The Express.
London, England, 1852-11-25 00:00:00

SIUMOUTII •nd

of Lord PALMERSTON, the expanded liberalism
which characterised it from 1823 to 1830,
tapers off toward+ the head or beginning
through his complicity in the spy system and Six
Acts of 1819, the Corn Law of 1813, and the shuffling
policy in regard to Catholic Emancipation under the
F ERCEVAL n'gion• ; —it tapers off towards the tail till
wo find him an accomplice in the DISRAELI shuffle.
The "ould serpent" is about to end where he began,
—in self-seeking Toryism.
The burden of Lord PaLnxitarros's speech was the
necessity of so framing a declaration in favour of
Free Trade that even the Protectionists could concur
in it. The reason he assigned was that these gen-
tlemen are rapidly casting their Protectionist slough,
and that it is inexpedient to say anything, or call
upon them to say anything, that may induce them
to pause iu the operation. " The Protectionists
and the Free Traders are not yet exactly
agreed in opinion," said in substance the noble lord;
" but if you gentlemen Free-traders did not shock or
irritate them, you will find them insensibly coming
over to you. It is wise to allow men to creep out of 'I
old prejudices smoothly and imperceptibly." No
man can be a better authority than the noble
lord as to the easiest process of going over from one
set of opinions to another diametneally opposite.
He has performed the feat once, with great comfort
to himself, and seems now about to repeat it in the
opposite direction. If the only question were how the
Protectionist and Free Trade parties might best bo
fused into one, his evidence would be unobjection-
able. Hut it is desirable at the same time to
have some guarantee that they shall become one in
the Free Trade faith, whereas the process of "salmi-
laden recommended by Lord Psuseasrott would
I leave it extremely doubtful whether the fusion were
to be effected b 7 the Protectionists becoming Free
1 Traders or the Free Traders Protectionists.

The object of Mr. Vi unts's motion is not to
enable certain members of Parliament to form a
coalition speedily, easily, and with a good grace. It
is to give the people at large assurance that the new
House of Commons sympathise with their political
views and wishes. The supporters of Free Trade,
especially is corn, are an immense majority
of the public out of doors. They are not, they never
have been identified with, tied down to any parlia-
mentary party. At the Conference at Manchester,
inlB3B,out of which theAnti-Corn•law League origi-
nated, there were present representatives from all
the great centres of manufacturing industry. They
resolved to aim at " total, immediate, unconditional
repeal of the corn laws," and to that end to know no
difference between Whig and Tory. To this resolu-
tion they have adhered. By adhering to it they
have obtained the repeal of the corn laws. By
persisting in the same policy they hope to
make that repeal permanent. The great struggle
at the late general election lay between the Anti-
Corn-law Free-traders and the agricultural
Protectionists. It is believed that the struggle has
terminated in a majority. for the Anti-Corn Law
Free-traders. But they wish to make sure of this;
and to that end the oldest and stanchest of their
Parliamentary champions, Mr. CRUXES VILLIEB4
, has submitted his test motion to the House of
Commons. The object of that motion is neither to
turn Lord DERBY out nor to bring Lord JOHN
Resent in, but to enable the immense majority of
Anti-Corn Law Free-traders in the constituencies to

know with certainty whether they have or have not
a majority in the new House of Commons. This
can only be ascertained by a declaratory resolution
which, like that of Mr. limmens, expressly afilrms
the justice and expediency of Corn Law repeal. To
omit that ingredient, as is proposed by Mr. Du-
KAZLI and Lord PALMLISSON, would be to deprive
the motion of all valise, to leave it no test of what is
wished to be ascertains&
Lord Pautettsrox affected to rebuke ministers for
the ambiguity of the paragraph in the QuEsn's
Speech, and yet the amendment on Mr. VlLLlzaa's
motion which he proposed is quite as ambiguous.
Like the paragraph in the Quzax's Speech, and like
the amendment of Mr. DISRAELI, the amend-
meat of Lord PALMERSTON is so expressed as to
leave it open to the agricultural Protectionists to
claim compensation hereafter, or to have their case
treated as an exception to the principle of Free Trade.
It is only from the side of the agricultural Protect-
tionists that Free Trade is in anyr. The agri-
=Bond Protectionists have never strenuously con-
tended for protection to anything but their own
produce. By promising to continue protection to
core, Mr. liusxissox prevailed upon them to ao-
qinesee in all his approximations to Free Trade. They
readily admit that recent legislation respecting the
sugar colonies and the shipping interest is
irreversable ; and in neither of these cases
do they say a word about compensation.
Bat they are still resolute to obain for themselves
either compensation or a substitute for the repealed
Corn Laws. They are the only Protectionists against
whom it is necessary to be wakefully guarded, and
yet it is precisely against them that Lord PALMER-
STON and Mr. I)ISitsZLI would have us adopt no
precautions.
The object of Lord PALMERSTON and the object of
Mr. Ihsaast.t are palpably one and the same. Mr.
DISRAELI complains that if Mr. VILLIERS'S motion
is carried, parliamentary or party government will
he impossible. Now it may be admitted
that parliamentary and party government are
convertible terns. It is only by the combination
of a select number of parliamentary leaders, agreed
in principle, that government can be carried on in
this country. But there are two methods by which a
party may obtain a majority in Parliament. It may
act so as to enure public confidence, and thus render
it prudent for • majority of the people's represents.
fists to support it. Or by underhand means it may
induce a majority in the House of Commons to sup.
part it, regardless of principle. If Mr. Vit.ctsits's
motion is carried, and hews, a precedent, it will
be impossible for any party to manage the
House of Commons by the second method.
But as this would oblige all parties to
have recourse to the first; that is exactly what
the country wants. Mr. DISRAELI, however, can
only work by the second method, and Lord PA L-
AI ItsTOS has played Mr. Duntatu'it game by codas-
' souring to perpetuate it.
These worthy allies—these congenial souls—sup-
pear to have no suspicion of how much they must
lose by a victory. If the amendment either of the
one or other is carried, the people will see clearly
that the House of Commons does not really represent
them, and a new and sweeping Reform Bill becomes
inevitable.

Mistrrias confess that the policy of 1846 has
hew productive of such unexampled prosperity, that
they Moo not deny the fact, or ostensibly venture to
mosind it. Yet in the face Of this admission they
have the effrontery to threaten us with the intro-
dilation of what they are pleased to call " remedial
minsunms Remedial--of what POf national pro-
ps- Is wealth? In popular'progress in content-
ment? In social progress in comfort, sobriety, and
intelligence? Tho honest physician who finds his
patient eating well, drinking well, and sleeping
well, recommends him not to tamper with his con-
stitution, but to dismiss dyspeptic illusions from his
mind. The dishonest quack affects to sympathise
with the complaints of his over-fed patient, whom ho
prepares to drug with nostrums, that he may
effectually pluck. We hare had ample experience
of both. The regimen of PEEL wss that of wholesome
and sufficient food ; and upon it the country has
thriven and grown fat. The prescriptions of DISRAELI
are "to mitigate " these blessings,—to assuage this
happiness,—to remedy this inestimable good ! Ho
will on Friday tell us of something that will take
away, If not all this, at least a considerable part
of it.

The long and elaborate harangue of the Ctiar7.
CELLO& of the EXCHEQUER in reply to Mr. VILLIERS
will be read with more surprise than interest.
Nothing in the shape of audacity can any longer
excite our astonishment on the part of the right
hon. gentleman. A man who has taken the
liberties he has done with the pledges given to his
friends and the principles borrowed from his feet,—
is not likely to shrink from any new form of either
species of party chicane; and an orator who does not
scruple to palm filched originalities on the House of
Commons, is not likely to hesitate about palming
counterfeit phrases on his Sovereign. The habits of
jugglery are proverbially inveterate; and theQueett
was probably not altogether unaware of the charac-
ter of the personages she would have to deal with
when Lord DERBY and Mr. DISRAELI were permitted
to kiss the Royal hand on their appointment to office
last February. Her MAJESTY could hardly have
then anticipated, however, that her throne was to be
made avowedly " the enchanted chair " in their poli-
tical majors, still less that she was herself to be
openly and by name paraded as • puppet to
utter their impudent jargon. It was bad
enough that the two houses of legislature should be
forced to form the involuntary auditory of these en-
, rivalled fortunetellers and state necromancers. But
it was reserved for Mr. DISRAELI to toll the Parlia-
ment and people of this emintry-41 he did in his speech
on Tuesday night—that language designedly put into
the mouth of the SOVEREIGN, on the solemn occasion
of her opening Parliament, was not only capable of
different interpretations by those who heard it, but
would admit of opposite explanations and readings
by those who thus suggested it. It will be remem-
bered that, during the debate on the Address,
the Home SECRETARY undertook to give an
authentic reading of the Royal words, and
that immediately afterwards the CHANCELLOR of
the EXCHEQUER as authoritatively gave another
translation. The house laughed at the obvious dis-
crepancy at the time, conceiving that Mr. WALroLE
had then, as more than once betoro, blundered in the
attempt to do the nimble, and that he had only given
the world another proof how sadly out of his element
a solemn and simple minded gentleman of his sort
must ever be among a company of jugglers. But
when, in the course of his retrovective defence of him-
self and his colleagues on Tuesday night, Mr. DISRA ELI
had the coolness to dilate upon the ambiguous and
double-sounding paragraph as though it was for these
qualities it had been invented and inserted in her
MAJESTY'S Speech, the first assembly of gentlemen
in Christendom were evidently startled at tho inde-
cency of this confession. " Ironical cheers" burst
forth from the almost incredulous Commons; and
when perceiving, too late, the fault as a tactician ho
had committed, the Ministerial leader tried to escape
into a new thicket of quibbles. On the whole, the
impression created by this forlorn effort in a doomed
cause was most disheartening to those who still
clung to the dream of Derbyism as a scheme of
policy or a system of rule. The truth can no longer
be !Iteguised that, while ostentatiously professing
their conversion to Free Trade, Ministers meditate'
only how they may contrive to inflict compensatory'
penalties on industry and commerce for its enjoy-
ment. They try to gild the poison by the unmean-
ing epithet of " remedial measures. What these
are likely to be we have all along foreseen, and of
their real tendency we have repeatedly warned the
unwary. The mask is at length loosened, and is
speedily about to fall. Compensation for cheap bread
is the fine which landlordism threatens to exact for
not breaking the national lease of health, comfort,
and abundance of Free Trade. Will the people of
the United Kingdom submit to such exaction

The speech of Mr. BRIGHT Ru well calculated to
expose the insincerity_ of the quasi Free Trade tone
of Mr. DISRAELI. With provoking particularity,
' the member for Manchester showed by what profes.
'ions at the hustings, in July last, Ministers had
secured their return to the present Parliament. To
the latest moment they had persisted in adhering to
what, in the language of the CHANCELLOR of the
EXCHEQUER, may be called "the obsolete politics
of exhausted faction." But at the familiar whistle
of the Treasury whipper-in, these agricultural CATOB
have suddenly become the most docile and obedient
of men. Dowa they all lie on their faces, mute
in make-believe submission to an irresistible
fate. Is this a capitulation on honourable
terms, or an ambuscade for the purpose of luring the
unwary into new toils of clue monopoly P The
warning of Mr. BRIGHT will not be unheeded by all
true Mends of equal and just legislation ; and, when
the long-promised budget makes its appearance, we
shall be able to judge clearly with what degree of
prescience the warning has been given.
The manly address of Mr. FREDERICK PEEL ap-
propriately terminated the discussion on the Liberal
side; and his brief but touching allusion to the
memory of his father recalled to every high-minded
and generous heart the duty still remaining unper-
formed, of doing tardy justice to the man who re-
pealed the Corn Law. " Something is indeed due to
the past ;" and however the discharge of the national
obligation may be deferred by intrigue and hypocrisy
from day to day, sooner or later the "wisdom
and justice " of the great work of the great states-
man will be acknowledged unconditionally and un-
reaervedly, as it deserves to be.