The Express.
London, England, 1859-06-13 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, JUNE 13.

WITAT!VCR may be the personal composition of
the Ministry about to be formed, the country will
look rather to the principles which are tabs asserted
is its formation than to the tweets of elaborate
attempts to combine hitherto discordant ingredients
in nicely balsoced proportions. We are not disposed
to join in the hypocritical litany wherein personal
feelings and preferences are set down among the poli-
tical plagues from which the spirit of patriotism is
prayed to deliver us. We should be very sorry to
see the day when, under the plea of uncelfishitem,
any set of men would find it reputable
to unite with any other for the mere sake
of office. Ou the contrary, we infinitely pre-
for the self-respectful temper in public men that
leads them to weigh well the consequences of enter-
ing into intimate combinations with others from
whom they have previously differed on important
matters of opinion; end if, after calm reflection,
therecurreoce of such differences seems probable, we
own that we respect the men all the more if on such
grounds they disinterestedly decline the distinction
of eminent trust and station. To the vigour of ad-
ministration, unity of main purpose and cohesion of
elements where the strain is most likely to come,
are essential. It is the absence of these

characteristics that renders coalitions so objec-
tionable. But combinations of men of dif-
ferent Ousts and different antecedents holding
substantially the same opinionr, and swayed ha-
bitually by similar party feelings, are not to be °ou-
tmoded with coalitions to clutch at power in com-
mon, without the possibility of using it for any com-
mon object. Fellow-travellers who have assembled
for their journey by convergent paths may get on to-
gether very well ; but no wisdom of man can amigo
• useful end to the packing of a number of gentle-
men into the same Cabinet if beforehand they cannot
agree as to the way they want to go. Let this
obvious truth be borne in mind when we hear, as wo
may possibly hear within the present week, of offices
having been offered to men who may decline it on
the score of incompatibility of views. We quite
admit that the incompatibility ought to be plait, end
broad, and that men who have borne a share in the
overthrow of an existing Government are bound to
do their best to emirs a better for the country in its
stead. All we mean to insist on is that they may
do so more effectually by waiving claims of perms&
ambition than by rashly waiving repugnance, of
sentiment on vital questions.
This is one side of the matter; but there is another.
Those who may be entrusted with the teak of form-
ing a Ministry have a perfec' right to seek for homo-
geneity of opinion in the selection of material
to compose i.. If they narrow their test
of conformity within certain bounds, they
are man likely to pay the penalty of their
intolerance and folly, and they may be safely left
the liberty of doing so at their peril. Bat as be-
tween men of different classes, then• have no right to
hesitate. The prestige of elm. exclusion is dead;
the once haughty privi:ege of birth and wealth is no
more. What used to be the exercise of • time-
honoured prerogative of social rank, if now to be
revived, would be rejected and spurted as a fraudu-
lent usurpation. The nation has got beyond that,
and will consent to parley about it no more. The
aristocratic jalousies of government have been
taken off their hinges, and sent to be broken up foe
historic fire-wood. We don't envy the impudent
meddler who would try to set them up again. We
will hare no more of the darkening and deadening
system. The country has made up its mind to the
representative peinciple in the composition of the
Executive as well as in the Legislature. It does not
profess to dictate as to individuals; but it will insist
upon all classes being treated aa alike eligible, end
all pursuits being treated as equally entitled
to hare its foremost men admitted to the councils
of the Crown, provided they are qualified by ability,
cultivation, and worth. To the credit of Lord
Denny it will ever be remembered that in this re-
spect he showed from the outset a desire to comply
with the national will. His cabinet had other
grievous faults, but exclusiveness was not one of
them; and it is a tribute to its memory we cheerfully
pay when we say that throughout all the depart-
ments the sane spirit of fair play to plebeian talent
and character was strikitiqly manifested. We
will moreover add our persuasion that to this cir-
cumstance in no small degree was owing the for-
beginner long shown to the late Government on
many trying occasions, and the degree of support
it obtained so far as was possible from the
pros.. Ito that as it may, however, the precedent
has now been frilly and fairly set ; the principle of
progre.a has, in this essential requisite of constitu-
tional life, been thoroughly established; nod no
administration his henceforth • c►ance of prolonged
existence that does not largely and liberally re-
'nano it.

The poultice pledges given by the Whig chiefs, at
the public ineetieg of the Liberal party recently
held at Wi ROOOl6, leave no room to doubt their
personal dispoeitios in this all•importaat matter.
Bat he can know little of political history who over-

ooks the difficulties and temptations that beset men
who are called upon to form a Government. From the
hour they receive the command of her ht IJCSTV to
undertake the task until in all its details it is kismet
to be completed, they are besieged by applicants of
high degree and low capacity, insatiable of public
profit oo which they have been bred to gorge, and
sycophants of mak and intriguers of quality, aft
wanting something, either title, place, or prefer-
men', sod each miming, or fancying be pose/sees,
more or Ir.a of the hereditary means of showing re-
sentm,•nt it hie importunity be unheeded. Amid thecla-
moor of these noble cormorants the claim of worthier
pars orlon. is liable le be forgotten, because it is

comparatively seldom heard. But the eminent
statesmen, who, in the present cue, are consulted by
the Sovereign as to the constitution of a new Exeter
tive, will comprehend the necessities of the situation
and prove themselves superior to old prejudices and
new embarrassments. They will, we trust, shone
that, while their foreign and domestic policy is more
in unison with the wishes of the nation than that
of their predecessors, their sense of administrative
justice and equality is not less so. They will
neither submit, let us hope, to be worried or flattered
into shipping an incompetent crew. They will make
nomination/ to office their first appeal to the judg-
ment of the country ; and if those nominations shall
be found to contain the fair proportion of middle-
elan intelligence, energy, and experience which the
highly developed condition of those classes naturally
demands, they will have opened their campaign
successfully. They will disdain all shirking of the
principle we have been contending for. If
health, pre-oocupation, peculiarity of views,
or any other circumstance, prevents this
man or that from accepting office, instead
of treating it as so much additional prey unexpect-
edly regained for the harpies of exclusion, t►ey
will gladly find in it the opportunity of proving the
sincerity of their conversion to popular right by
offering it to some other though possibly less pro-
minent man of commeroe, science, or letters. We
can never consent to listen to the insulting pretence
that such men are not to be found. They are always
to be found when they are sincerely sought for ; and
the community that has achieved in arts and arms
what ours has done, will no longer submit to be
questioned as to its abundant competency to govern
itself.