The Express.
London, England, 1846-12-19 00:00:00

speedily show that he has a higher, and juster,
more enlarged appreciation of our unrivalled coiled-
don of pubhc records than his immediate predecessor.
The political party now in power strangled that hydra
of corruption, the Record Commission, which had coat
the country some 400,0001.!—infinitely beyond the
sum requisite for a new building; and they re-
modelled the present Public Record Office. Let them
complete the good work by taking the most necessary
step of providing forthwith one safe repository, with-
out which all former reforms are comparatively im-
potent ; that step, which their own act of parliament
declares is the first thing to be done, but which, owing
to various untoward causes,has been delayed for these
ten years.

MANY who saw, or thought they saw, in the anti-
malt-tax movement the commencement of independent
action by the farmers will ere this have been disap-
pointed. It cannot be doubted that farmers feel
strongly upon this question ; and it was because the
movement indicated some symptoms that the rural
capitalists were about to awaken from suchathy
that the friends of agricultural progress regarded it
hopefully. The result of the meeting at e York
Hotel has for the present effectually damped those
hopes. Notwithstanding the evidence he last meet-
ing in Norfolk exhibited that landlord influence
had considerably abated open manifestations of zeal
for untaxed malt ; although farmers were induced
to abstain from countenancing the agitation by
their presence ; there were still signs, less obvious
perhaps, of their acquiescence in the views of the
malt-tax repealers. One of these which may be men-
tioned is the fact that the Lynn " Protection Society "
determined to devote its entire efforts, and its funds,
to the single object of repealing the malt duty;
and so determined were the members of that society
to accomplish their object, that, in order to get over
a rule which prevented the voting any larger part of
their funds than 231. at any one meeting, they held
successive meetings until they had devoted all their
money to its new purpose.
It is not to be supposed that such a decided expres-
sion of interest in the subject on the part of the far-
mers, was lost upon the politicians, who regard the
farmers as their political tools—the engines whereby
they at one time governed the nation; and many of
whom constantly sacrifice real wealth and pecuniary in-
dependence to the maintenance of large voting power
through the agency of a numerous and dependent
tenantry. And accordingly we find in the cattle-
show week, which is the agricultural politician's
brief season of activity, the " farmers' friends" took
effective means for swamping the farmers' agitation.
The cold shoulder had been offered by the land-
owners to the malt-tax repealers, the light of the
landlord countenance had been carefully withheld
from the movement; but the main effect of such
means of obstruction had been to render it more
genuinely a tenant farmer's action. Much was said
at the Norfolk meetings apt enough to the condition
of farmers, and the existing relations between
landlords and tenants, but not very germane to the
matter of malt-tax repeal, which tended in the direc-
tion of emancipation of the tenantry. And it is not
so much the want of power as the want of will to
act, which prevents the farmers from taking that
social and political position in the state which the
importance of their industry, and the large aggregate
amount of their capital, would seem naturally to
justify. Now, the sentiments of some of the speakers
at the anti-malt-tax meetings were calculated to sti-
mulate this sluggish will into life and activity, and
hence it became an object with the party of land-
owners, which for distinction'-sake we must still
designate as " protectionist," to suppress such senti-
ments. As, therefore, the movement had not been
extinguished by the absence of landlord support,
there only remained the more decisive but effective
plan of stifling it by landlord patronage.
The Central Protection Society, which twelve
months ago had ostentatiously repudiated the malt
tax, have now thought fit to entertain the question.
The Duke of RICHMOND, who is the organ, and, if it
has anything worthy the name of head, the head also,
of the confederated landoerats, said that " numerous
and pressing applications had been made to the
society to take into their consideration the repeal of
the malt tax," and that in consequence a meeting had
been fixed for the 12th of January for the full discus-
sion of the subject. And he added :
We want to know, and we ought to know, what is the
opinion of the farmers of England on the subject of the
malt tax. My own opinion is well known. I think now,
and I have always thought, that it is an odious tax; that it
interferes with the manufacture of malt , that it is an in-
tolerable inconvenience to have an exciseman constantly
hanging about one's premises; that it prevents the feeding
of cattle by malt, which, despite of the opinion of one
learned professor, I still believe to be excellent food for
cattle; but, above all, that it tends to deprive the farmers
and labourers of England of a wholesome and nutritious
beverage. But the question is not, what is my opinion, or
the ooinion of any other individual member of the society,
bat what is the opinion of the tenant farmers of the country I
I hope sincerely that we shall be favoured with their
opinions. But, as to myself, I confess I like customs duties
better than excise duties.
And his grace suggested that a tax producing nearly
five millions sterling per annum could not be repealed
without finding some substitute. Now the above
plausibly-expressed anxiety to learn the opinion of
tenant-farmers upon the subject, and when that
opinion has been obtained to defer to it, is based upon
the covert assumption that tenant-farmers must and
will act only by and through the Central Protection
Society. This is the old " farmers' friend" device
in a new form. The farmers seemed inclined to
move without their political " friends," and the Duke
of RICHMOND, in the name of the " farmers' friends,"
says : Tell us where you want to go and we will lead
you. That • such leaders will conduct the
formers to a repeal of the malt tax, unless it
should happen that a repeal of the malt tax be found
convenient to landlord interests, nobody, who has
watched the sham fights made by the "farmers"
friends," when professing to fight farmers' battles,.
can believe. It was clear, therefore, that the malt-
tax repealers who are in earnest could gain nothing
by surrendering their question into the hands of the
Central Protection Society. They should have
avoided such a surrender, if they wished to avoid ca.-
tinction.
But the Anti-Malt-tax Association contained a
large proportion of Protectionists, whose allegiance to
the landlord influence of the central society was at
least as strong as their desire for malt-tax repeal.
Willingly or heedlessly, at all eventahelplessly, the
malt-tax repeaters have fallen into the trap; for the
association agreed to suspend its operations until after
the 12th of January. No more deputations are to go
forth, and the association adjourned to the 13th
January. There is no doubt that the opinion of the
local protection societies will be almost unanimously in
favour of the repeal, and thus the question will become
once again a part of the regular political stock in
trade of the " farmers' friends." It may be used to
impede or embarrass tb e present or some subsequent
administratiJn, for the furtherance of some landlord
objects, but that the malt tax will henceforth be ad-
vocated for its own sake, or upon sound economical
grounds, is out of the question. But above all it can
no more furnish a sort of trial question, on which
farmers might learn independent political action.
' Possibly this may not in the end retard their real
emancipation, for the spectacle of another question,
in which they feel an ir,terest, undergoing extinc-
tion under the fosterkprmentage of the squirearchy,
may not be without ~ts advantages to the tenant
farmers. The mainly; of advocating repeal, by some
of the speakers of tb e association, savoured too much
of the narrow viv.vs, and dealt too often with the
claptrap phrases of the Protectionists. There was
more than enough of stress on the importance of malt
in feeding cat• Lie, and of home-brewed beer for the
labourers,which after entire only incidents in a larger
consideration of the subject.
Not tlrit the continued independent agitation of
malt-tax repeal would have led to any immediate re-
sult, for the revenue derived from malt is so large that
the duty can only be repealed as a part of some
large measure of fiscal change. But there is great
power in earnest agitation, and a farmer's—a real
fariner's anti-malt tax agitation might have hastened
the advent of that period when taxation will be re-
moved, in a great measure, from the industry and
consumption of the country.
Several of the speakers at the meeting of the Malt-
tax Association showed that sound economical prin-
ciples had found their way into the question. Thus,
Mr. CUM.:TRAM, who was in a sort the messenger
from the Central Protection Society, drew an illus-
tration of the probable increased demand for malt
when relieved from duty, from the great increase of
printed calico since the repeal of the duty of 30. the
square yard, and said, that the entire freedom from
excise restrictions was a principal object to be striven
for. And Mr. MODCSKIN urged the repeal of all