The Express.
London, England, 1850-03-23 00:00:00

lhe dErpreofs.

OUTGOING NAILS.
The soda eM MarsaMee. to the Mediteersseau, Egypt,
(kle% led* EmetatEest, dte., /Al be mad* up ea the
evening et the
"TiliThee. ikiWiamallestnteeiralielisigimaMenth. 411%MtlisillEsla eibil:llVekla b:a..11:::
Kama, Header's, New Orlesus, Mexise, sad minding
theme fur Madeira, Ift, Jusa-de-Nlearagus, New Grenada,
ChM, sad Peru, will le made up ow April 2.
The hails fee Modell% the Ersalle, sad Baena Ayres, will
he made up ea the eves's( el Aril 4.
The nails for Brithh Meth Amides sad the United
Oar will be made up es the nether et April 6.
The nalle fee Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, the lonise Limb,
Mr bides,lo sad Chloe, eh Ileuthamptes, willhet:april

WOE WATIII AT LONDON MOOD
ANerosALlft.
ADmigNa. M. Ala

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 23.

Tug constitution of oar colonial legislatures was
lcanvassed list night at considerable length. We
have not been much edified by the discussion.
Mr. Dmitri., Mr. Mow Arr, Mr. Busts, and Mr.
AOLIONBT. spoke most to the purpui_ e. Minis-
ters on the one hand, and Mr. WALPOLE on
the other, were aiming by different means to
ensure one and the same end. Both were ani-
, mated by a vague and undefined dread of some
terrible democratic power latent in the colonies, and
seek to bridle it, the as. by associating a number
of nominees with the elected local legislators, the
other by creating a nominee council with a voice u
powerful u that of the elected legislators. But it
might be dangerous to let the colonists know that
what is really aimed at is to prevent and neutralise
the free exercise of the elective franchise that is to be
conferred on them in appearance. And hence the
rpeakers resort to mystified a-..d mystifying appeals
to the forms of the British constitution.

With respect to ministers, it was not easy to
listen to Mr. LanoucHasx's expressions of vent ra-
tion for the seven years' old institutions of New
South Wales, which nave u yet no existence in the
other colonies, with de. gravity. Mr. Wsheohn's
arguments are es feeble. He maintains that British
colonies ought to have British institutions. Granted :
but this does not mean that every petty local govern-
ment is tobe an exact counterpart of the imperial consti-
tution. This, indeed, seems to have been the view that
was taken by the framers of the first constitutions for
our West India islands, and what was the cense-
'
queues ? That Barbados, Nevis, and ether little
islands had not only Governors, Councils, and Houses
of Assembly,: to represent our King, Lords and Com-
mons; but Courts of Chancery, King's Bench, Exche-
quer, Common Pleas, and Admiralty to render the re-
semblance perfect. There were courts for which
neither suitors, barristers, nor udges could be had ;
and in consequence the same individuals were obliged
to "double " the various characters, as it is called in
theatrical parlance. In short, a colony organised
exactly on the model of the old country would bear
much the same resemblance to it that the little
gentleman does to the big in Punch's carica-
ture entitled " A chip of the old block." Toe
main question is, what do the colonists them-
selves want? As far as New South Wales, Van
Diemen's Land, and Victoria are concerned, the evi-
dence goes to show, that if they have any preference,
it is for a single legislative assembly. But oar advo-
cates of double cLamben ignore this evidence, and
look to Canada, to the West Indies, to the Cape of
Good Hope, everywhere, in short, except to Australis,
to learn what the Australians want.
The decision of the House of Commons that there
shall be one legislative chamber in each colony, com-
posed two-thirds of elective and one-third of nominee
members, is not what we could have wished; but,
with all deference to oar colonial doctrinaires, it
might have been worse. The best decision would
have been in favour of one legislative chamber purely
elective ; the next, in favour of two chambers both
elective ; the one chamber with a minority of nomi-
inee members is decidedly preferable to an elective
chamber to vote one way, and a nominee chamber
to vote another. In fact, these partially elective
chambers will prove mere constituent assemblies. So
hostile are the colonists to any nominee admixture,
that, at the first elections, all the elected members
will be returned pledged to avail themselves of the
powers conferred by the 35th clause, and frame forth-
with new constitutions more in harmony with the
rights, interests, and wishes of the colonists. The
Australian Colonies Government Bill will enable the
colonists to make constitutions for themselves, and
that is its great and sole recommendation in

Our eyes.
The question relative to the waste lands of Australia
raised by the bill is, In what hands shall the manage-
ment and disposal of them be vested ? The natural
answer would seem to be, In the bands of the imperial
government. Australia was discovered by expedi-
tion. fitted out at the expense of the British people, it
was taken possession of for the behoof of the British
people—of the whole British people as a corporation,
whether resident in these islands or in any of their
dependencies. They are crown lands, that is, lands held
by the crown in trust for the people, to be administered
for the people's advantage.
This is the view respecting public or waste lands
which has been acted upon, and successfully, in the
United States. The President and Congress have had
the administration of all the waste lands devolved upon

thew It wee to this arrangement that America ivas
indebted for the power to raise loans for the defence
of bee leant libetties, Coogrem having power to
maim, her waste lands for the debt. It is to this
arrangement that she is indebted for the generally
peaceable manner in which she has been able to ex-
tinguish the Indian title throughout the territories of
the Union, an indispensable preliminary to the culti-
vation of those lands, and in no small degree for the
rapid extension of her internal improvements. What
is there to hinder the adoption of a similar system for
the management ant disposal of oar oolonial waste
lands ?

The conclusion, therefore, at which we arrive is,
that only two alternatives are open—to reserve the
management of waste lands in the colonies to the
imperial government, or to vest it in the legislature
of each colony. If the management of colonial waste
lands by the imperial monument is to be conducted,
as now, by a commission destitute of the necessary
powers, by a mere excrescence of the Colonial-office,
we woald infinitely prefer tows the disposal of waste
lands entrusted to the local legislatures. But we are re-
luctant to abandon the hope that their disposal may
yet be vested in a board directly responsible to
parliament malaria" to the Land Offioe of the
United States. The considerations raised by the
amendments, of which Mr. HUTT and Mr. J. B.
SMITH have given notice, are powerful arguments for
making one last effort to attain this object.

Tuns is no class connected with shipping which
has a deeper interest in the improvement of our Mer-
chants Service than underwriters; for on them falls
the weight of its present deficiencies: yet they,
equally with shipowners and shipmasters, are die-
satisfied with Mr. LABOUCHEReB bill.

Scareely a month passes that does not inflict on
Lloyd's several oases of loss arising from avoidable
collisions, or from other ate:ideate or misadventures
produced by incompetency or negligence on the part
of muter and crew. In Lloyd's a decided preference
is shown for policies of insurance on cargoes in fo-
reign bottoms; for in Swedish and American ships
the stowage of freight is mach mare skilfully ar-
ranged, its condition during the voyage is
mach more sedulously and for, the masters
are generally mare attentive and the crew more sub-
' ordinate, than is usually to be found in the second
and third classes into which the British mercantile
marine may be divided. And on the substance of
Lloyd's it is that the inferior race of ships and ship-
owners have ID long preyed, to the serious injury
not merely of the national character but of national
capital also. When, then, the feeling of Lloyd's is
strong against portions of Mr. LAnoucnue's bill,
it is pretty obvious that there must be something
wrong about the measure ; for the pecuniary In-
terests of underwriters, of course, make them more
favourable to government interference in shipping
than their clients. the insured, can be. _ _

The Merchant Service may, as we have just
indicated, be divided into three classes : 1. The ship-
ping owned by such great capitalists as the WIORAILB
and the ORSINI) of London, and the Surma of New-
castle ; who, building first-rate vessels, place them
under first-rate management, and can, consequently,
always procure the best freight or the highest char-

tens for them. These vane* there can be no second
opinion, are the finest merchant ships the world ham
ever event and are commanded and navigated by
officers and crews of which the country may well be
proud. Such ship; and such masters and sailor;
cannot be improved by laws, however skilfully de-
vised ; and any power of regulation exercised by the
Board of Trade over administration and manage-
ment so excellent as those of their owners must
be mischievous and injurious. 2. There is next
a elms of shipping, the property of capitalists,
inferior is intelligence and wealth to the BREEN;
W TOWN, and Suns; but which are, nevertheless;
fairly and reputably managed. A considerable pro-
portion of the vessels belonging to this port, to Abut-
' den, and the better description of Sunderland ships,
sad some of course in every port of any magnitude,
may be no ranked. This class is, moreover, yearly
increasing in numbers and in respectability ; on rat
the pressure of competition is exerc:sing a very salu-
tary influence; its owners are preparing themselves
for the struggle which the abolition of the navigation
laws has rendered inevitable, and are mom and more
employing masters who have undergone the voluntary
examination, end selecting their crews with
more and more discrimination. This second, though
net a perfect, is a very hopeful, clam of ship-
ping. 3. And, lastly, there is a large and
also an increasing clan of ships, which are a disgrace
to the country ; owned by persons of insufficient
capital, mortgaged to persona who traffic on the
poverty or the insolvency of their owners, by giving
them freight in a lump sum, cad then ever-
loading the ship, to make a profit out of their bargain;
commanded by skippers who education have none,
who are brutal and drunken in their habits, on whom
all experience is thrown away ; and under whom a
decent crew won't sail. This class is the horror of
underwriters, and brings discredit on the nation
wherever it sails.

It is the third cLuirCof 'shipowners and their adhe-
rents (who, like the corresponding division of land-
owners and their tenants), were such inveterate
enemies of free trade ; and it is just this
class whose backs foreign competition will
break. But their destruction, so far from being
an injury, will be a positive benefit to the nation.
Their vessels (as the estates of insolvent squires, or
the farms of bad cultivation) will pass into the hands
of men competent by their pecuniary means to own,
and fit by their intelligence, to manage ships. So
owned, some little education will be required on the
part of apprentices ; and it is from apprentices having
the rudiments of education, that the great improve-
ment of the merchants service nay be expected to
spring : for it is from apprentices that able-bodied
sailors are made; and it is from men before the mast
that states and masters are to be selected. 'fine
newer, therefore, the pressure of competition can re-
duce this class, the sooner will the character, and,
with the character, the profits, of the mercantile
marine be improved.
Now what Lloyd's, so far as we can ascertain, com-
plain of in Mr. Lteotraixex's bill is, that whilst it
provides for everything that needs either little or no
regulation, it con'ains no provisions which will re-
press the incompetence or punish the negligence of
the masters and crews of this class of shipping, of
which underwriters are so continually the victims.
With the examination clause, Lloyd's are, it seems,
generally satisfied : but they ask for greater security
than the bill furnishes, that collisions, accidents, and
injury to cargo, shall be thoroughly investigated into,
and, when traced to incompetency or to misconduct,
that punishment and disgrace should follow. The
bill does, it is true, make some provision for such in-
vestigation; but upon thu motion of the Board of
Trade only. This is, it is argued, a restriction that
may practically render the investigation clauses in-
operative. No persons, it is said, have a greater
interest in such investigations than underwriters ; for
they it is who suffer most severely from incompetence
or misconduct; and it is not an unreasonable request
that such investigation should always follow either a
complaint of an suthorised agent of Lloyd's, or of the
underwriters on whom ge or total loss has fallen.
Investigation being them secured to underwriters,
punishment ought, it is contended, to follow proven
incompetence, misconduct, or negligence ; and such
punishment will, it is thought, be best found in the
deprivation or suspension of the offending master or
mate's certificate, without the production of which no
vegetal ought to be cleared by the Custom House.
But, whilst thus seeking for greater security for
competency and care on the part of ship mater's, un-
derwriters admit that these securities ought to be
accompanied by much more stringent powers to mas-
ters over Crews than Mr. LABOCCIIERE'S bill will
confer. The same train of reasoning which justifies
the examination of ship angers and mates,—viz.: a
regard for the life and property under their skill and
care—applies with even stronger force to measures
for the proper subordination of ships' crews ; for
wi'h far has, or rather with no, respon-
sibility, a ship's crew hes just as much
power over life and property as the master. At pre-
sent the whole tendency, not merely of our legisla-
tion, but, unfortunately, of public feeling, is in favour
of sailors ; and they have been so fostered by law,
protected by magistrates' decisions, end encouraged
by impunity for misconduct, that they are masters of
the vessels they navigate. For greater offences the
law of mutiny is, of course, applicable ; but for the
correction of those minor offenses, in the absence of
which discipline, good order, proper stowage, freedom
of cargo from injury during voyage, and economy so
mainly depend, there is no law at all. And the con-
sequence of the care and protection with which
legislation has surrounded sailors, to their own
great and manifest injury, is, that in every
port there is a class of lawyers and sgents
who trade in getting up cases against shipmasters
whenever a vessel gets into pent. The master, thus
helpless on shore, too frequently becomes tyrannical
and brutal at sea ; so that the present state of law,
withholding all confidence from masters, and pro-
tecting by every means in its piwer !sailors, injures
the character of both.

THE Dean and Chapter of Rochester do not appear
to have been very fortunate in selecting a chaplain of
Bucks Gaol to succeed a Fellow of Trinity as muter
of their Grammar School : for instead of a testimo-
nial from his pupils of their gratitude for his instrac-
tion, such as Mr. WHISTON got, Mr. MEERES, their
new pedagogue, has, it seems, been convicted of a
very wanton and tyrannical waren on one of their
foundation boys.
That these boys should be deprived by their
patrons, the chapter, of the maintenance they are
entitled to, and beaten by their master, beceuse at a
season when most noses are running, and not a few
bones are aching, they happen. to cough, is a combi-
nation of injustice and bad treatment not, in thews
days of active sense of responsibility, to be found out
of cathedral establishments. The chapter starves, and
the muter beats, the boys. This is not the way to
make Rochester School a very attractive establish-
ment.
But Muter BAMFORD'S cough was an irreverent
' cough; it was a cough of insult and insubordina-
tion. Aye, there it is; Mr. MEafeEs, with a con-
sciousness of the false position in which he is placed,
secs offence in every motion of every pupiL TRACY
can't blow his nose without meaning to remind him
, of Bucks Gaol ; Seosa can't look with disgust on
the miserable garret into which the Chapter has
thrust their grammar-school, without impeachment of
the ex-chaplain's humanities or mathematics ; and
prr BAMFORD can't cough without intimating to Mr.
MRERIS that, after all, Mr. WHISTON is his legal
muter. Thus it is : " conscience doth make cowards
of us all." And Mr. Mamas, irritated by its re-
proaches, breaks a stick over Butroare's back; and
compels the lad to kneel u devoutly before him, the
representative of modern cathedral shortcomings, as
if he had been GONDELPHOS, the great benefactor of
Rochester, himself.

In the surreptitious appointment of a person Sc
unfit for the situation as this conviction proves Mr.
MEEREB to be, the wicked will find evidence that the
Dean and Chapter, after having attempted to punish
Mr. WIIISTON for endeavouring to make diem do
their duty .by the foundation boys, are now attempt-
i_n_g to punish the public of Rochester, for supporting
Mr. WHISTON, by destroying the grammar school of
that city. No such suspicion crosses our mind ; we
know church dignitaries too well ; any intention of
the kind involves a forethought, even of wickedness,
such as eapitular bodes never indulge in. Their
faults ars selfish stupidity, insensibility to moral obli-
gations, and immovability—all faults of a negative
character. But when the tendency of their present
proceedings is obviously to ruin Rochester Ununmar
School, these dignitaries must not be surprised if the
vulgar do ascribe that result to a deliberate intention.