The Express.
London, England, 1866-07-05 00:00:00

THE MINIRTRY AND THE PARLIAMENT.

We learn from the Times that no ministerial explanation
will take place before next Monday. Lord Granville will
this evening, in compliance with a request of Lord Derby,
move the adjournment of the Upper House till that day,
and a similar motion will be made in the House of Com-
mons. It is, of course, impossible that the members of the
new cabinet sitting in the House of Commons can make
their appearance there till after they have been re-elected
and as it is nut expected that the council at Windsor will
separate to-morrow in time for Lord Derby to be present
in the House of Lords at its usual hour of assembling,
the adjournment till Monday is inevitable. To that day,
therefore, we must look forward for an authoritative
statement of the policy of the new administration, and
such revelations of the efforts made to form a ministry on
a wider basis as Lord Derby may be at liberty to make.
According to the Bout(' the Marquls of Abercorn has
accepted the Loral-Lieutenancy, and Lord Naas, the Irish
Secretary, will be in the cabinet. Mr. Whiteside will
succeed to the Chief Justiceship of Ireland, to be vacated
by Chief Justice Lefroy, and in all probability Mr.
Brewster will be Lord Chancellor. Mr. Patton will be
Lord Advocate. Mr. Henley, it is said, will not take office,
and. Sir Hubert Peel's name is mentioned in connection
with the Duchy of Lancaster. The Earl of Bradford will
ba Lord Chamberlain. The office of Steward has been
offered to the Duke of Marlborough ; Lord Burghley will.
be Comptroller of the Household. Sir John Hay All be
First Naval Lord of the Admiralty ; and Mr. Earle wall be
the Civil Lord ; Lord Longford Under-Secretaif for War.
The PostmastenGeneral will not be in the cabinet.

The Times accepts this ministry as an interregnum af-
fording the best oppoi tunity of reconstructing a liberal
cabinet, and is thankful that it presents in itself an ap-
pearance so thoroughly respectable. Running over the
various names with their qualifications, the Times remarks
that Sir S. Northcote may find in his office at the Board of
Trade come things to be done in the way of railway legis-
lation which Mr. Milner Gibson never suffered to ruffle
his composure, and that the appointment of Lord Stanley
to the Foreign Office must prove satisfactory to all except
those who advocate a generous sympathy and encourage-
ment of popular movements wherever and however they
may be occasioned.

Seven or eight months in about as many years—such,
exclaims the Diriiy News, is the modest moral span of a
conservative government's existence in the present un-
believing age. Hard indeed must be the heart of the
liberal who can regard these periodical lapses of power
with any other feeling than that of an indulgent, and even
sympathetic, curiosity. A shyness which seems to be
creeping over the party is leading them to adopt the term
constitutionalists—a cloak than which nothing can be
fitter to cover a party who are afraid or ashamed of nothing
so much :is of being taken for what they were and are.
Animated by the lively sense of the shortness of life
the constitutional party are reported to be already medi-
tating a batch of peers, and before next February the
mouths of Lord Derby's followers will he well filled. Nor
is this an unimportant advantage of the occasional transfer
of official responsibilities and emoluments. It is no small
benefit to the country that Lord Cranborne should be re-
duced to solemn silence, and if the minor enthusiasts of the
party whom a contemporary has named for subordinate posts
. can be safely disposed of we shall be the last to complain.
In meeting their constituents the new ministers can
hardly escape the necessity of some distinct promise of
future action. At all events before the prorogation they
will have to state their views and intentions with respect
to parliamentary reform, and the course they intend to
pursue. In February next they must be ready with the
results of a commission embodied in a bill, or with a bill
pure and simple, or with reasons for no bill.
For Mr. Gladstone to fancy, the Post thinks, that he can
pursue a high-handed policy by the force of meetings and
ovations is preposterous. No victory can be obtained by
these agencies, and the demonstrations which he encou-
rages, and receives as the calm. serious, orderly, and tem-
perate expression of opinion, plainly demopstrate the dan-
ger of placing political power, the interesis of a great em-
pire, and the liberties of a free people under the feet of an
uninstructed multitude, masses swayed by demagogues,
and mobs organised for the purposes of intimidation.

If the Herald were to forecast Mr. Gladstone's future
political career from the letter he has addressed to Mr.
Potter, it would assume that he means to come forward in
the House of Commons, and in the town, music, and tem-
perance halls of South Lancashire, as the unmitigated
demagogue. The sweet voices of the unenfranchised have
intoxicated hien with the disease 1 taste of one debauched
by coarse and fiery spirits.
The Telegraph remembers that in 1859, eight days were