The Express.
London, England, 1848-05-08 00:00:00

Paris and to London, rather than centred in Madrid•
One would almost as noon ass Italy under the
Austrian yoke, as governed by molt creatures as
1
CHRISTINA and ICsavars.

Sons malicious fairy must have sat cross-legged at
Lord Mostraru's birth. The sight of • statesman of
high intellect, the most imaginative of his party,
perhaps, tied to an ungrateful law of 'dile-
ship, labouring and perspiring the live-long year in
the vain effort to combat dirt and dispose, and gernieg
peltedand defeated by these very antagontsts, is eainfid.
But the scavenger eineute at the min ister's heels 4so
xtravagant and so motle, that it is impossible not
to
enjoy the comicality of ytheir fury and absurdity,
even though the laugh should in its objeet corairise
poor Lord Moarzufs embarrassment.
How characteristically did Colonel Surruciar open
the debate by a denunciation of that modern i
onnvthe
Lion, the the patent water-closet, and a panegyric
first he
great conservative organ —we thought at
was alluding to the Ames: but the object of the
Colonel's adoration was merely what he called " The
old garden reservoir "—robably something of the
same kind. This admiration of the Colonel for the
wisdom and habits of his ancestors puts us in mind of
an anecdote of Louts XVIII., who, on returning to
the Tuileries in 1814, was shocked to find it well
the chord of his and
fitted with these patent engines,
of Colonel Suerdoar's dislike. His Majesty instantly
ordered their removal, lest the court office of the
Maitre de la Garde 214 e uld be abolishednment as a
sinecure by some member o sho f
a liberal gover
like Lord Moeetern.
Atter the uloacinous oration of the gallant member
for the sweet city of Lincoln, the member fur Stafford
rose, he said, to take a nosological survey of the ques-
tion. The singular result of this survey was to dis-
cover an exact similitude between the sanitary policy
of Lord MORPETU and that system of governmehas
nt
which has always prevailed in Fraser), ana which
been the cause of all that country's disasters. Lord
MORPETII, in Mr. URQUHART'S eyes, was evidently
a revolutionist as formidable as M. Lertairrths
and Sir EDW.N I:HAI/V.1CM and Dr. SOUTHWOOD
SMITH are the Bt./trout and CADET of theA
e
hon. member for Stafford's fears. Mr. URQUH
followed this up by some fragment of a " Philosophy
of History?" quite his own. 'Cleanliness is gall'-
', nem" said Mr. URQUHART, "and old things were
Oben." So that dirt is a mere modern invention,
'winging altogether from the new-fangled centralise-
sien of modern times, and we have but to go back to the
simplicity of our forefathers in order
were to bo clean. In
Mr. URQUHART'S view, the Romans the great
models of cleanliness and municipal freedom—
a
the Romans who wore no shirts, nd the best of
whom, in order to cleanse the crass filth from off
their persons, were obliged to undergo the continued'
process of steaming—these are Mr. URQUHART'S
models. Look at the Cloaca Maxima and the l'uti-
seam—there &remodels of draining. Unfortunately for
his theory, both were built by despots. by TARQUIN'
and by 'll-rus, when centralisation prevailed to its
fullest extent.
As to the quarrel between centralisation and
local administration, no rational person could desire'
to abolish or weaken permaneutly the could But
local administration, however it may be the right and
the school of civic duties, is still conservative and sta-
tionary in its nature. It will preserve liberties and
exercise them ; but it cannot improve or innovate or
progress. When great changes are required, eves
for health or well-being, it is not the mayor or alder-
men who can efficiently undertake to levy a tax
or arrange an outlay. Municipalities have no
power to set in action force of self-improvement
from within the government have. There must
be a pressure and a guidance from without, and from
around, and where there is not, no improvement can
take place. What municipal body could combat even
such a horrid and pestilential nuisance as an iutra-
mural cemetery' There are reforms in the Health
of Towns Act, which it is quite clear will never be
done unites some such act does them. We are for
the remedying of these awful and shameful abuses by
a dictatorial and national edileship if necessary. Our
only proviso would be, let the dictatorship be respon-
sible, and temporary. Suspend local administration
for a time, if faulty or unequal to tbesctual task. But
abrogate none.
Lord Moerarii, on Friday night, instanced 434
incorporated towns, or populous districts tantamount
to towns, which had no powers of providing for
health, sewerage, or any other common precaution,
without this bill giving them the power. These
he added 92 corporate towns, which had no adequate
powers. The opposition in parliament is in fact
got up by few, but influential and large conglo-
merations of citizens, who prefer the runic.-
tenanos of their own jurisdiction untouched,
though such immunity would be accompanied by
the defeat of all efforts at sanitary improve-
ment, by a momentary submission to a central
authority, exercised for the good of all, the unity
of the system, and the sanitary amelioration of the

kind ni.
Nothwithstanding this, we do think that every-
thing ought to be done by the government, and every
modification of the bill admitted, which might appease
the fears and soften the susceptibility of municipal in-
' dependence. The power given to any fifty petitioners
to supersede the local authorities by central super-
vision is perhaps too great a boon and an opening
to municipal malcontentism. Such a call should be
made by a more respectable minority, in order to war-
rant interference. And, above all, this power of in-
terference on the part of the government or the cen-
tral commissioners, ought to be more positively stated
as temporary. if dictators are wanted, it is to
drive a nail, and carry or especial reform; not to
take the place of consuls, prtetors, ediles, and local
administrators in general.
We must own, that what we should regret most
would be the de feat of every measure of sanitary re-
form, the triumph of such Botherbys as the BANKEs's
and the URQUIIARTS, and that too manifest de-
monstration, that the grist cracy of this country were
not the only class which opposed improvements and
projects in order to protect their class interests and
their uncontrolled influence. If it should be seen
that towns were jog as little disinterested, and as
much class-bound and prejudiced, reformers might
hesitate as to the advantage of xansferring political
influence from the notables of the House of Peers to
those of the town corporation'.

Ws: quoted last week from the Derby Mercury a
notice of a report that government intend to reduce
the newspaper stamp duty to ono farthing, and the
advertisement duty to sixpence. "We do not be-
lieve the report," says the Mercury, bluntly. Neither
do we; neither does anybody acquainted with the
character of the exiting government and parliament.
This country. used to pride itself on its (com-
paratively) free institutions and free press. At this
moment the press labours under greater restrictions
in Great Britain than in any other country of Europe
—Russia and perhaps the Scandinavian kingdoms,
excepted. The late movements on the continent have
everywhere emancipated the newspaper press from
censorship and from fiscal restrictions where such
existed. In this country its development is stillehecked
by stamp and advertisement duties, which, origin-
ally imposed for the avowed purpose of limiting its
extension ; were from time to time heightened as its
circulation was found to be still greater than consisted
with the comfort of arbitrary or corrupt statesmen ; '
and have, in these latter dal s, been reluctantly abated
as far only as statesmen of the old school thought
it safe.
The French government hasabolished the stamp duty
on newspapers. The English government not only re-'
fusee to abolish the stamp and advertisement duties, bat
even to adopt the equitable principle of imposing the
former in proportion to the price for which the news-
paper sells. The paper which sells for fivepence,end the
paper which sellsfor threepence or twopence-halfpenny,
are compelled to pay the same amount of stamp-duty.
All that the Emc fish newspapers have of late been
asking, is to be charged for stamps in proportion to
the price the public pays for them, and for advertise-
ments at a rate which will not discourage advertisers.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER cannot pre-
tend that in refusing this equitable request, ho is
animated by a fear of diminishing the revenue. The
total amount of income that he receives from
these sources is not so great as to render
very perilous the experiment whether in this
case, as in so many others, reduced rates of impost
money may not yield greater total returns. The net
produce of toe newspaper stamp duty in Great Britain
for the year which ended sth January, 1848, was
315,733/. ; the net produce of the advertisement duty