The Express.
London, England, 1847-07-05 00:00:00

415-xprosis.

MAILS.
The mails for the Brazils, the Elver Plate, Monte Video, Persam.
Woo, Bahia, Madeira, and Buenos Ayres, will be made up on the
gagaing of the Stb July.
The overland closed melts, via Marseilles, to the Mediterranean,
Zap; Aden, Ceylon, India, Meg Kong, &c., will be made up on the
eventng of the 7th July.
A mall for the United States, British North America, tke., will be
made up im the moreingof 10th July, for transmission by the steamer
Wethington, from Southampton. lettersandpapers most be specially
marked. "Per Washington."
The West India mails, excluding those for Mentes, Bandung, and
the Havenuah, will be made up on the morning of the 17th July.
The malls for Britt& North America, Bermuda, and the United
States, will be made up on the evening of the 19th July.
The overland malls few Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, the lonian lolanda,
Aden, Ceylon, Indio, Hong-Kong, end China, vie Southampton,
will-be made up cm the morning of the 20th July.
The mails for New South Wales, Van Diemen% Lend, and New
Zeeland will be made up on the evening of the Slit July.

TO CORISISPONDSNIII.
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du lbws* Ueda. sawing pew, mut be
et the Wise ►y Two eleck as Or eas abstain...

HIGH WATER AT LONDON.IRIDOR.
To D.laniag.l4 plat 6 ; Attaraosa.7l ail a. pad 7.
To.ll —lkeda% at obla gala 7; ARataam. W. pwl S.

LONDON MONDAY, JULY 5.
In ever there was a time when Englishmen should
make up their minds at last to live on terms of cour-
tesy and amity with the men of the same blood and
tongue, who inhabit the other side of the Atlantic, the
present is that time. A state of things has at length
been attained in the new continent, which has oblite-
rated all the old causes of jealousy. To the settlement
of the north-eastern frontier on the Maine, has sac-
ceeded the settlement of the Oregon. Our attempt to
erect an independent barrier to the south-west of the
American Union, in Texas, has not only failed, but
led directly to the absorption of that territory into
the Union.
Mexico, half occupied, and even that half not peopled,
by a race, to which no European council or aid am
communicate political wisdom, honesty, or courage,
has fallen by the natural current of human events
under Anglo American influence, if not sway. We
have not thought fit to interfere. England did not
consider the preservation of the balance of power in
the New World an object worthy of calling forth the
display. of her strength or the risk of war.
Having come to this resolution, and, we think,
wisely, and in fact acquiescing in the immense exten-
sion of the power and empire of the United States south-
westward, it would be most foolish in as to preserve
ill-humour, at the same time that we forswear hostility,
and to display in those prints and speeches,which repre-
sent public opinion, a Jealousy and a hatred towards
that people, for conquests as impossible for them to
avoid as for us to prevent. It is more natural that
we should take pride in Anglo-American peewees and
success, and in its superiority to other nem than that
we should feel lowered by their achievement% and
that we should bestow our entire sympathies ea
race apparently incapable of civil or religions began-
Independent of the removal of territorial dif-
ferences, that great arrangement has just been con-
cluded by which the soil of America, ploughed by the
descendants of Englishmen, is made to afford food fee
the dense population of the mother country, belied
in more productive arts than those of agriculture.
those arts supplying the more precious and costly
return. At such a time, when free and large inter-
change between the two hemispheres is established, it
becomes a matter of the first consideration for those
who guide and supply public opinion, whether the
mutual sentiments of the people of both countries
shall continue to be of the old, inveterate, and class
kind—whether they shall coning of that contempt
of aristocrat and democrat for each other, and of
those tory prejudices first sowed on this side of the
Atlantic, and which antagonist prejudices have pr.°.
duced a corresponding crop of hatred and deprecia-
tion on the other.
We cannot but think that the time has come for
burying such sentiments as these. Wherever they
are kept up, they seem to be so more from habit and
traditional petulance, than from any fresh or genuine
impulse of feeling. The worst ingredients of the old
tory spirit have been gradually discarded and flung
away by the more enlightened spirits of the tory
party. It has learned religious tolerance, stooped
provideto and feel for the poor. Instead of
combating and defying republican and revolu-
tionary countries, toryism has forsworn such war,
and proclaimed itself pacific and fraternising.
We no to have a Lord Chancellor proscribing the
Irish ea dins, a Foreign Secretary denouncing the
French as Jacobins, nor any one, who pretends to
statesmanship, hallooing the passions of the mob
against American democrats. But the press in this
respect lags behind the liberalism of public men. It
remains inveterate, insulting, anti-national ; and thus
asoltai in other lands a resentment which has really
awed to inflame any breast at home.
These remarks have been suggested by. the letter
of an American, which will be found in another

column, complaining not merely of the unfriendly
torte which prevails in our journals, but of the misre-
presentations made of the conduct of the American
army and generals is Mexico. Strictures of this kind,
and incorrect statements made of the generals of such
sensitive countries as France and the United States,
are very serious things. During the war of France
and Morocco, no act of the British government created
anything like the resentment and ill-feeling in France,
which was occasioned by the letter of a chaplain on
board the British fleet reflecting on the conduct of the
French admiral. And now we find that no protest of
Mr. PAICENHAM, or act of any of our diplomatists at
Mexico or Washington, have caused such ill blood as
the reckless abuse of the Times.
There .was one journal in New York, it will be
seen, which for years, through good report and evil
report, has been tree to the British connexion. Yet
even that journal, the Courier and Enquirer, has been
forced by the diatribes and representations of the
Times to turn round, and vituperate England, sup-
posed to be represented in those diatribes, and to re-
nounce those opinions in favour of England, of
English connexion and fairness, which it had adhered
to for years.
We might augment the extreme gravity of this
warning, by pointing to the Irish press, which each
year becomes more and more exclusively Irish, and
has the effect of excluding from Irish cars and
Irish minds every fair English sentiment. This is
in a great measure owing to the tone adopted by
the Times and too many English prints, not'
merely towards Irish agitators, but towards
the Irish as a nation and a race. The re-
sult of all this will be that John Bull, who
although a grumbler and a rough fellow, is still
honest, generous, and kind-hearted, will be so misled
and misrepresented by his seltcorudituted organs and
instructors, that he will become a CAIN amongst
nations, with his hand against every man, and every
man's hand against him. This was bad enough, when
England was really, bold and quarrelsome. But then
if people hated and resented, they at the same time
feared, us; but now that we have grown pacific, when
we resent no injuries, at least by war, and when we
shrink from no concessions, for us to retain the inve-
terate and defiant tone of war in conjunction with
the pacific and submissive policy of peace, will only
expose us to ridicule and contempt as well as hatred.

THE declaration of Lord JOUST RUSSELL that
" there exists a reasonable fear that a great portion
of the potato crop may perish in the present year"
has produced more alarm than we imagine his lord-
ship to have contemplated. It therefore seems de-
sirable to inquire into the facts, as far as they are
known, upon which such an opinion must have been
founded. _

-----
There is no doubt that symptoms of disease have
appeared all over the United Kingdom, from Inver-
ness to Jersey; and in such a variety of places, as to
render it certain that these symptoms are general.
Our advices announce the re-appearance of disease
in Germany, and although no one dares
to say so in France, it is equally certain
that the northern French crop is in a state
similar to oar own. The symptom is a dry gan-
grene, which attacks the stem of the potato plant
ander ground, followed by mall black soft spots on
the edges or points of the leaves. In some instances
the young potatoes are also bl tek or blackening; and
here and there the leaves and stems have withered

and decayed. Such being the state of the potato
fields in numerous places at this period of the year, it
is a natural inference that it will become the uni-

vernal state a few weeks hence, and this it is which
has excited so much alarm in the minds of everybody
acquainted with the facts —an alarm in which govern-
ment, with its means of early, certain, and extensive
information, could not fail to participate. But it is a
question, whether the danger which threatens us
again is so great as it appears to be.
It is within the knowledge of every one who has
studied this subject, that a material change in the
effects of the disease took place in the year 1846
through the southern and midland counties of Eug-
land. The fields were suddenly blighted, indeed, and
the growth of the plants was destroyed, bat
the proportion of decayed potatoes found. when the
crop was raised was small, and the untainted portion
kept well through the winter. A large part of the
potatoes in the markets was of good quality, and so
little were they inclined to rot, that the remains
of last year's crop is still on sale in the
shops of dealers in St. Giles's. We need not say how
different it was in 1845, when no art could save the
potatoes from rotting under any variety of circum-
stances. It would, therefore, appear that the consti-
tution of this root had materially improved in 1846,
and this gives room to hope for a further improve-
ment in 1847.
Nor do the symptoms hitherto observed diminish
this hope ; for they advance slowly, are in themselves
slight in comparison with what they have been, and
are certainly disappearing in some instances. The
dry underground gangrene is only dangerous when
it eats into the centre of the stem, its effect being the
sadden blight of tho whole plant; when the gangrene
makes but a superficial wound, its action is unimportant,
and the crop will be formed notwithstanding. Now
it is within our positive knowledge that in some cases
this gangrene, after establishing itself, has lost its
virulence, the parts affected have dried up, and new
sound living matter has been formed below it.
Wherever this action takes place, the plants will re-
cover, unless new causes induce a relapse. It is
obvious that since the disease has apparently. given
way in some cases, it may in many ; and herein is an
element of hope. The difficulty is to judge of the
cause of the improvement. If it arises from in-
crealed constitutional vigour in the plants, it
may be expected to go on ; if the disease has
only been stayed by a low temperature, gloomy
weather, and the slow growth attendant upon them,
in that case the disease will probably resume its
course with hot weather, bright suns, and heavy
rains. lbw this may be, no man can tell ; but it is to
be observed that, if the healthy state of the
crop can be maintained for a few weeks, a large
part of it will be placed beyond the reach of
danger ; for, in consequence of the general adoption of
autumnal or early spring planting, a course which,
it will be remembered, we long ago strenuously
advocated, a very considerable portion of the potato
crop of England is considerably in advance of former
years.
While, then, we entirely concur with government
In seeing cause for present alarm, we cannot but fancy
that there is also more reasonable ground for hope
than we have had at any time for the last two years.
But there are other grounds for attaching less im-
portance to the failure of the potato crop than in 1845
and 1846. There is very much less of it tofail. No doubt
can be entertained that upon the whole the quantity
of land ander potatoes in the United Kingdom is
much lees than formerly. Some speculators have
perhaps been tempted by high prices to venture upon
a larger breadth than usual, as, for instance, on the
banks of the Humber; but they are exceptions to the
rule ; and we should doubt whether in England
as much as two-thirds of the ground planted
with potatoes in 1846 is so occupied in 1847.
The state of the seed-market in May last
afforded conclusive evidence upon this point ; for long
before the end of the seed season it became impossible
to supply the demands upon the merchants. Con-
signments to Ireland, more especially, were enormous;
and the result has been, the substitution of other crops
in that country, to the extent, probably, of full five.
sixths of the old potato land.
It was stated in the debate which has given rime tol
these observations, that three acres of corn are re-
quired to replace an acre of potatoes, and we believe
the estimate to be correct But, independently of
other considerations, this fact loses much of its force'
when it is remembered that other crops besides corn
have been largely introduced into Ireland, and that
the nutritive value of parsnips, carrots, beet, and
turnips, is not materially different from that of
potatoes.
Upon the whole, then, we feel justified in saying
that, although the state of the potato crop is each as
to render it desirable that the moat serious attention
should be drawn to it, while there is yet time to get
other kinds of food
upon the land between the potato
rows, yet that there is good ground for hoping that
no such universal destruction of the crop as that of
the two last years will occur, and that, if it does
recur, its consequences upon the country will be much
, less disastrous than heretofore.
thus I

LORD GEORGE BENTDICIE does not object to the
importation of foreign corn in times of scarcity, pro-
vided he can prevent importers from getting ships to

THE EXPRESS, MONDAY EVENING, JULY 5, 1847.

bring it in. He lets the Corn Importation Bill
(No. 2) pass, and reserves his opposition for the Na-
vigation Bill (No. 2). To oppose the former he
knows would lay him open to the charge of preferring
the interest of his own class to the safety of the
people; to oppose the latter he hopes. may be ascribed
to disinterested concern for the interest of third
parties. The subterfuge is too transparent.
Moreover, Lord GEORGE, like most mon who take
up a trade for which neither nature nor education has
qualified them, seems fated to do harm where he means
to assist. The assertion that Lord Joint RUSSELL'S pro-
posal to suspend the navigation laws is " nothing but
a flimsy pretext by which he proposes to undermine
the existence of those laws " is the severest sarcasm
that could be uttered against them. It describes them
as so intolerable, that if suspended for a month or two
it will be impossible to persuade the nation to submit
to their re-enactment. Sir ROBERT PEEL saw that
if our ports were once thrown open to foreign grain,
the attempt to shut them again would be fruitless.
Lord GEORGE has the same prophetic vision of the
consequences of admitting foreign shipping; he has
an intimate conviction that if once the people of this
country contrive to slip the collar of the navigation-
laws off their necks, all the coaxing of himself and
colleagues will fail to induce them to submit to its
being padlocked on them affain.
Not satisfied with thus giving the navigation laws a
bad character by implication, Lord GEORGE men-
tioned some reasons why even shipowners must
feel them oppressive. These laws Lord GEORGE
frankly admitted were "not designed for the advan-
tage of oar commercial marine, and the ground
which he assigned for this opinion isconclusive. Under
the navigation laws British vessels must carry four
men and a boy for every 100 tons of admeaaurement :
the shipowners of the United States find three
men for every 100 tons quite sufficient. Lest the
prey of the press-gangs should become deficient, Bri-
tish vessels are obliged to carry for every 100 tons
they measure one man more thin is needed, and, as
if this were not enough, eta apprentice, to pre-
vent any possible diminution in the number
rot superfluous seamen. The navigation laws compel
British shipowners to employ crews more numerous
by two-fifths than is absolutely necessary, and to have
one-fifth of them apprentices. Journeymen are apt to
grumble when they think masters, by taking on too
many apprentices, so increase the numbers in the
trade that wages must, by competition, be of necessity
beaten down below a fair remunerative rate. And here
we have a class of master.; compelled by law to take
on a succession of apprentices in such numbers as
must necessarily produce this effect. In this way the
navigation laws have compelled shipowners to train
more seamen than they can find employment
for. And what is the consequence ? That our surplus
seamen are compelled to seek employment on
board the merchantmen of the United States. All
things considered, the pay in the American mer-
chant service is not better than our own, and the treat-
ment of the seamen much worse. Any person who is
sceptical on this point need only read DANA'S " Year
before the Mast," and BROWN'S whaling adventures,
or the account given by Captain Nirtutes, in his
narrative of the United States discovery expedition, of
the treatment experienced by sailors on board the Ame-
rican merchantmen and whaling ships in the South Seas.
The American commercial navy is nearly one-fourth
manned by English seamen, because the constant
succession of swarms of apprentices made obligatory
by the navigation laws renders it impossible for them
to find employment under their own flag. And this
cruel injustice both to the sailor and his employer is
necessary, Lord GEORGE and statesmen of his
calibre coolly say, in order to keep up the stock of
pressable men. The country party would preserve game
for the battues of squires and nobles; they would pre-
serve sailors for the battues of the press-gang. Hence
the navigation laws are in their eyes almost as sacred
as the game laws.

The letters of our correspondent and the Paris
journals of Friday and Saturday have arrived. More
detailed accouritsof the movements of Abd-el-Kader on
the frontier of Morocco have been received through
Spain. It is now said that the Emir has changed kis
policy, and while he aims at establishing a peace with
France, to effect which he has solicited the good
offices of the Spanish government, he has turned his
hostility against Morocco, and if reports do not
exaggerate his designs, he even meditates the over-
throw of the sovereign of that state. The Emperor
of Morocco, thus menaced, and seeing Abd-el-Kader
within his territory, ordered the Kaid El Amar, at
the head of a small body of troops, to seize the emir,
and carry him off. This was a commission, however,
not so easily executed as conceived. The emir, at
the head of 500 horse and 200 foot soldiers, was
attacked on June 14 by El Amar, when the latter
was repulsed with a loos of seventy horsemen. An-
other unsuccessful attack was made on the lath,
after which the camp of El Amer was invaded and
pillaged, and that chief himself decapitated. If these
accounts be trae,Abd-el-Kader is now in occupation of
an extensive province of Morocco, called the Riff, on
the frontiers of the French colony, and including sea-
ports, by which supplies of every sort can be ob-
tained. It is repeated that Abd-el-Kader still con-
tinues to express a fixed determination to maintain
peace with France.
The French legislature is under the persuasion that
the progress of public works, and more especially of
railways, has been pushed more rapidly than is com-
patible with the healthy operation of the commerce
and finances of the country, and it is determined to
apply the break to the national enterprise. The
minister of public works had demanded credits for
the railways projected and in progress, amounting to
a sum equivalent to nearly two millions and a half
sterling. The committee of the chamber to which
this demand was referred, has reduced it to lees than
a million.
The majority commanded by the ministry in the
chamber has been sufficient to extricate it from the
difficulties produced by the disclosures of M. Emile
de Oirardin, so far as concerns the chamber itself, but
has done nothing to exculpate it before the tribunal
of public opinion. The character of the accuser in this
case would operate favourably for the accused if
the inquiry had been allowed to proceed, but the evi-
dence prodaced, and more still, which it is believed
would have been elicited by a searching investigation,
is too decisive to be neutralised by the questionable
morality of the editor of La Presse. M. de Oirardin
reiterates his charges, and they are without refuta-
tion, and even to a certain extent without contradic-
tion. The following are his allegations in their moat
condensed and most emphatic form 1. That M.
Adam, the patentee of the new opera house, paid
4,0001. for the privilege granted by M. Duchtitel, mi-
nister of the interior. 2. That a memoire of Baron
Lambert had been bought up for 1,2001. 3. That
50,0001. had been demanded from the postmasters of
France, as a donoeur to bring in a law in their favour
to indemnify them for what they must loss by
the railways. 4. That the cross of the Legion
of Honour was sold to a bankrupt. 5. That
2001. per month was
That
for the support of the
Globe newspaper. 6. That an insulting condition
was annexed to the offer of a peerage ; and, 7th and
lastly, that the promise of a peerage was sold for
3,0001. Several of these allegations have been sup-
ported by documentary proof of incontestable authen-
ticity, and none of them have received any conclusive
contradiction. In a word, no individual is found in
public or in private who seriously doubts their truth.
The official returns of the commerce of France foe'
1846 have just been published. The gross amount of
import duties paid was 1,258 millions of francs, that
of the export duties being 1,178 millions. There is a
diminution in the former, and an increase in the latter
amount, as compared with 1845. On the whole, there
is a alight increase of nine millions.
It is expected that the Minister of Finance will
present to the chamber, in a few days, a project of law
for a new loan.

The Madridjournals to the 28th with the letter of
our own correspondent, which we give below, have
been received. Important changes are reported to be
in progress in the customs, the effect of which will be
an extensive reduction of the import duties on nume-
rous classes of articles. Advices from Barcelona to
the 25th bring en account of en engagement between
a party of Mentemolinists and a detachment of the
royal troops, in the mountains of Catalonia, in which
several were killed and wounded on both sides. The
Montemolinista on the approach of night effected their
retreat into the mountains. The Queen's troops had
seven killed and sixteen wounded. The insurgents
had twenty-ono killed and several wounded and
prisoners.
The Queen appeared for the first time on the 27th
in her promenade unattended by the Infante boa