The Express.
London, England, 1852-03-17 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MARC!! 17.

LORD DERBY'S heroics and bravadoes will deceive
no one. lie may mount the British lion as often
and ride it as theatrically as he pkases ; but lie cannot
conceal the character of his policy. He may wheedle
ono class and abuse another ; he may affe..l. a sym.
pathy for the farmers, whom he cannot btneht, Lind
he may describe as the " dangerous" port of tho
community the manufacturers, whom he emiout
hurt ; ho may assume all the airs of injured inno-
cence, and may retaliate on Lord Jolts Iti
the most factious of statesmen ; ho may try and
alarm the country by picturing the danger of throw-
ing its government " into the hands of denia„oigosa,u
and ho may endeavour to delude it by referring to
the funds as an index of his own popularity ; but ho
cannot escape the falsity or the CODWiIItUITS
of
his actual position.
Lord DERBY is, Sir JOHN PAKINGTON admits, in
" an acknowledged minority" in the House of Cum.
mons; he himself has said that he is in a doubtful
majority in the House of Lords, and yet he will
neither resign nor dissolve. He has plans to pro.
duce to a parliament which luni no confidence in him,
and he has measures to carry that are not own.
He has strong opinions which he has not the (mirage
to embody in a policy. Why, what is this but a
suspension of parliamentary government-4 denial
to the representatives of the people of the
benefit of a majority a disregard of the
first principles of our constitutional system?
And the object of this trifling, this paltering with,
this abuse of, the prerogatives of the crown and the
rights of the people, is to concoct @chem.es to hero-
after raise the price of food, to collect funds to
manage the elections, and to corrupt the constita-
encies, to go to the country with the cry of
persecution.
All precedents of past history, as all authority of
present statesmen. are against this monstrouil
assumption of executive power. In 1701 Mr. Pin
at once acceptel the situation in which he was
placed by the coalition ; he passed the Mutiny Act,
obtained sufficient supplies, and, refusing the danger.
ousexpedient ofcarrying government on inn iii.nonty,
dissolved parliament. In the same spirit, Lord 3lnts
BOURNE acted in 1841; he appealed to the country, sad
at once after the appeal re-assembled a parliament
that was hosti'e to him, and resigned office. And
this, say Lord JOHN ItessELL and Sir JAMI,I GRA.
HAM, Mr. GLADSTONE, and Lord PALM EIVSION, is the
course Lord DERBY ought to—and, they signitkcntly
add, must—be made to pursue.
And what reply is there to these constitutional
examples and to these expressions of contemporary
authority ? There is business to be done ; there
work in hand. St. Albans must be ilia-
franchised—no doubt. Tho Mutiny Act must
be passed—certainly. Supplies mutt be granted
—for a term. These are measures and things
needful, indispensable to the public wel-
fare, which all are agreed to pass speedily. In a
month, at most, they may be disposed of. On them
the DISRAELITES may have a majority, but on con-
ditions only. The support given to carry through
this, the ordinary business of the country, must be
accepted as leading to an immediate dissolution
after its objects have been accomplished,—and not as
clearing the ground for new measures as yet un.
known ; for a bill to enfranchise other places with
the four seats which Sudbury and St. Albans will
yield for a measure of Chancery reform not yet
prepared; for a militia scheme, of which not a
single particular is yet settled. Still less, for
Committees on Indian affairs, for Budgets, or for
Beer Bills. These are measures which require for
government not toleration or forbearance, not suf-
ferance or hap-hazard existence, but confidence and
majorities, strength and power, in the House of
Commons.
"I ask," exclaimed the PREMIER in one of the
highest of his flights, "not to be interrupted in
making the usual financial arrangements." No ono
proposes to do so, if ho will act fairly with the House
of Commons, the country, and the constitution. Such
supplies as are needful are at his service ; lie may
have votes wherewith to pay the army, the navy, tho
fundholder, and the civil service, but ho must not
have the means given him of carrying on for
twelve months the government of the country against
the will of the people; he must not have thii means
furnished him of fully organising and carrying out
his groat conspiracy against the people's food; he
must not be permitted to keep thirty millions of his
fellow-creatures, of his sovereign's subjects, in sus-
pense during a whole summer and another winter,
whether or not they are hereafter to be half starved
for the profit of the needy landowners of tho king-
dom. That were a " fair trial " tantamount to a
surrender of the highest principles of parliamentary
government and the very safety of the community.
But what does the haughty grandiloquent PRE-
MIER mean by the usual financial arrangements?
Does he expect to be permitted to propose the total
abandonment of the tax on property, to sshiclt ho
stands solemnly and voluntarily pledged. That
would require the substitute of some new tax ; and
such a substitute, ho has virtually announced, is a
fixed duty on food. Here, then, we come to the
issue at once and forthwith. The financial policy
of the country is altogether dependent on its com-
mercial policy. No budget can be opened in which
free-trade is not either adhered to or reversed. And
it is, therefore, quite as indispensable for Lord
DERBY'S administration as for the country generally
that a dissolution, and a settlement by a dissolution,
of the great question of free or restricted imports
should be settled before any budget is opened by
Mr. DISRAELI to the House of Commons.

"I ask not to be interrupted i;Jiilacini this country
in a flt state of organisation and defence in tho event
of foreign invasion." Let Lord DERBY arm, then,
the rifle clubs that are everywhere springing up; let
him surround our coasts, during the dissolution, with
our navy. But let him not delay an appeal to this
community on the subject of their daily bread whilst
he is preparing and trying to enact militia bills to
draw away its youthful industry from its daily
labour.

If there be any measure which is calculated to
prolong the present session it is a militia bill; for to
it the whole force of the more liberal section of the
opposition will be directed; it will meet with tho
utmost hostility from all who regard fears of invasion
as the merest aelusions, and plans of extensive arma-
ments as the most likely means of involving this
country in a foreign war for foreign purposes.
Louts NAPOLEON is now engaged in the most
pacific of all measures—in the reduction of
the Five per Cent. itentes ; a proceeding which
can only be successfully carried through by tho
support of a policy perfectly pacific. He has modified
his pretensions against Switzerland; ho is about to
meet the legislature he has summoned; he is con-
centrating all his strength on domestic affairs. Tho
invasion we have to fear is, not of our shores, but of
our food; the attack we have to resist is, not Os our
homes, hut on our loaves. And dolts and idiots mo
should indeed be, to give Lord DEnfiv time to
prepare for his invasion and assaults, under the
pretence of arming the country against Lot Nt-
rot.sos—tvrant though he be.
No: Sir JAMES ORAII AM, Lord PALMER,T.IN, Lard
Jolts ItessELL, and Mr. I:3l.tpaYosr:, are right.
Dissolution—dissolution—dissolution—is the only
permissible policy.

Tit?. new ministry presented on Monday even-
ing a more discreditable and humiliating spectacle
than has been presented by any English ministry
11 mince the revolution,—the miserable cabinet not ex-
cepted which raised the noisy Wit tas and liberty
controversy. Its meanness, falsehood, and cowardice
arc unsurpassed.
The success of the free-trade policy has been as
untspiivocal in practice as the soundness of its ab-
stract principles were unassailable in argument.
Upon the unwavering maintenance of our free-trade
police—upon the steady pn..s.sing forward to remove
ail, am slightest remnants, of a protective or restric-
tive system—upon the extinction of every ground of

&alit that this is, and will be, the commercial 1 policy I
of Great Britain, depends the maintenance of such
a degree of national prosperity as is required to pre-
rent tarbaknce, disaffection, sedition, it may be I
revolution; and the possibility of peaceably and
wally curving out all the many social and politi.
(al reforms fiat are so urgently demanded. •
This being the case, the country is entitled to
taus. immediately and unequivocally, what are ths
intentions of the government with respect to the
peat vital question of free-trade. Granting—for the
&Ake of argumeut—that there are questions now
pending in parliament, the settlement of which is so
iigvnt us to render an immediate dissolution inex.
pnlicnt. and that though the majority in the present
Bowe of Commons is unalterably devoted to the
taw of free trade, a general election might give a
isirocity on the other si6e, this only goes to prove
that the new ministers have some claim to be
allowed to finish off this urgent business before
th,.e bring forward their pnitesials for reversing or
mead% ing the free-trade system, not that they are
intitl,il to hold back and conceal what these pro-
posals are to be.
Lord Miley seceded from the ministry of Sir
5, It UT I•Eri., entered into opposition against that
minister. continued in opposition to his successors in
tem. mowidly because rc dissented from the doc-
trines of free-tratk. The compact and well-drilled
roc such supports Lord Tissue in and out of
larliament rallied around him avowedly on the
round that lie was the uncompromising champion
of protection. Sine. Witt they have by all means in
**ir powcr lair and foul —laboured to bring him
into oliee. preicipallv, almost exclusively, in order
that pretection ought be restored. The accession
of Lord Dines to office, as the trusted leader of this
parte. is a ple,Le to the country that something will
be attempted to restore protection, openly or
(myth-, in %hole or in part. The country is
entitlea to know at once what that something is
to be.
Non have no right to ask us what modifications of
the frtz-traile system we intend to propose, says Lord
Dour and his Cttiscitt,ol of the I.:Nom:waft, be-
cause Ike question of free-trade was not at issue in the
vote which led to the resi•mation of the late ministry,
and our bring ia:led in. `rilds is a shabby and pitiful
evasiin. The Late ministry resigned,—not because it
was defeated on the Militia Bill,—but because it had
been deteatid previously on ether questions, and be-
now it foresaw impending defeats on other ques-
tions; he, aux., in short. it could no longer count
spw 2 working majiwity in the House of Commons.
Me present ministry came into office, not because
SAT were prepared to introduce a different militia
biSfroin that of their predecessors, but because they
thought the time had come when their organisation
mom: themselves and their hold on the constituencies
wrihl enable them effectively to press their general
policy in parliament. They may have wished that a
frw months longer had been allowed them ; but, all
thinfri onisidired, they thought that matters were
'efficiently ripe to admit of their accepting office
with a reasonable prospect of their being able to ac-
emplish those object* for which they desired office.
Thee have objects to accomplish by their acceptance
of (Ace: the country is entitled to know what these
objects ere. The WELLINGTON ministry resigned in
1-hi in consequence of an adverse vote of the House
et Commons on the timber duties; the party op-
posed to them on the general grounds of parliamen-
tary reform, retrenchment, and a non-interventive
knign policy-, did not on that account deem them-
Idris warranted to conceal the policy which they
accepted office to carry into effect. Earl GREY lost
not a moment in declaring explicitly the great ob-
jcctsto accomplish which he had formed a ministry.
You have no right to ask us what we intend to do,
my Lord DIM and his CIIANCELLOR of the Ex-
eneoren, because we have not yet had time to ascer-
tain and make up our minds what we can and what
we will attempt to do. This is simply an untruth.
Lord DERRY, his CIIANCELLoR of the ENCIIEQCER,
and all their associates, have, since DAIL been inces-
santly labouring to persuade the public out of ,
doors that the commercial policy of Sir ROBERT
PELL it fraught with danger and destruction to the
country. They have been labouring to convince
parliament that their opinions on this subject aro en-
tertained by a majority of the public out of doors.
They have acted thus in order to obtain the power
to reveree or essentially modify the commercial
policy of Sir ROBERT Peer. They hare for the last
two or three }Tars seen this power almost within
their grasp. They have taken care to ascertain what
means they have of carrying their object into effect,
sad to what extent. Office has not been thrust upon
them by surprise. Day after day have they been
looking for its advent, to seize upon it, and
turn it to account. PTE:ritdr plans are matured,
though they may be of a nature that would'
ensure their defeat if frankly and unreservedly
posed.

- The reserve and equivocation of Earl DEILBT and
his colleagues in parliament is, therefore, the most
explicit declaration of their intentions to the country.
Earl DERBT,—aII of them,—admit that they were
opposed to the commercial policy of Sir ROBERT
Put. in 1848, and are still opposed to it. They
admit moreover that their opposition to this policy, or
their hopes of being able to unsettle it, centre merely
is the question of the corn laws. Lord DERBY re-
rainilid the House of Lords oa Monday that he
rimed them when the navigation laws were re-
plaid that they never could be re-enacted. Sir
i. Ivs PAkINGTON ham abandoned his motion regreticg the sugar duties; and the West Indians have
to; forgotten that they were thrown ovetriudypisal
tic squirearchy before the corn laws were
The sole end and aim of the Deane ministry is to
print in the policy of 1816, when law, against the
importation of agricultural produce were enacted,
exclusirely for the purpose of keeping up rents. The Sem ministry neither affect nor hops to
omens that this is their sole end and aim ; but am/
take care to conceal the means by which they intend
to attain it. They throw out ambiguous hints that
it nay be attained in more ways than one. A direct
duty may be imposed upon the importation of !gel-
cultural produce ; or a dexterous shale in the inci-
dence of taxation may be made to produce the come
effects as the imposition of a direct duty cm im-
Pried agricultural produce. They km, the public
in doubt, not as to the end they have en view, but
the means by which they are to accomplish it.
They sea to steal a march u the public—to
bvade and be Me opposition by and con-
eta imi et

This reserve betrays their consciousness of the
hollowness and falsehood of their pretences that they
here a majority in the country iwprove of their
(silky. If they were, as they pretend to be, sincer•l7
dtAiroas to appeal to the country to support their
pv.licy, they would frankly and unequivocally tell
what that policy is. But they are anxious to post-
pone the evil day of this appeal, and to mystify the
public as to its real nature. They seek time, and
pretests, and opportunities for getting together a
parked House of Commons blindly subservient to
their will. They postpone the dissolution of parlia-
ment in order that they may have time to organise
the corrupt influences possessed by men in offloe.
They otter inducements to all who are liable to be
biavid by private interest, or exclusive attachment
to other kinds of reform, to give them a majority.
To the romoters of private bills they offer to expe.
diti their measures; to law reformers they affect a
sudden eagerness to promote law reform. They are
industriously at work to multiply and confuse the
snr,tions that will be used in appeals to the electors,
to eider that supporters of a restrictive and protec-
tive torn law may be able to steal undetected into
Prliament.

All this shuttling, and equivocation, and conceal-
runt, only shows the recklessness of the Ditties
auntutry as to the means by which they may be able
t tuotinplish their ends. Their great object is to
unuttle the free-trade policy, at least in so fur as it
brim upon agricultural produce and rents. They
stk to strike away the very key-stone of the arch of
frieArade—free trade in food. There is, there can
10 • Ito doubt as to this being their intention. The
qaesticn upon which they go to the country—and the
canvas. has already commenoed—is, 'that( there, or
that: there nut, be free trade in agricultural produce?
labs country will grant enough of protection to keep
b' n ht., they hint that they are willing to throw over-
-1,, .rd the so-t al lk d shipping and colonial interests, and
they prorai.a. 11,4 oely law reform but very vague
Phrase) "Rectal, safe progress." .very elector,
therefore, who at the imptnding election gives his
vote for a t-andidate, vote. for the re-enact-
inrot of the mrn-law., it may be in some new form
bu: (titans, nii3chievous with the old.
If this Lct be kept steadily in view, we have no

fears for the result. One great difficulty it the ob-
tainment of the repeal of the oorn-laws was the un-
certainty which prevailed in many quarters u to
the consequences of the measure. Tho labourers
know now that it has worked for their advantage;
the merchants and manufacturers know that it has ;
worked for their advantage; a large and increasing
body of the landlords and tenant farmers feel that it
will not permanently injure them. The very spirit
of oosoarvatinn—the aversion to change—which in.
peeled the introduction of free trade in agricultural
I produce, is now an obstaclo to the re-establishment 1
of protection for it. The very doubt as to the per-
1 manence of free trade in food—slight though it yet be
—awakened by the advent of the protectionist land-
lords to allot, is already felt to be a nuisance. Oar
trade in the Levant and the Nock Sea has been
brought to a stand; sales of land and proposals to
lease land are obstructed and impeded by it. The '
prosperity, the safety of the country demands nut
only that the permanence of free trade in agricul-
tural produce be affirmtil, but that it be affirmed with
the least possible delay.
Such is the opinion, and such is the wish of an ,
immense majority of the public at large. And all 1
the ablest of our experienced statesmen have evinced
their determination to act in conformity with this
opinion and this • ish. 'there may exist some un-
certainty as to the extent to which a combination of
the Whigs, parliamentary reformers, free-traders, and
liberal conservatives is practicable; but that they
will all unite against protection, and the continu-
ance of a protectionist ministry in office, is certain.
Lord JOHN RI s,ELE, Mr. COBDEN, Sir JAMES
Grunau, Mr. GLADSTONE. and Lord PALMERsTON
are equally explicit and firm on this point. Tho
Dukes of BVCCLEL GII and NEW(' VITLE arc equally
resoluto to oppose all attempts to revert to agricul-
tural protection. This, then, is the watchword for
the coming general election \o protection, no
modification of protection—no substitute fur pro-
tection however specious." This is the one question
immediately at issue. And on this reformers must
at once be prepared to act.