The Express.
London, England, 1867-01-26 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, JANUARY 26, 1867.

before the House last year, Mr. SEELY shows
that the cost charged as repairs to certain ships is
out of all proportion to their value when new.
The Frederick William would have been built by
a private builder for 134,4531., but her repairs
are charged at 281,691/. On five vessels the
repairs amounted to 232,0901., while the whole
five might have been bought new for 152,148/.
These grave and damaging charges are a specimen
of what Mr.SEELY has substantiated, or is prepared
to substantiate. They not only mean that there
has been outrageous waste, if not plunder, in the
dockyards, but that it has been going on without
the smallest check on the part of the superior
officers, without reproof by the Government,
without discovery by the House of Com-
mons. The country now, thanks to Mr.
SEELY, sees how it is governed, and how efficient
are its parliamentary representatives. And while
all this squandering of public money has been
taking place, the estimates have been carried to an
unprecedented height, on the allegation that it was
necessary to reconstruct the navy, and yet official
incompetence has failed to give us either vessels or
guns proportionate to our needs. We send
wooden ships to foreign stations, we despatch even
ironclad* without a single steel shot or shell,
without which their guns would be no better than
popguns against an armoured vessel. We indulge
the petty prejudices of officials to the peril of our
naval supremacy, rejecting through the personal
jealousy of the head of a department the systems
which every other progressive maritime power is
adopting. But all is carried on without re-
monstrance from the model representatives of
the ten-pounders who, we are perpetually told,
carry into effect every improvement and every
reform that is necessary or desired. And as these
abuses continue in full force, even under a govern-
ment which piques itself on departmental ability,
and on no other, we may perhaps be allowed to
think that a change which would make the nation
more closely interested in its own affairs, which
would send to the House fewer nominees of great
families, or owners of long purses, and more
business men, and representatives of business men,
would be vastly conducive to the more faithful
administration of public affairs.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THII3 DAY.)

The Times this morning publishes a letter from
its correspondent at Washington, giving an account of a
conversation with President Johnson upon passing events.
" Mr. Johnson," he says, " was good enough to give me
an interview this evening at the White House, and he
expressed to me the views which I shall, with his unction,
endeavour to repeat to you." These views, it may
be Wetly stated, differ in no material respect from
those which the President has put forward in his
various messages to Congress. With regard to the
threatened impeachment, the President said with a smile:
" I had contracted Old-world ideas, derived from Magna
Charts and so downwards, respecting the right of the
accused to be heard, and to be fairly tried, but these seem
to be going out of date. Now a committee sitting in
secret, and hearing one side only, and that side the
enemies of the accused, prejudge his case. It is a con-
sistent part of the general system which we see being
pursued." The Times, in its leading article columns,
fully endorses Mr. Johnson's arguments.
In other articles the Times treats of the unequal rating
of the metropolis, the condition of trades' unions. and the
search of passengers' luggage. While the serious evils of
the present unequal rating in London are fully admitted,
the Times expresses a belief that difficulties not only of
parochial working but of principle are opposed to a general
taxation of the metropolis. Trades' unions, if their exist-
ence is allowed at all, ought, the Times argues, to be
allowed to be brought under the same set of rules as ordi-
nary friendly societies, requiring them on the one hand to
register all their rules, requiring that those rules should
be conformable to law, declaring all rules not registered
absolutely void, and inflicting penalties on any one who
strove to put them into execution, and, in return for this,
giving to them every legal facility for arranging their
difficulties with strangers, and as between the society and
its own members the simple and inexpensive method
of settling dill', rences pointed out by the existing law.
With regard to the luggage question the Times thinks the
English government should make the first advance. All
that Mr. Disraeli is now asked to do is to consent to an
exceptional course upon an exceptional occasion. The
policy of a general change is quite another matter, and may
be discussed at a future time. It I. not under considera-
tion now.

The Daily News believes that on the whole the advan-
tages of Signor Scialojes financial scheme considerably
outweigh the objections which may be raised against it,
Whatever may be its defects it possesses the one para-
mount virtue of necessity. Only the perversity of fac-
tion can refuse to it this supreme and terrible merit. If
the plan is rejected the government will probably dissolve,
and this will cause a delay which the country can ill
afford.

In other articles the Daily News shows the ad-
vantages which • railway to India by the yalleT:fkl t!e
Euphrates would passer. It would save • thousand miles
in distance and shorten the period of transit by ten days.
The line of railway from sea to sea neoeseary to perfect
the coma cation is 900 miles, and it is stated on good
eniliP.'eering authority that it could be made for 10,000/, a
mile. If that be so, this magnificent route to
India may he acquired for • little more than
half the cost of the Chatham and Dover Railway,
The construction of this railway has now become a subject
of pressing importance, and the difficulties of Turkey are
• reason for its immediate solution.

A third article in the Daily News discusses the
question of Mormonism. Some interesting extracts are
given from Mr. Hepworth Dixon's new work, and •
hope is expressed that a bill which has been brought
into the American Congress for the abolition of
polygamy in Utah will pass this session. Con-
gress has only to re-organise the territory of Utah and
make provision for the encouragement of emigration, in
order both to submerge Mormonism as • political power
and put an end to its institution as a social phenomenon.
The Post hears that the long•pending differences
between Hungary and the court of Vienna have been
satisfactorily adjusted. A separate Hungarian ministry
has been conceded, and the nomination of its members is
almost complete. The new ministers will enter upon
their functions as soon as the Reicharath Extraordinary is
assembled.

The Star thinks that no one can glance at the stern
figures which were laid before Mr. Hardy yesterday with-
out being as sternly impressed with the conviction that a
great injustice is now being inflicted upon the householders
of Betbnal-green, St. George's-in-the-East, and other
localities, which, although separated by long lines of
palatial streets from the habitations of more prosperous
and wealthy citizens, have claims upon them which no
parochial boundaries can obliterate, and which no scheme
abort of an equalisation of poor rates can reasonably
satisfy.

Emperor will, in the end, be compelled to select his
ministers from among the best men of the chambers,
instead of culling them from the functionary ranks, and
then sending them to an assembly of which they know not
the spirit or the character. In short a half parliament or
half constitution system is impossible. In the end it will
infallibly be all or none.
The Saturday Review regards the intention attributed
by some to the government of appealing to the House of
Commons to assume the initiative in the matter of reform
las altogether absurd. Failure to propose a reform bill can
only be justified by a belief that changes in the represen-
tation are neither necessary nor desirable. A commission
can never furnish a suitable tribunal for the determina-
tion of great constitutional questions, and a bill for a com-
mission will never be passed by the House of Commons.
The government has only to disclaim all intention of
reform and the liberal phalanx is reunited. The proposal
of a writer in the Edinburgh &nitro to depose Mr. Glad-
stone from the place of leader is slightly ungenerous and
wholly impracticable.
Treating of the conference on church going, the Spec-
tator observes that in all the working speakers, except
one, who wanted oratory, and another who complained of
the inherent evil in the human mind, there was the same
leading idea—a belief that society was no better for Chris-
tianity, and church-going was, therefore, useless. Divine or
human, say the workmen, Christianity does not solve, or help
to solve, the problem of our lives. And that is, we believe,
the actual and most lamentable opinion with which the
clergy have to deal. Apart altogether from the enormous dif-
ference between practice and profession among church•
goers, the workmen here, as on the Continent, have formed
to themselves a creed, the law of brotherhood, which they
say is higher than Christianity as taught alike by church
and by dissent. It gives them a principle on which to
act in the daily concerns of life, a principle which, as
they say, will settle the quarrel of capital and labour, while
clergymen's Christianity simply affirms that employers are
always in the right. It is a new faith, and not an
atheism, with which the clergy have to deal, and with
which they can deal only in one way, by showing that the
law of brotherhood is in itself a constituent and vital part
of Christianity, one which it rests with the workmen
themselves to raise to its fitting place in the practical daily
ethics of human kind. Let them show, and show in prac-
tice, that all which is true in the dogma of equality, all
that is beneficial in the doctrine of brotherhood, all that is
effective in the principle of liberty, is contained in Christ's
own teaching ; that the workmen's faith is in fact possible
only because He descended, and the churches, they may
rely on it, will not long be empty—though respectably'
may possibly be thinned out.

Vie Court.

OSBORNE, JAN. 25.

The Queen, accompanied by Princess Louise,
Princess Beatrice, and the Duchess D'Aumale, drove out
yesterday afternoon.
Colonel Ponsonby was in attendance upon horseback.
Her Majesty walked and drove this morning with Prin-
ours Louise.

Prince Arthur and the Duke D'Aumale rode yesterday
afternoon, attended by Major Elphinstone.
Prince and Princess Christian and the Duke and
Duchess D'Auniale walked in the grounds this morning.
Prince Arthur, Prince Leopold, and Princess Beatrice
went out also.

Male. Clinchamp had the honour of dining with the
Queen and the Royal Family yesterday.
Lieutenant-General the Right Hon. Jonathan Peel
arrived at Osborne yesterday, and had also the honour of
being invited.

A Committee of the Lords of her Majesty's Most
Honourable Privy Council sat yesterday at Whitehall, on
the subject of quarantine. The lords present were
the Lord President, the Right Hon. Sir S. Northcote, and
the Hight Hon. H. Waddington. Mr. Harrison attended
the committee.
A deputation from the National Freedmen's Aid Union
of Great Britain and Ireland, consisting of Sir T. Fowell
Buxton, Bart., M.P. (president), Mr. John Hodgkin (vice-
president), Mr. W. H. Werton, Mr. R. G. Warton, the
Rev. J. C. thdlaway, M.A., Mr. Arthur Albright (hon.
secretary), and the Rev. A. Hampeon (secretary), had an
interview with Lord Stanley, at the Foreign-office, yester-
day, on the question of an appropriation from the surplus
funds for relief of distress in the manufacturing
district, in aid of the freedmen of the United States of
America.

A deputation waited upon the Chancellor of the
Exchequer yesterday, in Downing-street, to call his
attention to a memorial praying for the discontinu-
ance of the examination of passengers' baggage arriving
from Paris during the forthcoming French exhibition.
A deputation from the Tower Hamlete Association for
the Equalisation of the Metropolitan Poor Rates, and
delegates from various metropolitan unions and parishes,
had an interview with the Right Hon. Gathorne Hardy,
at the office of the Poor•law Board, yesterday.
Despatches were received yesterday at the Colonial-office
from the Governor of Canada.

Till Cover.—lt is understood that the return
of her Majesty and the Court to Windsor Castle will be
the beginning of a somewhat gayer season than usual.
Caaissr Consen.—There will be a Cabinet
Council on Tuesday next at the First Lord of the Trea-
sury's official rasidenoe in Downing-street at 3 o'clock.

His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh
arrived in Loudon bat night from Plymouth.
The Prinott kid Winner' de Teck returned to
town on Thursday evening from visiting the Prince and
Princess of Wales at Sandringham.

Frames Countess %VsNegras° and the Right
Hon. Chichester Forteecue have received at Strawberry
Hill since Tuesday last—Their Roy►l Highnesses the Count
and Countess de Paris and Duke and Duchess de Chartres,
the Earl and Countess of Clarendon and lady Emily
Villiers, the Viscountess Dungarvon, Sir Bounden
Palmer, M.P., and Lady Laura Palmer, the Right Hon.
Charles Villiers, M.P., the Right Hoe. George Goscheb,
M.P., the Hon. F. Leveson-Gower, M.P., Mr. Forster,
M.P., Mr. T. Hughes, M.P., and Mrs. Hughes, the Hon.
L. Stanley, Captain Hosier, Mr. Hayward, M.P., Mr.
William Harcourt, Lady Molesworth, Lady Scott, Mr. and
the Hon. Mrs. Vernon, Major the Hon. E. and Mrs. Boyle,
the Hon. Francis and Mrs. Byng, Mr. Jerningham, Mr.
and Mrs. Badgett, Mr. Charles Harcourt, Mr. C. Hamilton,
the Marquis de Beauvoir, the Hon. Boerio M. Gordon,
Mr. B. Morin, Mr. Aldenon, &c.

The Duke and Duchess of Sutherland (lays the
Staffordshire Advertiaer) are still staying at Trentham.
During the late severe frost the lake at the front of the
hall frequently presented a very animated appearance,
being often thronged with respectable paeons of both
sexes. The duke not only permitted access to the beauti-
ful sheet of ice, bat heartily joined on several occasions in
the seasonable sports. Rumour very confidently says that
the Prince of Wales will pay a temporary visit to Trent-
ham early next week. The visit, it is understood, will be
strictly private.

The Right Hon. Seymour Fitzgerald has left the
United Hotel, Charles-street,St.James's-equare, to assume
the government of the Bombay presidency. The right
hon, gentleman was accompanied by Ms family.
The Speaker of the House of Commons will be
the guest of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Monday,
Feb. 4, end meet the mover and seconder of the address,
and other members of the government in the House of
Commons. Covers will be laid for forty.
_ _

The " special " information of the Imperial
Re; UK', the new tory journal, is of rather a puzzling cha-
racter—witness the following paragraph in the number of
to-day :—" We are empowered to state, on authority, that
there is no foundation for the rumours that are in circula-
tion relative to the intention of the government to intro-
duce a reform bill." Perhaps on the Saturday after the
meeting of parliament we shall be told which way the
oracle should have been interpreted.

The Hon. Admiral Duncombe, M.P., at hie recent
half-yearly rent audit of the Hutton-on-the-Forest and
Ruby estates, made a second return to his tenantry in re-
spect of their losses from the cattle plague, previous to the
act of parliament coming into operation. This return
makes up half of the losses sustained by his tenants.

Yesterday evening Professor Odling delivered an
interesting lecture to the members of the Royal Institu-
tion on Mr. Graham's recent discoveries respecting the
penetration, diffusion, and transpiration of gases.
The new college at Hull was opened yesterday
by Earl De Grey, who delivered a speech on the ad.
vantages and requisites of education.

THE REFORM QUESTION.

DEPUTATION TO MR. PIM, M.P.

A deputation from the " Irish Reform League"
waited upon Mr. Jonathan Pim, M.P., yesterday after-
noon, with the object of eliciting his views on the question
of reform. The deputation consisted of Mr. P. J.
Shanley, journeyman printer, secretary to the " League ;"
Mr. Richardson, journeyman printer ; Mr. Edward Keevil,
pipe manufacturer ; and Mr. J. A. Mowatt.
Mr. &immix introduced the deputation.
Mr. RICHARDSON addressed Mr. Pim at some length in
reference to Lord Dunkellin's motion, upon which the late
government had been defeated, and solicited the hon.
gentleman's support in favour of such a measure of reform
as would prove satisfactory to the rich as to the poor.
Mr. J. A. Mow Arr also addressed Mr. Pim on the same
subject.
Mr. EnwAsti RCEVIL regretted that Mr. Pim had joined
the Adullarnite party in the late struggle for reform in
the House of Commons. The Reform League now wished
to learn whether Mr. Pim would assist the people upon the
question of reform, and also whether he would vote for •
continuance of the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act.
Mr. Mow Arr thought they might leave the latter subject
out of the question for the present.
Mr. Pus, M.P. thanked the deputation for their observa-
tions respecting himself personally, and also acknowledged
the kind support he bad received on the occasion of nig
election from the liberal and working classes, but he
considered the support so willingly given end the assistance
accorded him were in expectation that he would use his own
ludgment as an honest man, and take that course in par-
ament which he conceived to be for the good of the
country. It had been said that he did not support the
liberal party on the question of reform. That certainly
was the case. He thought that on the occasion in question
the liberal party were wrong, and he voted against them.
I As he said in his speech on the hustings, he would not
support any party in any instance in which he thought
they were wrong. It was well known that Lord Dunkellm
at the time he proposed his motion was perfectly prepared
to support • lower qualification than 71. He did not say
how low it would be, but he was prepared to reduce the
amount. To the question that had been asked as to
whether he would support a reform bill, he could give a
very explicit answer. He was prepared to support a re-
form bill.

Mr. KEEVIL—How far will you go?
Mr. Pill—l must wait till I see what the reform bill
is. I have not so far considered the question as to be able
to propose a reform bill myself. It I were, I would say
how far I would go. I expect to see a reform bill brought
in by the present government, and I think that if they
do not bring one in they will commit a gross mistake.
Bat I expect a bill will be brought in by them, and that
it will be so liberal as to satisfy the House of Commons.
People's views and feelings differ on the matter from
tune to time. If a reform bill is brought in I shall en-
deavour to give it the best consideration I can, or to
vote for such amendments upon it as shall, in my
opinion, be for the good of the whole empire. Mr. Pim
went on to say that he desired to see the working classes
properly represented, and he thought that some of the
gentlemen of the deputation who had spoken s, well
might make excellent representatives of the working
classes. If he were to judge from their speeches, their
presence would be very much to the advantage of the
House of Commons. With reference to the habeas
corpus, he hoped it would not be necessary to con-
tinue its suspension, but he could not give his opinion
on the subject until he had heard the statements of the
government. After a few observations, Mr. Pini con-
cluded by expressing his desire to see the reform question
settled.
The deputation then withdrew.