The Express.
London, England, 1851-01-11 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 11.

The rumour runs that ministers intend to introduce
iato the royal speech a doleful paragraph on the sub-
ject of agricultural distress. Of coarse such para-
graph, to be followed op by some fiscal clause in,
favour of the landholders, is intended to take the
wind out of the sails of tho-e active movers of
amendments among protectionists and quasi-protec-
tionists, who have already mastered their forces, and
who intend to break, a lance on the first opening of
l'arliament.
Now the simple mutt of this will be, that the
financial surplus, ins'ead of being applied in some
way that would benefit the great mass of the com-
munity, will be thrown as a sop to a single interest,
and that, not in proportion to its distress, but to its
power of lungs and votes, and to the formidable nature
of its parliamentary and electoral discontent.
There have been sessidas when there was no sur-
plus, and when there was small chance of any change
in taxation. And yet preparatory to those sessions
we have had a world of agitation. Whereas, here we

are on o.e eve of a senior, when the Income-tats most
be either abolished or permanently renewed, and when
moreover there is a larger earplug to excite the cupi-
dity or activity of the economic and the interested,
and we find scarcely a meeting, a pamphlet, ce an

. .
harangue.
One would think people 'apposed that ministers
were in a condition to build up for themselves a
financial theory, the noblest sod justest that could be
conceived, and that they would bring forward this,
trusting to the disownment, disinterestedness, and
patriotism of all who heard, criticised, and voted. But
unfortunately, ministers can no more legislate in this
way fur tax-payers than ttey can for religious die.
patents. Ministers must necessarily wait upon
time, bow before force, tack between the popular
breeze and the aristocratic headland, and endeavour
to e.cepe being driven on the rocks of the one, or
blown into the full tempest of the other. Whatever
interest wants ministers to put into its ports must get
upastorm,anddrive them into it. That is the plain fact.
And if one interest or clam be not so strongly repre-
sented in Parliament as another interest, the only way
for the unrepri vented interest to get its share of fiend
exemption. and equable treatment, is by endeavour-
ing to make up in popular influence what it wants in
parliamentary numbers. Unfortunately, this cannot
be done for small objects, or for scattered objects,
without combinatioe. What claim have windows,
or beer, or tea—really extensive as the interest is
behind each—to obtain a hearing, sluggish as are
townsmen, besotted as are the beer drinkers, and
scattered into womanish and idle babblers as are the
consumers of tear Yet these deserve their share
of a surplus far more than your belted squire, or eves
than the pus Ilanimons farmer, who would endear
anathematize a free-trade ministry than face his
landlord with fair reckoning and computation.
Ito people take Sir CIIARLEI WOOD to be a Solon P
Or, supposing him one in wisdom, do they suppose his
wisdom alone will enable him to dictate to partite is
the House of Commons? For great ends, and is
critical times, a minister may face and triumph over
a powerful interest. Even to do this, there must be
excitement, and the popular voice strong behind him.
But in the present dead state of fiscal discussion,
when in truth no one is awake but the pro-
teetiooists, there is every reason to fear
that the once severed, but possibly munited faction
of toryism, will get back for the landed interest, not
indeed pro'eetioc, but a large equivalent.
Let any one, or every one, ask themselves this omin-
ous month of January, 1861, what is likely to be done
with regard to the income tax. It will be extended to
Ireland, people generally say. Bat at a moment when
it is sought to encourage farmers to take land in that
country, is that schedule to be applied without miti-
gation to Ireland, which levies on the farmer a per
ventage on half his rent? Abrogated the clause or
the schedule, indeed, cannot be. But we have heard
of the project of deferring or suspending it. What
if lamentations over agricultural distress should serve
as a shoeing• horn for the same modifications of the
same schedule in this country? Every ose must be
aware that under the pretence of serving the farmer,
this would really be putting money into the landlord;'
pockets.
Whether this scheme, or any other of the kind, be
entertained, we do not think that the present is a
time when any one class should look for exemption
at the expense of another. The industrial chimes have
more right than even the propertied class to look for
alleviation, especially in the matter of lames
tax, which weighs so much heavier and
more unjustly upon them than upon property. But as in all previous arrangements of the income
tax, the industrious and professional trader and
earner, the maker of wealth, has been treated so much
more than the possessor and inheritor, and even
then the squanderer of wealth, it behoves the former
to look around them at the present epoch, and, ere
it be too late, exert themselves, not to have another
Park-age put on the back of the willing camel,
while the war-horse and the hunter is lightened of
Lis load.

Taxan mew to be so Wore any question that
within a few weeks the Crystal Palace will
be in fit condition for the reception of articles
for the Great Exhibition of the Industry of All
Notions. The first and greatest difficulty of the
undertaking may therefore be considered to be ear-
mounted.

That the eight miles of exhibiting space thus
pro7ided will not be sufficient for the demands of
niulStors is another most sstisfactory proof that the
exhibition will tally ratio the expectations of its

promoters. To have bad mon epee thus
was required would indeed have been tort
disheartening, and ungne ous as the Ace st
rejecting must be, it cannot fail to be a nab
jest of gratulation that there is each a serf.
&bandanas est of which to make selection, sine ill'
affords isavincing proof of the importance attadied
is all pads of the world to the opportunity aftleisi
fzerteelei to the gave of assembled nations the
geedesta of industry in all its breeches.
• 16th dleeeilatertioa must almost necessarily arise
hem the falsettos of articles offered for exhibition,
sad is mall provincial towns this f eliug will be
exasperated by the suspicion that the judgment of the
committees has been warped by prejudice or by
favour, as the candidates for space will be personally
known. We have no d inbt, however, that in the great
majority of instincts the selections of the local com-
mittees will be made with discretion and impartiality,
and the power of appeal to the commissioners, and
to the public through the press, will, we feel per-
seeded, be sufficient correctives of any undue influence
or prejudice, or of occasional want of judgment in the
selecting juries. We presume of course that all the
jaries of selection will have impressed on their minds
that the main object of the Exhibition is the encou-
ragement of manufacturing skill and inventive in-
dustry, and not for the purpose of making a show. As
the allocations of space were made in tee first instance
arbitrarily, without further guidance than the amount
of populvtion and the concerned industrial activity of
the locality, it must necessarily happen that in many
places the spec* allotted is disproportioned to the
number and importance of the articles pressiog for
exhibition, and that in others there is a comparative
paucity of demand for the room that has been
granted. Frcm this state of th'ngs, against which it
was almcst impossible to provide, articles way be
admitted for exhibition in one district of far inferior
merit to those which may be excluded in others
where the claimants for space are more nu-
merous. Toe only means by which this in-
consistency in the selections can be remedied
seems to be by appeal to the commissioners,
who have, no doubt, reserved some space, and by a
general supervision of the selections of the local com-
mittees. Instances have been presented to our twice
of the rejection of novel kinds of mechanism, and of
elaborately constructed models, which would seem to
emit places in the great repertory of mechanic it
arts. It is probable that in these instances the
rejections were caused by the pressure of other
and more important claims, and that the select-
ing jury made the best appropriation of the limited
space at their command; but it will certainly be a jus
cause for discontent if it be found that mere articles of
fancy-work and display, by whomsoever contributed,'
which constitute no part of the manufactures of the
nation, should have had the preference of inventions
and works of art that present novelty in their con-
struction and utility in their design. We are not
aware what amount of space the commissioners have'
reserved for special purposes ; but the foresight they
have hitherto shown in their arrangements leads us to
expect that they have provided sufficient to meet
such contingencies, and thereby to correct in a great
measure the disproportion that must necessarily arise
in different districts between the space allotted and
the articles claiming the privilege of admission into
the Crystal Palace.

The two most important undertakings—that of,
providing qui for the articles to be exhibited and of
obtaining a sufficiency of interesting objects to fill it
—having been successfully accomplished, the difficulty
of arrangement within the building will soon cool-
'pence. The varied classes into which the articles,

for exhibition have been arranged by the commis-
sioners will form a fundamental guidance for placing
the numerous works from which we trust the execu-
tive committee will not be induced to depart
either by the solicitations of individual'', who wish to
display all their contributions together, or by na-
tional distinctions. It would be at variance with the
cosmopolitan principle on which the Exhibition has
been based to class the products of different nations
by themselves, instead of mingling them together on
a fair field fur generous rivalry. It is only by placing
similar products of manufacturing industry u much
as possible in juxtaposition, that the public in general
can compare the merits of each, and the dread
which we have heard expressed of unsuccess-
ful competition with foreign manufacturers in
articles of taste and decorative design ought
to give way entirely to the consideration of
placing sect. article in such a position se to
afford the beet opportunity of comparing it with
competing objects, whether of manufacture, inven-
tion, or art, without distinction of country. The
Exhibition is not intended to be an ethnological
museum for viewing the products of different coun-
tries separately io reference to their national peculiari-
ties and their proven; in the arts of civilisation;'
its special object is the encouragement of in-
dustrial improvement and the attainment of pea.-
tics; results. As an exposition of the industry
of all nations it will of course inzlude name- I
roue articles more curious than generally uretul,l
made for special purposes, under special circum-
stances, and adapted for special climates and pecu-
liar people. Such curiosities cannot indeed be re-
garded as manufavures in the general acceptance of
the term, and would be appropriately classified dis-
tinctively as national products; but these special in-
atances, we conceive, will not be very numerous, and
they should form exceptions to the general rule of
arranging walks with works, and mingling nation
with nation.

To enable the public to form a fair estimate of the
relative merits of competing artitdes it seems almost
essential that the prices at which they can be pro-
&lced or sold should be annexed; otherwise
those productions which in general estimation
sight bear away the palm may have been
manufactured at such a cost of time and money as to
be really of no practical value. The committees of
some districts have indeed made it an essential con-
dition that the prices of the goods should be stated, to
guide the jun. a in selecting the objects most deserv-
ing to be exhibited; aid it seems advisable, that the
same principle should be generally adopted. If the
regulation tor the exclusion of prices were intended
to prevent a shop-like appearance being given to the
exposition, and its misuse by making it a place of
sale, those objects might have been otherwise effected
by
proper arrangements; and the regulation re-
cent!y issued, which allows persons attending ,
on behalf of exhibitors to distribute bills of
price*, seems to have a far greater ten-
dency to convert the Crystal Palace into a bazaar
than a ticket of price attached to each article exhi-
bited. The case permitted seems almost to encourage
the solicitation to purchase, whilst the indication pro-
hibited
will be essential in most instances as a guide
to the real merit of the articles as useful products of
manufacturing industry. We trait that the commis-
sioners will see the propriety of altering their regula-
' Eons in these respects; and that they will not only
permit, bat if poweible informs, the announcement
either of the eilling pries or the oast of manufacture.

TIIE OPENING OF PAILLUNENT.—The Premier his
addressed copies of the following letter to hit supptirters la
the Lower Home :—" Doraingatreet, Dec. 28, I&so.—Sir,
—I take the liberty of Mforating you that the meeting of
parliament huvisg bees fixed foe Tuesday, the 4:k of
Febraary, huskies' of importance will be brought forward
without del►y I therefore request your attendance on Mat
day. I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient lomat,
I. firsestr.."

THE CONJOINT STATION AT LONDON-BRIDGB, Ot
rather the resembles* of stations, for we have here the
Brighten, the &nth Eastern (Melodic( the North Kent),
and the Greenwich—le fast spproachiag centpletion. Its
eppeasosce, ae a whole. is anything but an improvement so
that of the old Brighton station. The central badinage
below( I. the 8 euth-Eastern ; the Brighton le on the moth
side; sad the Greenwich is put somewhat oat of the way,
sect Tookymtreet. There is a covered way, on iron alsainN
mooed the Boa h Eastern, which Is gl.ard to the retestsf
the pathway, so as not to darken the room. on the groand
II err. A parties of the eoveriog projects beyond the line of
the columns, so as to further screen the pathway hum rain:
this is solid, with a high smite and fascia, sad the*
mousing to be nothing to balance it (the rest of the covering
being of Nista, as already mentioned), it hu not a pleseleg '
aut. We must find fault, too, with the caught deceratloas!
of the central clock, which Boosts to us coups and heavy.
The architect (Mr. Besigley) would probably show that the
haulm were the eseoutant9. The departure end arrival
platforms have a wooden roof of large spec (nearly 100 tut
we should say), mentioned KHOO tins since. A considerable
portion of the covering is of " rough plain slam,' In sheets,
sight rut keg, and three Met is inches wide. Seth spaces
between the principals ea ate not glued ars plaster/ end
panelled. Bough plate ems offers groat facilities los roofing.
—TM Bstildor.