The Express.
London, England, 1848-04-03 00:00:00

Eke eirpregOS.

MAILS.
The maps tor the Bruin, the Myer Plate, Moine Video,
That
Bahia, Madeira, tad ion:: jr,rts will be made up on the
eveang of the SW April.
Tbe mails for Vigo, Oporto, IMMO, Madeira,_ Cads, and Oltenia:
ell be made up on the mornieg at the 7th April-
The overland eland mails, na Marseilles, to the Mediterranean,
Egypt, Aden, Ceylon, Ind 44 Hoeg-Komi, he., will be ode up on the
evening of the 7th April.
The mails for British North America, end the United Mane,
will be mae up en the evening of the 7th April.
The West India Mans, excluding Bermuda, Malan. Harems,
Madura:, New Chicane, Vera Craz, Tampico, end Porto Rico, and
including those for 'Madeira Jame, Curtbsgena, &eat Martha,
Chagres, rf111.111113. West Goat of South Amertoa, and St. Juari-de-
Nicaragua, will be made up on the evening of the 17th tont
The overland mails for Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, the to Islands,
Egypt, Aden, Ceylon, India, liong-Kong, and China, ins Southanip.
tot, will be mode up on the morniug of the 90th April.
The mulls for New South Wales, Van Dlernan's Land, and New
Zealand will he made ap on the evening of the Nib April.
The moils for the West Cunt of Africa and Madeira will be made
up on the evening of the SO* April.

NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS.
The number of STAMPS issued by the authorities of the
Stamp-otlice, during 1847, to the
DAILY NEWS wa5.......... 3,447,009
This, we believe, is within eight per cent. of the number
issued to the Morning Herald, Morning (I, and
Morning POBl, ALL PUT TOOETHUR.
addition to the ab issued to the DAILY NEWS,
Morning Paper, there wereove, issued for the Evening Edition,
THE EXPRESS .............. 778,714
Which was more, we believe, than were issued either to
the Globe or Standard, Evening Papers.

TO CORRESPONDENT&
Weioct
•; Adwrttorobroto lotwolwl "The Egress; two en mulls; arr. mobt
.g w, 8.0.0.01.1.1% by Two ow tie 414/ ru•kw.6.•

--
HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDE.
11",„: TAI. Dal —oran, 3441.44.4 I, alerorsos. 41 41.14 past I.
Tu-monaaw —Mersin& 2 tam past 2 Atterwea. Is WA. plus t.

LONDON, MONDAY, APRIL 3.
IN discussing the question of a reform of the upper
house of parliament, we neither echo nor appeal to
any of those sentiments, which have agitated er been
entertained by the popular masses in this country, or
by their leaders. The idea has never been broached
in any point of any charter, nor yet has it been
mooted, as it ought to have been, by any conserva-
tive. The received maxim with liberal and anti-
liberal is to make the Commons House the great and
only field of battle, both for the attack and
defence of aristocratic influence and privileges.
The tory fears that if the House of Commons be once
thoroughly popularised, the House of Lords and its
influence will be swept away in a trice. The radical
says, Give us the House of Commons, and we will
soon coerce or nullify the House of Lords.
Now, we cannot but think this mode of viewing
things, and the received system of attack and defence,
the most menacing to the nobility that can be con-
ceived ; leaving them and their legislative authority to
exist as of old, based upon the very narrow and tottering
foundation of birth, their chief safety lies in the attack
being directed against the aristocracy in the House
of Commons. No sooner shall this great outwork be
carried, than the House of Lords falls of itself.
We, therefore, maintain, that we do put forth a
most conservative opinion, or at least an opinion most
conservative of the constitution, when we propose to
reform the House of Lords, by giving it a more solid
basis than birth, and by restoring it to what it was in
its origin—a representation of the great and stable
property and intelligence of the kingdom.
When, in the early ages of the monarchy, the lords
and barons were summoned to form the great council
of the empire, they were so called by reason of their
power, more than even their property. They, in fact,
had the peace of their districts in their keeping, the
population in their dependence, the young and male
force of that population under their ordinance and com-
mand. They were necessarily called to con-
sider and to sanction laws and regulations
which they themselves were afterwards to carry
into effect. They and the clergy were the adminis-
trative power and intelligence of the kingdom. As
other power and property aid intelligence arose, these
or their representatives were summoned to another
house of parliament. And this latter body has by
degrees acquired, and is known to represent, an
immense proportion of those qualities and claims
which give men a right to govern others. It has,
besides these, the great weight of being elected by the
people, and of being the direct representative of public
opinion ; the House of Lords, having, at the same time,
lost every administrative power, and having shrunk
into a body of legislators by mere right of birth,
and representing really nothing but an pre-
judices, and a superannuated species of property,
whichs,
is every day less in accordance with the
wants and the development of the country.
It is impossible not to perceive that with all the
mass of tradition, law, and institutions in its favour,
the power of the landed aristocracy embodied in the
House of Lords is rapidly declining. It has a large
and numerous and increasing body of enemies, and
these enemies are every day dealing it a blow
and robbing it of an advantage. The landed
aristocracy, as entrenched in the Lords, and
in the class succedaneous to the Lords, is
bolstered up and supported by a host of
laws and privileges, all of which are more or less
onerous to other classes of the community. These
classes will strive, and strive successfully. Feudal
rights and lordly privileges, entails and political influ-
ence, the monopoly of land and place, will be assailed
one after the other, aye, and conquered too. And all
this fatal hostility will be carried on by men who, like
Mr. WAKLEY, profess the most profound and devout
respect for the name and dignity of lords, and who
will proceed most ruthlessly to strip the idol of every
rag that covers it, affecting to worship it all the time.
So that the sillier portion of tae aristocracy may in
time undergo the fate to which we have doomed the
GREAT MOGUL, who retains the right to be adored after
he has been robbed of every element of wealth, reapec-

tability, and power.
We stated in a former article the false position of
the House of Lords with respect to the working of
the government in the House of Commons. fhe
maintenance of the upper house as it is, has com-
pletely nullified all the expected results of the Re-
form Bill. Lord axes, in fact, gave the people of
England with one hand what he unwittingly with-
held with the other. It has not set power loose
and free from aristocratic hands; it has not enabled li-
beral government tograpple with great social questions.
It has enabled the whigs indeed to hold office longer
and oftener than they otherwise might, and has ren-
dered an ultra government impossible ; but it has at
the,same time depopularised the whip, by fettering
them in their desires and movements, and has there-
by. resuscitated in a great degree the disbelief and
mistrust of the public in parliaments which was one
of the fatal symptoms manifest before 18,30.
A reform of the House of Lords is therefore, in our
opinion, the first requisite towards the existence of a
strong and efficient government, towards the mainte•
'mice of parliament in the respect of the people, and
towards the vital objects of strengthening the House
of Lords itself, and giving it something more than
that prestige and outward respect, which men are
bound to pay with hypoeritic compliment and forme,
but which covers a growing dislike and contempt,
likely on some day of popular storm to produce a
hasty decree of abrogation.
It will be said at once, that the power of the crown
suffices to bring the House of Lords into harmony
with the age and with the other powers of the consti-
tution. We fear this is not the else. First of all,
the crown is not equal to the odium or the energy
inevitable and necessary to such a task. The crown
can add, but cannot eliminate. No power, save those
of the public opinion and the legislature combined,
can cancel from our constitution that disgraceful
anomaly by which a peer, equally devoid of morals,
property, or intelligence, can take his place in that
most august of assemblies and decide as legislator or
as judge upon the private fortune and public fate of
Englimen.
The crown, however, has certainly iUb donentrodu on
great innovation into the peerage. nale
willing to admit at two different periods the crowd of
Irish and of Scotch peers into the upper house, it
established the right of sitting by election, and of
members being returned to sit in the upper house.
The crown, to be sure, in introducing the principle of
election, applied it in the most absurd of imaginable
sways. It allowed the Irish peers to choose repre-
sentatives from their body. The majority of
those peers were, and are, Tory, even to an
Orange dye ; the whole number of the representatives
were of course pm-doomed to be of the same colour;
and, to make the entail of Orange opinion more se-
cure, the crown limited its right of creating Irish
And here is one of the causes of the Irishery
rho roped of the Uaia. Unliotaned to in tie

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