The Express.
London, England, 1851-02-27 00:00:00

nistrative talents of Lord GREY, nor yet of Sir
CosaLes Woou. Ile is defunct, unless the Times'
intrigue should galvanise him. What we would say
is, that the country have a right to have
tho best men of the liberal party to form
the cabinet. In order to have them, we
must not allow the chiefs of families to expel
other chiefs of families. We must insist on
having the best men, withbut their tails. We want
Lord JiniN without the Itusse.u.s and Ei.i.urrrs—
Lord GREY without his rlientelle. If Lord Jonx is
to be exiled to Woburn, we cannot do less than
fling Sir CIIARLE-4 Wool, into the 'flumes. Let
us have a cabinet of capable men, business'
men, trustworthy men ; and let us not allow
them to form cliques and family parties, each de-
claring that he cannot come in without his friends,
as if a ministerial council was like a feudal gather-
ing, in which opinions prevailed according to the
length of the chieftain's tail. Let us have a broad
cabinet, no snug family party of Cia.tit ill and
GREY, one pretending to Ire a conservative, the other
affecting to be liberal, and neither being either the
one or the other but so fur as it suits them, to gull
the House and make political capital.
Constitutional government, as far as it is carried
on by a cabinet, has hitherto been a humbug. And
what the Times and other people are now striving at,
is just to substitute a complex humbug for a simple
one. We can see plainly the intrigues getting up for
the purpose. Whoever will look into them will see
nothing but baseness and selfishness at work. And
if the public light be not let in, the same will go on
to the end of tune.

W► see that an inquiry into the Barham Union
has led to the proof that in no establishment of the
kind is the dietary more satisfactory, nor the comfort
of the poor better looked to. The inquire, however,
should have been not into the dietary, but into the
external provocation to revolt.
So strong a case of suspicion that some of the local
squires, parsons, and tenant farmers, have had their
fingers in the Barham union workhouse pie, and
have been engaged in there getting up a protection
plot, to frighten parliament into the belief that.
though Mr. BAINES' returns show a large and sub-
stantial decrease in pauperism, all the union houses
in the country arc bursting with paupers—so strong
a case of suspicion of this sort was made out by the
Ipswich Erp:ess as to have rendered, one should
think, a rigorous investigation indispensable, either
for the purpose of disproving the imputation, or of
sounding the criminal protectionist depths to which'
seltishnes.s ran descend.

The charge of a conspiracy to stimulate pauper
outra;,•es for party, political, and selfish purposes, is,
however, so serious a one—is so repugnant to all our
notions of rural virtue and of bucolic simplicity,
and is so inconsistent with that devoted loyalty of
country gentlemen which professes, even when not
smiled upon, to be still the same, that, though the
landed interest are not to be valued at their own
price, some hesitation must nevertheless be felt in
treating this matter at present in any stronger light
than as affording suspicions.
This much is, however, undeniable, that for
two years in succession riots by able-Naha' agricul-
tural labourer; have burst firth in the Barham
union-house, just as parliament opened; that the
immediate cause of these riots has been the over-
crowding of a house with accommodation for 80
paupers of that sort with nearly two-thirds more ;
and that the condition of this house has been held
in certain quarters to lie conclusive evidence that
labourers, us we 11 as landowners and occupiers,
are suffering from free trade and cheap and good
bread.

The Barham union is thinly peopled, and corn-
'wises a district of strong heavy land, requiring
much labour to cultivate it, end paying large rents
when so expensively cultivated; and February is a
month when the spring requirements of agriculture
increase the demand for labour; when, consequently,
workhouses ought not to lx• crowded with able-
bodied paupers. February, too, in this year has been
even unusually fitted for out•doar occupation. So
that, both on georral and- spevial grounds, the Bar-
ham union-house ought not to have hewn excessively
crowded with able-bodied laulx•rs on the 9th of
February, 1851.
Nor were the adjoining union houses. In two of
them the number of üble-bodied paupers was less on
the lath of February last. than it was in the corre-
sponding days in 1415, 18141, and Mill; and in
another it was less than in the two former years,
and only exectakd in 105.51 by uue the !mintier of

Bat ham union workhouse contains. we have said,
nceounmsl.ctiou f KO able-bodied labourent. the
the Ilth of February,. 18.10, a riot burst forth in it.
no honse then contained IDS able-bodied 'louvers
or 2$ in exoNet Of its proper number. On the
9th of February, DM, another riot oreurnd
its walls; it then having 124 of such inmates, or
4.1 more than it ought to have had. On both aces-
s. ecclesiastical justices of the peace called in the
aid of the OrttrtY's troops to suppress the riot ; and
on neither were the military of the least use; the
cavalry from Ipswich standing looking foolishly on,
whilst the pansh constables inside did all that was
necessary. The hurrv-wum of expo,. in 1850
and Issl to Ipswich 'barracks, and the galloping of
a troop of Lancers across the country to Barham
were, however, calculated to ,•reate alarm, and to
• give a frightful notion to parliament of the revolu-
tionary state of agricultural mind and habits in Suf-
folk. It is, nevertheless, quite possible to pitch reme-
dial measures so strong, as to excite suspicion ; and
thus it proved on these memorable occasions.
Whether, previously to the Sth of February, IMO,
the date or the former riot, numbers of able-bodied
paupers had been suddenly poured into the house, is
not stated, hut will, &Witless, constitute an im-
portant point in the investigation to be held. Such
was. however, the Me in the present year ; for just
as the demand for farm labour Was increasing else-
where. it seems to have, on an instant, as it
wen•. diminished in the Barham union. On the Ist
of January, 1831, there were in the house 30 able.
bodied paupers ; on the 9th of February, 1831,
there were 124 ; two days after there were only 7R.
Now, on the very day before the riot, 37 able-bodied
paupers were sent in 'by the guardians ; amongst them
wen• men named PrNG, Git.tisttrit, PLATEN, BROWN,
SILLETr. and M RJORAM—aII fellows of notoriously
ill-reputations and disorderly habits; ready for any
outrage. _ _ _

Barham union was under the government of Mr.
How sum who, thqugh a strict disciplinarian. is
stated to have been generally liked by the inmates ;
nor is any charge of ill-treatment made against any
of his subordinates. The dietary was on the
fullest scale; the allowances of food having been
twice of late increased. and exceeding in quantity
those of the Ipswich Union house. The paupers
had, theafore. neither insufficient food nor internal
tyranny to fairly complain of.
On the day of the riot the paupers had dined
and visited each other, as usual. Towards the
afternoon the new comers-in became, without the
lcast provocation, disorderly ' • were joined by
others; a general rebellion followed : and the
house was fairly wreeked: the men before named
being the ringleaders. On Tuesday evening, the 11th,
Mr. Dtsa %Yu brought forward his motion on agri-
cultural distress; and, just previously to his rising,
a question as to these disturnees was put to minis-
ters in the house of Commons. The riot came,
therefore, apropos for the motion.

There are in the union 39 guardians, all stout and
stiff protectionists; and the business is chiefly con-
diteted by two clerical justices of the peace, both of
whom tire landowner., and think of free trade as
landowners generally do. By the guardians Mr.
HOWARD, the governor (entertaining free trade
opinions). appears to have been insufficiently sup-
ported ; assaults by paupers on him had been very
leniently dealt with by the ecclesiastical magistrates
aforesaid : and his salary was attempted to be re-
&teed. Mr. Rowan!) Objected to the reception of
such large numbers of able-bodied paupers. but his
objections were overruled ; and in thee were pressed
I and pressed. That as a body the guardians did co
fur the purpose of creating di2ittirbanees is incredible.
But it is boldly stated that there was a feeling out
side. whilst the paupers were being thus poured in,
that the riot °lima rear would be repeated ; that s -me
of the farmers had dismissed labourers, telling them
to go to the union; that others had expressed a
desire in the presence of their labourers to see
the union pulled down; that one of the guardians
had gone fbrther, and threatened to " fill the house
to osertiowing." as that would speak volumes to
the legislature," sad that PuNG, one of the leading