The Express.
London, England, 1847-09-01 00:00:00

the parties it affects, by enhancing the value of their
renaming property. The amount of this sacrifice—
which has been magnified into adiatification of every
kind of exaction upon rail,* property—being
thus by no means exesedve, ie certainly not
ouch as a reasonable degree of compensation,
whether by compulsory service or otherwise, by the
party that occasioned, it may not thoroughly
redeem. The position may hereupon be taken by the
railways, with some reason, that if still due it was
amply redeemed by the new limitations on their rates
la 1844, the cheap trains they were bound by law to
work, and the duties at merely nominal charge they
were compelled by the Gladstone Act to perform for the
public establishments. Oa no system of equity, it
may be urged, can a concession practically of small
amount require to be satisfied by a submission that
is never to end. Nor, admitting that a price was
due from the railway companies for this one privilege
necessary to the existence of their useful works, can
it be just that they should be required to pav it more
than once. When it is considered what liberal com-
pensations, to use the mildest expression, the land-
owners have obtained for the acres required, and how
their estates have risen in value wherever a railway
has come near them, to say nothing of the advantage
they have secured forthemselves, by. throwing on it a
disproportionate share of the rates in every parish it
touches, it might be safely asserted that, in this
point of view alone, to say nothing of the conditions
imposed by the state upon railways for public uses,
the latter have already more than satisfied every
equitable claim for state impositions in virtue of this
solitary item of privilege. There is no ether on which
any such claims can be advanced.
The nation—still viewed as a collective body,
standing apart from the railway interest—so far from
having any grounds for proceeding to exact more
en this or any other head, would therefore
appear to be, on the contrary, a considerable
debtor on the whole, to those whom it has been
the fashion to represent as defaulters. The value of
what they have done—their motives for doing it
having nothing whatever to do with this discussion—
has been sufficiently proclaimed by these state organs,
and even by those who conclude, from the vastness of
the machine, that it should be taken out of the hands
of its framers. Every one now knows that the
national_ gain from this system can hardly be mea-
oared. We are content on this head to adopt the esti-
mate of an unfriendly writer in the Edinburgh
Renew, who lately calculated the mere direct money
caring secured by railways to the people of this coun-
try at several millions annually.
But to assert that the state ewes much to the rail-
way system will by no means imply that its promoters
have not also their obligations, and very serious ones
too. Not certainly such as the Times would insist on,—
not such as should compel them to let the fruits of
their industry be taken away by force, in order that
every one in the nation may have everything that he
may choose to desire at their expense,—but still
duties of a positive class. What these are, and in
what —,.et they differ from those to which an un-

. positive
..at respect they di
principled kind of argument would appeal, may be
pointed out hereafter. We must first endeavour to
obtain a clear understanding of the value of what has
been urged on the other side of the question.

FOR those who, like us, acknowledge with gratitude
the important services rendered by France to the cause
of European civilisation, it is peculiarly gratifying
at present to turn their gaze from the contemplation
of Parisian to provincial France. In the capital, some
powerful, though momentary, impulse appears to
have made all the dregs and feculence of society rise
at once to the surface. The licentious orgies of the
worthy mates of BEAIIVALLON culminating in murder
and perjury; the gambling and peculation of peers
and ministers • the suspected complicity of ministers
of justice in the suicide of a brutal murderer of his
wile ; one dark event huddling on others appears to
indicate a community thoroughly and irretrievably
depraved. The license of faction pointing to the
throne itself as not altogether innocent of the
knowledge of some of these crimes—a daring
insinuation which derives plausibility from the revolt-
ing game played by the sovereign. of France in the
affair of the royal marriages in Spain—serves, in asso-
ciation with suck wide-spread social corruption, to
remind readers of the days of the last CrESARS. Even
on those who repel the suspicion/ which would level
the King of the FRENCH with the worst heroes of
the most outrageous of modern French dramas and
romances, the chilling and depressing presentiment
continues to rest, that whenever a people have been
brought habitually to believe such tales of a court or
dynasty, sanguinary revolutions have been near at
hand.
Escaping from Paris to the provinces, we at ones
breathe a purer and more wholesome atmosphere. We
find ourselves at Strasbourg amid the scenes of a
WILLm'S labours in behalf of universal primary
education ; or at Bordeaux, the cradle of the free
trade movement in France. In all the populous and
industrious towns of France—at Lyons, Nantes, and
elsewhere—we find traces of the growing ascendancy
of middle-class intelligence and middle-class domestic
morals. We regain our faith that the nation is still
healthy at the core. We remember the immense
preponderance of high genius and pure morality
which exists in Paris itself, and to which the crimes
of the moment had rendered us oblivious. We feel
our sanguine hopes revive, that the gallant and
generous rivals of Great Britain for upwards of three
hundred years, are becoming its equally gallant and
generous allies, and likely to remain such for as many
centuries to come.
Among the constantly recurring incidents which
warrant such prospects, few have been more brilliant
and animating than the meeting held at Marseilles
on the 24th of last month by the free trade associa-
tion of that great centre of commercial activity.
The ball was crowded with the experienced,
wary, and sacceseful merchants of Marseilles,
among whom was seen a liberal sprinkling of the
fair sex. The assembly was addressed by orators
worthy of the cause. The President of the Associa-
tion, M. LAZARE LUCE, presented a rapid resume of
its labours since its institution, and those to which it
was looking forward, conceived in a spirit that indi-
cates the clear-sighted and resolute man of action.
M. RETBATD, the representative of Marseilles in the
Chamber of Deputies, addressed his townsmen in a
discourse fall of quiet sagacity, and overflowing with
that cordial benevolence which makes him so valued
by them. M.FREDERIC BASTIAT, the French COBDEN,
whose indefatigable activity in advocating the cause
rivals that of his namesake, spoke in his usual distinct
and impressive style. And M. LAMARTINE crowned
the exertions of the day with one of three masterly
orations in which the matured ideas of an observant
life are given forth with all the fervour of early youth,
tempered by the judgment gained from experience in
the contests of the senate.
It must have been a rich intellectual feast to listen
to discourses which, even when our impressions of
them are received through the leas vivid medium of
the press, are striking in the highest degree. on ac-
onnnt of the real practical character which is infused
into every sentence, elevated in its tone by that
exalted devotion to principle which engenders a
chastened enthusiasm. These Marseilles speeches
leave an impression that both the men who utter
them and those who listened with pleased acqui-
escence, see clearly what they aimat, and are resolute
to wrsevere till they attain their object.
M. RETBAIID, while touching on the anomalies of
French protective legislation, happily illustrated a
great general truth :
The north of Francs predawn, cereals, cattle, beet-red,
=.l7a grains—all of them protected articles. The seer
madder, silks, brandies and wines—all eg Ibeint
'Aides which protection has left exposed to genital amp-
Miss. And yet, such is the elasticity which liberty impede,
' - state of languor inspired by monopoly, that we hose
!tofu"... ‘e wort for those commodities which our teed
ass Ards lair ..".4.1111111,—f0r our silks, maiden, and
;=i3l*Otis or ofr. ',l--coro, cattle,
awhilit those wheel the laws y
Oillsl3lool seeds—at the beet barely :I
=2.superiors in every region, and d oomeu to
ble inferiority. Bo true is it that protection n-
Vth* " mortal tree" under the shadow of which the
Nacesbles grow dull sad are extinguished.
It la gellifying to learn that the free-trade associa-
ties oilianiilles has bad courage, from the time of
its tint taking the field, to throw down the gauntlet
to protaedve and restrictive navigation laws. This
le am& in a oommutity yrhere the ahipping interest
ammeerdy iv powerful. M. LAZAtin LUCE says, in
Ma review of the moiety's labours :
Das etas flat qnsetions—(tho May one that gave risitto
of opialos)—which promoted itself to to was that
awrlptlea. We have laboured to subdue the repugnance
*War ear dairlass by the ski interest, and at the
<aifeaMme moms girieltoring our eimalszeial
' prosperity. To this and we have reallsd
those which first gave Frame •
and a military navy. We have dessedtrated