The Express.
London, England, 1867-04-12 00:00:00

1101 WATILIt AT LONDON BRIDGE.

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10110abow—Novuleg. a. 62•2......Atesemasa, vb. 34=.

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LONDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 12.

Ir is to be hoped that some of those ingenuous
persons out of doors whose idea of the House of
Commons is derived from their observation of
candidates on the hustings, or of members on the
platform giving a periodical account of their
stewardship, as they call it on such occasions,
were present at the short debate last evening
which preceded Mr. DARBY GRIFFITH'S luminous
and profound, but somewhat desultory and dis-
cursive, deliverance on the preamble of the Reform
Bill. Such an incident as that which was suffered
to consume an hour or more in aimless and
unprofitable talk on a simulated motion
for adjournment, and to stop the course
of public business, would have opened the
eyes and ears of the most innocent stranger
to the real difficulties which arrest the progress
of a Reform Bill in a representative assembly,
which, for all the political honesty it contains,
might almost satisfy the cynicism and defy the
researches of a Dioor-vss.

There are plenty of Liberal members who, in
tho face of their constituents, with shrugs and
sighs of indignant virtue deplore the blind resist-
ance of the Conservative party. An honest crowd
of sympathising hearers go home convinced that
all the purity of principle and public spirit and
self-denying devotion to popular interests is
to be found among the men who call themselves
Reformers, as our continental neighbours would
say, of the day before, and not of the day
after the production of a Bill. We could wish
that a deputation from all the Liberal consti-
tuencies in the kingdom had been present in the
House from five to six o'clock last evening. That
scene might have convinced them that it was not
this or that party that obstructed Reform, but the
secret reactionary spirit of a whole House of triflers
and egotists, who have not even the courage of
indifference, and who hate all sincerity with the
hatred of the condemned for the criminal who has
confessed. We were seasonably reminded yester-
day by an esteemed correspondent of the cir-
cumstances under which the present House of
Commons came into being. This House is the
creation and the legacy of a Premier of eighty,
with all the illusions and aspirations of that age.
In the image of that English TA LLETRAND the
present House of Conunons was created. And it
has proved itself not unworthy of the author of its
being. Had Lord PA LMERATON been spared to
lead it with the playful austerity of his second
youth in the ways of pleasantness, his Liberal
majority might have remained to this day unde-
tected and perhaps unsuspected by the country,
as a body of gentlemen in favour of Parliamentary
Reform. It has been the misfortune of their
destiny to lose a chief under whom they might
have fought sham battles without danger, and run
away from false colours without dishonour. Let
us believe that it is a providential dispensation that
has tested the qualities of this Liberal majority
under a fighting chief and in a real warfare.
The constituencies now know what this Chelan
introuraLk of Liberal-Conservatives and Con-
servative-Liberals, the legacy of an octogenarian
Whig Premier, is worth. Last year there was
the Liberal Cave, but let us do the justice to those
original Adullsmites to own that their hostility to
Reform was comparatively, in Mr. Lowe's case
absolutely, sincere. This year we have the snug
little Tea-room party of thoroughgoing Li-
berals and ardent Reformers who, in their
eagerness to push forward to universal
suffrage under Mr. Disesxm's auspices, leave
their own too cautious leader in the lurch at the
moment when his trumpets have sounded the
advance. Such at least was the interpretation of
the conduct of the Tea-room party until last even-
ing. But Lord GROSVENOR'S unexpected move-
ment, the result it should seem of a sudden and
unshared inspiration of that eminent but irre-
sponsible statesman, suggests the doubt whether
it was not the guardian spirit of Lord nubile/molt
that presided over the deliberations of the Tea-
room ; the spirit of dilatory prudence, of judi-
cious procrastination, of amicable adjournment,
of wise delay. Will it be believed by the
outside world that Lord Geoierzeoe proposed
last evening to postpone the Committee on the
Reform Bill until after the Easter Recess in order
to save time, to secure the safe passing of the
Bill, by some compromise which the Recess should
bring forth t What sort of compromise, and how
it was to be agreed upon, Lord GROSVENOR forebore
to state too precisely ; apparently it was to be
the result of deliberations more private and less
Parliamentary than those of the Tea-room, and
the product of s mutual desire to "settle" the linea-
tion, as questions are apt to be settled by arbi-
trators who care nothing for the principles and
very little fur the interests of the contending par-

THE

ties. It will be noted as a chareateristic of the
present House that it recognized in Lord
Gaosiverroa a true representative of " the mil-
" lions," and listened to hint as to the
oracle of the British Constitution. For-
tunately, the noble Earl's modesty surpasses
even the confidence of his followers ; and though
Lord ELato, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Dittivr.,l sup-
ported his motion, he had the good sense to with-
draw it ; but not until it had done good public
service in tearing off a few more Liberal masks.
The logic of adjourning the Committee for three
weeks in order to save time and hasten the settle-
ment of Reform is contained in the well-known lines:
My wound is great because it is so small.—

Then 'twould be greater if 'twere none at all.
Neither Mr. GLADSTONE, nor Mr. BRIOHT, nor
Mr. WHITBREAD (who spoke admirably to the
point and with the accent of undeniable sincerity),
nor Mr. Osaoaas (who hit very straight and
very bard), nor even Mr. Disitaxm (at the
last moment) could understand how three weeks'
delay would expedite the passage of the Bill. But
the audacious simplicity of the suggestion and its
reception by certain Liberals proved at least that
neither Reform, nor the Constitution, nor the
country at large, will lose much by the decease of
a Parliament of which the beat that can be said is,
that like the Judah of the Prophet, "the whole
" head is sick and the whole heart faint."

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)