The Express.
London, England, 1852-08-11 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESD.AT, AUGUST 11.

WITH regard to the meeting of parliament, all
that can be predicated with certainty is, that it will
be put off as lung as possible. Having done their
utmost to bribe and bully voters, ministers now re-
quire a few days of grace to tamper with membersof
the House of Commons. They know that a majority
of the house is opposed to them, but they cherish a
lingering hope that some members are of that soft,
waxy nature that easily receives new forms and im-
pressions, if skilfully manipulated. Why precipi-
tately open the 'realm before they have tried
whether some of the "doubtful," may not be in-
clined to " listen to reason ?"

Conservatives and Liberals, in these days, fade
into each other by such delicate and imperceptible
gradations of tint, that it is often hard to say
whether a man ought to be classed as s "Con-
servative Liberal" or a " Liberal Conservative."
Not a few of the gentlemen who affect one or
other of these dulcet denominations are of the

number of those, whom a late popular novelist
described as " men with quiet easy consciences,
which never did them anv harm." Show them that
they can gain by it, and they will, without hesita-
tion—as Mr. Moniapie Tiyi changed his name,
by transposition, to Tigyi Moiltaytie—place either
the '• Liberal" or tho Conservative" foremast in
describing their political tendencies--assume the
character either of " independent supporters," or
an-factious opponents" of ministers. And there
are a great many ways in which ministers can con-
ciliate gentlemen so " reasonable." 'f here are railway
and other job. to be promoted or resisted; road bills,
harbour bills, and so forth; deputy lieutenancies or
commissions in the militia to be disposed of; partial
changes in the manner of conducting business in
the Custom-house, or Excise surreys to be con-
ceded. The man who is a " Conscrrxtive Liberal,"
to-day, if judiciously handled, may six weeks hence
have thawed into a " Liberal Conservative"—that is,
bare been sweetened from a sub-acid adversary of
the I)titux cabinet into a milk-and-water supporter
of it.

The season is propitious to a ministry that has so
much to gain by evading its pledge to assemble per.
hament at an early day. The opening of the session
can be put off under the most seemingly harmless
sad plausible pretexts. The elections (oUowed so
close upon the rising of parliament that members
have not yet enjoyed either relaxation or repose.
On Thursday grouse shooting commences, and black-
cock shooting eight days later. Then ten more days
bring in partndge shooting ; and a month later
pheasant shooting begins. Every Englishman is—
or affects to be--a sportsman. Ministers give them.
selves airs of postponing business for the sake of
sport ; even stern oppositionists conform to the
fashion, and affect to sympathise with such jaunty
neglect of duty : Whig and Tory laughingly up-
braidthg each other with being lazy fellows. But
all the while the Derbyites, though seemingly aban-
doned to idleness and pleasure, are working double
tides in their political capacity.
Every official or semi-official ministerial at that
can get out of town is out of town. No business
that can be put off is transacted. Dinners and all
other political demonstrations are discountenanced.
Nothing is raid or done that can give a handle to poli-
tical But political setters are ranging
the country on all sides in guest of pliable °ppm-
tionists. When such a one is put up, he is quietly
but pertinaciously plied by ministerial agents.
Their fingers are never off his buttons, their noses
never out of his ears. He is held fast and drenched
with whispers all tending to sap and undermine
his very easy political virtue, to wash out of him the
very slender portion of starch mixed up with his
limp political character to stiffen it.
The question that all friends of rational promss
and good government have now to ask themselves is
not " what is the balance of parties in the new House
of Commons at present ?" but, "what will that
balance be two or three months hence, if Lord Main
sweet& in putting off the opening of the session so
long ?" There is a majority against Lord Dram in
the House of Commons just now; but, with the
)possibility of a seven years' parliament in view, with
ministers utterly unscrupulous in their exerciae of
official patronage and power, and with so many
,members of the House of Commons in whom a
strong regard for their own individual interests is
only kept in check by a very feeble and lukewarm
concern for public interests, or respect foe public
opinion, it would be rash to assume that there
moat of necessity be a majority against him in
November.

It is thesoixo in no wee spirit at ecostitatianal
pee/mg the the attempt er minimise to
as keine possible the uplift d the Hoesellest=
asnarotiousil he declare whiter they enjoy the
general esedissee et not, is eenspleined of. This
=riis is sentrodistien at the customary
enshoenuisoo, hot that is not The
objoet siehisio in this t, as was well
vonoriod lsy wo, tly on Saturday, is
to pot es opperisnitv to tamperwith the jury inipan-
se Ms try the validity of their claims to public
coadenes.

In gamma essiety you do not meet with a man so
blind as ast to eve that this is the came. But the
paid. maw *be without its leaders. There will be
no desidee meessmat to frustrate this irradiate
it the Diebyiles, unless those who take upon
tlMmarirm to be leaders on the Liberal side set them-
selves to week. And they are all as torpid in reality
as the Dengue' affect to be ; the opposition leaders
are sleeping madly, snoring audibly, while minis-
.** and task agents are only playing 'possum."
Whip and Peditss. Manchester men and Hawke,—
else and as it *sea fold thsk ants, decline their
Ireads. and Waist in a shade. They alter no pro-
test sepia* indelnile
Isowpeelingpenenesst of the
smating
et porlimmoot. bow ma slip-
pery mimeo ikey ha* to deaf with, they leave
the. owned to the tampering and temptations of
tnieffelsta nay indulge in the Joke for ?dents,
while me sAer another of their pawns is being
Angered of the board. If Lord lour Rusern„ Sir
JAmes 011AMAX, Mr. GLADSTONE, Mr. Hums,
Messrs. Bumf and COBDEN, do not bestir them-
selves iaamedistsly, to compel ministers to summon
parliament M meet without more delay, they will
es domelese to the suspicion of having courted
defeat—of having connived at the postponement of
the day of battle until their antagonists could bring
into the held a force numerically stronger than their
own.

THE Kaffir war hes become a chronic disorder in
South Africa. It has nothing about it of the passing
fever fit, sharp and weakening, but to the end of
which we can confidently look forward. It has more
the look of one of those organic, ineradicable diseases
which continue to torture the patient at intervals till
death relieves him.

The present aspect of the Kaffir war is briefly as
follows:--Along a line stretching one hundred and
twenty miles inland from the sea, and for fifty miles
o• either side of it, the black and white races are
:Srin • desultory, aimless, seemingly intermi-
war. All is terror and insecurity, both on the
Kaffir and the English side of the frontier. One
dos LI British expedition sets fire to half-a-dozen native
vil is, shoots a few score of natives, drives off some
hue reds of cattle. Next day bind:sof Kaffir warriors
burn down as many English and Dutch farm-stead-
ings, kill a few of their inmates, and carry off what-
ever they can lay hold of. Detachments of British
soldiers penetrate now into one Kaffir fastness, and
again into another. Bands of Kaffir warriors take
rip positions within short distances of Uitenhage and
ciroiaff Reynett, among the ravines and woods, and
lie in wait for travellers. Each side inflicts grave
losses and sufferings on the other, but neither can so
weaken and subdue its antagonist as to afford the
slightest ground for expectation that these reciprocal
robberies and murders can at any period, however
remote, be brought to a close.

Lased the respect of peace app. 'vs more remote
now than it did at any former period. Sir HENRY
Burnt provoked the war by his melodramatic
quackery, and proved himself utterly incapable, not
merely to bring it to a successful termination, but even
to maintain that ascendancy while it lasted which the
more civilised party to the strife might naturally have
been expected. But Sir HENRY'S successor his con-
trived to make bad worse. His retirement within
the frontier might be absolutely necessary, but it was
calculated to discourage the colonists andembolden the
enemy, to • degree that can only be counteracted by
increased efficiency of the operations conducted from
the new basis. And the more recent operations have led
to results even more humiliating than those of Sir
HENRY SMITH. The fiercer and more savage man-
ner in which the war is carried on by the new com-
mander in-chief has been less successful than the
more measured and humane strategy of his prede-
cessor.
Governor CATHCART breathes gibbet in every pro-
clamation, and makes no distinction of age or sex;
and this indiscriminating recklessness has skilfully
been turned to account by UITIIALDER, the llottentot
leader. It is clear that we have not now mere sa-
vages to deal with. It is emitted now that the
Hottentot insurrection has been occasioned by tears,
entertained among that portion of the Cape popula-
tion, that compulsory labour laws were about to be
enacted. It is well known from what source these
fears have been instilled into them. Tho Montague fac-
tion among the officials have for a long time back been
labouring to make the whites jealous of the blacks
and the blacks jealous of the whites, on the Ma-
chiavellian principle of " divide and govern."
They have sowed the wind and are now reaping the
whirlwind. The insurgent Hottentots, it is clear,
have among them daring and cultivated spirits, who
have been frightened into having recourse to arms,
and who are being confirmed in rebellion by the
coarse violence of the new Governor, and the M-
ucosa that has attended it. And they have in their
service trading agents—some of them apparently
Europeans—who, when ono channel for procuring
arms mad ammunition is dammed up, dispo .
lyszo
mesa ineethie sad enterprise in opening up
That the coloured people can overcome the whites we
have no notion, but they may so establish themselves
be the country they at present occupy, as to be long
a thorn in the side of the colony.
It is now apparent that European settlement in
South Africa has been too hastily pushed on.
This has been owing partly to the consequence of
the eagerness of the settlers to open up and
appropriate new pastures; but to a far greater
extent to the dispersion of the Boers, ostelossd
by the harsh and unwise policy of the Mae
government. But whatever the cause, ties anew
quence is that • thin and straggling Ihmegess
population has been spread over an immense terri-
tory, surrounded by a fierce and warlike popu-
lation that far outnumbers it. For the European
settlers to draw back and concentrate themselves
within narrower limits, is impossible; that would be
interpreted by the natives as a sym of her and
weakness, and would invite The settlers
must keep their ground ; they can ste/y do es
by sleeping with their arms below thole bores, and
keeping their powder dry
It is as yet impossible to hem the most remote
conjecture of what the follies and extraysgao..es
which have been enacting in South Africa tier the
last quarter of a century are yet to cost the nation.

Sir George Grey has, we understand, declined to
become a candidate for the representation of the city
of Durham, vacant by Mr. Granger's death. It is
rumoured that Mr. Henry Fenwick, who lately con-
tested Sunderland, will be the liberal candidate.—
Doily News.