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CHANCES OF WAR IN SPAIN.

COURIER—It seems improbable that Don Carlos will forego his claim to the throne ; but it is certain that he can of himself do nothing, and must be guided by the views and wishes of the influential men of his party. For aught we know, there may be, and we hope there is, amongst them, a strong repugnance to begin a civil war. They may say, that the honour and the rights of Don Carlos are suf.. ficiently protected by his own conduct ; they may foresee the possibility ofthe infant daughter of Ferdinand not living for many years or many months, when the Crown would devolve on Don Carlos ; and they may wisely resolve not to kindle a civil war, which must be a war of principle, and must do immense mischief to Spain. Don Carlos may be advisedto temporize, and wait upon chance ; and though that might ill suit his: hasty ambition, if his counsellors and friends think it the safer and the surer course, he must submit. Till his and their de- rision be known, all speculation must be profitless. Connected as Frallee is with Spain, she cannot, of course, look with indiffo.

diture of the Government, and we do not doubt will promote further

economy and reduction of taxation. However we may regret that in some instances he has partially promoted his own immediate connexions, such a natural favouritism cannot cancel the everlasting obligations of the nation to his patriotic Administration. He has maintained no use- less places for the object of family provision. The Tories, moreover, artfully exaggerate and magnify his favouritism. The Bishop of Hereford, for example, including his Prebendal stall, barely averages an income of 4,0001., the minimum provided by the recent act for an Irish Bishop, whose expenses are far inferior to those of an English Pre- late. Again, Sir H. Grey is not appointed Comptroller of the Irish Household, as they say ; and the Tories have swollen the salary of that office from the real sum of 4001. per annum to the quadruple amount of 2,0001. Further, Sir H. Grey will lose 1,200 pe- annum by the recom- mendation of the Military Committee. We do not doubt, however, that these falsehoods will be speedily supplied by new inventions. The ma- nufacturers of such party calumnies are well aware that all who read them do not see the contradiction. When the Conservative party has done as much for the nation as the Ministry of Lord Grey, then they may more ingenuously and honestly reflect on thepreferment of personal connexions. No Administration has brought forward more talent, or promoted more persons on the sole recommendation of merit. In some instances we have regretted, as in that of the Country Bank- rupt Commissioners, that the Government parted with its just and legitimate patronage. At the same time we trust that the patriotism of Lord Grey will not be tarnished by any future aggravation of this partially just complaint of his Tory enemies.

STANDARD—When all the appointments made by Conservative Mi- nisters during the last generation are set off against the voracious gluttony of place manifested by the Grey family, it were but honest to explain that the Tory appointments spread over fifty years, whereas the Grey gluttony has been all indulged within less than a sixteenth part of that period. Nor is this the only explanation that the Morning Chronicle ought in candour to give. Our contemporary ought to ex- plain what are or were the Peel places—the Beresford places—the Manners places—the Lowther places-:-the Grenville places, the amount of which is said to balance the enormity of the Reforming Premier, in swallowing up patronage. Sir Robert Peel, the most bountiful do- mestic patron in the list, during some twenty years of public service, bestowed, say, at most, half a dozen offices among his immediate kindred. The Beresford family, after administering the affairs of Ire- land—as in fact, that family did—for nearly half a century, may be charge- able with having provided for less than half a dozen of their number; for, we presume, no one will ascribe the success in life of the gallant Marshal to family influence, or to any other cause than personal desert, What has been obtained by the Somerset (Beaufort) family during fifty years, may, we believe, be comprised in one Colonial governorship, and perhaps an appointment as aide-de-camp. With the gains of the rence to the result, be it what it may ; but her precautions, however expensive, can supply no just ground for alarm. We wait with anxiety for further information ; and while there is a possibility of believing that a civil war may be avoided in Spain, we shall charitably suppose that the leading men in that country will not rashly and madly Plunge into such a series of calamities. Whatever may happen in Spain, we look with confidence to our Ministers to keep us at peace and pre- serve the national honour. There never was, perhaps, a time when the reciprocal influence of Governments upon one another, and their mutual deference, in order to maintain peace, were more necessary. Thus, al- though the principle of non-interference is avowed by Ministers, they have been compelled either to interfere, or to continue the interference begun by their predecessors, in more cases than one. The source of this necessity is easily traced. Throughout Europe there is a conflict of political opinions, and in almost every state there are apprehen- sions that change in the government will follow on the heels of every foreign contest. The ruling power in every state of Europe, not even excepting the upper class in England, has at present as much dread, we believe, of parties and principles at home, as of any foreign opponent. They ull dread a foreign contest ; less on its own account than because it might let loose dissensions at home, and give influence to their do- mestic opponents. On this account, the Governments of Europe are, one and all, bound by their own fears to endeavour to preserve the general peace. No symptoms of strife can arise in any part of Europe, but they each and all hasten, and must hasten, to prevent its spreading and involving every country in a contest about principles of govern- ment. Hence has arisen the necessity for interference, to some ex- tent, as to Belgium, Turkey, Portugal, and the necessity of watching the progress of affairs in Spain. In these circumstances is to be found the justification of the conduct of Ministers, if, indeed, that need any justi- cation ; for, though their opponents may sneer about protocols and length-

ened negotiation, the fact is, that in a time of unexampled difficulty—when new relations between all the states of Europe were forming—when collisions were hourly expected—when it was said by their opponents

that it would be a great merit in them to prevent war for a twelve- month—the plain fact, of which common sense can judge, is, that, in the midst of great and unexpected difficulties, they have preserved peace without sacrificing the national honour. Europe, perhaps, even more than England, is deeply indebted to them ; and, its maintaining the peace of Europe they have done the best thing in their power for the prosperity of their own country.

THE GREY MONOPOLY.

MORNING CHRONICLE—We have never justified the partiality of Lord Grey for his own family in the bestowal of his patronage ; but we admire the political sentimentality of the Tories, who find it conve- nient to comment on this occasional blot in the reputation of the present Ministry. The Tories notoriously trafficked in corruption, and maintained every sinecure and superfluous office which could pro- vide for the Aristocracy. The Peel family for instance, the Beresfords, the Somersets, the Manners family, the Lowthers, the Grenvilles, the Buckinghams, &c. &c. have made a tolerable profit of power. The

Manners family we are u holly unacquainted. Lord Manners certainly was Chancellor of Ireland ; but he brought to that office higher personal claims, M his legal character, than either Mr. Ponsonby, who pre. ceded, or Lord Plunkett, who has followed him. As well charge the election of the noble lord's nephew, Sir Charles Manners Sutton, 'to the chair of the Hbuse of Commons, under the head of family patronage, as charge the appointment of the Irish Chancellor of

1807. The Lowthers have, we believe, in the course of the last century, possessed two subordinate offices for about two or three years ; the whole amount of salary derived from which certainly never equalled one-tenth of what Lord Lonsdale spontaneously gave the public in bard money, and would not equal the one-hundredth part of it if the noble Lord had allowed the money to accumulate at interest for his own profit. Lord Grenville, a Whig Prime Minister, acting in the spirit of his party, secured to himself a valuable sinecure ; but what bave the Buckinghams, as distinguished from Lord Grenville, obtained ? What has the Duke of Buckingham from the public ? What has the hope of that family, and the hope and pride of his country, the Mar- quis of Chandos, ever had? It is true that excellent Whig, Lord Nugent, has got a place ; but he got it from Lord Grey ; and the prize, therefore, cannot be very justly assigned to family influence, seeing the relation in which the Buckingham' family stand to the vora- cious Premier. This splitting of the Grenville and Buckingham fami- lies, for the sake of imputing Lord Grenville's Whig gains, a second time, to his Conservative kinsman, is a whimsical illustration of the poverty of the Morning Chronicle's case. Like the nightcap of Gold- smith's garretteer poet, Lord Grenville's place is thus compelled to pay " a double debt." And after that is said or done, what case has the Morning Chronicle made? It has shown that all the great Con- servative families have, during fifty years, absorbed rather less of office (excluding, of course, the efficient offices which the heads of them must have held, or they could not be Ministers) than has been gorged by the single family of Grey in less than three years. This, however, does not altogether close the account. The Morning Chronicle has omitted to allude to the great Conservative Ministers and families that have taken nothing. What has the Duke of Wellington taken in right of his Premiership ? What has the Duke of Newcatle taken in consideration of twenty-five years' undeviating support of Conservative principles? But we might run through nearly the whole calendar of Conservative leaders with the same question ; and the result would be, that the Conservative nobility have, in general, taken as little as Lord Grey has omitted to take, having the power to snatch at it.

TAKING OFF TAXES.

COBBETT'S REGISTER—The nobility and gentry and clergy seem to

me to have entered into a solemn league and covenant to effect their own destruction. It is as clear as daylight, that either they must be overthrown, or that the Jews must be reduced to a moderate bulk. The infernal Jews and usurers are not seen by the people. One pen- sion, or one sinecure, is more a subject of complaint than the whole thirty millions annually swallowed up by the Jews and other devils of Change Alley. It is quite amusing to see how quietly the money-

dealing villains go and thrust noblemen and gentlemen out of their estates. Aye, and pass for go v. and generous gentlemen, too, by a liberal distribution of a small part of the money, which this stupid no- bility and gentry have enabled them to take out of the pockets of the people. These associators against the Assessed Taxes will, probably, for the far greater part, cry out for " National Faith " as loudly as the stupid nobility and gentry themselves, or even as loudly as the cursed old hunkses, men and women, who send up their money to buy quarters of hundreds in the Funds. dow are these people to look the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the face ? How is he to pay the interest of the Debt, if we withhold from him the means of paying the interest with ? " Oh !" say they, "but he can disband part of the Army." No, he cannot; ler that is necessary to enable him to collect the Malt-tax, and other taxes; for if it were not for that Army, does any man believe that an exciseman would dare to show his nose, if he attempted to prevent any man in the country from making malt? In short, it is all Debt altogether. Poor-rates, Police, and all, is debt. As John Swann said to me seven- and-twenty years ago, there can be no freedom in a country where fifty millions a year are collected in taxes ; and we have this simple choice submit to the taxes themselves, or take two thirds from the interest

of the Debt. For my part, if I were Chancellor of the Exchequer, I would have a very easy task of it : for, whenever a motion were made for taking off a tax,—for instance, when Sir W. Ingilby shall move, as he has promised, to take off the Malt-tax, which he probably will do in somewhat the following words,—" Resolved, That it is expedient that the taxes upon malt be repealed,"—the motion being made, I would by no means oppose it ; but would move, as an amendment, to leave out the full point at the end of the sentence, put a comma in its stead, and add the following words : "as soon as the annual charge on account of the Debt shall not exceed twenty-four millions." That would be a silencer for those " national faith" gentlemen who still want the Mult-tax repealed. They would then, though it is hard to say to what extent their timidity might lead them, begin to say, that the question about reducing the interest of the Debt ought to be enter- tained and discussed. I intend, God willing, to endeavour to prevail upon the House of Commons to entertain it for a little while, at any rate. As to the bellowers for taking off the House and Window Tax, without, at the same time, saying that they will stand by the Minister in lopping off the pensions and sinecures, in reducing all. salaries and pay, and in reducing the interest of the Debt, I despise them from the bottom of my heart; and I am utterly astonished that Lord Althorp does not answer the deputations by asking them, whether they really mean that he is to pay the interest of the Debt out of his own pocket! They might hesitate, to be sure ; they might tell him that he has a great deal more than he can want for his own consumption ; that he has the Devil and all of horses and dogs, and cows and oxen, and sheep, and fine fat hogs—a great many more than be can want : but he might tell them, in the first place, that his mind has been brought to this size of pos- session; and that these things are just as necessary to him as their broadcloth coats and their remarkably highly-polished Wellington boots are to them ; and that the pug-dog or the mongrel that trips along at their heels, and that gives them such delight by standing upon its hind-legs, and holding out its paw so sensibly, to shake it with. that o( its more tall two-legged fellow-creature, is no more necessary to them than his pack of hounds are to him ; and that, with regard to his homed cattle and the rest, though not absolutely necessary to his bare existence, still they constitute the goods of his farm ; and, that they would find, if they became acquainted with farmers, that they were a description of persons not more ready to part with the goods of their homestead, in a give-away style, than shopkeepers are to part, in the same style, with goods in their shop. This argument failing, they might begin to point out to him how be could make savings : but here he would beat them to a certainty; for there are no savings that he could make, that would enable him to • take off taxes to any conside- rable amount without a reduction of the interest of the Debt ; and I have always been surprised that he never brought them to that point at once.

THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL.

COURIER—We have promised to forbear making any comments on the circumstances connected with the melancholy. loss of the Earl Wemyss, Leith smack, till-the whole investigation is completed. As

far as that investigation may implicate the character of individuals, and render them liable to a criminal prosecution, we shall adhere to the promise ; tut we cannot even now forbear adverting to one of the facts brought to light, which illustrates in a striking manner that inordinate affection for wealth which is now our greatest plague. Nine-tenths, or perhaps nineteen-twentieths, of all the crimes committed in Great Bri- tain, from the cruelties in our factories to the forgeries in London, have their origin in the national creed. The whole people are essentially worshippers of Mammon, and that worship absorbs almost every other. We do not, on the whole, and on comparing this with the dominant pas- sions of mankind in former times, condemn this worship so vehemently as some of our contemporaries ; but it is now, unquestionably, the fruitful source of manifold evils. It is that one prevailing vice which requires to be repressed in every class of soeiety. Looking at it under a general aspect, we should say that it seems, in a great measure, to have served its destined good purpose. The desire to rise in the world and accumulate wealth, has unquestionably Caused the gradual overthrow of the iron rule of feudal governments. They were founded by the sword, and, as long as they existed, were preserved by the sword. If the rule which has succeeded to them be sordid, it is at least peaceful, and gives us an opportunity of cultivating the gentler affections, which may, now that public attention is roused to the matter, subdue, in turn, the evils of that sordid love of wealth, which in past times has, on the whole, been the handmaid of improve- ment. Not sharing, therefore, all the sentimental animosity of some of our contemporaries, because we are sensible that to the love of wealth mankind are indebted for most of the conveniences they enjoy, we ad- vert to the evidence already given in the case of the Earl of Wemyss, only to supply an illustration of the baneful manner in which this diseased desire in the middle and respectable classes now operates. This is part of the evidence-

" Mr. Gooch, one of the passengers, had seen Mr. Macnaughten, the agent, and had a conversation with him upon the subject of the loss of lives on board.

On Mr. Gooch observing, what a dreadful sacrifice of life there had been, Macnaughten replied, ‘, You seem to lay great stress upon that (meaning the loss of lives), but it is nothing to be compared to the loss which the owners have sustained.' Mr. Hamilton, who was present, called Mr. Macnaughten an inanimate lump of iron.' " Mr. Macnaughten is undoubtedly one of the decent middle classes,. who would not pick a pocket or be absent from church for any consi. deration ; and yet Mr. Macnaughten coolly treats, as of no importance, the loss of several lives, as compared to the loss of a little property.

Now the feeling of life being of less value than property, which it here so broadly expressed, and is thus felt to be so offensive, pervades

society, and has stamped its own spirit on all our laws. The preser, vation and protection of property have always, by them, been con,. sidered of almost infinite importance ; and hence death has been dealt out by the Legislature for the protection of property with a most un-

sparing hand. The consequence is now severely felt by society. We are overrun with plunderers, swindlers, and thieves. The law, we are in. dined to think, by making the preservation of property so preeminently important, begets that avarice, the effects of which its punishments

cannot afterwards repress. To get the better of the national malady, we must not add to the severity of the law ; we must go to its

source. The public sentiment must be reformed. We even doubt if

the judicious scheme of inspection in our factories, lately ordered by the Legislature, will put an entire end to the cruelties practised in them ; but if by beginning to economize in high places, and there to set an ex- ample of a simple style of living, the thirst of wealth, the desire to make a figure by a profuse expenditure, can be checked, we shall extir- pate the cause which makes the owners and overseers of factories cruel. To reform the public sentiment, we are not aware of any better method than holding up in all their native deformity such gross violation of all proper feelings as is exhibited in the language ascribed to Mr. Macnaughten.