The Express.
London, England, 1849-02-21 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 21, 1849.

the sum required to be voted foe the service of
1849-50 is 8.260,7401. This looks like a reduction of
1,463,870/ —vi ry nearly a million and a half.
" Come," Le says, with a sense of something very like
remoror, as he recalls ali the pretty conipliments the
trimming and vacillating policy of the whigs has
extorted from him in the coarse of the last twenty
years. "these fellows are not so bad as we call them."
But a very cursory glance at the items of the account,
shows him how short and illusory were his hopes.
In the Bret place, the net estimate for the navy in
1848, as originally brought forward, was indeed
7,728,8101.; but at a late period of the session, intimi-
dated by the expression of public opinion, ministers
made reductions under votes 8,10, 11,13, 14, and 19,
to the amount of 208,0001. This stun must therefore
be deducted from the million and a halt by which the
estimate for 1849-50 appears to be less than that of
theyreceding year.
Next, part of the seeming reduction is owing to the
transference of votes formerly included in the navy
estimate+, but now included in other estimates. In
the total of 1848-9 is included a vote of 611,8221. for
contract packet service, which is this year stated in a
separate estimate for the Post-office peptized by the
naval department. The sum required for this pur-
pose in 1849 is 698,2961., being an increase on last
year of 86,8741. This sum of 698,298/. must also be
allowed in abatement of the seeming retrenchment of
a million and a half.

In like manner, the vote of 53,9501. for the convict
service, included in the navy estimate of 1848.9 is
transferred to the estimates for civil services in
1849-50. How much is to be asked for this purpose
is yet unknown ; but as there is no reason to expect
a reduction in it, we may be allowed to subtract a
further sum of 53,9501. from the seeming saving of a
million and a half. . _

On turning to the detailed statement of the second
vote we learn that 24,0001., the estimated value of
issues on account of other departments of government
in 1848-9, is no longer provided for in the navy
estimates, " being considered as a matter of account
with the several departments and repaid accordingly."
This sam mast also be deducted from the alleged
amount of retrenchment.

Thus, then, the amount stands between ministers
and the nation :

Alined redu'ion In the auy cetimata for 184940, u
compared with that 4 1846-9 Z1,40,1170

Deduct needs in the etstennit of estimate 1548.9 2os.ouo
Deduce espeediture for gasket genies 494,29,;
Deduct expenditure kw convict service
Deduct expenditure for ether departments...—. .......... 26,000

Told to be deducted £981,146
Actual redaction in tbo sear Wirral for 1148-9, ea ewe
peed with that of 11149.40
The reduction actually contemplated is, in point of
fact, rather less than one-third of what it at first sight
appears to be. We reserve criticism of the votes pro-
posed for another occasion. But we may remind our
readers that there can be no sensible retrenchment
effected in the naval department so long as the same,
or nearly the same, number of seamen contin=e to be
voted. The number of ships in commissicn de-
termiaes the number of manners required ; and
the number of men voted fixes not only
the amount of their wages, but of all the
other votes included in the estimate. The
number voted in 1848-9 was 27,500 men, and
2,000 boys; the number asked in 1819.50 is
28,000 men, and 2,000 boys. The number of
marines voted in 1848-9 was 11,000 for the first six
months, and an additional 1,000 for the second; the
number asked in 1849.50 is 13,500. The number of
sailers is only to be reduced by 1,500, while the num-
ber of marines is to be increased by 1,500. The re-
duction in the number of sailors is
.perfectly illusory ;
the increase in the number of marines is a clandes-
I tine augmentation of the army. The sum voted for
wages of seamen and marines in 1848-9 was 1,393,8061.
—the sum asked in 1849-50 is 1,3,55,4201.
Verily, the whip are resolved to persist in
their old practice of raising expectations only to
disappoint them. It is for the nation to decide whe-
ther it will longer submit to be played with in this
manner. If the people are true to themselves, they
will tell the government, in language not to be mis-
understood, that they are in earnest upon the subject
of retrenchment, and will not be diverted from their
purpose by invitations to work sums in arithmetic, as
valueless in regard to their practical results as any
"examples" in an elementary manual of the science.
And the only way in which the people ears do this is
by petitions to the House of Commons.

If a judgment may be formed from the three
reports of the committee on petitions which have
been published, people have got tired of petitioning.
This, considering what has of late years been gained
by petitioning, is perhaps scarcely to be wondered at.
But we are disposed to attribute the relaxed activity
in this mode of expressing the public wishes and op.i.
thous in a great measure to systematic efforts made in
certain quarters to throw discredit on petitions to
parliament. If petitions are numerously signed, the
authenticity of the signatures is called in question; if
many petitions are signed, each by a moderate num-
ber, they are represented as the result of an organised
agitation. The anxiety evinced to discredit the practice
of petitioning ought, instead of deterring the people
from resorting to it, to encourage them to persevere.
It shows that men in office and their parliamentary
partisans feel uneasy under the pressure. It show.
their conviction that though they may stand out for
• while they must yield to it at last. Were the
House of Commons really elected by the people, and
were general elections of sufficiently frequent recur-
' reline to keep representatives in mind of their respon-
sibility to constituents, petitions would be superfluous;
but so long as that house continues to be what it is at
present, petitions are the only means of bringing
public opinion to bear upon it. Financial reformers
may rest assured that they cannot send too many
petitions to parliament, and that they cannot petition
too soon.

IT is very extraordinary that tho events and throes
of 1848 should not have produced a man. Here
have been new ideas, new situations, excitement,
convulsions, the turning up of clams to the light
whose intelligenco never before bad spoken. The
forum, the field, the press have been open, and yet
not one man in the popular or anti-popular ranks has
made himself eminent. Old statesmen, old generals,
old demagogues, have played mare freely and conspi-
cuously their old parts ; but for anything new, the
political stage is as sterile—ay, as our dramatic one.
Conservatives boast of the prevalence of the here-
ditary principle—they glory in seeing five millions
of French tarn from personal merit to the election of
a ruler with merely hereditary claims. But in an
age productive of no talent, of no eminence save
vulgar and bad notoriety, is it a marvel that dynastic
devotion should resume its sway P
France, however, has not been so much incon-
venienced
. It has been free, and its anterior growth
of statesmen anti of military capacities has fit-
tingly supplied its posts of administrative eminence.
But Germany, but Italy! What we behold in both
appear as the efforts of children vainly endsa-
vounng to extricate themselves from their first
swadffiing-clothes, and trying to tear them
to pieces, rather than unwind and get from oat of
them. With what pity and regret one regards that
Frankfort parliament, comprising the first intellects
of Germany, falling into every trap that absolutism
lays for it, rousing scattered after every schism, and
actually throwing away the very fairest chances for
constituting a Germany. We said long since that this
could only be done by a frank union with Prussia.
The hot patriots, however, would be independent, and
in their effort to be so, have come to nothing. The letter
of our Frankfort correspondent yesterday fully depicts
the situation and the probable evanition of German
unity.
The Italians are far more inexcusable than the
Germans. Although the poplar party has been as
sterile in the production of eminence or talent, the Ita-
lians had the advantage of at least semi-liberal and docile
princes. Pius THE NINTH was anti-Austrian and
anti-absolutist ; CuAnt.ra ALBERT went as far with
ideas as popular m* could well moire. The
rand Duke of TUSCANY, though unintelligent, wan
liberal and patient. 'Viewing the state of Europe,
and of events in France, Germany, and North
Italy, the Italian liberals must have been
the most arrant fools that ever flung away
a chance of liberty and life, not to have made com-
mon cease with their princes, turned to profit the muck
that was liberal in them ; and under their protoetion
appealing to the constitutional powers, they might
have ds6sel the attacks of absolutism.
We cannot say indeed that their move:signs sated
wisely. The attempt of Rossi to =duet *jest*
maim government,. founded on nothing but a
few earabinsers, and even in that weak

' position assuming a proemsative rather than a cox.-
ory countenance, was a madness of the GUIZOT
school that infallibly drew down failure and confu-
sion. The sluggish submssion of the Grand
Duke of TUSCANY, on the other hand, who no more
than the POPE knew how to rally a moderate and
rational party, and who felt no strong motive or com-
punction throughout the trying period, until he ran
the risk of incurring fancied excommunication, thus
shows the princes to have had no stronger heads than
their emancipated people.
But however imbecile the princes, the idea of these
silly populations flinging off their guidance and pro-
tection, and attempting a union of Daly under a
constituent assembly, without army or leaders,
without the means of defence or existence—
all this is really but child's play ; and how-
ever grieved, we are not surprised that other
powers should seek to put it down. If this is to
be done, it is much more sitisfactory and &dela-
ab!e that it should be done by the troops of
Italian powers than by those of strangers. And
if order is to be restored in central Italy by
the troops of two constitutional governments,
Piedmont' and of Naples, it is really the best
selection that one can hope for under the circum-
stances. The very circumstance of Naples and
Piedmont uniting in one common aim, is in it-
I self a great act of unity, and a strong symptom of
there being such a thing as an independent Fatten na-
tion. In former times the absolute powers which hung
over Italy would not have allowed such freedom and
independence of action to anything Italian. If consti •
tutional monarchies can be nurtured and developed at
both extremities of the peninsula, and if they can act
as tutors and support to the more feeble and distracted
governments of central Italy, something at least will
have been achieved. The spark of Italian freedom
and independence will be kept alive, and the great
advance of 1848 not altogether turned to ill.
A portion of the general accord is based, we un-
derstand, on the promises of the King of NAPLES to
persevere in a constitutional course. His doing so
will not only admit of a more legitimate influence of
his government over the rest of Italy, but pave the
way for a complete agreement and reunion between
the two kingdoms of which his empire is composed.

COLONIAL.
CANADA.-THE NAVIGATION LAWS.

Oar dates from this colony are to thelsto/Feb.
The one topic of news which supersedes all others is
the expression of public opinion in Canada on the
subject of the navigation laws.
Mr. Hincks, inspector general, moved the following
resolution in committee of the House of Assembly on
the 26th of January, with a view to found an address
to her Majesty on it for the repeal of the navigation
laws.

Resolved,—As the opinion of this committee, that an
humble address be presented to her Most Gracious Majesty,
to swum her Majesty of the devoted loyalty of the people of
this province, and of their sincere attachment to her Ma-
jesty's person and government—To represent to her Majesty
that this house feels it to be a duty incumbent upon it to
take the earliest opportunity to mute her Majesty that the
sentiments of the people of dile province on the subject of
the repeal of the British navigation laws which were ex-
pressed to her Majesty in a joint address from the two houses
of the provincial parliament in the month of July, 1847, re-
main unchanged; that delay in removing the present
restrictions on the employment of foreign shipping would, in
the opinion of this house, be highly injurious to the carrying
trade of the St. Lawrence; that, is order to secure this trade,
the province, relying on the continuance of the protection
which was then enjoyed by colonial products is the
markets of Great Britain, incurred a large debt for the con-
struction of a line of ship canals, by means of which the cost
of inland transport has been very materially reduced; that,
owing to the difficulties attending the navigation of the St.
Lawrence, the greater length of the voyage, and the higher
rates of insurance, freights are likely at all times to rases
higher at Quebec than at New Y. rk, but that the practical
effect of the navigation laws is not only to prevent the possi-
bilitv
of a fair competition between the two routes, but ac.
toady to give direct encouragement to American 'hippies,
not only through the canals of the state of New York, hetet
the seaports of the United States; that, at the staves of the
United States, shipping can generally be procured to carry
any quantity of produce that may be offered, without a
material increase of freight, but that even in ease
of scarcity, as the navigation is open throughout the year,
foreign shipping can readily be procured in Europe
at fair remunerative rates of freight and without
serious ioconveaience or loos of time ; that at
Quebec, on the other hind, the exporter is compelled to rely
on the regular traders to the port, so that when an unusual
accumulation of produce takes pleas vessels cannot be pro-
cured, and freights immediately rise to most exorbitant
rates ; that no means exist of engaging British chipping to
meet the sudden demands which the nature of the trade
causes, as such shipping is seldom to be met with at Ame-
rican ports unless under specific orders or the engagements of
a charter ; that the early closing of the navigation of the Bt.
Lawrence renders it difficult, if not impossible, to obtain
shipping from England to supply the sudden demands which,
hem the nature of the trade, are constantly arising, and
which could readily be supplied at American seaportawbence
vessels would at any time come round to the St. Lawrence
meared of remunerative freights ; that the uncertainty
which at all limes moths u to the route by which the
its of the west will be transported to :the sol-
d, must operate to prevent British vessels coming to the
Bt. Lawrence in sufficient numbers to ensure moderate
bright, during the shipping season, while the scarcity of
shipping and the immediate rise of freights to England,
whence a large supply of products is sent by the St. Lew-
rem',
re', has the effect of diverting those products through the
Erie Castel to New York. That the navigation laws have
likewise had a most injurious influence on the import trade
of the province; that it has not infrequently happened that
Canadian importers of sugars, being unable to procure
British vessels on any terms at Haver ash and other foreign
ports, have been compelled to import their cargoes in Ameri-
can bottoms to New York, and thence through the American
canals to Canada, when, but for the restrictions imposed by
the navigation laws, they would have imported them by the
St. Lawrence in foreign bottoms which could have been
readily procured. That this house hat observed with Rath
satisfaction that a bill was introduced into the House at
Commons during the last session of the imperial parliament
for the repeal of the navigation laws, and this hoofs being of
opinion that the provisions of that bill are calculated to re-
move those restrictions from which the trade of this province
is now suffering, most humbly pray that your Majesty will
he graciously ',leased to recommend the subject of the repeal
of the navigation laws to the favourable consideration of the
imperial parliament. And this house would further humbly
pray that your Majesty will be graciously pleased to autho-
rise the governor of this province to permit foreign vessels to
navigate the St. Lawrence above Quebec, under such re-
strictions as his Excellency may in his wisdom see St to
impw
The pretectionist party tried the game of procru-
tination, bat Mr. Hincks, aware of the importance of
the address going home by the mail, refused to grant
any longer postponement than till the 29th. On that
day accordingly he formally moved his resolution.
An amendment was moved by Mr. Cayley, to the
effect that the general opinion in Canada was in
favour of protection on Canadian exports of provi-
sions. Thin amendment was, after a long, and, on
both sides, able debate, rejected ; only 14 mem-
bers voted for and 49 against it. The origi-
nal resolution was then put and carried. The
address embodying the substance of the resolu-
tion was transmitted on Tuesday to the legislative
council for its concurrence. The council unanunoasly
agreed to concur, and the joint address was presented
to the governor by the members of both houses. on
Wednesday, the 31st of January, to be transmitted
to the hems government.