The Express.
London, England, 1852-08-24 00:00:00

LUXDO.Y, TUESDAY, .4L'GGST

" WIRT are Ministers doinff ?"
" Watching the barometer.
And well they may : for with a continuance of
bad harvest weather their last shadow of a chance
will vanish.
if the crop is so abundant that moderate prices can
ensure a fair profit to the farmer, the Protectionists,
being kept in good humour, may allow Lord DERBY
to shelve the question of Protection, accept as good
coin his protestations of grief for being compelled so
to do. and wait patiently for the mysterious substi-
tute which Mr. Di.itet.t.i has promised them. But
it there is a short crop. as the influx of corn from
without is sure to keep the price of grain moderate,
Lord Butes will tind the Protectionists utterly un-
manageable. Mr. New DIGATE, indeed, vows that he
is not tool enough to break up the Conwrva-
tiie party a second time on the question of Pro-
tection. But Mr. NEwueutTE is not so much one of
the owners or tillers of the English soil, as a tiller of
the more productive soil of office. When he whistles
Protection down the wind, he is merely a hired advo-
rate throwing up his biicf. But the bulk of the
Protectionist party in the House of Commons are
clients as well as council. They will not abandon
their darling Protection so easily as Mr. NEW 1,t.6.it
Ministers know right well that. if there is a bad
narvest, there is sure to be a mutiny in their camp.
A majority of their supporters in Parliament are in-
• veterate Protectionists. But a minority of them—a
minority not contemptible in number, and embracing
all the more shrewd heads among them—are con-
vinced in their own hearts that Protection's day isgone
by; and what. is more, they have publicly confessed
as much, and pledged themselves to the teeth that
they will nut be art and part in any attempt to re-
suscitate Protection.
The diversity of opinion in the Derbyite ranks is a
subject on which the Ministerial organs take care
not to enlarge. No further gone than yesterday the
morning organ of the party in the press undertook
to demonstrate that it was impossible that Lord
Denny should be seeking to postpone unduly the
time of the meeting of Parliament, because he bad
no need to do so. The journal in question did not
indeed go so far as to maintain that Ministers have a
majority in the House of Commons; but it asserted
that they. have gained some votes by the general
election ; it scouted the idea that the Conservative
Free Traders can concur in a vote of want of confi-
dence in Ministers; and hence it inferred that it will
not be possible to bring a majority to act against
Lord DEttev's Government in the House of Commons.
All this verbiage amounts to nothing more than
an admission that Ministers are in a minority in the
House of Commons. The grounds upon which it is
attempted to rear a faint hope that the majority can-
not be brought to act in concert against them, are
scarcely substantial enough to encourage Lord
Dears to take the plunge. And the writer en-
tirely overlooks the still greater difficulty that
Lord DERRY is likely to experience in banging
his Protectionist supporters and his Free Trade
supporter to act in concert. If there is a bad harvest
the farmers will insist upon the PREMIEIea fulfilling
the pledgee by which he bound himself when out of
office to give them back Piotection; if he refuse they
will fly off from him ; if he comply, those gentlemen
of his following who have so ostentatiously pro-
claimed themselves Free Traders most fiy off from him.
knowing that matters stand thus, Lord DEIBT is
naturally reluctant to meet Parliament before the
completion of the harvest shall have given him some
inkling of the course it may be expedient for him to
steer. Accordingly, he and his colleagues have
agreed that Parliament shall not meet until after the
last harvest home has been celebrated; and in the
mean time their chief occupation is to watch the
barometer, u the best indicator of what is " looming
in the future."
Their chief, not their sole occupation. For there
is another reason why they should be so anxious to
postpone the meeting of Parliament. They put off
the dissolution as long as they could, and they
availed themselves of the delay to put out feelers
among the constituencies and tamper with them.
When their preparations were matured they dis-
solved at once, hurried over the elections, and thus
gained a few additional votes in the House of Com-
mons. They are at present trying to play. the same
game with the House of Commons, now that it has been
made, as they played with its manufacturers while
they were mak* it. There is apparently a narrow
majority of some thirty or forty against Ministers ;
bin there are a considerable number of " loose fish"
on both sides. Some 203 new members have been
returned, and of three 180 are new to public life.
The time gained by putting off indefinitely the
meeting of Parliament is requisite to enable Minis-
ters to make sure of the vacillating members on their
own side, and to afford them an opportunity
of coming to terms with the vacillating in the
ranks of their opponents. Ones upon a time an old
and wary corrupttonist when told of the money the
minister of the day had lavished on a general elec-
tion, coolly remarked that he could have bought the
whole of the Parliament ready made for hair tie
sum. Our present Ministers have taken the hint,
and to make assurance doubly sure are going to
try both plans.
This is the reason why the oountry. has a right to
complain of the ministesial procrastination in the
assembling of Parliament. It is unconstitutional
for a minister who has appealed to the coun-
try by dissolving Parliament to continue to hold
power without seeking to ascertain whether
or not its verdict is in his favour. But nobody fears
that our Ministers will avail themselves of their
evasion of the dissigreeihlF knowledge that they
have been beat to upset-The constitution by a coup
(Vial. Such strategy would be too bold for them;
their sins against the constitution are of a more
petty larceny character. But there is too ranch
reason to fear that they may avail themselves
of the delay to tamper with the persons
who have bees chosen by the country to de-
clare its opinion of the present Government.
The electors have returned members to the House of
Commons to declare (as the ease may be) that their
constituents have or have not confidence in Lord
Drury's Administration. The electors have a right
to insist that these members shall deliver the exact

message with which they were charged at the
hustings ; and the electors have, theietore, a right
tantalise that Lord DERBY. shall not put off the meet-
ing of Parliament in eider that he may have time
to persuade one or the other member to nay the
eery reverse of what his constituents instructed him
to say.
Remonstrance with Lord DERBY and hia colleagues
in useless. They are in a position to take advantages,
and this being the case it is not in their nature to
play on the square. Hut let constituincies keep a
sharp look out en their representatives.

Is the proposals for great railway amalgamations,
and consolidations recently promulgated, there arc'
two prominent fallacies ; one e, that the interests of
their proprietaries constitute the Niacin° considem-
!ions for the Legislature ; the other, that those in-
terests can be best promoted by the provsied unions.
No doubt, an unprofitable railway is, in the long
run, a great public misfortune, because of the capital
it has destro)ed, the individual, it has injured, and
the dangers and risks which most nIH. p accompany
the traffic conducted by an insolvent conipoily ; but
it does not follow that the Legislature is in any way
bound to render that profitable which, under the
conditions on which the railway was first solicited