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

Europe is, by the grace of God, appointed purveyor
of food to his fellow-citizens ; that tills peculiar
calling endows Mtn with rights, or entitles him to
privileges before other industrious members of the
state. No intelligent being can henceforth sulecribe
to the doctrine that men, living in a limited territory,
are doomed by their Creator to pay a gradually swell-
ing tax to the owner of the soil for leave to enjoy the
blessing given to them—increase and multiply! The
production of food must for all rational men, rank by
the side of the other exertions of the industrious.
Between the production of bread and of meat, of cot-
tons and of woollens, of iron and of gold, there can
be no distinction of preference, excepting in as much
as a greater degree of skill may be required to pro-
duce the one object than is requisite for another. The
worship paid to the ownership of land in every
European country is nearly at an end. The modern
Mower', on whose altar myriads have been slaugh-
tered, has been weighed by his own idolaters in the
balance, and found wanting. They cannot conceal
from themselves the simple fact that the land, as
they till it, does not yield a competent supply of food
for those who demand it. The sole country that is
now freed from fearful sdffering is, as we stated in
the outset, England, whose people last year shook off
the shackles, which they long had worn in common
with their continental brethren
In Germany, in Holland, in Belgium, the example
set by England it; in course of being followed in the pre-
sent year. The Germans use the lead ceremony in deal-
ing with the question. Corn is imported at government
expense, without any questions being asked, even in
states that have representative assemblies. The land-
owners, who there form the bulk of the population,
and not a select class of nobles and gentry exclu-
sively, are convicted of not furnishing the necessary
supplies, and are treated as not competent to vote
upon the best mode of filling the empty granaries.
For us a great warning is timely imparted by this
proceeding of the German governments. It is in the
recollection of all, that a transfer of the property in
the soil to the cultivator, and an arbitrary redemption
of rents, were commanded by the Prussian monarch
between the years 1806 and 1811. The Prussians
have notoriously and signally failed in promoting the
good mode of cultivating the soil which these
violent changes were expected to bring about. The
German theorists have long held that land, on which
human labour is substituted for beasts of burden and
for machines, will yield the most and the best food;
that digging produces a more prolific crop than
ploughing ; and that labour is best bestowed in directly
producing and preparing the daily meal. It is not
easy to conceive a grosser misconception of the
dignity as well as of the industry of man
than this. No theory could be advanced that
is more completely refuted by experience. Ire-
land, Flanders, the greater part of central Europe,
and our sugar plantations, all testify to the grand
fact, that, to make land productive, it must
be treated on the footing of all other instru-
ments put into the hand of the industrious. The
head and not the hand is able to make the most of them.
A man who digs land for potatoes, grain, flax, sugar,
or other products, that can be grown cheaply on a
large scale, is in a parallel situation with the hand-
loom weaver and hand-spinner competing with steam
power. Ho resembles a carrier with a pack-horse
ambling along the road, that is traversed twenty
times a day by a railway train. The reason why
neither spinner nor carrier need grumble at being
displaced by the more powerful machine is, that it as-
suredly offers him the opportunity of directing his
hand labour better than to spinning and vaga-
gondising. He will either be better paid if he joins
in working the new machinery, or he will find a new
trade opened by the cheap supplies it furnishes.
For the same reason, if the cultivation of corn and
potatoes is left to these who produce them on a large,
and consequently cheap scale, the owner of a small
allotment, devoting his time to some refined descrip-
tion of labour, will find that his potato field may
prove a garden, and furnish luxuries instead of neces-
saries. It is the instinct or plain sense of English-
men that has long led them to act upon this prin-
ciple, which now gives to England an exceptional
position in Europe. Such a position Ireland does not
enjoy. It is, however, attainable ; and we must
record our ardent wish that it may be perseveringly
and systematically pursued.
It is a natural error for men who have spent all
their time in hard labour to fall into, that this labour
is their birthright. The friend of man must not cease
to propound the doctrine that not the labour itself,
but the wages of labour, is what must be kept is
view. A judicious distribution of labour is the beet
source of wealth. In England this distribution is
better effected than in most other countries. Ireland
in this respect takes rank with the countries in which
the'" "--tion of labour is most faulty.
the

AN accident involving the lives of a few passen-
gers on a railway attracts universal attention, and
produces a strong expression from the public of the
necessity for legislation to prevent the chance of its
recurrence. We all travel, and, therefore, can fully
understand the dangers arising from careless manage-
ment, and are personally interested in supporting
any measures, which:would relieve us front its evil
consequences. But we do not all descend into the
depths of the earth, nor are we exposed to the immi-
nent risk, which hangs over the miner in his dismal
occupation. We read with horror of a catastrophe,
happening perhaps every three or four months, in
which forty or fifty of our fellow-creatures are
hurried into eternity. For a short time public
attention is excited by the event ; government is asked
to investigate the causes of the accident ; commis-
sioners examine and report ; but, in the din of politics,
the clamour becomes hushed, and is soon forgotten.
Last year a fearful explosion occurred at Jarrow,
destroying the lives of about forty persons, and was
soon followed by a similar accident at Rises. The
explosion at Oldbury had scarcely taken place when
another was announced in Lancashire. Public atten-
tion is still directed to the two latter accidents, and
probably this will induce the government to take
similar steps to those adopted in the cases of the ex-
plosions at Haswell, Jarrow, and Rises. Inquiries
will be made ; the results, like their predecessors,
may be buried and forgotten in the mass of blue
books issued during the next session.
This is not creditable to our governments ; nor is it
to public feeling, which is readily aroueed and kept
awakened when individual interests are concerned,
bat is apt to sink into apathy unless these are para-
mount. Something must be done by the legislature
to protect the lives of the miners, a very large and
most important class of men.
We are well aware how difficult it is to legislate
upon, or to interfere with, any system of productive
labour, and how much caution is requisite to prevent
unnecessary and arbitrary restrictions. But the
legislature has already moved in this direction; our
factories are under a salutary surveillance, and women
are no longer permitted to work in mines. In facto-
ries machinery is not allowed to be exposed so as to
occasion unnecessary risk; why, then, may not mines
be regulated so as to mitigate their present excessive
dangers ?
An ill-considered system of legislation would cer-
tainlybe productive of more evil than of good. Legis-
lation in detail, applicable to the Durham coal-field
with its beds of coal five or six feet thick, would ill
suit the conditions of the collieries of Staffordshire
with their lofty galleries of thirty feet. A system of
ventilation applicable to the one is not adapted to the
other, nor can the modes of working seams of coal,
inclining at every angle from the horizontal to the
perpendicular, be made uniform throughout the coun-
try. It would be useless as well as mischievous to
enact that every colliery should be worked with a
safety lamp, when in some districts inflammable air
never appears. It is, therefore, obvious that any one
of the many methods proposed for the efficient venti-
lation and
,protection of collieries cannot be made to
suit conditions so varied.
We admit all these difficulties ; and yet at the same
time arc fully assured that the subject is ripe for
legislation, and ought to be introduced for considera-
tion by the government in the approaching session.
The general principles of ventilation are well known,
and are universally applicable, although the methods
adoted in practinotce must vary. The legislature cannot
and ought to define any special modes for pro-
ducing the desired result. But it may fairly enact
that the plans adopted shall be efficient, consonant
with the advanced state of science, and adapted to the
peculiar conditions under which the coal is worked. This
can only be done by a well-directed inspection of the
works by competent persons combining practical
and scientific knowledge, whose duties would be to
examine the underground workings and the efficiency
of the means adopted for the protection of the
workers. The reports of these inspectors to govern-
ment would form the basis of proceedings regarding
the works in question. Sir H. DE LA Beene
e- and
Dr. Leos PLAYFAIR, whose m^- coal mir'

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