The Express.
London, England, 1848-10-24 00:00:00

in command. For our put, we think the inferior
military rank gave him a greater title to reward.
We think, fee example, that the service rendered by
Lieutenant EDWARDS'S at Malaga is far more merito-
rious in a lieutenant than in a colonel or a general'
officer, and that he deserves a far greater re-
ward than the poor C.B. allotted him. NAPO-
LEON would have awarded him a greater premium.
But our bleeped military system is all routine. The
eighth of all prix,•-money won in an action or a cam-
paign is a monstrous share to be taken by one leader,
whatever his standing. But whatever should fall to
the commander ought to be given to the commander,
whether his authority extended over Eindoetan, or
merely over &lode. The distinction of giving more
wealth to the wealthy, and more honours to him that
suffocates under the weight of them, is certainly Trey
English, but it is also very absurd. It is bestowing
not merely benefits, but incentives, precisely on the
person that wants neither.

'-But however this may be in justice and
theory, the law and custom of the Indian
army were against Sir Cfixamts NAPIER. The di-
rectors, however, reversed the law and the custom,
and took one•sixteenth of the prise-money out of
many a poor f-llow's pocket, to put it, along with his
own sixteenth, in the pocket of Sir CHARLES NAPIER.
And of course Sir CHARLES, with his characteristic
discretion, insults the first director he can fasten
upon in a false ►nd pettifogging letter, much more
becoming the bully than the soldier.

TrIE tory journals soak to persuade their readers
that occasional insurrections In large towns, the con-
vocation of constituent assemblies to talk and vote,
and incessant ministerial changes, are the only results
of the German revolution, or revolutions, of 1848.
This is taking a very superficial view of the mutter.
The bursts of popular violence, and the frequent
changes in the persons of ministers, are the result of
the impatience excited by delays, and by the suspi-
cion., well or ill founded, which the popular interests
sad the old bureaucracies still naturally entertain of
each other. They are to be rrgretted wher-
ever they have led to the destruction of
life or property, or have retarded the natural
progress of improved legislation. But they will
become less and less frequent as the new order of
things consolidates itself; and in the meantime
material practical advantages to the great mass
of German society have resulted from the revolution.

As en illustration of these advantages, we need
only refer to what has been done in the Constituent
Assembly at Berlin, since its meeting in April, to
place the land tax on a more equitable footing, and
to relieve the peasant landholders from the com-
plicated and intolerable burdens of the feudal
system, throughout the dominions of the Prussian
monarchy.
Hitherto in moot parts of the Prussian Mate the
landed property of the nobles was exempted from the
land tax paid by non-noble proprietors. By a law
passed in 1807 the serfs were, it is true, declared per-
madly free throughout the Prussian territories ; and
by another passed in 1811 all subjects were declared
capable of acquiring landed property ; but the num-
berless personal and pecuniary services due by the
vassal to hie over-lord were left untouched. The vex-
atious and oppressive character of these predation.,
and their tendency to retard the development of the
country'. agricultural resources were acknowledged
on all hands. An eronumical college was even
appointed by the government for the especial
purpose of promoting their abolition by equi-
table contracts between over-lords and yam's. But
this college has peeved, like all administrative bureaux
placed above the control of public opinion and popu-
lar will, a mere piece of empty formality. The feudal
burdens under which the peasant proprietors of '
Prussia groan have remained materially undiminished
since 1811, and, in some instances, where steps have
been taken to alleviate them, their incidence has only
been shifted. The whole class of mill-owners are an
example of this latter ground of complaint. For-
merly the cultivators in certain districts were bound
to grind their awn at certain mills, and in considers,
tion of this privilege the mill-owners were burdened'
with a certain amount of taxation. The district
agriculturists have been emancipated and allowed to
grind their corn where they please, but the mill-
owners have not been relieved from the tax. They
claimed to be so under a law which abolished all taxes
upon the exercise of trades, but their claim was re-
jected on the allegation that the tax against which
they appealed was imposed upon property (the mill),
not on the exercise of a trade (grinding corn).
The feudal exactions of the Prussian over-lords
vary in the different provinces, but they abound in
all. Some of them are simply unjust and oppressive;
for example, the right enforced by some to exact a
certain number of days' labour from their peasants ih
the course of the year. Several centuries ago, a limits-
tics was placed on the exercise of this right, by valuing
the day-labour of a peasant, and fixing a sum which
&sold not be exceeded by the aggregate wages of the
days his over-lord employed him. Since that time
the price of a day's labour her trebled, but the peasants
are compelled to work the same number of days as
formerly. The consequence is, that poor holders of
four or five acres are obliged to devote to the service of
their over-lords the whole of the time when they
would need to be busy on their own fields. Others
of the !eudal services exacted from the peasants are
degrading as well as oppressive. In some districts
they must take their horses from the plough, and
yoke them to their over-lord's carriage whenever he
going to a ball; in others they must keep for him
a certain number of dogs; and. in Pomerania the over-
lord enjoys the humane and profitable privilege of
annually plucking the feathers of the geese belong-
ing to his peasants.
The contumelious and oppressive exactions to
which the peasants are subjected by the rags and
fragments of the feudal system and the increased
taxation of the non-noble classes in consequence of the
exemption of the estates of the nobles from the land
tax, have in Prussia been condemned in theory for
well nigh half a century. But under the Prussian
government, as it existed before the meeting of the
Constituent Assembly at Berlin, the feudal burdens
were allowed to remain undiminished, and the
undue pressure of taxation on the non-noble
chases was positively increased. The voice of
the people speaking through the Constituent
Assembly has compelled the government in the
course of a few months to make greater advances
towards the redress of these grievances than it had
previously done in the mires of forty years. On the
21st of July a bill (Gesetz-entourf) for abolishing all
exemptions from the land tax was presented by royal
message to the Assembly ,• on the 20th of the same
month a bill (accompanied by an explanatory report)
had been presented by ministers for the abolition of
all such feudal burdens as could be equitably abolished
without compensation; and on the 21st a committee
of the Assembly reported, recommending a general
law for the equitable adjuetmeutof the claims of over-
lords and their peasants. The frequent ministerial
changes which have ensued account sufficiently for the
delay which h?s occurred in acting upon this report.
But the peasant population, who could not brook de-
lay, pressed upon their representatives, and their re-
presentatives upon ministers, and the result is, that
on the 29th of September ministers stated that their
bill was nearly ready, and on the 4th of October a
preliminary measure for suspending all proceedings
under special compacts for the abolition of feudal
burdens until the general law shall have passed was
presented to the Assembly. A law for the uncondi-
tional abolition of all feudal privileges relating to the
chase has since been introduced, and has probably by
this time become law.
An anecdote related by VARNIIAOIII4 V 024 ENSE in
his memoirs, may assist our readers in realising the
importance of this acceleration of the destruction of
feudality. He and some friends had been pawing a
few days at the country seat of a Baron VON
Metre/ere—rather a favourable specimen of the
Prussian noble :
We had bespoke a carriage from Berlin, to meet us at
Manehbeq, and intended to walk thither. Marwite, how-
ever, wood not hear of this, but obliged us to use his car-
riage and bones that part of the way. The carriage we
indeed his own, but the hones belonged to the peasants.
Your peasants were obliged to contribute as many bevy*" es
the mandate of their over-lad, and that in the way
busiest time of their field operations. They ventured te
remoastrate that they were only obliged to supply bum
for the tillage of their hudal superior's isle:
but their mouths were stopped by a despotic order to myth
horses for the lonsfethre(tranenort to the ball), it beingpart
of their tenure that they should supply four hones whenever
his family were going to a ball. This right sou galling
enough of wolf, bat its present exercise was unendurable,
inasmuch u the poor peasants knew that their hones were
not employed to draw their muter, or to draw those for
whose ass they were taken, to a ball. We did our best to
com,easate the po r people by a lib-ral trinkgeld.
The importance of the abolition of such exactions
will riot be limited to the pecuniary gain of the per