The Express.
London, England, 1853-02-16 00:00:00

NEW_ BILLS.

Sir J. YOUNG obtiind leave, and afterwards laid on
the table, a bill to renew the provisions relating to the col-
lection of grand jury cese in Ireland, contained in the ca-
p red act of 14 4t 15 Vic., c. 65.
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL brought in his bill to re-
gulate the office of examiners in Chancery.
Mr. 11. DRUMMOND also introduced his measure to
facilitate the sale and purchase of land.
All these bills were read a first time.
The Transfer of Aids Bill was considered as amended,
and the report agreed to.
The resolution passed by the committee of the whole
house on the metropolitan improvements, authorising re-
payments out of the Consolidat, d Fund, was brought up
and astreed to, and a bill founded thereon ordered to be
brought in.
The house adjourned at half-past 7 o'clock.

SUBURBAN POST-OFFICES.—Amongst the new Post-
office gements to come into operation early neat month
is one of considerable importance to residents in the suburbs
of the metropolis. It has hitherto been the custom to
collect the ►etters posted at the ,:ifferent branch offices in
the suburbs after five, p.m., early the neat morning, to be
in readiness for the first mail-carts ; but Mr. Rowland Hill,
it appears, has determined, and given dir. etions, that these
suburban letters shall be collected and forwarded to the
General Post-office, St. Martin's•le-Grand, by special mail-
carts, at 10 p.m., on the evening of the day of posting.
This plan will, of course, greatly advance and facilitate the
delivery of letters posted within the limits of what is termed
the town-post districts after five and up to ten o'clock at
night.
TILE PINT BOTTLE QUESTlON.—Yesterday the
magistrates of Sunbury heard two informations, laid by an
inspector of weights and measures, against pub:icans of
Hampton Court, for selling beer in bottles purporting to be
pints and quarts, but not holding the full measure. Each
party was convicted in a fine of 10s. and coats.

gfte erprefss

TO CI )I.I:XSPONDENTB.

paned [ALGA of " The Ferrer; esewAyie tM usies swains
.6, nag( tit," u lothishest sw.ey Thesis, 1 Frits, Wert. is A, As
• t.
A ..tiereests feweked ter The repress; Lisle' Iveeisti Near,
A' be et •hr ere, le, Ellt•lriFlittic Two Vele.* ae She
ey of pebaseitioa.

111611 WATER AT LONDON BRIDOI.
71. SAL... ..... .Allatses. 71. 24/A.
—vitamin. 716 Oa. rftsrasce. es. 200.

LONDON, 11-ED.VESDAY. FEBRUARY 16.

Sons misapprehension seems to have arisen with
regard to the meaning of expressions used by Lord
JOHN RUSSELL on Thursday last, when adverting to
the Income Tax. Most of his hearers were left
under the impression that Reform of the Schedules
was likely to be postponed until 180.1 along with
Reform of the Franchise. By others a different, and
we trust a more accurate, interpretation is new put
upon the words of the noble lord, and he was un-
derstood to have intended rather to convey an inti-
mation on the part of the Cabinet that they con-
ceived two such legislative undertakings impracti-
cable in the same session. If this version be correct,
it follows from the postponement of Electoral Reform
that we are entitled to look for the realisation of the
Iserdeferred hope of fiscal re-adjustment, and that
ase may weeks elapse the House of Commons will be
invited to consider the details of an amended act for
taxing more equitably property and income.
The Act under which the taxes are now levied ex-
piemearly in April next. If, therefore, all discussion
IS AR subject be postponed until after Easter, but a
Ism slays will be available for consideration or dis-
coidal of the modified scheme which may be con-
templated by the new CnsNeehhon of the EXCHE-
QUER. It will almost of necessity follow that the
practical alternative to his plan, whatever that plan
may be, will be the imminent hazard of losing the
tax altogether, or of renewing it in its amended
form for another year, in order to prevent
its falling to the ground. It would certainly
have been preferable in every point ot view had the
alterations about to be proposed by Mr. GLADSTONE
been laid before Parliament previous to the Elater
nom the country would thus be better able to judge
et their tendency and working, and the discussion
which must inevitably ensue within the walls of
Parliament would be morn likely to assume a delibe
rate and useful character. It is but justice to Mr.
DISRAELI to recollect that the course which he
adopted was open to no objection in this particular.
We own we think it is much to be regretted that his
example therein has not appeared worthy of imita-
tion by his successor; though involving great princi-
ples of justice between class and class, and be-
tween man and man, the affair is essentially
one of manifold details. Until, therefore, we
shall see is black and white the amended
schedules of our present Finance Minister it will be
impossible to give even a surmise as to the efficacy or
worth of the changes which he may introduce. And
until there shall have been time to investigate fully
the practical bearing of such changes, it will be really
impossible to form any well-founded decision respect-
ing
them. In the face, therefore, of an expiring law,
the friends of Financial Reform wiU be placed—and
we are compelled to say unfairly placed—at no little
disadvantage by the arrangement in question. On
the other hand, however, it cannot have escaped the
acute mind of Mr. GLADSTONE, that by risking all,
as he is thus doing, upon the immediate impression
which his forthcomingscheme may produce, he in some
degree creates for himself an opportunity for doing
something greater and more original in the way ot
amendment than would otherwise have been open to
him. By driving things to the last in this fashion
he doubtless makes up his mind to satisfy popular
demands at a single coup. We may fairly presume,
therefore, that he means to grapple with statesman-
like courage, and in the spirit ot a high ambition,
with a question whose difficulties have successively
battled many of his most illustrious predecessors in
office, from the days of Pirr to those of PEEL. The
great financier of GEORGE the Titan's time eluded
the duty of drawing a just distinction between
realised property and a fluctuating income by
the constantly reiterated declaration that the
tax was imposed solely for the purposes of
war, and that its temporary necessity must
consequently cover all its defects. As a mere matter
of prudence, and to abate somewhat of the swell of
popular impatience, Mr. Peer drew an arbitrary line
of exemption at a point which would exclude all
those who live by wages not exceeding a pound a
week. Without the justification, Sir ROBERT PEEL,
when he proposed the re-imposition of the tax, felt
the necessity of exempting all incomes under 1304 a
year. But his defence of the glaring anomalies
which he left untouched above that class of incomes
were admitted by him to be defensible only on the
plea that the tax itself was intended to be levied only
for a limited time, and consequently that its inequa-
lities ought to be borne with patience and temper.
At each renewal of the term, however, this
plea has been received on the part of the
public with diminished satisfaction and dis-
position to endurance. Two years ago the House
of Commons, in a fit of unmistakeable ill-humour on
the subject, came to the resolution of voting the tax
for twelve months only. Last session a similar
course was pursued. Meantime Select Committees
have been sitting for the purpose of taking evidence
on the question, and the publication of the result of
their labours has served to strengthen and to stimu-
late the popular conviction—not only that between
fixed and fluctuating incomes a distinction with re-
spect to liability should be drawn but that the dis-
tinction should be a wide and a broad one, graduated
according to the degrees of difference between
permanence and perishability. Already has the
principle of such modification been adopted
and avowed by several influential sections
of the Legislature. The changes proposed
in the schedules by Mr. DIBIIAELI were
doubtless liable to some exception, but they con-
tained a great principle, the principle that a chstino-
tion ought to be drawn in equalizing taxation between
toiling industry and inert opulence. To that
Principle, though propounded by the leader of the
Tory party, many influential Liberals gave in their
grateful adhenon; and there cannot be a question
that upon this portion
r of his Budget the late Chan-
cellor of the F: chequer would have been able to
command a large majority.
The matter is not, therefore, and cannot be, treats&
as a party matter. It will be found with the
Income Tax, as it wee found with the extension of
the House Tax, that public opinion overleaps
the narrow fences of faction, and that against
the growing conviction of the intelligence of the
nation, neither the interests nor prejudicesof party,
whether in office or in opposition, are able long to
stand. In every free and educated constituency the
determination has long since been come to that if
the Income Tax is to be renewed it must be radially
re-modelled and fundamentally reformed. We
hope for his own sake and that of the country that
Mr. GrAneronz is aware of this. An ineffectual or
faltering attempt to patch up the present unen-
durable system can only end in disappointment and
failure.

Ar last the Canada Clergy Reserves question is
fairly on the way for sctticment,—u our Parliamen-
tary report bears witness. To be satisfactory, the
measure on this subject must be full and unhesitat-
ing; it must leave to the people and Parliament of
the province complete power to deal as they please
with these reserves ; to apply their proceeds also as
pis,they think best, even to secular and lay
if such be their wish. The question at
Issue, SO far as we arc concerned, is simply and
purely one of political government ; its ecclesiastical
and religious ingredient is entirely matter for
the eons.
'deration of the Canadian Parliament.
The province of Canada has won for itself
something more than an ordinary Colonial Con-
stitution ; it has obtained, nut only a representa-
tive system such as many other of our dependencies
possess, but, addition, responsible government.
The Quiis s Representative in Canada, like her
MAR-qv at home, is bound to choose for his Mi-
nisters men who, for their policy and proceedings,
mu obtain a majority in Parliament. On their ad-
vice he acts; it is their measures which are presented
to the Provincial Legislature; it is they who conduct
the government and distribute the patronage of Ca-
nada. The province has consequently a full Parlia-
mentary system. Two subjects only were, in 1840,
withdrawn from its jurisdiction—the Civil List and
these Clergy Reserves. The Civil List has since,
however, been wisely and usefully consigned to its
care and authority. And on what pnnciple the
Clergy Reserves can be continued u the solitary ex-
ception to its legislative power it is impossible to
conceive.
The opponents of the repeal of the existing Im-
perial law do not, indeed, affect to argue the question
on principle. They treat the continuance of the sta-
tute 3 and 4 Vier., c. 78, as a matter of agreement and
compact ; they regard it as an act of finality not to be
disturbed, at least by Colonial legislation; they refuse
to run the risk of having property, set apart for the
religious instruction of the people, " diverted "—we
UN Sir JOHN PAKINGTON'S pious language—"for
ever from its 'sacred purpose. But their premises
are unfounded in facts, and their sequences are un-
tenable. From 1791 down to 1840 there is no trace
of an agreement or compact. It was the Imperial
Legislature in the former year that reserved (without
consulting the wishes of Canada) these wastes for
the support of a Protestant clergy; and from 1791
to 1810 the proceeds of these lands were applied to
the exclusive maintenance of one particular clergy,
in a manner which the QUEEN'S Judges of West-
minster Hall pronounced to be illegal in the latter
year. In legislating in 1840 the Imperial Legisla-
ture did so, not in accordance with, but against, the
wishes of the colonists. The very Ministry in Ent
land which at last assented to have the messare
that year forced on them, declared it, whoa=
receiving the sanction of Parliament, to be
dent. And from the day of its enactment to the
present hour, it has been deemed offensive in prin-
ciple and unwise in details by the people and Legisla-
ture of the provinces. To clothe it, therefore, with
the character of an agreement or a compact, is wholly
to misdescribe it. The act of 1840 arose out of a
compromise of parties at home, to which the people
Of Canada were wholly opposed.
To treat such a measure as an act of finality, would
be absurd. Since its enactment, the world has been
moving; nowhere more rapidly than in Canada.
The Act of 1840 in reality established two Churches,
those of England and Scotland, in the province. But
the Church of Scotland, then powerful and numerous
there, now scarcely exists. The Canadian Presbyte-
rians have almost to a man adhered to the Free,
and left the communion of the Established, Kirk of
Scotland. If, therefore, the Statute of 1840 be final
and unalterable, a large proportion of its funds will
have to go to a Church which has scarcely as exis-
tence. But that is not aIL In the meantime, the
Canadian Parliament has passed a declaratory sta-
tute, placing all religious communities on an equal
footing in the promises. dissimulating them all
from connexion with the State, and reducing them to
a voluntary status. Such a provincial statute is wholly
at variance with an imperial act conferring great and
exclusive wealth on two of the religions bodies thus
affected. The principle thus solemnly adopted by
the colony requires either the secularisation of the
Clergy Reserves, or their distribution amongst all
religious communities. At all events, that act can-
not, in the presence of circumstances so materially
changed, be considered final.
Let who will take this finality view of the case,
the members of the late Government cannot. For,
though they refused to repeal, they were willing to
alter the provisions of the 3& 4 Vim., e. 78. "It
may possibly be desirable," said Sir JOHN PARING-
TON, " that the distribution should from time to time
be reconsidered. Any proposals of such a nature
her MAJESTY'S Government would be willing to en-
tertain." And this admission of the DeaßY Cabinet
wonderfully simplifies the question. For if the act
of 1840 within twelve years of its enactment be so
inapplicable to the present state of Canada as to re-
quire revision, and if, looking again forward, it is
probable that the distribution of the fund should
"from time to time "be reconsidered, surely we on
this side of the Atlantic must be far leas competent
to select and re-arrange " from time to time "
the distribution, Han a people so active and alive to
their own interests as our fellow-countrymen in
Canada? And if they are the best judges of
details, they are also the fittest power to settle the
principle at issue.
To my, that in religious matters alone we will
manage their affairs for them, is to insult and ent-
ity* the Canadian people. The Act of 1840 is their
collar of servitude and bondage to a policy abandoned
inemly other question. They have achieved for
themselves every freedom but that which relates to
Public Worship ; and that they will also win, by
Independence and Separation, if mammary. " I have
DO hesitation," Mr. HINCKES told Sir JOHN PARING.
TON, "in stating it as my conviction that the
Canadian Parliament will not invite the legislation
of the Imperial Parliament regarding the distribu-
tion d a local fund." In those three words lies the
gist of the whole case. The fund is local, the ques-
tion is local, the principle is local, the details are
local. But mixed up with these purely local con-
siderations are our own ecclesiastical polemics. The
Church at home regards the Acts of 1791 and of 1840
moot-works of its own defences; and, therefore, it
arouses the passions and the prejudices of its parti-
san to refuse to Canada what, were not its interests
apposed to be concerned, the Imperial Parliament
maid be permitted to surrender almost with
mieertel approbation.

been more admirable or more
_ the conduct of the Canadian Par-
question. In temperate and moderate
session after grunion, addressed
repeal of the Act of 1840. But
v anticipation, pledged themselves
the fund from religious purposes.
when Mr. BROWN moved a resolu-
its application " to the support of a
secular education," that resolution
majority of 71 to 5. They have
not as a religions but as a consti-
have they grown angry or violent
'delay and disappointment; and in
they agreed to they assured her
in thus givinteee:ression to the
the country, t are actuated by
gs or loyalty to MAJESTY, and
to prevent those lamentable con-
. must be the result of a collision
Imperial and Provincial Parliaments, on
which very strong feelings are known
nag the people of this province."
irreirstib:e in principle; temperate and
ct, their claim of right can only be
of losing a province so strong and
'toned, and, as yet, so loyal.

TTF, EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 16, 1853.

. .
power could not prevent the circulation of the ob-
noxions pamphletot is rather hard that a vanquished
party should be held responsible foe the aberrations
of an obscure advocate of the Preview bar. The
Gazette de Prance says: "We protested formally
I against the publication of the Lettres Franques'
and we can affirm that in our reprobation of that
' pamphlet we were the organs of the whole legitimist
party. It is painful to us to see a purely individual
work imputed to our party, when the disavowal of
this work has united in one unanimous sentiment of
blame all shades of legitimists, unfortunately so di-
vided on other political subjects."
The Meniteur announces that M. de Kisseleff, En-
voy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of
Russia, has had tho honour of a private audience of
the Emperor to deliver the reply of his sovereign to
the private letter addressed to him by his Majesty.
A_petition is now being signed at Rheims praying
the Emperor to have himself crowned in that city
The petition says:
Rheims being the city of coronations, invested by the
Pontifical Bulls with the prerogative of anointing and
elseining the sovereigns of France, the coronation of your
Majesty will be still more august in the Christian world if it
takes place in our cathedral, where so many kings hays
rem* to receive that unction which makes them the elder
sone of the church. Emperor, your Majesty who entitles
yourself by the grace of clod and the national will, has a
right to pr,reed am the monarchs of divine right did before
you; heir and restorer of the fourth dynuty, the crown
lawaits you on the same altar from whence Rogues Cepa
received it.

Se hieihttioa," Mr. HlNcta
"in stating it as
Chadian Parliament will
et the Imperial Parliamec
tha of a Local load." In
ald of the whole case. TI
flww is local, the principle
Leal But mixed up witl
Mentions are our own eec
Mirth at home regards th,
aiout-vrork• of its own d
arouses the passions and t
sans to refuse to Canada w
supposed to be concerned,
Woad be permitted to
universal approbation.
Nothing can hare been
eseetitatioael dna the con
lowans the question.
ileMethey havo, maim
Ste for the sepal
they have never, by Wlcsl
buy alienation of the foe
Oa the contrary, when MI
lea is flavour of its applic
someal.wystem of secular
was rejected by a majorit
treated the subject, not as
tational one. Nor have thi
consequence of delay am
the last address they agri
MUMS' " that in thus
public opinion of the coun
the stronge feelings of toy
by sincerest desire to prey
sequences which most be
between the Imperial and
a question on which very
topevail among the peop
Sound and irresistible is
!moderate in conduct, their
refused at the ride of losini
a Ptople so enlightened, an