived at Alton& on Saturday, along with some Hes
Skill infantry. The latter were quartered in the
town, the former in the adjacent villages, and upon
eat territory. They were received very cordially by
all classes of the community. The officers bad an
excursion up the Meter, preceded by the band of our
infantry ; aid in the evening again a supper was pre-
pared for them, on bowl of illuminated barges, at
the inner boron of the same river, in this city, when
fireworks and Bergal flames were lighted on board
of other barges, while music was performing on the
water, es well as in the pavilions• surrounding it.
They were to start on Sunday morning, by the rail-
road, to Magdeburg, on their way home, but only
part of them veld be forwarded by one train ;
another left yesterday, a third this morning, and the
remainder will follow to-morrow. These people do
not conceal their ill-will towards Prussia and the
Proximo. They speak it out at public places as well
as at their lodgings, and finding a corresponding feel-
ing of sympathy prevailing here, peepedarly with
the lower orders, they worked upon it and fanatieed
them. This is an introduction to the following pain-
ful events.
At seven o'clock last night battalions of Prussian
infantry arrived on the Rendaburg railway at Alton'.
One of them proceeded to this city where they had
their quarters prepared at Kreuter's Riding School, at
the rase Drebbahn. !aiming the station they were
received by a mob with groans end insulting lan-
guage. The crowds increased as they marched '
through Alton& and the suburb of Bt. Pauli, and be-
came mote' insolent and violent, and preceding the
soldiers they shut the Hamburg city gate in
their face. The latter at last used their
bayonets and the butt-ends of their guns,
and cleared the gates. Bat here they
met with another obstacle, others having come from
the city and filled the Zenglians Market, up to the
guard-house, near the gate, and were pelting the sol-
diers with dirt, stones, bricks, and other missiles. At
the same time the ammunition waggons in the rear
were attacked, but the men who escorted them fired
at the mob and dispersed them. The battalion being
jammed up between the gate and the rioters
forced their way again with their weapons, when a
number of people were wounded; amongst them, it is
stated, some Bavarian soldiers who had encouraged
and assisted the rioters. The Prussians now turned
to the left. marching along the reminds. Here they