The Express.
London, England, 1847-11-26 00:00:00

foe arbitrary restrictions upon railway calls, will pre-'
vail to the felled extent. It may be very well to
enlar,se,, those restrictions in the acts, that would pre-
' vent the companies in any case from slackening their
progress in compliance with the natural demands of
their circumstances—to remove the necessity of push-
ing on faster than they would otherwise do, were it
not for a fear of losing the privileges, which have been
granted for a limited period only. But it
would be quite a different thing to prevent
those who have the power and the will to
expedite their works, from advancing at more than a
certain rate of progress ; from calling more than a
given amount in any one year; in other words, to
retard by authority, and against the wishes of the
parties concerned, the period at which the enterprise
they have undertaken may become at once profitable
to themselves and useful to the public. Against such
an interference with the voluntary use of capital,
whether for railway-making or for any other kind
of business, there lie many grave objections, which we
need not at present recapitulate. They have already
been stated in this journal, and it may be hoped that
there is nothing in the design of the ministry to re-
quire their re-appearance oa the motion to be made
this evening.
We will only remark that, should the intention be
shown to impose such restrictions as must have the
effect of preventing works from going forward at pre-
sent, which but for the restrictions would be prose-
cuted, or of reducing the rate of progress on the
works now in hand to a lower scale than the pro-
moters, if left to themselves, would continue them at,
the consequence of throwing out of work those la-
bourers who would be the immediate victims of the
restraint will properly take the first place amongst
the many grounds for resisting a precedent opposed
to all former practice, and at variance with the re-
ceived doctrines of political wisdom.
The motion for a committee on the hills of this
session, it is obvious, must derive its chief significance
from the instructions given by the house at large to
the body deputed to report on the subject, and from the
manner in which these directions are carried out.
To hazard mere conjectures on the tenor of the one
or of the conduct of the other, at a moment when the
real course of the proceeding is on the eve of being
made known, wculd be superfluous. A word or two
only may be offered on the nature of the materials,
tho treatment of which the committee may hare to
determine.

Although the number of applications is not small,
the amount of enterprise they represent is in general
far from being considerable. Of independent
bills for new railways we find scarcely any
in the Gazelle. Of the new lines for which
notice bus been given, the greater part consists
of branches, extensions, and other supplements, to
extant railways ; besides these, no small part of the
business will consist of amendments, deviations, en-
largements of stations, 8:e. Each of the-o several
'classes of applications would obviously require to be
treated on grounds appropriate to the nature of each
respectively ; and the points of view from which all
may be regarded are so various, that it would be ne-
cessary to know what principles are to be assumed
for the direction of the survey, in order to divine
what the committee may have to do with them. In
its narrowest sphere of operation, the task may be
confined to a revision of standing orders, and
to the proposal of stricter conditions to be
observed is the conducting of the private-bill business.
In its widest scope, all the main questions that have
been agitated on this sulject may come to trial —from
that of the expediency of granting any more bills at
all, to that of the jurisdiction to be exercised in de-
termining which shall be suffered to proceed, or in
conducting the inquiry into the merits. In a field so
wide we must wait to see how it is intended to break
ground ; the direction once known, the course of ob-
servation will then become more definite. The minis-
terial views, alone, we need hardly say, cannot well
be taken as our guide to the proceedings of the house
on this subject, constituted as it now is, and we must
hear its determinations before we undertake to follow
the further course of the business.

Onr Paris letters of Wednesday say that the diplo-
matic services of M. Piscatory are about to be trans-
ferred from the court of Athens to that of Madrid.
M. Bacourt, who was designed for Madrid, is to re-
place the late Count Bresson at Naples.
The Parisjournals continue to give reports of the
reform banquets. A great manifestation of this kind
had just taken place at Conipi4ne, and another at
Montargis.
The Courrier Francais affirms that it is settled
that diplomatic conferences on the affairs of Switzer-
land are to be held at Baden by representatives of
England, France, Austria, Prussia, and the other great
powers.
Railways in France have rather a novel effect on
the transmission of correspondence through the me-
diation of the Poet-office. Every new line that is
opened retards the delivery of the correspondence.
This was the case when the line between Paris and
Amiens opened. Before Monday last the English
letters were delivered in Paris before ten o'clock. The
railway was opened for traffic to a point within eight
miles of Boulogne on Monday, and the line between
Paris and Boulogne was reduced to nine hours. Ac-
cordingly the letters were several hours later in
arriving. Oar Paris correspondent had not received
his London despatches until noon on Wednesday.

The Madrid journals and despatches of the 18th
have arrived, but those of the 19th are still due. The
letter of our correspondent, which will be found else-
where, gices the principal news. We learn that on
the occasion of her fke on the 19th, the Queen intended
to nominate the King to the high rank of generalissimo
of the army. Among Ws aides-de-camp, all of whom
will be generals, General Pezuela will be included.
No proceedings, except mere forma, had as yet taken
place in the Cortes. The Eco del Conserrio an-
nounces that the Union Bank will resume its pay-
ments. •

No event of importance had taken place at the
theatre of war in Switzerland at the departure of the
last &deices. At Friburg, order was in a great mea-
sure restored, and the state of siege and martial law
discontinued. Some excesses, inevitable in a country
which has been the scene of such a conflict, had been
committed, but they were repressed by the firm con-
duct of the civil and military authorities. The federal
army had crossed the frontier of Lucerne, and was
gradually closing round the capital of the Sonderbund.
Two Lucernese districts, Pfeffikon and Menzikon,
were seized and surrendered without the least resist-
ance. In two hours from the moment of the entrance
of the federal troops all was tranquil, the militia
having dispersed and returned to their respective
homee. Not a shot was fired. On the 18th the Lu-
cernese attempted a sortie into the Bernese territory,
in the neighbourhood of Huttwyl. General Dufour
having detached a division upon the menaced point,
they immediately retreated.
The news which we gave yesterday from Tessin is
in pert confirmed. It appears that the troops of the
Valais, being blockaded on the aide of Vaud, and
prevented from co-operating with Lucerne, had re-
solved to make a diversion in the direction of
Teseino. With this view, four or five battalions
having crowed the Puree, reached the canton of Uri,
and directed their march thence to the St.. Oothard, to
reinforce the Uri troops, which had already by that
route penetrated into Tessin. This reinforcement
having raised the forces of the league collected at that
place to 4,000, they took the offensive, and on the
17th, after a severe action, they advanced to Airolo,
where the battalion Casselini and a company of car-
biniers were quartered. This divieion were compelled
to retreat before the superior numbers of the league,
and fell back in the direction of Bellinzona, where
Col. Luvini, the commandant of the Tesaineee army,
had concentrated his forces, and where a decisive
battle was expected. It is net known whether the
Tessinese had yet received the reinforcement expected
from the Grisons by the Bernardino ; but, if so, the
united troops would have probably defeated the in-
vading force.

The Augsburg Oazelte states, on the authority of a
letter from Paris, that the general of the Jesuits has
given to the members of the onlerresiding in Switzer-
land instructions of a nature to facilitate an arrange-
ment in favour of the catholic cantons.

We continue to receive daily a multitude of reports
of the fomentation. produced in the Grand Duchy of
Tuscany, in consequence of the outrages against
humanity and the law of nations perpetrated by the
Prince of Modena, whose perfect sanity is more
and more questioned. The Patria, a Florence journal,
gives the most revolting accounts of the proceedings