The Express.
London, England, 1851-02-20 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

principle, and of the powers which upheld it. There
was a time when we might have rescued Sicily, and
might have saved Rome. Had we done so, we should
not have WISEMAN and CULLtN stranglingus at home,
and we should nut now be entering protests against
Austrians swallowing Italy into a new German empire.
We did none of these things, however. We allowed
Italy to be reconquered and its liberties to be extin-
guished. In Germany we took no active or efficient
part on behalf of the constitutional states against the
despotic ones. We silently assisted and ,applauded
the progress of that reaction which has swept consti-
tutional government from Europe; and having done
so, there is no longer a policy or a necessity fur oui
cavilling and quarrelling with the mass of allied
despotism, that new Holy Alliance, which we'per-
mined to be formed.

dfott:.elbertx Intruded tur "710 lapfetw,. lAteden Evening payer,
mum bo. a: #be oltioe, 10, BoueeYtaeueet, b; T•o tickxtb ua tbo
ity of pubacattua.

111011 WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tail Wt—Morning, Stt. len Arlern.n, 511. 24m.
Tu.sumnow—fkorausg, bb. 402.1 Alittgbooll, eh. la.

That triple alliance of despots may, indeed, not love
us, or may not regard England with affection or its
freedom with equanimity. It will, probably, increase
towards our merchants the severity of fiscal prohi-
bition, and towards our travellers the suspicion of the
police. But it will not make war upon Englund, or
provoke it. The despotic alliance is now master of
Europe. We have not interfered to prevent it ob-
taining that mastery, and the best thing we can do
is now not to interfere with their retention of
it. Retain it long they cannot. For military
governments can found nothing. The people of
Germany and the people of Italy will watch the op-
portunity to emancipate themselves. But in the
mean time all we have to do is to remain passive
spectators of events, which we cannot hasten and
cannot control.

Of all the absurdities that we could possibly com-
mit, the greatest would certainly be that of keeping
up armaments in maritime or military force, which
we otherwise did not require, merely because of the
unsatisfactory state of the continent. The continent
has nothing to say to us, nor we to the
continent. Amidst the millions of armed men that
are now eating up the produce of Europe, any
little armv that Britain could employ would be but
lan insignificant detachment. Let UN avoid all contact,
and their rulers can have no cause of quarrel with
US.
The cause that is now alleged for entangling Eng-
! land in the polities of Europe, is that Austria, our
pet Austria, has had the audacity to propose in-
eluding Lombardy in the Germanic empire. Now,
what on earth is it to us, whether she does or not ?
Austria is mistress of Lombardy, and the Times MIN
us, she has a legitimate right to be so. If so,
can it prevent Austria from concluding a treaty of
alliance offensive and defensive between two portions
of her own dominions ? Oh, but, argues the Times,
what we object to is, that Lombardy- should form
part of the same vast empire with Prussia. But
what has the Times been hammering at for the last
two years but to solder Austria and Prussia into one,
to get Prussia to fling away her liberal aims and
constitutional tendencies, in order to unite with
Austria on the principle of one federal despotism?
This accomplished, as it has been accomplished under
the patronage of the Times, does it not instantly
follow that to all purposes of military strength and
political alliance Lombardy and Brandenburg are
one? Permanently one they are not, and never can
be, for this good reason, that Prussia and Austria
with such divergent interest never can be one.
Tho uniting them in the bonds of a fede-
ration is merely so much waste paper, for I
such federation can never, in the event of
an European war, make two such great powers feel'
identically or act fraternally. The force of parchment
will never tie Buda, Milan, and Berlin together. The
project is as idle as the Abbe St. PIERRE'S notion,
of universal peace.
We can see, therefore no cause for England in-
terfering in anything that it may please the good
people ut Frankfort to devise touching the connexion
of North Italy with Germany. Italy can never
reach a normal, a happy, or free state, till the Aus-
trians are kicked out of it. And the more injustice they I
work, the more tyranny they inflict, the surer and the
sooner will that day come. The including Lombardy
amongst the circles of the German empire will but add
to the number of foreign faces and musters who lord
it in the streets and offices of Italian states. And
that, instead of giving strength, will but add weak-
ness to the fragile state of Austrian supremacy.
The French may feel nettled at this, and may
remonstrate, if it so please them. But we maintain
that England, especially after the quiet and sub-1
missive part England has played of late, has no
claim nor right now to become remoustrant. Neither
do we see that Ions; BULL can be called upon to
pay one more pound to the sum of military estimates,
bemuse it pleases Prince SCLIWAISZENIWIII: that
Lombardy should appear as part of the German CCM-
tilleration in the next edition of the Almanac of
Gotha.

LONDO.V, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20.

ON t. of the most important premises laid down in
the statement of the (.ItANcum.on of the Ext.:HE-
W:Lit is the impossibility of any reduction in the
military establishments on account of the unsettled
state of Europe ut present. Now, as Europe has not
offered so settled an aspect for this great number of
years, we cannot admit either the truth or specious-,
mess of the Cnestuunes allegation. Europe,
indeed, is far from being sattkd to the mind or
satisfaction of any liberal man. But pacified it
is, the people quiet, the authorities in full I
and uncontrolled sway, the principle of absolute
and military government unquestioned and uncon-
tradieted, every attempt at revolution hopeless,
'whilst any possibility of the sovereigns or powers of
Europe quarrelling amongst each other is out of
the question, since they mast know that in such a
ease their ',ample would rise, nut to fight for either or
any sovereign, but to put them down. Whatever dis-
satisfaction, therefore, we may fed as to the state of
Europe, no fears need be entertained of its peace. Nor
can we admit the fetters, that have been rivetted upon!
our German and Italian brethren, to be any plea or
excuse for increasing the fiscal burtheos of Vaigland.'.
It is amusing to observe that this cry of " Wolf,"
in echo of the Citescmott of the EXCHEHCER, this
clamour that the Continent has flail into the hands
of ambitious powers, which threaten as as well
as the public peace, is raised by thaw very
orgat.s, the :rims and Chmide, that have been
all along, with true tory instinct, abetting and
applauding the progress and the triumph of those
powers. Austria has been the favourite of the
21illos daily epic for the last three years. Scilw.euz-
Extimu has been its AGAMEMNON—IttnErsKt and
IlAysee its ACHILLES sand DiouEn. The tritunph
of these mighty men and their holy government was
to restore order and confirm peace, re-establish the
balance of power, allow commercial enterprise
and industrial activity to resume their course.
In Also, the Times and its female, the
Chroutl.h• (fur they are both of the some
flintily, though endowed with different cokes),
kept continually assuring the commercial and intel-
lectual world of Englund, that the success of Aus-
tria over that nasty Prussia and those horrid Italian
liberals would be a restoration of the reign of
Saturn. IVhat was not the enlightened King of
NAPLES to do fur that happy portion of the pe -
sula which he governed? In the columns of the
Times, this royal Jack Ketch was debriefed as a
Sotox. Whut columns of devout and right catholic

THE trial of the London Dock Company in the
Court of Exchequer has terminated ; the trial of her
'Majesty's Customs us the court of public• opinion is
about to begin.
At the instance of the Board of Customs the Lon-
don Dock Company was arraigned on a charge of at-
tempting to defruud the revenue of duties on 2511 cwt.
of sugar and 8,000 lb. of cocoa. This pretty exten-
sive defalcation was alleged to be only a sample of
systematic evasions of the paymeut of duty, and the
appropriation by the company of the property of
merchants intrusted to their care, practised in the
docks. The directors were not, indeed, charged with
being actually conversant with and participators in
the frauds, but they were accused of having held out
inducements to commit them. •• Ile would be able
to prove." said the SOLICITOR-GENERAL, in his open-
ing speech, " a systematic plan of abstraction from
packages, and so robbing the owners and the crown.
It was not meant by the crown to charge individual
shareholders or dir'ectors with a guilty knowledge of
all the frauds and plunder that had been perpetrated,
but they unhesitatingly charged that the strongest
inducements were held out to the servants of the
company."
After a trial of the unprecedented length of eleven
days, the jury virtually negatived these grave
cliarges. Their verdict was:—" We find fur the
crown as regarding the two boxes of Ilavannah
sugar, and for the dock company as regarding the
remainder; also that there was no intention to evade
the duty."

.....
aspirations did not Times and Chronicle put firth for
the re,t,,rition of the Ports.? Wellawluis been restored.
And what is the comalmeneell That his Holiness
forthwith sent his emissaries to insult our Queen,

and stir up a flume of quasi-rebellion in these islands,
whilst his own popul towns are either terrorised
by the pollee or victimises' by brigands. Need we
depict the state of Germany, of Ilungary, of 'tree,
the hunt:liation of Prussia, the occupation of the
free cities, and the proposal to turn them, as well as
the smaller princes, out of the Diet ?
As lung as this work of despotism was in progress,
at lung as there was a single free state to be bllll-
- or tree principles extinguished; as long, is lam
us there was a single link in the chain of European
despotism remaining to he rivettial, so lung the
prise and Chronicle kept applauding and en-
enuraging. and crying down with insolence any at-
tempts to commiserate German or Italian, or to
doubt the justice or wisdom of despotic reaction.
Now, however, that the work has been accom-
plished—that the Austrian eagle Moats supreme front
the Baltic to the Black Sea, those organs of the Bri-
tish press which acted as jackalls for the devouring
maw of Austria, turn of a sudden to declare that
there is reason fur alarm in what has been achieved.
Austria, they tell us two, is an ambitious power.
She has half a million of awn in arms; she seeks to
include North Italy in the German empire, which
she has reeompose4 under the feet of her armies and
at the dictation of her scribes; she is garrisoning
Hamburg as well as Frankfort, and threatens to
make a Cracow of both.
Nav but, my good gentlemen, ye ought to have
thought of this before. When you were hallooing
on kionsat against Milan, and RAYNAt against
Hungary, and telling us how beneficial their success
would be to the cause of order and peace, you ought
to have foreseen the result. Mien hilt a few
weeks ago you still supported the claim of Austria
to dominate in the Diet, and to march her troops
into Hesse. what face have you now to come and corn-
plain of Austrian ambition:' You affect to be dile
gusted because Austrian troops have garrisoned
I Limburg. Why then did you so fiercely
insist on their right to send an expedition to North
Germany ? You have acted fugleman and trumpeter
to every march, every advance, and every conquest of
the Austrians, and do you now pretend to use the
same trumpet in order to recall and drive them out
again ? Why, you must take the people of England,
at least such.as are your readers, to be the most arrant
fouls and unprincipled men that the world ever pro-
duced, thus to preach to them in February facts,
principles, and hopes diametrically We reverse of
those which you preached in December.
We knew, indeed, that all which the Times and
Chrouirk had been arguing and asserting respecting ,
Austria for the last two years was, front beginning
to end, a falsehood. We knew, and we said, that
the putting down of Italian and Hungarian, and
Pravda', and German resistance, would terminate
neither in solid institutions, settled liberty, commer-
cial prosperity, or popular content. We knew it
would result in a brute military tyranny, and no-
thing more. And we knew, and said moreover, that
this brute military tyranny, not contented with
the enslavement of thi centre of Europe, would, the
instant that enslavement was ac.samplished, proceed
to dictate to, uud press upon, the states of the west,
till they excited antagonism and war. What we
said, has turned out correct. Not a week has elapsed
since the complete subjugation of Germany, before
we find France and England, in despite of their past
acquiescence, obliged to protest against what they
consider to be an aggression and an infraction of the
treaty of Vienna.
We have been all along for resistance, moral re-
sistance to the advance of the military and despotic

Customs ; but it is impossiblo to read a great part of
the evidence adduced for the prosecution without!
feeling that there is maple matter for still worse sus-
vicious. The existence and extent of the alleged frauds
and peculation were sought to he established by
witncsses,who admitted theobeing parties to the com-
lmission of these frauds. These " Queen's evidences"
were, at the time they appeared in court, and had been
for sonic time previously, supported by the Customs.
The whole tenour of the volunmunereildence shows
that the irregularities which undoubtedly prevailed
were carried on in the most red less and open
manner. How came they to escape the notice of the
tide-waiters and landing-waiters of the Customs P
Is there not reason to fear that the good understand-
ing between the Customs' officers and these confessed
delinquents, which has now enabled the former to
obtain the self-criminating evidence of the latter,
I mac have at an earlier period enabled the latter to
obtain the connivance of the former ?
The interests of the mercantile community, and
the character of her MaissTY's Customs, impera-
tively call for an investigation. Even the compara-
tively shadowy ground of suspicion now indicated
would in a matter of such consequence call for
inquiry. But unfo.iunately there have been re-
peated detections of extensive frauds and peeulations
among officers of the Customs, the remembrance
I of which gives increased force to these suspicions.
Besides, the very composition of the Board of Cus-
toms, and the manner in which its official subord;-
nates are appointed, affird peculiar facilities for the
creeping in of abuses. The members of the board
are appointed on political considerations; many of
them have no previous knowledge of its usiness to
qualify them for discharging it, and most of them
notoriously take matters very easily. Again, a fla-
grant system of political jobbing patronage is under-
stood to prevail in the appointment of those highly
I responsible officers, the landing-waiters. They are
generally nominated to their posts on the recom-
mendation of members of the legislature, and the
antecedents of some of them have been rather curious.
Some time ago we drew attention to the anomalous
arrangement, in virtue of which no locker, however
1 competent, or of however well-approved integrity,
can be promoted to the office of landing-waiter ;
i although the new hands who are appointed to the
latter post arc committed for instruction to the charge
of the lockers, are therefore unavoidably for some
time at their mercy, and too often devolve the most
laborious part of the business upon them perma-
nently.
It Is not likely that this country will ever be dis- I
posed to abandon entirely the system of raising a
large proportion of the public revenue 4y means of,
Customs' duties. And the collection of
.tv.ese duties
must always subject, even under the most impecca-
ble administration, the commerce of the country to a
beat deal of annoyance. But this annoyance may I
augmented to un intolerable and almost ruinous
extent, if by incompetence in the supreme direction,
and neglect of duty, or worse, on the part of subor-
dinate officials, systematic abuses are allowed to
creep in.
The Customs department of a grant commercial
country like ours ought to be, like Ctssn's wife,
above suspicion. Apart from any other considera-
tion, the exaggerated tone assumed by the Customs
in their lute proceedings ngainst the 1)(1 companies
of the metropolis has au air of vimlictiveness about it.
It looks, on the least unfavourable construction, like
an attempt to take vengeance on the companies for
not having been on the alert to prevent irregulari-
ties, which it was the duty of the customs them-
selves to prevent. The sudden burst of outrageous
zeal which has led to the prosecutions instituted
against the clock companies, looks marvellously like
an attempt to divert attention from the negligence
of the Customs department, and the suspicious con-
duct of some of its understrappers, by raising a
clamour against other parties.

ABANDONMENT OF THE CLERGY RE-
SERVES LN CANADA.

COPT OF A DISPATCH PROM THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL
GRIT TO TILE RIGHT HON. TILE EARL OF ELGIN AND
KINCARDINE . .

Downing-street, Jan. 27, Wit
My Lord,—l have hitherto deferred answering
your lordship's despatch No. 198, of the 19th of July
last, ia which you transmitted to me au address to
her Majesty front the House of Assembly, on the
subject of the clergy reserves, because when this
despatch reached me the session of the provincial
legislature having already been brought to an end,
and that of the Imperial Parliament being about.to
close, nothing could for some months be done on the
subject referred to, and I therefore thought it advi-
sable that it should be reserved for that full and de-
liberate consideration of her Majesty's government,
which its difficulty and importance deserved.
2. I have now to instruct your lordship to inform
the House of Assembly when it shall again be called
together, that their address to the Queen, which was
transmitted to me in your despatch, huts been laid
beLre her Majesty, and that her Majesty has been
pleased to receive it very graciously. You will fur-
ther inform the house. that while fur Majesty's ser-
vants greatly regret that a subject of so muck diffi-
culty as that of the clergy reserves should, after an
interval of some years, have again been brought
under discussion, it has appeared to them on mature
deliberation, that the desire expressed by the Assem-
bly in this address ought to be acceded to, and they
will accordingly be prepared to recommend to par-
liament that an act should be passed, giving to the
provincial legislature full authority to make such
alterations us they may think tit in the existing ar-
rangements with regime' to the clergy reserves, pro-
vided that existing interests are respected.
3. In coining to this conclusion, her Majesty's go-
' rernment have been mainly influenced by the consi-
deration that, great as would, in their judgment, be
the advantages which would result from leaving un-
disturbed the existing arrangement by which a cer-
tain portion of the public lands of Canada are made
available for the purpose of creating a fund fn; the
religious instruction of the inhabitants of the pro-
vince, still the question whether that arrangement is
to be maintained or altered is one so exclusively
affecting the people of Canada, that its decision ought
not to be withdrawn from the provincial legislature,
to which it properly belongs to regulate all matters
concerning the domestic interests of the province.
4. It has therefore appeared to her Majesty's go-
vernment that it would be impossible for them, con-
sistently with the principles on which they have
always held that the government of Canada ought to
be conducted, to advise her Majesty to refuse to com-
ply with the prayer of the address of the House of
Asoembly; and they have had the less difficulty in
coming to this conclusion, because they have ob-
served with satisfaction that the Assembly, iu their
address, have recognised the claims of those who are
now in the enjoyment of incomes derived front the
funds realised by the sale of the lands in question,
and have not asked that in any alteration of the act
of parliament now in force authority should be given
to the provincial legislature to interfere with the
continuance of these incomes for the lino of the
parties by whom they are received. The course thus
taken by the Assembly is alike consistent with sound
policy and with justice, and has obliOed what would
otherwise have been a great difficult: in the way of
accomplishing the object they have in view..
5. lou will cau.e copies ot this despatch to be laid
before both houses of the parliament of Canada at
their next meeting.
I have, &c., (Signed) GREY.
The Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, &e.

Itegiird to the public interest compels us to re-
mark in connexion with this virtual acquittal, that
the dock company have not come out of court so cre-
ditably as could have been wished. The severe cen-
sure implied in the recommendation to the dock com-
pany, with which the jury accompanied their ver-
dict, "to be stricter with regard to their subordinate
officers, as many irregularities had occurred at the
docks," was amjily mcritech The appropriation of
the second samplings of sugar by the company as a
perquisite appears rather a questionable proceeding.
In the out-ports we are given to understand that
they are uniformly accounted for to the importer ;
and we have been assured, on the authority of a con-
siderable sugar importer in one of them, that by ex-
changing these samplings with the sugar railer', he
provides for the annual consumption of refined sugar
ui a pretty large establishment. This. however, is a
matter for the consideration of the London merchants,
who, now that attention has been drawn to the irre-
gularities iu the London docks, are perfectly compe-
tent to take care of their own interests.
The questiou arising out of these proceedings,
which is of most importance to the public, is the con-
nexion of the administration of the Custotuswith the
alleged frauds. It is impossible that the irregularities
which the jury declare have prevailed in the Lou-
don docks, could have taken place without the MEETING AT 'BRISTOL OF THE Rome; CATHOLIC I
cognisance or connivance of the Customs' officers if LAITY.—In consequence of the statements made by Lord
they did their duty. Indeed, we take it that the Beaumont, Mr. Brotherton, and others, to the effect that
tiouctrort-GENERAL, in opening the case, admitted the proceeding of the papal see in creating a Roman
the existence of a culpable neglect of duty on the catholic hierarchy in this country did 12,4 meet with the
part of the Customs. After a ship arrives in port, aoivt7c"clatfoli)
elaciattholficcbody in ggn73ml. al wise
ltretitg
and leave has been obtained from the Customs to die- the conventnsto
of St. Catherine''te
ehaelt he said, catholic school-room,
" the great object was to ascertain of Sienna, at the former place. A petition to the House of
whe er the quantities were correctly reported, and Common: Wai adopted by the meeting, in which it was
I with n view to ascertain that fact two talc amen were I asserted that the English catholic body long desired this
appointed. one a tidewaiter and another an officer of "hark in their spiritual government, and that they most
boon from the Huly See. That
, the Customs. The goods were weighed at the ship's thelathUlic cllu'vrceh'does not now claim or assume any new
I aide; but since the establishment of the docks the jurisdiction within these realms ; she merely confers upon
crown placed unbounded confidence in them, and the her own numbers a permanent and mauler' form of epis-
company had been allowed to warehouse the 4.00 d, • copecy in place of a temporary and abuornuil one. That
before they mere brought to the scales, to pack, un- ,the sanurci,t;ii
is an ~authorityessential
53tcaw"ture intht?hehicaeradraeotye hres been
intrli
pack, and repack cargoes. and to deal with them in !
an.. that an Interference by the civil power with its free
all respects as if the duties have been paid." This is . exercise will be, therefore, in opposition to the express dc-
the statement put into the mouth of their counsel by I claration of her Majesty in her recent speech from the
the Customs. and it amounts to this, that they have throne, that it is her "'Arm determination to maintain un-
delegated to others the task of superintendence which impaired that religious liberty which is so justly prized by
they are paid to perform ;these others haring a direct th Acao.plekoxf
SthlTElrun.tNtryD.' HIS CONSTITUENTS.— Mr.
• interest in evading the superintendence. Chisholm Anatcy has contradicted the statement of his
; This is an awkward confession on the part of the intended resignation of his seat is parliament.