The Express.
London, England, 1846-09-12 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPT. 12.

THE Protectionist demonstration at Coleshill, in
honour of Mr. NEWDEGATE, Offers little subject for
comment. The old fallacies about trade and wages;
the old vituperations of the League and Sir ROBERT
PEEL; these were repeated as if by machinery. The
speaking automaton could have done it all. About
as much intellect is required for this kind of per-
formance, as for grinding a tune on a barrel organ.
No DISRAELI was there, to disturb the unbroken dul-
ness. No Lord Joint MANNEks, to recommend the
revival of the maypole. His lordship, we presume,
had not completed his inspecting tour of Irish nun-
neries. It was all mechanical talking. Not done by
steam ; the steam could not be got up,
even by a few rounds of Kentish fire from
the half - filled dinner tables ; and the loco-
motive has too much of the semblance of
life and the reality of power, to be brought into com-
parison. It was a demonstration which only served
to demonstrate that if there be any obstacles, in a
future Parliament, to the progress of free-trade prin-
ciples, they must arise from the power, not of talent
and knowledge, but of cash and corruption.
One circumstance may indeed be noted, as having
something of novelty. Both Mr. NEWDEOATE and
Lord GEORGE BENTINCK have at length discovered
that potato grounds are not full of flourishing crops.
They recognise the rot. The potato is no longer
covered by the broad shield of Protection. Mr.
NEWDEOATE " laments the disease" which has been

hitherto denied. Lord GEORGE BENTINCK, always
statistical, is crammed to the calculation that
" food to the amount of 10,000,0001. had, by the
hand of Providence, been taken away from the
people." And as food has been taken away from
them by Providence, his pious inference appears to
be that they should go without food. Neither
speaker at all admitted that because potatoes had
gone out, corn should come in. They see that " the
whole power of consumption has to fall on the wheat
crop alone;" that " there will be four months more,
in the ensuing year, during which the people of this
country will have to be fed on the crop of 1846, than
there were to be supplied in the last year from the
crop of 1843 ;" and to this estimate Lord 0.
BENTINCK adds a survey of the state of the har-
vest on the continent, and in America; find-
ing nowhere any symptoms of large surplus;
yet no touch of remorse is indicated at the
amount of the actually existing duty, or
of the more onerous impost which it has super-
seded. It is strange that Protectionists should be
made of such impenetrable stuff. But if they will
exhibit their callousness, we must needs look at it.

They show themselves up unsparingly.
Still, the potato disease is confessed. It is some-
thing for Protectionists to be only a year behind the
rest of the world. They are open to conviction.
They know that Queen ANNE is dead. After twelve
months' putrefaction of the potato, they perceive that
"by this time it smelleth." The pestilence is really
more than a plot of PEEL'S. The famine in Ireland
is not "a sham." Peasants cannot subsist on the
produce of native industry, when its production
is too filthy to feed the pigs. Some can-
dour must be conceded to the leaders of

the party. They admit a fact as plain as
the sun at noonday. They do not reject all au-
thenticated reports. Some credence is allowed to
eyes, ears, and noses. If the experience of six
months did not give light enough, they yet can see
by that of twelve months. Multiply moons and they
will discern mountains. It was said of SHAKESPEARE
that "panting Time toiled after him in vain." Your
panting Protectionist toils after Time, and by the
chace of a twelvemonth gets a glimpse of the skirts of
his garments, and secs them soiled with the dirt of
last year's potatoes. The root has perished; but
there is some candour in not persisting to deny that
it is taixted ; some frankness in the posthumous ad-
mission of its disease, after it is dead, rotten. and
about to be forgotten.
We are nevertheless too precipitate in this pleasing
ascription of candour to the BENTINCKS and NEWDE-
OATEi. " Why, still, he cloth deny his prisoners."
Hotspur only confesses to the rottenness of this year's
potatoes. Last year, the potato was perfect, and the
famine was a sham. " Last year, a sham cry of
famine was got up, a sham cry of a potato rot was set
going, in order to farther the purposes of an Ad ad-
nistration." And now we are to believe that the Pro-
vidential fact has faithfully followed the PEEL false-
hood ! Protectionists will not be convinced like other
people. Facts only become facts when they see fit to
believe them. We inquire in vain of Nature whether
it be famine or plenty; she looks to the NEWDEGATES
and BENTIECKS, and replies, " whatever you please,
my little dears." They will tolerate Nature and Fact,
only so far as they are true to the Conservative cause;
and deny them to their faces, whenever, like Sir
ROEERT PEEL, they favour Free-trade and aposta-
tizeilkom Protection.
Bare is the secret of the concessioi. It were as
easy to deny the rot of this of last : the diffe-
Naas is not in the potables, but in the Protectionists.
Change in the Corn-Laws has not ruined the farmer.
Pmt.'s bill has not brought down prices ruinously.

The prophets of perdition stead ispence •of
cultivators who do not complain chi* Free:
trade becomes every day less of a burg-a-boo. The
sun has not ceased to shine. The fields ate not
blasted with barrenness. Monopolist landlords are
afraid of the acquiescence of their tenants in the
absence of Protection, seeing that they are so little
damaged by its diminution. So the prophecy of ruin
'must be amended in its date. Transfer it from this
year to the next. Then take up the famine that PEEL
has done with ; transfer that to this year from the
last ; and so we arrive at what they reckon an
" equitable adjustment." The famine of last year
was a fallacy, because it justified a relaxation of the
tax on imported food. The famine of this year is a
reality, because it explains the present prices which
ought to have been ruinous. And the ruinous prices
of next year are a certainty, because they frighten the
farmers into voting for Protectionists. Thus, each
ball is in the air at the right moment ; and the con-
juration is complete.
Our columns, to-day, present a contrasted
demonstration, in the report of a dinner at War-
rington, to celebrate the triumph of Free-trade and
the return of Mr. BROWN for South Lancashire.
That return was, in itself, a very significant
_ .

fact for the cause of Protection. The chairman,
Mr. W. ALLCARD, in his introductory remarks, re-
solved the triumph of the League into its circulating
information throughout every part of the country, and
" enlightening men in spite of themselves." Much
has been done in this way; and it would be curious to
compare the different degrees of resistance. English
distress convinced some; leaving others only to be
moved by greater distress in Ireland. One detach-
ment yielded on the first failure of the potato crop ;
another waited for the second ; and the Old Guard,
under Mr. NEWDEGATE and Lord GEORGE, still
scorns surrender. To borrow a description of them
from another speaker, Mr. P. RYLAND, at the War-
rington dinner, "the poor fellows cannot understand
it. They still cherish an idea that they are the divine
rulers of the nation; they still stand on the omni-
potence of the order ; declaim against opposition as
the maddest thing imaginable ; feel confident of
victory; but in the end, like the clown with the con-
Junes shilling in his hand, stare in the utmost
satudelment at its sudden abstraction. These honour-
able gentlemen appear wholly incapable to compre-
hend the nature and force of public opinion. They
mistake their own narrow circles for the world. And
because they are etill surrounded by most of the
emblems of their former power, they cannot see from
whence the antagonist influence proceeds."

speaker could scarcely be aware of the language held
by Lord GEORGE BENTINCK at Coleshill, on the pre-
vious evening, or we might presume he was alluding
to the preposterous and profane manner in which
Providence had been represented as taking part with
the Protectionists against Sir ROBERT PEEL, and
sending famine over the land as an act of vengeance
on the ex-premier. "This sad reality is, perhaps, the
vengeance, the just vengeance, of Almighty Provi-
dence, for the impious ingratitude with which, in the
year that is just past, our rulers were pleased to com-
plain of the real bounties of Providence."
Remark on this extraordinary language is need-
less, beyond an expression of compassion for the
miserable fatuity which drops the jockey whip and
affects to hurl the thunderbolt. Let Protectionists
learn to respect the laws of Providence which yield
for man the bread he earns in the sweat of his brow,
before they assume to interpret its dispensations, and
to direct its vengeance on the heads of their political
opponents.

COMMENT upon acts of Parliament generally ceases
with the Royal Assent. However fiercely their good
and evil effects may be discussed before a third read-
ing, John Bull submits with singular readiness to
the fail accompli. When the law abolishes a pre-
vious practice, he takes for granted that it is abolished
de facto as well as de jure. The abolition may have
been proved to be fatal to all the interests involved in a
calling. He feels a lurking conviction that they will
survive it. Starvation and misery are prophesied by
the malcontents. He shrugs his shoulders, and lets
the law take its course.

Few measures were more loudly demanded, or
more vehemently denounced, than Lord ASHLEY'S
act of 1843, abolishing the employment in
mines of women and children below ten
years of age ; forbidding, under penalty, the
payment of wages in public houses; and imposing
other restrictions recommended by the Report of the

Children's Employment Commission. In the eyes of
one party, the measure was a tribute to right ; in those
of the other, a sacrifice to cant and short-sighted
sentimentality. The first asserted that women and
children ought not to work under-ground ; the last,
that they must work to live, and whether underground
or above it mattered little.

The law, kowever, was not left to enforce its own
penalties. Contrary to common practice, a commis,
goner was appointed to superintend its working and

enforce its conditions. It was no doubt felt that, in a
measure of this nature, extra precautions were required
for carrying it into effect. " What is every man's busi-
ness is," proverbially, "no man's business." Our
adage, unfortunately, is truer to our practice than
the Homo awn, humani +Ail a me alienum pato,
of Terence ! The commissioner was to see that
women were no longer at work in the coal mines of
Scotland, Lancashire, and Wales, under circumstances

which outraged decency, while they unsexed the
sufferers; and that the other provisions of the act
were duly complied with. His third annual report
is before us.

We were not without fears for the working of
the measure, and rejoice to find the report so favour-
able. We are not generally fond of this kind of
interference with labour; bet here was an exceptional
case, a strong necessity, and the result may well be
matter for rejoicing. The commissioner commences by
acquainting the Home Secretary that the act in
question, "is generally observed in the portions of
the mining districts to which he has this year been
able to give his attention, some localities excepted,
where either the neglect or opposition of a few
employers, or the inveterate habits of the people,
oppose an obstacle to the uninterrupted observance of
the law. He has also reason to believe that the

employment of females below ground in any part of
the mining districts is reduced to a small number ;
and he has received increasing testimonies to the good
effects arising to the mining population from the dis-
continuance of that degrading occupation." The
penalties of the act have been imposed on some
employers who have directly or indirectly sanc-
tioned the employment of women in their mines.
The difficulties in the way of enforcing this
part of the measure seem greatest in Scotland and
Lancashire. In several instances near Wigan, in the
latter county, proprietors have submitted to convic-
tions, and paid penalties, when the offence has been
really committed by their contractors, " expressing
their determination at the same time, in case of any
future breach of the law, to proceed against their
servants who might be found violating it." A person
has been employed, for a limited time, at a fixed
salary, to procure evidence on 'which convictions may
be obtained. One indirect benefit of the act would
seem to be the manner in which it impresses upon
masters their duty, not merely to give orders, but to
see that their orders are obeyed. The same principle
might be carried much further. We do not despair'
of; seeing it at length extend even to railatty dime-
tors.
!At the time Lord ASHLEY'iI act was under discus-
silo, it was repeatedly asserted that in the districts
where women, and children under 10, worked in the
mines, it wan impossible for then to exist without it.
Np such impossibility is indicated in the report.
Bat there were many reasons against admitting that
assertion, even without this negative evidence of its
emptiness. In the case of married women, the 'Aug

SA.TUIiI)AY

voidetrusalt feOnt, theii attention to household
affairs, was en item to be set directly against the loss
in wages. Another was the increased demand for
hands, and the rise in their remuneration eoessevent",
on the replacing of female and infant by adult
male labour. Yet these obvious set-offs are nothing
compared to those which lie under the surface. The
offifpring of mothers so employed partook in the
brutalising consequences of the mother's degradation.
Her habits, formed amidst the oaths, obscenity,
and drunkenness of the pit, ill fitted her for the dis-
charge of even the lowest maternal duties. The im-
possibility of any good being effected by education
among a population so bred and so employed, was
insisted on in the evidence given before the Children's
Employment Commission, and needs no recapitulation
here.

Those who are in the habit of depreciating the
value of education as an element in calculations of
profit and loss, should read this report. It exhibits
(a result which all who have ever thought what
man is, should be prepared to expect) want of

education at the bOttein of those fatal disturb-
napes of labour and capital, the sticks and strikes
so common among the coal miners or " pitmen " of
the north ; and which, in 1844, included almost the
whole coal mining population of the United King-
dom. All the collieries suffered on that occasion.
The origin of the mischief was in the ignorance of the
colliers. They listened to nimble-tongued and un-
principled delegates of their own class; utterly unable,
by any cultivation of their own intelligence, to detect
the sophistries of 'the speaker; and they thronged the
chapels of the Ranters or Primitive Methodists, " to
get their faith strengthened;' that is, to invoke the
blessing of Heaven on the strike in which they were
engaged. They were led astray through their best
feelings ; these being uninfluenced by education. Until
education, therefore, is extended amongst the collier
population, we may expect periodical recurrences of
the folly and distress of 1844. We regret to Bnd that
though much has been done by proprietors, their
achievements in this way are still miserably
below the need. The Marquis of Lox DONDERRY
appears, in the commissioners' report, in the new
character of a liberal and intelligent supporter of
schools and schoolmasters, for his collier population of
about 6,000. We have great pleasure in recording
this fact.

The ignorance of the collier class co-exists with con-
siderable comfort. Wages are high; and there are un-
usual advantages for the workman in the way of house
and firing. But the want of education mars all these
favourable influences ; and leaves the oolliers,—with
abundant means for their condition, with weather-tight,
well-furnished houses, with roaring coal fires, and com-
fortable, and even gay clothing,—a reckless, ignorant,
drunken race; liable to be led away by the first of
their class who prefers talking to working, who has
words at will, and who chooses to subsist as a delegate on ,
the weekly sixpences of his fellows rather than on his
own labour as a " hewer." The mischief lies at the door
of the employers. The remedy is in their hands. When
the battle of education begins, there is much ammuni-
tion in this report on the mining population. Among
the same class in Wales the same evils exist in even a
greater degree. Less has been done far the miners
there than in the North of England; and it was amongst
the desperate and neglected hordes of South Wales,
that the solitary outbreak of Chartist violence
occurred. The fact is significant.

What may be done by a proprietor, what should be
done by every proprietor, is illustrated in the case of
Lord FRANCIS EGERTON and the Worsley colliers.
The Earl of ELLESMERE (then Lord FRANCIS
EGERTON) came to reside on the Worsley property
in 1837. It had been up to that time imper-
fectly provided with the means of moral and
intellectual improvement for the people. They
were, in manners and morals, like others of their
class similarly neglected. Lord FRANCIS began a
series of measures for their education. The popula-
tion is nearly 6,000. For their use, two churches have
been built, and a third is now in course of
erection. Five clergymen have been provided,
in addition to the one original incumbent.
Seven-day schools have been established, with
trained masters and mistresses, fully supplied with
the best books and apparatus. A reading-room has
been opened, containing the best periodicals of the
day, and a considerable circulating library. The room
is provided with fire and lights; is open every evening;
and is much frequented by the labouring people, as
an agreeable resort after their day's work. A large
field, of not less than sixty acres, has been set
apart as a recreation ground. It is situated
on an airy spot, in the centre of the estate ;
a broad belt of forest trees runs round it ; and it is
ornamented within, with plantations and single trees.
Cricket, quoits, and other athletic games are encou-
raged; and the private band occasionally attends
there on pay-days. In the centre, an ornamental
building has been erected, in which the wages of all
the labourers on that part of the estate are paid fort-
nightly. There are few public-houses and no beer-
shops on the estate. The houses built for the work-
men are convenient : most of them have four rooms
and a pantry, back-yard and garden, at a rent of
about 31. per annum, including rates. A school for
training female servants has also been established.
The effect of all this is summed up in the following
answer of the Worsley colliers in 1842, when the
country was overrun by misguided crowds, turning
the hands out of mills and collieries, and threatening
a war against property. The Worsley colliers and
labourers resisted the combination. It was at this
time Lord FRANCIS EGERTON addressed them; and
this was their answer:

" To our great and worthy master, the Right Hon. Lord
Francis Egerton ; his virtuous and most gracious Lady;
Mr. Fereday Smith ; and all in legal authority over us:
" From a consciousness of thegood feeling which prevailed
amongst us, when your Lordship addressed us in such an
affectionate and kindly manner, we feel, as your Lordship
stated, that we are utterly incapable of expressing our love
and gratitude towards you ; therefore, as with the voice of
one man, we declare our design, that we are willing, as far
as life and safety seems probable to enable us, to defend your
honour, and all in connexion.—Your loyal and obedient
Colliers."

Yet these men are of the same stuff as the headstrong
strikers of the north, or the Chartist rioters of New-
port. We agree with Lard FRANCIS EOERTON, that
" it cannot be too widely known how liberally the
working classes of this country are disposed to reward
with their good feeling and affection, those to whom,
right or wrong, they attribute similar feelings towards
themselves."

We have received the Paris journals of Thursday,
with our private correspondence.
It is reported that the Due de Montpensier has
just been promoted to the rank of Major-General of
Artillery. The Prince arrived in Paris on Wednes-
day afternoon.
Fresh riots have broken out in the west of France,
owing to the rise in the price of corn, but the troops
having been called in, tranquillity was restored. A
few of the ringleaders, amongst WllOlll some women
were prominent, have been arrested.
Free-trade principles are making rapid strides in
France. A meeting of the principal merchants and
manufacturers has just taken place at Lyons, with a
view of forming a free-trade association in that
important city.
The corvette l'Egerie, just fitted up at Toulon, for
Bourbon and Mayotte, will sail on the 20th instant,
with a cargo of various stores. She will convey
several workmen in different trades, who are about to
settle at Mayotte. These men have arrived at
,Toulon, where they have received the premiums
promised, and will have a free voyage to Mayotte.
One of the Government papers publishes the follow-
ing letter, written from Callao, by Commander
' Dubouset, on board the corvette La Brillante :
" Callao, July 11, 1848.
" Our latest &deices from Tahiti mention some hostilities
which had broken out in this island. In another affair our
troops repulsed the insurgent, and carried off a piece of
cannon. M. Bruit is in hopes that there will be no more
disturbances. On the 17th of April, when the vend which
brought this news left Papeite, the Uranie, Arians, Phaiton,
Heroine, and Fortune were in the roadstead of that port,