The Express.
London, England, 1847-06-03 00:00:00

ght eppresisi.

MAILC

The mails for British North America, Bermuda, and the United
Bides, will be reads sp on the evening cf the 3rd June.
The mails for the Brazils, the River Plate, Monte Video, Pawns
both Bads Ithastres and Buena* Ayres, will be made sp on the
moths utiles Mil Jose.
The malls ter Lisbon, Madeira. Cadla, and Gibraltar
will be reads that Ur reaeNsig of the 7th June.
Ths owsolood Obeid reaps, one Marseilles, to the Mediterranean.
Oaltth, LW. Kong, Sc., will ho raaa, up on the
et the 7ia Jim
1117Woot Iris thethEng those for liestoo, Madness, and
the Hammolk ho op an the marningof the 17th June.
The oworlos4 walk Ihr MolthOresse, the lonian Islands
Adr"Osyhen, Irlis.BoagaLoogosl Mao, sin Southampton,
will bo ands op ea Os owing of tbs lab Ism
Minima he Sew Bea &Waft. Von Diemen'. Land, and New
Zooksamill lo meg yip on tbees.tng of the 30th June.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
••• Adiwtionomft Woad tor The eprees, London evening leper,
mat be at the Office ley Two o'clock cc the day of publication.

111011 WAI2II. AT LONDON-BRIDGE.
Tam 1744-31orniser, 38 min. put 4 ; Afternoon, 52 min. past 4.
Do•Yot4lon—lllorninßr 22 min. past 3 ; Afternoms. 47 min. past 5.

LONDON, THURSDAY, JUNE 3.

lx one point of view the debate upon Lord LIN-
COLN'S colonisation motion is satisfactory. It elicited
from the leaders of the whig and conservative parties
en explicit recognition of the importance of colonisa-
tion as a means of extending individual well-being
and national greatness. Lord LINCOLN'S motion
had a twofold object. It aimed at a recognition
of the national importance of colonisation in
general; but its more immediate and urgent par.
pane was to bring under consideration how colo-
nisation might be made a subsidiary agent in im-
proving the social condition of Ireland. The
amount of destitution in Ireland is, at this moment,
appalling, even to imagination. When we turn to
Canada, or to New South Wales, we find numerous
1 Irish families, who left their country quite as poor as
those who are now famishing in it, and who, by the
simple means of steady industry, bare raised them-
selves to what in their estimation must be opulence.
At every Irish sea-port we find crowds scrambling
1 and struggling for berths on board emigrant ships.
And the last packet from North America brings
intelligence, both from our own provinces and the
United States, that hordes of Irish paupers, in their
panic flight from starvation, are being landed in a
state of destitution and disease that threatens to
spread pestilence over the land. That the poor
Irish can be relieved by systematised emigration
is obvious; that they are emigrating, whether
we will or not, and that death painful
death at a distance from 'friends and the
scenes of former life—is the consequence of
unregulated emigration, is equally obvious ; and Lord
LINCOLN'S remedy for these evils is—a commission!
He wants three gentlemen—Sir ROBERT PEEL named
them—to open an office and examine witnesses, per-
haps to take a jaunt to some of our colonies, and then
to prepare an ingenious plausible report, to be praised
and forgotten, as is the way with all reports of all
commissions. And as for the suffering Irish in the
meantime—" while the grass grows the steed starves."
The suoeedanetim for Lord LINCOLN'S commission,
proposed by Lord Jonie RUSSELL, is a degree better.
The premier takes upon himself and his cabinet tht,
labour and responaibihty which Lod LINCOLN would
have devolved upon a dilettante (an unpaid)
commission. "I am quite ready," said Lord JOHN,
"to say, as my noble friend (Earl GREY) has
already said in his despatch, that we wish)
to promote the adoption of some well-considered and
systematic plan of colonisation in British America.'
We are ready to direct the governors of each of our
British American provinces to consult the legislative
bodies as to those plans which are most likely to be
useful to the colonies, and to which they will most
readily lend an ear. I am ready to lay the whole
result of these recommendations on the table of the

house—at the same time giving the opinion of govern-
ment upon them—in another session of parliament."
This, for any purpose a commission could serve, is Sr
better than a commission. It has pledged Lord Joint
Russet'. and his cabinet to propound next mammies a
plan of systematic colonisation for our British North
American colonies. Having given this pledge,
the present ministers, if they remain in power,
will work under the certain knowledge that
any failure on their parts will lend a handle
to their rivals, and should there (which though
not probable is still possible) be a change of
ministry, ere another session come about, the future
opposition will take credit for good intentions on this
score, and be most exigeant upon their successors in
office. Lord LINCOLN tried to hint that minister*
may have taken upon themselves the task he sought
to devolve on a commission, with a view to shelve
the question; but as he has a seat in parliament,
it will be his own fault if they are allowed to do so.
But, with a view to the immediate need, we
could have wished that Lord JOHN RUSSELL had
gone a step further. The objection to Lord
LINCOLN'S commission, that it cannot relieve the
necessities of the moment, is equally strong against
the ministerial inquiry. And ministers have it
in their power to do something immedi-
ately, though not all that could be wished.
The preliminary consultation Lord JOHN pro-
poses to hold with the colonists of North America
is not required for the purpoeo of learning what
ought to be done, but of learning , ' to what they will
most readily lend an ear." In British North America,
the power to dispose of waste lands, and to counter..
act the bad consequences of profligate wasteful grants
to private individuals, is vested in the local legula-
tures. The ministers of the crown must secure the
previous assent of the colonial representatives in
these provinces to any measure they may incline to
adopt or propose to parliament But, in Natal, in the
recent acquisitions from Kaffirland, in Australia and
New Zealand, they are under no such check.
There they may set to work at once. Again,
even with respect to the North American colonies,
they may adopt measures which will be of immediate
use, and which will enable them to act with more
promptitude and efficacy when they have come to an
understanding with the colonists.
Lord JOHN RUSSII.L and Mr. HAWES were right
when they said that of late
.years something has been
dons to systematise emigration and colonisation. But
enough has not yet been done. The United States,
like ourselves, are a colonizing nation ; and in the
time we have laid the foundations of two or three
small colonies, and somewhat improved the state of
affairs in one or two more, they have added a greater
number of full-grown states to their Union. This is
not owing to the greaterproximity of their colonising
grounds. Our seaboard settlements (even at the
Antipodes) are accessible to colonists from Great
Britain, with less of risk and toil, and, in the end, at
as little cost, as the backwoods are from New Eng-
land or New York. The MISS of the more rapid
progrmi of United States oidimisation is to be sought
in the circumstance, that the Dunes State, have a
complete and efficient land departaint, and that the
colonisers of their waste lands ink from the outset
the fall rights of citizenship.
This country, too, might have a semplete and effi-
cient land department if tha board of Colonial Land
and Emigrahla Clonhidonssa wars hlly cagenissi
If the informed= Mas date of (skald
Abe isllssind and ' by these sentinels
idles asronoons, always dandive—if their terrines of of emigration is inadequate—the fault is not
dsks. They have not a indlitint staff, and are not
sods& with ',efficient authority. The board indeed
owes Me origin to an accident, and its development
has Wm hit to the influence of other aerid•nts. As
an imperial board, it ought to have more agents and
more authority than the Commissioners of South
Australia,whom it was at first instituted to replace. In
most of our colonies there is a surveyor of crown lands,

and in most of them these is now an emigration agent.
The surveyor's office is in many of them little better
than a sinecure, and iu none has he 11117 necessary
connexion with, or dependence on, the comnissioners
of colonial lands. The emigration agent. are too few
for the extent of the cohmies, inadequately paid, and
without the means of commanding the ivqnisite in-
formation. As the charge of managing. the waste
lands in the colonies (vested in the crown in trust for
the community of the whole empire) and of main-
taining the police of emigration, has been combined
in the Colonial Lands' Commissioners, so ought also
the offices of principal surveyor and emigration
agent in the colonies. This combination would war-
rant the conferring of such a salary and efficient rank
upon the holder of them, as would give him his due
influence in the settlement. As charged with duties
in which the whole empire have an interest,
he ought to ba appointed by the bawd, which has the
central control over the disposal of public lands, and
'of the protective police over emigrants. Ile ought
to keep this central board well informed of the state
of the public lands in the colony, and everything that
concerns intending settlers; and to enable him to do
this, he ought to have under him an adequate staff of
surveyors, draughtsmen, &c., and local emigration
agents is different parts of the colony. Ministers have
it in their power now to prepare an efficient colonising
staff against the time that their plan of systematic
colonisation shall be matured. It will not be useless
in the interim: the state in which emigrant ships are
daily arriving in North America, shows that an in-
creased staff of emigration agents is immediately
wanted.

With respect to the full rights of citizenship,
even in the territories of the United States the
settler enjoys from the outset the full privilege
of local self government ; and he looks forward
with certainty to his district being received into
the union as a State whenever settlement has
made a certain degree of progress. in many of
our colonies the central government denies to the in-
habitants any liarticipation even in local government,
and in all it is constantly internteddling with local
regulations. And to whatever degree of populous-
ness and wealth a colony may attain, the colonists
have no prospect of participation in the imperial go-
vernment. They feel themselves a lesei privileged
class than the inhabitants of the old country. his
retards the progress of settlement and the de-
velopment of colonial resources in two ways.
It cramps the spirit of enterprise, weakens
the principle of self-reliance, and renders the
capitalist and educated classes of the old country
unwilling to settle in the colonies. Local self-
government may surely be conceded to our colonists
with advantage to themselves and relief to the home
raters; and as for participation in the imperial go-
vernment, though our monarchical institutions do not
admit of the colonies being incorporated with the
imperial union as coequal states, yet something
might be done by throwing the career of office open
to colonists. Lord GREY'S New Zealand constitution
shows him to be fully alive to all this. But it cannot
be too loudly repeated to the public and to parliament.

Mr. FERNAND'S steady patron, the nmes, has been
reduced to the necessity covering, by a farewell
article, his precipitate flight from Kuaresborough,
and, we hope, his tins exclusion trom parlia-
ment. A more empty, noisy, and troublesome
brawler never interrupted the course of public busi-
ness. Reckless as he has always show!, himself of
the truth of the innumerable assertions and charges
which occupied his speeches, it is, perhaps, to the
credit of his character, that his intellectual conforma-
tion made it credible, that, in a certain sense, he might
believe what he said. When O'CONNELL overwhelmed

his adversaries with calumnies, no one supposed that
he was himself deceived. Ilia apologists justified his
use of falsehood, by eulogising the patriotism which
called it forth, and his sympathismg audience not
unfrequently . applauded the orator the more, because
they recognised and appreciated his ready in-
vention. But O'ComveLt was as ready to let
an accusation drop as to set one on foot, if it
suited his purpose. He knew better than to try the
patience of the House of Commons with the bold fic-
tions which electrified his monster meetings. Utteily
without reverence for the sacredness of words, he was
thoroughly aware in all conjunctures of the real state
of recta, Mr. FERRAND, as he possesses no portion
Of otkNNELIN ability, may, we hope, be acquitted of
his habitual unvenicity. He may, not be unwilling
to tell the truth, but he is utterly incapable of seeing
the truth. The refutation of any of his statements
seams quite unintelligible to him. The tes:imory of
all impartial judges that his case has failed, never
induces him to reconsider it. As long as he
has breath and can find a listener, we have no
doubt that the " great Mott case ^ will form the
staple of his conversation. An intellect so impene-
trable would be an object of pity rather than of un-
sure, if it was not too often a mischievous weapon in
abler hands. The lYmes thought it worth while to
sat Mr. FBRtAND at its opponents in the certainty
that neither argument, nor rebuff, nor resistance,
would silence his angry bark. We hope that in
a future parliament it will be deprived of its conveni-
ent instrument. Few conservative constituencies will
wish for a demagogue to represent them, and else-
where an unteachable bigot will scarcely be accept-
able. _ _

The circumstances which accompany Mr. FER-
NAND'S withdrawal from Knareeborough are not un-
characteristic. We are no admirers of boroughmongers
crofoligarchical influence in elections,but Mr. FERRAND
bas contrived to relinquish all claim to the independent
support of his present constituents, at the same time
that he attributes the loss of his seat to Lord HARE-
swoop, whom, like every other person who has come
bite public collision with him, he obstinately misun-
derstands and misrepresents. It seems that Mr.
LASCELLEC, the candidate for linaresboroogh, having
supported the repeal of the corn-laws, his brother,
who MA a different part in the struggle, determined
to remain neuter at the election—a resolution which
be stated to Mr. FERRARI) in a personal interview.
As might be expected, Mr. FERRAND immediately an-
It04•011d that "Lord HAREWOOD has authorised
me to say, that so far from having pro-
mised his support to Mr. LASCELLES, he has
renmed it, nor will he give it to' him " a
statement which evidently implies much more
than the mere intention of not interfering. Lord
HAREWOOD very naturally wrote a letter to Mr
LASCELLES, to clear the matter up. "It is quite
tree," he says, "that I told him, as I always told you,
that I should not interfere with the verylrttle interest
I can have at Knaresborough. But that I ever
authorised him to say that I had refused you my sup-
port, or gave him authority to use my name in any
way, I utterly deny. Yon know you came forward
in the first instance with my cordial Soncurrence,
and, although we may differ on some points, I agree
infinitely more with you than with 141};.1".......RRAND."
Most people would think it very possible that a sen-
sible nobleman, in the year 1847, might agree
even with one who had been hit opponent
on the question of the defunct corn-laws,
more nearly than with an intemperate agitator,
who denounces manufactures in almost as whole-
sale a manner as poor-laws. Nor is it very con-
trary to human nature to suppose that Lord lIARE-
WOOD might personally wish his brother to succeed
in preference to a stranger, even when he determined
to take no part in the contest himself. its. FERRAND,
however, is, of course, indignant at the " iiecret com-
bination" which he has thus added to his catalogue
et sine's-nests, and retires, in a squabble, out of a
parliamentary life of similar squabbles.
If he should be condemned in future to the silence
Hot private life, we fear his sufferings will be
aggravated by seeing more than one of his
divourite enemies occupying seats in Ate house,
ban which he may -be excluded. We under-
stand that one of the chief objects of his vitu-
peration, Mr. GEORGE CORNEWALL ttWIE, the
criminal of the " great Morr case," is l&ely to be
selected as member for Herefordshire. His father,
and predecessor in office, Sir FRANKEL/1D LEWIS,
keg ago, secured a seat for the Blidnorshire
boroughs, and perhaps his able colleague, Mr. SHAW
LEPEVRE, may, before the election, be sought by some
well-judging constituency.
The importance of personal qualifications in a
member is not fully, appreciated by those who only
think of the votes which he may give in parliament.
It ought to be remembered that, in additudi to their
legislative functions, the two houses also enjoy
a monopoly of the chief administrative offices.
The crown and its ministers have to select
a great number of their functionaries from
those whom the constituencies of the country
bare designated as eligible; and it is desirable that
the choice thus limited should still have as wide a
range as possible. We are by no means desirous to
see the number of placemen in the house increased,
or the exclusion of all bat members frees public em-