The Express.
London, England, 1858-04-21 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAT, APRIL 21.

ALTHOUGH not yet formally avowed by those among
our contemporaries who desire the immediate and un-
conditional restoration of the late Government to offioe,
there are still indications that an attempt for that
purpose may be made when the House of Commons
is called upon to go into Committee of the Whole
House on the India question. We say for that
purpose, because there is obviously no other to be
answered by raising a party debate and provoking
a party division on such an occasion. Whatever
people may think of each particular Resolution
which the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER proposes
to move, and whatever suggestions or amendments
may be usefully elicited in the course of discussion,
it is palpable that the magnitude and gravity
of the topics in dispute, and the great diversity
of sentiment which is known to exist thereon, de-
mand a full, Gil., and ample deliberation on the part
of the Legislature, before any details should be em-
bodied in a Bill. But faction does not deliberate.
Its instincts are simply aggressive and offensive.
Taking counsel is with it mere waste of time, except
in the sense of caballing against rivals, or plotting
the defence of a jealous system of personal monopoly.
The candid, open, and conscientious examination of a
great Imperial question, and the weighing of its
merits one by one before legislative judgment is
irrevocably passed upon them—all this to the im-
patient eye of faction seems to be but child's play.
To get in by the window if not by the door, and
when in to browbeat and baUy all who don't like
the system and style of the establishment, is the
sole business of what are called your staunch and
thoroughgoing partisans. In the case now contest-
plated there is a double motive to stimulate the intem-
perate and disreputable zeal of such persons. If they
could only persuade a majority to refuse the SPEAKER
permission to leave the chair, two distinct ends
would be gained : Ministers would be placed in a
minority on a highly important question ; and a
public affront would be offered to the long-tried and
valued leader of sincere Liberals in Parliament. We
do not dispute the consistency of these ends. It is
quite natural that the hacks and hangers-on of Lords
CLARENDON and CL kNRICARDE should be anxious to
Use these noble lords agai#ln power ; and it is equally
natural that they should fear the restoration of Lord
Joffe Rt-ssett.'s influence in the direction of public
affairs, and the recognition of the claims of those ad-
vanced Liberals who have been steadily excluded or
ignored daring the last three years. It is, indeed, plain
enough that unless a Parliamentary triumph can be
snatched, and office thereby won, without the OR-
operation of the independent portion of the party,
victory would be shorn of half its gains. There
could no longer be any guarantee that profligacy
should be again at a premium, and that aristocrelie
jobbing might be perpetrated with impunity. To
oust the Tories from office without any decent /tre-
te t for clutching the undivided spoil, and ede-
appropriating it in the fashion of the last twelve
months, would be only half a victory ; and yet It
must, under ordinary circumstances, be difficult to
avoid this provoking result. Upon any broad or in-
telligible question of policy, the instincts of the
entire Liberal party would naturally lead them to
vote together. Shades of difference there might be
in the reasoning made use of in debate; but all
would concur when it came to division, and the fore-
most by right of service, talent, and experience,
would be necessarily included in an administration
formed by the victors. But this, it is clear, would
never do. The damaged half of the late
officials would in such case be pretty sure to go
to the wall, while new or better men would
as a matter of coarse take their places. Hence the
desire to get rid of all broad and general questions
like Reform. Had Lord Pumeasroc wished to
make the profession of greater zeal for popular
rights a matter of distinction between his party and
that of I.ord DERNT, ho would never have answered
the question of Mr. Driecomitz ea he did the other
day. So great a master of Parliamentary peri-
phrase would have found no difficulty in shadowing
forth the mature consideration which the late
Cabinet had bestowed upon the various important
branches of the subject ; he would have significantly
hinted that had they not been agreed as to prin-
ciples and details, and impressed with the urgency
of the question, they would never have advised
her MAJENTT to speak of it in the Address
from the Throne; and though it did so happen
that a complete and perfect Bill ready to
be laid upon the table had not been left
in the pigeon-holes of the Home Office, he
could, if he chose, inform the House what sort of a
Bill he and his friends had made up their minds to
bring forward this Session. But however popular
such an answer might have been, it would clearly have
quite disconcerted all schemes cif the kind we are de-
precating. Whenever Reform is talked of as the flag
under which Parliamentary battle for power is to
be fought, men's thoughts instinctively turn to other
leaders and to other guides ; and it is deemed, there-
fore, morn convenient to raise an issue which shall be
of a narrower and more personal nature, and which,
if successful, may entitle the personal followers of the
late Premier to raise again the shout of " Who but
" he?"

We repeat the conviction we have before expressed,
that a course so violent and so reckless would, if
attempted, prove to be an utter failure. No man
possessing a spark of political independence would
lend himself to a proceeding in which he must be
conscious of being used simply and merely for the'
purposes of selfish faction. If any section of the
Opposition wishes to try its separate stns ngth with
the present holders of office, let it initiate a solsstan-
tire proposition either in the form of implied or 1

direct censure, and witti the avowed object of re-
versing the sentence viewed upon the foreign policy
of the late Cabinet two months ago. That would be
a fair and intelligible course ; and everybody would
then understvid why and for what he was voting;
and if the country remained passive while a
majority of the House of Commons decreed subser-
viency to France, and the subversion of our national
laws and usages, there would be nothing more to be
said upon the matter. The battle of a national policy
as against a truckling and a dastardly one would
have Len !ought out and lost; but it would have
been fairly fought, and fairly lost. There is nothing,
however, fair, or honourable, or seemly, in the sugges-
tion we have been combating ; and we are equally
doubtful u to the possibility of its being carried by
dint of mere numbers, or made effectual by the do-
cility of those against whom it is ostensibly aimed.
We do not believe that such a motion would be car-
ried, if resisted as it ought to be by the various inde-
pendent sections of the House ; and we do not be-
lieve that, even Harried by an inconsiderable ma-
! jority, it would induce Mr. DISRAELI and his col-
leagues to resign. One, and one only, effect it would
certainly have, viz., to widen and to embitter the
schism unhappily existing in the Liberal party.