The Express.
London, England, 1846-10-09 00:00:00

furnishing a Barmecide repeat ; mocking GOD'S law 1
with a labour that ends where it begins. He may
henoeforth toil diligently and cheerfully, for a bles-
sing! attends his effort. He is not producing his
miserable daily shilling ; but shillings uncounted in
futnee crop+, and future comforts for himself and his
family. He rises from the paralysing sense of pau-
perism to the ennobling consciousness of productive
labour.
Henceforth it is his work and not his misery that
entitles him to what he receives. This is as it should
be. In this distinctive result of productive labour,
more than in the material advantages which attend
it, we see the chief ground for congratulating
the Government, the Irish nation, and the LORD
LIEUTENANT himself; on the change he has made.
He has removed even the possibility of pauperising
Ireland. Ho has taken the first step to engender a
race of Irish labourers. Hitherto England has had the
advantage (a questionable one to her) of such a class.
The hard-working harvest-man was a labourer in Eng-
land, a con-acre cattier in Connaught. In the one cha-
racter he earned the good word of his employer as a
steady, sober, grateful, and industrious workman ; in
the other, he was a world's wonder of lawlessness, lazi-
nese, wretchedness, and repartee. Among tl-e best of I
farm-servants, he was certainly the very worst of tenants.
Let us hope that the improvements of the soil, under the
liberal construction of the Labour-rate Act; the shock to
selfishness, which the present misery can hardly fail
to give ; with the destruction of the peasant's staple
and sole dependance, the potato; may at last give
Ireland the benefit of the industry of her sons.
The low standard of comfort to which his home-
, wretchedness bad habituated the Irishman, madehim a
formidable competitor with his English brother. His
appearance towards harvest-time was the harbinger
of lowered wages and contracted employment to the
Saxon tiller of the soiL In this respect his periodical
immigrations were bad for England. They made a
further reduction in a scale of payments which needed
none. But if he can find agricultural employment at
home,—as the regularity of his labourinereases, so will
its remuneration, and with this his self-respect. Aided
by the instruction of his superiors, whom enlarged
agricultural operations must retain, for a time at
least, on their estates, we may hope to see the Irishman
prove that, if his Celtic blood must be held to account
for previous apathy and long-continued misery, its
influence is not so magical as to be proof against a
demand for labour guided by superior intelligence, and
accompanied with instruction from the employer, till
now undreamed of.

IT is a singular coincidence that a colossal statue
of the great liberator of the Peninsula from French
domination should have been raised on the loftiest of
London pedestals, in the very same week in which a
French prince went in triumph to Madrid, in the
very teeth of British protest and remonstrance, to
espouse the heiress to the Spanish throne. There is
similarity in the way of doing the things, as in the
things themselves. LOUIS PHILIPPE and Sir
FREDERICK TRENCH are artists of the same
order, predetermined to elevate their heroes in their
own way, maugre every opposit'on from friend or
foe. Little either of them care how the thing looks !
whether it squares with the rules of art, or the prin-
ciples of diplomacy. To succeed in installing
MONTPENSIER over Madrid; WELLINGTON over
the Arch ;—that is the great object. Once there,
I let them keep their position, if they can. Let them
be praised or be hooted, saluted with laurel crowns
or pelted with mud, it is all one to the TRENCH or the
ORLEANS.
Both argue that the statue, once up, cannot fail to
remain so ; and that an object so huge and so high must
attract admiration. Both reckon upon a subsiding
of the popular clamour ; upon the tongues and pens of
diplomatic and artistic critics growing weary. It will
not be worth declaring war against the beardless
MONTPENSIER, or raising St. Giles's against the brazen
image which Sir FREDERICK TRENCH bath set up.
Braise therefore prevails. The reign of that metal
is to eadure over both Pimlico and Spain. The
respecter of taste and of national independence is to
content himself with a shrug of resignation.

We could indulge in a vast deal of loquacious
resentment on both these topics, did we not deem it
derogatory to the majesty of the press to keep thunder-
ing in vain. It is enough for oar foreign minister
and his ambassadors to be treated with contumely ; to
have their remonstrances met with official silence, and
semi-official jeers. When Mr. BULWER presented
his first protest to his Serene 'Mightiness, Isrunrrz,
that renegade hidalgo replied that he would disdain
attending to Mr. B.'s notes till instructions came to
him from London. When the instructions came, the
hidalgo declared that he cared as little for the
opinions of the Government, as for those of
the Envoy. The Marquis of NORMANBY paid his
respects at the Tuileries. The royal owner
declared he was not at home, and ordered his
coach to La Ferte Vidame. The Marquis's protest
was sent to M. GuizoT, who replied by the post ten
days after, when the bridegroom had set forth.
The French principals being thus impertinent, their
valets were at the same time set on to pelt Lord
PALMERSTON. The language of the French and
Spanish ministerial papers was of that servants'-hall
school of impertinence to which there is no replying.
In a controversy of this kind one is loth to join.
Nor does there seem anything to be done, except to
, throw our cloaks around us in the most dignified

fashion possible, and remain silent. Our contempo-
raries, however, do not see the matter in this light.
They will bandy words, and show their soreness.
One of them, the joint organ of the PALMERSTON and
ABERDEEN policy, continues to show a very courteous
degree of ill-humour, which it supports by spinning
very pretty and ingenious little arguments about the
treaty of Utrecht, winding these up by ambiguous,
but not intemperate, menaces. What is all
this but drawing a rapier, and delicately
fencing against an antagonist who wields
the ruffian's bludgeon ; whose arguments are
mere violence; who comes upon you like a thief in
the night, and does not unmask till he has struck you.
The idea of quoting GROTIUS or VArrEL to such a
fellow is an excellent joke. Would you bind him with
a treaty of Utrecht ? Why, he mocks the treaties of
Vienna. Who, indeed, saving ourselves, has been
honest enough, or fool enough, to respect them ? How
can Lord PALMERSTON, who never could get Louis
-PHILIPPE to respect or execute the Quadripartite
Treaty of his own signing, hope to make him respect
a treaty signed a century and a half back? There is
no nee whatever in pleading treaties with the Kiag of
the French. As Senor ISTURITZ said naively in the
Cortes, " The Revolution has changed all that"
But there was one thing,one motive,thatmight have
acted as a check upon Louis PHILIPPE in following
up his projects upon Spain, as upon any other coun-
try. This was fear of the consequences. Had Eng-
land and its Government preserved their old cha-
racter, of a pacific nation indeed, but of one that
would suffer no offence to its pride, no outrage upon
its interests, Louis PHILIPPE dared not have passed
this insult upon us. Bat we have never lately been
tired, of fondling him,of bepraising him, of confiding in
him, of styling his Majesty and M. GUIZOT the only
Frenchmen who would not injure or deceive us. What
an outcry was raised against any one who mistrusted
either! Whosoever doubted the immaculate worth of
Louis PHILIPPE, Were stigmatised as a war-party.
Lord ABERDEEN acted upon this LOUIS PHILIPPIAN
mania. He brought the Queen to En, as all must
admit, to be duped. He reduced the Mediterranean
fleet to one vessel, and he sent instructions to Mr.
BULWER to court the Moderados. There are pro-
bably not two men in the empire capable of pursuing
a course so monstrously mean, so childishly imbecile.
But there was danger in changing it.
Lord ABERDEEN had so simply, so servilely, re-
signed himself to be the plaything of LOUIS PHILIPPE,
that even his Majesty must have felt some compunc-