The Express.
London, England, 1850-01-11 00:00:00

Vie erprtoo.

OVTOOING MAILS.
Tbe sells for British Forth Amrim and the United
Bantu will be wade up this emning, Jan. 11.
Tlie Wise ledua ezeludiag Bermuda, Bavaanab,
Biereara, Hnndorsa, New Orkin', and Manion, and including
01111111 for Pladitint. Ss. Jusa•da-Niearanus, 4.w Granada,
Chili, nod NMI/in be midst* on Jas. 17.
The mils fee Lisboa, Spain, and Gibraltar will be mad*
up on Jan. 17.
TM malls for Gibraltar, Yalta, Gr. rec., the lonian Islands,
Ceylon, India, and China. ria Bestbasapton, will
M wade up on .be evening of Jan. 19.
TM mails rid illee,
to taw Mediterranean, Egypt,
Ceylon, ludia, liong-lion, ha, will be wade up es the
final*, of Jan. 24
Ma wile foe Marvin, the Brains, and Buenos Apree,will
be made up Os tbe corning of Feb. 4.

WM, VAT= AT LUVIDOII WDOL
TIM lA. le.
To.moano.-.4l4,nise, Allmon,. I b. Ho.

LONDON, FRIDAY, JANCARY 11.

Mr. Dissent and Mr. ConDEN have met, if not in
Aylesbury, at least in Backs. Their speeches a ere
addressed to the farmers within some few hours of each
other. The champions, we may be sure, chose and
arranged the arguments, and adopted the tone, most
likely to be caociusive and impre gave. And in order to
form &judgment, not of the i dative t alents of th e orators
(that is a question of secondary moment), but of the
Justice, plainness, cogency, and sincerity of either
cause, these two speeches eminently suffice.
That of Mr. DisRAELI was very jocular, very per-
motel, very pointed in wads, indulging in great feli-
city of pun and variety of oonandlum. It was epi-
grammatic rather than argumentative, and well calcu-
lated to tickle the ears which it might not be worth
while to persuade. But statement, explanation, rea-
soning, there was none.
Mr. Comore's, on the contrary, was a tale as plain
and as unvarnished as ever even he delivered. His
speech did but set forth a series cf tic's, patent, irrefra-
gable, and the mere marshalling of them was argument
sufficient. This year of terrible distress. in which free
trade was to ruin every interest, Mr. CAMDEN pissed
in review. lie asked, and answered, what was the
state of the revenue—of trade, as evinced by experts
and imports, anu by the sufficiency of employment—
of pauperism. Had gold been drawn out of the
country to pay for wheat? No; manufactures suf-
ficed, and left gold t 3 overflow the Bank, and be at the
disposal of landed or other borrowers. Free trade
had, in fact, benefited every class--eave the landlord
and the farmer.
The landlord qaerilli Mr. COBDEN stated with all
plainness : —it war a cineetion of rent. The English
farmer, as Mr. Ply/ULU justly observed, ought to be
put on an equality with the foreizner, and how
was this to be done. but by giving him the raw ma-
terial, land, at a price nearer to that of the rest of the
world?
Is this reduction a great hardship or injustice to
the landlord? Take any of the the nits respecting
rent, even that evecielly made for the landlords, v:z.,
that rents have not biers raised arbit-arily or through
monopoly, but merely from the tieces4ty and in-
creased expense of cultivating infer,or boils. Does
not this avow that a surplus value, that is surplus
rent, has been given to average soils, more than they
require or could command bat for the accu-
mulation cf wealth and papeation, and the
circumscribed area of the land ?Is it unfair to coun-
teract and undo this unnatural and unneeded high
price of land ? Ab ee all, is it us Mir to undo it in a
caseitry and at a time when every other source of
profit has been diminiehed, when manufa-surers have
hem for yeas Lying on capital, and when good money
brings but twc-and-a-hilt per cent. ?
So much for the landlords' case. As for that of
the tenant fanners, it may Five awful to find two
such men as Mr. COBDEN and Mr. DIsRAELI
takirig the earns view of them. Bath declare the
farmer to be a middle—that is, a commercial
sr msnufee'tsing, class, purchasing and working raw
material. " When you talk of the middle class," bele!
Mr. DIsRAELI, "don't exclude the farmers." And
who, indeed, dues exclude them, save themselves P
The misfortune is, that with middle-class interests
they have no middle-class sympathies. Though pos-
sessed of capital Keough to buy, and skill enough to
use, their own agriculture: implements and materials,
they take all their ietelleettial implements, their rea-
amine maven and economical principles, from the
landlords.
The farmzis ought to be an independent race; it is
necessary fix their thriving and doing jus• tee to them-
selves and the country that they should be so. But
tojudge by their candact. we should conclude that they
are as much in the power of the laodlcrd to crush and
to starve them as the Irish collier is. Now, if this
really be the Cell-, if the farmers who see their de-
penance cannot Alike it off—if they dare not to ask
that moderately reduced rent which everyone must
see to be the true and natural remedy for
depression probabl7 but temporary—if they are
too much in the social and political thrall of the pro-
prietors of land to be allowed to speak tueir sentiments
or consult their interests, why then farmers do not
deserve to be reckos.ed amongst the intelligent and
independent middle clam of the country. On the con-
trary, they doge de themselves to the conditio:i of a
dependent and a lower clue, ex:sting as much on the
mercy and consideration of their lords, as the day
labourer or the menial.
We are sorry to say that in these respects the
farmers have their character to redeem, and with it
the character of England, of which they necessarily
form the pith and the element. The arguments
that are palmed upon them, and even applauded
by them, whether coming horn the out-and-
outer., like the Marquis ot GILUBV, or from the halt-
and-hailer., like Mr. DISRAELI, are insulting to their
intelligence. If Mr. CoLDEN'S speech does nut open
their eyes to the thimble-rigging of the different
manoeuvres and schemes inveuted to lead them on
and amuse them, and keep rents up and farmers
quiet, then we shall despair of Anglo-Saxon intellect,
independence, and acuteness. The exposure of the
" dodge " to throw the local rates off real property
and burden them upon floating and industrial capital,
in direct contravention of all the experience, the logic,
and the tendencies of the age, was so complete, that
we feelingly congratulate the member for Bucks on
the wisdom of his absence, and the prudence which
he showed and avowed in taking time till the meeting
of parliament to consider, and digest, and prepare
some kind of answer.

IT is encouraging to note that the very journals
which chid us when first we drew attention to the
corruption of European society in India, are them-
selves now eager to expose its rankness. They came
to curse, and have left to pray. And well they may ;
for each successive mail furnishes new examples
of the immorality, the venality, and the unscrupulous-
ness that prevail throughout the governing class in
that vast dependent empire. So long, indeed, as war
continued, the glitter and noise of military events con-
cealed and silenced all such occurrences; but with the
return of peace public attention has become riveted on
an embarrassed government and a demoralised public
service ; and, if tranquillity can only be preserved until
the present charter expires, there are men in paella-
nt who will call the East India Company to a strict
account ands severe reckoning of the great powers and
the lucrative privileges which the directors have exer-
cised at least for their own personal advantage, if
not for the benefit of India or England ; and who
will not judge of their rule by the extent of new ter-
ritory which has been acquired, but by the material
happiness and moral improvement which has been
promoted.
A governing body at home so greedy of patronage'
that it lately removed some ten or fourteen pursers'
clerks who had been mAde captains! clerks by the
Bombay government, in order that it might send out
its own prutigh from this country—a government
abroad with au =raid deficit of about two
millions sterling in us treasury, or I.9th of its
general revenue—an irresponsible and unverified sys-
tem of piper administration carried on by servants
who take no real interest in the people or
the caturry over which they preside—a land
revenue system which depresses cultivation,
has destroyed the race of native gentry, and impover-
ish. s the cultivators—a polies system which is a source
of oppression and dread to the people it is meant to
protect—a iodic-is' system wholly alien to the wants
as f feelings of the country—a mditary service
steeped in debt, end characterised by gambling
••••..4 civil service only lees embarrassed because
even more highly paid—inordinate powers vested
la Bowan at the seats of governments which
istarsept the knowledge and information that ought to

reach the Governors of the various Presidencies direct
—a mercantile system at Calcutta that encourages, by
making advances on goods, excessive speculation--
-and throughout India a people deteriorating in
every element of happiness and anitfort—these are
the chief characteristics of the East Win Companli
government; as they are—alas I—eells requiring
the industry and the genius of goods'', •lltieuta
adequately to describe their intensity and extent.
' It is in vain to attempt to accoturtfor such a state of
things in any other way than by reeking their causes
in the radically defective and vicious system of
government of the Rut India Company: Corrupt,
secret, and self-seeking at home, it is corrupt,
costly, hurtful, and irresponsible in India. Who
are the Directors? Is there one of them pre-
eminently distinguished in those qualities out of which
statesmen ars composed ? Is there amongst them a
great general—a protound financier—an able adminis-
trator—even a first-rate merchantor banker, or lawyer P
Does the court contain a single individual in whom
any public confidence would, or cote d, be reposed in our
own domestic affairs? Are they not, as a body, per-
sons notorious in the City of London for intellectual
insignificance? Were not several foremost in the race
of unlawful gains during the bubble year 180-6 as
their predecessors were in 1825? Are not many of them
now to be seen in the City running from public com-
pany to public comp.ny eager to secure their guineas
lern the line be drawn in the attecdance books of these
corporations? Is not their only claim to importance
the immerse amount of annual patronage which they
have individually to dispose of ? Have we not seen
one of them convicted of a misdemeanour in
selling his patronage? And if the Court of Direc-
tors be so composed, what reasonable expectation
can there be that its fruit will be otherwise than bitter
—that its measures can be worthy of the task consigt ed
to its wisdom—that its administration can promote
the happiness of the people entrusted to its rule ?
The directors are, however, only the natural,
the inevitable consequence of the system under
which they are chosen. We might just as
reasouably give the holders of Consols the elec-
tion of the imperial government, as leave the
choice of East India Directors in the hands of the
bolds.rs of India Stock. People place their money in
that stock as an invecinent, for a dividend of 101 per
cent., guaranteed by the pubic faith of this country ;
not because they take the slightest interest in the
affairs of India. Look at a list of East India pie-
prietors : many are women, many minors, some tune-
' tics, several foreigners living abroad ; and of tf e
number who are none of these, there is not
one out of fifty who can be supposed to
have the least knowledge of India, or its teem-
ing, and industrious people. The only concorn
they have in India is its patronage. Yet it is in
leach a constituency that the legislature reposed for
twenty years the election of East India directors.
And the system by which their suffrages are gained
is such as no high-spirited or really competent man
would have recourse to. Canvassing, promising,
cringing, fawning, flattering, deluding fur yaws:—
such is the machinery, such are the arts, such the
practices by which directors are chosen. Who can won-
der that men 1-ke MOUNTsTUART ELPIIINSTONE, for
exomple, never sought a seat amongst them ? Rather,
who can be surprised the., with such preliminary re-
quirements, the C •urt of Directors is composed of its
present unworthy and iccompetent materials ?
Preprietore' votes are repaid by &rectors' ',Aron-
age ; and India is inju-ed by tie sjs:em which bestowa
the election of its government on persons who have no
earthly qualification for the euffirage they enjoy and
profit by. The men favoured by Indian appointments

oy
regard them as pieces of good fortune, bc.iught, if no,
with money, by merit y's work. Without special re-
oommendatiun for employment in India, they rani;
take the smallest reel interest in its affairs. Sure
to rite iu their profession if they lice, they have
no stimulus to exertion. With the certainty of in-
growing rank, salaries, sad larxe retiring pensions,
irrespective of merit or desert, all motives to teenier,
pradecce, and early economy are a ithdrawo. With
examples of high living on every side, and with fa
eility of raising winey in every quarter, the first six
moths residence in Innis often plant,te young mei,
into pecuniary embarrassment from which many
never escape, and which give a tone of un-
ecrupulowness to the whe.e career of the services.
The more they rise in their profeoeions the leas super-
vision are they subjc:ted to, and the more irrespon-
sible do they beeome. The instruments of asr stem
of paper government, their reports and public
documents are attuned to the wants and wishes of
their rulers ; and three wants and se Ph, is may be
snmmed up in a sentence—get more rcrenue and keep
things rpnet. The higher officers of the civil servic, ,
duelled with powers unknown to Euroreou functier.-
*ries even in Russia, feel that their preceed-
ings are unverified ; that the I,cal governments
entirely depend on them for informatien ; and that
the home government delight in gbec:ng descrip-
tions; Ind they act accordingly. Cadet such a sys-
tem, how can the real condition, the wants, the op-
pressions, and the deterioration of the people ever
become known to the best-intentioned Goveinor-
general? The higher officers of the military service
are scarcely less irresponsible: end it now turns
out that in B ngal they have been in the constant
habit of dictating to the commander-in-chief the very
cantonments of their regiments.
These are not imaginary pictures. They arc the
sober realities brought over by every mail. Thus,
lee example, the last two mails tell us how the head
of the Calcutta Stamp-office is now on his trial, and
likely to be convicted, for offering to sell the patronage
in his department to rich natives ; how a major in the
Indian army has been dismissed the service for gam-
bling and lying; how the judge and the magistrate
of a district are charged by a European resident with
offences almost too numerous mud too horrible to men-
tion; how Sir THOMAS TCHTON' late the registrar
of the Supreme Court, after having spread ruin
and misery amonest thousands, is now applying
to be relieved from 120,0001. of debts, and is
meanwhile living in splendour and luxury in the
walls of a gaol, where he is pursuing his profession ;
how Colonel Paw, a director of the Benares Bank,
borrowed on worth less security not less than 70,0001. oat
of the 90,0001. which constituted its entire assets, and
when he had ruined both it and himself, obtained his
discharge by the Insolvent Debtors Court almost as a
matter of course; and how the commander-in-chief is
about to retire from an army because his power to re-
form it is restricted by the system of Leadenhall-street.
The same mails, too, tell us of something even more
important regarding the great causes of the failure of
the cotton culture experiments ; but that significant
story must be reserved for another opportunity; it
will come, however, opportunely, for Manchester
meets on the 17th to consider the question.