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

OUTGOING MAILS.

•
The mails for Maderis, the Braids, and Buenos Ityrel,will
be made up on the evening of Feb. 4.
The malls for Lisbon, Spain, and Gibraltar will be made
up on Feb. 7.
The snails eil Marseilles, to the Mediterranean, Bgppr,
Ceylon, ledis, Hong-Kong, &e., will be made up on the
evening of Feb. 7.
The mails for British North America and the trnittd
Seams will be made up on the evening of Feb. 8.
The West India Mails, excleditig Bermuda, Havannal,
Nassau, Honduras, New Orleans, and Mexico, and including
them for Madeira, Bt. Juan-de-Nicaragua, New Granada,
Chili, and Pent.will be maul, on Feb. 17.
The mails for Gibraltar, Malta, Greeee, the lonian Islanrle,
Egypt, Ceylon, India, and China, eia Southampton, will
be made up oe the morning of Fel. 20.

MOM WAY= AT LONDON RILTDOL
T.. thaw& h. Des Afteraboa. IL :bL
T,lllolllo.—ltondag. td NI

LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBUARY 2.

IT is only through courtesy that one might style
what took place in the HOLM of Commons on Thurs-
day a debate. Against two such great glum as Mr.
CHARLES VILLIERS and SIR CHARLES Woon, giv-
ing forth for hours such a shower of figures and facts,
the old-fashioned cnlverins that the country party
brought forward, in the persons of Sir Joint Taw,-
LOPE and Sir Joint WALSH, made the battle very
much referable one fought between the artillery of
NAPOLEON Of WELLINGTON, and that of the BLACK
PRINCE Of HARRY THE FICTITIL,

We expected the protectionists in both houses to
charge and to mount the breach. Their vapouring
announced theta to be burning to assume the offensive.
Instead of this we find them in both houses timidly
provoking attack, and then prudently assuming the
defensive, creeping behind any brick or stone wall of
an argument, showing no front, no pluck, no strategy,
and in fact no fight.
If the battle was merely deferred in the Commons,
in the Lords at least there was no excuse for holding
heir ; and yet the great chief, Lord STANLEY himsa,
made but an exculpatory speech, parrying thrusts,
dodging to escape heavy blows from overwhelming
facts, and delivering an ingenious pleading in defence,
rather than an indignant, or, as might be expected, an
overpowering attack.
To the argument that shipping and ship-building
had increased einee the repeal of the navigation laws,
and that great countries had passed laws of
reciprocity, Lord STANLEY pleaded that the
United States did so in consequence of its
own old legislation, not by any new measure.
To the point, that our exports of manufactures had
segmented, he replied, that they only went to India'
and, therefore, wrre not owing to free trade, es if
cheap food did not operate wherever the export went
to. In answer to the diminution of poor rates, his
lordship hinted that paupers had been employed in
out-door labour, u if, the same motive operating at
all times, this itself did not indicate improvement.
After these bits and scraps of cavils and objections,
Lord STANLEY set Off upon Lord BROUGHAM'S wild
goose chase to run down French republicanism, in
order to divert the attention of the house and his
own efforts from the main question, which, indeed,
both their lordships openly shirked and declined to
argue.
It was much easier to declaim against French re-
publicanism and equality, and to present heavy
land taxation as produced by them. Whereas the
contrary is the case. The direct contribution in France,
which amounted to ten millions sterling in 1814,
gradually increased to seventeen millions in 1847 ;
military expenses augmenting in the same period
from twelve millions to eighteen millions. All this
increase was imposed by highly monarchic chambers,
elected by a very narrow elective body, the majority
of which were of the landed interests, and necessarily
the highest tax payers. But these high tax-payers
had, by their electoral influence, a claim to the highest
and beet paid places, so that they had more interest in
augmenting tuition than in diminishing it., This is

the history of the French budget, which tells the same
stay as the English budget—republicanism and
equality having is much to do with one as with the
other. So much for the moral with which Lord
STANLEY pointed Lord BROCOHAree fable. Nor was
the majority in the Lords disproportionate to the
feebleness of the argument. It was a majority of
two last year, mid one of forty-Nice this!
To return to the Cornmeal. Sir JOHN TROLLOPE,
following the good role of ne setter ultra crepidam,
made a Lincolnshire speech, confining hie remarks to
his locality. Free traders have no moon to object to
going to an issue on the corn question in the county
of Lincoln, where, according to the honourable mover
of the amendment, the small farmers are to
be completely extinguished by foreign import.
Now, the facts we believe to be directly
the reveres of what Sir Jour TROLLOPE
pot forward: We believe the small farmers in Lincoln
better and more careful farmers than their larger
apportioned brethren, and that they are much better
of than the large farmere, although they pay in many
instances double the rent. 'lbis occasions great
tenderness on the part of the squires for the small
farmers, who cry for a diminution of rent. They pay
31. an acre, whilst the large farmer pays from 335. to
40s. We know of districts in Lincolnshire, the Isle
of Oxenholm for example, in which the small farmers
resisted every effort to be driven by their lardlords'
agents to the Lincoln meeting. And we will be bound
teeny, that had there been a ballot at that meeting for
votes in favour of protection or of lower rents, the
latter would have carried the day by an immense
majority. Lincolnshire. however, formed the point'
of the battle. Captain PELHAM made it his hobby-
' hone, and, not thinking it hard eningh ridden on
Thursday, Mr. Cnalseornmt trotted it out again',
Iloot night.
None cf the protectionist speakers, however, sought
even after twenty-four hours' research and cogitation,
-o impugn the truth of the statements made by Mr.
Vitamin. and the CHANCELLOR. Their efforts were
out paereleotionis of what Lord STANLEY had tried
in the House of Lords ; and it was partly is the chi,
react of a forlorn hope that Mr. DISRAELI rose late
last night.
His grand argument was, that the ninety millions
which Mr. C. \Tintless had represented as not ex-
torted, and therefore not paid by the consumer', was
a clear loss to the agricultural interest. They ought
to have had those ninety millions. Even though the
crop was deficient, even though it was inferior, even
though it could not by many millions of quar-
ters reach or supply the demand, nevertheless Mr.
DISRAELI insisted that all the mon- y paid for bread
in the United Kingdom, which did not go into the
pockets of the landlords, was so much staen from
them. Against such pretensions there is literally no
use in employing argument. Nothing is possibla bat
to scout thorn altogether. Acd this the House of
Commons did lest night by a majority of 311 v,tee
against 192.

STRANGE things happen. The last country we
should hare expected to find ourselves at war with is
Greece. The last of our heroes whom we shittid Lave
hoped to find engaged in a war of annexation and
eggre-osion was the late Secretary of the Admiralty,
Sir HENRY WARD. And the last diplomatist we
should have thought to see enacting the part of a
Roman Proconsul was decidedly Mr. WYSE.
Nevertheleu we are at war with Greece. Our
three-deckers lord it over the classic ground of
Triremes. The Queen and the Caledonia blockade
' the Piraeus. And Sir lizotnu WARD claims certain
islands which we never before heard of, as part of
cur dominions, though it seems they are tenanted by
his Majesty of Greece, bring close on his Majesty's
dominions.
Uutil we get the " particulars," we cannot pass judg-
ment on this strange circumstance, except that it
striko sus at first in a ridiculous light. Poor little
Greece we helped to make into a kingdom, helped
to give it a King Log, selected advisedly from the
royal family ot Bavaria. We straggled hard to in-
duce him to reign constitutionally, but as constitu-
tional government implied the rendering of accounts,
King OTHO would none of it. Austria and Rus-
sia, and Bavaria licked indissolubly with both, of
course direct the politics of Athens. France
under Louis Naeottox is not iuclined to say nay to
these potent seigniors.. And Mr. West is there, no
doubt, without tufluence. We do not see great harm
in his bring without it ; nor do we think this coun-
try would receive mortal damage, if its ambassa-
dorial place was as empty at Athens as at Madrid.
We fear, however, that a feud has arisen between
their Majesties of Greece and of Cortu. Ring %Vann,
indeed, bitted in one of his proclamations, that the
rebels of Cephalonia, whom his Highness flogged and
slew, were but agents of some mysterious society
which had its seat and ramifications in Greece. And
we hear that Greece and its court took the
liberty of laughing aloud at the ignorance and pas-
sion of Sir HENRY Watto. That irascible potentate
may have retorted by disinterring some defuuc-
claim to the two unheard-of islands. If this be the
origin of the new Iliad, we must leave the writing
of the Epic to Punch, whose pen and pencil will do
justice to the Knight of the Order of St. Michael and
the redoubtable Otroo.

It may be, however, that King Onto has, and can
be proved to have, large &abets in the shape of
revenue; and that, although duly summoned into
the European Court of Bankruptcy, he declines
either to pay or give accounts, relying upon his
privilege of royalty or rarliament, or upon the
backing of Russian and Austrian envoys. If so, the
bonds of English creditors of foreign countries
may indeed begin to look up. For no doubt
we should give «luta protection to British
subjects all over the world. It is astute of our
Foreign-office, which may tell the Peace Societ, that
it is merely imitating the government of the United
States. The Yankees, however, applied their screw
to great countries such as France and 3lexict+,
whereas we coerce a potentate scarcely worth brine-
ing into a County Court. We may hope that his
Majesty of GREECE will pay the just debt. As to his
islands, we trust his Majesty may keep them, for we
are convinced the British people would not spend a
discharge of powder and duck-shot for all the islands
that adjoin and adorn the Morea.

It is announced that there aro to be large reduc-
tions in the expenses of the Army and Ordnance.

GREECE.

The following letter is from cur Malta cores-
pondent:
MALTA, JAN. 26.
The General Screw Company's steamer Hellos-
nt, arrived here on the 24th from Smyrna. Letters
punt,
her from Athens confirm the announcement that
the government had refused iu foto the demands of
Mr. Wyse, which were as follows : 1. ItJparation
for the insult offered to Mr. Pacifico, the Portuguese
consul, in 1820. 2. Indemnification for the value of
an English vessel wrecked on the coast of
IMagnia, and plundered by the Greeks. 3
Apology for the insult offered to Mr. Wood,
the English consul at Patras, in the Merenditi affair.
4. 10pamtlon for injury done to an lonian subject,
in the same place. 3. The interest of the loan due to
England. 6. Indemnification for English travellers
plundered last year by the brigands. 7. The immc-
diate restitution of the islands of Sapienza and Cabrera,
appertaining to the lonian republic. The French and
Russian ministers at Athens have protsted against
these demands. The French fleet left Smyrna
for Athens immediately after the arrival of the
French steam-packet Tanerede, with the above
news. All the principal ports of Greece are block-
aded by the English ships. M.M. steamer Porcupine
will leave for the fleet this morning, with despatches
brought by the French steamer this morning from
Marseilles.
H.M. steamer Medusa came in at noon from Alex-
andria with the Indian mails. H.M. steamer Merlin
leaves immediately for Marseilles. ILM. steamer
Antelope, due yesterday, with the Corfu and Patras
mails, has not yet arrived. It is probable she is de-
tained at Patna to protect British interests.
The Peninsula and Oriental Company's steamer
Euxine, from Constantinople, has not yet been sir
nalised. The Mediate brought twelve passengers
from Alexandria, and was five days on her voyage.
Bombay papers to the 3rd.
The Malta Mail says : "The Greek lawyers have
declared the demands inadmissible, and no doubt
exists but they will be refused at the expiration of
the allotted time. The Greek vessels wore conveyed
Ito &lamina, and the steamer Otho, about to sail, was
forced to return to the Pineal.