the intervention assume a lasting aspect. One could maize is not to be a redundant luxury, a pure adscarcely wish it otherwise. Lord John Russell said dition to the cottier's bill of fare: it is therefore to that the people of Clare-where the destitution was displace the potato. most severely felt-had never before been so well Granting the truth of the propositions, still more provided at the bad part of the year, and the cases startling ulterior conclusions must be admitted as of fever were fewer. Mr. Henley declared that inevitable. If by means so cheap as less than half there is as yet no prospect that the potato disease a million yearly, Ireland can be saved from starvawill be extinguished, and he demanded permanent tion and disease, will statesmen venture to reconsign measures for the relief of Ireland. Sir Denham her to those periodical scourges? If wages are Norreys alluded to the "natural resources" of the substituted for conacre, the cottier system is doomed, country, and its mines of wealth, as things which and a recasting of estates will be inevitable. If it is incumbent on the government to cultivate. Mr. the Irish are in future to feed on the foreign imported Labouchere, in supporting Lord John Russell's grain maize, the potato-grounds will be thrown out proposal to give employment as an indirect means of use-thrown on the landlords' hands, and must be of providing subsistence, floundered into repeating converted to other purposes-no doubt, better puruntimely and doubtful tales about abuses in the poses, but still involving a change in the system distribution of employment, with over-sage free-of agriculture. We observe that already the Irish trade strictures on the demoralizing tendencies of papers report meetings of the poorer class, at official intervention. Lord Lincoln rose to give Mr. which the hint has been thrown out that the failure Labouchere, the Irish secretary young in office, of the potato-crop will prevent tenants from paying some advice as to the expediency of not trusting too their rent, and that in lieu of paying it they should implicitly to such tales from Ireland; and he denied cede their potato-grounds to their landlords. Truly, that there had been any demoralizing influence on it appears that "social revolution" is not too sweepthe contrary, he said, the employment offered by ing a phrase for the notion that vaguely floated in government tended to wean the Irish people from the minds of the debaters on Monday. reliance on cropping for sustenance, and to accustom It does seem "cool" to put these ideas in words, them to subsist on wages. Moreover, he claimed especially to those who hold that all social changes for government the credit of having introduced a should be the slow and natural growth of events. trade in maize, which is "likely to be permanent.' "But the state of Ireland is not "natural" it is raLord John Russell talked of maize in a similar ther so monstrous that it appears impossible for its strain—as a kind of food which, when prejudices immediate offspring to be anything but monstrous against it are overcome, would recommend itself as too, unless some outward power interpose. Nor both cheap and nutricious. Mr. Charles Wood is it to be presumed that because the juncture is saidcalculated to cause anxiety, therefore it is without "By the evidence of the blue book which then hope. On the contrary, we firmly believe that the lay on the table of the house, it was proved that position of Ireland, within the bounds of authentic had it not been for those very measures the people history, was never more hopeful than it is at this of Ireland would have been subjected to the great-moment. It is a time of urgent opportunity. est distress. He did not hesitate to say, that in It is to be desired that all the inevitable consemany parts of the country the existence of families quences both of the calamity and of the measures was owing to the measures of the government; taken to avert it should be distinctly seen and reand not only was the existence but the peace of cognized. As it stands, the whole case appears to those people to be attributed to the same praisewor- involve several ulterior measures which do but thy exertions. And with regard to the food which faintly show themselves behind the hints of the had been introduced into that country by the gov-deliberating legislators. If we assume the premernment, he believed it had caused a new state of ises indicated by the speakers of Monday night, things in that country. If honorable gentlemen read among the most obvious consequences is the hated the papers, they would find that, in consequence of practice of "clearances;" since it will be imperathe Indian corn that was continuously poured into tively necessary to convert the small holdings into the country, the country had received an incalcula- larger farms suited to a different style of agriculble amount of good. Indian corn was cheaper and ture; only a population depending on wages would more nutricious food than potatoes-it was cheaper neither need nor heed the now dreaded and avenged than oats; and he confessed that he was sanguine ejectment. Such a change, were it to occur, in the expectation that the substitution of Indian and to be duly improved simultaneously with its corn for potatoes would produce a complete revolu- occurrence, might go far to solve the perplexed tion in the social condition of the people of Ireland." question of land tenures; though auxiliary measLet us extract some of the more obvious propo-ures might still be desirable. While changes resitions involved in the sayings which we have cited. specting land were astir it would be most unwise Setting aside doubts as to the continuance of the to neglect two cognate subjects-the best purpose disease, which is a matter of fact to be determined to which the now vacant potato-lands might be by the event, we find these views enunciated. The devoted; the proper use to which waste lands in measures taken have already had the most blessed influence in mitigating the scourges of Ireland sufficiency has been substituted for destitution, and the fever that waits on starvation has been checked. The Irish have begun to depend for subsistence on wages instead of conacre. A trade in maize has been introduced, with every prospect that it will be permanent. Progress has already been made in substituting the excellent grain maize for the bad root potato; and the "social revolution" has commenced. Indeed, the last proposition is implied in the permanence of the maize trade; for, of course,

general might be appropriated. Truly, if the Irish population were a race subsisting on wages instead, of conacre, and if that better spirit were to grow up which Lord John Russell notes as the immediate fruit of English assistance-and which Mr. Dillon Browne embodies in the declaration that Lord John's speech tended to supersede the wish for repeal-capital would not long be excluded from working the "mines of wealth." But, whether to facilitate the change or to regulate the condition of a people living on wages, it would no longer be possible to refuse that long delayed measure, a real

poor-law for Ireland. Perhaps, if there had been | each particular branch of traffic, but the income one already, this kind of condensed poor-rate, derivable from the whole. They have therefore a which Lord John is about to impose on the land for right to distribute their charges in such way as repayment of moneys henceforth advanced in aid, shall be most convenient to the public at large and would not have been needed. At all events, the most advantageous to themselves; and are not in impost is an immense stride towards a poor-law. justice bound to favor middlemen, whose interposiOther measures will suggest themselves as belonging tion is not needed by the public, and who have not, to the same class. It is clear-still assuming the in their capacity of carriers, done anything to create premises that the present is a period of total unset- the railway. tlement in Ireland: while affairs are thus unsettled, it is most desirable to take the opportunity of making such arrangements that they shall settle down as satisfactorily as possible, so as to avoid renewed disturbance. To use the opportunity for nothing but tinkering and temporary appliances, would be to abuse it to desecrate an occasion for wide and practical beneficence, perhaps unprecedented in history. A statesman who could master such a juncture, grapple with its difficulties, and bring together the requisite measures into one comprehensive and efficient whole, would immortalize himself.-Spectator, Aug. 22d.

RAILWAY PARCELS.

AN old quarrel between railway companies and some of their customers has been revived. Various enactments are attempted to prevent the packing of small parcels in one large package, so that the carriage shall be charged upon the bulk instead of falling upon each parcel. The form of the enactment does not greatly matter; it is the substance, which we have stated, that forms the real subject of dispute. The railway companies insist upon the right to charge separately for small parcels collected from different senders or transmitted to different receivers. The law has been construed against them, and they endeavor to obtain the privilege by statute. We think that upon the whole they are justified.

The chief opponents of the claim are certain persons in the carrying trade; but they are backed by the booksellers and publishers of London. Among the latter class a distinction must be made. All periodically send parcels to their agents in the country. With some the primary object is merely to send their own publications or wares to their agents: the goods are intended for ultimate distribution, no doubt, but not more so than cotton cloth carried from the manufacturer to the retail dealer, or goods carried from the warehouse to the shop. These packages ought unquestionably to be charged in bulk. Other booksellers not merely convey the packet of a stranger in their large parcel, as a personal favor, but make a trade of that accommodation in so far as they do that, they belong to the class of carriers, and their case may be considered with that of the professed carriers.

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on a

Were it once recognized as a principle, that you have only to pack separate articles together in order to force the company to make the charge in bulk, everything might be so smuggled at the same rate as cotton or coals. A racing-stud enclosed in a solid horse-box might pass as one package." Nay, passengers might equally be packed in bales. Families might be sent down by the hamper-and many families are already seriously hampered! Schools might be sent in bulk; to be charged, if marked "with care-this side uppermost, par with glass or turtle-soup; if unmarked, running the chance of travelling antipodes-fashion, much banged about by porters in loading and unloading, and put in trains not particular about collisions, then charged on a par with pig-iron and coke. Nay, hotel-keepers might make up parties, or rather parcels, and send whole innfuls of guests as "goods." It might indeed become a question whether mauvais sujets and naughty boys could be classed as goods;' "but railway companies would find some difficulty in regulating their tariff on a moral scale.

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Those who argue that the companies must shut their eyes, open their vans, and take what carriers bring them, make a great fuss about " cheapness" as the result of competition. Competition has not been the screw that has produced the most striking instances of progressive cheapening in railway traffic, but it has been a more direct and simple motive of self-interest; which competition has sometimes disturbed in its operation, not advantageously for the public. Competition between the Grand-Junction and Manchester-and-Birmingham lines occasioned a raising of fares to support the contest; amalgamation resulted in a lowering of fares. This is only one out of many instances. On the other hand, the mere desire to obtain as large a revenue as possible induced the Brighton Company to lower fares in order to take in a wider class of customers: the result led to further reductions, with the most surprising success; the public and the railway both profiting. The same process is at work in other departments. The conveyance of live stock has increased, and will increase more rapidly, to the immense saving of the grazier's loss in the condition of the cattle, to his great gain in the facility of passing from market to market until he finds the best, and to the great profit of railways. At first, indeed, railway managers checked that traffic by imposing too high charges: the charges have been lowered, and the results outstrip calculation. No doubt, the same influences will tell on the carriage of parcels, and we shall soon have a "parcels-delivery" all over England at least, even though the post-office should persist in repudiating that traffic. Some one suggests that "the principle of the penny postage" should be applied to parcels: very well, but none can apply it so well as railway companies; and in order to enable them to do it successfully-that is, with such profit as to engage their self-interest in promoting the traffic-they must have the power of charging the smallest possible sums on the largest possible number of separate

The claim of the carriers is this. Formerly they collected parcels, conveyed them to the place of destination, and distributed them; the journey being slow and expensive. Other parties have laid out large sums in the construction of railways; and the carriers claim to use those railways for the purpose of carriage, according to a mode of payment fixed by themselves. It is true that the railway companies can effect the transit of goods in bulk at a cheap rate; but it is not fair to split up the accounts, and force a particular business on the railway at an arbitrary rate because that business will show a profit. Railway companies necessarily view their outlay and income in the broadest way: their original expense is enormous; the revenue is most productive if they afford the greatest amount of accommodation to the public; and in order to do that, they do not too nicely consider the profit on parcels.-Spectator.

have consented to give her hand to Don Fran- mas. Poor young woman, she has been forced to

cisco.

How can a union begun so disastrously produce happy results? The notion that, though bad for her, it is good for the state or for the people, is self-evidently absurd: a nation can derive no benefit from driving the chief of its virgins to such a nuptial couch.

One of the first nursery revolutions must have been that of Lieutenant Munoz coming to instal himself as her father-in-law. Then Zea, turned out by the clamors of the liberals; subsequently the revolution of La Granga, when the queen-mother was forced by the soldiers to dismiss her minister; the infant queen saw all this;-and finally at Valencia, saw her mother forced to quit her children and the kingdom; the good mother consoling herself by carrying off all the palace plate, and leaving her royal daughter to feed with a pewter spoon. From the hands of the old court dowagers, Isabella was then handed over to the keeping of Mrs. Mina, a woman who knew less of a court than she did of a fish-market. By her, the royal preceptors in dancing and in French were superseded by philosophic pedagogues of the choice of Arguelles. It is needless to say that in the midst of these changes the innocent Isabella became, ere she was in her teens, the most perfect mistress of dissimulation. This was seen in the course of events

live in just such an artificial world as those pages present! What a nursery tale were hers! For the revolutions of the times had always corresponding ones in her closet. Poor little being! called a queen before she could know what it meant-when her mother or her ministers provoked to an intolerable degree the resentment and disgust of the MadBut it may be said, that if no positive good is rid people, little Isabella was always brought forth obtained, evil results of other unions are avoided as a peace offering, and her infant countenance had dangerous political alliances. No more unsubstan- the desired effect. Even Spanish frenzy was aptial dogma rules that world of shadows, diplomacy, peased at the sight of the "innocent Isabel." than this notion of dangers from matrimonial alliances. Nations are no longer mere estates with the live stock on them, given and taken as marriage-portions; but they have their own substantive history, to which that of the reigning house is subordinate. As to the fear lest clever intriguers should obtain high place, it is as gratuitous as any. No one is so dangerous in power as a fool. Put a gun into the hands of a villain, and he may compass the death of his enemy; into the hands of a fool, and ten to one he fires it off into the midst of a crowd. Any process by which to improve the breed of the royal population in Europe, to make her princes cleverer and more sagacious, would be most useful. In the west, the power of the sovereign is rapidly becoming too much limited to permit mischief from a clever man; but nothing can forearm you against the incalculable mischiefs devised by folly. There is no country at this day that would profit by having a duller man at its head. Frederick William of Prussia by no means does all that his people wish; but exchange him which followed Espartero's expulsion; when the for a Nicholas, and the Prussians would soon find out what a safeguard they had lost in the cultivated conscience, and above all in the intelligence, of their present monarch. He knows too much, to do what a barbarian would not hesitate about: for ignorance is the real parent of cruelty, and intelligence alone teaches how to sacrifice the present to the future. Louis Philippe, astutest of princes, is serving his own ends, and compassing them on all sides; but how well he manages to keep France quiet-how well he knows that a publicly virtuous rule can alone conduce to his own interests! He may be mean, hypocritical, selfish, tricking, swin- What an eternal scene of squabble and intrigued dling Europe out of its respect by conduct that has the palace presented since, between the queenlooks patriotic while it is carried on solely with an mother, the sanguinary and blustering soldiers who eye to business; but his public acts must be benefi- upheld her power, the French family ambassador, cent, conducive to the material interests of the peo- and the Infante's party, represented whilst she ple subject to him, or he and his vast schemes are lived by the Princess Carlotta. The care of this ruined. No one suspected Charles the Tenth of amiable knot of people was to cashier the Cortes, peculiarly artful or personally selfish intentions; or get it to unvote the fundamental article of but his dull folly drove his people to rebellion. the charter, which gave to the national assembly To Had Ferdinand of Spain been a shrewder and a the disposal of the queen's hand. Yet, when they bolder man, letting alone virtuous intentions, how had obtained this power, they were unable to use much blood and misery would have been saved to it, unable to conclude an alliance worthy of the Spain! If a little Orleans cleverness were infused young queen. The first thought (always the case into the royal blood of that country, how much bet- in Spain) was how to link a loan with the marriage, ter her chance of future political advancement. or some financial operation that would enrich all The sapient meddlers of diplomacy, however, have done their best to perpetuate the breed of Ferdinands, on the pretence of saving danger to Spain and Europe!

From the Examiner.

SPANISH MARRIAGES.

THE efforts and intrigues, pour et contre, occasioned by the marriage of Queen Isabella in Spain, would make a pretty little romance in forty volumes, if spun out by the able hand of Sue or Du

Moderados and the old restored courtiers, not knowing how to get rid of Olezaga, who had actually brought them in, tutored the queen, and forced her to exaggerate an innocent act of ministerial dictation into nothing less than high treason. The very first act of the French party when restored, was to bring the little queen before the nation with a monstrous falsehood in her mouth, which might have sacrificed the life of Olezaga, had he not escaped. The falsehood, however, cannot be laid to the child's charge, but to those of her infamous advisers.

concerned. For this purpose England was applied to and coquetted with; but Lord Åberdeen told the Spanish loan-hunters to go-where incivility sends knaves. And France had thenceforth the ball in her hands.

France then suggested the Trapani marriage, which, it was hoped, would mollify Austria, and produce the recognition of the queen by the eastern power; the Duc de Montpensier at the same time being to be betrothed to the queen's younger sister. To regulate and deprive this last match of itse danger was the effort of Mr. Bulwer, and it was

arranged in the meeting of Pampeluna, that the young queen should espouse Count Trapani, and the French prince the Infanta as soon as the queen had offspring. As the infanta was but twelve years old at the time, delay could not be objected

to.

Austria, however, would not desert Don Carlos, and the Neapolitan prince would not occupy a throne unsanctioned by the church and the eastern powers. These objections were felt insulting to the Spaniards and their queen, and Trapani became impossible. The discovery and the admission that the Trapani match was impossible was, however, made by many statesmen long before Christina and the French would admit it. Mon and the party of the Moderado Cortes declared against it first. Even Narvaez gave it up one day, to revive it the next. And these vacillations gave rise to quarrels, which convulsed the cabinet and agitated the palace. Despairing of a financial operation built on a marriage, several of those worthies undertook speculations based on their knowledge of coming events. Munoz was enticed into the scheme; and he lost such a sum of money that Christina became indignant against the gamblers, and a series of quarrels took place, which ended in the expulsion of Nar

vaez.

THE SPANISH MATCH.-All the jewellers and goldsmiths of Paris are at work on ornaments for the marriage of that poor little victim the Queen of Spain, doomed to be executed to her cousin. The finery is spoken of, by competent judges of such matters, as being very superb. The diamonds are said to be as bright and almost as numerous as the tears shed by the bride, and the gold trinkets almost as heavy as her sighs. Her hymeneal manacles, though they may gall her to the bone, will at least be magnificently chased. No Hindoo widow was ever burned with greater splendor than will attend the Spanish bride to the altar. She will be sacrificed to marriage like a queen. And when she has given her hand to her cousin and promised to give her heart, the spirits of hypocrisy, and guile, and fraud (especially invoked for the solemnity) will chant an epithalamium expressly composed for the occasion by that great master of domestic discord. the parent of all falsehood. An amnesty will, it is said, be granted, and all political offences forgiven, on the marriage of the queen. Poor thing! She herself may forgive her enemies, but, as the Italian says, "it is not ordered that we should forgive our friends;" and Isabella may bitterly remember that exception and privilege.-Punch.

RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA IN POLAND.

Since that event, civilian ideas and less passionate council have prevailed at the court of Madrid. And the French envoy, however powerful, has not WEAK, culpable, and abortive as was the late been permitted to remain absolute dictator. The Polish insurrection, it seems likely nevertheless to inability of France to effect the Trapani marriage, be followed by strange and important results affector procure the consent of the eastern powers, low-ing the three great despotic powers of Europe, and ered French influence. And the queen, disgusted for one of them at least-Austria-replete with and affronted, once more applied to England, and the most formidable perils. It was with painful declared for a Cobourg alliance. Lord Aberdeen, incredulity that western statesmen at first received we know, turned the same deaf ear to this, as to the reports of the deeds done with the sanction or all other overtures. The plan failed; but the cir- connivance of the government in Gallicia; and cumstance so alarmed the king of the French, that even now they can hardly shake off the stupor of he, too, became rational in the Spanish business, amazement into which they have been cast by the and consented to fall in with the popular idea of the monstrous guilt and folly of the Imperial policy in queen's marrying her cousin, the son of the In- that province. To find the most ancient, the nost fante. methodic, cautious, and timorously conservative throne in Europe, suddenly adopting the counsels of Asiatic barbarism, and plunging with deliberate purpose into fierce, desolating anarchy, was something which philosophy might explain, but for which our modern experience had not prepared us. Equally novel and unexpected is the retribution which is following fast on the heels of the crime. A little while ago, who would have thought to see the Polish patriots throw themselves into the fraternal embraces of Russia, and hail the Emperor Nicholas as the destined saviour of their race and nation, the avenger of the blood of their brethren shed by Austria? Yet so it is. A reaction of this kind is setting in rapidly and intensely: Russia is meeting it with prompt, skilful, and energetic encouragements; Austria and Prussia are acutely sensible of the danger, but know not how to guard. against it. Such are the fruits of Prince Metternich's vaunted statecraft.

Then came the question, which son? The court voice, as well as the popular one, pointed out the young sailor, Don Enrique, whom Narvaez had treated brutally to please the French court, but whom the French court was now quite willing to accept and to win. But the sailor prince would listen to no flattery, enter into no terms, forswear neither principles nor friends; and after a sojourn in Paris of a week, Don Enrique was declared by the French court to be dangerous and impracticable. His elder brother, a great slob, was therefore fixed upon, and the betrothal took place.

This betrothal, too, seems to have taken place precipitately. It is said the French court insisted on the simultaneous betrothal of the Infanta to the Duc de Montpensier, making the queen's marriage dependent on the Infanta's. On the other hand, Mr. Bulwer no doubt insisted on the observance of the stipulations of Pampeluna; and some rather sharp correspondence has been interchanged between the courts of Madrid and St. James on the one hand, and of the Tuileries on the other. The difference, however, cannot be very serious; for it is not likely that the whigs should object altogether to a marriage to which their predecessors had conditionally consented; and the Pampeluna conditions the king of the French cannot be so unreasonable as not to observe; since, if wise and necessary in 1844, they cannot be less so in 1846.

A pamphlet lately published in France, and purporting to be A Letter addressed by a Nobleman of Gallicia to Prince Metternich respecting his Circular Despatch of 7th March, 1846, may be considered as the official manifesto of the new school of Polish politics. It is known to be regarded in that light in the diplomatic circles of Berlin and Vienna. The author calls upon his countrymen to break forever with the juggling statesmanship and the delusive popular sympathies of western Europe, and