The Express.
London, England, 1850-05-02 00:00:00

Vie 4hpreoo.

OUTGOING MAILS.
The mails far British North America end the United
States will be made ap to-morrow evening.
The mall for Mader* the Emile, end Buenos Ayres, will
be mode up on the 4th of May.
The walls for Lisboa, Soria, sad Gibraltar will be made
up on the morning of Key 7.
The mails rid Kimmins., to the Mediterranean, Egypt,
Of ylon, Indio, Hong-Kong, &c., will be made ap on
the evening of May 7.
Tho Wart India Mails, excluding Bermuda, Havenneb,
Nunn, liofidures, New Orleans, end Mexico, end including
these for Madeira, St. Jam-di-Niesregue, New Granada,
Chili, and Peru, will be made up on the morning of May 17.
The mails for Gibraltar, Melte, Greece, the lonian Islands,
Egypt, Ceylon, India, and Chine, via Southampton, will
be made up on the morning of May 20.

IRON WATIN AT LONDON BEIDOIL
ruts 51+.104 a.
11-roaaove—ltonnaNt. 55. MIL AflasNe. ss. us.

LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY 2.

Lew has been, time out of mind, so expensive,
tedious, and intricate in England that the public is
apt to hail with more avidity than discernment any-
thing that promises to remove the three groat griev-
ances in the way of justice. And yet it was
always contemplated by the English law, and in
in not a few instances provided, that small
debts and minor plaints should be recovered and
righted in more summary and economical ways than
the great courts admitted of. The County Courts
have, however, absorbed all these, and we are very far
from gainsaying their utility. A tribunal de premiere
instance was much wanting in this country. It has
been found to work well, and we have approved of
the project of extending its jurisdiction. But at
the same time we think that the measure of extension
ought to be seized on as an opportunity for remedying
many defects most apparent to suitors in these courts,
however little they may have been brought before the
public.
The principle of a local court is to bring to the
trader a cheap and expeditious mode of justice—to
protect him from the risk of incurring heavy expenses
in the attempt to recover a just but comparatively
small debt, and to facilitate his trade by affording
him the means of recovering his debts with ease and
certainty. These are the leading features of such
courts, and it is not necessary to enter into minor
details, as for instance whether the wale of fees should
be more or lees remunerative, and whether it would
be more or less to the benefit of the public
that barristers or attorneys should have induce-
ments held out to them to practise there. As the courts
increase in importance these questions must be solved.
But there have been two evils which hitherto have
sinned against the first principles cf these courts, and
which have given rise to the most serious objections I
against them. These are—first, the restriction upon
the creditor to take out process against his debtor in
the district in which the latter resides ; and secondly,
the power conferred upon the judge of ordering pay-
ment of a debt by instalments. The first of these
objections is partially met by the bill now before the
house, and by which the creditor is, " with leave
of the court," permitted to issue his proceed-
ings and to call upon his debtor to appear in
the court of the district in which the creditor
lives, and the privilege appears to be so natural and
proper as not to require the leave of the court for its
exercise. If some one living at Richmond buy a pair
et boots in Oxford-street, and will not pay for them,
it seems to be much more reasonable that the trader
fa Oxford-street @holed be at liberty to call upon his
debtor to answer in the County Court for Oxford-street
why he should not pay, or be made to pay his debt,
MAW of being obliged to go to the district court of
Richmond to prove his debt.
The second of thou objections is one with which
the present bill does not grapple, and yet it is ono of
• most serious character. It can only have
slipped into the act in analogy with the
power pressed by the commissioners of Courts
of Request in reference to the very small amounts
subject to their jurisdiction, and upon which they
adjudicated rather on the principle of neighbourly in-
terference than as a legal tribunal. Strict impartial
justice requires that a creditor should be entitled to
the payment at once of a debt proved to be due—con-
venience or humanity may dictate that a fixed time
should be allowed to the debtor for providing pay-
ment, with a power to the judge to reduce that time
on proof that it might be used for fraudulent purposes :
but the present system, which leaves it to the whim
or caprice of the judge to fix such periods of pay-
ment as he, in ignorance of the circumf`•nces or cha-
racter of the debtor. - chum, is ,hich -

_f may . one must
be altered. For the entire aim of bringing the
action is often frustrated by the award of the judge,
which leaves the debtor ample time to defeat at once
the creditor and the ends of justice.
Upon a careful consideration of the bill, and how-
ever approving of its object, we doubt whether it can
be satisfactorily considered or amended, except in a
committee upstairs. In addition to what we have ad-
vanced, there are many points which might, with
advantage, be the subject of inquiry and patient
tion. The expediency of taking away entirely
from the superior courts, as is proposed, concurrent
jurisdiction in reference to debts due by persons living
at a distance; the propriety of altering the fees now
payable in the first instance by a plaintiff; and the
advantage of requiring every defendant to give
aotioe whether he intends to defend the claim, so that
if no such notice were given, the plaintiff might be
entitled to judgment without the inconveniences or
expense of a hearing, are questions proper for
each a tribunal. There are few subjects upon
which a committee could more advantageously be
employed than in the endeavour to perfect the con-
stitution and mode' of procedure in these mode ; and
while we believe that the task would not be difficult
to a committee conducting the inquiry quietly, we
despair of seeing the bill in question oome out of a
committee of the whole hones in such a shape as
will yield satisfaction to the community. The doubts
expressed by the law officers of the crown on the
second reading of the bill, as to its general advan-
tage, lead us to hope that they will concur in this
view.

We cannot, however take leave of the subject
without pointing attention to one intended clause of a
very objectionable character. It is that which has
reference to the future salaries of the judges, and
which provides that the salaries of each judge
" shall not be less than 1,2001. per annum."
In the present very uncertain state of all
law and legal proceedings—when reforms and she-
ath= are brought forward on all sides, it would seem
to be most inopportune to fix a minimum of payment
by act of parliament; and especially unwise with
reference to the County Courts, for if by the increase
of jurisdiction there came a corresponding increase of
business, it is obvious that in London and in ether
thickly populated localities an additional number of
courts will b 4 requisite, and however great such sub-
division, not less than " 1,2001. per annum" would be
the irrevocable stipend.
The clause arouses a suspicion how far the County
Court authorities may have originated this bill, and
such a suspicion adds an additional reason to watch-
fulness on the part of the
Another question with respect to these courts,
which his excited some difference of opioion, is the

right of aped • and we ourselves were inclined to
view this a firs; with an unfavourable eye, as leading
to litigation and expense. But, upon consideration
and inquiry, it is impossible not to dread the result of
so many indepeadeut, and necessarily, in some in-
' stances, usoosspetent judges, each giving judgments
without even tee prospect of appeal, or the fear of a
superior court in their eye. That these ]edges, with-
out a law, and with a very ill-injured public, perfectly
isolated, should fall intoserious errors, is, at the least of
it, possible; and it is highly advisable that they
should have in view some other guide than their own
caprice, and some other remedy than a tardy appeal
to parliament, which, in its precipitation, may thus
have deranged the very foundations of popular
justice. The right of appeal existing would have a
salutary erect on judgments, and would, in most
instances, preclude the neoeseity of any appeal being
bad recourse to.

ME. COBDIM was disappointed in bringing on his
motion to recommend negotiations with foreign
powers for the reduction of their military force. The
atm is not one to be lost sight of, although unfortu-
nately, for the moment, the entire of the political ,
machinery of Europe has come to depend on military
force. We yesterday took an opportunity to show
how vain and fragile any such system of government
was in a civiliaed and free thoughted country. The
utmost use of a military force in such a nation should
be to enable a government to tide over the
difficulty of the moment, and give it lei-
sure to take thought how to effect a
compromise and a definitive settlement. But the
attempt to carry on a system of government perma-
nently by mans of an army, as is attempting in
France and Austria, is in truth but fatly and suicide.
It is not is internal government alone that military
force is employed and recommended as the grand and
the first principle. It is preached as the substitute
not only for constitutional, but international law. The
centre, the north, and the south of Europe
have been convulsed during the two last years
by the extravagance, the profligacy, and the
ty many of their sovereigns. The people struggled
for their freedom, but did not always know
how best to fix and to organise it. Our tory
philosophers, contemplating this state of things, had
but one remedy to propose, the intervention of foreign
armies. Tue French were flattered and incited to

_ .
invade the Romans, the Austrians to invade the
Mores and the Romagna, Russia was hallooed upon
Hungary ; Prussia upon Saxony, Baden, and Bavaria.
Intervention has, in fact, become the rule of Euro-
pean policy, and military superiority the right. Russia
and her armies have in fact become the rod and the
sceptre in the hands of our own conservatives, and
whenever anything in Europe displeases them by
savouring too strongly of liberty and independence—
straight flit), invoke the tutelary interference of
Russia. The Times is the great organ of the party
which would constitute Russia into the sword of
Europe. If England stir or interferes, makes a re-
monstrance or a demonstration on behalf of constitu-
tional rights or of humanity, or of its own subjects, the
Tunes vomits forth fire and flame at the protanation ;

whereas if the least disturbance occurs in east or west,
it scruples not to allow, and to call in, and to make
itself the poet laureate of, Russian invasion and dicta-
tion. Last year the Times lent its energise to sup-
port Austria in the subjugation of Italy, and Russia
in the absorption of Hungary. Sa'isfied for one year
with that meal, and with having made Russia
irrevocable mistress of the Danube, this year
the efforts of the same English journal strove
to make Russia equally mistress of the
Sound and the Elbe, whilst it invokes the interference
of the Russian arm to set aright, that is to put back
to what they were a century ago, the affairs of Ger-
many. Prussia is labouring to establish a constitu-
tional Germany, and to give it a free egress to the
sea through its natural port of Hamburg. The Times,
in anger at each pretensions, acquaints it that Russia
has 150,000 men on its eastern frontier, and that
Prussia must consent to give up the rights of Schleswig
to Denmark, its succession to Russia, and Altona, that
suburb of Hamburg, to an anti-German and anti-
Holstein commercial and political regime ; and that a
Russian invasion is the alternative of its disobedience.

The insolecce of this is oily to be equalled by its
servility. What a subject of contemplation is it to
Europe to behold a journal that is the chief organ of
the British whig government constitute itself at
the same time the organ of .the Russian eourt, the
trumpet of its menaces, the mouth-piece of its
insolence.

If there is a country in the world which should be
entitled to the privilege of settling its own affairs
without foreign interference or dictation, it surely is
Germany. It is sufficiently wide, sufficiently peopled,
enlightened, educated. It surely has thinking men
and fighting men enough to develop and defend its
political arrangements. It surely is not for us to
meddle with German any more than with French
affairs, or to invoke or menace the invasion or pre-
ponderance of Russia to re-arrange or influence what
Russia can understand so little about, viz., constitu-
tions and civilisation.
The Times ii,vokes the interference of Russia and
of England, and cf military powers, in German
affairs, on the ground of the treaty of Vienna
having an European sanction. Strange it is, that this
treaty of Vienna should be invoked as often as there
is a freedom to be despoiled, or an independent nation
crushed—never where its stipulations were in favour
of both. The treaty of Vienna guaranteed a consti-
tution to Poland, and independence to Cracow. It is,
however, to remain a dead letter with respect to
both, whilst it is invoked to prohibit a representative
system for Germany, or freedom and rights for
Holstein. _ _ .

The fears and lamentations of the Austro-Rusgian
press at present are, lest the old system of the Ger-
man Confederation should be disturbed or modified.

Ih7facta;;;Tiii the Germanic Confederation fell
to pieces of itself. The Diet dissolved itself finally
in 1848. Austria denounced and shattered the whole

existence of that

in its March constitu-

Lion, which crested an Austrian empire, com-
pletely independent of Germany. And Prussia has
merely followed up the natural consequence of that
Austrian declaration, by seeking to collect the di.rjrrea
membra of the old empire into a new and efficient

- .
league.
One of the uses of this league is oer'ainly to form
an efficient, federal, and German army. One main
result of the old German confederation, and of Aus-
tria being at the head of it, was, that there was no
federal army. The military forces of the smaller states
existed but on paper ; or when they did exist, were not
to be depended on, exoept indeed by anarchists. When-
ever France or Russia :or revolution menaced, Aus-
tria had enough to do to defend Italy ; Germany was not
constituted to defend itself, so that upon Prussia and
its army fell the entire weight, daty, and responsi-
bility. To leave Germany in this weak and unde-
fended state, is the principal aim of Russia. And
of worse the Times defends it. What Prussia aims
at is to make Germany united and strong in a
constitutional, a commercial, and a military Bund,
the military part of that Bund being for German
defence, not European aggression. Of all systems of
military organisatton, that of Prussia is the least ex-
pensive and objectionable, being, in fact, entrusting
military powers and duties to the great body of the
citizens. Were these more widely adopted, it would
at once meet Mr. COBDEN'S views. But what the tories
want every where is a mercenary and expensive army.
A cheap or a citizen army does not suit them. And
therefore the extension of the Prussian system in pre-
ference to the Austrian is viewed by them with jealous
eyes.
We are ourselves not decidedly in favour of the
landwehr as a permanent system. We think the time
will oome when the science and the habits of both
internal government and international policy will be
such as not to require that each man should be an
adept in the art of slaying. But as a transition the con-
stitution of national armies on the defensive prin-
ciple is the beet and the only mode of freeing Europe
from the burden of military expenditure and military
I dictation.

UNIVERSITY COLLEOE.—A correspondent Says:—
" Another split in the camp has taken pleas at this institu-
tion. Mr. J. M. Arnott, F.R.8., has retigaed his poet as
surgeon. It was only this time last year that the
tr-
press recorded the retirement of Dr. C. J. B. Williams,
Sheenier physician to the hospital, and professor of medi.
clue in the college; and in the preceding May, Professor

. -
Syme, who had just come up from Edinburgh, speedily
retired In disgust from the university. With the
lamentable death by his owe hands of Mr. Morton, the
late Assistant Surgeon to the University College Hospital
the peblie are too well acquainted. It is further stated that
more of the surgical staff of the university have followed the
example of Mr. Arnott, and have sent in their resignations."