The Express.
London, England, 1866-04-12 00:00:00

THE DOVER:MIXT AND THEIR WORE BILL.

Endorsing Mr. Bright's complaint that reporters
were excluded from the meeting on Tuesday where the
subject of discussion was so mush a matter of public con-
cern, the Tines proceeds to describe the ministry as
having come bit by bit to understand the false
position in which they have placed themselves,
though the fatal blot of their policy remains an.
touched. Their whine exposes them to this dilemma :

If a oomplets inseam now be brought in, the acceptance
or rejection of that measure lies primarily with the pre-
sent House of Commons, and ultimately with the existing
constituencies. If the measure be divided, and the first
part be adopted, the fate of the second part must depend
upon the new constituencies called into being by the first.
It is evident, then, that the force of Lord Grosvenor's
amendment is as great now as it wee when it was first put
upon the notice paper, and, as the ministry have confessed
by their acts that the amendment is founded in reason,
the Times treats they will go a step further, and adopt
the policy it recommends. It is not a question of reform
or no reform—a question of confidence or no confidence in
the ministry, but whether a lengthening series of bills
promises completion and finality, or whether they will not
rather serve as the battlefields of a long and ruinous

contest.
The task of ministers this evening, the Daily News
observes, will be simplified by the strong and articulate
voice of the country, which has been heard in their sup-
port. Clever members who • month ago were devising
means of obstructing the bill, are fest rectifying their po-
sition, and the earlier opponents of the measure are re-
sorting to the familiar expedient of discovering, in
• supposed change in the conduct and intentions of
the government, • ground for taking up a more fa-
vourable position towards it. The Times, which
has had oondderable experience of these tactics,
is apparently making ready for another volteface,
and being again on the wrong side'of the river ia choosing
this way of croaking the stream. Mr. Oliphant, in an ex-
pression by the way which occurslin the Times' account of
the meeting at Earl Russell's, tried on the same device on
Tuesday evening as a way of shuffling off the amendment
which he had imprudently encumbered himself. But Mr.
Gladstone soon took him up and set him right. As its
readers are aware, the Daily News has understood and in-
terpreted the intentions of members from the first,
in the sense of Earl Russell's explanations, and has
always discussed the question on that assumption.
Perhaps the jubllancy of the opponents of the
bill will be lessened when they are reminded that Earl
Russell's declaration does not bind the government to
take the decision of the House of Commons on the second
of the two bills in the present session. Ministers would
be glad to carry both measures this year, and they are
determined to carry at least one. It is no doubt in the
power of their usual opponents, by giving facilities to the
government, to enable them to carry both bills this
session, and it would be highly satisfactory to find them
wise enough to do so, but ministers have not yet placed
it in the power of those opponents to defeat the work of
reform this dation by opposing the redistribution of
seats.

In another article the Daily Nees gives some ac-
count of a political paper in the new number of the
Quarterly Bovine, a composition which is defined as rather
a succession of shrieks and unearthly cries than a discus-
sion or a statement, and which contains much to remind
one of Lord Cranborne's speeche:. It is an odd mixture
of Dante and Dr. Cumming. We are conducted to a

ledge of rock from which we are bid to look upon a phan-
tasmagoric spectacle of almost every political woe that
the imagination can conceive. This is the medieval,
Italian element—this is England's Inferno. And having
been duly horrified we are taught to expect the advent of
all these evils in the year of grace 1867, or at latest in
1868. On one point the Daily News is glad to agree with
the Quarterly namely that if the Reform Bill
passes the second rearing it will probably pass the House
of Lords, and that the peers will not venture to dispute
the decision of the House of Commons. As there is now
no doubt not only that the bill will pass the House of
Commons, but will do so by a majority which will greatly
lessen the responsibility of the House of Lords, we are
disposed to make great allowance for the excitement of our
tory contemporary, though none at all for his vituperative
sprit.
. . . .

The Post contemplates with apprehension the political
situation which is created by Lord Russell's pledge not to
advise her Majesty to dissolve the present parliament until
it has passed the second part of the reform bill, and
contends that ministers have entangled themselves further
than ever.
The Herald says that none of its liberal contemporaries
have attempted to estimate the proportion of those
present on Tuesday, who would do all in their power
to trip up the measure. A ministry that in its
cxtremest hour of need can only rally round its chief
some two-thirds or thereabouts of the party which he claims
to control, must, indeed, be daring, almost to the verge of
infatuation, if they still resolve to sacrifice themselves and
their followers in the reckless impetuosity of a forlorn
hope. And when a premier finds, even in the dwindling
host who surround him, one or two outspoken disaentienta
who are not afraid to tell him to his face that they con-
demn the course he has chosen, he can scarcely augur well
for his enterprise from the sounds that prevail in his own
camp.
It is understood, the Telegraph says, that Mr. Gladstone
will addrem the house to-night in proposing the second
reading of the Reform Rill, and that he will not, OA many
supposed, confine himself to the mere ceremonial of mov.
ing it. The deserters from the liberal ranks may be
counted upon the fingers of the two hands : and even
added to the compact phalanx of 280 conservatives, who,
we are contemptuously told, will enter their own lobby
without a lagging foot or a reverted eye, these recreant
liberals are too insignificant in number to prevail against
their staunch and uncorrupted brethren.