The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-05-26 00:00:00

THE DAY'S NEWS.

The necessity for the vote of credit which
Ministers have obtained in the House of Com-
mons, is justly regarded as affording further
evidence of the unsatisfactory state of the public
finances. It was stated, in moving the vote, that
Ministers Were under the neeessitz of asking for
it. mr. Disraeli's remark, that "if they would
frankly state that the exchequer was exhausted,
and that they :could not carry ou the public ser-
vice without this extraordinary :assistance, he
would give them confidence so far," would seem,
therefore; to have been uncalled, for, since, if such
a statement was at already made, in go many
words, it was clearly implied in the reason
assigned for the vote of credit. The amount
required is not, it is true, a large one, and it will
probably be exhausted in a fortnight. But this
only renders it all the nwre dangerous as a pre-
iedent, It was tacitly submitted to, however, on
the understanding that the estimates should be
proposed as soon as possible after therecess. The
remark of Mr. Walpole, that " unless the Norm,.
,insisted upon having the estimates laid before it
in the regular manner, it would surrender a
power far more necessary to its control over the
public expenditure than that said to be affected
by what had occurred in another place," conveys
a significant moral at stlch a conjuncture as the
present,

In connection with the subject just referred to,
it may be noted that the very general reprobation
of the financial Course which Ministers are pursu-
ing, as illustrated by the necessity of having to
obtain a vote of credit, may be regarded as indi-
cating that the House of Commons will insist on
the estimates being considered immediately after
the Whitsuntide recess; and as this will occupy a
full month, it will render it next to impossible to
proceed with the Reform Bill this Session. The
Times, we observe, is decidedly of opinion that it
is all up with that measure now. "The Bill has
sunk," it says, "under the impossibility of carrying
through in a single Session a Budget and a Reform
Bill, each large enough to occupy the attention of
Parliament during every spare hour. The +form
Bill does not fall-through external violence, nor
from the hatred of its enemies, nor from the luke-
warm all cscr;arinn of ifq Riinnnspri fricaula The
Reform Bill has perished mainly because, being
a measure of the first importance, it failed to
conciliate to itself that degree of attention from
within which to a measure of the first class is
absolutely necessary." We dare say there is an
influential section of the Cabinet to whom this
failure of Lord Jelin Russell's Reform measure
will not be by any means a heartbreaking affair.
They had to submit to its introduction as one of
the necessities of the Coalition ; but it is well
known that they disliked it,—and they not im-
probably hoped that it would fail, as it has done.
"Lord John Russell," the leading journal further
remarks, " must console himself with the reflection
that he has done all in his power to make the Bill
succeed, and Mr. Disraeli may satisfy himself with
the equally strong conviction that he has also done
all in his power to make the measure fail. Those
whose main object is the satisfactory transaction
of public business will rejoice that a measure is at
length removed from their path which, although
it could not pass itself, had becoMe a formidable
obstruction to the passing of anything else ; and
it is not impossible that in this manner has been
disposed of the last attempt at a great and com-
prehensive Reform Bill which the present gene-
ration of public men is destined to see." Huy:,
much better, therefore, would it have been, to
have gone into committee on the Bill which Lord
Derby's Ministry brought forward last year, and
have made it, as they so easily might have done,
a good measure, and thus have settled the onbar-
rassing.question—at any rate for a long time to

come.

The House of Commons has now not only got
the fact of the bill repealing the paper duty
having been rejected by the House of Lords in
due form before it, but has taken action upon
that rejection, in the shape of a search for
precedents by a committee. This proceeding has,
no doubt, been taken by Ministers for the purpose
of gaining time. It brings them. to the Whit-
suntide holidays, which will afford them the
opportunity of considering, Tore at leisure; what
is best to be done.
According to the Morning Herald, the Radicals
are kept in a,state of painful suspense, as to what
Ministers are going to do to the House of Lords
for their recent defeat of the financial measure on
which so much that was hopeful to their cause
had been built. They are making, it appears,
" strong appeals to the Premier, which mean that
unless he carries out their behests, he will be the
first victim of their indignant wrath." But the
Premier has, so far, afforded them no satisfaction
and, of course, the Radicals are getting more and
more infuriate. "As for us," remarks the Con-