The Express.
London, England, 1850-05-16 00:00:00

%Mt erpretio.

OUTGOING MAILS.
The mails for Brain Nene Ameba sad the United
States will be man ap u mane+ nenag.
Tim male ty Llaboa, Spain. mid Gibraltar will be mad*
Tle-money
The Mat ils Ifni., 'unitise Berindai Ilaysambi.
Mammy Mowleimm Now Orlon*, tad Mszlea, sad biding
Tana far 111404164. et. Joaa-de-Nleararam New Grenada,
Clll,maiPsi%willlinage to-serrow imessisti.
The mils Gibralier, Malts, Ormies, Uto lowan 141•444,
tatallisa. WOK awl Cline, via Bestlaseples,
e op ea the smelai of May 20.
TMMali odd liaroallon to the Mrditerrsame.
Onles, ladle, IlearEasig. &a., will be Made ap Bert
evealar et May 24.
The mails ler Maderia.tbe Den* mad Banos AMIN will
M made ay ea the mean. of Jane 4.

1110111 MATTA AT AMMON MDT&
Ten Day—/laream, lll§~.. At.
11.••••••—Sonsal. AA. Oa ihreasa. IA MA.

night, when the bill which is inland to be founded I
on them will probably he introdused. With this bill,
however, no program, can be made until after Whit-
suntide; so that those who may desire to miticise the
various ameedineate will base ample opponent,* be-
fore the sena reading.
For our owe
.parts, the pieseare as it new
befogs the house, m certainly. not see which we
to take time to consider. leumbetaree k embodies
everything the Daily Ifewelies seggested, and emits
everything to which the Daily Neese has taken an
objection. Bat for on consideration the measure
might be almost endorsed es our owe : and that eon-
bideration is that we bare always recommended that
the stamp question should be treated as a whole,
and should be adjusted on a far more eompeneesive
basis than the., on which this stamp bill rests.
The advantages, which tree disoussin of this mat-
ter have Neared, need mercely be adverted to. Every-
thing that bordered upon sew taxation has been
Mandated; throughout the new regulations the words
of the old Stamp Acts hays been cautiously adopted,
so that no ream remains Foe quibble, nor is there a
door left epos for fresh persecutions by the stamp
authorities. How manifold and retied might have
been the annoyances and oppressions inflicted by the
Board of inland Revenue under Sir CHARLES WOOD'S
first measure, it is unnecessary to consider now.
These important points have been conceded, and we
ham therefore oily to look to the schedules as they
are now proposed.
The duties upon hoods and mortgages it is pro.
reed to take at an equal ad emlnreme duty of one-
eighth per seat Sir CHARLES WOOD'S Bret measure
proposed a duty of one-half per cent. ; his second pro-
, posel was a duty of one fourth per cent The resolu-
tion of the boom cut him down to one-tenth, or 2s.
per sent, and he now proposes a compromise upon
that resolution by taking one-eighth, or 2s. 6d. per
cent. Well, the public cannot but feel that an
equable ad valorem duty of one-eighth per cent.,
fairly levied throughout the scale, will be a
boon to the taxpayer, whilst it will involve no immo
dente sacrifioe of revenue. The House of Commons
we have no doubt will be prepared to meet Sir
CHARLES WOOD, end concede the difference
in order that the public may obtain the advantage
of so considerable a reduction upon the present
rates.

LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY 16.

THE debate and division of Tuesday night will not
mast the protectionists is their endeavour to per-
made their followers, that they are a growing putty.
It was on this that Lord STARLET laid all his stress;
an opinion, too, that Lord JOHN Mansma formally
developed at the Crown and Anchor meeting, when
be announced, that the " majority in parliament
against protection, which had been at ant 100, had
now fallen so low, that the most favourable partisans
of government could not place it higher than 20."
The division in 1846 on Sir Rowan PEEL'S motion
to repeal the corn laws was, after a debate of twelve
nights, 337 to 240, leaving a majority of 97. On the
third reading the division was 327 to 229, a majority
of 98. The motion of Tuesday night was negatived
by 296 votes to 184, a majority of 114.
Let the farmers contemplate thew figares, and form
an idea how they are humbured by promises that
protection is gaining ground. That the numerical
strength of the party is declining, is evident enough
from the divisions. Let us see it they have pined in
the personal weight of adherents. Mr. GRANTLET
BIRERLIT has certainly become a quasi protectionist;
but in return Mr.DISRAELT has declared himself a quasi
free-trader. His is for protecting manufactures only
against those countries that will not practise recipro-
city ; sad he is for protecting agriculture only so far
as to compensate for i•s exclusive burden.. Prove
to Mr. DISRAELI, that however one particular foreign
country may refuse reciprocity of trade, yet all taken
together cannot—es the mass of imports must be, and
are, paid by a mass of exports;—prove at the
same time, that the cultivators of the soil
have no exclusive and disproportionate burdens—
and bath propositions may, in our opinion, be fully
proved—and you have Mr. DISRAELI a free-trader.
A more perfect or solid tubular bridge was lever
thrown over the strait that divides protection from
free trade than that put together, floated and
elevated, by Mr. Datum in his speech of Tuesday
night. He is the ROBERT STRPRENSON of political
PA
Mr. Disaaufs attitude as a merely contingent
protectionist wee not the only gain to the liberal party
in this debate. That the working classes throughout
the country have benefited immensely by the cheapness
of provision was proved beyond the power of contra-
diction. It was proved by the increased consump
tion, not only of corn, bat of exciseable articles, by
the less peopled state of the poor-houses, by tie po-
pulation registers, by the breadth of land admitted to
be sown, by the export of manufactures, by the de-
mand for land itself, by the increased capital spent on
manure to fructify it. The fart is, that neither the
landlords nor farmers of England are what their
political fuglemen would represent them to be.
Instead of throwing up the land, they are ploughing
more ; instead of dismissing the labourer, they are
giving him more employment ; instead of waiting on
protection and a new parliament, they are exerting
themselves to be independent of both.
It is remarkable that throughout the debate not a
word was said about rent. The landlords, as landlords,
made on complaint; they were not hardy enough to
bring discussion upon that point. The farmer was
alone put in the front of the battle ; his condition
alone referred to, his distress depicted. Beaten on the
question of the poor and the labouring class, silent
on the question of the upper or rent subsisting gentry,
a fixed duty we. besought aa salvation to the tenant
farmer.

The proposed arrangement of the duties on convey-
same is open to more observation. The new proposal
is an equable ad valorem duty at IL per cent. Now
this is a roos.derable increase upon the range of du-
ties existing at the present time. The present stamp
duties on conveyances are arraard as follows ,
Pemba, Mossy. Duty.
£2O to £5O
_0

60 to 160
160 to 500
ZOO to 600

MO to 750
750 to 1,000
1,000 to 2,000
The new duties are proposed to be as follows:
Exceeding £lOO
„ £2OO
300
r, 400
' , (.00
And so on for every 100!.
It is obvious that this is a very considerable in-
crease, and the question is, bow can it be justified ?
It is remarkable that Sir CHARLES WOOD from the
very first recommended this stamp measure as a boon
to the email purchaser of land. Bu. from this it
seems that, amongst other things he has abandoned,
has been his original design; for if this scale is
adopted, the relief in respect of conveyances, instead
of falling to the small purthaser,
_will accrue to the
large one,who is to receive the advantage of • con-
siderable reduction upon the progressive duty at pre-
sent payable in every case where &large deed is neces-
sarily required.
In proposing this heavy duty on conveyances Sir
CHARLES WOOD'S object may possibly be to afford
himself an opportunity of making some concession in
committee. We regard this as the more likely be-
cause on Monday night he estimated that his loss on
"bonds and mortgages," at a duty of one-eighth per
cent. would amount to no more than 200,000!., which
leaves him still 100,0001. to giveaway. If, however,
this conjecture is erroneous, the House of Commons.
before sanctioning this highly increased duty on
conveyances will probably require some further data
for their guidance. Certainly the information which
they have before them in no degree justifiis the impo-
sition of an increased amount of duties.

Mr. Witsort nest this by admitting that what he
celled the middle clue were sufferinr throughout
Ragland a general distress. By middle class Mr.
WlLaos meant the capitalist, the man employing his
capital in turning land or any other material to account;
and a portion of this discrete Mr. WILSON ascribed to
unfortunate speculation and hazardous investments.
We think that the honourable member for Westbury
had no need of limiting his description to the middle-
class. The ills he spoke of have affected the capital-
ists generally; and these ills, which the capitalists in
all walk' of commerce and mantfaetnring industry
have borne in silence, are now the lame which draw
from the agriculturist such tremendous clamour.
The fact is that the active classes of the com-
munity have been accustomed to large profits,
and that the come of things has been to bring
down the rate of these profits, now of one
species of industry, now of another, its a most serious,
and to thou unprepared Air it, in a most distressing
manner. The most unprepared, of course, are those
who have considered tbesseelve• in possession of fixed
incomes, and consequently entitled to borrow and to
spend without foresight. The landed interest, being
most in this predicament, now of course, though last
affected, feel it the most. The ardour for large pro-
fits and far investments has ruined the millionaire
class. The mine ardour drove a class of smaller
fortunes into the railroad mania. A farmer's
calculation' led him to delight in the fluc-
tuation of prices, that prohibition or slid-
ing scale produced. With prices ranging from
40s. to 110 e. the farmer's was a gambling and ex-
citing life. And he cared not for paying more than
was right and just for his land in cheap moons, is
the hope that the turn of fortune oe the weather
would give him a prize next year. The life was a
pleasant, an exciting, a lucrative one. But as at
other gambling tables, hundreds of dependents were
pinched for the mammary and uncertain profit and
pleasure of him who staked and won, or who staked
and lost. The repeal of the corn laws has shut up
the gambling table, sad the farmer can calculate
with the landlord and himself the natural and apparent
profit by which honest men live, and from which for-
tunes, if made, must be the result, not of the chance
of as hour, but the frugal awe of a life. This is the
painful transition going on at this hour, the revolu-
tion, which has rot all its good and nodal and
calming effects, because the gambler looks to a re-
versal of the decree that proscribes hie calling.
To render and declare this decree final should be
the effort sae resolve of every good man. One re-
grets to say that, for peace and courtesy rake per-
haps, more than from misgiving of conviction,
several of the whig ministers hays given the farmers
and their friends room to hope AM the rowipo-et-
noir tables would be re-opened. Though not the
least mild and courtemes of his party, the CHANCEL-
LOR of the EXCHEQUEt gave way to none of these'
amiable ambiguities. His speech of Tuesday night
was all that could be desired: marked by firmness,
conviction, and by a statement of opinions, and the
grounds of them, as lucid as firm. And we are glad
to have an opportunity of saying this, differing, as
we do, so often from the right ;bon. baronet on final
questions.
It is remarkable how little was said on what is,
nevertheless, so favourite a topie with oat-of-door
orators and with the ultra-tory pees, the neceesity of
protecting the manufacturing interest Nothing was
said in parliament of that dre need, in whish the
woollen, the iron, the silk, and even some of the
cotton producers, were said to stand, of
protection. Mr. O. Youso has no echo is
the House of Commies, no more than the
Doke of RlcrimoND and Mr. CROWLEY. The alliance
between agricultural and manufacturing protection-
ists seems quite visionary, and one-sided. Mr.
Dimmer.' said little to develop his scheme for
making foreigners pay the English taxes ; a con-
venient plan, not quite reconcilable with his other
doctrine, allowing free trade in case of reciprocity.
If agricultural protection has not much to say for it-
self, its aussefectoring sister seems to have nothing
at all to urge. She at least is mute.

We state the more frankly what are our objections
to the new male of conveyance duties, because in all
other eteentials the proposal, as it at present stands,
is one which, we think, it would be wise to accept.
We would have preferred, as we said before, a more
comprehensive measure ; we would have preferred
for the benefit of the people a diff rent applic ition of
the 300,0001. which Sir CHARLES WOOD is enabled
to spare them from the revenue; bat as the right
hon. gentleman declines altogether to avail
himself of the great opportunity now open of
amending the stamp laws as a whole—es be insists
that we shall take o2r 3000001. after this peddling
fashion and in no way else—why all we have to do is
to see that we get the money in the best shape prac-
ticable under all the circumstances.

Sir CHARLES WOOD cTmplainea on Monday that
the revenue had suffered during the last month is
consequence of the uncertainty prevailing as to this
measure. Who has the Chancellor to thank for
that? For two months he has been tinkering at •
bill which from the first was mildewed as entirely
incapable of holding water. Half-a-dczen times he
has been doomed to discover that it was more leaky
' than ever; and, as he might have anticipated, after
altering the bill, until it was impossible to recognise
it, he has been obliged to throw it aside as useless
and impracticable.

Tut resolutions ot the Hams of Commons on which
Sir CHALLIS WOOD proposes to base hi. new measure
for the amendment of the Stamp Acts were printed
sod delivered yesterday. They Will be reported to-

THE EXPRESS, THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 16, 1850.