The Express. — 1846-09-17 (London, England)

GLENDOWER. as well as Harmer:lt, and " call spirits from the vasty deep." " But will they come when you do call for them ?"  There's the rub. Lord GEORGE, according to report, is flush of money, in consequence not only of the sale of his stud, but of the munificent admiration of his political prowess by a near and dear relative. Still he is scarcely rich enough to buy the Thunderer and all his bolts. Nor is Jupiter set up to public auction. Lord GEORGE is said not to have found it open to private negotiation. Perhaps ho will tell us all about it in his next speech. He must know that " The actions of great leaders, Like to the 'flotilla of prodigious 'meteors, Ale step by step observed; and loud-tongued Fame The herald to proclaim their entertainment."  Now the series, which " prate of his whereabout," do net tell of the success which he prematurely asRanted in his intimations at Coleshill. In all mythologies, the Thunderer sides with the strongest; sad Protection is a long and increasing distance from that point. It was like Lord GEORGE 20 suppose, that the Press may be purchased for any purpose by a liberal customer : that it may be sold like a horse, or bribed like a jockey. But there arc more things, in the l'ress and elsewhere, as experience will speedily teach him, than are dreamed of in his philosophy. Neither the Times, nor the times, will come round to Protection. Without vouching for the purity of either, we may calculate on the interest of both. Lord GEnaGE thinks the purchase of a popular paper nothing but a lark, which he likes. But it is only when the sky falls that we catch such larks. The party must forego the hope of an organ, and continue to be its own trumpeter. But it has a l'olicy ; and of all things in the world for those who have been so unfortunately conspicuous as a tax-loving and tax-absorbing class, the basis of that policy is Taxation. Sonic have been for governing un empire by bayonets, some by commissions, and some by corruption; Lord GEORGE is for governing by Custom-houses. Ho declares war against the Excise and the Income-tax. Import duties are the thing ; import duties on all articles of foreign production, which can also be produced in this country. The scheme is worthy of his rising genius. It promises the people a privation of almost all that makes it life to live." Its merit consists in the number of good things which it would keep out of the country, or confine to the wealthiest of its inhabitants. Pushed to an extreme, we see not why it should not end in a great cloudy custom-house, shirting out sunbeams from all but ducal mansions, and restricting the people to the light of our own marshy exhalations, which under the encouragement of high protective duties might be made much more luminous by "native industry." Uuder this system, Government would become merely the machinery for inflicting on the great mass of the people an interminable series of artificial privations. It would be an experiment upon the degree of approximstien towards a state of nature to which a civilised community can be reduced. And just in proportion to its success in the infliction of privation upon the people, would be its failure of realising a revenue for the government Lord GEORGE', lessons in logic have riot yet proceeded so far as to show him that if you tax the people out of using a foreign article, you carrot at the same time raise a revenue on the importation of that article. A protection tax and a state tax are antagonistic. They arc mutually destructive purposes. Consumption replenishes the treasury and annihilates the protection. Non-consumption (of the foreimn product) is the perfection of protection, and the exhaustion of the treasury. This policy would leave Manchester without corn, or Downing-street without cash. It is a sliding-scale between two points, both of which indicate absolute failure, though in opposite directions. It will never do. A ucw policy must be invented by some "talented friend" for the proximate Premier. Still the attempt was laudable. A party ought to have a policy ; and, ostensibly at least, some honester policy than simply that of picking the public pocket for the protection and replenishment of its own purse. To be without this, was the fatal blunder of the postreform conservatives. The organization of a party without policy or principle, was a memorable experiment. It seemed to work well through ten years of opposition ; and five years of power crumbled it to atoms, and scattered its elements to the winds. Lord GEORGE BENTINCK and Mr. NEWDEGATE and Mr. MILES and Mr. DISRAELI, were all of them parties to that experiment. It leaves them the deadliest enemies of their late greatest leaders. They have learned wisdom enough not to play the same suicidal game over again. Sir ROBERT PEEL and they part company, each for a fresh experiment. Ile has found his principle, and leaves that to make a party, if making a party be necessary. They find themselves a party, and now set about making their principle. Suppose they try the advertising columns of the Thunderer. Those at least are  open on condition of payment. " Wanted, a public Policy for O. numerous and respectable party. No projector need apply, who does not consult the class interest of its members." A handsome remuneration would bring many applicants. Whether any of them would propose a scheme more preposterous than that of ruling by import duties, and rendering taxation the conjoint machinery of Protection and Revenue, we very much question.  Jr philanthropy has its discouragements, it has also its pleasant triumphs. It often makes men acquainted with strange yoke-fellows. Plebeian and Peer find themselves thrown together in the genial work of charity, to the great edification of the former and glorification of the latter. A benevolent institution is nothing without a Lord at the heed of it. A string of titled patrons draws more effectually, than a list of cures Effected or cases relieved. The national Lord Worship is thus turned to practical account. The stream of charity may be a little polluted by the added element, yet it carries blessing with it notwithstanding. But if a coolly-bowing, dinner-accepting nobleman, be an object of reverential admiration to the plebeian philanthropist, what is a hand-shaking, dinner-giving King?