The Express.
London, England, 1851-03-05 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH 5, 1851.

own hand+, and aweep,elean their own department.
Dinglanai *All not g 6 to,ying the Waarnomataxi
'and the PONSONINn? IBM than the Lord
:jlttoucitkoph and the (mimes WOoDs.

• IT is time that the season of suspense should end.
If ministers cannot make up their minds to a decided
policy, Parliament must, in self-defence, undertake'
the task, whatever be the hazard and difficulty of
such a proceeding. For parliaments like cabinets
have but a little while to live; and while days of
grace are yet unexhausted, the collective wisdom of
the nation must try to redeem the remnant of its
time, or prepare to be east out utterly.
The present house of Commons is near four years
old; and how many months longer it may be des-
tined to endure, nobody can pretend with confidence
to tell. We own we are solicitous for its historic
reputation ; still more for the esteem in which it shall
be held for the remnant of its limited life. And for
this reason, were there no other, we are exceedingly
desirous of seeing it regain that prestige of power,
which too east- a disposition and too credulous a con-
fidence in the lenders under whose guidance it
started, have caused it in some degree, perhaps, to
lose. It is undoubtedly a very serious evil when the
leaders by courtesy cease to be the leaders in fact;
and when neither the governing party nor their oppo-
nents are really represented by their respective
chiefs. This is the secret of the anarchical tenden-

cies in party which of late have shown themselves so
frequently, and in no case more remarkably than
amongst the Pevlites during the latter days of their
illustrious head and founder. But the same dispo-
sition to mutiny is observable eve;)-where. Protec-
tionists are in constant cabal against the only man
whose genius could have made them even in seem-
ing formidable; and as for the whigs, there are as
many doctrines and divisions among them as there
ever were in the old days of their internecine squab-
bles in opposition. Open hostility is indeed repressed
on vital questions by the discipline of office ; but
the sectarianism of clique is only hidden from
vulgar gaze, and its baneful efficacy is betrayed in
the paralysis of all the active powers of a party in
possession of the government.
Electoral progress, university amendment, law re-
form, and a revision and re-adjustment of taxation in
a truly national sense—all wait, and wait, and no
one can tell for what. Nothing efficient has been
done; nothing that we are aware of is doing; and
nothing that anybody can name is certain to be so
much as attempted at any definite time. We don't
say that our anticipations were very high when the
present session commenced some five weeks ago. We
certainly were not disposed to counsel a three
months' doze, as some of our contemporaries were.
We thought, on the contrary, that, with an unusual
surplus in hand, one or two safe and clean steps
might be taken in the way of financial amelioration ;
and, considering the urgent need of remedial mea-1
sures in our courts of equity that we should ere this,
have been enabled to congratulate the public on an
efficient move in this respect in the right direction.
But the lamentable fact is, nevertheless, that we
_ _

are arrived at the fifth of March, and that nothing
whatever deserving the name of legislation has been
done. What with idle talk about agricultural dis-

tress, angry talk about papal aggres"sion, and un-
meaning talk about impossible cabinets, we are as we
were on the first day of the session, nor is there any
assignable period at which the business of the
country for the year is likely to begin. The second
reading of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill has been
fixed for Friday next ; but as upon that occasion
Sir GEORGE GREY in to make an explanatory state-
ment of the changes and modifications government
contemplate making in certain parts of tlw mea-
sure, we mast not be surprised if a new set of objec-
tions are started thereupon, and the whole discussion
be re-opened on the general principles and objects
of the scheme. _ _

Them as to the budget. We own we have failed
to gather from the brief and enigmatic replies of
Lord Jolla to the interpelktions addressed to him
co the subject on Monday last, whether the CHAN-
=boa of the Es-Aliment has undertaken to form
an entirely novel project, or only to amend that
which fell still-born a fortnight ago. Certain
it is, however, that after such an unpopular
preface, the forthcoming volume of figures is
sure to undergo no very sparing criticism.
The sooner, therefore, the investigation and set-
tlement of preliminary details shall commence the
better. The main points must after all be the income
and the window tax. Why not proceed forthwith to
discuss and decide upon thew •? The country is
getting impatient. It wants to know what it has to
expect fur the next year at least. Parliament ought
to beware how it seems to trifle with feelings so
[natural, and questionings so
,just. If ministers hesi-
tate. parliament mustredeem itself from the obloquy of
unpardonable indecision, by showing unmistakeably
that thefault liesnot with them. Or if in the preparation
of a re-modelled budget, a claim for further delay
be deemed not unreasonable, let the public at all
events see the Commons in this present parliament
assembled applying themselves, without loss of mote
time, to the elaboration of other useful measures of
acme kind or other.
But whatever is taken first in hand, we must re-
iterate our conviction that the business of the ~e•aion
ought without further delay to be begun, not for the
sake of the business only, but for the sake of the
character of parliament itself, and the influence we
desire to sec it maintain.

tion proposed by the bill, but recommended
stkne modifications. The other proceedings of
the Chamber up to the hour of post were of no gene-
ral interest. In answer to a question put to him,
the president of the council said that the ecclesiasti-
cal authorities had requested that the ball of Mid-
Lent and a burlesque ceremony which usually takes
place on that occasion should he suppressed, but that
I the government had refused. The ERINMO says that
it is intended to suppress the ambassadorship's at
different courts, and have only ministers plenirten-
j tiary. M. A. A. Galion° has been apinted minister
at Lisbon, and the Marquis de Benalun at Berlin.