The Press.
London, England, 1857-02-21 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1857. STAMPED ... SIXPENCE.
UNSTAMPE.D I VEP ..FENCE.

was trifling. Mr. LOCKE K7NG brought for-
ward his annual motion for an extension of
the county franchise. Lord PALMERSTON
contemptuously opposed the motion, and was
deserted by the Liberal party en masse.
Twenty-one placemen and ten unpaid attaches
alone saved the Premier from the fate of
Actaeon.
Somo incidents of the brief discussion
were not less humiliating to the Premier or
less instructive to the public. Lord JOHN
RUSSELL for the first time this session pro-
nounced the word " Reform." He saw no
immediate prospect, he said, of a large and
comprehensive measure being introduced, and
would therefore vote for the motion of Mr.
LOCKE KING as safe and practical. Sir JAMES
GRAHAM seized an opportunity to testify his
admiration of Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S reforming
abilities and career. One hundred and seventy
nine Liberals voted with these chiefs against
their recognised leaders, the Premier and his
Ministerial staff.

We do not pretend to know what this ten-
dency to approximation on the part of Lord
JOHN RUSSELL and Sir JAMES GRAHAM may por-
tend further than this—that it marks the ap-
proaching fall of Lord PALMERSTON'S Ad-
ministration. The Liberal party pretending
anxiety for Reform can never support a
Prime Minister avowedly hostile to it when the
question takes a practical shape. We were
never of those who believed that Reform
would long be permitted to slumber. It is
too powerful a lever of popular commotion for
that.
The Administration of Lord PALMERSTON is
tottering. It was never more than provisional,
and every day's experience shows it to be
totally unfit to conduct the public business in
the new epoch which the restoration of peace
has inaugurated. With its fall there must be
a reconstruction of parties. Politicians
will have to choose a side, and the vessel of
the State will have to obey the guidance of
either a Liberal or Conservative helm. The
contingency is not distant; whateverhypocrites
may feign or placetnen may whisper, it is
near at hand. A Premier, Tory by sentiment
and Liberal by connection, was possible only
when the public mind was turned wholly from
domestic to foreign politics. The first fort-
night of the present session has shown that
his Cabinet is totally incompetent to conduct
the business of legislation imperatively de-
manded by public necessities. How can
a Government pretend to conduct the affairs
of empire, which, in a representative assembly
of 658 members, cannot, on a question of
political principle, command forty votes?
Such a Government must be useless : it can
accomplish nothing; it can exist only as a
negation.
A crisis is at hand which must materially
influence our political fortunes. The Con-
servatives must be prepared to meet it with
firm front and united mind. Indecision now
may be more fatal to them than at any
previous period of their existence as a party.
It will show them not without influence
indeed, but without spirit to exert it, and will
stimulate the introduction of a new Reform
Bill to sweep away a political connection
which has lost its use as a controlling power
in the State, able and willing to assume the
responsibilities of Government when the
necessity for a change of system and of men
has tuisen.