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

'he himself said ; or as his chiefs, who accepted
his resignation with alacrity, said, because there
was nothing he would do. He would, perhaps,
not object to be a Minister without a portfolio ;
Ibut it may not uncharitably be doubtal whether
his occupation, as a slashing leader of Adullamites,
is not the one that shows his qualities to the best
advantage. He has sat some thirty years in the
House, and if he had sat for sixty years, and were
to sit, as we sincerely wish ho may, for thirty
years more, he would be neither more nor less
ornamental and useful a legislator than he was
in 1836, and is in lB6i. It was said of Sir
ItoiiEur PEEL that he was " a great Member
"of Parliament ;" his character and genius,
ihis tastes and habits, were so eminently par-
liamentary. This was high praise for one of
the greatest and most laborious of English
statesmen ; but to have been a Liberal Member of
Parliament, to whom not a single act of Liberal
legislation can be traced, is hardly a sufficient title
to fame for en otiose and oratorical parlia-
mentary defender of the Constitution. In this
after-dinner speech to his admirers, Mr. Hott.smas
repeated, with evident pride and pleasure, an
opinion ho expressed on parliamentary reform
during Lord DERBY'S brief tenure of office in
1859. He had then objected to the lowering of
the suffrage that the arguments in favour of
lowering it to 6/. might be used in favour of uni-
versal suffrage. It did not then, and does not
now, occur to the authorof that stupendous proposi-
tint, that any argument used in 1832 for reducing
the suffrage to 10/. might have been equally used
in favour of universal suffrage ; and that
any argument used on the other side in favour
of not reducing the suffrage qualification at all
might be equally used in favour of restricting
or of raising it. Happily, the Reformers of 1832
were not turned aside from their purpose by such
logic as that. Yet Mr. HORSMAN, after the pre-
vailing fashion among his party of dressing up for
hisownbenefit private conversations, makes hie audi-
ence laugh at the expense of some unnamed "ardent
" young Reformer," to whom he had repeated
SHERIDAN'S words," Sir, I was a Reformer before
" you were born, and shall continue a Reformer
" after you are hanged." Perhaps Mr. HORSMAN,
referring to HANSARD, may be able to show that
he voted for household suffrage in Mr. Hume'sl
days ; a fact, if it be one, which would convict
hint of having lived as a Reformer, before he was
born again as an Adullamite. Of Mr. GLAD-
srusL's eloquence he speaks with a warmth of
sympathy and admiration evidently unaffected;
but while he calls Mr. GLADSTONE'S elo-
quence " divine," he adds with delicate effrontery
that the allies with whom Mr. GLADSTONE
acts must have been especially distasteful to his
high moral character and genius-such allies, for
example, as Mr. MILL, Mr. FANYI 'Err, Mr.
HI:011es, and, we might add, Mr. Cot -
DEN, if Mr. COSHES were still living. Mr.
HORAMAN was a Reformer, he insists, before
the present generation of Reformers were born ;
and therefore a Reformer, when he opposed Mr.
GLADSTONE'S budgets, and the commercial treaty
with France ; he was a Liberal when, with
all his powers of vituperation and bitterness, he
was doing his worst in parliament and out of it .
to intensify the exasperation of the people of the
United States against this country, and to add fuel
to tho flames of their civil war. Doubtless, he
was an ecclesiastical Reformer while his whole
parliamentary energy was spent in attacking the
Bishops ; but what has he reformed in Church or
State ? We are quite ready to believe that Mr.
HORSMAN is in his own sense a Liberal and a
Reformer ; he is certainly very liberal in the use '
of language, only his political dictionary is not
adapted to the use of simple people who have no:,
reformed the English tongue.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)

Returning to Mr. Bright's defence of his career,
the Times again expresses its surprise that a man who
deals blows himself in any direction should expect his
antagonists to take all patiently. With two or three
exceptions the criticisms on the hon. member have been
simply criticisms on his speeches and not on himself. As
to his attack on the House of Commons, the postponement
of measures is not due to the constitution of the house,
which is fully abreast of the public opinion of the country.
Taking one year with another, the House of Commons
passes more measures, and more useful measures, than
any legislative assembly in the world ; and if it be un-
decided or hostile respecting any measure submitted to
it, it is because the same indecision and the same hos-
tility are to be found in the nation at large. As to Mr.
Horsman, though he professed to say what ought to be
done, the Tim.. cannot exactly discover his views. He
dues not appear to see the way to a satisfactory settlement
of the question of reform, though it may perhaps be in-
ferred that he would be in favour of a variation of the
franchise. However, before many days are over we shall
know for certainty whether Ministers have "a policy" or
not ; and if not. bo"4 they mean to justify the want of it.

Tne DnilyNews prints nearly the whole of Mr. J. S.
Mill's address at St. Andrew's University, and comments
upon it in sympathetic terms. That such wise and gene-
rous and tolerant teaching should be possible in the eccle-
siastical capital of Scotland—the scene of religious feuds
and murders—is an indisputable mark of progress.
Another article in the Daily News treats of the Italian
scheme for the sale and conversion of ecclesiastical pro.
PertY•

The Post is disappointed with the lions which now
adorn the base of the Nelson column, and contrasts them
unfavourably with the two magnificent beast, which watch
the entrance to the tomb of St. Peter's in Rome. Whatever
their merits, there can be no doubt that from this day tho
new lions cast the statue of Nelson in the shade, and he
is no longer the principal part of his own monument.
The figures are monotonous, and show unmistakably a
want of fertility of invention. The Past also devotes au
article in tribute to the memory of the Countess• Dowager
of Jersey, whose life, it says, from the wide range of its
esperience, may be said to be historical. Married at a
very early age, she was, says the Post, the leader of
London society before Nelson had fought Trafalgar or
Napoleon was crowned at Notre Dame ; and at that time
" to be a leader of society was something more than to
crowd rooms with mere strugglers for happiness."
Warm sympathy is tendered by the Herald and Standard
to Mr. Rottman in his troubles at Stroud.
The Telegraph adheres to its statement that her Ma-
jesty's ministers intend to propose a commission of in-
quiry into the boundaries of the parliamentary constitu•
moles, and adds that they have definitively resolved to
propose an autumnal session, which shall commence in
November, professedly to peas the contemplated measure
of reform.