The Express.
London, England, 1848-03-25 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, MARCH 25, 1848.

secrets of state. It may fairly be questioned whether
in modern European society such things as secrets of
state exist. But, waiving this consideration, it is
easy to show what information might safely be af-
orded by the most taciturn of diplomatists, and yet is
never given. There are eleven stations upon which
Admirals or Commodores are placed. Five of these
may be considered as composing in the aggre-
gate the home station : the Note, Portsmouth,
l)evonport, Cork, and the Mediterranean. Among
these is distributed that portion of the fleet
which it is deemed expedient to keep in hand,
so that it may be made available on any emer-
' gency. Three stations are ostensibly devoted to the
service of the colonies and dependencies—the West

Indies and Halifax station, ther Cape of Good Hope, i
and the East India stations. In point of fact, how- i
ever, they have other duties : the first has to watch
over the north Atlantic, the third has to keep the seas
of the far east clear of pirates, and the second forms a
connecting link between these, and also between two
others now to be named. The south-east coast of
America and the Pacific stations speak for themselves.
The west coast of Africa station is also perfectly in-
telligible—it is the Marine Folly of England. There
remains a floating balance of ships upon " par-
ticular service." Now, without revealing any great
game they have in hand, ministers might
safely, as the average force on each station ;
varies little from year to year, explain their reasons
for maintaining this permanent amount and distribu-
tion al veSSCIP. They might explain without reference
to impending or apprehended events, why it is
deemed necessary to keep permanently on hand on
the home stet ions of England and the Mediterranean, so
numerous a fleet as they do; why just so many and
no more ships are required as an average for the
stations of the colonies and dependencies; and why so
many for the purely foreign stations. The public
would thus be enabled to judge of what use the
average strength of the navy is to it, and whether
it is worth its while to continue to expend
as much upon this aggregate navy as it has
for some years been doing. We waive the consideration
of the wisdom or folly of laying out money in this
way as irrelevant to the question at present in hand :
our object is to show that explanations can be given
which are at present withheld, and to assure the par-
liamentary majority that by withholding, or sanction-
ing the withholding, of such information, they are
sure to engender wide-spread disaffection among the
unprivileged classes possessing political power.
Above all, the tone in which all proposals for reduc-
tion of military and naval expenditure are pooh-poohed
in the House of Commons is calculated to cause great
irritation in the provincial seats of commerce and
manufactures. It is felt that the landed gentry and
aristocracy who constitute the majority in one house of
parliament, and the whole of the other, also monopolise
the best and nearly all the appointments in the army
and navy. Admitting that members representing the
feelings and views of these districts may not be
versed in the amina of state management—admit-
ting that they may display ignorance when talking of
the mysteries of naval and military economy—it
would be better policy to put them right civilly than
to laugh or (as is sometimes attempted) bully them
down. The people who nay for the navy and army
are indignant at this conduct on the pact of those
classes who form the majority in parliament, and
monopolise military and naval emoluments. They
think it hard to be called upon to pay, and to be
treated with incivility at the same time. And though
these districts may not have much influence in the
political eideries of the metropolis, the Reform Bill
and anti-corn-law agitations show they hare some
influence in the country.

lIONOURtI,LE members are awfully frightened at
the recent exposures of electoral corruption, and de-
plore most piteously the sad fate of those who have
been discovered. Nay, ono honourable untouched
and unattacked member went so far as to say,
that if all the 03(.1 members had gone through
the ordeal, not 10 would retain their seats; and forth-
with there is an outcry against the law, which
enables justice to be administered and purity of elec-
tion to be vindicated.

When Lord Jerre Russet!. passed his simple but
most efficacious bill, enabling proof of bribery to be
given before proof of the agency of the parties
bribing, the House of Commons had little notion of
the change which would be made in electioneering
tactics. The old plans were rendered not only worth-
lees to the candidate, but fatal to the member. The
naked truth came out ; the parties who corrupted
were brought to light ; and in nine eases out of ten a
legal rig, nt—we do not mean the lawyer per excel-
knee, but the active manager of the election—was
found to have had some hand in the matter: the facts
appeared : the agency was proved beyond all doubt
during the progress of the inquiry into the acts done :
hence the most dexterous of the local corrupters were
caught, and the mere reversal of the order of pro-
ceeding increased one hundred fold the facilities of
detecting bribery.
Next came the noble lord's act disqualifying both
member and candidate who, before, at, or after any
election, directly or indirectly, at his expense, gave
any treating to electors or their friends, to induce the
immaculate electors to vote or to refrain from voting.
Here was another silent but certain blow struck at
the good old ways. Hitherto, beer and wine, and
grog—anything, in truth, but water—might have
flowed by the tun up to the taste of the writ : that
little piece of parchment acted like magic, " stopped
the tap," and caused a temporary sensation of the
drunkenness and debauchery. From that day till the
day after the election the " free and independent "
might get drunk " at their own expense:" up to that
day the candidates bled; and once let the election
be over, the saturnalia might again com-
mence. All this was done with perfect im-
punity : the electors were debauched : the can-
didates were fleeced. Now the face of things
is changed. Any drinking "at the candidate's ex-
pense" at any period before or at any period after the
election disqualifies the candidate, provided thedrink-
ing be for the purpose of influencing or rewarding
the vote. Old electioneerers—cautious men in all
former contests—noted not the change in the
law : they went on in the old jog-trot way ; here
giving refreshment tickets by the thousanb, and
there inviting the freemen to sup and to breakfast,
"as usual." They were caught by the stringency of
the law, and punished.
We do not pretend that the alteration in the treat-
ing act—the lengthening of the time et both ends—
has been half as effective in stopping that worst form
of corruption—treatir g—as the former act was in ex-
posing and defeating bribery direct. The amended
law is good as far as it goes ; but it only half hits the
blot. It makes the additional time apply only to
eases in which the member or candidate himself pays:
it leaves untouched the case of a friend doing it for
him, to be repaid when all has blown over, and the case
'of a regular cross between two candidates standing
at different places, and paying not their own but each
other's treating. In the present session we have
seen a committee refuse to apply the new act,
where 1,2001. were spent in eating and drinking
for a candidate induced to come forward, and who
was proposed at the hustings by the very man who
paid down the cash for the publicans bills, because it
was not proved that the candidate himself, out of his
own pocket, paid any part ; and there is nothing more
easy than for immaculate Mr. A., who is about to
stand for the borough of Guzzle, to pay all the treat-
ing expenses of purity 8., who stands for the city of
Swizzle, whilst B reciprocates the compliment. and
treat; A's worthy and thirsty constituents. In neither
case does the candidate himself pay: they interchange
the expenses, and both may be declared not to come
within the disqualification in the new act. We have
seen how delicately committees deal with these
matters ; and if the act be intended to be effectual,
it must be still further extended.
Therm are the changes in the law which have forced
committees to unseat where they never would have
dreamt of turning an honourable fellow-member out
of parliament; and it is only because the law is more
easy of application, and because more are caught in
its meshes, that we hear so many lamentations ut-
tered and grave statements made that there is no
member who must not shake in his shoes. Well they
may, if they or their agents have in truth been guilty
of the very practices which have exposed others to
punishment. It is net in Yarmouth, or Kinsale, or
Carlisle, or Lincoln, or Lancaster, or Harwich, or
Derby, or BeWdiey, or Horsham, alone, that these
customs have been perpetuated. We may well fancy
how great was the joy in Stafford when the solitary
c cos-making petitioner informed the SPEAKER that
he did notiniend to proceed with his petition. We
can conceive the intense satisfaction with which the
unpetitioued-spinet member perused the Totes of the