The Express.
London, England, 1848-04-27 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL 27, 1848.

IT 15 a great mistake to ascribe the growing
discontent in Ireland to the spread of political
theories. The imagination of a few hot-brained
zealots in Dublin and Cork may have been dazzled
by late events in I'aris and Berlin, and there
may be a score or two of young men in the popular
party in Leland who are actuated by a book-learned
adminrion for ancient Rome or modern America;
but there is little democratic spirit in Ireland, and
what there is, is to be found rather among the tra-
ditions of Presbyterianism in loyal and lacouic Ulster,
than among the malcontent catholicism of the more
loquacious South. Hatred of the system under 1
which they live pervades,
it is true, the great mass all
the population of all creds ; bat this discontent is
not limited to the poor. They have their peculiar
wrongs, which they are often ready to wreak upon
the wealthy and high-born, whom they not unjustly
accuse of frequently aggravating the hard-
ships of their lot. But, with the excep-
tion of the question of landlord and tenant,
there ale none M the topics of Irish discontent in which
a certain portion of the middle classes do fopmpena-
thise in a greater or less degree. Men oopulence
and refinement will, of course, be &Worn found em-
broiled in public agitation. But the traders of the
towns, and many of the lesser gentry—the clergy
of all sects. lawyers, and physicians—all are alike
conscious of the existence of great evils affecting the
entire community, for the cure of which they may
differ as to the remedies, but for the apparent neglect
of which by the legislature they are every day be-
coming more and more disposed to cherish strong re-
sentment, and to utter warm reproach.
Hence the demand or repeal, and hence the thrrat
of revolution. Were the latter seriously attempted, it
would indeed effectually drown the cry for the other.
Sooner than put to sea with such pilots as Messrs.
O.I3RIEN and MricliEre, all who have any-
thing to risk or lose would instinctively
rally round any government, as men over-
taken in a sudden storm will resort to any
tree for shelter. But we are thoroughly persuaded
that the danger of such a misfortune as an outbreak,
either in Dublin or the provinces, if it ever really
existed, is wholly past. There will be no collision
between the people and tho soldiery. The seeds of
sedition have indeed been sown broadcast all over the
land; bat the sowers have proved themselves to be
but political children, who, in the impatience to be
somebodies and to accomplish something tierce
and heroic, are incapable of preserving plot or pown
lan,
and are destined to effect nothing beyond their
summary dispersion and discomfiture.
Meanwhile Dublin resembles a camp ; its pub-
lic buildings arc fall of troops; sentries and pa-
trols march up and down • and rumours and
alarms evey now an then are circulated,
whereat for the momentd elderly women shudder,
and the next day young men laugh aloud.
Trade and industry naturally suffer the while. There
has been less duty, it would appear, received for cus-
toms during the last six weeks than in any cone-
spending period within recollection, and the amount
does rot reach one-half of that paid for home con-
sumption during any previous six weeks of last year.
The merchant and the dealer prefer allowing their va-
rious duty-paid stocks to run down at practical loss
and inconvenience, rather than maintain them at their
ordinary extent in stores and warehouses, where, in
_ the event of public commotion, they would not be
secure. Thus profits are diminished and employment
LONDON; THURSDAY, APRIL 27.
is curtailed at the very moment when the spirit -of in-
WE fully agree with a great deal of the opitions dustry was beginning to revive after its long prostra
uttered by the Times yesterday morning, respect- lion, and the country was likely.to show symptoms
lag the cheritaole edifices and establishments to be if recovers, after its recent calamities. Such are the
raised in commemoration of the 10th of April. The practical timings of physical-force patriotism.
sentiments avowed yesterday by the Times on the No doubt the present effervescence will subside ere
Kennington-common meeting, are precisely those leng, and the mettle of the vitriol-throwers er-
h this paler expressed on the day after timed ; but then only, we maintain, will the real
that meeting. We then pointed out, how few danger begin. The practical grievances of Ireland
of the processionists on that occasion were evil dis- are social, not political. The wants of the country
posed, how circumscribed was serious disaffection, are thoee of adequate occupation for the strong, ar.d
how visionary any real danger to the commonwealth, on adequate security fur the weak. The tenant needs
that day especially, and consequently how inexpedient protection for the fruits of his labour, the Welton'
it was to represent any one class of persons or needs protection for his person, those of his house-
opinions in the country as triumphant over
11thors. hold and immediate deiiendents. Neither will ever
These opinions of ours, boldly uttered on the of find the security they desire by the direct interven-
April, it did not suit the Times to come rotted to ticn of law, hoe ever strineent or severe ; and to this
until the 20th, but on the 2Gth it does repeat them. conviction both are slowly steadily coming. In-
We cannot do otherwise than remain true to our direct means, and the interposition of new and
asstfi opinions, and to agree with the Times of yesterday neutral influences can alone turn away their muted
to the inexpediency of any tone of triumph, and suspicions, whose prevalence now works a common
mach more of
any arch or edifice of triumph, evil, and by-and-bye the rich and poor will join in the
recording a great victory, gained upon the 10th; for invocation of those great and healing changes, with-
had that day been
sea victory gained by one large and out which Ireland never can emerge [corn her sad and
brave set of Englimen over another large and de- shameful plight.
feated set, the memory of such a day and such a vie- An indistinct perception of these truths has already
tory ought to be drowned in oblivion. If the defeated driven many a sober-minded man to daily with the
were 200,000 or 10,000 Englishmen, we would not, notion of repeal. Re looks; around upon the
hest of all, believe, but certainly we would not brand, evils that afflict all classes and degrees, and he
\
such a number of oar countrymen as rebels and as asks in vain, what is the imperial legislature
cowards. If there were no such number of dangerous doing towards their eradication ? The poor-law
men, and if the number of such was comparatively was, indeed, a great deed done, and a great
small, as we believe and have declared, where is the and indispensable ingredient secured of a redeeming
victory' policy. But it was, and is, and can be, but an in-
Nevertheless, cold water should not be flung upcn 1 gredient —in many respects a dangerous one--though
a scheme so philanthropic and so noble, as tae upen the whole an essential of redress. Applied
bePiddi Order Memorial. To that name surely there I alone--withoat lenitives or stimulants, as each were
can eno objection. For, however, there may have i required—applied without nice and careful discrimi-
been no especial victory contested or won upon the i nation of dissimilar conditions—applied with flippant,
10th of Amel by man over man, a very great and • blind, and offensive uniformity under all circum-
very signal victors, has most certainly been both I stances, and without any of those sustaining aids and
contested and achieved throughout all the period , adjarcts which so powerful a medicine administered
that has elapsed since the French outbreak—a. i for the first time to a deeply-disemsed patient ob.
victory of prim:4es, a triumph of ideas, • victory of vimudy required—the poor-law has worked a vast
the sentiments of order, good fellowship, loyalty, and amount of unnecessary mischief, and in a great
respect of the law, over a sentiment of turbulence and variety of wee a exasperated and embittered the dis-
license, and over a thirst for a social and political content of the entire community.
Saturnalia, which, in pretending to establish the There cannot be a more striking proof than that
rights of freedom and the interests of the poor, would which the wo.tehedly inefileient and mischievous mal-
have proved fatally deetructive of both. Let any me- administration of. the Irish poor-law supplies; of the

the erprogi

MAILS.
The mails for New south Wales, 'Van Dieman's Land, and New
Zealand still be made np on the evening nfand Madeira be made
the 3Otti April.
The mills for the West Coast of Africa
Up on the esciang of the 30th April.
The Wc,t. India Mails, including Bermuda, Nassau, Marled:ln
Randuras, New Orleans, Tera Cruz, Tampico, and Porto Rico, and
eta:Ming those for 51adera, Jame', Carthagena, Banta Martha,
Chagres, Panama, Went Coast of South Ame
2rtea,ed May. and St. Juan-de-
Nicaragua, will be made up on theevening of the
The mutual mails for Gibraltar, Malts, Greece, the
totitarag-
lonian Mune:3,
Egypt, Aden, Ceylon, India, Meng -Kong, and China, Sou
Ma, well be made up on the inornizip, of the ltd May.
The mails for the Muds, the River Plate, Monte Videe, Pernam-
buco. Bahia, Madeira, and Buenas Ayres, will be made on the
evening of the 4th May.
The mails for British North America, and the United states,
wet be made up on the evening, of the sth May.
e overland closed malls, rut Marseilles,ge to the Mediterran
the
nean
'he ,
Egypt, Aden, Ceylon, ladle, liong-Kong, , be made o
evening of the ztio May.
The malls for Vigo, Oporto, Liebon, Madeira, Cadiz, and G:braltar
will be made up ou the morning of the sth May.

NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS.
The number of STAMPS issued by the authorities of the
Stamp-office, during 1847, to the
DAILY NEWS was 3,447,009
This, we believe, is within eight per cent. at the number
issued to the Morning Herald, Morning Chronici4, and
Morning Post, ♦LL rut vuotlvitan.
It addition to the above, issued to the DAILY NEWS,
Morning Paper, there were issued for the Evening Eila;,,n,
TILE EXPRESS '778,714
Which was more, we believe, than were issued either to
the Globe or Standard, Evening Papers.

D IGD WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tut. Mr—No-fling, All min. put 7 ; AnfT•Onll. mi.. mat
3...tlennotr —Morning, 19 atla. out 3; Atteroosa. 37 Vlllll. part 9.

hollowness of the cant that was once so popular
among persons calling themselves friends of popular
freedom—we allude to that of universal assimilation.
The offspring of superficial knowledge and of pro-
found self-conceit—the theory of governing men on
merely arithmetical principles—assumes that becausebe
their ultimate interests may bo supposed to
similar, their present capabilities, desires, and
heliogs, might be taken to be alike. No-
-1 Wog in reality can be more dangerous or absurd.
Men have ever been, and will always be, dissimilar ;
11 and communities must differ ; and the impartial
legislation which disregards such differences, is
in truth suicidal, when it is not inoperative.
The Irish poor-law of 1847 is a fatal specimen
of this. In one half the kingdom for the ne-
cessities of which it was intended, its provi-
sions, if not the best and wisest possible, were a
least not palpably unsuitable; and there it has accord-
ingly been got to work with comparatively little noise
or mischief. But for the rest it was partially or
wholly unadapted. Poverty, instead of being the ex-
ception in many unions of the western districts, is
the rule. Taxation commensurate with such
wants is either abortive, or it amounts to mere con-
fiscation of property. In the one case, the
paupers perish with a mockery of right to relief,
recently conferred by the state ; in the other, the
only classes who, by employing labuur could help
efficiently to render the burden dale rates endurable,
are paralysed and prostrated. Yet when such in-
stances have arisen, and. the localities justly com-
plained, they have been met with curt maxims of
abstract economy or the official coicombry of mis-

-----------.7-7—_
English farmers, in put originated in efforts made by
landlords to induce tenants to rest contented as yearl fory
termite, with the addition of the right to be paid
certain
thneimlanprovdioerdameanrets
nifowejecgrteedatlbyyopthpeoßleanddtolordth,escuocah,
right to depend on mutual iureement in each case.
1 cession of any legal claim to tenant right. The
will,
hopelessness of any effectual tenant right act, will,
wedsn induce farmers to direct all their efforts to-
ar the question of leases; and we have lately seen
signs of such a change of object, amongst which may
be mentioned the discussion at the Farmers' Club, to
which we arc about to refer for the purpose of show-
ing the waste incurred by landowners through the
wilful mismanagement of their own estates.
The occasion was a lecture by Mr. It. Smith, a well
known agriculturist in ltutlandshire, on " The im-
portance of union between landlord and tenant to
develop the resources of British husbandry," a topic
which the lecturer handled iu a liberal spirit,
though with a tolerator of yearly arrange-
ments to which all his facts and illustrations ran
counter. After enumerating various important
improvements in husbandry, such as draining, build-
ing, removing fences and timber, breaking up inferior
pastures, reclaiming waste land and the like, as those
to which the active co-operation of the landowner is
essential, and the extensive evidence afforded by the
actual condition of landed property of the absence of
such co-operation, Mr. SMITII referred to the contrast
presented in Norfolk and East Lothian, where the
tenants farm under leases, and added, " I could wish
that a similar union of interest between landlord and
tenant pervaded the whole empire, and which it
would be easy to accomplish if the landlords of Eng-
land would more generally meetv theenterprising
tenantry of our country, by ging Meat aen
against the ricissitmles tf uncertain tenure." Here we
see that to the union, which all agree would produce
m
imense improvement in the value of lded part
of perty, nothing is wanted but the will on the part
of landlords to concede to their tenants security of
tenure. Again, Mr. SMITII said, "From the prac-
tical knowledge I have had of the various customs
of tenure throughout the country, I am prep ired to
~how that such union is strength, and that it is best
supported and carried out by long leases, or security for
unexhausted improvements, under which agriculture
has made rapid strides, tenants have flourished, and
Me property if the hin:llords doubled. And, after al-
luding particularly to the immense increase in the
value of land in Norfolk and Lincolnshire, through
the enterprising farming of tenants, "secured against
the vicissitudes of uncertain tenure," he said " that the
a hole has been accomplished, the hualord .seareely
knowing what has been gai»g on, beyond the daily im-
proved appearance of his estate; and that, while on
the one hand it has cost him nothing . beyond the
nominal guarantee, the estate has been improved by
the tenant's capital at least 300 per cent." But it is
this " nominal guarantee," a lease, which landowners
are reluctant to afford, because, forsooth, their tenants
will no longer be their political dependents. How long
will the active and industrious middle classes consent
to bear oce-half of the landowners' share of public
taxation to uphold such a vicious system of misma-

placed power.
Mr. TWISLETON has done more for the cause of re-
peal during the last twelve months, than Mr. Jinni
O'CoNNELL in the last twelve years. In a country
whose physical condition he understood, or which,
being homogeneous, he might possibly be made
gradually to understand, we think likely enough
that ho might be found a useful publ
servant ; and in a country like England, where
no man dares to take supercilious airs upon himself
towards any respectable class of the community, he
would probably have never been betrayed into the
ridiculous and mischievous assumption of superior
wisdom and knowledge which has rendered him one
of the most thoroughly obnoxious men engaged in
the subordinate departments of Irish government.
But unfitted by previous habits to conform to the
temper of any class or section of the people amongst
whom he was unfortunately sent, and indisposed to
listen or to learn, Mr. Twists:m:4 has been entrusted
with a task the most difficult and delicate which care
be conceived; and the result is that all the faults of the
law have been greatly aggravated by the follies of
its administration, and at the present hour it is noto-
rious that a very large portion of the discontent of
the few, and of the disaffection of the many, is stimu-
lated into altion by the hatred and resentment which
have thus arisen.
Our conviction, not now expressed for the first
time, is that every department of government in Ire-
land has been over-centralised. Nothing is left for
the people to do. Every function has been usurped
by the Treasury, the Home-office, and the Castle; and
when the blunders and omissions of half-informed
power provoke popular exclamation, and incessant
eppeals for redress to supreme autii,rity, in the be-
wilderment and helplessness they have brought upon
theselves, statesmen and legislators protest that it is
"rally ite impossible for government to do every-
thing.' Se wo think ; and therefore we earnestly
wish, that it would not try.
Why not, for instance, allow the unions in Ireland
more discretion as to lesr they will each administer
the law? It is idle nonsense to reply : " they would
never do it equally well, and there would be no uni-
formity." They could not by any conceivable per-
versity do it more uniformly ill than it is now done.
Sonic localities might do worse, bat the guilt of mis-
conduct would be detected speedily and locally, and
the whole system would not be damaged thereby.
Mistakes might be made experimentally, but their
fruits would be gathered where they grew, and il
warned beforehand—not twitted, or scorned, or
driven—by a forbearing and discreet central authority
—the people would more readily yield to advice in
future, or weak out of their errors in due time. At
all events, the unpopularity created by each act of
controlling rigour would not be dangerously concen-
trated upon a point too near the seat of all authority
and rule, as unfortunately it is now.

nagement
Nlr. SMITH read a communication he had received
from an East Lothian farmer, detailing the causes of
the good farming of the Lothians, which depended
upon long leases as " the principal cause of their
present high state of cultivation i" and then turned
to the yearly tenants of England, saying, "even
under the best of landlords, lite is precarious, and it
then becomes a speculation for the future. Again,
some slight difference with the agent, the disturbance
of game, or other trivial cause, might lead to the dis-
charge, at the end of six months, of a principal and
valuable tenant; and, possibly, at a moment when the
tenant had invested the bulk of his property in the
soil, and is thus cast upon the wide world with his
reduced capital." That such cases of hardship and
injustice are not uncommon, may be gathered from
the instances upon which we have on various occa-
sions felt it our duty to comment, and it is well
known that these things are seldom much known
beyond the immediate localities. Yet it is to pre-
serve to landlords the power of committing such
acts of injustice that the rest of the community
bears an undue share of taxation. And the
lecturer concluded by referring to the increasing po-
pulation of this country, daily requiring an increased
supply of food, and said, " Hence follows the absolute
necessity of a speedy but healthy union of landlord
and tenant, to develop the yet bidden resoutces of our
native soil.'
And what is it that hinders such development?
There is no difficulty in finding farmers of competent
skill and capital to uccupy land in any part of Eng-
land. On the contrary, there is immense competition
for farms, and it is this competition which mainly
enables landowners to sustain the mischievous system
of yearly tenancies, a system which drives great num-
bers of intelligent and enterprising men, and large
amounts of capital, away from the business of hus-
bandry. And, yet, dealing thus with their own pro-
pray, the landocracy or these realms use their domi-
nant political influence to esce tthe industrythrow of the
nation.

-------
WHEN every attempt to equalise taxation and
render its pressure more tolerable by becoming more
fair, is resisted by the governing powers, because the
first effect of any such alteration would be to throw a
larger share of taxation on the landowners than they
now bear, it becomes necessary to inquire into some
of the incidents of landed property. We not long
since had a committee of the Lords inquiring into
the "burdens on land," which exhibited DO little in-
genuity in ferreting out all the items of expense which
landowners, as such, did, might, or could incur, and
their lordships undoubtedly contributed, to the full
as much as could be expected, towards exposiug the
evils ot our real property system. But they missed
the discovery of that which lies on the very threshold,
namely, that the greatest burdens on land ar e its
landlords. And let us not be misunderstood, for we
do not mean that the landlords as receivers ot rent
are burdens upon the land ; but that the laws they
have made for their own class objects, and
the modes of management individual landowners
adopt under the influence of their class pre-
judices, do present the most formidable im-
pediments to the improvement and good cul-
tivation of the soil; and if such burdens on
land affect the community injuriously, they are not
less mischievous to the landowners themstl,•es ; for
the mismanagement of landed property which pre-
vails almost universally in England, greatly d-
nishes the rent that would be paid under a better

system.
Some economists have defended taxation upon the
ralteian,gthtaltioistes cu-tfpoecnt iswt increase c reaaset a no:lluscit:tno buys
esteixmtrua-
exertion, in order to meet the tax, and by so doing,
they produce, in addition to their former production,
not only the tax, but something over and above.
This may be true within certain limits, which,
countr how-
ever, have long since been passed in this y.
That principle was announced in favour of the landed
interest, and as yet has been applied in practice only
to industrial interests. Let us see whether it is not
far more applicable to our landed aristocracy. It is
admitted the landowners do not pay their fair
share of taxation. The inequality of the in-
come-tax furnishes a glaring and a modern
instance. So clearly is thls impressed en the minds
of persons acing ander landlord influence, that Lord
JOHN RE :-SELL, in resisting some of the efforts made
in parliament to equalise the pressure of the income
tax, deprecated a graduated scale on the ground that
it would press hardly on the country gentlemen, and
look like a vindictive proceeding agatnst them for
their imposition of the corn-laws. Again, the exemp-
tion
fensible of land n
by theob landowners a from prate and legacy ditties is inde-
eve nd, in fact, has
never been seriously defended. So the stamp duties,
which have been urged as b irdens on land counter-
vailing the probate and legacy' duties on personal pro-
perty, do not, as we shall Lereatter take occasion
to show, fall upon the great masses of land in the
hands of our landed aristocracy.
Now, independently of the mere justice of equal
burdens upon all classes, oathe can show, as we
shall on the best possible ority, that our land-
owners do actually throw away, by their own wilful
mismanagement, partly caused by the operation of
their own erroneous legislation, tar more of annual
revenue than would enable them to meet the largest
possible increased taxation that might fall upon them
by making them bear a fair and equal -share of the
public burdens, we shall be doing them an essential
service. All that they would lose would be a certain
semi-feudal influence, for their just political influence
would be rather strengthened.
Our readers have seen something of the efforts
which are making by the tenant-farmers of England
to obtain a tenant-right, that is, a claim on the part
of yearly tenants to be paid for certain portions of the
improved value they have, by means of their own
capital and industry, given to the farms they occupy,
and which, as the law stands, the owner of the farm
may at any moment appropriate to his own use by
turning out the tenant. There can be no doubt that
some improvement of the law to regulate pay-
ments to outgoing .tenants is required. Bat the
great and substantial security farmers desire is
that of a lease, which is jast what land-
lords are unwilling to grant, because their tenants
become at once personally and politicilly inde-
pendent. Indeed, the tenant right movement of the