The Express.
London, England, 1850-01-08 00:00:00

theeirrprtoo.

rise of rents has swelled them 11dd:little • !sables.
and made one cute of all who lisis son est stirs
surplus.
These changes against the spirit of
lib
in favour of aristocracy hive not counte
or even combated by the Reform of 1830. That an
association should not have existed for carrying out a
real and equable reform was a disgrace only to be
explained by the supposition that such an idea
was too generally felt and acted on to need
a special association. For without such a body
ideas in this country, however popular and just, are
apt to be stifled and to perish. Thanks to its cou-
rageous and able president, the present association has
been organised, and kept in activity and growth. The
sums that were subscribed at the meeting of yesterday
sufficiently attest its vitality and promise.
We would, however, strongly recommend that not
only its principles (thetare irreproachable), but its con-
duct should be such es to conciliate the great,
talented, and avowed leaders of the middle classes.
To denounce them for slight differences, or even mis-
givings, to cavil with their separate plans, to alienate
or disgust them, could nave but the effect of confining
the Association to persons who, however pure, well-in-
tentioned, and really moderate their views, have not the
confidence of the country, and would not be apt men to
lead a great antrcombined movement of the intelligent
and propertied, as well as of the industrious clue...

OUTGOING MAILS.
Thu sae for British North Mamie' and the United
States will be aside sp on the elening of Jan. 11.
The West India Malls. t 'minding Bermuda, flavanosb,
Nunn, Honduras, New Orleans, sad Mexico, aail including
tbees for Madeira, St. Joan-de-Niaranna, New Granada,
and Peramill be made up ou Jan. 17.
Tbo malls foe Liaises, Spain, and Gibraltar will be made
sp es Jas. 17.
The malls foe Gibraltar, Malta, Went, tho lonian lolanda,
Serpi, Ceylon, India, sad Chios. via Soutbasipton, will
be leads as tle• ovenise of Jas. 19.
Tbo main blarseillie, to the Mediterranean, Egy t
31,
C( ilia, bulls, Hoag-Kong, As., will be undo op an e
ermine of Jan. 23.
TM mails foe Ille•Mis, the Brazils, and Buenos Ayres,will
beau& up ea ths main of F.-b. 4.

KUM WATER AT LONDON NUDGE.
06,-Olar•lms,MlL. ika AlWawa. Mt. 41a.
..a..—Yer5ag,1111.16A..........A/Amass,ll 110 s.

LONDON', TUESDAY, JANUARY 8.

lenni:oAT was celebrated in a numerous and
enthusiastic raettisg the first anniversary of the
National Reform Association. No popular move-
ment has sprung up in Ragland out of more manifest
injustice and more crying abuse, yet never have any
been conducted with greater prudence, calmness, and
circumspection. Born in evil times, when popular
rights abroad, too long oppressed, had been vin-
dicated in all the fury of excess, a sense of
panic and a tendency to reaction pervaded not only
the upper, but too many of the middle make. Even
In 1t,19, therefore, not • few loaked upon reform
with suspicions eyes; and it was counselled to apply
the popular lever to financial extravagance, leaving
the authors of, and the profiters by that extravagance
to perpetuate their power, and renew, if they could
notcontinur, their hereditary repast upon the national
resources.
The Association, however, boldly refused to confine
itself to pulling off dead leaves, when the great branches
of the tree were rotten, and when even the trunk
menaced premature decay. It was but too evident
that the evil lay in the monopoly, and consequent
abuse of political power, and that this monopoly was
rooted in the limited and unequal distribution of the
franchise. This troth, and the frankness with which
it was spokes, gained universal adhesion. From
towns the most remote. as well as from p ipulationa
the most enlightened, the cry came echoed back ; and
branch associations in the provinces, with sentiments
and purposes akin to the metropolitan movement, left
even that movement behind in energy and zeal.
What is the aim, it will be asked, upon which this
aseociatedmass of grievancettalentenergy, and power
are concentrated? The aim is the emancipation of the
industrious classes of the country from the thrall of a
few men of one-sided and old-fashioned interests, who
have inherited the right to govern England without
any larger portion of honesty or wisdom, or even of
wealth, than is possessed by those over whom they
insist on preserving their ascendancy.
The present, as we take it, is not a struggle of the
low against the high, or of the ignoble against the
noble. The intelligence, the industry, and the active
wealth of the country congregated in towns and popu-
lous districts are, in fact, politically speaking, enslaved
to the hereditary stupidity, the idleness, the passive
wealth and baneful privileges of the lords of the soil,
who perpetuate the possession of that soil in them-
selves or their descendants as a caste, and who keep by
way of appanage to this caste as complete a parliamen-
tary and political ascendancy, as the Egyptian pried-
hood arrogated to themselves over their lay and
subject brethren.
Take the great towns of the kingdom, containing
Gee-fourth of the population and of the electoral body.
They have no more voice or influence in the le-
ture than some forty pocket boroughs in the bands
of landlords. Add to these the county members, and
it is plain that Saxon England was never more at the
mercy of the Normans after the conquest, than civil
and industrial England is at this moment under
the thrall of its feudal proprietors.
The counter argument is, that these feudal pro-
prietors do not abuse their power, and that either out
of fear or consideration they allow the Saxon subjects
certain portions of their ancient liberty and law.
The Lords have passed reform, and even repealed the
corn law ; we answer, they unify the one each day,
and may restore the other to-morrow. The people of
England thus enjoy their rights on sufferance. For-
tunately for them the aristocratic party is too large
for all to feed on place and share power equally
amongst them • and one section is, from time to time,
compelled to call the people to their support. And thus,
indeed, have the geople won whatever liberties they
have lately been put in possession of. Bat even this
"artful dodge" of aristocracy is fast failing the liberal
cause. All portions of the aristocratic interests have
now come to an understanding; or if they do keep
up war for form and professional interests, it is but the
old fight of the Condottieri, where all the combatants
are paid, but none slain.
The question is, are the people of England—for the
farmer and the peasant are as much industrial, and
as much dependent, as the operative and his employer
—are the people of England minors, to be kept in
a state of tutelage—their pecuniary and political
affairs managed for them, not by them?. That is the
point. The Englishman has been a long time in a
course of education and of growth. Centuries enough
have gone over his head to make him a man. And
he has bat to think and to say so, in order to be so.
The monopolists of electoral power tell him that he
is a child, and would dreadfully and dangerously mis-
manage his affairs if he took them in hand. The Reform
Associations, on the other hand, lidos's& him that his af-
fairs could not be worse managed than they have been,
and that the Englishman is taxed, burdened, and fed
upon in a way that the man of no other country is.
None will lighten his burden save himself, or such
politicians as will listen to him, appreciate him, com-
prehend and represent him.
It is for John Bull to choose ; and not merely the
half or wholly disfranchised Englishman of the native
race, bat his brother abroad ; the colonial John, who
pays his Civil List to keep op the Cockatoo-men, as
the Australian aborigines call their plumed governors;
who is compelled to take his politicians and officia/e,
his officers and defenders, his judges and lawyers, his
bishop and clergy, all from the mother country, so
prolific in plowmen. Not a chance is there for
colonial John, but to plough, and to shear, and to
traffick. To rap the fruits of idleness is not for him;
this id the chance of the political monopolist. The
colonial Englishman therefore will aid his brother at
home is throwing open the folding gates, or, if no-
massy, riding over the breach into the great political
rotten borough.
What is wanting, both at home and in the colonies,
for such an effort is, not the will, but the way—a
way honourable and effectual, constitutional and safe.
'I hese are days in which popular power and popular
enthusiasm have been misdirected and abused. We
have already marked this as one of the great obatruc-
times to the cause. There have been communists, and
free-soilers, and repudiators—men who would go
about to ameliorate the condition of the poorer
classes by destroying that property which is
the fruit of past industry, and the motive
power of present. It is such schemes as these that
drive the middle, and even the labouring class, to bow
their heeds to absolutism and military tyranny.
The Reform Association has, however, kept clear,
more clear than many agricultural and high class
meetings, of such topics and principles as these. It
is essentially an argumentative, not a theoretic agita-
tion. It takes society as Clod and men have made it,
and would bring it back to its own old, original prin-
ciple, instead of introducing any new.
The British constitution intended that all payers of
rates and dues should vote for members of parliament
If counties and boroughs had members, it was in pro-
portion to their importance and their wealth. Nor
could it be intended that the proportions of these,
which prevailed in the 18th and 17th centuries, should
be maintained for iniquitous purposes in the
19th. The British constqution was never
intended to be worked by compulsory votes.
There was some independence even in semi-feudal
times. Since then the yeomen and the small prc-
prietur have disappeared from the soil; tradesmen
have become more and more deendent an fashion-
able sad wealthy customers. The ballot alone can
restore the i that cow existed. The
British coned on never intended that great lords
should monopolise parliamentary power. Of old
there existed a class of smaller gentry, who
sympathised in creed and politics with the
townsfolk, and often did both join together against
the crown. Thaw, toN has disappeared-the

Trot retirement, or menaced retirement, of Mr. 1
Jonte O'CONNELL from the duties of politically pre-
scribing for Ireland, and the entrance of Mr. Joan
Bitiont upon that task, are indicative of a change of ,
scene and of action, and even of the dramatis
in the tragi-comedy of Irish history. The iron;
empty agitation, as a source of private revenue or ,
party speculation, is lost in the fdds of the Millar
curtain. Mr. BRIGHT'S powerful soliloquy tells a
tale of positive misfortune, and proposes a remedy of
practical measures.
The land, says Mr. Barium., is the sole industry.
almost the sole capital, certainly the sole resource of
the Irishman. But the land has been for centuries
monopolised by another and a conquering race, who
have built political power upon its monopol7, and de•
rived wealth from its unaided natural fertility—un-
aded by more than the labour and the manure
heap of the peasant. Had even what was taken from
the fields of Ireland been returned to it, either in the
shape of money or ammonia, it would have brought
increase. But the proprietor and the occupant of the
Irish soil have both an interest in exhausting it, and
with it beggaring themselves.
Give the cultivator of the soil a permanent interest
la it, is Mr. Woofer's simple advice, which he would
do in those circuitous ways which the state of law and
property in that country permit'. Mr. Butiotrr, as
fully impressed as any one, how mach of Irish ill
is due to moral and political causes, still dwells
but li4htly and generally upon these, directing the
attention and the energies of his Anglo-Irish audience
to the removal of palpable wrongs and physical
obstruction in the way of the country's prosperity.
Whilst seeking to introduce this new mode of Irish
agitation, and to turn its discontent from the senti-
mental to the real, Mr. BRIGHT is assailed with
reproach that he has made no wondrous discovery.
It is, indeed, to be lamented that the science of poli-
tics is not that of mechanics or chemistry, replete
with wonders. What statesman is an inventor? Where
in the political world is the steam, or the iron road, or
the gun-eotton of our day? What did Purr invent,
of which his children might be proud? Fox spoke
much that was eloquent, forcible, liberal, and true, but
what did he discover? What did PEEL, what has
COBDEN invented ? Have not both picked up ideas,
like pebbles rolling on the current of life, which they
have polished, and set, and made their own and iden-
tified themselves with? But for originality of concep-
tion, indispensable as it is for poets, we have never
heard that it was required of politicians.
If there be nothing transcendentally new in Mr.
BRIGHT'S views of Ireland, he has at least one merit,
he avoids the agile and the superannuated. Mr.
BRIGHT does not attribute Irish suffering to the peo-
ple happening to be of Celtic race. That ',eland was
behind England in agricultural and industrial deve•
lopment, in constitutional experience and religious
change, Mr. BRIGHT no doubt attributes to one
island being more remote than the otner from the
European centres of education, of enlightenment, of po-
pulation, and of commerce. What has not England
learned from Holland and from Flanders, and at a

time when it was keeping Ireland under 'by force of
arms and by rigour of iniquitous laws? Whilst deve-
lopieg her own freedom, constitution, and commercial
prosperity, England kept Ireland in a state et serfage,
and did so, not because it was Saxon and Ireland Celt,
but because it was more populous, powerful, and rich.
Having thus kept Ireland forcibly two or three cen
turies behind her in civilisation, England,whenever she
made any great step in opinion or in polity, insisted on
dragging Ireland with her, and forcing Ireland to adopt
the same. England was ripe for the reformation in
the sixteenth century : Ireland was not ; but Eng-
land went to work with cannon and sabre to make
her : and haring only partially succeeded, under CROM-
WELL and ILLIAM, she sulkily condemned the
Irish to a century of social and political Helotism.
And this Helotism Ireland endured up to three
quarters of a century ago. And, now, for-
sooth, because Ireland is not on a par with us,
does not love us, sympathise with us, or adopt
our ideas on industry and on politic., she is Celt, is
our inferior. We Saxons ate " born lords," as Mr.
CARLISLE arranges whites and blacks.
It is the persons who preach such doctrines u this,
who can never pacify Ireland. And when these per-
sons actually represent the ideas of the government,
and perform the func'iots of their political organ, is
it a wonder that the whigs are unpopular in Ireland'
Mr. BitiGnr stands up as the antagonist of
such mistaken and degrading theories. He declares
the ills and the backwardness of Ireland to be owing
to past misrule and to present persistence in the con-
sequence and dregs of that misrule, in tl'e mainten-
ance of agrarian ascendancy and monopoly titer
political privileges have been abolished. Instead of
this philosophy of Mr. BRIGHT'S adding inveteracy or
instilling disaffection icto the Irish heart, it, on the
contrary, extracts from Engligh pride its ill-foucded
sense of superiority, and from Irish recrimination
its natural and indelible bitterness. He points
to Englishmen how they cm repair, to Irish-
men how they may forget. He indicates to
English statesmen remedies and measures, of whose
worth and necessity they may not be ignorant, but
which they are totally unequal to perform and unable
to carry, unless such men as Mr. BRIGHT sway and
turn the popular mind of England to their support.
In the utter incapacity of our aristocratic legislature
to grapple with Irish distress, or to consent to
the abandonment of those privileges and that
monopoly from which these safferiugs spring, the
only hope for Ireland is in popular agitation. But
popular agitation in Ireland, managed as it has been
of late by the puerile and the selfish, turns inevitably
against the popular cause. And therefore it is that a
political agitation in England for Ireland would be
one of the greatest of blessings to both, would be a
bond of peace, and good feeling, and mutual trust
I between them, and would do more for the great task
of pacification and redemption than any amount or
series of ministerial nostrums, timidly conceived,
grudgingly held forth, and, as is ever the case, in the
end, most mercilessly and wantonly stilled.

Tux readers of the Express must have seen in
many of its articles during the last month a belief
and an indication that ministers intend to introduce
some measure for the extension of the suffrage both
in Ireland and in England. The Weekly Chronicle
having announced the contemplation of this measure,
the Times of this morning admits that it is so.

"The minibteriatMeasnre," it nix, "appears to be
rather a development thane novelty, or, to speak with
still mere strictness, it will probably aim at carrying
oat those intentions of the Reform Act which have
been frustrated by accident or neutralised by time."
In other words, ea we declared • long time since,
ministers cannot allow the Irish to remain with a
franchise that comprises only a few thousand elec-
tors ; whilst they cannot introduce any broader prin-
ciple for the sake of widening the Irish franchise
without extending the same to England.

PLOI7O/1 MONDAY *A? TEM MANSION-HOUSE.—
Tbs. Lord Mayor tad Lady Mayoress, wording to ancient
coe•em, entertained the gentlemeo connected with the formal
email departments of the corporation at dinner. Cvvere
wars laid LA sixty, end the party broke up abut eleven
o'clock highly delighted. Before leering each gentleman
ono presented with a service consisting of cake and sweet-
meat for the pew brenaltse of Oak leveral Mingle&

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 8, 1850.

FRANCE.

PARIS, MONDAT 630 P.M,
has rMg TO M. Thiene, it is not protection that
ieltd French trade. It bad been 'said by
eminent publicists that the decay of French navi-
gation was owing to the system of protection carried
out in France; for the produce of other countries
Wag refused, French produce was rejected in turn,
and bona the decay of French trade. This, said M.
Thiers, is a radical error. Protection had not caused
the decline of navigation ; on the contrary it hadcreated
two of the greatest products of height that exist is
the world : namely cotton and coal. These prodests
hsd been seized by England and the United Status,
who monopolized them. The result was that in the
coasting trade the French were completely beaten by
the Engludnand in the long sea trade by the Americans.
To compete with either cf these powers is not within
the scope of M. Thiers' mind to advise. His ides,
therefore, is, that France should preserve her reetrio-
tive tariffs. But let France also preserve in the name
of protection the only trade it has left, that of South
America. In no other place, says M. Thiers, can
hopes be entertained of the prosperity of the French
flag. Being under the influence of such ideas, it is
not extraordinary to find M. Thiers urging by all the
means in his power the assertion of French supremacy
in South America. He declared himself entirely op-
posed to the ideas of government on this most im-
portant subject. Valueless and of small weight were
the arguments made use of by the ministry. Fears
for European complications were groandku, and he
did not believe in them. The question, above all,
was an American one. England, indeed, had greater
interests at Buenos Ayres than at Monte Video,
but England could not but recognise the right
of France to make war on Ragas. England would
no more prevent or atop French interference at La
Plata than at Mexico and in Morocco. She had not
said a word against the Mexican occupation by the
American., not a word when California was obtained.
She could not stop French interference in South
America. Therefore the question was an American
one, and could involve no European complications.
M. Thiers then entered into an analysis of the trade
of South America. He showed that the trade of 160
millions of francs yearly must infallibly increase, in
a country where progression was three times as great
as in other countries. French bottoms were all em-
ployed, therefore untouched by the c impetition of
I navigation by South Americans. The advantages
were these—and how immense. No rivals and an
immense future development. But, in order to
obtain these advantages, the respect due to France
must be maintained, for nowhere has trade
more want of protection than in South America.
" If you can prove to me that after the signal weak-
nese which you showed ten years since, and which
yon now show more exaggerated than even then, if
you prove that you can appear in the ports of South
America and be respected, then lay aside honour and
humanity. I have said that we could not, and my
assertion has not been contested. I courted en in-
quiry. I demand it again to-day. I have said that
French people were plundered and massacred. Their
blood cries for vengeance, and I persist in allying that
the French have not had that protection which they
were bound to expect." Thus it was evident that the
government were not justified in declaring that there
were at La Plata but a few imprudent Frenchmen,
whose case must be admitted to be interesting, but
not sufficiently important to necessitate war. M.
Thiers then entered into the details of the geo-
graphical question. lie showed the superior-
ity of Montevideo over Buenos Ayres. He
said that if a certain number of French
traders had gone to the latter port, it was with the
ultimate hope of returning to Monte Video. With-
out the port nearest to the sea, the trade with La
Plata would be at an end. France could not obtain
respect from the Argentina republic if the Uruguay
were not independent. It was a great mistake to
suppose that Roses had no infantry, and that, on the
approach of an enemy, he would fly into the Pampa
with his cavalry and become impregnable. Rosen, en
the contrary, had succeeded in forming an infantry;
not a good one, he admitted, but still fit for many of
the purposes of ordinary troops. This very infantry
was paid by Roses with the proceeds of the river
taxes ; and, if the mouths of these rivers were given
to him, he would obtain the complete means of
causing himself to be respected, and France would be
deprived of every possibility of trading with
safety. It was, therefore, of the greatest importance
that Uruguay should be independent. Then
with respect to the Brazils, he could tell them that
the Munition of the Europeans was most precarious.
The Brazils were now in the same situation as the
Argentine republic before Roses was placed at its
head. That part of the population of the Brazils
which lives under European customs was in direct
opposition to the other, which represented all the
ravage passions of America. The existence of the
Europeans was threatened, and the Brazils had every
fear of Roans as of an agent who had the power to
mite the flag of revolt in a population of four millions
of slices. Brazils had formerly supported French in-
tervention, simply because the abandonment of Monte
Video would result in the capture of Paraguay by the
Argentines; and once this result attained, the Brazils
must be in imminent danger. It is needless
to enter into the history of the ten years'
struggle into which M. Thiers then en-
tered. Touching upon the Lepredonr treaty, he said
that it was much less the obscurity that was com-
plained of than the deplorable clearness of his clauses.
It yielded everything, and he confessed that he was
ashamed for his country, that seeing its evident in-
terests involved, he found people increasing, in their
imaginations, the dangers of an expedition. He
would ask had not the Americans taken Mexico with
5,000 men ? Had not England brought China to
reason with 7,000 men ?

The Chamber to-day was occupied till half-past
three in voting for the president of the Chamber. All
parties seemed to have agreed again to choose M.
Dupla, who at four o'clock was declared elected by
377 votes ; M. Michel de Bourger having obtained
166, M. Dufaure 17, and M. Odilon Barret 21.
The Assembly then commenced tke discussion of
the amendments on the La Plata question, and was
left at :post-hour debating on the proposition of M.
Granier—that the convention of June 12, 1844,
should be denounced.
A great noise has been made to-day by some
curious disclosures as to the connection of the govern-
ment with the press Yesterday appeared the first
number of a political weekly journal entitled Le
Nnpokon, which had been announced as being under
the patronsge of the Elysee. This journal contains
a dead attack upon the majority of the Chamber, in
the following terms :
With mad to the feeble majority given to the late mea-
sures of the government, certain journal., whose intentions
are open to doubt, advise the ministry to retire. They pre-
tend, ins:ening on certain customs of the past, that, after
such chocks, ministers who respect themselves can no longer
remain in office. These journals are or feign to be ignorant
of what is now the position of the respon.ible head of the ex.
anti" government. In the new order of things, so long es
the minister, enjo the confidence of the President they meet
with no check. t. Once for all, we inform the obstinate de-
fenders of the old constitutional routine, tha the chief of the
state will retain his ministers is spite of jealous attacks, sad
that tie deplorable teet of ministerial instability will not be
produced spin at the will of parliamentary ambitions.
The paragraph just quoted appeared last night in
the Pottle and the Mon'teur &sir in the place
where semi-official articles are generally inserted, and
no trace of its source was visible. Its official charac-
ter has since beoome undeniable, from the feet that
the paragraph in question was sent round to all the
journals from the ministry of f deign affairs. The
Opinion PuUique adds that a person presented him-
self at its office, as sent by the minister of foreign
affairs to declare, as not apocryphal, bat simply ex-
tracted from a journal entituled the Napoleon, the
note in question.
The same thing seems to have happened to the
Union, which says:

This note, which was given in two of the evening journals.
was forwarded to us under the caver of the ministry of
tents affair., with the word communique. In the evening,
a person who declared himself to be an employe of the cabinet,
came and informed us that the note had been sent without
the consent of the Waist. r, and that we were requested to
consider the note as having been eent.
At the Assembly to-day the ministers all denied
any responsibility in the articles just quoted from
Le Napoleon. The vote on the La Plata question
will show whether the President is right or not to
enter the Het against the majority of the Assembly.
Major-General Larrin has just died in Paris, of an
rasa of apoplexy.
Marshal Duke de Ragusa and Admiral Baudin
have arrived in Paris.
A number of Eoglish capitalists, original share-
holders in the Bordeaux and Cette, end Lyons and