The Express.
London, England, 1852-03-01 00:00:00

LORD DERBY AND lIIS POLICY.

(Vents the Daily Nears.)
Lord DERRY thinks the existing constitution of
the House of Commons adequate for its purpose. and
satisfactory on the whole in its working. lk is,
therefore, prepared to resist all substantial change,
whether in the suffrage or in the distribution of re-
presentative power. No doubt the present system
does work well fur those who form the oligarchy or
who profit by its preservation. The House of Commons
is in the main a house of landlords, and is conse-
quently but too much disposed to listen to the sug-
gestion of a policy that promises to maintain the ex-
isting privileges of the landed class, and to restore to
them such as they have lost. Lord DERBY well
knows that no material alteration could be made in
the representative institutions of the country, in the
sense in which reform is demanded, that would not
tend necessarily and directly to abridge this prepon-
derating. influence, and to render hope less the schemes
of reaction which at the moment of their return to
office the tory 'arty led by Lord DentlY cannot con-
ceal. They arm wiser truly in their generation than
their rivals.
They see and feel that on tho question of reform
every other necessarily depends. They believe that
with the present imperfect and unprotected fran-
chises, the nation has no security for cheap and
abundant food ; and they boldly avow that they will
therefore oppose all attempts to modify them. Had
this momentous truth been timely discerned by their
whig predecessors, or, when *discovered, frankly,
acknowledged and vigorously dealt with—the bread
of millions would not now be in jeopardy—the
menaced re-imposition of import duties most all tho
necessaries of life would never have been heard
from the lips of a prime minister.
Lord Dense would fain postpone hie desperate
attempt until next session. He asks tin. time to coa-
-1 solidate his strength and to mature his measures.
But he avows the object he has in view. Ile desires
to impose on every article of consumption that is
imported from abroad an ad colorer,. duty of 10 per
cent.,—corn, as he expressly declared, being no excep-
tion, and sugar being inferentially included in the
sweeping rule. Lord 1)e one affects in this to rely
upon the example of the United States, a portion of
whose revenue is raised by a general tax on
imported articles of all descriptions. But tho
parallel is utterly preposterous in every aspect.
The prime necessaries of life in America, bread
of all kinds, meat of all kinds, with the various minor
elements of national subsistence, are not only not
taxed 10 per cent., but are not taxed at all. Manu-
factured goods, articles of luxury, and foreign pro-
duce, pay the ad valorem duty in question. But
where is the similatity between the fiscal system of
our American kinsfolk and that which our landlord
rulers would fain establish here? The working man
in the United States, where wages are notoriously
higher than with us, buys nearly all that hie family
requires for food at a price in which not a farthing
Is charged on account of taxation ; but for some por-
tions of their clothing he pays, towards the mainte-
nance of the commonwealth, one penny more in every
ten. Lord DERBY Says, let us do the same; and
when we come to ask what he means by the same,
he coolly hints that he means one penny out of every
ten that the working man spends on bread, meat,
'agar, lard, cheese, butter, cotton, and so on,—in short,
upon nearly the whole of his frugal expenditure.
Disguise in point of fact is absurd. The drift
and upshot of the protectionists as a party is—pro-
tection. Put ten per cent. on foreign corn for reve-
nue and you add ten per cent. to the price of all
home-grown corn for rent. This is the end and aim
they have had in view during live years of equivo-
cating opposition ; this is their paramount object
now that by the weakness and division of liberals
they have unexpectedly stumbled into office. Taxes
upon property and upon luxuries are to be remitted
or reduced by the new CHANCELLOR of the Excite-
QUER, and in lieu thereof this indiscriminate impost
of :en per cent. is to be laid on all the comforts and
necessaries of the poor man's life. The idea is
the old one of landlord extortion,—stupid, shameless,
and blind. Announced in the same Invade with that
of resistance to all electoral reform, it stands un-
rivalled for effrontery in aristocratic annals. It in-
sults the intelligence of the nation by its barefaced
sophistry, and trifles wish the national patience by
the proposition of indefinite postponement. Lord
DERBY tells us that every contract for land, every
mercantile adventure, every permanent investment
in either agriculture or trade, will be largely affected
by his threatened revolution in finance : yet he asks
the country to go to sleep for a period not named,
—perhaps not known even to himself and his col-
leagues,—with the off-hand assurance that when he
is prepared we shall be called up for judgment.
We are glad to see that not a moment was lost in
meeting this manifesto as it deserves. In the House
of Commons notice was given by Mr. VILLIER4
that, on the earliest possible day, he would move
that the house is determined to maintain inviolate
the settlement, by Sir 'Want' PEEL., of the corn ques-
tion in 18-16. Immediately after, Mr. HUME rose
and gave notice that, on the 2:ith March, lie would
bring forward his annual motion in favour of a rate-
paying suffrage and vote by ballot. To-morrow
large meetings are to be held in London and in
Manchester on reform and on five trade—both
avowedly in danger at the hands of the present tory
ministry. The serious wiped of affairs renders tho
' decision of to mei ropolie and of Lancashire oil these
questions highly important to the well-being and
r future political action of the liberal party. How
long tire Lord Itc:tity's minority- to hold the
reins of power ? That is the point to be settleeL

Mn. To %YARD'S LATE APPOINTMENT.—A morning
cotempor try states that the announcement, quoted in out
column. of Sstunloy, from the .Itlienerum, Is not Strictly cor-
rect. It is true thgt Mr. Laygrol woo pro sae(' by the pre-
sent administration to retain other temporarily; but, how-
ever sensible• he might be of the tribute thus paid to his
character, he felt that he could not with propriety servo
under the pithiest opponents of the government from whom
he hall reef ived his appointment, and, therefore, declined
tho proffered honour.