The Express.
London, England, 1853-12-08 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

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LONDON, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8.

MANN' days ago we announced that preliminary
negotiations were in pregress, with a view to bring
about a Congress of the four Powers, for the settlement
of the Eastern question, to which the belligerent
powers were to be invited to send representatives,
making altogether a Conference of Six. -The Times
has at lust discovered that our information wascorrect;
but, as if w ishing to make up for the lateness of its
intelligence by the positiveness of its assertions, it
yesterday Affirmed, in its first edition, that the definite
concert of the Four Great Powers had been at
length e►tablished, and the Eastern contest thus de-
prived of the principal dangers attending its
prokngation. In a second edition of the Times
this positive averment of our contemporary was
contradicted in the form of a telegraphic despatch
from Vienna to the effect that the report of
an alliance between the Four Powers is groundless;
that a draft of a colleens° note has indeed been
prepared, but no pledges given to enforce its accept-
ance. In fact the feelers put out a fortnight ago,
with a view to bring about co-operation among the
Four Powers,havc as yet produced no sufficient results.
It is an illustration of the extreme sensitiveness of the
Stock Exchange to the moat worthless rumours
that the positive averment in the first edition of the
Times, notwithstanding the innumerable erroneous

statements put forth by that journal regarding East-
ern affairs, seat the funds up in the morning, only
however to see them brought down again by the recan-
tation in the Times second edition. The credit given
to the story of a definite concert among the Four
Powers, and the hopes built upon it, aro the more
unaccountable, as anyone who looks to the different
position and irreconcilable aims of Austria and
Ptussia on the one hand, and England and France
on the other, and to the difficult and delicate ques-
tions with which a Congress would have to deal,
ought to have seen how improbable it was that the
deliberations of a Congress, even supposing it brought
about, could lead to any prompt results. Of the two
indispensable pre-requisites to a termination of hosti-
lities between Turkey and Russia, the first, the imme-
diate evacuation of the Danubian Principali-
ties by the invading force, is comparatively simple,
and perhaps likely to be acquiesced io. The second,
however, the abandonment by Russia of its imperti-
nent claims to interfere in the domestic concerns of
the Ottoman Empire, based upon strained construc-
tions of various clauses in various treaties, all left
perft ctly vague and susceptible of more or less ex-
tensive interpretations as occasion might serve.
would be sure to give rise to protracted and weari-
some cavils and discussion. These two first questions
chiefly concern the belligerents alone ; but • satis-
factory settlement of the Eastern question must of
necessity embrace provisoes which afford se-
curity against the renewal of such em-
b•rrsssments to the other powers of Eu-
rope as those in which they are now involved.
There is, for example, the question which
we pointed out as requiring settlement, the mo-
ment that the news of the commencement of hosti-

lities on the Danube showed that the old treaty regu-
lations with regard to those eastern regions of
Europe had been blown to the four winds of
Heaven—the question regarding the access of ships
of war to tho Black Sea. Hitherto the right had
been conceded to the Porte to prevent the passage of
foreign ships of war through the Dardanelles, Sea
of Marmora, ani Bosphorus. The effect of this
arrangement hitherto has been to convert the Black
Sea into • Russian lake. The great and growing
commerce of France, England, and the United
States, to say nothing of minor powers, is irre-
concilable with the continuance of such a state
of affairs. Wherever salt water bears the
merchant ships of a nation, that nation has •
right to send its ships of war to protect them. All
nations trading on the high seas are entitled to
claim as free access and egress to and from the Black
Sea for their ships of war as to the Baltic or Medi-
terranean. Rightly considered, the interest of the
Ottoman Government in the opening of the Darda-
nelles and Bosphorus is SI great as that of any other
Government; the balance of power at sea is more
certain and stable where the ships of war of all na-
tions are cruising than where those of only two are
to be met with. The Porte may perhaps be startled
at the idea of allowing foreign ships of war to pass
and repass at will so near to its metropolis, but
Denmark has for centuries tolerated the like with-
out feeling its dignity or security impaired.
But though it is demonstrable that the Porte
would be benefited, and would sustain no diminu-
tion of its real dignity by the opening of the Darda-
nelles and &spheres to foreign ships of war, the
novelty of the proposal might at first give it
pause; and at the present crisis, England and
France, upon whom would necessarily devolve the
urging of this innovation, might feel a delicacy in
urging the point upon an ally so deeply interested in
retaining their good will : it might look like making
an ungenerous ass of the Porte's obligations to them.
A multitude of other questions might be pointed out,
the settlement of all of which is indispensable to
a permanent tranquillisation of the East of
Europe. The free navigation of the Danube is
one. And those irritating discussion. which Russian
ignorance or contempt of the conventional decen-
cies, as well as the equity of international inter-
course, raises by such acts as trampling on the
regular forms of English law at Portsmouth, and by
the unwarrantable arrest of an English Government
messenger in Wallachia, threaten to be productive of
a whole crop of additional difficulties.

Enough has been said to show that a Congress,
even supposing all its members to be animated by a
sincere desire to promote an equitable and perma-
nent settlement of the Eastern question, would
find it all but impossible to carry its good
intentions into effect.: certainly impossible to do it off-
hand. But what guarantee have we that such wouid
be the honest aim of all the Four Powers whose re-
presentatives it has been proposed to assemble ? What
man of common sense could for a moment expect
Austria to play a fair, manly, rod independent part
in balancing the claims of Russia and Turkey ? The
truth is, that this idea of a Cmgress has been most
eagerly grasped at and zealously advocated by those
partisans of Russia who, seeing it likely to be
worsted in the collision it has provoked, are seeking
to " let it down" as easily as possible—to save it
from the legitimate consequcticts of its own unpro-
yoked and lawless aggreesioe. The Turks have
hitherto had the better of the Russians and are likely
—at all event, in Asia—to maintain it, if France
and England are steady io their determination to ace
justice done to Turkey; therefore, every nerve
-nuat be strained by the CZAR'S friends to save
Semi* from the penalties of its crime. Upon this
thew the Times—we Wan this joeseel merely ea a

sample of the toue adopted by all its collaborate/ins—l
has been harping day after day for nearly a week
past. It has been pathetically urging that Russia,
in the event of peace, ought to be loft exactly in
Oulu quo as regards its ten itorial usurpations. It
has resorted to its old cant about the impassibility of
maintaining the Turkish empire in its present ex-
tent and form; it has been misrepresenting
the motives of all who urge the necessity
of making Russia feel the consequences of its
crimes in order to deter it from repeating them ; and
accordingly the Times (and other Russian partisans)
grasps eagerly at the projected Congress, confident
that, if Austria be a party to it, the terms of peace
will be favourable to Russia, and hoping that the
Four Powers may be induced to combine to coerce
the SULTA.V into the adoption of such term& The
project of a Congress is, in short, a trap laid for
England and France, into which, if they fall, they
wilt find themselves made accomplices in an un-
worthy conspiracy to rob the Turkish Government
of the laurels and advantages which its courage and
magnanimity are gaining, and to allow Russia to
retire from the field uocrippled, to plot at leisure
new schemes for disturbing the peace and endan-
gering the liberties of Europe.

FREE TRADE in bread seems to involve amongst
Englishmen a sort of certainty that free trade in
beer will some of these days follow. Next session
" that great subject—Beer" is sure to be debated.
The evidence taken before Mr. VILLIERS'S com-
mittee cannot be put out of sight, and already
the Licensing System seems tottering to its fall.
It can never be sufficiently remembered that magis-
terial power over the victualling trade was origin-
ally established for police purposes exclusively.
Prior to the reign of EDWARD VI. ale or tippling
houses, and houses of public refreshment, were
opened at the pleasure of any person who thought
fit to invest his property or occupy his labour in that
manner. During the temporary social disorganisa-
tion which necessarily followed the Reformation,
great evils no doubt issued from these houses ; and
they became deeper stay offensive to the spirit of
Puritanism, which meddled a good deal with all
social questions, and sometimes very mischievously,
In this way the Licensing System, as we hays it, was
first introduced; but with a view only, we repeat, to
securing moral responsibility and good character in
ale-house and tavern-keepers. Inoffensive as any dis-
regard of sound principles of legislation may at first
appear, such infraction soon produces evils of its own
greater than those it was intended tocnre. A monopoly
did not mitigate the ♦ice of tippling, and the whole
course of legislation daring the time of the STUARTS
and in the earlier Hanoverian days shows that as a
substitute for a good police system the Licensing
Acts were wholly inefficacious. As time grew on, in
the days of GEORGE 111. these Acts became one
of the greatest nuisances in the kingdom,
as sources of peculation, favouritism, mono-',
poly, and oppression. So bad did they become,
Nut in 1817 the whole subject of their operation
was inquired into by a Committee of the House of
Commons; and, despite the rampant Toryism of that
terrible period—our real dark age—the system was
utterly condemned. First of all, the Committee de-
scribed how is towns the beadles of parishes lived
on the extortions they were able to levy under the
Licensing System—how the high constables of county
districts sold to publicans their favour and recommen-

dation—and hoiv the magistrates themselves flou-
rished on their own authority. And then the report
went on to describe in very forcible terms the inte-
rests which brewers had established under the law :
Your Committee observe that a practice seems to have
gradually grown up, and to have increased to a great extent
within these few years, for brewers to become the owners,
purchasen, and equitable mortgagees of leases of public
houses ; nearly the half of the victualling houses of the
metropolis are held in this manner, and your Committee
Mink Mat, wider Me cmfined and restricted power which
the public at large possess of employing their capital in this
trade, this aystens is eery prejudicial to Me interests of the
community at taro.

Pretty well this for the year 1817; yet in 1833
the system and its ill consequences still exist. Five-
and-thirty years have not lessened, but greatly in-
(tressed, the power of brewers over public-houses, and
what was then prejudicial to the interests of the
community is far more hurtful now. Just listen, too,
to the practical effect of the monopoly in beer, as
described in 1817 :
The consequence of this monopoly is, that the beer is of
as inferior dmcription—that the poor and middling classes
complain heavily of the badness of the commodity they
are compelled to drink, and are driven to the nee of
spirits.

The description is quite as applicable to 1883 as it
was to 1817, and on " the influence which brewers
had with the magistracy" in 1817 the Committee re-
mark :

A certain and clear prison facie case is made oat, and
strong presumptive proof offered, which has satisfied your
committee that in different divisions of the metropolis a
nil's, to say the least of it, is felt in favour of particular in.
tercets. Mr. liaabury has stated that his house employs
Mr. Thompson, one of the clerks of the Licensing Justices,
as spat for the purpose of forwarding their views with
regard to licensee. The lasts firm also retained in the
same meaner the services of Mr. Lush, a clerk in the polies.
oats, Wonhipotrest ; your committee cannot help ob-
serving that the principle of these reteations is obvious.
Mr. Thorapsoo is to stand their friend when a new license
is to be granted ; Mr. Lush is to lend them his aid when
isformations were laid against them already licensed.
More outward decency may perhaps be observed
in 1833; but the Bluebook of last session contains
ample evidence that the spirit of 1817 survives in
this respect also. in the Licensing System of 1853.
Notwithstanding opposition so powerful that the
Government insisted on the Legislature passing the
new law before it would propose the abolition of
the beer duty,— the beer trade was partially
opened in 1830. But the Monopoly of Licensed Vic-
tuallers was still preserved; and the monopolists, of
course, at once raised the mail cry of Morality, and
were thus replied to by Lord BROUGHAM in 1831 :

One of the evils which existed at present was the distinc-
tion between the old ale-houves and the new beer-shops.
In the one a man might have either his glass of beer or his
glass of gin, or he might have his beer first and
hie gin afterwards, and this last was what people
generally preferred. He spoke practically on the subject.
He meant that he spoke from the result of his observa-
tion, and this led him to remark that the iowsr class of
persons generally preferred commencing with the heavier and
weaker liquor, and cueing the evening's vxzess, as he would
all it, or the evening's esjoyment, as they would style it,
with the lighter and stronger and more noxious beverage.
But he deaied that if you doubled the number of houses of
entertair sent you a ould double the number of drinkers.
For the numbs r of , croons who required the simple and
Mime. et refreshment of a glass of beer or wholesome ale
would not he increased, and the only danger which could
arise would be in the cam of their having free access to the
stimulant of ardent spirits. Thn system under which
lieented vi tote Ling houses were conducted was the worst of
all possible systems ; which no change of tenancy could
improve. If su angel were the owner, instead of the sign,
of such a house, no reform could take place in it. And the
magistrates who ileenped them were known by the title of
Brewer,' Haat, or Joe'i,ca of the Pewter Pot.
St,:h 14.1 d the account Lord Chancellor BaotcrtAm
gave, two-and•twenty years ago, of the system. The
legislative changes between 1817 and 1831 did indeed
pat a stop to minor peculation. and extortions on the
part f 'aura% and high constables; but the monopoly
continued, with all its greater vices, as powerful as
ever. The monopolists, however, struggled hard for
a repeal of the law of 1830, and thus their united
ileligates, in a zeport fluted July 4, 1838, mourned

over the decadence of a trade still superabundantly
protected

Whilst taking a cursory review of what has been done
in the present session, our thoughts naturally turn from
the present pesition of the licensed sr:Moeller to those by-
gone times when his vocation was one of acknowledged
respectability, yielding to the worthy host a comparative
degree of ease and comfort, and to the stranger a home
of cheerful repose and hospitality. We contemplate with
regret what it was, and what it is. The transition, short,
rapid, and severe, presents another of the many melancholy
results produced by the p►eralltag reg.t for experimental
improvement. The publicans are not the only class who
Iliatie to regret the licentious scope pan to free trade
theories ; few, however, have suffered more intensely
wr its follies ; but it must be admitted that none have
submitted more tamely to the Wanes resulting from
the rash application of its crude but destructive
doctrines. The experiment of the New Beer Act,
to ,chic/ the publican has fallen a victim, was one in
which the public bad much at stake. The superior and
►omely accommodation of the English tavern has often
been adverted to in the journals of continental travellers;
and the absence of its comfort formed a theme of bitter cons-
The compliment thus accorded was one of which •
nation :night be proud. It was certainly one worth our
duty to deserve ; but the public and the publican remained
alike iodiffsrent until the operation of the new and im-
proved Tom and Jerry system, which has rendered the
public-house such a precarious tonne of subsistence as to
withdraw all theme inducements which formerly prompted
the investment of capital, and caused the holders of public-
houses to entertain • laudable anxiety to promote the com-
fort of all dames of society.

And therefore by tiis report did the delegates of
tie ruined and destroyed licensed victuallers throw
themselves in 1838 on the charity of the " brewers
and spirit dealers, who hare a much greater interest
in the s'rugyle than even the publicans themselves."

Now we invite the attention of Mr. Alderman
WIRE to this wail of his clients—perhaps he himself
prepared the melancholy strain—in 1838, and ask
him how he reconciles the picture it contains of
havoc and devastation, with the prosperity and pro-
perty which he now again proclaims to be at stake ? In
1830, according to the delegates, the trade was ruined;
in 1853, according to Mr. WIRE, it was never before
so prosperous. Every license is worth 1,0001., and the
capital invested exceeds 22,000,0001. The character,
too, of the Licensed Victuallers has greatly improved
in the interval; they are no longer what they were,
says Mr. Wiaa, in 1838; they are now as respecta-1
ble, u intelligent, and as well conducted a class as
any in the kingdom. And why, Mr. Alderman,
all this improvement in their pecuniary, their intel-
lectual, and their moral condition ? Can't you tell ?
Don't you see that it has been caused by the partial
pressure of an open beer trade—by the necessities of
competition—by the benefit of rivalry ? Throw open
the trade then entirely, and at the expiration of
other three-and-twenty years other Aldermen will
have a still more surprising tale of greater improve-
ment to tell.

And now let us pat to the proof Mr. WIRE'S other
assertion, that the only banefit the public has reaped
by the new Beer Law is a reduction in the price of
beer to the extent of the duty which was abolished
in 1830. The worthy Alderman is just as wrong in
this as he is in most of hie other statements. Pre-
viously to the alteration the brewers' price of porter
in London was 435. a barrel. The duty remitted
was 9e. a barrel, and the brewers at once added to
this fiscal, a trade reduction of 31. a barrel ; so that
the wholesale price being lowered to 335. a barrel,
the retail price of porter fell Id. a pot. But the
opening of the Beer Trade, by the law of 1830, enabled
brewers who were previously compelled to confine
themselves to the ale trade—having now procured
consumers—to enter the porter trade, and they,
under the influence of competition, supplied beer,
houses with porter at 30s. a barrel. And thus the
public has not only reaped the advantage of the re-
duction made by the large brewers, but that also
made by their lesser and newer rivals, and now, ow-
ing to competition between the publicans and the
beer seller, porter, which before the enactment of the
law of 1830 had always been sold, if fetched by the
buyer, at sd. a pot, is sold at 3d.; that being a re-
duction of Id. a pot more than was effected by the
remission of the duty and the reduction made by the
large brewers.
But the reply to Alderman WIRE does not rest
even here, or at 2d. a pot on porter. Previously to
1830, Licensed Victuallers were prevented by the
large brewers from selling any but the most expen-
sive ales, spy at Bd. a pot; whereas since 1830, capi-
tal ale has been retailed at 4d. a pot
These, surely, are large results from the partial
opening of the Beer Trade in 1830, and ought to
encourage the Legislature in now taking, after the
lapse of three and twenty years, the next step, and
that is, complete freedom in the Victualling Trade.