The Press.
London, England, 1858-04-03 00:00:00

SUNI NI &Mr.

Fogland 1223 to 170
.5,223
Brit. '

dt 1707 to Iroo 19,2A
United
Kingd. 1801 to las- 62,140

Toted, 87,321

Mr. Bigg canjectures that more than two-
thirds of this vast amount of statutes are not
now in force ; but that point. is difficult, to be
ascertained. The prodigious augmentation in
the number of statutes in the reign of George
111. is most extraordinary. Private bills, the
grawth of manufactures, the rise of the Irish
Parliament, and the extension of the colonial
system, along with other causes, contributed
to that Portentous increase ; and we must also
allow for the prolonged reign of George 111.
There is a copious index at the end of this
volume to the contents of the statutes passed
in the last session. It is one of the best plans
of an index that we have seen, and it will
much enhance this publication fur the pur-
poses of reference.

PERIODICAL

AT a moment like the present we naturally turn to
the political and Indian articles with which the ma-
gazines present us. Of our ►:alf•dozen leading
monthly periodicals, two are decidedly Conservative,
three as decidedly Liberal, and one in a state of tran-
sition. How it is that the Conservatives of Dublin
University have allowed so able an organ as that
which issues from the office of Messrs. Hodges and
Smith to slip from their grasp we cannot tell; but
between those well known black and yellow covers
we have ceased to look for that able support of Con-
servative principles for which the Dublin once was
famous. Blackwood gives us a capital article on the
new Ministry, and as reasonable a one on the India
Bill as can be expected from a sworn Company's
man. From the former we quote the following

Unlike the two chiefs of the Liberal party, the Earl of
Derby bears a name never a9sociated with finesse. What
he promises, he will do. He did not seek office,—he even
sought to avoid it. It came to him. The Liberals had
fairly broken down. Their chiefs had become discredited,
and the party so disorganized and at strife within itself,
that nothing but a return of the Conservatives to office
could suffice to carry on the government. When first
honoured with her Majesty's command to form a Ministry,
the Earl of Derby frankly described the state of parties
in the Legislature, and begged his Sovereign to take
another day to consider the matter. In that interval
every project of forming an Administration from the ranks
of the Liberals was seen to be hopeless ; and next day her
Majesty informed the noble chief of the Conservatives
that further consideration had only strengthened her con-
viction of the propriety of intrusting to him the task of
carrying on the government. That task he has under-
taken, and be will execute it with earnestness and vigour.
Indeed, in regard to the vital matter of the national
defences, the Premier entered instantaneously upon the
duties of his high office,—rightly thinking that, owing to
the unfortunate misunderstanding with France, so liable
to be aggravated by any caprice of public opinion on
either side, the present was not a juncture for the indul-
,..

gence of over-confidence, and that, before entering on the
game of negotiation, he must ascertain how the country
could fight. With similar alacrity, the action of General
Peel in the War-office, in redressing the arrears of his
predecessor, became visible even in the provinces; while
Lord Malmesbury inaugurated his return to the Foreign-
office by immediate measures on behalf of the long-
neglected Englishmen then on trial tbr their life in the
'scrupulous law-courts of the tyrannical King of Naples.
A good understanding was immediately firmed with
Austria. And at the same time so diligent and successful
were the negotiations of the new Ministry with the French
Government, that, on the re-assembling of Parliament, Mr.
Disraeli was able to announce the grstitying fact that every
trace of misunderstanding was effaced. The subsequent
announcements in Parliament of their gem-rid policy, and
of the new measures to be introduced, have been such,
we think, as may well assure the country that the regime
of the new Administration is to be one of jud clone and
energetic work, which will contrast most favourably with
the hesitating and half-hearted policy of their predecessors.
And the following significant warning :

We have no doubt that the great desire of the Opposi.
tion leaders is to get the new Ministry turned out as fast
as possible. The ex-Ministerial chiefs, wbether of the
Palmerston or Russell sect, will be bent upon nipping in
the bud the development of their rivals policy, from a
well-founded dread lest the number, comprehensiveness,
and ability of the measures of the new Cabinet should
quite eclipse the feeble and all but barren sessions of the
r cent Liberal regime. This was the tactics of the Oppo-
sition in Itgel, and there is much greater motive for them
to repeat these tactics now. But can they ? We do not
believe it. We do not apprehend that the ex• Ministerial
chiefs will obtain sufficient support from the house to
a 'able them to carry out such factious designs. The Con-
s xvatives succeeded to office simply by the failure of their
rivals, and after a career in Opposition more free from
factious courses than any five sessions of Parliament that
the present generation has witnessed. Lord Derby has
fo •roed his Ministry entirely on the principle of securing
the most efficient men ; and in point of talent and ad-
ministrative skill it may challenge comparison with the
very best of its predecessors. Its members are in earnest,
fully competent for their. work, and bent upon accom-
plishing it. They will accomplish it, if the house give
them the opportunity. Difficulties of no ordinary kind
they certainly hale to encounter; but we confidently
believe they will triumph over them, and that the house
will support them with that " constitutional " majority
to which they are so amply entitled.