The Express.
London, England, 1846-09-02 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 2.
Oxe portion of the Treasury Minute which we pub-
Used yesterday is almost enough to make us wish
in the fear of a famine at home, that our own poor
be as well relieved as those of Ireland. We
to the arrangements for employing the desti-
tute its public works, at wages a trifle below the
Wane wages of the district; and, as far as practi-
table, for making the payment proportioned, not to
the time spent, but to the quantity of work done. This
is the true principle of relief to the able-bodied poor.
It is that on which our Poor-law system was
originally founded ; although both in the old
law and the new it has been disregarded to
• extent preinetive of the most pernicious
When the State acknowledges the
old
the distressed to the means of subsistence,
it enforce its own correlative right to the labour
ellhose whom it supplies with food. The difficulty,
for 'perished and anions, is in finding work, and such
work as shall not bring pauper labour into depressing
competition with that of the yet nnpauporized. This
-can ally be done by the intervention of government.
The plan adopted for Ireland is characterized by a
wise beneficence. The public will eventually gain
,b the timely assistance which is rendered from its
Ands. Nor do we ace why the same principle might
net have been applied in this country, sparing us
the enormities of stone-breaking and bone-crushing,
and avoiding that incidental reduction of the rate of
wages which has undoubtedly, in some localities,
been the result of the mode of administering the New
Poor-law.
This principle is, it is true, adopted in Ireland with
1-isinemise to the present terrible emergency. Only by
Ilene& emergencies can governments be forced out of
:the beaten track, however loudly justice and common
sense may plead for the deviation. But we rely on
the good working of the plans now adopted, for their
'ornament and general application. The necessity
• midi then be superseded for breaking up the homes
•:• of Ile distressed, and forcing them into the work-
horses. We should have something of the much desi-
rinalled " organisation of industry." And the able-
• bad, being thus enlisted and regimented for active
• wise ; and the chance of abuse averted; a more
• treatment of the victims of age or accident,
' the only tenants of the poorhouse, would become
easy, and might be confidently anticipated.
It is grievous to see how many Irish landlords are
acting in a way to aggravate the distress of their
• country, instead of heartily co-operating with the
Imperial Government for its relief. Our paper of
yesterday contained several instances of the seizure
and sale, for rent, of crops and household furniture.
In one instance, at least, this cruelty was practised
on an old man, 70 years of age (we allude to the
case of CONWAY), wko, without a lease, was paying
255. an acre for mountain land, the worth of which
must have mainly consisted in his own labour. And
these things are done at a time when it is estimated that
4,200,000 persons, accustomed to subsist on potatoes,
are left destitute of their daily food ; and that, on a
moderate calculation, the failure of the potato crop
will require, for the next year, the enormous quantity
of 1,250 tons daily of Indian corn, or a total of
375,000 tons, at a cost of 3,000,0001. It requires
some nerve to seize the scanty crops of the cottiere,
and proceed with the eviction of families, in the
awful presence of National Destitution.
Nor is this the only mode in which some of the
Irish landlords are evincing a heartless disregard
of the claims upon them of Irish suffering and British
example. We commented yesterday on the extert to
which the measures of the late government had been

perverted to the purposes of jobbery. The landlords
were invited to help ; and they helped themselves.
In some instances it has been found difficult to force
the Baronial Sessions from their selection of works in
which a private interest was the paramount considera-
tion. To get a share of the grant, was the point at
which they drove headlong. But for the most judi-
cious arrangements, no small portion of the public
money would have failed to reach its charitable
destination, and been absorbed in the insatiable
morass of Irish landlordism. These men are in-
sensible of shame, and invulnerable to opinion.
" Ireland for the Irish," indeed ! Where and what
would Ireland be, but for the British? We acknow-
ledge the debt of misgovernment. We readily pay
the penalty of the past. Throughout the country
there is but one impulse to beat back, in the most
efficient manner, the advances of Famine. But the
more darkly appears the contrast of those whose peel-
tip demanded of them to be foremost in the struggle
against impending calamity. Nothing will teach
such men their duty, but that to which Ireland must
come, a righteous and stringent Poor-law, making
these pay largely who so largely pauperise.
We hope soon to hear of the progress of enlistment
in these new corps of industry. They will tend to
raise the average rate of wages by which their own
payments are regulated. The destitute will be with-
drawn from their desperate competition a ith those
for whom there is employment. There are no de-
grading conditions ; no needless and aggravating pri-
vations. They will not be taught dependence upon
alms-giving. The meal they earn will not be doled
out es a charity ; nor will they, unless in a few
exceptional cases, flock to a government store for
their supply of food. Out of their very wants a new
trade will be created. The traffic in Indian Corn will
create a new class of dealers, while it adds a new
article to Irish oommerce. How different in spirit
and results from the promise by which Lord GEORGE
BENTINCIE won the praises of Mr. SMITH O'BRIEN !
the application of public money to the purchase of
oats and other produce of Irish estates, in order to
give it for food to the population. Such a scheme
would have beggared the population, in soul
and body, and made famine a golden harvest
to the landed proprietary. The worst results of tem-
porary misfortune would have been perpetuated-
Now, we can rely on the evil being so wisely, yet
generously, met, as to educe from it the best hopes for
improvement that have yet dawned upon Ireland.
The spirit of self-reliance is cherished, together with a
merited confidence in the humanity that will spare no
effort to carry the people through their time of trial.
It must needs be a fearful time. By every day's
report the cloud grows darker. But let all true-
hearted Irishmen " awake their senses" to the worth
and wisdom of the plan adopted by Government, and
yield their earnest co-operation. There is no occasion
for despondency.

Ws expected little insight into the character of
railway labourers from the Report of the Committee
respecting them, sad we have not been disappointed.
It is not by examining witsetwes during the fozemoons
of half-a-dozen days that even intelligent and well-
educated
gentlemen can make themselves acquainted
with the peculiarities of a very peculiar ekes
And were it even possible for the Committee to learn
thus to understand the " navvies," it Is loot by the

\
"1/4

didactic form which • report to parliament mast of
necessity assume, that their knowledge can be best
imparted to others. We did, however, expect to find
more information an the subject in e minutes of
evidence than it there to be found ; and the dsficieney
we incline to attribute mainly to the not very felici-
tous selection of witnesses.
Mr. Licinne, Mr. Paco, Mr. BRUNEL, and 'Cali-
tain Moonson are practical men, and possessed
of superior powers of observation and reflection.
Their evidence is valuable as far as it goes. Their
hints regarding the management of large bodies
of railway labourers, of the best means of keeping the
men contented and well conducted, are most valuable.
But from their avocations they do not come into close
and continuous collision with the railway labourers;
their masterly outlines inquire to be filled up by those
who do.

This filling up is supplied in a small measure by
Mr. THOMAS /MOOR, Mr. WILLIAM BREAKING, and
the Rev. J. GILLIES, employed by, or at the sugges-
tion of, missionary societies on various lines, These
individuals appear to have been well qualified for
their occupation, and to understand the characters with
whom they have to deal. BENJAMIN BAILEY, too, a
railwaylaboarer, who has sunk down to that standing
from being a sub-contractor; Mr. J. SHARP, a contractor
who began as a workman ; RICHARD PEARCE aid Tao
MAS EATON, who have worked as excavators for a
quarter of a century each ; contribute a considerable
amount of instructive information. More might
have been elicited from them by skilful inquirers.
But the rest af the witnesses might have been dis-
pensed with, for any knowledge we derive of the
peculiar habits and characters of railway labourers from
their evidence. With one exception, they have brought
to their brief and distant observation of the class no
knowledge of the general habits of English labourers
as a body. They are unable to distinguish between
what is oommon to all our labourer., and what is
peculiar to the railway labourer. They cannot plat*
themselves in the situation of the labourer, enter into
his feelings, appreciate his motives and conduct. They
try him by the standard-of-the educated and refined
classes. The one • exception we allude to is Mr.
CHADWICK I and we mean no disrespect to that gen-
tleman when we say that he would have been mae
useful as a committee-man than a witness. Ilia

answers are not so much evidence u reports upon
evidence not before the Committee. .

We sincerely hope, therefore, that the most irre-
proachably logical report of the Committee may not
be next session translated into the peculiar phrase-
ology of the law, and sent oat with the stamp of
an Act of Parliament upon it. Much requires to be
done for the railway labourer ; and the peculiar rela-
tions of the railway labourer invite to the attempt,
because they afford opportunities of doing much for
him. But members of Parliament do not yet under-
stand him sufficiently to take upon them to do this
by way of legislation ; and the labours of their Com•
mitten will not much increase their aptitude for the
task.

The oli original " navvy," like the sailor, has no
home. PEA us and EATON went forth from their
native districts some quarter of a century ago, and have
lived since that time upon the works they have been
engaged on. This class of labourers was formed in
our canals and docks. The immense demand for their
services occasioned by the rapid extension of the rail-
way system, has caused their ranks to be recruited
from all quarters ; and the peculiarities of the " navvy"
have thus to a considersible extent been toned down
to the level of ordinary labourers. The " navvy" is
from his avocation stronger than the average of work-
ing men ; his wages are higher ; he has broken loose
from local ties, or thelailuence of a permanent resi-
dence ; and he has beceihe one of a band similarly cir-
cumstanced with himself. The body of "navvies" are
to him what relations add fellow-parishioners are to
other labourers ; what ;the men of the same regi-
ment or shipmates are to the soldier or sailor.
The agricultural labourer, (in this respect almost as
absurd as the squire, when ho talks of great
merchants and manufacturers as his inferiors),
with his 10s. a-week, affects to look down upon the
"navvies," who repay him with scorn and rude practi-
cal jokes. The raw recruit into the excavators'
army is subjected to 'initiatory practical jokes, in
which the strong veteran is apt to forget that all are
not as thoroughly hardened to excessive toil as him-
self. The thorough-bred "navvy " is sure of assist-
ance from his brethren wherever he goes, " a share
of their supper, a share of their bed." The excava-
tors scorn parish relief ; and seek support in sickness
from benefit clubs, or the charity of their fellows.
Many "navvies" have laid by money; a not incon-
siderable number have raised themselves to be sub-
contractors; though among them, as among every
class, the prudent are the minority. They are rude
and boisterous, not depraved; they buffet each
other lustily in their cups; they take pleasure
in making supercilious boors and townsmen
stand in awe of their rude strength ; and they
are jealous of the interference of the police.
And for these things, fine gentlemen who have been
reduced to accept of chaplaincies from home mission
societies, and country justices who do not know how
to manage such rough customers, call them ruffians
and reprobates. But men like Captain Moonsom,
Messrs. BRUNEL and PETO, and Mr. SHARP, find it
easy to keep them in order, and win their affectionate
confidence at the same time.
An estimate has been made that for some years to

come 200,000 labourers may find employment upon
railways. We believe that this is within the mark,
and that the employment will be permanent. In this
number are included not merely excavators, but
many who belong to the skilled artisan class. But
even the mere excavator can earn with ease his 3e. 6d.
a day, and more, whet the agricultural labourer can-
not earn his eighteen-pence. Here is an occupation
healthy and invigorating as that of a well-employed
agriculturist, paid at the rate of the in-door mechanic.
The excavator, too, may rise through various grades to
be a contractor, a capitalist : the factory skilled-labourer
is an operative for life. By turning to account the
esprit du corps of the "navvies," by sending mission-
ary schoolmasters among them to teach the elements of
arithmetic and applied mathematics, the railway
labourers may be made to hold a place in our social
economy analogous to that of the rural yeomen who
have died out, or are fast disappearing. Mr. Prro
has introduced an almost military discipline among
his men; Messrs. BREAKING and iENOUR, by ex-
horting the labourers on their respective lines in a
hearty homely way, and by teaching all who wished
the first elements of education, have elevated them to
self-respect and more decorous conduct. Send school-
masters among them, send religious and temperance'
missionaries. Let them be paid weekly, or at the
furthest fortnightly. Eschew the truck system.
Let the managers and other officers of the companies
show that they are interested in them, and give them
advice and assistance when necessary. These pri-
vates in our civil engineer corps may thus be made the
Elite of our working population. But we deprecate
hasty legislation.

PLANS of Buckingham Palace are likely 40 be in
request just sow. Many sympathisers with royal
distress will be clarions to see what sort of accommo-
dation the building really liffOrds. Professional archi-
tects and connoisseurs will be no less carious to ascer-
tain what sort of s patient Dr. BLORE has got to
operate upon. Whatever may be his ingenuity and
skill, they are likely to be taxed on the occasion. It
is one to puff up an ordinary mind ; but to render a
discreet man (and ambitious withal) a little nervous.
Hitherto a sort of fatality has attended royal
palaces in this country. Some have so calif* dis-
appeared that only the fame of du= remains, and
that confined to the antiquarian world. Nonsuch,
Shene, and Richmond, have left their names, but no.
other vestige of existence : none, at least, mo