The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-07-24 00:00:00

FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.

MONDAY Mortar/fa.
Tau early part of the past week's parliamentary history
is of a character from which the working of constitutional
government is not likely to receive much honour ; nor is the
theory of ministerial responsibility and parliamentary supre-
macy much better off in the brief retrospect, which becomes
darker and more portentous as the inquiry is pursued further
back. Since the commencement of the present session, up
almost to the present moment, the chief theme of legislative
eloquence has been the incapacity of ministers ; the orna-
ments of that eloquence have in no small degree been bor-
rowed from the abundant stores of patriotic denunciation;
and the general tone of its declamation has been spiced
strongly with threats and rendered piquant with sarcasm
which seemed to lend fatal vigour to the ordinary power
of its current. From week to week the iniquity of
government was expatiated on by honourable and right
honourable members of the People's House ; and from
time to time the same topic was glanced at and some-
times insisted on in the Upper House of Parliament. Now
notice of one motion, implying national distrust of the
responsible advisers of the Crown, caused a disruption of the
Cabinet, and the extrusion of some veteran member of its
ranks ; now another menaced utter demolition of the general
structure. Occasionally the intended expurgation assumed the
form of a damaging inquiry, under which was scarcely
attempted to be concealed an explosive compound, intended
for the disfigurement, if not the absolute annihilation, of the
Ministry as a body. Still, as the moment arrived for applying
the fatal match, the courage or skill of the intended engineers
failed—the fusee was wet, and hung fire, or the " infernal
machine" was found to be unloaded. As the time •came
for producing the withering exposure, it turned out to be a
mere brutum fulmen, and the labouring mountain pro-
duced, indeed, a very ridiculous mouse. This- unpro-
fitable game of politics was played with such appa-
rent earnestness, that each newly-announced coup
received an anticipatory credit which the fate of its pre-
decessors warned against the value of in vain. 'Ultimately,
however, the people began to doubt the utility, if not the wis-
dom, of such frequently recurrent excitement. It was found
that the stimulus of political agitation, like too free a use of
condiments, is not wholesome—that, while both houses• of
parliament rang with the condemnation of Ministers, the busi-
ness of the nation was condemned to stand still, and practical
men began seriously to dislike so great a cry attended with so
very small a collection of wool. Such, however, had been the
vitiated system introduced by the dangerous habit of stimu-
lating opinion, that each new production of the• pyrotechnic
art contrived, for a time, at least, to arouse attention, if it did-
not awaken expectation. The performers in mystery of state'
jugglery, teo, played their respective parts with such studied
adroitness, that some degree of success in the intended
manoeuvre was scarcely to be wondered at. The whole arcana
of the State necromancers has now, however, been exposed;
and it is presumed that what remains of a very unprofitably-
expended parliamentary session will be devoted to a hasty and
crude dispatch of such portions of the national business as
cannot be evaded or postponed. A melancholy and unsatisfac-
tory conclusion this is to arrive at, no doubt, but one which
the course of events, and especially recent ones, forces-upon
the reluctant vision of even the most sanguine berinver in;
Conservative energy.

At the conclusion of the week before last, expectation was-
high throughout the country that the present Government,
damaged as it was by the exhibition of weakness and duplieityof
Lord JOHN RUSSELL, and a portion, at least, of his colleagues;
must come to a speedy and ignominious termination. Coupled
with the untoward exposure of truckling, shuffling, and
double-dealing in respect to, the late Austrian negotiations,
which had been directly fastened upon Lord JOHN RUSSELL,
and, inferentially, upon his colleagues, the motion of Sir E.
B. LYTTON, which stood for debate on Monday evening, was -
looked upon as a test for reducing the Ministry to a display
of its true colours, and an inevitable prostration, consequent
on its inherent moral weakness. For several days antecedent
to that debate coming on, the Cltibs of every political hue
were in a state of unwonted ferment. The Radicals were
dubious, doleful, and waspish ; the Whigs looked grave, and
assumed an air of conscious though unappreciated martyr-
dom, their countenances saying plainly, " We are sufferers for
the public good, yet. no one will believe us ;" the Conserva-
tives were busy, bustling, and self-satisfied--they made sure
that the Baronet of Knebworth was no professional gladiator
whose weapon might be arrested at the beck: of a
timid or over-cautious leader, but a knight of the
true chivalric order, whose lance once laid in rest, he
would run his joust in earnest, and which, if shivered in the
conflict, he would replace,and continue the strife with falehion
and battle-axe till he had vanquished his antagonist, or
himself been worsted in the fray. Alas, for the- vanity of
human expectations ! The valiant Knight took. his place in
the lists without steed or armour, his pennon found no place
in the field of contest, and the willing spectators of the ex-
pected contest were reluctantly convinced that, like all the
parliamentary encounters of the session, the - no-confidence
motion of Sir E. B. LYTTON had ignominiously ended in a
" Cross." True, suspicions of divided views,_ on. the part of
the Conservatives, were faintly whispered in,the corridors of.
the Carlton, on Sunday morning—these waxed,stronger and
received a wider currency as the day wore on. By Monday,
at noon, the oracles of the National had it distinctly in their:
mouths, that the leaders of the " strong, opposition" wouldt
not go into harness, and that for this bout, at least;. the.
Conservative" drag" should not be driven to,Downing-street.
At these unlooked-for deliverances somuef the gallant listeners
chaffed and others fumed ; but they were gently rubbed
down—paced about upon varying grounds--remiatled that
Mr. ROEBUCK'S motion for the following night could and
would be worked to much better purpose in damaging the.
Ministry, and that, willy-nilly, there. should be no. Conserva-
tive display on the faux pas of the. Vienna Conferences. A
resolution such as this was too, important to remain a secret.
It travelled rapidly from club, to. club, and from those
Elusinian temples to the City. _ Long before the evening
meeting of the House it was. known all over London, and by
means of cabalistic telegraphs had received circulation in
many a rural district.
Although it was generally understood that no decisive,
action would be taken, on Sir B. LYTTON'S motion, it was not
exactly known what course of policy might be observed on
the occasion—it was also understood that Lord Joan would
once more have the honour of explaining a portion of the
Ministerial programme of cross-purposes, in the carrying out
of which he has so frequently, and more particularly of late,
borne so conspicuous a part. This expectation and that un-
certainty bad the effect of " drawing," and, in theatrical
phrase, so far as those "in front" were concerned, the per-
forrnances were honoured by a bumper-house. The parts
assigned, and the same set, the farce, for it hardly amounted
to the dignity of comedy, began by his lordship informing the
House, amidst shouts of laughter, that "for some time past
events had been complicated and perverted !" This novelty
of statement he repeated, and the fun of its repetition, added
to its unexpected newness, so completely took the audience
by surprise, that it was once more hailed with an explosion of
merriment. Having thus established what is called a good
understanding with his audience the accomplished and expe-
rienced actor proceeded, with his well-known ability, to give
an explanation in which nothing is explained. He stated and
retracted—withdrew his retractation, and restated his original
averment—at each turn of his rhetoric taking care to unsay
all that he undertook to prove, concluding by a pathetic
appeal to his established reputation and a deep cutting sar-
casm upon those "false, fleeting, perjured" friends whom he
took care to say fell from him, and were like water,

Never found again
But when they mean to sink ye—

a class which probably his lordship has as much reason to
know, and as little reason to complain of as any public man ;
yet whom he took the opportunity of informing that he held
them in contempt. He next passed into a laudatory review
of his own political career, in which he could act all the more
disinterestedly, as he must have known that nobody regarded