The Express.
London, England, 1867-09-06 00:00:00

BBITANYIA.

TPIZR EVIIIIIIIO, THE MAN IW TILE RED MANSION; OIL
THE DAY 4 or MAIM: AND/INECTIL —The Champion
'Asters; Mr. P6enre,el; Mr. k M. Coleman and Mr. Brown.—
AM THE MLA; OIL THE OCEAN CHILD.

MON WAT!R AT LONDON DRIDOIL
TWO DAT —Morub.A. en. Aoun Attentees. Th. Ste.
To•MOnnow—Morning. In Um Afternoon, In. S&L

LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6.

kr is impossible not to feel for Conservrtive
members of Parliament in the trying ordeal
through which they are now called to pass. Week
by week we hear of some of them coming face to
face with their constituents, and attempting vr:th
such excuses as they can frame, and in such lan-
guage as they can find, to apologise for themselves,
their party, and their work. We can well imagine
with what intense appreciation they remember
that silence is golden, and how they envy the
happy few whose tenant constituencies impose on
them no necessity fur speech. But custom decrees
that most of them must meet their constituents,
and when they meet them they must find
something to say. In ordinary times this i•
rather a trying necessity to country gentlemen,
who aro better at following a leader, even
over a rough country, than in giving an account of
their journey ; but at the present time, when they
have ridden pell-mell the wildest steeplechase on
record, even gaping rustics are curious to know how
they felt, sad behind the crowd of gaping rustics
there is the listening, if not admiring world. It
would, of course, he an altogether different thing
if any credit were to be got out of the affair, but
in the present case all that can even be attempted
is to avoid discredit as much as possible. A
splendid race, well run, and nobly won, might be
a thing to boast of ; but • wild goose chase after
an erratic loader, ending with " a leap in the
" dark," is at the best only to be
apologised for and excused. But such is the

irony of circumstance that in very self-defence
they must accuse their former selves, and in
their apologies for their policy they condemn
gpd, deny their principles. They resisted
_ _

Wt year, but have a'uZ.l.4l34elded this. They
branded Mr. GLADI4TONZ as a I.:v9tintienist then
for a mild proposal of progressive Refnnr. ;
have now to praise Mr. DISIUELI as a Conserva-
tive statesman for a democratic and, in the view

of all their principles, a revolutionary Act.
They prophesied the ruin of our freedom, and the
. collapse of our institutions, as the result of a
small reduction of the borough franchise; they
have now to prophesy the strengthening of those
institutions and the expansion of that liberty
as tho result of its reduction to the
ultimate limit of household suffrage. Perhaps
it is a little to their credit that they find
this work too distasteful and difficult. As men
who have prided themselves on their political
honesty never were politicians in a more sorry
. . .

plight. They have had their unprincipled triumph,
and now cornea the inevitable exhaustion. Inthe
long nights of the session they had their political
debauch, and the long days of summer have
brought their political penance.
The latest penance of this kind was that pub-
licly perfumed in a tent at Bleeder, on Tuesday
last, by the three members for the county of Ox-
ford. Mr. HENLEY in his addresses to his con-
stituents has usually said something worth hearing,
and his strong common-sense, his class pre-
judices as a country gentleman, and his long con-
nexion with bucolic politics have rendered him
in many respects a representative man. But his
apology for tho great constitutional change in
which he has taken so prominent a part only re-
vealed the existence in himself of the misgivings
he was attempting to allay in others. " They had
" now hardly anything to talk of but the future.
" They had had plenty of the past." But what
of the future 7 " All that could be hoped was
" that the people would gain what they had for
" the last fourteen years been taught they
it ought to gain." That is a very legitimate
hope, and one likely to be fulfilled. But for the
last fourteen years it has certainly not been Mr.
HENLEY and his party who have taught the people
that they ought to gain anything by Reform.
Their cry has been, Why do you want Reform ;
what do you expect to gam by it
and their policy has been persistently to
represent that the people had nothing to gain and
everything to lose by a measure of constitutional
Reform. It is the Liberal party who have taught
the people fur the last fourteen years what they
ought to gain by Reform, and the Conservative
party have always resisted, and will continue to
resist, the important measures which the people
demand. But though they had had plenty of
the past, Mr. HENLEY could not leave it entirely
unnoticed. His own personal share in the Reform
Act needed some explanation to his constituents,
and all that he can say is, that " he was one of
" those who fur the last fourteen years having
" seen successive Prime Ministers put into the
" Quesx's mouth words in which they were
" told they ought to have an extension
" of the suffrage, chose no longer to play the
" humbug, and thought it necessary honestly to
" settle the question if it was possible to do so."
That would be an excellent excuse if the settle.
ment had been made on Conservative principles,
or if the moderato measure of a Liberal Govern-
ment had been accepted. If Mr. HENLEY and his
party had let the " little Bill " of last year pass,
nothing would have been fitter than that they
should say to the country, " We chose no longer
" to play the humbug, and as this was an honest
" settlement of the question we thought it neces-
" sary to accept it." But what honesty can there