The Express.
London, England, 1850-09-18 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPTIIMBEN 18.

VALUATION of rent by Sat of parliament is a mere
Will-o'-We-wisp. It is that which no parliament that
ever wee called together weld be induced to sac',
and that which n e system of jadication that • free
and civilised country would tolerate, could possibly
enforce. To softie rent according to law is to sub-
vert the tundra:lu otal ideas connected with the exist-
ence of property as it is held and has always been
held amongst us, and allooget every people of
Christerdom with whose inatitutioca we are ac-
quainted. Whether society might or might not sub-
sist upon • totally different basis is a question baldly
worth arguing. M. PROUDUON says it might; and
whe he shall snooped in getting his couotrymen
to try, we shall see. Till then wears likely to wait. The
people of these kingdoms and their parliamentary Men
are probably the last that will be persuaded to go op
in a social bellom. Aoy other nation may make the
perilous experiment for us. Bid as our share of terra
firma is, we are resolutely resolved not to leave it
upon a voyage into regions of socialism; and parlia-
ment which, despite its many defects, shows a tole-
rably faithful reflec.ioa of public thought and feeling,
is likely, therefore, to meet a propagation for fixing
the letting price of land by law, with nothing less
significant or more respectful than what the reporters
diecribe as "much laughter."
Far a legal valuation of rent is plainly and palpably
the first problem in communism. To vote it solved or
soluble would ?necessity and naturally lead to the
mtattling of wages by act of liament, and the kgiti-
mate sequel to bath must boa
regulation by statute of
the price chargeable on all the main articles of con-
sumption. To stop short half way would be obvious
cheating. We must all be allowed to look over each
others shouldeis and calculate for our neighbour what
he can afford to make as pay him fir that which he
has to hire or sell. Mr. ROBERT OWEN believed all
this visible, and spent some forty years in trying to
persuade the British people that they would all be
richer and happier by universally taking to minding
their neighbours basine . instead of their own. What
would have happened bad he succeeded in awaits as
into a trial of his mutual Utopia, we don't
think it necessary to surmise. But we beg
our Irish brethren who may have latterly been bam-
boozled into listening to particular parts of the
scheme, to remember, that if land is by law to bo let
for 10e. an acre instead of twenty, harvest wages moat
be fixed at whatever a jury of Saxon farmers take it
Into their avaricious heads to pay, and that, be the
same more or leis, the labourer mast come from Con-
naught and work as hard as usual ; for the principle
le that pries are to be Fettled for rich and poor by
law. So also with cattle. The grazier of itioreer
Tabs his eyes at the notion of getting his rent kept
down by act of parliament, and wonders can such
things be. But when he falls asleep again his
thoughts still run on the socialist schemes he read in
the Tablet and Notion; he dreams of driving his'
" well-finished stock" to the fair ; he see a Liverpool
jobber cast ceveteue eye on his highly valued bullocks,
and hears him summarily demand to have them at
half what he deems them worth—" robbery," he
cries, and wakens. Asleep or awake, he knows that
parliamentary prices are bet a cheating dream.
Yet this Will-o'-the-wisp is solemnly pointed to by
certain political preachers In Ireland as the only mire
and faithful light which can point the way of escape
and salvation to the occupiers of land in that king-
dom. We 'peak of the promulgators of the anti-
property creed as preachers rather than as leaders,
because as yet they can hardly be said to have
any reel following. An injured and suffering
people will at all times listen to warm words
of sympathy for their wrongs, and of de-
nunciation of their oppress*. There have been
and there will be, many large assemblages
of the agrie ulturel population, to hear kind words
spoken, and to pledge reciproc:d vows of help and aid
in the just end legitimate straggle that has began and
mast continue against plundering landlordism. There
are so many real grievances which the Irish tenant
farmer has to complain of, and whibh reasonable mo.
dificatiooe of the existing law would serve to mitigate
or cure, that we cannot view without gratification and
approval the unanimity with which all sects and parties
seem to have entered upon an agitation for tenant right
and justice. But we much mistake the character of oar
Celtic kinsmen for shrewdness and intelligence, if they
are to be duped by such folly as the plan put forward
bey the tenant-lesue for what they Vrm " valuatioa
of rent." The Irish people have served a long ap-
prsticeehip to political combination. They know by
bitter experience that it is not enough to vow and to
resolve at enthusiLtio weeder in favour even of
what the best and ablest men of lair race emcee is
seeking for as a national good. They know, that
without powerful aid in England and Scotland, in-
spired by conviction std feeling if not by self-interest,
no project of moment can have a chines of being
carried in the united parliament. And they
cannot be *serest that the wild scheme
in question is viewed by all parties and by all men of
intellect or experience in Oreat Britain as a vain sad
mischievous delusion. The Irish Smut farmers are
not such dolts as to rest their fatale hopes of renova-
tion and safety upon so desperate a epsealation,—one
which dors not even poetise the merit of complee-
use or originality, but which is nothing more or less
than a stray leaf torn out of the book of French Com-
monism, without the adjuncts which render that
Icarian tale coherent.
If the landlords sea party were to set about de-
vising means whereby their long abased power might
elude, for another decade, the imposition of fair and
equitable restrictions, they could not possibly have
hit upon any method mare effectual than that of dis-
tracting popular attention fres practical measures
which a well sustained agitation would infallibly
carry, and directing it to vissasery sad impracticable
schemes like that we have been adverting to. A
Stanfielde recognition of local esteem is perfectly
practicable; fair and full compensation fir improve-
moots made by the °envier Jesuits attainable; an
amendment of the Inearabered &Ste Act, so as to
facilitate tenant-purchases, and to check auctioneer
evictions, may be hoped far; bat valuation of rent by
Mateo law is • phantom, and they =Weed the people
lamentably, who affect to believe in its sabetaatiahty.

ON the 14th of A arid, the day before parliament was
romped, copies were ordered, on the motion of the
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER. of reports, made by
certain professors of chemistry, on the subject of Dr.
Jona &orraan's patent for refining sugar, and
sundry other decelerate thereto referring. These
papers being in the pawned= of the CHANCELLOR of
the Rxenznima's own department, the copies were
forthwith presented by himself, laid on the table and
ordered to be printed. The dates of the reports are
lam Beth of June lest, smiths 16:h of icily last re-
apethely. The question is naturally stair mid by
Iles, proceedings, why were reports, one of which
W bees a month in Bir CIRRUS Wootee powenion,
sad the other nearly two months, presented to par-
liessat at so late a period of the sesame the it was
then?
lopmeible for the kale to take any action upon
_ . . .

Bnt • closer inspection of the papers sug-
gest' onsideratious more canons and suspi-
cions still. From what we hare been able to
isarn, Dr. Bcorritax took out his patent in Decem-
ber 1847; he was omnpied perfecting the adaptation
of the principle of the process to refining &meg the
whole of 1848; and in January, 1849, a respectable
refining house in Cork began to make use of the
patent. Now, we learn from the papers presented