The Express.
London, England, 1846-10-02 00:00:00

THE MUSIC BOOK, New Weekly Periodical of
Original Basis. No. I. neat Saturday. New Song be baLee,
" SINO, MAIDEN, SING." Prwe 6d. Printed from ilograved
Plates, on Paper the usual Musk see.
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"
G, MAIDEN, SLNG," New Song by BALFE,
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INTEW SONG by BALFE, " SING, MAIDEN
SING," uric, Ad., next saturday, being No.L of THE MUSIC
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NEW WORK BY ROE.
This day Is publishrd (to be completed in 20 Monthly Parte, uniform
with "Mau tin Cliumlesit." At.), price Is., the First Number of
DEALINGS WITH THE FIRM OF DOMBEY
AND SUN, Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation.
111 CHARLES DICKENS.
With Illustrations by HARLOT K. BROWNE.
London: Bradbury and Evans, Wbitcfriars.

Now ready, in one handsome volume, !iv°, elegantly bound in cloth,
price lie.,
OLIVER TWIST. By CHARLES DICKENS.
With llinstrationi by Gismos CarntSMANR, and the latest
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No. X., completing the Work, is now ready, price One Shilling.'
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This day is published No. XML of
DOUGLAS JERROLD'S SHILLING
AGAZ with continuation of ST. GILEa and ST. JAMES,
;1.-he Editor.
London : Published at the "Punch" 85, Fleet-street

This day Is pnblishel. price Od., No. X. of
THE ALMANACK of the MONTH,
A REVIEW of EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY.
EditedbyLß Gl)..ar Assort kHz:men.

London: Published at the " Punch^ Office, $5, Fleet-street.

This day is published, price
No. Is.
IV. copiously illustrated by Linen,
of
/THE
COMIC HISTORY of ENGLAND.
lty GILBERT ABBOTT i BPZICETT.
Work !A published in Mosthly Parts, Mastrated by Joan
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London : Published a• tho "Punch" othce, OS. Peet-street

e'yortgqi•

MAILS.
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Th orerlsnd irailA for Gibraltar, Malta,Orreee, the load= Islands,
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will be made up ou the evening of the sth October.
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HIGH WATER AT LONDON-BRIDGE.
THIS DAT. Morning, 23 min. NA 11; Afternoon, 55 min. pant 11.
TO4lolUWlV.—Morning, pant —; Afternoon, 21 min. just 0.

LONDON, FRIDAY, OCT. 2.

- - -
WE would not be thought to under-estimate the
risk of riots in Ireland during the present winter.
Years of scarcity have seldom failed to be attended
with "meal mobs" and nocturnal trainings, as if
civil war could make food. We are prepared to find
the fear of starvation, at times, producing like effects
this winter among our mercurial countrymen across
the channel. Already there are symptoms of a spirit
which may break out into serious tumults. But,
making this allowance, we must also say that there
is an addiction to emphatic writing among our pro-
fessional brethren across the channel, and a craving
for stimulating paragraphs among those of them on
this side, which have a tendency to create premature
and exaggerated alarms.
The mail-coach rumour of a collision between the
dragoons and the peasantry at Dungarvan, published
in yesterday's Chronicle, and still uncorroborated, may
unfortunately be true; but the statement that the
whole country between Cork and Waterford is in "
state of awful excitement" is unquestionably exag-
gerated. The hourly despatches from Youghal in the
Cbrk Examiner of the 28th are an instructive specimen
of these rumours :
• Yo: rsvetee oTtors.-4s immen, nuntiier of people front
both sides of the Iliad:water came here this morning with clubs,
determined to sae.; and plunder the town. Tuner: o'CLoest.—Not a
beixg in the streets but the len• laboarces from the county Waterford,
rho are expecting a rcin furccoicat. Bruce o'CcocK.—The enemy
has not yet appeared."

Such vague and self-contradictory rumours are re-
printed in the London journals in their most emphatic
type, and with their most attractive headings, while
the progress of the Government measures to meet the
exigency are slurred over.
The truth is, that the partial, isolated, and unim-
portant movements of popular impatience in Ireland,
are prompted by fears of the future. Convince the
people that there is food in the land, and that timely
measures will be taken to enable them to earn the
means of purchasing it, and by allaying apprehension
you put an end to turbulence.
The stores of food already in the country, or on
their way to it, are sufficient to feed the people till the
next harvest. There is a very considerable amount of
home-grown grain and Indian corn in private hands
in Ireland. About the middle of August there were
in the •arious depots 430 tons of oatmeal; 7,500
sacks, 13;0,n0 barrels, and upwards of 6,000,000 of
pounds of Indian corn meal, besides 8,000 bushels of
Indian corn. The stores since that time have rather
been increved than diminished. The Commissariat
sent out large orders for Indian meal and other grain
to the United States by the packets of the 4th and
19th of last month, and further orders are to be sent
by the packets of the present month; so that large
supplies may be expected in the course of six weeks.
Commercial letters from New York mention large
shipments of grain making there to private account.
The military stores in Ireland have been placed at the
disposal of the Commissariat. Six Government
steamers are incessantly busy carrying fresh supplies
of grain and meal to the various depots, and several
frigates ar.2. being fitted up as floating depsts.
While Government is thus providing reserve stores
to meet any possible short-coming in private
supplies, the arrangements for providing em-
ployment whereby the people may earn the
means of purchasing the food, are in active
progress. There are (including counties of cities and
towns) three hundred and twenty-two baronies in
Ireland. Extraordinary presentment sessions have
been proclaimed for two hundred and two of them,
and a majority of these have met, passed present-
ments, and voted assessments. The county surveyors
and the officers of the Board of Works have in all
these baronies lists of works which can be begun
immediately, and the money is to be advanced out of
the Treasure ; so, in a month or six weeks at farthest,
the unemployed destitute may be set to work in
every barony where immediate distress prevails in
Ireland. Already labourers are employed on some
of these works in Tipperary.
Matters are bad enough in Ireland. The ingenuity,
activity, and firmness of Government, and of every true
lover of his country, will be severely enough taxed
before the winter is over. But there is no ground for
panic. That only dkenables people for working, and
stirs up crowds to impede work. If certain public
writers and speakers would favour government and
the public with a little less of their eloquence, and a
little more of their active practical co-operation, matters
would go on better. But even as it is, they are already
in more tolerable train than we had any right to
anticipate.

WE hope that some member of the House of Com-
mons may make a motion next session for the aboli-
tion of the office of Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs, The post has become useless : far worse indeed

than useless, since it only serves to manifest blun-
ders and record humiliations. We ask any man of
plain sense and fairness, whether the country would
not be at this moment in a mach more dignified and
peaceful position, and, at the same time, in quite as
powerful a one, had we possessed the good fortune to
have been without Foreign-office and without diplo-
macy since 1830. Ay, and long before.
Let us enumerate the chief acts of that policy. We
began by recognising the present King of the
FRENCH with such headlong haste as to offend Rus-
sia and Austria; and we continued to give Louts
PHILIPPE so cordially the hand, that we rendered
any European coalition to crush him utterly impos-
sible. We had scarcely taken this position, when the
Belgian insurrection occurred. Louis PHILIPPE in-
stantly declared that no one should meddle with it ;
that the Treaty of Vienna was abrogated, as far as
the Low Countries were concerned ; and that neither
Europe nor Holland should restore the :Mena of 1815.
We acquiesced. We took the French view of the
question against ourselves. We approved of the
siege of Antwerp. Louts PHILIPPE, to gratify us, did
not, indeed, put his son on the new Belgian throne ;
but, by means of a marriage, he did the same thing.
Commercially, politically, and militarily, Belgium
was absorbed by France ; and we have taught our-
selves to consider it the natural order of things.
Then occurred the death of FERDINAND, and the revo-
lution effected in Spain by his testament. Here again
we joined France, and recognised ISABELLA, without
taking express precautions against her or her sister's
marrying a French prince. But we had at that time
so loaded Louis PHILIPPE and his house with bene-
fits, that we did not doubt of his gratitude. We con-
cluded the quadripartite alliance. We sent our sol-
diers and sailors to combat: gave arms, money,
English blood. Whilst Louts PHILIPPE endeavoured
to make a merit with the Eastern Powers of not cor-
dially co-operating with us, we, in despite of French
lukewarmness, saved Bilboa, and with it the throne
of ISABELLA. The sword of Eseaarzno secured it. And
then,—in stepped LOUIS PHILIPPE to profit by all
that we had done. He suborned a party to oppose
England in Spain; he set up a press to calumniate her;
and in a few months he drove out of the Peninsula,
with every friend of England or of liberty, every vestige
of English influence. Further, to render securitymore
sure, he placed his minions near the throne of Portugal,
and was as much master of the court of Lisbon as of
Madrid. And this course of policy he has now wound
up by putting an extinguisher on the little Queen; and
by giving openly to his own son the succession to the
Spanish throne, by means of a marriage with the In-
fants. We wonder that the ghosts of WILLIAM THE
THIRD and of MARLBOROUGH do not rise from the
grave, to reproach the men who wield the sceptre
and the sword of England.
Now, we ask, would we not be much better off, had
we possessed no foreign minister, no diplomacy, no
li
far-seeking policy for the last sixteen years? Need we
speak of Italy ; where we helped the French to take
Ancona, one result of which is, that the French are
nowpredominant at Rome? Need we speak of Oreese;
which we helped to liberate, in order to have itl
governed by the French Prefect, COLETTI ? Need we
speak of Syria; where we endangered the peace
Europe in resisting France, and where the French,
by their monks, have won almost more influence than
they wielded through the sword of Inastim ?
Turn away from France, and look to America.
We have had two causes of difference with the United'
States, their north-cast and their north-west frontiers.'
In both we yielded more than even the Americans
themselves dared ask ten years back. We were right,
indeed, to yield. But would it not have been more'
dignified to have flung it up carelessly and magnani-
mously from nation to nation, than to have employed
diplomatic agents to cavil and discuss ; to have heard
POLK blustering and PEEL replying, with the cer-
tainty of concession in the end. To have held our
tongues, and abided by our fate, would have been just
as profitable.
Then there is Texas. How lucky would we have
been to have had no Mr. PAKENILEM simply to spirit
up Mexico, and intrigue with Texas, that Mr. Pout
might break through the web of our intrigues with a
kick of his foot. In the Old World as in the New, our
habit universally is, to thrust ourselves between two
combatants when they are nearly done fighting, and
encourage the weak and half-beaten party to stand up
once more against the stronger, in order to get himself
entirely beaten, and definitively crushed.
But all this proceeds from the absurd vanity of our
statesmen, who will aspire to have a foreign policy,
when the nation not only has none, but does
not Care to have any. Here, for example, are these
marriages of the Spanish Princesses. Ministers have
thrown themselves into all kinds of menacing atti-
tudes, of hurt pride, of angry remonstrance, or
of contingent war. To what purpose ? except to
show that England ought to be angry, but has not
the stomach to be so. Lord PALMERSTON makes
his press thunder, it is true ; and is full of deep
ire in his own heart. But he is forced to be
bland, even when addressing that arch-traitor
Louts PHILIPPE. He has to smile and promise "that
the amicable relations between the countries will not be
disturbed ;" simply because he knows the people of
England would see, without the least disturbance of
their perfect indifference, all the Princesses of Spain
married to all the Emperors of all the realms of the
universe.

We now learn, that because Government cannot
resent Louts PHILIPPE'S falsehood at present, it will
protest; it will, by a public declaration, disinherit the
offspring of the Duke of MONTPENSIEE ; and thus
appeal from the impossibility of present war, to the
possibility of a future one.
This, we fear, is nonsense. If we will not go to war
now—and certainly we will not—to prevent a Prince
of Orleans from ascending the throne of Spain, we shall
be little likely to go to war for the same cause at any
future time. And, knowing this, it is unwise and un-
fair to throw upon posterity the task of avenging in-
juries which we dare not resent. Louts PHILIPPE will
laugh at our protests ; will sneer at our present back-
wardness, and our valour in future; and will sheathe
his sword with a contemptuous "-Well, gentlemen,
whenever you are ready ;" showing how fully he has
fathomed our purposes, and seen through our political
subterfuges.
If people will but reflect on this state of things, they
must come to the conclusion that the safest and most
dignified way for England, would be for its govern-
ment to conform itself to the public feeling of the
nation, and to have no foreign policy at all. There
is no use in having any, unless the public have faith
and sympathy in it, and unless a statesman can act
up to it. Of this, at least, we are certain, that it
would be much better to have no foreign policy at all.
and no foreign office, than to reap from them such
fruits. Every aim of peace and friendship missed;
every scheme of alliance abortive ; every cherished
freedom crushed ; every useful influence undermined ;
every feeling of national pride outraged ; every gua-
rantee of national power and independence swept
away ; and even all openings of trade and commerce
closed against us one after the other.

YESTERDAY morning the sportsman became entitled
to fall foul of the pheasants. The birds, like the land-
lords, have lost their protection. There is free trade
between fowling-piece and feathers, and shot is im-
ported into the bird's body, intercepted by no pro-
hibitory duty. The fields are in a flutter. There is
a diversion from, though not for, the partridges. They
no longer have a monopoly as marks for the Manton.
A new element of sport is provided for country
gentlemen, and a new dish adorns the table of the
citizen.

If the reader dealt with an accommodating
poulterer, he might have lunched or even break-
fasted upon pheasant yesterday morning. Only the
empty purse, or lagging appetite, needed to have
delayed till dinner. It is legal to buy pheasants