The Express.
London, England, 1849-11-06 00:00:00

glie expreoo.

OUTGOING MAILS.
TM wails We blarsellbse, r W Mediternwees, Egypt,
OspMa, WM, Ileag.iewg, is., will be Rade op tamer-
yew maim Nov 7.
TM seat nab t r Liaben, Sputa, sad Gibraltar wM be
mab u maarrew, Nev. 7.
TM Welt Lila YNM, eadadlag Nawasa,
Swam. Neadwas, New Orions, sad Ilezieo, sad ladediag
Owe ter Madeira, Jeaa-MNiestagsa. New °meads,
OM wad Pen, will be sae& up oa Nev. 17.
Tbe sails far Glreltar, Malta, Greece, the balm Mamie.
!opt, Ceylon dada, sad Mina, via bearbaaptea, will
Urea& up 'Wats weralag et Nov. M.

MOIR WWI= AT 10111110611 111101111.
?An 134•-74•Anieg. lA. ...... la. •a.
T....mearg•-1/mWor. Th... Allsesna, I b. Bea

LONDON, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8.

IT is time for all parties, and especially the people
themselves, to be stirring, in order to reticence the
se- rch of government and parliament in the approach-
ing esesion. no CHANCELLOR Of the HIM/ AVM
is conning his future budget. The Horse Guards,
still excited by the rounds of civil war which have so
lately died away, plead them as au excuse for keeping
up the forces. -However meek Rua* may have been
in any question likely to lead to eeriest' quarrels with
the maritime powers, the Admiralty will not fail
to urge the necessity of keeping up equipments.
Sister Mogi O'Futaau, so terrified at a handful of
Romans, is no doubt demanding more money for
guns, and tz lops, and priest., those conservative kinds
d ordnance for which renegade liberals sat:etas each
a passion. Marshal WaarLater the esegainary pro-
chucation and executions, will be of coarse for arm-
ing Cephalonia as well as Corfu elite fortifications, and
earning his Grand Cross of St. Michael. Lord Emirs,
who has been in a permanent funk for the last month',
will join the cry for more bayonets. And this cry
will be echoed by Lord HARRIS, Sir HARRY SMITH,
and all our military governors around the globe.
It behoves financial reformers to exert themselves
against 'he force of these recommendation.. How-
ever a just and thorough revision of taxation must
depend on a large etcetera] body, rendered more in-
dependent by the ballot, and by a fairer apportion-
ment of votes, still mu.!ti may be done, even at pre-
sent, by precise and shrewdly supported demands. Let
it be recollected that Mr. OMEN.'" proposal to re-
does the budget by ten millions, if it tailed of lopping
off the whole ten, reverthelese would mu the country
from two and a half to three millions. To carry this
further now, it will be necessary to emir to close
quarters with the foes, prodigality and placemanshipi
Another blue book Las made us as well acquainted
with the items of ordnance expenees, u former ones
have revealed the extravagance of the dock-yards
and the navy. Financial reformers have thus mate-
rial with which to work, and professional men are
no doubt to be found amongst them ready to aid in
the elucidation of such question., hitherto confined to
the clog', ts and scelunt books of offer rs.

It is of great use to propagate and encourage
throughout the population those pacific sentiments
which will prevent, the public from eapporting any
government in war. Tint of war at present there is
neither symptom nor likelihood. The only war is
that of governments upon public purses, and of the
non-productives against the productivee. That is the
war which financial reformers are called upon to cry
down. By stating the case clearly between Austria
and the money-leodint public. a loan from this country
for the support of foreign n.ilitary establishments has
been quashed. The same moral influence and sgita-
ticn ought not to be relaxed at haute, if our own mili-
tary budget is to be kept from creeping up once more
to eighteen and twenty millions.
Last year, it will be remembered, certain reduc-
tions in our military forces, which the outcry for re-
trenchrne,,t compelled ministers to make, were
nullified by the Sikh cutbreak. Th destruction,
however, of the last powerful and independent state
in Hindostan, has left the Indian government
no forger in need of such reinforcements.
They have no doubt returned. But whether an at-
tempt may not be made to niaint..in the army at its
present force, without any reduction, not even that
contemplated last year, no we is certain. Pretexts
aro never wanting. Although causes of uneasiness
are no longer to be found on the Indus or the Seidel,
the tranquillity of the cut, we shall be told, is coun-
terbalanced by the frowardness of the west. Ail oar
colonies in the new world are agitated at the sight of
the cheaper and more paternal errata of government
of the United States. All murmur annexation, which
instead of combating by cheap and paternal go-
vernment, or rather by allowing self-government,
our ministers will do by kerp,og up the army.
Of the three great excuses for keeping up military
expenditare—the continent, Ireland, and the colonies
—the last is, in our opinion, the most important to be
dealt with and to be robed. With respect to the
continent, the very war u the organs of expenditure
call them, or disturbances, throughout Europe, tub
minating in such an unsettle d elite, that every soldier
end every anxiety of each gwer assent are employed in
the preservation of domestic peace, render the conti-
nent troublesome to its rulers, not dangerous to us.
As to Ireland, at long se the cultivators of the land
have interests, not oily different from, but directly
hostile to, the owners of the same land, of coarse an
army mast be encamped in the country to keep the
peace. The peculiar tenure of land, however, which
demands such costly guardianship ought decidedly
to be made for it. When landlordism bases itself oa
coercion, the land should pay for it. Instead, there-
fare, of throwing half the burdens of the Irish police
upon the English taxpayer, as has been dons, we
should follow a diametrically opposite policy.
It is, however, flan reform of colonial abuses
that the greater and most important reductions are
to be achieved in our miliry expenditure. We have
an army of 45,000 men in our different colonies, a
great proportion of whom are, of course, on the
voyage, moving home, moving out, se moving bun
one c kw to another. Decimated by slimes of most
different extremes, it is dilimaitto esludaSehow many
English recruits are destroyed, In coder to tarnish
theca 43.000 effective men. The lease if calculated,
would frighten our hutnaidtarians. In most of our
colonies these men are under the greatest temptation.
to run away. And after all the trouble and expensed
rearing and drilling the soldier, he passes over theft''',
tier lot o he Unirstfitates, and beimmesavalued and en.
laable &tire°. Thiss,soy amelioration lathe
of the army, or shortening of its time of service,
mimes incompatible with colonial daty. Every
tire, therefore, prompts that colonies should
for tteir own di fang. furnish Toittlitheir own
corps, and thus save ihe mother country-uwexpense
of that large rotatory army which is really kept up
but for the name.
We were in hopes that the Colonial-office would
have ere this come forward with some plan of the
kind. We may, however, ho in rtirifor any Ira
initiation. And we must look to _Sic _Murex
MOLESWOBTH to follow up his motion for a com-
mittee of colonial inquiry, in the bopeithht the ele-
ments of such a reform may be stricken out, Judah,
En Aerials provided. Without .r•wder:ng the colonies
self-sufficing far definon, and without our adminis-

trails( sad legielatiog for them in consmes., we
seal =eke no proves either in our owe coommip
or is their coLcaliatton.
Now too is the tints to stir and ventilate the "Mode%
which if the public do not keep alive, Will
be but tooglad to let sleep.

-

WE cannot say that we fully understand: the aim
and purport et the speeches delivered at the Lois
ga
Mechanics' Institute. Mr. Mons not kavinla been
reported at all, we can say nothing in tO i$
dim -ours., except that hie rheum was a one. Mr.
ROEBUCK, we think, was equally unfortunate in an
ineflicionrepoeter,se was Mr. 'lnnis in having-none,
for we fail to comprehend his meaning; and having
read the comment in the Mess meant to explain Mr.
Bounces speech, we are still more in the dark than
ever. Instead of Maisons throwing any light upon
Marron.; we dad the commentatae text quite as
pagsling as the original.
- The hmt is, oar tone of literature and criticism is
pitched much too high. And when the weleducated
of the day condescend to writs books or make
speeches, or indite articles for popular readers or
**dimmer', they are too often unintelligible. A Leeds
mechanic would find no difficulty in comprehending
DZMOSTIKENSS or Matto, it fairly translated.
SMAICSPILAIII and Mt LTar, DUOS, ADDISON,
FIILDINO, Junius, WILLIAM CODISM were all
intelligible by the people of their day. There
was a link then between men of genius and
the people. Bat in our days the genUe and the
talented move in one sphere of ideas and of @spree-
sions, whilst the people move in another. Our lite-
rature, oar philosophy, our language, our very logic,
have become refined (in no good sense), exclusive, and
aristocratic. And when gentlemen speak—even gentle-
men like Mr. ROEBUCK, who call themselves plain
workin; mss, year really working man cannot under-
stand them.
Will any one point um out a single book, or a single
periodical, that li at once common to the gentle
reader and to the common one ? CHARLES DICKENS
MOWS nearest the mark, and he might come nearer.
Bat, in general, the upper ranks have their clam
of books and journals—the lower theses having
their own exclusively. We have heard of two na.
clove in Ireland. We most take oars, for there are
two nations springing up in England also ; and the
worst of it is that we seem not aware of it. .

Of old there were a great many things, pursuits,
ideas, common to all classes. Lord JOHN MANNERS will
tell as bow masters and labourers played rustic dames
together, and how gentle and simple mingled in the
I dance. At the theatre they mingled too. SHAHS? SARI
wrote for all classes. Poetry in very old times was
addressed especially to the lower classes, and it was
only when it was so, that great geniuses sprang up.
Oar literature having become addressed to an educated
class, this has done very well for books, but it his
killed the drama outright. There are Scorr's novels,
one of the greatest monuments ever raised by human
genius. But the people do not read Scary. In all
his tu-ticity he was a gentleman, steeped to the
neck in gentility. Throughout all his beautiful pic-
tures of low life, amiable and christianlike as be was,
there still reigns the de haul en bas spirit, which we
scarcely notice, or notice bat to consider graceful. I.
is snffiAent, however, to prevent the people from
reeding SCOTT. They prefer EUGENE SUE, or
' Miscellany.
ft i Relef
he same with oratory. Lord Maims is an
amiable and accomplished nobleman. But what
could pose- se him to s?eak an article from the
Quarterly at a Leeds mechanics' itetitute P What
was the moral of h e lordship's speech we cannot well
gather, except to warn folks from desultory reading,
and to hint that the anecdotes and light traits of his
tory were better worth study than the events and
heavy f.cts. If Lord MAHON means that all oar his-
tories, including his own, were written in a style and
spirit that no plain working Englishman could under-
stand,
or, if understanding, could sympathies with,
there was sense and truth in the remark.

With respect to Mr. ROEBUCK, we think he made
a great mistake. He thought and he said that his pre-
sence, and his uttering a speech ate. mechanics' institute
in Leeds, in which neither mechanics' voice nor lan-
guage were beard, were facts of mighty importance,
and very democratic symptoms. We beg to say
there was nothing in it democratic at all. Mr.ltoanucit
is precis ly of the same educated or over-educ sled and
fastidious class as Lord MAHON himself. He has
just as little of • workman's ideas, ore workmen's
langstaze or a workman's simplicity of logic and of
expres-ion. Mr. ROEBUCK, indeed, represents id en.
of lib. rty and of progrees; but he does so just as Lord
MAnoN would, if he hsppened to be in parliament
for a popular constituency. Mr. ROEBUCK repre-
sents the people, but he is not of the people.
He has no identity with them. And though
he is the talented advocate of many of
their claims, he want what the French call the popu-
lar fibre. And we desire no better proof than th's
speech of his.
We have considerable respect for Lord MAHON,
and great respect and hopes for Mr. ROEBUCK. But
what we are tired of is, to hear theee very respectable
orators speaking for the people and at the people, in
assemblies and associations called and formed to repre-
sent the ideas, advance the interests, and make
kaawnthesentiments of the people. Why nothave some
of the people to speak for themselves ? We are most
anxious to hear what they think, especially on each
topics as literature and eduction, and peculiarly at
Leeds. The fine library which was spoken of he■
surely formed and endowed many of those who use it,
with the ideas, and the power, and the capacity of
speech. We should like to have seen a living, a
thinking, a talking sample of what the mechanics'
institute has done. And we are confident that one
half hour of one really popular orator would have
been worth whole columns of that mock popular
oratory to which the very rcsrectable speakers at
Leeds treated the world on Fridsy.
Far from thinking with Mr. ROEBUCK that what
passed at this meeting, and what was spoken there
by himself, offered the least proof of the advance of
liberal ideas, or of the progress of democracy, we see,
on the contrary, in that, as in everything else, a proof
than an ultra spirit of gentility overshadows the land;
that it estranges, rather than instructs, the populsr
mind; and that instead of making any advances
towards a greater fusion or identity of upper and
lower clime., this ago is progressing, or rather retro-
gressing, in a precisely opposite direction. The
people ate educating themselves; but it is not either
in the sense of Lord 11Lutote, or in the non-sense of
Mr. Rotnocut.

"Ir is written—that the shoemaker should
meddle with his yard, and the tailor with his last,
the fisher with !tie pencil, and the painter with his
Leta." In cireposing their Board of Ordnance, mi-
nisters appear to have acted upon the precepts re-
hearsed by the worthy servant of old Capulet, who,
being unable to read, was furnished with • written
note of the persons he was to ask to the feast.
Col. the Hon.O. Aztecs, clerk of the Ordnance, the
first witness examined by the select committee on
army and ordnance estimate', stated that the beard
consists of three officer", the Surveyor-General, the
Clerk of the Ordnance, and thePrincepal Storekeeper.
On this hint Mr. Huss began to erase-examine him
as to the qualifications of the present Muter and
Board for the others they held. 'The witness fenced
desperately, but ultimately the following revelations
were extorted from him.

The Master-General of the Ordnance „is sot an
ordnance officer is any other genes :than am Master-
Gomel of the Ordnance ; " he "has never bean at-
teethed to the wWlery, except as Sluter-Gerieral of
the °tame* ;" he a cavalry officer. The Sur-
veyor-General "does not belong to the artillery; he
has never been u engineer Cr artillery officer. The
Clerk of the Ordnance " never belonged to the artillery
or engineers • " "he has had no experience in the
shape of instruction with the artillery foxes." The
Principal Storekeeper "is a captain is the navy;"
"all his experience as regards the artillery on shore
be acquired on board ship." "No member of the
beard ever belonged to the artillery or the engineer
service". The lelaster-Oereral never belonged to the
engineer emir" yet "the Muter-General has the
whole dition of the details of the artillery and en-
gineer schism." "All measures of finance issue from
the board, and all military details from the- Master-
General.'

One mama Is admitted to act at the Board of Ad-
miralty, but every silicoer who has been 'rained to the
departments cf engineering or artillery is oatelblly
ez4uded from the Board of Ordnanoe. 'The manage-
meat of that important arm is entrusted to a
dashing, cavalry officer; ,a naval °Seer, whom ampul-
e:see of utillery aaraia• as ohm ham beala acquired on

booed ship; a colonel, better known on the =
oa skid; aid anotbstiesobriele who
the moveumat ofeetillan in the Add" (cpuat Weed
wish?). hal has "itevstr acted as. artillery. officer."
All paedftl knowledge of oratanft matters *as
boa carefolly *Winded from tbi direction. of the
Oraittee—ern amateur master sad board have beat
preferred.
The amatmardirection of the Ordnance conducts its
business in a truly dilettante fashion. The Master-
General attends tee board "only occasionally." "If
one officer is present he forms a board." Captain
Dtrncax, when examined le 1837, stated : " We (the
board) are collectively responsible fee everything
which emanates from the board, acd therefore we are
obliged tow and sign every paper of any consequence
before it goes to the Master-General." Col. the Ilea.
0. Aesox was asked by Sir Jams GRAHAM, "is
that the can now r His answer is a curiosity in its
way : " That is the case, swept that every board
tifseer &vs not sign every peeper." Which being
translated into non-official English means: "That is
the ease, except that it is not the carte."
Colonel ANSON'S account of the special duties of
each member of the board is quite as edifying as his
amount of their car-operation. He states that there is
assigned to him as Clerked the Ordnance, " the finance
department entirely, the management and preparation
of the estimates, and all questions of finance." The
very next question put to him relates to the special
duties of the Surveyor-General, ar.d his answer is—
" The duties of the Surveyor-General's department
are principally to examine all bills which are incurred
by the ordnance in every part of the world ; all bills
from contractors, all the accounts from store-
keepers, and every description of charge agairst
the department are sent to the Surveyor-General to
be examined before they are allowed to be
charged and paid for." This reply, taken in con-
nexion with the assertion that " all questions of
finance" were referrel to the Clerk, of the Ordnance,
naturally elicited the question " wht tha the duty
assigned to the Surveyor-General is not one con-
nected with finance ?" At first Colonel ANSON
opined that it was not, because " he does not audit the
accounts;" bet being reminded that Sir HINNY HAR-
DISON stated in 1828 that " the bills of a tradesman
motivate money mast be audited by the Surveyor-
General," Camel Aresoe explained : " It is a kiid of
audit, bat not an audit of the expenditure."
The committee next directed their attention to the
special duties of the Principal Storekeeper, and
Colonel ANSON absolutely waxed pathetic on the
harsh treatment experienced by that ill-used and
usefol officer. "Is the storekeeper," asked Sir
JAMES GRAHAM, " responsible fur all the stores P "
" Yes, he is responale for the stores at the Tower
in • heavy bond for 6,0001, which has always ap-
peered to me an anomalous circumstance. I myself
was principal storekeeper once, and I know it was
thought advisable that the storekeeper should be re-
lieved from that necessity ; that he should have the
control of his department, instead of being, as he is
now, the principal storekeeper, entering into a bond
for the die security of stores which he cannot him
self personally superintend." Colonel Awaore is quite
alive to the hardship of a man's being bound in a
penalty to do what he cannot do; it does not appear
to have struck him that there is anything eraser in
that mares receiving a salary for what, not being able
to do, he of comic deem not do. He would have the
sinecure appointment made a sinecure out-and-outSu h is official morality and sentiment.

Sir ;AYES GRAHAM, whose official experience bas
made him a most troublesome putter tat awkward
questions, was anxious to obtain more specific
information as to the work really does by the board.
He began by asking, with great seeming simplicity,
" As to your large correspondence, when it arrives in
the morainic, who opens the letters P" Being told the
secretary, Sir JAMES proceeded to inquire whether that
officer arranged the letters according to the division of
business said by Colonel Alsace to obtain among the
three members of the board, and sent to each those
letters which rela'ed to the matters of which he took
cognisance ? The answer is edifying : "No ; there is
business connected with the secretary's office princi.
Daily ; we have also an office for the commissariat,
and also a barrack officer. The senior clerks of these
offices attend upon the secretary when the p
arrives, and as he open■ the letters he passes them
over to them. They take into their respective offices
the correapondeoce with respect to barracks, or with
respect to the contract branch of the Ordnance, and
look the papers over, and make the proper minutes
upon them. Further questions elicited that the
commissariat "hardly ever" has a decision taken ou
it by any board officer individually; that the barrack
branch of the office is not attached to any board '
officer individually; that the secretary prepares
the minutes upon the general correspondence which
comrs to his office for the board. No inspection
or control is exercised by the board over the
documents relatincr to the commissariat, the bar-
racks, or the miscellaneous heap taken in charge by
the secretary. The board (or the one officer compos-
ing it fur the time being) merely signs the minutes
prepared for it.
The Board of Ordnance is a perfect thing in its
way. It is composed of men who have no practical
experience of the business. They never trouble their
heads with a large proportion of the business, leaving
it to be eondected by subordinates free from suptrin-
tendenoe or control. The remainder they divide
among themselves after this fashion : -The Clerk of
the Ordnance takes "all the financial business;" th•'
Surveyor-General takes the rest of the financial busi-
ness; the Principal Storekeeper enters into a bond of
5,0001. for " the security of stores," which he himself li
cannot [and of coarse does not] personally saFerin-
tend ; the Master-Gene.al " attends the board
occa-
doaslly
The money annually expended by the Board cf
Ordnance amounts, one year with another, to consi-
derably more than two militias and a half. John
Bull! John Ball! this is the way your money goes.