The Express.
London, England, 1846-11-04 00:00:00

Zlit preoo.

MAILS.
The mail• for Madeira, Brazils, and Buenos Ayres, will be mode up
on the morning of the 4th Nor. (this day`,.
The mills fur Corunna, Vigo, Oporto, laAbon. Madeira, Cadiz, and
Gibraltar, will be made up on the morning of the 711.1 November.

The overl.ind closed mails, via Marseilles, to the Mediterranean,
Egypt, Aden, Ceylon. India, Hong-Kong, ke., w all be made up on the
evening of the 7111 November.)
The mails for British North America, Bermuda, and the United
States, will be made up on the evening of the lath November.

overland wails (or Gibraltar, Ngh*, Greece, the lonian Islands,
Fitttlpt. Adm. etrlon. Hong-Kong, and China, elm Southampton,
will be made up on the morning of the 20th November.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
We cannot notice, in my way, any communication that in sent to no
anonymously; but thine who choose to adders" no In confidence will
find their confidence resmted. NEITHER CAN WE UNDERTAKE
TO RETURN ANY MARUSCIIIFTS WDATk.VEII.
Advertisements intended for The Express, London evening paw,
must be at the Once by Two o'clock on the day ut publication.

MGR WATER AT LONDON-BRIDGE.
Tan DAT. —.Morning, I min. put 2; Allen." 21 min. post 3.
louoakow. —Morning, 43 min. post 2; Afternoon, 2 min. put 3.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 4.

THE Irish are an audience, whose Car and temper
have been so lamentably spoiled, that to please or
persuade it is a most difficult attempt. It has been
long and well accustomed to gross abuse on the part
of foes, and to a kind of half comical, half pathetic
coaxing on the part of friends ; but any language be-
tween such extremes, words of firmness and of rea-
son, these the Irish have never heard. Lord JOHN
RUSSELL, therefore, we are sorry to say, has been
making use of an unknown tongue, in penning his
didactic letter to an Irish chief. The nation does not
unders..and it. Accustomed to either compliments
or vituperation, they suspect the man who
approaches them without one or the other
A tone of gentle reproof is derogatory to their dig-
nity, and any moderate tribute to their virtues and
sufferings is set down as cold hypocrisy. The "'wits
milieu, which F.offiesit Statesmanship afters, Is dis-
tasteful, inappreciable to the Irish, and forms the
true secret of that unpopularity, which from time to
time has so unaccountably assailed Whig efforts for
their emancipation and improvement.
But however unreasonable the Irish, this is scarcely
a moment when cool and dispassionate judgment can
be expected of them. All classes are sorely tried.
Famine and penury overstride the land ; and, like
Death, strike at the gate of the landlord,
es well as at the .cabin of the peasant.
In the distressed state of Irish landlords generally,
and more especially at present, it was not to be other-
wise than expected, that, finding themselves asso-
ciated with the Government in the great task of
finding work, and affording relief to the Irish
peasantry, they should seek to throw upon so broad-
, shouldered a colleague the onus of subscription
and of debt. The generous and bold manner in
which Lord BESSBOROV6H met theiv first objection
to public works, ought however to have disarmed the
Irish landlords. And it is really disgraceful to find
them, after this, swelling the popular clamour against
the Board of Works, for not being übiquitous, or for
not superseding all the natural machinery of subsist-
ence and employ.
This Board, the LORD LIErIENANT asserts, has
nearly a million of persons in its employ. Add to this
the numbers in the families dependent on those em-
ployed ; and the result displays a proportion of the
whole Irish population relieved from want, which
goes far to remove men's fears, and to satisfy the most
desponding, that the paternal benevolence of govern-
ment will have attained its aim in staying the pro-
gress of famine.
There is, unfortunately, however, no resting place
in the efforts for Irish relief. And the moment one
feels somewhat reassured on the subject of the popu-
lation getting over the present winter, anxiety turns
to future seasons, and inquires what remedies have
been applied, not merely for combating temporary
famine, but permanent destitution.
Those who pleaded, that money for the employ-
ment of the poor should be expended not in public
or unproductive works, but in the improvement of
private estates, which would thus be enabled to raise
more food, ought to have been called to specify what
kind of food they proposed thus to raise. Is it that
kind of produce which naturally forms the sustenance
of the people—or that more precious kind, drawn off
by exportation, and the greater part of which is
destined to evaporate in rent ? Are these draining
laws and clauses which Mr. O'CoNNELL so emphati-
cally insisted on, to contribute to the improvement of
land already cultivated, or arc they to apply
to the reclaiming of waste and bog land ?
Are they to increase the breadth of soil
under cultivation, and give homesteads and loca-
tion to fresh tenants, or are they merely to add
fresh value to that which is already occupied as corn
field and pasture? The difference is important. We
do not think that the State should be called on to
advance sixpence to the latter ; whilst it should gene-
rously contribute funds and directions for the fur-
therance of the former.

A controversy is now going on between certain
publicists and journalists as to the best mode of
locating cultivators on the waste lands in Ireland.
One would make them proprietors, another tenants.
We would observe, that waste land without capital to
reclaim it, is alike useless to the squatter and to the
state. It deteriorates him, without enriching it. If
the state or the country is to find the capital,
the idea of endowing the peasant with both
it and the land, is being somewhat over cha-
ritable. Neither is proprietorship the greatest
impulse to exertion. The French peasant is a pro-
prietor, and he consequently makes no effort ; he stag-
nates, and it merely requires a population treading
close on the capacities of the soil, in order to reduce
the French cottier to a par with the Irish. The model
of an active squatter is the American. He, indeed,
has the right of property. Bat is it permanent? On
the contrary, the moment he has reclaimed a spot,
he sells it to another for the price of his improvement,
and marches off into the wilds, to squat and to re-
claim once more.

-
We do not see, therefore, why the waste lands of