The Express.
London, England, 1855-07-28 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 28.

Tut newly-appointed Secretary for the Colonies
wean-elected yesterday member for Southwark with-
out opposition. Whatever disposition may have been
entertained by a certain portion of the constituency
to originate a contest far the borough, no evidence
was given that any other individual was willing to
incur the heavy expense which would thereby have
been incurred. It has become part and parcel of the
electoral system that has grown up under the Reform
Act of 1832 that few large towns or counties can be
contested without the expenditure on each side of
several thousand pounds. Witness Marylebone,
where the pecuniary condition is so well understood
that,upon the last vacancy,a sort of auction wee held,
at which all candidates were at once disallowed who
refused to submit to be lavishly plundered, and
where, in the sequel, it appeared by the official re-
turn that Lord EBRINOTON was fleeced to the
amount of upwards of 5,0001., while Mr. BELL was
mulcted in a sum considerably exceeding 3,0001.
The Metropolitan boroughs, we regret to say, are
conspicuous in this degrading species of tolerated
extortion, by which a congeries of petty cliques and
cabals contrive to Nam their own objects at the ex-
pense of the members, and to the loss or abridgment
of the power of selection on the part of the consti-
tuency. How far considerations of cost may
have contributed to save Sir WILLIAM MOLE/IN/101TH
the trouble of an opposition, we cannot undertake
to say. Neither Sir (Auntie Nszitt nor Mr.
ILtatitrote, who were proposed and seconded u
competitors, appear to have had any relish for an
expensive contest, in the face of an impending
dissolution ; and we should have been very much sur-
prised if either of them had. Perhaps we are in-
debted, however, in some degree to their formal no-
mination at the hustings for the more than usual
frankness of speech in which the re-elected member
appealed to the electors for a renewal of their confi-
dence.

The new SECRETAILT of STATE repeated without
omission or reservation his old contusion of faith.
He was still, as formerly, he declared, in favour of
suffrage extension, vote by ballot, abolition of church
rates, and religious equality. Free trade and colo-
nial self-rule were, In addition, thrown in as make-
weight in the scale we must presume; for, se they
are; no logger contested by anybody that we know
of, the right hon. baronet might nearly as well
have made a solemn protestation in favour of the
abolition of slivery, or catholic emancipation. But
enough remains of unrealised good to form the staple
of *evertl exoellent pledges ; and, as far as his own
votes in the Home of Commons are concerned, we are
bound to admit that Sir WILLIAM has hitherto acted
op to the principles he has always professed to hold.
It was not to be expected that upon these topics he
would say more than what could cot with decency
be avoided ; so we are left as much in the dark as
before on the somewhat interesting subject of the
probability of any progress being made during the

existence of the present administration towards
the legislative adoption of all or any of Sir
WILLIAM'S hustings principles. In the Conserve-
tire Cabinet of which he is a member they
ars probably never named. The representative
of Southwark raises his head aloft, conscious that he
has been placed there to serve u an electric rod to
catch any lightning that may be in the air, and con-
duct it harmlessly downwards. But for such ar-
rangements, the crazy edifice of administrative
oligarchy would be in most imminent danger of being
rent and shattered. In a word, reform in Church
and State is contraband in the cabinet, while liberty
of unavailing speech is permitted to one individual
member in his place in parliament or on the hustings.
On the most engrossing topic of the day it must be
owned, however, that Sir WILLIAM MOLESWORTH

has undertaken to speak not only for himself but for
his colleagues. On the subject of the war and the
recent propositions for peace he hu not minced
matters. Re declares not only that he himself wu
one of thou who supported the Premier in
the rejection of the latter, but he has given an
unqualified pledge that the present Government will
sever compromise the quarrel in which we are en-
gaged, or agree to terms of accommodation, until
Russia shall have been disabled for purposes of ag-
gression upon her weaker neighbours. "We in-
tended," says the right hon. baronet, "to strike our
adversary such a body-blow as would compel her to
abandon her designs upon the Ottoman dominions."
We are very glad to hear, upon such high authority,
that this intention has not been relinquished; but u
it must be admitted that no such blow has yet been
struck, notwithstanding the unlimited power to do so
with which Government bas been invested, it is very
desirable that no further time should be lost in parley-
ings, potteringe, or postponements. Assuming that Sir
WILLIAM MOLESWORTiI has spoken the sentiments
of the Cabinet, there can no longer be any excuse
for hesitation or indecision. We know that within
the last two months Ministers were debating whe-
ther Russia might not be spared the infliction of a
" body-blow," and whether peace might not be made
without the reduction of Sebastopol. But, after such
a declaration on the part of himself and his col-
leagues by a Secretary of State, it must be inferred
that Government have at length made up their
minds to fling away the scabbard and to put forth
at last the national energies which timid counsels
have hitherto restrained. If henceforth we are
doomed to witness a continuance of the half mea-
sures and abortive efforts of which the country
ie so thoroughly sick and so thoroughly ashamed,
Ministers will stand more than ever self-condemned.

They now confess that there I. no alternative but to
compel submission on the part of the foe ; that
there is no escape from national detriment and die-
grace, but in a striking and decisive victory. If a
secondautumn is permitted to pass as a seoondsummse
bas been, without even an attempt to accomplish any-
thing in the Baltic, what account will Ministers have
to render when Parliament meets, as meet it must, in
the month of November next ? It will not then do
for Sir Chows OUT and Sir CHARLES WOOD, and
Sir Coinzwau. Lawn, to pretend that they were no
parties to the solemn pledge given in their name by
their brother baronet. Peers are unaccountable and
irresponsible creatures, from whom it is not easy to
exact any account. But members of the Lower

Hones who happen to be Ministers are not so eating;
exempt from ;weeded responsibility. Indepeadent
constituents they may not have, bat to Parliament
and to public opinion they may be made amenable ;
and we are much mistaken if, by the time another
three mouths of national tantalisation shall hays m-
aim& either Parliareest or the public will be in any