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

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LONDON. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1 .

AFTER nine months occupation of office Ministers
are abut to meet Parliament without either a policy
or a purpose. Royal Speeches aro constitutionally
suffered to consist of vague and general expressions
with regard to the form of measures about to be
proposed ; but upon every occasion that we can call
to mind—when any great question of national im-
portance was known to hang in the balance, a tone
decisively indicative of tho opinions uppermost in
the Couucil Chamber of the Sovereign has marked
the phrases placed in the lips of royalty. The
Speech from the Throne has come to be regarded in
a certain sense as the programme for the session.
The performances often vary from what wo are
led to anticipate ;—the actors sometimes ex-
change parts and not unfrequently the play
itself is unexpectedly altered. But when these
casualties occur, the cause is honestly stated, or an
adequate apology is made ; and in the absence of
these we look as matter of course—we had almost
said as matter of right—for some intelligible inti-
mation of the objects for which the legislature is
culled together.
If this be the ease on ordinary occasions, when
Parliament is summoned to meet in the early days
of February, it is yet more natural that the public
should look for such an announcement when the two
houses are assembled at this unwonted season.
What came ye out for to see? A Ministry shaken
in the wind ? Of all the strange and farcical inci-
dents attendant on the Tory attempt to improvise an
unparliamentary Ministry—that is to say, a Ministry
professing to govern in the name of a minority
in the House of Commons—the most farcical and
strange in the estimate of history will doubtless
be,—that twenty-four hours before they called
on parliament fur its verdict, Ministers could not
agree among themselves what tho issue was to be.
Nor can their defenders affect to slur over their dif-
ferences as un-essential or of minor moment. No-
toriously the cause of dissension is nothing less than
whether they were, are, and are to be in future a
Monopolist or a Free Trade Government ? Not whe-
ther this or the other detail is to be conceded for
expediency sake; but whether the Cabinet are
individually and collectively to keep their oft-
re-iterated words of honour to their unhappy
followers, or whether they are to keep one another
company as they walk in official white sheets and
smite their breasts, exclaiming "We arc miserable
sinners." For Lord I)EitBY and the majority of his
colleagues there is, indeed, one peculiar facility in the
matter of conscience. As Puseyites they can con-
fess and obtain plenary absolution. Whether
these convenient rites can be administered to one ,
another mutually, or whether the intervention of
some slippery prelate may be thought requisite to
set thug uneasy memories to sleep, is a point of
Tory casuistry we do not venture to hazard an opi-
nion on. It is clear, however, that this resource
avails not men like Sir JOHN PAKINGToN or Lord
MAUD:I:WRY, or the great philosopher himself;—
yet these arc anxious, it is said, to be understood
as among the minority who have been outvoted in ,
the Cabinet on the proposition to avow their conver- I
sion to the whole truth of Free Trade. As for Mr.
HENLEY, it would need the Bishop of EXETER him-
oaf with all his instruments of logical torture to
screw anything definite out of him; although to do
him justice, the astute old gentleman seems to I
have foreseen many months ago the approaching
end of the anti-Pet-Ide hypocrisy, initiated with such
virtuous apostrophes to honour and good faith in
1846. While content to be still called a Protectionist
in the preter-ploperfect tense, Mr. HENLEY certainly
warned his Oxfordshire friends that all his faith (if
he ever had any) in Protection had long since died
out ; and that in point of fact, though he and Mr.
Dlstetut joined in hunting down the late Sir
Roma PEEL, neither of them will stand up man-
fully and say that they believe him to have been to
the wrong. The climax will certainly have been
reached if it be true,—as it is currently stated to be,
—that after six years leisure to rennet an the minis-
terial events of 1816, they have coolly proposed to
re-enact them within the last few days.
We confess that however we may pity the intellec-
tual obtuseness which, in the presence of unprece-
dented prosperity like that which the nation now
enjoys, is unable to appreciate the worth of the policy
under which it has arisen—we respect the moral
scruples of the men who, being unconvinced, refuse to
baud solemnly as false what they still believe to be
true. A majority of the Tory Cabinet are in this
position; they must either retain their personal
character fur sincerity at the expense of their places,
or retain their places at the expense of their charac-
ter. lied they pretended to he converts, however
tardy and time-serving, to the principle of in-
dustrial freedom, 1i ease would have worn a
different aspect. But it is not so. The ass°.
ciates of PEEL yielded to the pressure of a
terrible exigency. The dark shadow of dearth
sudt.enly overspread the land; yet sooner than ineu
the imputation of retaining office under false pre
tenon, the illustrious man whose obsequies we ar
now about to celebrate, manfully proposed that the
whole administration should resign, and they unani-
mously did so accordingly. The subsequent failure
of the Whigs to form a cabinet, forced them back,
indeed, atter a brief interval, to carry the repeal of
the corn law; and it was only by a miserable
minority—miserable alike in talents and in numbers
—that they were found fault with for the frankness
of their renunciation of old opinions, or their re-
luctant performance of the duty entailed upon them
by the adoption of no./ ones. At the head of Iliar
ruthless and reckless minority, however, stood Mr.
DtsttsEt.t and Lord DERBY—the very men who now
propose, nut to resign, but to repuaiate the obliga-
tion contracted with their followers on the specific
ground that " PEEI:s apustacy," as they were inno
lently pleased to call it, must be punished, and his
mistakes" repaired.
Whatever shifting compromise in words may be
attempted, fur the sake of gaining time, the impe-
rative necessity of placing the great question of the
stability of free commerce out of all tiouht, is manifest
and clear. Evasive generalities admitting of one
explanation by Lord llstitnwirEF and his Grace of
NoitylltidliLitLAND in the Upper House, and 01
precisely the opposite interpretation by the Citsx
ee4l.oß of the EXeltrgt-ER mind the PRE4IDENT 01
the Boum of Testis: in the Lower, will not do. The
patience of the country is fairly exhausted; and
the scandalous scheme of juggling must be brought
f to an end.