The Express.
London, England, 1849-09-05 00:00:00

BRISTOL, S.ntwb.r 4.

610171 C -211711•117011. The fol it. the quelatiese
todek—fetiel see Zeiler Tti-sde, 10 do. Orem Wailers Quer-
tees, die.; de. 172. deans, 6' di, Miclfand Stock, SS,. IMF Vele,
180. !lilt Newsstle, sad 171.

YORK, Sentoriber 4.

Ono: Eiciugoi.—Sala: ()test Northers, 71. lls. 31.;
Mee Prellgesee, 6a ; York, Severetlo, sad Beerriek, tre„

eratreglis* I
17.
e---ooTcloate MAIL&
The =alb die irlee, Oup-peste, Lisboa, Madre, Culls, mad
Gibraltar, will be mode ea the monde; of thipt. 7.
The au& fir Mg* North Aineries aad the Baited
States will be aide up oaths wooing of Sept. 7.
The anidis, fie Mareeilles, to the Mediterrsaean, Egypt.
Cayka, laths, Hose-Keep, ie., will he cads up oa
the ~deg of Sept. 7.
Theo West Ladle Mails, szeledier Berseado, lieveaus,
Na..., Mondavi*, New Otiose', amid Mahn, sad imbed*/
those tor Madeira, Bt. Jaaa-deMitimagas, New Brawls,
Chili, end Pen, will be made up as the main of Br 17.
Boni Vote Vdritl.terslalielts, !reins, the lonisa
vie ptata,
wit
be MUD up ea Ilia sacersiag of Sept. 20.
Thfultiall Illiadefre. Os Brazils, sad Baines Ayres,
will tweeds up is lb* Mein Met. 2.

MOH WATS% AT LONDON DRIDON.
Tim DAY-4AIMARS, ,
SIL ANA Aftenows. II IL lINA
Traramow—Monthis 41i. U. ADaswas, 11. INA

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER IL

Awerruzit of the annual volumes of Irish Agricul-
tural Statistics is before us. Compiled under the
superintending care of one so competent as Captain
LUZON, and published without note or comment,
" by authority," these elaborate returns may be taken
as the nearest approach that can be reasonably hoped
for to an annual register of the chief events in the
redid economy of the kingdom. If to these were
added the corresponding history of each year's
changes in the occupations and productions of
the inhabitants of towers, we should have the
means, with the help of the Poor Law reports,
of judging with tolerable accuracy whither that
Wog un-anchored land is drifting. Linked indis-
solubly together as her fate is with oar own, no sub-
ject of inquiry is likely to command a greater share
of English attention. It is in vain that selfishness en-
deavours to forget, or that vanity affects to despise, as
unimportant or immaterial to our own well-being
the social tendencies of our oldest and nearest partner
in thoint-stock of empire. Co-liability cannot be
evade; mutual responsibility cannot be got rid of.
For weal or woe the two islands mast ride the fluc-
tuating sea of time together; and if Ireland be not
destined to swim abreast with Britain, every eable's
length to leeward must infallibly prove as additional
drag and danger.
Incomplete, however, as the present materials for a
national estimate are, they are highly valuable. It
ie indeed rather tantalising to be furnished with them
jest twelvemonths after they were collected. So far
as the number of tons weight of produce is coccereed,
this is of less importance. But in almost every other
particular the effect of this delay in publication is ne-
cessarily to create fallacious impressions and to con-
fess in the public mind all distinct ideas of how far
we have got, and whereabouts we are.
In a shifting and transitory state of things like
that which confessedly prevails in Ireland will re-
gard to the occupation of land and the various modes
of its culture, a minute analysis of the status quo of
August, 1848, bat not published till August, 1549, is
something very like substituting list year's meteoro-
logical tables for the dial of one's weather-glass. We
want to know what is, what has last been, and what
we may expect to be. If Irish agricultural statistics
could be said to be even tolerably uniform, or
if we were not in point of fact reminded in the very
document itself that the whole course of tillage
and system of landholding was in rapid process of
change, we must console ourselves with somewhat
stale-looking facts by the persuasion that th were
just se good as if they had been fresh gathered. But
when it is notorious that during the twelvemonth that
has elapsed since Capt. LARCOM took his last rural
observations, 110U8 aeons change tout alt, one feels a
little " put out" as the phrase is, and much disposed
to marvel how it happens that some of this curious
information was not given to us while it was new and
tree. And we are the more perplexed because Capt.
Lencom goes rather out of his way three times in the
course of as many pages to account for the total omis-
sion of three entire counties, Dublin Tipperary, and
Waterford, by reason of the political disturbance pre-
valent there, and the engross.ng nature of the atten-
tion which the constabulary were in consequence
obliged to devote to other objects than the collection
of statistics.

Still we are glad to have so much of a reliable por-
traiture of what the agricultural state of Ireland was
a year ago. The leading features may be said to be
a considerable increase in the breadth of land in cul-
tivation, a great diminution in the number of separate
holdings. and a still greater proportionate decline to the
amount of capital invested by the occupiers of the soil.
The comparative extent of land planted with cereal
and with green crops in 1847 and in 1848 may be
thus stated

--
CULTIVATION IN 1847.
13tatets Aeras. Quarters.
Wiest,
OW 2,200,870
Barley
Bete
Rye 12,415
Boas 23,768

3,313,670 16,248,934
Acres Toes.
Potatoes
Turnips
Maisr4 Wur set
Other pees crops 69,512

Flax

727,738 8,786,144
Acres. Cos.
68,342

Anis. Toss.
Hay

. • .
CULTIVATION IN 1648.
Awes. Omen&
Wheat .... .... .... 666,746
Oat, 1,922.406
Barley
Bar

Rie
Beau

21:602
23,823

106,876
96,651

r au

i 426

2,856,696 12,282,408
Acres. Tons.
Potatoes
Turnips
Mange! wortzel
Otter green crops .... 32,656
1,013,201 7,169,146
Acres. Cwo.
Flax
Acres. Ton..
Hay
It thus appears that while a oonsiderably smaller
breadth of land was sown with grain, a more than
countervailing extent was sown with green crops and
potatoes. Now, what, prima facie, are the inferences
to be drawn from these facts?

The decrease in the cultivation of wheat we cannot
regard as an evil The growth of reboot, especially
in the west of Ireland, was essentially factitious and
forced. The climate, and in many districts the soil,
of Connaught and West Munster are wholly unsuited
to its steady and profitable culture. There are
indeed parts of Galway and Roscommon, which
are exceptions to this; but as a general rule
we believe it to be ind;spatable that the risk
of loam owing to the lateness of the season, and
the humidity of the atmosphere along the shore of the
Atlantic, is too great in proportion to the fair profit
which a farmer may reasonably expect in future by
the sale of a crop of wisest. It was the artificial price
created by the Corn Law of 1815 that lured the occu-
piers of the soil into the hazardous experiment of
growing wheat where it had never been grown be-
fore. The landlords had contrived to wow up the
rent of land to en unexampled height, and the far-
mers of Mayo and Clare were willing to try
the cultivation of any species of crop that held
out to them the hope of gambler's gain. With
the annihilation of the system of protection,
things mast return by degree. to their
true and natural conditim. The climate and soil that
is unsuitable for wheat yields with campaniles cer-
tainty a fair return if sown with the earlier and
hardier kinds of grain ; and in this light it is a good
ign that a greater acreage was devoted in 1848 to
bore, rye, peas, &c., than in 1847. Oa the other, the
apparent falling off in oats and barley may be
accounted for by the arc:amity of interposing_ a pre-
parative crop at this particular period. But we
venture to prognosticate ttat in future years both of
theme cereals will be found to increase rather than
diminish is the remo'er half of the island.

CENTRALISATION or its opposite—which to favour,
forms one of the most serious questions in every
country of Europe. In Austria it is all in all. For
the rest of Germany, it is bound up vrth the desire,
and the difficulty, of attain rag unity. We in Eng-
land are no strangers to the dispute. But in France
lit is the leading, the vital question of the day.

It is well knew' Olathe legitimists, and what may
lbw called the ` party in France, entertain
Ma opinion, ths°:tne- only cure and antidote
to the reidationary and anarchic elements
which predominate in the metropolis, is'
to disinherit politically that metropolis, and transfer
a very eassiderable.degree of power and self govern-
meat to the prowess& The grenoh legitimists do
net speed their breath in crying HENRY the Freya,
or their rowans' in conspiring- for him. Theywouki
re-lay the foundation of legitimate monarchy i n pro-
duced independence. They would erect the Councils
General of departments into so many little podia-
meets, dominating their prefects, I. lieu of beta g led
by them As these Councils General are elected from
the elms of rieb men, notables and functionaries, such
local senates would be much more to ultra-royalist
taste than any. metropolitan assembly or chambers,
the birth of universal mange.
Whilst the French legitimists would thus decen-
tralise to promote the accnaplishment of their
monarchic views, the moderate republicans are will-
ing to decentralise too, bicause they deem it to be
favourable to their principles. A centralised republic
like that of Rome must, they imagine, ever resemble
Rome in its turbulence, and in having no check upon
that turbulence, save in armed legions and their com-
manders. And having a great wish to do without
Pretorians, the expense of whom must eat up all the
resources of pacific government, they are anxious to
lean rather upon provincial calm as a counterpoise to
metropolitan passion, than to continue the premed
system of permanent camps under the walls of great
otties.

Legitimists and moderate republicans thus look to
the self-same messur•—the one, in order to pave the
way fur a restoration • the other, to promote the
establishment of a Federal Republic, after the mea-
ner of the United States. No Frenchman, indeed,
would like to decentralise so far, or push federalism to
its transatlantic dimensions. But that they tend in
that direction, and would shake off the dictatorship,
cot only of the Parisian mob, but of a Parisian
cabinet, is what few would deny.
A powerful party, or conjunction of parties, is,
however, opposed to all schemes of either decentralisa-
tion or federalism ; and the greatest blow that can be
dealt to the former is to accuse it of federalism in
di.guise. The ultra-liberals are, of course, strenu-
ously opposed to any transfer of power from
the great Parisian forum. And the im-
perialists, as well u the sons of the great
revolution, are no less staunch in the support of
that system, which the convention originated and
which NAPOLEON completed. The functionaries, as a
body too, are, from esprit de corps, all fur centraliu-
tion. They would lament over any breach in their
hierarchy and its discipline, as over a breach in the
empire itself. And it forms, perhaps, the greatest
strength of the BONAPARTE name, that it I. considered
more identified than any other with the unity and
administrative centralisation of the empire.
It was, therefore, no light or unimportant step on
the part of M. DOPAIIRE, the present Minister of the
Interior, to propose to the Councils General of the de-
partments this very question, which most concerns
them. M. DUFAURE asks them, in fact, would they
like to have more power? Would they prefer having
the prefects more under their control in matters of
local taxation and management ? They will no doubt
answer yes, wherever the councils general are com-
posed of landed or independent proprietor,,
such as is the cue in the west. In
countries where the functionary clue predominate, they
will decide for the influence of government and
the permanence of centralisation. M. Donnas takes
care to say, that, however willing to diminish or give
up the taken°e of the central government in local
and fiscal questions, be still would preserve its influ-
ence and power intact in political matters. The
minister forgets that the prefects, or all such officers,
are really appointed but for the task of material ad-
ministration, and that their political direction and
infleenn merely grow out of this.
If M. DE:Panne takes away all a prefect's duties,
save those of managing elections and guiding politi-
cal opinion, what representative assembly would
think of paying or keeping op prefects any longer ?
M. BIIPAIIRE'S questions have, therefore, a directly
federal and decentralising tendency.
That such would be attended with great benefit
there can be no doubt. The great cause, indeed, of
the utter dearth of political capacity in Fiance, is
the complete want of any school or of any ideas of
the kind in the provinces. And how can a nation
hope to succeed as a whole in self-government, when
self-government in its party cleans and districts is
utterly unknown to it?
The greatest characteristic of centralisation is,
perhaps, that it in general overlooks the great aim of
domestic government, to make people happy, pros-
perous, moral, and free. To keep the people quiet,
moderately prosperous, and extremely obedient—
these are the great aims of a centralised administra-
tion. And these are considered as merely instru-
mental towards the greater and more important aims,
as they are considered, of extending influence and
dominion, and grandeur abroad.
Centralisation always sacrifices domestic policy to
foreign. The energies and resources of the country
in the hands of one powerful central executive are
but cards and counters to play with in those great
games of chance, called war and diplomacy. A federal
system forbids this by restoring foreign policy to its
just and subordinate place. But it will be a long
time ere Frenchmen, or at least French copaciVs,
submit to this.

Ties directors of the East India Company end the
Board of Control are understood to be very anxious
to allay those apprehensions of a new war to the north
west of their new frontier, which the last mail im-
ported. And, accirdingly, the Economist, which is
known to be presided over by one of the secretaries
of the Board of Control, and the Manchester Guar-
dian, which has become well acquainted with East
Indian politics since the company began to trifle with
the promotion of cotton cohere in its territories,
are at great pains to assure the public--and on "au-
thority" too—that there need be no fear of further
hostilities in India.

If any great reliance could be placed on their
asearance, it would be a very satisfactory one: for
without peace—not an occasional truce for a year or
two, such am we have had during the last
decade, but permanent, settled, and assured
peace, accompanied by all the benefits of peace—
the condition and prospects of India will became very
gloomy. But, when the events reported as occurring
in the Punjasb are full of warlike tendencies; when
the spirit of the whole Indian army breathes war;
when the commander-iv- "lief of that army has just
been baulked of the - of the ' rhich he

, glory , campaign whtet,..
was precipitately sent out to soksiovo p whoop in short,
there ars beyond the Indus the material of another
war, officers anxious for it, an army ready on the spot
to plane into it, and more prise-money to be secured
by it—in the presence of such preparations, news-
paper easnrances, even " on authority," that peace
will be preserved, are not calculated to inspire much
oonfidence. That the Court of Directors and the
Board of Control are most anxious to avoid further
wars, nay, that they believe their avoidance to be
probable, is likely enough; and that no orders
to attack OHOLAB SINGH, to knock down
the Maharajah they so lately set up, will
proceed to India from this country, is al•
most certain. These, we take it, are the feelings
which have given rise to the assurances referred to.
But, it mast be remembered that the policy of these
bodies at horns has always been pacific, even when
the practice of their representatives in India has b.en
most warlike. Puce, peace has always been the
burthen of the outwerd despatches, even when there
was no peace in India. And, in reality, the policy
of the Court of Directors and of the Board of Control
has had little mfinence over oar Indian wars. Oze
half of them have been begun against their wishes, and
to another third at least they have offered an unwil-
ling sanction. Giving them credit for a strong desire
to preserve peace, we cannot therefore admit that
peace is the more probable because it is desired in
Iwadenhall-street or in Cannon-row. It is events and
men in India who determine the question of peace or
war there; and all put experience of its history
shows, that where there art the materials of war, war
itself is not far off. The principle which now ani-
mates
the Indian government (that is, the government
of India residvnt in India) is that of complete supre-
macy. Native indepe"cl.•nce iv ahhorrent to it ; terri-
torial absorption is its declared duty; the tinc•ion cf
even dependent and allied states is becoming its daily
practice. The acquisition of Scinde followel the at-
tempt on Aff,ibuistan; tt e annonation of the Pan-
janb has fcllowed Solna@ ; Sat-arah has been ab•
sorbed ; the Nisam's territories are about to be admi-

nistared > idne j and Lord Rumousiz has
proclaimed the asteualutlon of the supreme govern-
ment not to allow tie peados of Hindoo succession
to avert the &weal et sovereignties when direct
heirs are wanting. What chance—what hope is there
that GUOLAB SINGH will be allowed to found a dy-
nasty to reign over the fortress of Jammu, or to leave
aline of prinoes torrilise all the dreams of Oriental
eclogues in the valley of Cashmere P As surely as
the downed of DBOLEEP Enion was sown by the
victoria' of Lord IiARDINOB ; so surely was the fate
of OHOLAB &Nos foreshadowed in the triumphs
of Lord Rumouring. It mast be so. The progress
of Indian history would be inverted, did Clain-as
escape the example of all preceding princes—histe-
eml consistency and historical uniformity demand his
sacrifice. The Punjaab mast be rounded off by the
vale of Cashmere ; it beluga naturally, geographi-
cally, territorially to the government of Lahore. We
cannot allow a power to grow up and consolidate itself
in oar rear. Such will be the argument' that will
prevail when opportunity serves—when OHOLAB
gives as provocation; when the pear, in short, is ripe.
And the natural order of events will, in OHOLAB
SINGH'S can (as it has been in all other cases), be
quickened and forced by the agents and residents of
the British government about him. On their in-
formation and report. the supreme government's
views and policy are formed. All the knowledge
they have of the temper, disposition, and conduct of
native princes is necessarily supplied by their agents.
The military service is now uppermost in India • and
it will be found that, with rare and honourable ex-
ceptions, military agents are always the advocates of
extended territory, of ab erption, of annexation, and of
the other phrases by which an ambitious policy in
India is clouded and concealed, or pourtrayed as a
matter of necessity, of self-defence—nay, almost of
fatality. The impossibility of placing reliance on the
fidelity of GUOLAB SINGH, the danger of his arma-
ments—the impolioy of allowing a great military force
to exist in our vicinity —his ambitious designs—his
desire to be independent of us—his intrigues with the
Affghans—his inability to govern his own subjects
well—their yearning atter British rule—these will be
the topics preached on and enforced to the supreme
government, until OHOLAB SINGH, stung and to--
tared by suspicions, shall commit some overt act
of hostility, and then we shall have a campaign across
the Indus, then other victories will be achieved,
another native line of royalty will be deposed, more
territory will be added to our eastern empire, further
drains on its resources will be opened ; and then,
again, the advent of universal peace will be once
more proclaimed in India.
This ever recurring cycle of Indian conquest is
said to be our destiny, our mission to that country.
That accomplished, we shall then have time and
; opportunity to turn our attention to its material con-
cerns, to introduce into it cheap and good government,
to develop its resources, to wee the condition of the
people, and to give them a share in the government
of their own country. It may be so. But we confess
we have small faith in the opportunities thus earned
by war, conquest, and bloodshed, being turned to good
*mut. Nay, we have a strong opinion that, until the
people of this country shall insult on the government
of India refraining from war hereafter, the advent of
good intentions to India will be a long time in arriv-
ing, for, so long as the people of England will permit
them, the government of India will find occasion to
indulge in wars.
It is idle to contend that these Indian wars are a
necessity of our position in that country. They are
the direct result, we might almost add the inevitable
oonseqaence, of the enormous army we maintain
there. How, with an army exceeding 300,000 men,
every one of whom either has or supposes he has an
interest in war, is it possible to avoid hostilities in
India ? When a nation or state is armed to the
teeth, the next stop is to find some ooe
to fight with; and what is true in Europe
is equ illy true in India, viz., that war is the °once-
quence of great armaments. In these Indian wars,
the people of this country have not the smallest bene-
ficial interest ; they depress commerce, exhaust
foreign customers, and are produced as a reason for
increased military expenditure at home. Whilst
with peace every interest of the people of India is
inseparably'associated. War and its attendant expen-
diture has already almost wholly destroyed the race of
Indian gentlemen; and it is gradually reducing the
ryes of India to a state of " abject poverty." It
p events and retards all comprehensive reforms,
in the government of India ; it introduces into and
confirms in that government principles of arbitrary
rule; it denies to the people governed all participa-
tion in the conduct of their own affairs; it deprives
the government of the means of executing those great
works on which the materiel progress and the moral
improvement of their subjects depend ; and, effecting
all these pernicious results, its tendency is to destroy,
and not to maintain, the British empire in India.