The Express.
London, England, 1847-07-29 00:00:00

ght eportsW.

Me nab kr Ms ewe' ilea. Tr. Mire's lead, as I New
teabeivOl be nide op es *a wombs et della July.
The Went Ore mi. Wean Imo the lessimo, Reeileme.ri
tbe litentenelly wel be Ned, ep ea Or smereleg el the fad Awe.
The mei be DIY Meek awaits. Istritib. and Ile
Maim. ell bowie ve eagle eveebte et ihe Aerie.
Ties melleet make albrellm Ita/eAleseeh Ibe lealealdeekh
Taffeba"ollibbo_bakMeepieeger ebb% eis evalempee.
lee be node em tee iemleg et the Avert
Me mbar Hellemieobe Mew rit'il igo
b. tas pvire
ebiZn= "11". .el
MN."
AIN% mole "
The midle An Oporto, lielehs, Cadiz, ma Giber
will beadme up es the omen et Or Ilb Amulet.
The embed SIM tee Plertedba, to the bbellterrmee.,
evenin
rapt, g
tithe Aden, Onyloa. WI%B.eT Kan, lie, will be mode up on tie
tob August.

TO CORBESPONDINTS.
... A.bletlatliMb Webbed kr TY /womb Lowden meshy{ paper, mast b•
at the Oaks by Tv•yeebyek ea Ow 4by a pabliewba.

HIGH WATIII AT LOPDG\.DIIDOH.
Tut. Day—Morels& MI du. e•et 4. Alutynem, V sta. put 3.
To-It llerale4 31 Wu. put 3; ifterscou.:.3 W. Ht. 3.

LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY 29.

IT would be difficult to find two general elections
more completely dissimilar in the spirit which pervaded
them than those of 1841 and 1897. Material inte-
rests predominated in the one, moral and religious
interests exclusively occupy the other. Anxious fears
in 1841 filled the breasts of every individual whose
income was based upon monopoly, that the
time was come when all such unjust privi-
leges must peas away. The consciousness of those
combined parties, landed and mercantile, having a
powerful majority of the electoral, and of course of
the parliamentary, body, did not suffice to allay those
fears. For they saw in the spirit and progress of
the time, and of public opinion, a power that daily
expanded, and threatened to be irresistible. Never-
theirs', the monopolists took all precautions. They
scrutinised principles, questioned candidates, exacted
pledges, and succeeded in returning a House of Com-
mons, of which two-thirds were pledged to support
monopoly and resist free-trade. Of
_nhat sae were
the }Wye, of what avail the majorrsgainat the
current of events, the action of reason and of time ?

Much as is still left to be done for the development
of material interests and the equalisation of material
burdens, public anxiety is no longer directed to
these points. The great land and sugar lords have
nothing important or precious to defend. They have
had their revenge against the betrayer, and are
determined still to wreak it, but that is all. They
have no object in the future : their only bond is the
put. And they are thus affected and influenced
more by sentiment than reality.
The strongest current of opinion is that whick
demands the amelioration of the condition of the
poorer classes. This pervades all parties; and the
general wish, for it does not amount to a cry,
is, that there may be a government, strong, intel-
ligent, and bold enough to conceive and perfect a
policy fur such purpose. The force of this wish may
be judged from the disappointment of the public at the
failure of the sanitary measures introduced by the
government. Such measures are not of a nature to
awaken public enthusiasm in general, and yet entha-
slam they did awaken last session, and the mortifi-
cation was as great at the withdrawal of Lord Mott-
' PETII.B bill, as if some great principle of freedom bad
been extinguished.
Education is a far more important measure of im-
provement for the poor than sewerage of any kind ; and,
connected with education, the humanising of the more
brute and ignorant part of the population of the
empire through their clergy. The thought of every
statesman is fixed on these necessities, and the public
voice of the enlightened harmonises with these states-
manlike aims.

The repeal of corn-law restriction in 1841 and
the subsequent years seemed scarcely less urgent to
the patriots of that day than the necessity to abrogate
ignorance at the present day. What is passing in
our streets, and round our hustings, powerfully exem-
plifies that necessity, and points to the crime and
folly of giving the power of choosing legislators
to men within whose reach are not at the same time
placed the means and the opportunities of knowledge.
Popular education is the complement of the Reform
Bill. Without the oze the other is a nul-
lity, a source of corruption, a fount of bi-
gotry and license: without the education and ele-
vation of the poorer classes a general election is less
the exercise of freemen's rights, than the saturnalia
of the domestic slave. _ _

In punning the great and sacred object of educa-
tion ministers found themselves violently thwarted
by religious prejudices, by the prejudices of the
church and by those of dissent. These prejudices
are to education and popular advancement pre-
cisely what the prejudices of the monopolists
were to the cause of free trade. It is of no conse-
quence that the monopolists bear the same of barns,
whilst religions prejudice may claim to wear the
name of liberal. The obstruction is the same, of the
same nature, and to the same progrees.
In the cause of education Lord Jot►.v RUSSELL may
have erred, gone too much to one side, or to another
side ; as in the matter of the corn laws be erred too,
and consented to compromises as necessary, which he
afterwards learned to set aside. But who can doubt
the purity and loftiness of his aim in the one case, as
in the other? The few words which Lord JOHN
RUSSELL spoke yesterday on the hustings of Guild-
hall show ,that he considers himself the martyr to
education, as Sir ROBERT PEEL has been a martyr to
free trade.

There is in truth a similarity in their position.
The inveterate non-conformists are no other than
moral protectionists.
We must confess that we discern very little
courage in the attitude assumed, and the opinions
announced, by the other metropolitan candidates. All
arc anxious to catch the popular breeze; all are
anxious to say yea to the captious interrogation. But
we do not find any of them coming forward boldly
with an opinion decidedly their own, if that opinion
have the least risk in it. It is in this way that large
constituencies are duped and richly deserve to be so.

WE observe with great satisfaction that the way is
which the county elections have been managed is
attracting so much notice that eventual reformation
will be the certain result. There will be much
change in the persons representing counties in the
next parliament, and some improvement in the poli-
tics of county members: but the great thing which
will be effected at this election, with respect to the
county representation, will be the almost unanimous
agreement that it cannot be allowed to remain in its
present state. People are everywhere declaring that
me, industries" men, and not merely mires, ought to
be represented by the county members. Every
liberal elector asks why the landowners and gentry
alone are to nominate, and virtually elect, some
bigoted or incapable cadets of their owe class as
county members, while the electoral body indignantly
see good men mid true, about whom the electors would
gladly gather, carefully excluded. The fault is, however,
that of the electors themselves. They want timely or-
ganisation. They do not look ahead, either to be pre-
pared with their men, or the money necessary to contest
the coming representation with the aristocracy. Not
that there would be any difficulty in the matter, for to
attempt an organisation of county industry against
the monopoly of land would be oertam victory. Nothing
is wanting but a steady, continuous, and business-like
preparation. But the people mast act for themselves;
they must not trust to the accident of a sound and
wealthy liberal being found to incur the expense of
fighting the people's battle. Let county constituencies
learn from what is going on at the present election to
take immediate measures for the future improvement
of the county representation'
But much may be done now. In various districts
there are liberal candidates in the field, and they have
a right to expect the active personal exertions of
liberal electors. One of such districts is North
Cheshire, where Mr. ASTLEY has been called forth
by the electors, who are dissatisfied " with an agree-
ment said to have been entered into respecting the repre-
sentation of the division, and to which they have not
been parties." And the chairman of a meeting at which
Mr. ASTLEY addressed the electors was loudly cheered
when he said "It was not fit that any body of men
should assemble in some dark hole-and.oorner place,
at an extreme from the centre of the nom , and 'elect
whom they choose. This was the • involved
in this election, and it wee for to Manias
whether the election should be made in that mailman"

iii---
HeSo Mr. Asrfai hittteelf
had resolved • Meek a shed time Oro, her sane
influential ganthetso Moth Chosiden Vida try
stated that ahw people, Who aye le aepsider theneelves
as leaders in North Cimino, bad en Sit ewe neesteld
to return two geatisoss as npumblhosa
Vawirreeshire, witliss as kr as le kihowat
re
opinion of eartedy est sr the
ben sat
own, sod without eppolinp le et ody of the
a. The writer of the letter stand OM roe

_ ~'~

2

had been exeitilia. the minds of a large portion •of the
electors at thh temprontise, and they asked him whether be
would stead for this division of the county. He (Mr.
Astley) felt the same indignation at the attempt which had
been made to palm two members on the constituency of
North Cheshire, without asking their opinion about the
matter.

The result was a numerously signed requisition to
Mr. AsTLEY, and his appearance as a candidate.
Now, what has been done in North Cheshire has
been done elsewhere. A few great landowners
ensemble and decide who shall be the members for
the county, and the electors, in most cases helpless,
await the determination of the landed magnates. So
lamentable are the effects of this local oligarchical
rule, that the constituencies are but too glad if out of
three or four of the nominees of the aristocracy one
should prove to be a whig, or otherwise liberal. Yet,
in numberless cases, there is plenty of electoral power
to resist this domination; organisation and prepara-
tion are alone wanting. The landocracy is always
organised. In most counties the tory landowners
have an election fund, to which the acred magnates of
the county contribute largely, and are thus always
prepared to coerce the industrious sections of the
electors, and often to impose upon them as members
men of the most ridiculous incapacity.
At the present moment Hertfordshire presents •
pitiable spectacle of this sort. A compact has been
made between the tory and whig gentry, by which
Mr. BRAN I), a whig, is to be elected without opposi-
tion, in company with Mr. HALSEY and Sir HENRY
Metz, as tory members. Even now, late as it is,
there is not the slightest doubt that any known liberal
of station and leaf connexion, who, untrammelled by
such compact, would offer himself, would be trium-
Oantl7 elected. During the protectionist mania, when
Lord Wu e STOW became Earl SIVERULAII, Mr. HALSEY
was brought in, and his incapacity is so ludicrous and
notorious that he is never spoken of as a member by
friend or foe without a smile of contempt. Mr. HAL-
SEY, however, or his mamma, was found willing to
contribute a modicum to the tory fund at a time when
no man of political character would march through
the country with the falling protectionists, and he
became the equirearchal nonunee for the county of
Herter Sir HENRY ?deux, the other selection of the
tory landlords, as positively aa his colleague, is nega-
tively offensive to the constituency. Not that Sir
HENRY is less incapable than hie fellow tory, but he
has more mischievous propensities, which he; wealth
enables him to indulge.
Amongst the local grievances of Hertfordshire
Same-preserving ranks high, and Sir HENRY MEM(
is notorious for the eagerness with which he preserves
game, to the serious inry of his tenantry, and the
annoyance of all who hold land near his property.
Except as a game-preserver, a more complete per-
sonal nonentity than Sir HENRY MEUX does not
exist ; but his game-preserving propensities have ren-
dered him so unpopular with the farmers of the
county, that one universal feeling of disgust exists
amongst them that such a man should be forced upon
the county, in direct opposition to the wishes of four-
fifths of the electors. But the Hatfield-house clique has
its stock purse and its secret organisation, while the
electoral body remains supine. Hence the county is
to be, for this time at all events, thus insulted with
impunity.
What adds to the feeling against Sir HENRI' MEUX,
as a nominee of the Marquis of SALISBURY, is the
fact that, as a brewer, he is connected with trade, and
gains from the industry of the people that wealth,
which has enabled him to pay a large contribution
to the tory fund, and attain the equivocal honour
of being one of the nominees of Hatfield-house.
One good effect melting from this flagrant exertion
of landlord domination will probably be, a determi-
natiee on the part of the electors to guard against the
recurrence of such insult and injury. If tory land-
owners conspire, liberal electors may combine, and
the very wantonness of the wrong inflicted on the
constituency by the landocracy may arouse to action
the liberal electors, who might have borne to be
represented by two members of Noodledom, bet will
not bear an incapable who preserves game.