The Express.
London, England, 1867-09-05 00:00:00

BAYMARICIMt

Tnt4 EVlClffill. AS YOU LINK IT. Messrs. Howe,
dale. Mown. Modal. Clark. Weathenby, de. ; is=
9r.44t Burke. FltzwilUam, ft.—To PARIS AND RACE
IVY SS. Mr. Buckatone.—And PET= BMINK. Mr. Clark.

PILINCIURN.

'1171% XVINCRO, POlti PIELIJODDY. Memo. Dominick
Murray R iirankank ; MW Polly Marshall—And TH it OVUM'S
OE LONDON. Mr. Vining, Mews. M•Leass, D. Murray, tc..
Messlemes Stuart, Barnett, and Marston.

111117'ANNLIL.

THE Tiik6lTHE RED MANSION : OR.
YAK DAVi ie► MARIE ANIOINETTE —The Champion
Stan: Mr. Plimpton ; Mr. & Mrs. Coleman and Mr. Brown.
And THE BRA; OR, TUE OCKAN CHILD.

111011 WATILE AT LONDON BRIM- IL
TO= DAY —Storming. Gin 17in.......Aft0rm00n. fili. SAIL
141[0/1/AoW—Morning. gin Cgoi.--Altermoon, 70. Mi.

LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5.

THE London Working Men's Amociation has
done a service to the Liberal party by calling
forth the letters of Earl Rosana. and Mr. Chun-
wroN e. The country had begun to expect some
declaration of policy on the part of the Liberal
leaders, and Liberal politicians have been pretty
generally asking what those leaders were likely to
do. The desire of the people has not been an-
swered by any long disquisition on the political
situation, nor by any formally enunciated cry, but
the short expressions of personal opinion and feel-
ing which these letters contain are amply sufficient
for all that we require. No one will at any rate
any longer be obliged to ask the question, What
does Earl RUSSELL think ?we shall scarcely be
obliged to ask, What will Mr. GLADSTONE do I
for their opinions may be gathered, and their atti-
tude learned, almost as well from these informal ex-
pressions as from a programme more diatinctlydrawn
out. It was not to be expected that either Earl
Russet'. or Mr. GLADSTONE would express that
entire approval of the Reform Bill which some
sections of their party rather demonstratively
utter. Not to speak of its disgraceful origin
and history, it is a great measure of enfran-
chisement fettered by one or two almost un-
workable conditions, and deprived of half its value
by being united to a dwarfed and inefficient scheme
of redistribution. It is unequally developed—
strong on one side and weak on the other.
Those who view it only on its enfranchising
side are astonished at its magnitude—
those who look at it front the aide of redistribu-
tion and the balance of political power are disap-
pointed at its littleness. Mr. GLsowrotis expresses
the universal feeling—universal excepting among
some few Parliamentary Liberals who share with
Mr. DISRAELI the responsibility of its authorship
—when he says :—" Of course your satisfaction
" would have been more complete had some other
" parts of the subject, and especially the redistri-
" bution of seats, been treated in the same coin-
" prehensive manner as the borough suffrage, and
" had the enfranchisement in boroughs not been
" connected with provisions so inconvenient and
" irrational with respect to the payment of rates
" through the owner." But the satisfaction at
" the great extension of the franchise which has I
" been given by the Act" far outweighs among
the working chases any dissatisfaction at its short-
comings. They feel that what has been given
cannot be taken back, and that what has been
withheld will yet be won. They do not forget
bow much is owing to Mr. GtanirroNz for his un-
compromising and unceasing hostility to the re-
strictions which hemmed the enfranchisement ori-
ginally proposed within such narrow limits, and
for the courage with which, at a critical moment,
he preferred to accept household suffrage in its
entireness rather than mock the people by grant-
ing them the name but denying them the
thing. But gratitude is cynically said to be
a sense of favours to come, and it is therefore
to Mr. GLADSTONE that the newly-enfranchised
householders will look to make the redistribution
settlement as broad as the settlement of the fran-
chise. Mr. Gtantrrorte evidently includes this in
his programme of future policy. He is no sulky
ACerLLES, as he has been represented to be, retiring
to his tent, and refusing to mingle in the fight.
He is ready to take his natural place as the leader
of Liberalism in the House of Commons, and only
waits for the voices of the reformed constituencies
to call him to his poet.

The letters of the two leaders are singularly
characteristic of their position and temperament.
Mr. GLADerroNE is hopeful, as the leader of the
future should be—Earl Rusam. is cautious, as a
veteran statesman may be expected to be. Mr.
GLADSTONE thinks such a celebration as the
Working Men's Association propose, to be
" amply justified by the great extension of the
" franchise which has been given to the Act," and
thinks the meeting may tend " to create an en-
" hence(' sense of the duties it imposes as well as
" the powers and privileges it confers." Earl
Buassxt is " too uncertain what effect Lord
" DERBY'S leap in the dark may produce to be a fit
" and enthusiastic companion for those who
" might wish to celebrate the passing of the
" Reform Bill of 1867." But the veteran leader
representing one mood of the Liberal party to
itself, and the younger leader representing another
mood, are strongly agreed as to the future. There is
no particle of despondency in either. The policy
of the past may not have been wise, and has cer-
tainly been venturesome, but it must at any
rate be made the beat of. Earl Rusanes letter
does not by any means indicate a reluctance to
accept the new Act, but simply a desire to see
bow it works, and what can be done with it,
before rejoicing over it. He simply says to the
Liberal party : Toryism has given you a new
weapon, let us test its temper. Will it help
vs to remove out of the way the ancient
obstacles to progress ? The present Govern-
ment do not mean this, yet it is essential
to the future welfare of the country. Surely no-
thing could be more appropriate, at the present
moment, than thus to remind us what remains to
be done. The Liberal party want a programme ;
Earl Rusazt.z. supplies it as to the legislation

which is 11013410 d, Mr. GLADSTONE 115 to the
popular action which is required—"a general,
" sound, unsectarisui education of the people; the

" abolition of Church-rattw; and a redress of those
" grievances, both in regard to tho relations of
" landlord and tenant, and of the maintenance
" of the Church of the minority, of which the Irish
" as a nation justly complain." These are laid down
as the immediate programme of Liberal legislation,
but they are only " among the measures " " un-
" connected with the Reform of Parliament,"
which Earl RUSSELL considers to be " necessary
"to assure the future of this country." Mr.
GLADSTONE completes the programme when he
speaks of the unsatisfactory character of portions
of the Act, and when looking in the direction of
the outdoor work which needs to be done he
approves of the proposed Reform fête because
" it will tend to create an enhanced sense of the
" duty the extended enfranchisement imposes,
"as well as of the powers and privileges it
" confers."

Here, then, is a Liberal programme. First of
all, t, give the people such political education as
may be possible, and thus to create an enhanced
sense of the duties their citizenship imposes ; and
next, to take up the work of Liberal legislation
where Parliament left it off, to destroy the last
traces of religious inequality in England and Ire-
land, to settle the land question on the basis of
economical science, and therefore of justice ; and
to establish an universal system of unsectarian
education. We have been told of late that
the old Liberal watchwords were effete. But they
can only become effete when they have done their
work. The policy of Peace has become so essen-
tial a part of our national action that, after the
next great European change, the policy of re-
trenchment may be carried out with equal com-
pleteness and success ; and now Reform has been
so far successfully attained, that no further de-
mand for an extension of the franchise in boroughs
will be made during this generation. But the
Liberal party does not abnegate its function when
the work of one campaign is done. For new
times it has new measures ; for a fresh fight a
fresh cry. The new times are already on us—
the fresh fight is already before us, and Earl Rva-
sztt's letter gives a glimpse of the new measures
and an intimation of the fresh cry. For England,
national unsectarian education, and the abolition
of church-rates ; for Ireland, security to the
tenant farmer, and the complete establishment of
religious equality. And though these are only
" among the measures" which a Reformed Par-
liament must be induced to pans, and on which
the rtconstructed Liberal party will insist, they
will of themselves inaugurate a new era of reli-
gious peace, of social content, and of political
progress.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)