The Express.
London, England, 1851-04-25 00:00:00

with trade that fertiliwsl Athens, converted its arid
• • •• •

are required for the support of such churches and of
their ministers ; that a sum of 240,0001. would then
be wanted for parsonage houses - that Increased
school accommodation for more than 200,000 da-
rken would also be required • that a further enlist-
ment of 1,000 scripture readies was most desixahlii
and that an increase in the episcopate wall also ne-
cessary.
The persons who made this statement to her. MA-
JEs*TY arc the two archbishops, eight of the bishops
known in popular phraseology as low church bishops,
three dukes, one important as being the premier's
brother ; eighteen earls, two viscounts, eleven barons,
fourteen peers' sons, the Speaker of the House of
Commons, and forty-five members of the lower house
of parliament, eight of whom only are of the liberal
party, but amongst whom are Mr. HINR tELI, and Mr.
SIDNEY HERBERT: a goodly array of distinguished,
powerful, and of able personages. ()n all subjects
the opinions, wants, and wishes of such a body are
worthy of respectful consideration and attention;'
but put forth modestly and temperately on the
question of providing religious instruction for a popu-
lation that has far outgrown the strength of the
present parochial system, and which has not been
provided for by the mighty efforts of non-conformity,
the views and schemes of so influential a body
increase proportionably in importance. Let us,
therefore, examine the address in the spirit in which

it was conceived.
We confess, then, that, even whilst sympathising
with the object aimed at, all objection of great weight
arises to it an tiostime. The addressors do not ask for
state assistance in carrying out their scheme; they
rather point at sources and at means wherewith to
carry out their proposals, in the church itself, and
they express reliance on voluntary liberality to
do much in aid of what the church can
furnish. But, when all their ways and means are
scraped together, they still so obviously have a great
hiatus to till up, that, not having disclaimed any de-
signs on the public treasury, their silence on that
point is very suspicious ; and it must, as it ought to,
arouse, if not the apprehensions, at least the vigi-
lance of all nonconformists, and of that large party
in the church itself which, desiring its development
under favourable circumstances, is quite as opposed

to state assistance as the stoutest dissenter.
On a matter so important as this, involving a
principle on which the minds of a large majority, as
we believe, of the intelligent community are quite
made up, the utmost frankness, candour, and plain
speaking were due from the addressors. On the
contrary, doubt, and suspicion,and fears attend their
very field step; and they will impede, embarrass,
and retard any progress which may he possible.
When Sir ROBERT Pau brought forward his scheme
ho acted very differently; he at once threw Sir
Ronal. INuLIS overboard; disclaimed all wish to
ask parliament for means ; and bid the church rely
on its own property and people. The consequence
was, that all knew at once what it was they
had to deal with ; and that success attended his
plan. After this example, an application to parlia-
ment for funds for church or parochial extension
would, we know, be perfectly hopeless ; and so, we
are persuaded, many of the addressors think : but
others there are who have always advanced. chiims
on the state treasury tbr the state church, and betbre
any support can be given to a movement in which
they take part, it must be distinctly, unequivocally,
and emphatically dis-associated from any such design.
As that has not been done, a great mistake has been
committed in launching the scheme.
Rut this is not the only important omission. It
may, perhaps, be quite possible to propound a sound
and practicable scheme of parochial extension—one,
we mean, that ought not to wound the principles of
noneonfurinity more than the existence of any state
church does necessarily wound thew, and that
ought on church principles to be supported; but any
such scheme must be based on and must start from
church reform—and, first of all, a reform, a re-
adjustment, and a re-modification of the tem-
poralities of the establishment. To erect (as
propowsl) 600 new churches in England and to
place therein properly educated ministers on stipends
such as a moderately qualified merchant's clerk
would repvt ; and at the same time to continue the
contrast of primates wi•li 1.5,9001. a year and a
couple of palaces, bishops with 4,1/09/. and well
adorned reaidences, and a clergy of older endow-
meats with the revenues of country gentlemen—this,
we say, will never do. Yet this is what the carrying
out o' the addressors plan involves. In adding in
one direction to the efficiency of the church of Eng.
land such a ni.inifestation would only augment its
scandal in another; and that, it is to be trusted, par-
liament will nut think of.

waste into fruitful farms, and gave to its landlords
that mit width they never would have had but for
the Athenians ploughing the sea, and reaping from
trade the wealth that gave value to the land.
The wealth and the greatness of Athens were
made by free-trade, and by free-trade especially in
corn. And Athens lost her wealth and greatness,
when she exchanged the pursuits of trade for those
of war. In war she wasted her population and
revenue. She planks' colonies, but she made war
upon them ; and she grew SO jealous of a neighbour-
ing country, which was not her rival in trade or in
wealth, and with which she had no cause of quart-el
beside vanity, that she would engage in inveterate
war with this rival. And the rival conquered her. To
talk of free-trade being the ruin of Athens is utter
nonsense ; nothing hut her continued and unsuccess-
ful wars overwhelmed her. When, instead of
producing or manufacturing or trading, in order to
pay for corn to feed het 'population., Athens thought
to do this by the sword, and by making use of her
naval superiority to bully all nations, then indeed,
Athens found provisions difficult to have. But the
chief difficulty came from being no longer able to
pay for them. She wan enriched by free-trade, and
made thereby a free people; site was impo-
verished by war, and fell in consequence a
prey to tyrants. There are most salutary lessons in
Athenian history for England; but they are curs
tainly not those which Lord Enetsfrox and Sir
Enwsfut IteI.WER have in a most blind and unclos-
e/cal spirit sought to draw.
The political economy of Mr. Sheriff ALISON
strikes us to bo quite as shallow as the literary phi-
losephy which would measure the polities of 'listby those of Atetutvors. Mr. Amster's first idea of
the ',asperity of a country is the nominal wealth
and profits of its upper classes. An UM'
MOWS rental from fund, and a high rate
of profit from capital, are, in Mr. ALISN'S
eyes. the sole clement and signs of a nation's pros-
perity. Far from this, we can imagine both coming
down, with a very great increase of the nations
prosperity. The business of life is the great inter-
cluinge between the products of land and those of
manufacturer. l'rotection to a certain extent es-
hanees the nominal returns of both land and capital.
But it Noun cemes to be of any use to capital, because
of its increase, and because of the relation of the
manufacturing interest with foreign countries. The
tendency of the products and profits of land to rise
in value from its limited extent, the tendency
of manufacturing produce and money to fall in
value front its unlimited accumulation and extension,
soon disturb the balance. And the time comes,
inevitably comes, when the manufacturing or money
aide cannot furnish to the landed side the same
ratio. The balance must be struck sooner or later.
And as the profits and returns of capital must
diminish, so must that of hind be brought to some-
thing like a proportion.
There cannot be a doubt that the general and irre-
sistible demand for free-trade and low prices in corn
proceeded from the diminished profits of numufactur-
ing capital. When Mr. ALISON therefore tells
us that the taxable interests have decreased
within the last ten years in proportion to
the increase of the population, we believe
him. Hut that is only further proof to us that land
has necessarily submitted to the fate of all thin
We are by no means of the prosperity school, who
think sail declare that merchants, and manufacturers,
and lawyers, and capitalists are making more money,
and receiving. greater incomes, than ever they did.
We believe plat the contrary. We believe that the
upper and middle class have been let down more than
one peg, and that free-trade has broken the fall, not
aggravated it. But, whiLst the upper classes have
been let down these pegs, the labouring classes have
immensely and largely benefited.
To attempt to undo all this would, in its probable
result on the working classes, probably produce a re-
volution, or a state of feeling tantamount in gravity
and dl effects, whilst the attempt would not produce
the desired advantages. By cutting the manufacturer
from the foreign market, the competition of capital
would be increased in the home market, and prices
would not rise even with restored protection to
enable the manufacturer to draw more in the shape
of price from his home customers. The agriculturist
might, under protection, demand a high price, but,
in truth, there would be no fund to pay, and ninety
balite would be pinched in order that ten might pay
double for their accustomed quantum. Parliament,
in fact, might as well decree a famine, as a pro-
tecting duty on corn, for all the effects of famine it
would have.
Where the government is to be found to make
such an attempt we know not. That Lord &EASLEY
would try it, we do not in the least believe. Indeed,
his conduct in the last crisis too clearly proved his
conviction. But that he may procure a parliament to
be elected. as PEEL did, under the belief that he
would uphold protection, that is possible. The re-
sult in Poet's are was his individual ruin as a
politician. In Lord STANLEY'S, the rain would not
be that merely of an individual,but of the entire aril-
tocraey, whom the very farmers would immolate as
the most nefarious of tricksters and the most dis-
honest of mankind.
We had intended entering upon Mr. AusoN's
colonial argumentation, but must reserve this for
another day.

No ; the wealth of the episcopacy must be largely
ulsited; our cathedral establishments must be placed
on some rational organisation; our monster parishes
must be broken up; their surplus wealth must be
applied to the relief of church poverty elsewhere,
and the entire body of the clergy reduced to a work-
ing army—before further millions, no matter how
raised, are spent, before new funds are raised, and,
above all, before any further increase in the episco-
pate is seriously considered. This the addressors
altogether omit to propose ; and its omission is the
second mistake of their scheme.
But were their plan modified in these two parti-
culars—had they disclaimed the slightest design on
the national treasury, and had they laid the
foundations of parochial extension on a further
reform of church temporalities, the archbishops,
bishops, peers, and squires who address the QUEEN
do not appear to have any adeqnate notion of the
breakers which even then would be a-head of them.
'they propound a scheme of church extension. But
what is the church of England—where is it ? Is it
to be found at Lambeth, or at Fulham? at Bishops-
thorpc, or at Torquay? To talk now of the church of
England, is merely to use vague, unmeaning, inde-
finite words—it is a term that perplexes, confuses,
distracts. With Primate SUMNER it liplike
one, and a rational, thing; with Bishop }lima- I
FIELD something different; with Dr. PlllLL-
rorrs it is the very antipodes of the archbishop's
interpretations. It varies in almost every diocese.
To extend it is, therefore, to increase our trouble,
to propagate our discords, to sow scepticism broad-
cast over the land. The rising clergy, as a body,
incline much more to the catholicity of ilishopPitate
roi TS than to the protestantism of Archbishop Susi-
NEIL; and yet it is from the rising clergy—from the
monks of Oxford and the sacramentalist. of Cam-
bridge—that the six hundred new churches must be
supplied when built. Is this a pleasant, a safe, sr a
religious prospect? Is this a church extension tote
fostered, and encouraged, and promoted by the ex-
penditure of millions?
No doubt, a great majority of the subscribers to
the address are sound protestants. But their very
soundness in that respect, when contrasted with the
names that are absent—when brought into relation
with the fact that appended to it are the signatures
of a minority of low church bishops only—when we
think how compact, powerful, and determined is the
party opposed to these addressors, then we sec only
too clearly and plainly how deep s rent it is that has
torn the Church of England; and, seeing that, we
may feel how hopeless at present is any great
scheme of parochial extension. Such a confession
may be deplorable, pitiable, humiliating; but it is
the consequence of the faithlessness of the clergy of
the Church of England: it is the result of their phi-
landering with catholicity, with Rome, and things
Hornbill. It is the NEWMAN'S, the °AXLES'S, the
PusEvs, the MAN:SINGS, the WILBERFORCES, the
SIA)SIFIELDS of the church, who brought the Church
of England to a stand still.
Into the details of the suggestions offered to
tie QUEEN in the Address we -shall not now enter.
Bat to many of them there are great objections, even
were the external difficulties mentioned removed.
Before, for instance, any rational man can assent to
en increase of the Episcopate, the whole character
sad position of our prelacy must be changed.
Strong reasons, too, must be shown before,
under the shape of scripture readers, a new order of
teachers be legally introduced into the church;
foe useful as that most meritorious class now
undoubtedly is, much of its usefulness is
derived from what may be termed its voluntary cha-
racier ; and lastly, the suggestion, again renewed, of '
holding a great auction of the LORD CILANCELLOR'S
benefices, would so materially lessen the power of the
crown over the church, as to give encouragement to
all those attacks on the royal supremacy winch it is
the duty of every friend of religious liberty to repel.
Oa the whole, the address may have been well
MOW ; but it is, nevertheless, ill-timed;
&idea it will be used by a Premier so deartst
labsps as Lord lons Rvsezu, to stifle, is far as

IN Wednesday's Express we published sa ad-
dress lately presented to the QVIEN, in which her
Mown was informed that " there is an absolute
sad immediate necessity for the extension of the
parochial yawn 1" that 600 additional churches, at a
coat of 2,100,0004 are needed; that 160,0004 a-year

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, APRIL 25, 1851.

possible, that dismission respecting the church which
1 the reassembling of parliament will bring on.

lihmrsif our leading cotemporarks had, a dap or
two bp, what was intended to bean alarming article
on the bliartists having hoisted socialist colours, and
uOati Messrs. Annum and HARNEY having added
to the five points or stars upon their banner the
socialist stripes, being the absorption of capital, the
assoassaity of land, and, what our cotemporary for-
got, the abrogation of the family, as the unit of so-
ciety. We do not think the Times warranted in
painting the Chartists so black. Their programme
is rather a mild infusion of socialism. Yet even this
will damage them. There are no two principles so
firmly rooted in the English mind as those of family
and property ; and if we have any fears on the sub-
ject they are merely for the fate of the preacher ar
the ,arty that would impugn them.
/No ; the danger to our social fabric, our political
institutions, our security, our peace, threatens, not
from socialism, or from that class which is supposed
to generate it, but from a class of society at quite
the other extreme. It is the lords of the land that
are conspiring against the stability of things and of
ideas amongst us. They it is who are conspiring,
socially as well as politically. And were it possible
for them to succeed in grasping the power, in re-
versing the policy of the country, and limit-
ing the supply of the people's food, as well
as of paralysing the capabilities for giv-
ing emp 9-mot which cheap food gives to
capital and industry, then indeed one might fear the
rise of anti-social and subversive doctrines. Then,
indeed, a theory or a religion very like communism
might arise, not merely in the lower but in the
middle and better ranks of the commercial classes,
which would ask by what right a class inimical to
them was allowed to monopolise legislative power,
and to convert it to the swelling of their private
fortunes.
We always thought it fortunate that the anti-
corn-law agitation ended where it did. For had
it been forced to renewed combats, it could not
but have erred into paths of argument
which would have produced a terrible awaxenment.
The anti-corn-law champions fought with blunted
foils and muffled fists. They confined them-
selves almost exclusively to a middle class agitation.
Provident tones saw their reserve, appreciated their
moderation, and compelled the yielding of the landed
aristocracy—Heaven knows, In time, crc the events
of 1848 came like a thunderbo.t upon Europe. The
19th of April, 1818, would not nave passed away, as it
did, in smoke, had not the diseintented classes been
appeased by a great act of juatire and concession.
The class which was compelled to yield on that oc-
casion, preserved, nevertheless, the social and political
power to recover what it yielded, whenever it might
have the hardihood to make the attempt. Not a doubt
of it, the landowners are all-powerful in one house of
parliament, and the most powerfel in the other. To
re-establish their old monopoly, and artificially raise
the price of agricultural produce, so as to keep their
rents to the old standard, is in their power; and to
do so is a question of peril and expediency, not ofjus-
tice. For when did a class, legislating for itself, think
of justice ? Although the high or low price of corn
has, in reality, nothing to do with the profit of him
who merely takes the laud on temporary possession
and uses it as a raw material, still by the monopoly
of the material and by the promise that prices can
and shall be raised by legislation, the fawners can be
lured on to supprt that class on which they hare
been long dependent. In like manner the
tradesmen in agricultural and provincial towns
can be pinched and punished by purposely
withheld expenditure, both on the part of
landowner and farmer, with the accompanying
reason given that free trade is the cause of all. The
livers by rent are putting on the screw. some from
spite and faction, some from the dire necessities of in-
debtedness, the fruit of past extravagance. And
there is no doubt that the hereditary monopolisers
of land can number in their mediate or immediate
dependents a body of voters to whom the constitution
still allows a correspontli iig monopoly ofeleetoral rights.
And what effect the efforts of this combined monopoly
may have on the votes of a new parliament we know
not. But this we know, that in thus turning round
the rudder of state and of parliament, they are
directing the vessel's head right upon the breakers of
middle-class discontent and popular tumult.
If the trading and industrious population, with the
moneyed interest of the country, ask why the owners
of the land should not be contented with rents by one-
balf greater than those paid at thecommencement of the
etutury, instead of insisting on receiving double or
triple, it will not do to reply either that they have been
accustomed to such incomes, or they have mortgaged
and framed their expenditure on such incomes, or
that it is the natural and fair result of bringing more
barren soils into cultivation. Providence endowed
England with a fair average of fertility and a fair
average of fertile boil. Nor can it be argued that
as population increases, each generation is to be
condemned to harder and harder conditions of life,
paying for the whole of its food at the price of pro-
ducing it on the barrenest of its moors
This may be political economy, but it is
iniquity. It was not merely England that
was made for the English, but the world that was
made for man. And nature points out and coin-,
mends the calling of one portion of the world to
supply the wants or gradual development and neces-
sities of the other. These things are too plain. Even
if the landed proprietors have lost for the moment
one-tenth of that rent, which has doubled within
half a century by the accumulating wealth of manu-
factures and commerce, it has not the smallest right
to demand the restitution of the tenth. Whilst the
danger of the demand is its likelihood of resulting,
not in the recovery of the tenth, but in some terrible
communistic and popular theory of adjustment.
None are more aware of or alive to the iniquity of
such theories, whether applied to capital or land than
we are. But it is not philosophic or inquisitive minds
which start such theories ; they are born of oppression
and injustice. And such creeds as communism spread
like wildfire, not from the force of logic or
truth, but from their appeariug as a fit
specific for an universal social disease. if we want to
create such a disease amongst our working classes,
we cannot do anything more efficient than to com-
mence by raising the price of their bread, following
this up by augmenting the price of their clothing,
drying up in both ways the power of capital to give
employment, and thus creating one by one all the ele-
ments of revolution, which in our days will never
be merely a political, but will infallibly seek to be a
social one.
If the Tunes will again take post on its conservative
watch-tower, and look forth for the coming
thing, and the coming man, we doubt its finding
either in Mr. REYNOLDS or in Chartism. Let it
turn to quite another point of the horizon its moral
telescope, and it must perceive, not the operatives
and their charter, but the squires and their leaders,
as the agitators and conspirators which menace to
subvert society by their selfishness, their violence,
and their hallucination.
we

WEEKLY TRACT SOClETY.—Yesterday the third
annual meeting of this society was held at Exeter-hall. Mr.
C. Jones took the chair. The report, which was read by
the Rev. Mr. Elliott, described the object of the society as
being to circulate weekly tracts conveying the lessons of
Scripture among the working classes. The number of
tracts circulated had been 1,038,240 during the past year.
The report, referring to the approaching exhibition stated
that it was the intention of the committee to circulate
tracts in the continental languages among the foreign visi-
tors. The funds of the society were represented as pros-
perous on a comparison of their condition in previous
yeses. The meeßug, the attendance at which was exceed-
ingly limited, was addressed by Mr. M. Murphy, the Rev.
Mx. Alden, and the Rev. Mr. Fishbounie.
_

A FARM= SHOT BY A CLERGYHAN.—A verdict of
manslaughter has been returned by the coroner's jury
against the Rey. Mr. Smith, who shot a farmer, believing
hula to be a Wsglar. This verdict having been given, the
Coroner said he had a great deal to prepare before he could
conclude the proceedings, therefore he suggested the ad-
' jourrment of the court to Thursday, whenie would read
over the depositions and take the recognisance'. The jury
were then bound over in their own recognisance" to prose-
cute the inquiry until it was finally completed. At this
moment the Bin. Mr. Beano, the vicar of Brampton,
entered the rem is great baste, and evidently in a state
of painful incitement and exclaimed—. He's trite gone,
quite gone ; the poor man (allading to Mr. Smith), he is
quite goes out of his mind."—The caused great sensation
sad sympathy amongst those who remained:lt appeared
that Mr Baia had beee told the result of the inquiry,
which so overwhalmel him that he cried and sobbed like a
child.—Dr. Graham certified that the rev. gentleman
was in such a state of mind that it would be most
dangerous to ammenicato anything to him; of an exciting
nature. An spoliation is to be made to • judge to admit
Mr. Smith to !ml without his having to appear before the
magistralts.