The Express.
London, England, 1850-05-27 00:00:00

Vie erprnixi.

lirsoiteres is so importnettapaitien el 'hippies
trade, as to ruder the consideration
the state dthe existing law *Oen le
any general improvement in the legislallint`bY
that interest is governed. Be, butt g abmttdy stated
the objsetioes setertained by shipowieses its the
Merearsties Mor•ns Big No. ff, we sow Prorise is
note some omissions therein of provisions of very
serious importance to Insurers u a body,es well u to
the character of the British emnasercial navy; to
which, it is maderstood, the committee of Lloyd's
bare already drawn the attention of the Board of
Trade, though not, it is feared, with much scones.
Underwriting, as our readers know, is the insurance
of ships and their °arcs against loss or damage.
This trade is carried on public companies, by ma-
llet clubs, and by private individulls. Bat in London
the great underwriting establishment is known as
Lloyd's. At one time there was reason to =woes
that the balk of the business would gradually be
sup onopolissdby the companies ; but experience has
roved that, as under wnungis a matter requiring the
closest and most unremitting individual attention, the
apprehension that companies would obtain supremacy
in the trade was unfounded; and in spite of the gra-
dual descent of premiums since the war, a large pro-
portion of the business is still done by individual
underwriters, and, in London, at Lloyd's.
The low rates to which premiums have fallen, of
course renders losses heavier to bear ; and raise in
importance all means by which they can be avoided.
One great cause of loss to underwriters arises from
the collision of vessels. Now, it is no secret to any
one who has given attention to such matters, that
there is a large proportion of these collisions which,
if not positively criminal or fraudulent, is nevertheless
preventible or avoidable; and there is too much
reason to fear, that of late years this proportion has
very largely increased, and that there is a class of
vessels now insured chiefly to be lost. The question
of preventible or avoidable collision is, consequently,
one that ought not to be blinked or over-looked at a
time when the Board of Trade professes to have
under its consideration the general state of the laws
relative to shipping.
A vary intelligent underwriter, Mr. Itreitza, has
st issued a useful sheet of statistics, collected from
Lloyd's Books, on the collisions that have been re-
rrfliin the five years, 1846 to 1849, inclusive.
this sheet, it appears that, on a comparison of
the former with the latter d those years, there is a
slight falling off in the number of collisioes: the
figures for 1845 being 382, against 340 in 1849 ;
yet in the whole of that period there were not lens
than 1,913 cams of collision; and had Mr. RUCKER
carried his valuable researches back to a decennial,
instead of confining them to $ quinquennial period,
he would, we believe, have found that, on a compari-
son of the year. 1838 with 1848, the number of colli-
sions in the latter year was nearly or quite double
that of the former. But Mr. RECKER'S statements
are startling enough for all practical purposes ; seeing
that in the five years 1845-9 they show an annual
average of 382 cases of collision reported to Lloyd's,
during which period the number of British registered
ships only rose from 23,253 to 2;,0;1: and that in
the earns period there are only four instances of her
Majesty's ships and eleven of her Majesty's steamers
coming into contact with other Teasels, and only one
instance each of collisions between two Queen's ships
and two royal steamers.
The best opinion to which we have access on such
a point instructs us that of this annual average of
382 cues of collision in all probability one-half is pre-
ventible or avoidable ; consequently the loss repro-
sented by 191 cases of collision in each year, 1845-9,
has been uniuotly or fraudulently imposed on under-
writers. This opinion, too, is strongly confirmed by
Mr. RECKER'S classification of the seas in which the
collisions he has enumerated have occurred. For of
them, 161 cases in 1845, and 142 in 1919, took place
in the English and Irish Channels and parts adjacent; 1
138 in 1845, and 134 in 1849, in the ;forth Sea; 34
in 1843, and 31 in 1849, in the Baltic and Mediterra-
nean, including the Cattegat and Straits of Gibraltar ;
and 46 in 1815, sad 33 in 1849, in all other parts.
Now this classification of collisions shows that they
occur in larger proportions exactly in those voyages
where the seamanship of shipmasters is worst, where '
the vessels are moat inadequately and indifferently
manned, and, more important still, where the ships
are most irresponsibly owned. As might have been
anticipated, the number is greatest in the coasting-
trade, is leas: on the long voyage.
On a former occasion we pointed out that the Bri-
tish mercantile marine might be cLvided into three
classes. 1. Of ships owned by great capital-
ists, such as the GREENS, the WIGRANS,
the SMITUS, and the Glasgow and Aberdeen
owners, who torn out vessels unrivalled in
construction, in accommodation, and in equipment,
who employ the best masters in the service, and ship
none but competent and well-conducted seamen. 2.
Of ships on the whole reputably owned, properly
navigated, and of sea-worthy, though inferior, cha-
racter. And 3. Of vessels which are a disgrace to a
marine country : built, like Peter Pindar's razors,
to sell, generally owned by persons of insufficient
espied, usually heavily encumbered with mortgages,
essameeded by drunken skippers, and shipping the
most worthless of our sailors. This last class of ship-
ping it is that will generally be found in the coasting
pads and in the North Bea ; and there it is Mr.
RECKER shows that collisions are most frequent.
Of the larger part of this class—viz., that engaged
in the coasting trade—it is their misfortune to be still
protected by law ; and in addition to this misfortune,
Mr. LABOUCIIBRE proposes to exempt them from
many of the really useful clauses of Bat No. 2. Now
until the coasting trade be subjected to the risme
of foreign competition, and be rendered amenable is
provisions for the protection of insurers, much im-
provement is hopeless, and the Newcastle Colliers will
continue to be what they now are, a scandal to the
country.
But what legal provisions can be devised to limit
and diminish the present large amount of preventible
or avoidable collision, which presses so heavily and so
unjustly on underwriters? No doubt collision is a
fair and proper risk to insure against; but to insure
for the purpose of losing a worthless old vessel by
intentionally foul or careless navigation, is an offence
much worthier of the superintendence of the Board of
Trade than any it proposes to assume jurisdiction
over.

OUTGOING MAIM
The bias for BMWs Nail harries end the United
aura w4ll be rote ir on the every of May 31.
The Wrt ladle Mies Beroinr, flevunir.
Norm Ilooduree, New Orl=la lltelleo, end grinding
ChM,
ko Jnea4l-Nietrarin, New Onnode,
ChM, eri Ihnitodl he roam on_the 'vision oiler 1.
The mei fee liwiers.lbe ftione, sad Bruce Ayres, will
be err up on the conks of Jane 4.
The Nude for Lisboa, *pre, sad Gibraltar will be redo
tip ea Jane 7.
The node rid lieneilles, to the Meditommeo, Egypt,
Ceylon, ladle, Hoorlieng, Le., will be sere up is the
oveslog of lose 7.
The torn for Gibraltar, Melte, Orem, the lonian Islands,
Cellos, lathe, sod Chloe, via Boutherptos, will
lieg= up as the morning of Jose 20.

MON WATT% AT LONDON POUDOI.
D..—Yawn(. Vt. Ilairsess. 3L NM anow—Nersog. 11% Ado. Ma Nee. Li Dn.

LONDON.

rONDAY; MAY 27.

Tar rage of those Powers, whose system of govern-
ment reposes on the hangman and the bayonet, knows
no bounds, because the English Minister has coerced
GISMO into respect. These very powers have anni-
hilated Qac ier and taken possession of it, because it
politically offended them. Rusin has subdued Han-
gary, and still occupies the Danubian principalicise.
Austria garrisons the Romagna. The French have
bombarded Rome, weepy it, and whilst they have
banded over its every liberty to the Pore, they are
suspected of exerrasing coercion even on the Pore
himself, who is prohibited from absenting himself
from the city.
Amidst all these monstrous breeches of the rights of
nations and of sovereigns, England had made a dis-
play of force apparently for a very small purpose.
The government of Greece having committed divers
wanton wrones en British subjects, and even on Bri-
tish officers, King Orno has been compelled to write
a letter of apology, and to pay some eight thousand
pose' it density.
Henn these powers, who have been exercisieg
their tyrnany right and left, for the most arbitrary
political reason% and in defiance of the laws of Europe,
giver dreadful
to the direst rage, and indulge in the most
fur scaleass incluse, forsooth, Lard PALMIER.
WON bee ventured to do the one hundred and ninety-
ninth part of what these bullies have been doing.
TIN, have trodden liberties under foot, annihilated the
independence of nations, blotted from the map of
Europe saies whose existence was guaranteed by the
TreatT of Vienna. Tracy have shot Italian pt- rats for
the crime of confessing liberals, flogged Hungarian
women for giving a breakfast to liberal., not to talk
of the thousands of brave men whom they have
hanged like dogs, and the universal ruin and coatis-
cation they hays decried. But all this is nothing.
Whilst thc compelling King Onto to pay some thou-
sand pounds compel:intim for claims, the justice of
which inns very tyrants do not deny—this, forsooth,
is not to be borne by them. They must have ven-
geance. They must make reprisals. And their
organ—for %Fey hare found an English journal that
doss not blush to act as such—tells us what these re-
prisals are.
The first is, that the Russian ambassador is to be
recalled. We did not recall ours when Cracow was
sold, or when the revenues of the Danubian pin-
cipality were feloniously seized by Russia to feed its
armies, an outrage far greater than could have been
inflicted on King 01110, had Admiral PARKER
coerced him without assigning a cause. After
having abstracted five millions sterling from
the monied savings of this country, under
the false pretence of making a railroad, the
Emperor of RCSSIA wants to dictate to Queen VIC-
TOIL% who are to be her minstrels, and what their
policy is to be. It would snit the CZAR to have
the complaisant Lord ABERDEEN for English minis' -
ter; and, in order to obtain this, and to force out of
office an English statesman who has ventured to show
sympathies far Italian and Hungarian independence,
'diplomatic plot Is °wonted to be avenmedof a minis-
ter so English, and so bold, and so little disposed to
pander to the impolicy of absolutism.
For after all, we Dave no reason to think Lord PAL-
MERSTON so monstrously liberal. He shows no signs
of it in domestic police, neither do his colleagues.
Bat he thinks it best for Kings, that they should
make some concessions to their subjects.
. .

He has declared his opinion that Austria
would be morally and physically stronger,
bad she not one foot upon North Italy, whilst try-
ing to tread down Germany with the other. Lord
PAL MERSTON thinks that King OTHO would Ilke far
greater hold of power, and lay firmer foundation of an
empire, was his government a constitutional one.
In entertaining these thoroughly English ideas,
Lord PALMERSTON is evidently no enemy of Kings,
nor of aristocracies, nor of conservatism. Ard we
will be bound to say. he loves NI/am' or Srauve,
as little as Fieldlarshal HATNAU himself. Bat
your Austrian or your Russian statesmen abhor the
moderate constitutionalist even more than the wild
republican. And it seems that neither the Czaa nag
Prince SCHWARZENBERG wi.l tolerate or allow even
whiggism amongst us. If our court and our public
fonctionar:es do not put on the old C.isilsacacH
livery, and forswear even the semi-liberalism of CAN-
NING, St. Petersburg will not even keep up the csm-
mon ran of civilities with us. _ _ _

The absolutist powers of Europe are, in fact. deter-
mined to form a continental blockade against the
principle of whiggism. They will recall their ambas-
Isadore, the Anglo-Russian official organ informs us,
and they will allow no Englishman to 'settle in their
dominions. We need not tarry to inquire who would
lose most by such a prohibition.
And this is to be done—why? To contest the
right of avenging or seeking redress for wrongs dons
to British subjects. We confess that such a right
ought to be rarely exercised. Civilised nations will
not inflict these wrongs, or if committed by their
vents, will instantly re,ve redress. Suppose a
French or a Russian chief of the police had seised
a British officer and beaten his boat's crew,
at Boulogne, or Havre, or Croustadt. Do we not
know that there would be instant complaint, and in-
quiry, and redress? But when the officers of such
governments as Greece end Naples commit such out-
rages, and commit them on purpose for political
vengeance and retribution, and when not only
all redress is refused, but when even no
answer is given, what power will bear it ?
Why, had any great power behaved to us as Greece
has done, war would have been the cons( queries : the
outrage and the insult would not have been borne,
and therefore would not have been committed. And
U the Greek court had seen that England thirst not
take vengeance in this last event, the result would
be that every petty Greek captain of a port, every
M. RIIONDINOPOCLAS, would have seized every op-
portunity for beating our officers and seamen, besides
spoliating Englishmen of their lands or getting mobs
to pillage their houses.
In every despotic country, England and its govern-
ment are now disliked, because they declare the right
of every to to a certain degree of freedom. We
no ht to intrude this opinion upon Russia
and upon ustrie, and do not. We recommend it in
Greece, and have a right to recommend it; but not
being listened to, we tolera•ei tFe contrary. But that
le no reason why we should be purposely wronged
and studiously insulted.
England, we fear, is at present cordially hated of

To subject the coasting trade to foreign competition
and to raise the character of the shipmasters in that
and the short voyage trade, would, in all probability,
have some beneficial effect. But, in addition, an
improved system of registering mortgagee on ships,
and power to punish both master and men for defec-
tive, careless, or intentionally bad look-out ;or for
imperfect lights at night, are very much required for
the protection of underwriters.
At present it is too mach the practice of a disre-
putable class of shipowners, who are either indiffe-
rent to or wishful of collisions, to insure their vessels
for sums beyond their value, and of course largely
in excess of the amount which they have obtained on
them by mortgage. A ship-owner of this stamp
raises, for example, 7501. by mortgage on a vessel
which is perhaps worth 1,0001.; and this ship he
insures for, say, 1,5001. The abandonment or lose of
a vessel so owned, mortgaged, and insured, leaves,
therefore, a profit of at least iOOl. to its proprietors.
Now the insurance of such vessels is generally under-
written in ignorance of any, or, at all events, in
ranee of the extent of their mortgages.
charges meet, we believe, be duly residual at
the custom-house; bat it is quite impracticable
for underwriters to delay their business by sending
thither to make inquiries. The registry of ship?
ought, therefore, to be published, or atoll
levents T made accessible at LLOYD'S; and by seep
reference to it, underwriters would be able to avoid
inuring vessels for amounts that render collidese
and total loose profitable to their owners.
So, too, a master may, by wilfully foul navigation
of his vessel, by,laxness of discipline over his crew, or
by obstinacy and perverseness in coming into Poets
into collision, and injure the Insurers to
the benefit and advantage of his owner : yet foe *soh
ended there is neither pecuniary nor personal re-
speisslbility. The tailor whom be places on the watch
Rep be incompetent for that duty ; or, being comps.
Mat, may grossly neglect it either through self-
kele/peees, oe to spite and injure his skipper. Here
else Mk conduct escapes all punishment, though its
mete endanger life and inflict loss on the under-
writer.- Now these are offences of which the law
ought to take cognisance, and of which it most take
genre cognisance ere we can hops for any large di-
minution in the yearly average of avoidable and pre-
ventible collisions at sea.
With such omissions is the Mercantile Marine Bill
No. 2 as these, underwriters are justly dissatii lied.

the eciatiftent by iho abwilutists and ;unionists,
bemuse we do not approve of train sad military
met t; by the revolutionists sad anarchists,
use we have no confidence in their wisdom, their
moderation, or their (opacity to foand a government.
Engish opinion seeks for something between the
two ex•renies, and unfortunately there is at present
scarcely a miedle between the two extremes to
be found. And consequently the English are oat of
favour with emits, ani out of respect with peoples.
These grudirs towards us are greatly to be regretted.
But do not they spring from our honour and our wis-
dom? We are the only people calm, the only people
right, in this age of panic and reaction. But no
long time can elapse 11 ithont justice being done both
to our position and our motives. Military courts
may proscribe, and socialist demagogues may anathe-
matise no, but sever was then a time in which
the " .Itistastes et frotaeem," expressive of the proud
couseiuusness of being liberal without being anarchist,'
fair withow. being quarrelsome, and of entertainist
just views and hopes of the future prospects al
Europe, uninfluenced by the bigotry of cohtending
parties, could have been pronounced with more teeth
sad up; ighturas than by England at the present mo-
ment.

THE EXPRESS, MONDAY EVENING, MAY 27, 1850.

The ..bigif,what is called the " minting down
ekes, •in • • of Maum W Maumee might too be ren-
tegeoaslT 1 by. law. At present it Wilms se
vaderwitters, ant Oaf an the Ymage or loss arising
Rep the vessel isinwed, bat payment of terwthirds of
the damage or loss of the 'hip )rat down. And un-
derwriters waspish', and not without mese, that this
latter liability sets as a premium en the =slimness
sad Indifference of shipowners sad idtipmuters.

CONCERNING the " New Palace at Westmin-
ster," whether it is the Home of Commons
that is to blame, or the Woods and Forests,
or the Committee of Taste, or the Cetsoosmon, of the
EXCNEQI7III, or Dr. REID, or Mr. BARRY or any
body else, it is nukes to inquire. There hie been
frightful mismanagement sad a shamedd meant
of public plunder. Upwards of two millions of mo-
ney ban been spent upon a work which was to cost
only ono-third of that amount. The money is goner
How it has been speak and who has re-
ceived it, we do not know. We should like
to see an account of the payments, if
it mild be produced; but that is apart from the
point now to be emaciated. There is °Defrost duty
to be performed is connexion with this subject, and
the public will require of the House of Commons to
ass that that duty is Milled.
The works connected with the "New Palace" are
still incomplete. The government asked on Friday
night for 180,0001. more to defray immediate expenses
connected with them. The tmilding grows slowly,
bat each succeeding year the estimate increases.
It is computed that quite two millions more will be
required m the whole before the work is done. The
architect originally proposed to complete) the whole
fabric in six years. He has been at work sixteen
yeses,and the House of Commons have not got into
their chamber yet. According to present appear-
ances it will be ten years more, at least, before the
whole will be completed.
Now, what oe ask is, that referring to the past only
for the purpose of experience, full provision shall he
made for the proper conduct of these works in future.
Let the House of Commons place, all the arrange-
ments respecting this building in proper hands. Let
them appoint a committee, or a commission, to super-
intend the work., to be responsible for every pay-
ment that is hereafter made in respect of them, to
direct their progress, aced to sanction each
deviation frem the original design. This committee
er direction may work in entire harmony with the
architect, who at the same time will be subject to
their legitimate control. To them will be Teetered
each unseemly disputes as those which have recently
embarrassed the works, and in consequence of which
slope the country has been put to several hundred
*nand pounds expense. The members of this
liantinittee who have seats in the House of Coen-
' Row will be responsible to that assemhly, and
we shall be saved, in future, the pain of seeing a
Obsocellor of the Exchequer come down, as w-
eaned on Friday night, to defend extravagant expen-
diture, and to get beaten in division.
With regard to the new House of Commons, its
completion would have saved the country a quarter of
a million of money which has been frittered away in
Spviding " temporary accommodation" for the
eaker and other offioera of the house. We agree
that this edifice, and all the other useful portions of the
building, ought to be completed with the least possible
delay. The house ought to be completed, too, in a
proper manner. The arrangements recently in pro-
gress (it is impossible to tell what modifications they
may undergo from day to day) were entirely incom-
patible with the convenience or dignity of the house.
There is not a single respect in which the new house is
not inferior to the chamber in which the members are
et the present time assembled. Mr. Brame
seems not only to have pookpoohl the recommenda-
tions of the cimmittee of 1833, but to have negleved
the most reasonable requirements. The house is too
small ; the galleries are too small ; the lobbies are too
small ; the refreshment room and libraries are at au
inconvenient distance; in fact, everything has been
&reified to one great idea of 'finding Mr.
SPEAKER an opportunity of seeing from his emir the
Quer., sitting on her throne, half-a-mile off, in the
Home of Lords, whenever the doors of both chambers,
and some twenty-five between them, may be thrown
wide open at one and the same moment.
The vote of Friday night was an unworthy conclu-
sion of a debate involving such large considerations
as those by which this question is surrounded. But
it was useful as exhibiting the feeling of the house,
and as tending to check unnecessary expenditure
upon the building. In this point of view it Will, we
trust, be followed by good effect. Any one who may
chance to know anything of the "peers' dining-
room," will know that nothing can be more absurd
than the idea of spending a large sum of money in
decorating that apartment. The room itself is little
better than a narrow corridor. It looks out
upon a smell court-yard, and is one of
the darkest apartments in the new building. Bat
more than this—the room is scarcely ever used. As
the peers rarely sit after 7 or 8 o'clock, it is not six
times in a session that any of them ever require to
dine at Westminster. For the past two months, it is
raid, that not a chop ham been served in the peers'
dining room. So little is it frequented, that whilst
every other apartment connected with the house re-
idoes in a mass of gilded medieval furniture, this
apartment has been scantily supplied with common
Blab tables, which have been found to answer all its
purposes. It happens. that this room contains three
panels opposite the windows. In the rage for deco.l
ration, it was resolved that Mr. LANDSEEP. should be
requested to fill up these panels with sporting sub-
OM at a thousand guineas a picture. The first was
to bare been done this year, and the subject was to
have been a (medieval?) boar-hunt. Toe Haase of
Commons, however, have vetoed this waste of money;
and we congratulate Mr. LAN DSEER on being released
from the performance of a task in which his genies
would no doubt have been curbed by the requirements
of the architect and the eccentric taste of the decora-
tor. Not only this bat all other merely ornamental
works ought to be stopped until the useful portions
of the building are completed.
Whilst referring to matters of hate, let us congra-
tulate the House of Commons on having escaped the
vote which Sir CHARLES WOOD proposed to them on
Friday of 14,0001. (in part of 20,8001.) for the re-
moval of the marble arch to the centre of the
mall in St. James's-park. Of all the extraordinary
projects ever heard of, this is the most singular.
What in the world is the poor arch to do there? Is
it intended to bide it among the trees, or is it to be
fixed there to obstruct the view ? English notions
about arches are not generally the most correct; but
hitherto they have been regarded as places of en-
trance. It seems, however, that this arch is to be put
in the centre of a flower-garden! kgreat design of
Lord LINCOLN'S, extending the mall to Charing
Cross, is to be entirely sacrificed, in order to carry
out this ridiculous scheme at an estimated cost of six
and twenty thousand pounds, and a real expense ap-
proaching probably to nearly four times that amount.

THE CITY OF LONDON AND TEE GRAVEYARD
Conwriow.—The Court of Common Council of the City of
London have had the government bill for the abolition of
intra-mural interments under consideration ; and we under-
stead that they have came to a very important resolution.
They accept the principle of the bill, but seek to exempt
the city from its operation. With that object a committee
of the memos council has prepared a bill, to be sub-
mitted to the Emir Secretary. The hill that all
fate-mural interments shall oases in the tr and its Liber-
ties on the let day of July, 1851. A aufacient cemetery
for the interment of partite dying within the city and its
liberties is to be provided. Compensation is to be given
to present incumbents only, and not in perpetuity—on
three pare average of receipts. end not on five, as pro-
posed In the government bill. This compensation the com-
mittee propose to award, either in money payments at once,
or by an annuity, or by girls' the present incumbents
to transfer their present mural privileges
rzethe peseehial to the proposed suburban burial
ground. Compensation on the same principle to be given
to clerks, sextons, and other officers, helonein4 to, or
connected with the ecclesiastical authorities. The whole
build arrangements of the city to be under the control
of an unpaid committee of the corporate body. It is
proposed to establish a cemetery within five miles of the
city, and that the families of deceased persons shall
have the power of burying in any manner they may think
proper, while a system of cheap burials shall be provided for
those who may choose to avail themselves of It. Reception-
houses for the dead are to be prodded, but no one is to be
eompalled to deposit the body of has friend or relative at such
• place except in came of the meet extreme sanitary fleets.
sity. Part of the ground of the cemetery is to be conse-
crated, and part not, t t meet the peculiar views of differently
thinking parties. It is not proposed to levy any rates, but
to raise the moneys which may be required for the purpame
of interment—should such a step be neesmary—on the credit
of ON city seal. It le expected that in the course of the en-
suing week • deputation from the corporation will wait upon
Sir George Grey upon the suhine.— iVerVy CAroniek.