The Express.
London, England, 1866-06-01 00:00:00

and inequality which he will not defend. It
should be the work of a statesman 1)0W to estab-
lish society in the South on thoroughly free
basis, as the only means of removing causes of,
disunion : but of every measure having that ten-
dency he is the obstinate opponent, and it would
not be his fault if the best fruits of the
war, those which the United States has
moat need to show to the world as the jus-
tification of its terrible character, were altogether
lost. And the reason he gives for his opposition is
calculated to encourage the worst members of
Southern society, and to dishearten the best. As
often as it is proposed to establish equal laws for
all the citizens of the Union, he comes forward
and declares that such a policy would lead to civil
war, as if the authority of the Union were and must
be inadequate to uphold its own laws. This is not
the language of a ruler, or, indeed, of a man who
believes in free government, or in government at
all ; it breathes the spirit, and is only worthy of
the position, of those cowardly magistrates who in
South Carolina and in Mississippi year after year
allowed peaceable citizens to be tarred and feathered
without stretching out a finger to protect them.
Happily, there is in the United States a legal and
constitutional power greater than that of President
JouNsox, which will never rest until the principles
of equal justice reign throughout the length and
breadth of the Union.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)

THE REFORM BILL-LAST NIGHTN DEBATE.

The Times agrees with Mr. Baxter in lamenting
the too probable fall of the government bills, but it dis-
putes the conclusion that the opposition should be the
only part of the house visited with punishment for the
offence. They have, perhaps, acted unwirely in preferring
the chance of an immediate triumph to the fairer prospect
of assured victory a little later ; but they could not have
had the opportunity of so acting if the mismanagement of
the government had not given the victory into their
hands. The Timed then proceeds to detach and
adopt from the speeches last night of Mr. Lowe,
Mr. Goldamid, and Sir J. Pakington various accusation,
against the government measures. The redistribution bill
exhibits the mere wantonness of precipitancy. Important
omissions occur through pure oversight, and the scheme
taken as a whole embodies no principle but the idolatry of
numbers. If the failure which the members of the govern-

went themselves appear to consider imminent befall their
scheme, it can only be regarded as an effect of retributive
justice. The Times thinks no one will suspect
Sir J. Pakington's sincerity in declaring his desire
to see the reform question settled, and it in-
clines to the opinion that the suggestion which he
supported of a royal commission supplies the only hope of
escape for the ministry out of their difficulties, and that
as no one party seems able to settle the matter by its un-
aided strength it may be as well to have recourse to an
expedient which would at least have the advantage of de-
ferring all attempts at legislation on the subject for
another year.
In another article the Times describes the debate on
Mr. Clay's bill as a masquerade and nothing more—a
chaffing match—a mere farcical episode in a controversy of
some importance to the nation.
The Daily News attributes the cheers with which Mr.
Lowe was greeted, to the sort o: feeling which welcomes
the entrance on the stage of a favourite actor, and as
being independent of the bill or the government. lie is
beyondall question the ablest of parliamentary disputants,
though without the faculty of persuasion. His theories
being dictated by his prejudices, he has not the fairness
and candour of a true political thinker. His _speech last
night added nothing to the arguments against the bill.
In one instance he showed bow completely a keen intellect
may be overridden by a current phrase. In another, espe-
cially iu what he said of small boroughs, his statements
are too notoriously in conflict with the facts to require
refutation. The whole speech was in itself one gigantic
fallacy, involving a complete iyaoratio elenela ;lifer Mr.
Lowe argued, not simply against the government propo-
sals, but against any change in the present representative
system. Now there is nothing which makes conservatives
so indignant as to be told that they are opposed to reform
altogether. Why, then, do they applaud Mr. Lowe? If
their cheers express assent to his opinions, they stand con-
victed of insincerity ; if not, they are not very respectful
to the object of them. In that case he is simply their
plaything. To be summoned to make mirth for tory
squires is to occupy a position which Mr. Lowe's bitterest
foe, if lie have one, might compassionate.
However the division may go, the I'ost says, the result
cannot be otherwise than unsatisfactory. Vu the one
hand, if the ministry carry the day, there will scarcely be
left any means of escape from their bills, which, with the
accession of strength they would derive from success, they
would probably be able to carry substantially lover all op-
position. On the other hand, if they are defeated, the
only two courses open to them would be dissolution or re-
signation. They would hardly venture upon the former
course, and the strength of the conservative party in the
house would certainly not enable them to carry on the
government except on sufferance.
The Herald devotes three articles to the debate and to
Vie bill. Everyone who spoke last night in favour of
tie government was in the wrong, and everyone who
spoke against them was in the right. Mr. Goschen's
speech was destitute of any tolerable or even specious
argument ; Mr. Goldamid came to the lamest and most im-

potent conclusions, and the Attorney-General is already
half way between Mr. Gladstone and universal
sulfrage. On the other hand Sir J. Pakinaton's address
was exhau,tive, and Mr. Lowe 's must have fallen like a
bombshell intotheministerial ranks. In onepoint, however,
the Herald thinks its friends committed a mistake, viz., in
their direct appeal to Mr. Mill. The Herald can hardly
b ilieve that these gentlemen are so ill-informed that they
w inted Mr. Mill's explanations to guide and complete
t'iem. or that great as is the respect they profess for his
authority, they would bow to it, yet they are certainly
doing their utmost t.) set the honourable gentleman up as
an oracle•

The Telegraph charges the tories with having all through
this session shunned the honest policy of plain speech and
with fighting only by indirect and negative motions. Even
these they have invariably borrowed. Lord Grosvenor
helped them to one, Captain Hayter was cat's-paw for
another. Not a single notice or amendment has made its
appearance from the true tory ranks. The pitiful reason
hai been, that they might prevent reform without the
odium of doing so—as if the English people could he fooled
wi a trick like this. The ministers are not capable of
the convenient docility required of them. They will either
make law of this bill very shortly, or, by force of a tem-
porary defeat, enter on the course which will end in the
passage of a larger reform, and assuredly we are less con.
oerned than the tories in that alternative.
The Star speaks with much severity of Mr. Lowe's ad-
dress. If it were believed, it says, that the conservatives
thought as be thinks—that if it were really supposed he
were anything more than a brilliaat and unprofitable un-
accountable—the nation, though now so tranquil, would
rise in indignation, and wrest from a worthless and re-
creant legislature the power it was no longer fit to wield.