The Express.
London, England, 1850-06-11 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, JUNE 11, 1850.

been bred ea the estate. English supplies" heated
a coesiderable item of expenditure. He did not think
it pow to inquire what those supplies were, and
how large a proportion of then wire thrust
annmemarily upon the no doubt embar-
rassed planter by his merchant and mortgagee
at home. Neither did Mr. STANLEY 111.4 Mine
the Mats al ealtivatioa, or farm aa ”isi= for
himself bow hit tits lead might be turned to more
profitable amen Under a differeat system of smiths-
tioa. He essisated Memoir with examining the
books and selishiag himself of their correctness.
Why, the hoof redone% hr all the purposes of his
Familial*. mpg bow Gibbed all this information,
and a geed deal mere, by driving fa his broogham
after breakfast, from St. James's
-square
heat,nenlite4wlti-ift and oessulting any sugar broker
n'teihin,cf under
hogshead of "flee Imam"
result Mr. SUNLIT arrives at is this:
to enable a body of shientce proprietors to " live at
home at ease," to supply them with vast incomes
from properties they never see, to afford them means
to bear the curtain over-charges and extortions of
middlemen who manage distant propeetim, to com-
pensate them for their lose of capital by throwing
op mills and mansions, costly engines, coppers, and
machinery at their fancy or caprice or becalm of
some temporary disadvantegei—to do all this for
proprietors who will not exert themselves, and who
reject with morn the idea of ordinary returns upon
their ventures, Mr. STARLIT proposes to subject as
in Europe to a heavy tax (meager, to afflict all Africa
with a revival of the slave trade and to re-impose the
galling Attars of the slave at the emancipated popu-
'sties of our transatlantic eolouies I

IT is certainly in the power of the Hamelin agents
and organs in this eoeetry and in Paris, and or the
legitimist General LAMM!, to make a pretty quarrel
with this country out of the Greek difference. This
quarrel, which is merely kept alive by personal
pique and rivalry to one of our ministers, may be
aggravated by the easy mode of the French cabinet's
insisting on the execution, pure and simple, of the
convention of London, in lieu of that concluded at
Athens by Sir Thomas WYSS. For the fact is, that
the French herein demand an impossibility.
Both conventions have three principal clauses for
settling the three principal points at issue. The first
are the indemnities for positive claims. The conven-
tion of London awards 8,6001.; the agreement of
Athens has compelled the payment of only 03,3001.,
which is already distributed, and the receipts from
the different parties already sent home. How can
this be undone? The second condition of importance
is the letter of aeology. Bat that has been written,
has been received—the mortification and the satisfac-
tion alike accomplished. To substitute excuse for
apology is now impossible. The remaining condition
is certainly somewhat differently provided for in the
two coneentione. It concerns the claims of PACIFICO
in regard of vouchers on the Portuguese government,
said to have been destroyed. In London,
Lord PALMERSTON consented to have these
claims examined and decided upon by three
arbiters—a Greek, a French, and an English one.
The agreement concluded in Athens refers it to be
settler& by two arbiters—one Greek, and one English
—who, of course, are to appoint a third, if they dis-
agree. There is no woLdrous difference here; except
that, in the present state of the case, and the experi-
ence we have had of Baron GROS, it is evident that a
Greek and a French arbiter will outvote the English
one, and allow nothing whatever to PACIFICO for
these claims. When Lord PALMERSTON consented
to this in London, his lordship could have had no idea
how completely Baron Gaos had identified him-
self with the Cheeks, and how completely
he acted as their agent, instead of remain.
ing independent, as a French one. Moreover,
the concession of a reference of their claims to arbi-
ters, the majority of whom was adverse, may be
considered to have been compensated by the larger
sum awarded for positive claims, being 2,2001. more.
Now, seeing that the principal of these stipulations of
the agreement concluded at Athens are executed past
recall, we ask, how is it passible to demand the re-
establishment of the convention of London pure al (1
simple ? We forget another difference in the agree-
ment, viz., the lodgment of 150,000 drachmas S:r
THOMAS WYSE'S hands, as security that Don PACI-
FICO'S ulterior claims should be satisfied. Sir
THOMAS Wvse, however, consented that this sum
should be placed in the Bank of France. And this
maso-termine, as far as it is concerned, may now, no
doubt, be adopted. But with respect to the arbitrage.
it is but fair, after all that has happened, that the
Greek and English arbiters, if they disagree, should
be permitted to appoint another arbiter of any
other nation. If such offers as these were made to
the French cabinet, in the actual impossibility of
recalling the situation, or executing the letter of the
convention of London, nothing bat the most perverse
and insidious determination to quarrel could warrant
a refusal on the part of the French government.
One of the bad accompaniments of a constitutional
system and of a free press is certainly, that foreign
powers do make use of the parties and divisions of
both, to neutralise the efforts of whatever govern.
ment thwar.s them. The activity and interference
of Russian agents, both in Paris and in
London, are as clear as noon-day. In Paris
they subsidize the legitimists, and even keep
alive the labour of the Mountain. In England
they have got possession of the press—of the
government press.
. _

And the act undoubtedly is, that the British Mi-
nister of Foreign Affairs, for having dared to abet
co: stitutional government in Italy, and for hav-
ing frankly disapproved of Russian invasion in
Hungary and dictation to Turkey—for this crime the
court of Russia, and its agents in Athens, in Paris,
and in London, have pelted and punished Lord PAL-
MERSTON so severely that they have literally brought
him, and England too, almost upon their knees. And
we do certainly at this moment cut the most dis-
graceful and pusillanimous figure. England is like a
schoolboy undergoing a whipping, for the sole crime
of having been vocileronaly, yet passively, liberal.
Jong BULL may well awaken, pall hie night-cap
from off his eyes, and ask the reason of all this
pother. We beg to inform him that he is prin-
cipally in In fault ; he, that will remain care-
less these matters, and that will aban-
don the complete management of these grave
affairs, in which not only England, bat the
world, is interested, to a mere coterie of intriguers.
There are but fifty men in the country who take the
trouble to follow the not very profound science of foreign
policy. And the members of this clique either
play into each others hoods, or squabble and slander
each other,with feminine rancour,making a pretenoe of
the country's interests to cover the merest and the emp-
tiest personal spite. Had Lord PALMERSTON con-
sented to wield his tongue and manage his portfolio, as
one of this clique, as one of a diplomatic masonic lodge,
who think .of nothing save the betrayal of popular
interests for the ease of royal and aristocratic patrons,
he would have been as much respected as NESSEL-
RODE, and the reins of power might have remained
in his hands unmatched at, till they fell, uthey did in
MirrrEnutcu's cue, from the trembling fingers of
oadueity. But Lord PALMERSTON has felt
as an Englishman, he has stood out for
the constitutional rights of the Italians, immolated by
Austrians and French, for the national independence
and ancient" constitution of Hungary and of filially,
and therefore every one of the owls and rooks of di-
plumy and foreign chanceries combine and plot
against him. These foreign foes have great advantages
over a British minister. They have no parliament
to thwart them, or if they are hampered by political
rivals, they then have at least a popular and awakened
national spirit to appeal to for support But there is
no liberal spirit or information in this country an
subjects of foreign policy. If our foreign minister
maims a Was step, however well meant, and gets es
and himself into trouble, this is quite enough to con-
demn him. No one will take the trouble of icquiring
whether he was right or wrong, justified or not,
whether his aims were high and his purpose liberal.
It suffices that he has got into a scrape, for all that
calla Ruff liberal to abandon him to the vengeance of
the leagued absolutists and tories of Europe.

MINISTERS have advised her MAJESTY to comply
with the request of the House of Commons' address
respecting Sunday labour in past-otfloes. The col-
lection and delivery of lettere are to be entirely sus-
pended on Sundays throughout the realm, and an in-
quiry is to bo instituted with a view to ascertain
whether the transmission of mails on Sundays may
not be altogether suspended without injury to the
public service.

Were this thebe-all and the end-all of the reatter,we
should have been disposed to maintain silvan with
to the deteenneation ministers have arrived at.
regard
ddo not well ne bow government could
have refased to act as they have done. If the plop!.
of Great Britain wish to have so postal delivery on 1
Sunday, they are entitled to have no postal delivery.
And locking is the amber of signatures to the pan-
ties. en whims Lord Minxes main was bend, and
the nos-azitlenee of senseer-pnidon4 we are 'added
to one that the people of Great Britain concurred
in the address voted by the House of Commons.
But the matter cannot aid will not close here. The
collection end delivery of letters on Sunday is to ones;
bat the suspeasion of the transmission of mails
on Sands yis only to be Inquired into. The advo-
cates of the total intermission of labour In the Post-
al* en Sunday are already mustering their witnesses
and marshalling their ts with a view to have
the travelling of the mails on Sunday put an end to.
The mule energy, the same organisation (flushed and
invigorated by a partial nooms) which have carried
the abolition of letter deliveries an Sunday, are
already in satin 'parades to stop the transmission
of the mails es that day. Nay, out of the words of
the address a controversy will be raised as to
what government have really conceded. Lord
asin merely .in represented the word " collection " as
techeical phrase which did not
appl_y to the dropping of letters into the Poet-office
on Sunday. Bat by stopping the collection of letters
on Sunday, he admitted that he meant stopping their
assortment. And if letters are not to be separated
and assorted on Sunday, how an they to be trans-
mitted P Government will be told in a few days that
they have virtually conceded the petition to stop the
transmission of the mails en Sunday, and a clamour
will be raised against them as word-breakers if they
do not actually stop them.
Now, though we ere disposed to acquiesce in the
cessation of Sunday deliveries, we are not disposed to
submit without remonstrance to the imposition of
additional shackles. We regard the transmission of the
mails on Sunday as • work of necessity. We believe
that arresting the progress of all letters towards their
destination on Sundays would paralyse the whole
public aad private btunness of the country; and we
protect in the most solemn and emphatic manner
'rind the making of such a dangerous and destruc-
tive concession. We believe, too, that the demands of
the parties now seeking that concession would not be
satisfied with it, and that yielding on this point will
only encourage them to more extravagant demands.
We mean no disrespect to these parties. We be-
lieve most thoroughly that they sincerely entertain
the principles they profess, and that their views,
though they appear to us narrow and erroneous, de-
serve respect both for the sentiment which animates
them, and for the ends which by mistaken ways they
seek to attain. But in order to estimate the extent
and nature of the further demands they are likely to
make it is necessary to analyse their views and sen-
timents with unsparing truth.
The argument most prominently put forward by
the Sabbatarians is the utility, the necessity of an
institution which allows every man one day's rest in
seven. From this view, in this generality of expres-
sion, no sane or right-minded man will dissent. We
desire earnestly that every man should have a day of
exemption from the breathless hurry, and petty cares
of mundane toil once in the week. We believe that this
end can best be attained by the aggregate body of the
nation agreeing to regard one fixed day in the week as
that on which no business, not absolutely incapable of
suspension or postponement, shall be transacted. We
would reduce even the necessary labour of that day
within the narrowest possible limits ; and to the oom-
psratively few who were obliged to work more toeless
on that day,we would concede en exemption from toil
on some other day of the week. Nay we will go
farther : we believe it to be a graceful and elevating
arrangement to associate with this periodically re-
curring day of rest the discharge of public religious
worship. We would have the weekly day of rest
and the weekly day cf public worship one and the
same; and we think it desirable that the same indi-
viduals should not always be called upon to sacrifice
the Sabbath even to works of necessity.
We believe that the views we have now expressed
coincide pretty exactly with those entertained by the
more intelligent advocates of the suspension of Sun-
day labour in the Poet-office. But they are not the
views of the most active and influential leaders of
that movement, or of a majority of their followers.
The parties, to whom we now allude, bold the views of
Sabbath sanctification which are by some called Ju-
daical, and by some
.paritanical. We adopt these
epithets with no disloratic meaning attached to them,
but simply as descriptive. By these men the Sabbath
is regarded as a day set apart by divine ordi-
nance for humiliation and penitential discipline.
They believe it sinful to do any work on that day ;
they believe it sinful to indulge in any worldly
thoughts, in the most innocent pleasures or recreations
on that day. They aim at enforcing, not
a weekly day of rest, combined with cheerful devo-
tion, but a weekly day, of penance, self-castigation,
and stern asceticism. They will not be contested
with shutting up the post-offices and stopping the
mails on that day ; if victorious in that struggle, they
will next address themselves to some other depart-
ment of Sunday labour, until all toil is proscribed on
that day. And they will not allow those whom they
thus; set free from mundane avocations the choice of
how they are to spend their Sundays. The leaders
of the movement against Sunday labour in the Post-
office are the same men who, by their crusades against
Sunday railway trains, are seeking to debar the me-
chanics of our extensive and crowded manufacturing
and trading town. from access to country air and
health-giving rural sights and sounds on the Sabbath.
The parties who have triumphed in the postal
movement are seeking to impose upon men a for-
malist burden too heavy for men to bear. They are
taking one step after another to the legal enforce-
ment of their own peculiar views of Sabbath observ-
ance upon all. Every concession made to them is a
link added to the spiritual chains they are forging
for us. We do not deny their right to observe the
Sabbath as they please ; we admit that there is a
stern unlovely majesty about their asceticism; but we
deny their right to make their practices compulsory
upon others. Even admitting that their gloomy
views are true, they will admit that the sacrifices they
insist upon have no merit, no value, except in so far as
they are freely and voluntarily made. All who make
them grudgingly and under compulsion are,' even in
their own view, =benefited by them, morally or
religiously.
We take our stand upon the ground that religious
observances must emanate from free conviction. We
are prepared to resist to the uttermost a pharisaic, a
formalist legislation in matters of religion. We be-
lieve that strict regulations in such matters have ever
been productive of unmixed evil. The rigid spirit of
the brief era during which the Puritans had the
ascendancy in England provoked the reaction, the
gross dissoluteness of the days of CHARLES 11. The
scrupulous severity of Sunday observance in Scotland,
where even a quiet walk on Sunday evening is
deemed sinful, or at least disreputable, by the ma-
jority, has done more than anything else to encourage
the habits of excess in drinking for which that
country is not very creditably distinguished.