The Express.
London, England, 1867-02-19 00:00:00

MR. DISRAILLIII EX PLANATIONM.

Mr. Gladstone last night, the Times says, very
felicitously summed up the feeling shared by all—that it
is moat desirable parliament shall arrive at a legislative
settlement of reform during the present session, and it is
a sense of this th►t explains the abstinence of the opposi-
tion from taking advantage of the errors of the govern-
ment. Let it but appear that the administration is incom-
petent or unwilling to carry a measure of reform through
parliament, and its days are numbered. The Chancellor
of the Exchequer last night parried the questions of Mr.
Ayrton and Mr. Baines, but there are limits to a
policy of reserve. If there is to be no practical result of
the license accorded to the administration, it must be re-
voked. The Times hopes for better things, and is loth to
believe that the best opportunity yet presented us of
solving a difficult problem is to be lost. The only means,
however, of guarding against such a misadventure must be
found in a clear definition now, while it is yet time, of
what must be found in the statement of the Chancellor of
the Exchequer next Monday.
If her Majesty's government come to an early end the
motto on their tomb, the Daily News says, should be
" killed by kindness." The house would fain make the
Treasury bench a bed of roes for its leader, and it may
be even that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would prefer
something else to this brooding calm. These prelimi-
nary resolutions may be divided into the superfluous, the
ambiguous, and the impossible, and clearly, if it were
the object of the liberal party to trip up the go-
vernment on the earliest occasion, they need not
wait for the second reading of a bill, or even for the
first, much less for a committee on a bill. Common
sense calls this way of approaching a bill, not by
sapping up to it by a series of parallels, but by doubling
back over the same ground by a series of sallies and re-
treats, a very unsatisfactory mode of ministerial engineer-
ing ; and the most charitable construction we can put
upon it is that Mr. Disraeli fancies he is leading a forlorn
hope of deserters from his own party against the citadel of
the British constitution, which be boa sworn to defend,
with the liberal forces cheering him on, and ready to fire
into him the moment he gives way.
The Post continues to oppose the resolutions, but thinks
it worthy of consideration whether it would not be worth
while to let the ministers make their faces and go through
their posturing, in order the sooner to get to the real
business of the bill.

Even the lirrald confesses that as the government does
not intend to uk the house to vote the resolutions with-
out explaining what particular measures it will propose to
cani into effect the principles affirmed in them, it would
have been better to have made that explanation in the
first instance, and let the country know at once what it
considered the bases for a fair settlement of the question.
But this is, it adds, really a matter of no great import-
ance.

In the opinion of the Telegraph Mr. Disraeli's tenacious
adherence to a mistaken plan, when the fairest opportu-
nity was offered for an honourable withdrawal from it, is a
greater mark of inability to understand the necessities and
deal with the emergencies of statesmanship than was
afforded by the original et nor. The Cabinet is now more
deeply pledged than it was a week ago, and far more difti_
cult will be the task of extrication or retreat. No mi.
niater ever before had such fair offers from professed and
constitutional opponents; no offers of help could be more
courteously, more delicately conveyed ; and the answer is
silence—the dogged persistence in a course which may
frustrate the hopes of the nation, and put off reform
until the time for calm deliberation has passed away.
The Star describes the silence on the Treasury bench
last night after Mr. Gladstone had spoken as an extronli-
nary and unpardonable departure from ministerial pro.
priety, and can hardly doubt that it will give the reflec-
tions of liberal members, between now and Thursday, a
tone likely to conduce to the settlement of this question,
and to repress for ever those arbitrary and dishonest
pretensions on the part of the tones to which too much
indulgence has already been extended.