The Express.
London, England, 1867-04-06 00:00:00

THE WEEKLY PRESS.

The Examiner says that for a resolution like
thnt which Mr. Coleridge is to move, men of the most
opposite opinions may vote. The seceders from Lord
Derby's cabinet will, it is understood, give it their sup.
port, reserving to themselves the right to draw at 6/.,
or 10/. a year, the undetermined line below which all are
to be disfranchised, and above which all aro to pay their
own rates ; while liberals may take their aid to carry the
motion, inwardly resolved to fix the line at a 5/. rating,
which will be equivalent to a 71. rent. If minis-
ters stand firm, next week will be consumed in
a struggle which may possibly decide the fate of
parties and probably the fate of the bill. With a
view to what was felt to be coming, Mr. Disraeli
has made an ingenious counter move. He last night laid
upon the table clauses regarding compound householders,
which would compel the insertion in the rate-book of the
names of all occupiers, and which would enable such of
them as desired the franchise to pay their portion of the
compound rate, and to have credit for it as part payment
of rent, the owner being in every such case exonerated
from the liability. In other words, these clauses appear
to be intended to make good the right of household
suffrage to every man who cares for the possession
of it sufficiently to take the trouble of paying what
he now pays in one sum called rent, the same
amount in two sums, the one called rent and the
other compound rate. Without such clauses the bill could
not, indeed, have been accepted by the friends of house-
hold suffrage; and without them it would have had no
chance of passing through committee. There can be no
disguising the fact that they look with grave distrust upon
the proposal of Mr. Coleridge, which they reasonably
regard as certain to be followed by a practical denial and
rejection of the principle for which they contend.
. . . .

To the Examiner it seems fatally plain that if the popular
party in parliament were to substitute for household suf-
frage a 6/. or even aSL rating, agitation would be certain
to re-commence in a spirit more dangerous and subversive
than auy we have recently known, because embittered by
the loss of all faith in the professions of parliamentary
men. At all events, let the liberal leaders make up their
minds before next week's debate begins to say unmistak.
ably what they are going for, and to what use they would
put their success were Mr. Coleridge's equivocal motion
carried. It is the legitimate child and successor to the
memorable amendment of 1t439, which, professing solici-
tude for popular enfranchisement, delayed all reform from
that day till now.
The Saturday &view admits the difficulty in which the
liberal party is placed, but thinks the worst way of getting
out of this difficulty would be by making what would seem
a harsh us:: of what may be a numerical majority, and by
defeating the government, until, after full discussion, and
after every effort has Len made to give an opportunity
for concession, the government positively refuses to give
way on one of those few points on which the liberal party
must resolutely insist, and on whichl the country would
clearly and warmly support them.
The Saturday Renew remarks that for a moment it was
thought that an entente cordiale between France and
Austria would be the first result of Prussian supremacy in
Germany, but it would seem that the Emperor of Austria
and Baron Beust are superior to the short-sighted revenge
of calling in the foreigner to readjust the balance of
German power. It is thought that French influence has
thus received no less a check at Vienna than at Munich,
and that a frank adhesion to the great changes iu Germany
I has been promised by Austria to Prussia. If this be so,
France is again really isolated, Her ambition was arrested
fifty years ago by a coalition of monarchs. It is equally
arrested now by a coalition of peoples. The great diffi-
culty is that France is not accustomed to bear such things
lightly, and that her diplomatic mortification, have a ten-
dency to bring about either war without or revolution
within.

To the Spectator nothing an bo more disgraceful to the
House of Commons than the success of Mr. Disraeli's
man‘euvres. If Mr. Gladstone's proposal is to be carried,
it should have been carried by the only party which can
properly propose it, the party who proposed its equivalent
last year, and not those who passionately condemned and
successfully obstructed it. If the more extreme proposal
household suffrage, is to be carried—as is most likely—
it should be carried by men who honestly believe that it
will be a just concession to the abstract rights of the
people, by such men as Mr. Peter Taylor or Mr. T. B.
Potter. But for either of these proposals to be carried