The Express.
London, England, 1865-10-28 00:00:00

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LONDON. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28.

Is the Cabinet Council which is to meet so-day
the greatest difficulty which the reconstituted ad-
ministraf n has to encounter will, in all proba-
bility, receive no solution. The accesaion of Lord
Rrsana. to the post of First Minister of the
Crown, and the substitution of Lord t.:Lanerwori
at the Foreign-office, leave but one vacancy to be
filled up ; and, as the new Chancellor of the Duchy
of Lancaster will almost certainly be a member of
the House of Commons, the distribution of offices
between the two lioness will not be in any way
affected by the change. Still, it is hardly possible
—or, if possible, is far from desirable—that the
inconveniences of the situation should long remain
unnoticed. The position of the Government in
the Home of Commons is far too unsatis-
factory to afford of its consideration being
indefinitely postponed. While Lord PALMER-
/roll lived, indeed, it was quite possible to
do this without the risk of any serious conse-
quences ; for, so long as the functions of a Cabinet
were administrative rather than political, it made
but little difference whether a few more or a few
lass of its members had seats in the Loser
House. Departments can be as well managed by a
Peer as by a Commoner, and of the average
annual amount of useful legislation the Lords
have usually been ready to contribnto their fair
share—the mere fact that the majority of their
body commonly stays away being in itself a great
assistance to the satisfactory despatch of business.
But if a Ministry is once more to lay claim to a
de6nito policy ; if the principles which have
underlaid the distinction between Whig
and Tory, since first those names were
beard as the watchword of parliamentary
strife, are to be brought into renewed pro-
minence ; if the Government is to stand
for something more than a machine for building
barracks, reconstructing ships, pardoning criminals,
and occasionally making Poor-law Guardians
do their duty—the Cabinet must speak with • ,
sense of having the country at its back, and it is
impossible for it to do this effectually unless the
preponderance of ministerial influence lies in tho
Representative Chamber. A Government which
wishes to lead the people must be brought face to
face with the people, and the House of Commons
is the only place where this end can be constitu-
tionally attained.
But the recognition of this necessity carries us
only a very little way towards the supply of it.
It is not an may matter to cashier a Minister
whose only offence is that the accident of birth has
made him a peer, and it certainly cannot be said
that the members of the Government who have
seats in the House of Lords are, taken collectively,
at all inferior to their colleagues who have seats
in the House of Commons. Even if, ilisregarding
the fact that we have just lost a Prime Minister
who was over eighty, and have just found a Prime
Minister who is over seventy, we were to insist
upon the necessity of youth as a qualification for
high office, the problem would be no nearer a
solution ; for the only three members of the Go-
vernment who are not past fifty are all in the
Upper House, and Lord RI.:3SELL'S two nearest
contemporaries--excluding the LoaD CHLIMILLOZ
—are both Commoners. If, therefore, there is to be
any accession of cabinet weight in the direction
where it is so much needed, we must look chiefly
to the readiness to sacrifice themselves to
the needs of their party which may be
displayed by the Peers in the Government, and
horn this point of view it is singularly unfortunate
that the condition of the Ministerial benches in
the House of Commons should add so little weight
to the argument. We do not doubt that if among
the subordinate members of the Administration
there were two or three commoners pointed out by
the public voice as having indisputable titles to
seats in the Cabinet, there would be comparatively
little difficulty in making the necessary re-arrange-
manta. But it is one thing to ask a man to yield
his place to a colleague whom the world, at any
rate, pronounces capable of rendering more service
to the Government, and quite another thing to ask
him to give way to a man who by common oonsent
does not yet stand on the same parliamentary level

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