The Express.
London, England, 1860-07-31 00:00:00

BRITANNLL

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thy Medias Haazaza.—AM LOUIS XIV. t ORGAN BOY.

1101 WASI2 AT LONDON =DAL
Tirl DAT —lkareing, 11 Munson, lb. 2710.
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LONDON, TUESDAY, JULY 31.

and jobbing scheme ; for nothing could so tend to
depopularise local authority and local administra-
tion amongst us as the attempt to examine arbi-
trary and oppressive powers by • body constituted
as the Metropolitan Board is over the rut popu-
lation and property subject to its local sway. It
is exactly because we desire to en sound and
responsible local government established in the
metropolis, and because we do not therefore wish
to see the general principle and general practice of
heel rale discredited, that we have from the first
reenamstrated against the scandalous machinery of
jobbing and extortion which is contained in the
present measure. For it is plain that the conse-
quence of its passing in any shape however modified
must inevitably be such • revulsion of feeling on
the part of the great body of the middle classes who
are to be the victims of the limitless powers of taxa.
lion and interference proposed by this Bill, as will
enable Government to propose without fear the
absorption of the whole administrative and fiscal
management of the metropolis into the central and
executive power. Of all evils this is, in our
mind', the worst ; and it is because the Member
for Beth and his colleagues are fast driving things
to this alternative, or rather to this consummation,
that we have steadily opposed the project which
stands for committee to-morrow.
Instead of augmenting the already ill-adminis-
tered powers created by the Act of 1857, our wish
would be to see a distinct corporate existence
given to Westminster, Southwark, Finsbury, and
the other great districts that make up London as
one great whole, in order that the salutary in-
stincts of public spirit, and the salutary training
in public business which great municipalities are
fitted to impart, might thereby be safely and
usefully promoted. Many, we are aware, would
prefer one great corporation for the metropolis
with such a delegation of powers as would in their
opinion leave the virtual control of separate local
affairs in the hands of their duly elected represen-
tatives. We do not discuss the comparative merit'
of such proposals here. But anything almost would
be better than an irresponsible clique, chosen with-
out the consent or knowledge of the people whose
properties they tax, end whose resources they
squander, and who now have the assurance to ask
Parliament topermit them to over-ride all remaining
barriers, and to dip their hands as frequently and
as deeply as they please into the pockets of the
community. Hitherto there have been some bounds
to the mischief ; but if this Bill should pass there
will be none. Augmented means would only
imply multiplied mismanagement.. We do not
believe that Mesas. THWAITZB, TITE, and Co. are
much worse men than are likely to succeed them
when their term of office is expired ; but we be-
lieve that the system they have been nominated
to administer is thoroughly and inveterately un-
sound in all its parts, and that no set of men
ought to be entrusted with the non-elective and
irresponsible authority now exercised by them.
The system of indirect nomination whereby the
body is constituted is foreign in its origin and re-
pugnant in every respect to our habits and ideas,
whether national or parochial. It is German, not
English, and the sooner we get rid of it the better.
We have had enough of these miserable experi-
ments, and want no more of them. An English
Board if yon will, but not a German band to worry
as with their harsh and discordant braying, and
their incessant and rapacious importunities.
It is to ms, we confess, • source of equal regret
and astonishment, that failing to undertake general
projects of legislation, Ministers should have suf-
fered subjects of a municipal kind to drift by them
during the present year without making even •
show of offering them the benefit of pilotage.
Questions like those of gas supply to the metro-
polis, of Thames embankment, and still more of
metropolitan taxation, ought to have been taken
up by the Home-office and the Board of Trade
during the last recess, and dealt with, at least so
far as suggestion and recommendation in a prac•
tical form are concerned, in an impartial spirit.
Instead of thus leading opinion, the Ministers at
the head of these departments have contented
themselves with leaving all parties concerned
to tight out their controversies before committees
upstairs, in the case of the gas consumers and
gas companies at • lamentable waste of time
and money, and in the other cases we have noticed
with results equally to be deprecated. In the in
stance of the Metropolis Local Management Bill
the first thing which its shameless promoters did
was to shut out all discussion before the Com-
mittee except that which was conducted by agents
and connael, and the next thing was to refuse the
',whin and inhabitants of the various parishes
over whom they were claiming new and exorbi-
tant powers any right to appear as remonstrant,
or objectors at all. By some technical application
of the forms of the House they contrived to sue-
fixed in both respects : but we think the taxpayers
of London will be apt to remember a wrong and
insult so unexampled when the day arrives, as it
assuredly will, for telling these usurpers to be
gone. Meanwhile, they only ask, in common jus-
tice and in common decency, that Mr. Tire's Bill
should be flung out as it deserves to he by the
House of Commons, and that they should be no
further exposed to the extortion and extravagance
of the Board of Berkeley-house.

FRIZNDLY words, we are told, have reached this
country from France. The temper of the English
people and the speeches of English statesmen have
been obser►ed and noted at the Tuileries, and it has
been thought that the time has come for vigorously
operating on public opinion here. The somewhat
overdone system of pamphlet publication has
been discarded as inadequate to the occasion, and,
according to our authority, a letter has been writ-
ten. Franco earnestly desires our alliance. Her
interests are identified with the maintenance of

peace throughout Europe, the development of her
own resources by commerce, and the cultivation of
• good understanding and common action with
this country. Respecting Italy and Syria, the two
fields to which European diplomacy is at present
attracted, and in which it will for some time to
conk be occupied, a policy is propounded in close
harmony with the principles held by our own
thivenunent and by nineteen out of every twenty
Englislunen :—" In the East the firm maintenance
" of the Ottoman Empire in its independence and
" integrity, and in Italy the renunciation and
" hindrance of all and any foreign intervention."
Every Englishman will be glad to learn that in
the most important affairs which can occupy the
two nations abroad they hold views in common,
and that their Governments will thus be able to
co-operate. The bases laid down for an Italian
and Syrian policy are valuable not only
for their own sake, as being safe and just, bet
because in adopting them the French Government
renounces powerful connexions which have at
times appeared formidable to this country. The
firm maintenance of the integrity of the Ottoman
Empire a as the principle on which we first entered
into active alliance with France, and it is that
which, as now appears, separates France from
Russia If that principle is upheld by the two
Western Powers, while they unite in forbidding
all and any foreign intervention in Italy, there is
the best reason to hope that the peace of the
world may be preserved.
The direct relations between England and
France were, however, perhaps more prominently
before the mind of the Imperial letter-writer than
the consequences of our common action in Europe.
Frank and explicit assurances relative to military
and naval strength, we are told, enter into his
'cation. So far as they tend to correct
mistakes we shall be glad of their wide diffusion.
All who have taken any pains to inform them-
selves of these matters know that the warlike
preparations of France, and especially those which
relate to the sea, have been enormously and syste-
matically overrated here. An unscrupulous practice
of trading on the apprehensions of their country-
men, on the part of some professional authors,
has grown up, and has been powerfully aided by
literary writers, who have popularised misstate-
ments which they have not taken the trouble to
examine. It is much to be wished that the whole
question of national defence were treated among us
with more of that self-respect which becomes
the countrymen of Nevem and WELLINGTON,
instead of in a spirit of unreasoning and
reckless alarm, which plays into the hands of 11
those who profit by lavish public expenditure, and
breeds monstrous schemes of fortification, to dis-
honour the navy and dishearten the country. But
while we welcome any correction of our errors, we
are not likely to reckon amongst the number the
unanimous resolve of the nation to owe its safety
and the independence of its policy to no power,
under PROVIDENCE, but its own. Sincerely
desiring to see the Emrimort's letter become
the means of bringing about • better un-
derstanding between the two countries, we hope
that no expectation of this kind has entered into his
calculations. He knows something of our habits
as allies ; whether we have not been frank,
faithful, fair. Ho knows, also, our objects : that
we want peace for the welfare of our manufac-
tures end commerce, and therefore desire to see
the independence of nations respected and all
honourable engagements maintained. He knows,
none better, that there is no party in England
which desires war with France, or that
is riot anxious for the growth and multiplication
of every kind of friendly intercourse between the
two countries. If the French EMPFXOR will work
with us for these objects—and we understand his
letter as signifying that he will—then we shall do
well to grasp the hand extended to us, and look for-
ward with hope for the cause of civilisation. But we
shall not permanently promote peace by neglect-
net the guarantees of our independence, nor after
past experience may we neglect the general ditties
of good neighbourhood for the sake of any exclu-
sive alliance.

As the House of Coninions has thought 6t to
defy public opinion during the present session by
refusing to pass several good bills, it is to i.e hoped
that at least it will exercise the same lower by
rejecting the bad ones whose titles still linger on
the notice paper. Conspicuous amongst these is
tha: introduced by Mr. TITS for extending ud
li4,Nai the IN,lteri of the Metropolitan Board of
Works. Every friend of local government is inte-
rested in the defeat of this grasping, usurPing,

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVEKING, JULY 31, 1860.

:E.4 I

Live Botu,the Wile of operation of the Conipany
d 1 Cridinebrio has recently been formed,
11'1 be this :—Bills at three months, or At air
other dates adopted in the discounts of the Bank
of Frame, must betsigned. by a person desirigg to
borrow, and be accepted by a banker, landowner,
or trader representing the society residing in his
neighbourhood ; the Cridit Agrioole will then en-
dorse the bill so as to enable it to be presented
with three signatures at the bank for discount.
The borrower will then obtain money at the interest
fixed by the bank, in addition to a small commis-
sion for the two intermediaries. This system, says

the report, has reoeived the approbation of compe-
tent prawns and of the Bank of France.
The Courtier de l'lsire lays :

The prefect of the department has been officially in-
formed by a despatch from the Tuileries that the Emperor
end Empress will visit Grenoble, and stop there for two
days, during the journey which their Majesties intend to
make in Savoy. They will arrive at Grenoble, from Chain-
!Cry, on the 2nd September, and leave for Toulon on
the 4th.