The Express.
London, England, 1848-01-31 00:00:00

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fault of flair own infirmity of purpose. They have
it not, sad they never will have it, till they are com-
pelled by the pressure of free-trade competition to
wet about it in earnest.
Fully aware of tho severe hardships to which im-
mediate free trade competition will expose the sugar
interest—anxious that every innovation of general
benefit should be brought about with the least pos-
sible amount of individual suffering—we have reluct-
antly arrived at the conclusion, that immediate equal-
isation of the sugar dillies would in the end be the
best service that can be done to the agitators against
the sugar duties act. They will never believe in the
approach of free trade till it is upon them. And so long
as a glimpse of hope that protective duties can be up-
held remains, they will neither alter their ways of
transacting business, nor their general mode of living,
to accommodate themselves to the altered circum-
stance in which they are placed.
It is not very easy to ascertain what the protectionists
ask with regard to sugar. Sometimes their language
is so framed that one would infer that they only ask
for terminable protective duties, to be abolished when'
their supply of labour is adequate; sometimes that
permanent protective duties are their object. Some-
times they would appear to ask only a differential
duty of 10s. per cwt. on foreign sugar; but at others,
their language will bear the interpretation that the
exclusion of slave-grown sugars, with the differential
I duty of 101. per cwt. on foreign free-labour sugar of
1844, is what they aim at. The truth is, that they
are determined not to commit themselves by mention-
ing any definite amount or duration of protection, in
order that it may:remain open to them, to ask as much
as they can get.
Taking their lowest apparent demands, they wanted
10e. per cwt. of differential duty on foreign sugars,;in-
stead of the actual rates and for a longer period than
they are to last under the existing law, or, more de-
finitely, until our British sugar-growers can compete
with foreign sugar-growers. This phrase, as we have
already shown, is equivalent to a permanent pro-
tective duty, for the past conduct of oar West Indian
sugar-growers shows that they never will exert
themselves so as to be able to compete on equal terms
with foreigners until compelled by necessity. Well,
the effect of a permanent differential duty of 10s. per
cwt., or 101. per ton., will be this, that out of the
total sum received for every ton of sugar by the
British grower, 101. will be not price, but a tribute,
a tux paid in addition to the price by the British con-
sumer. And this tax will be paid, not for the support of
government, but to enable certain individuals to live in
comparative idleness. We concede to the planter aid
merchant that the whole of this tax of 101. on every
ton of sugar will not go into their pockets. A part of
it—a large part of it—will go to the negro labourers
in the West Indies. The tax will enable our West
India proprietors and mortgagees to continue the sys-
tem profitably under which the negro labourer in the
West Indies, by working seven hours a day for five
days in the week, and frequently for less, can earn
enough to indulge habitually is his bottled porter and
madeira, and eat and dress in a corresponding style.
We put the question to every man and woman in the
country, from the duke and duchess, to the overtasked
artisan and the tambouring girl or bone-lace knitter,
will they be contented to pay such a tax for such a

LORD TORRINGTON, who recently went out
governor of Ceylon, has procured the dismissal of
Captain WARNER, commanding one of the Peninsular
and Oriental Company's steamers, in a very cruel and
unwarrantable way. His lordship, on embarking,
evidently deemed that his rank and office placed him
far above the rules, regulations, and decencies that pre-
vail in a vessel destined to carry passengers. Every one
who has been on board a ship knows the extreme jea-
lousy and distinction observed between first and second
class passengers, servants being always, and of
necessity, included amongst the latter. Amongst
these rule is the reservation of the quarter-deck to
first-class passengers. Lord TORRINGTON, of course,
entered his domestics as second-class passengers, but
he afterwards insisted that they should be free of the
quarter-deck and have first-class rights.
Captain WARNER objected, and, as in duty bound,
informed Lord TORRINGTON'S servants, that although
they might walk the quarter-deck at most
hours, yet at the particular hour of the
lady-passengers' promenade, viz., from six to
ten in the evening, ho expected they would retrain.
The ledy-domestics of Lord TORRINGTON, however,
insisted on walking arm-in-arm at this time. When
forbidden to do so by Captain WARNER., his lordship
in dudgeon withdrew his family, and made a com-
plaint to the Peninsular and Oriental Company,which
has been so over-obsequious as to dismiss the captain.
We think the conduct of the governor of Ceylon I
very overbearing. With such very high and
dignified airs, Lord TORRINGTON should have
gone out in a king's ship, but then, by the bye,
his servants would not have been allowed to walk
the quarter-deck. Or he should have hired one of the
Peninsular boats to himself, by which his lordship
would have avoided that rode arrogance towards the
captain and towards his fellow-passengers, which he
has followed up by obtaining the dismissal of the
former,

Our Paris correspondence of Saturday has arrived.
The chamber continues the debate on the address,
which, as is usual in the French parliament,
is the occasion on which the opposition assails
the ministry on all the vulnerable points of its con-
duct and policy. The debate of Friday was marked
by bitter personalities, and flee reproduction of
the often-repeated charges of official corruption com-
mitted in the affair of the act sought by the post-
me...ters for a consideration of 1,200,0001., the c. m-
plicity of the ministry in the traffic of a theatrical
license for 100,0001., also 400,0001. promised to cer-
tain persons for bringing in a bill, and the dis4raceful
traffic in the affair of Petit, implicating M. Guizot as
a principal. M. Emile de Girardin, chief editor and
proprietor of La Presse, made a sharp attack on M.
Hebert, the Minister of Justice, calling him a " Tar-
tufe de Justice." Being called to order by the pre-
sident, first he refused to accept the call, and then
accepted it in words, but rejected it with the most
contemptuous and disdainful gestures.
During this debate great agitation prevailed in the
chamber, the majority desiring to put an end to the
discussion and come to a division on the paragraph,
which at length was adopted. The debate on Italy
was adjourned till Saturday, on the motion of M. de
Lamartine, who is inscribed to speak upon it,.

IMPORTANT POLITICAL REFORM GRANTED
BY THE KING OF NAPLES.
We have received most important and gratifying
intelligence from Naples, which will be regarded as
the harbinger of peace in the communes of the Two
Sicilies, and as setting the seal upon the political re-
generation of the entire Italian peninsula. It appears
that on the evening of the 18th, the day of the depar-
ture of the last Naples mails, King Ferdinand resolved
on yielding to the general will of the people and
adopting a course of policy and administrative and
political reform similar to those already effected by
the sovereigns of Sardinia, Rome, and Tuscany.
In accordance with this resolution four royal or-
donnances were published in the official Gazette
of Naples on the evening of the 18th. These deer, es
involve toe two great principles of representation and
freedom of discussion through the agency of the press.
Their spirit,in short,is identifiedwith that of the new
institutions of the other liberalised states of Italy.
By the first decree two councils of state are esta-
blished—one in Naples and the other in Sicily, which
arc invested with the following functions :-1. To ex-
press their opinion on all projects of law and general
regulations. 2. To examine and express an opinion
on financial questions—such as budgets, public debt,
loans, &c. l. To give their opinion on all treaties of
commerce, on taxes, excise, and tariff,' in general.
4. To examine and judge of the petitions of the pro-
vincial councils.
The communes or townships of Na:lcs and Sicily
are declored to be invested with administrative right
over their own revenues under the superint, u4.ence
of
the King's government, and the Council of State is
directed to present this subject, the basis of which
shall be the free election of the members of the
municipal councils of the townships or communes re-
spectively. Such is an outline of the first of these
four royal decrees.
The second ordonnance declares Sicily to be inde-
pendent of Naples, and Naples of Sicily, in their
administrative and judicial organisation. All offices
in Sicily are to be filled by Sicilians, and in Naples
by Neapolitans. This °rein:mance is declared to be
applicable not only prospectively but retrospectively
to all appointments made within the last four months,
which must be so modified as to be brought into ac-
cordance with it.