The Express.
London, England, 1859-06-11 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 11.

Arrest three nights' debate the House of Commons,
recently chosen, has decided by a majority of 13
that the Administration of Lord DERBY is not
entitled to public confidence. This decision has
been come to on no single question, nor on any
narrow view. Other administrations have fallen
through the folly or petversity of particular
individuals whom their colleagues would not or
could not abandon, and for whose blunders they
submitted to be punished. The Government of
Lord Deane has been put an end to by the House
of Commons on no such special ground. It has
been tried as a whole, calmly and deliberately, in
matters of external policy and of domestic legisla-
tion ; end as a whole it hie been condemned.
Particular 'petters in debate may have dwelt
with peculiar emphasis on particular faults
and shortcomings; but the general scope and
tenor of the discussion now concluded, has been com-
prehensive and exhaustive. They have been con-
demned as much for what they have not done as for
what they have prolived to do. Their India Bill
and their Jew Bill they hardly venture to claim as
their own. Their Church-rate Bill and their Reform
Bill were scouted by the late Prcliament, and con-
tessedly were not to have been brought forward
again in this. In Colonial affairs they haveattempted
nothing of importance, save the reform of the lonian
constitution, on which in charity we shall not dwell.
In diplomacy their sins of omission have been only
equalled by those of commission. Had they warned
Austria in time of that which they, es the rulers of
this country, ought to have known, and ought to have
uttered, namely, that under no circumstances could
England lend her sanction or her aid to the perpetua.
tion of Italian slavery, end that, es far as the influence
of her advioe and counsel could extend, it would be
exerted to withhold other nations from armed inter-
position against Sardinia, it is po-sibte, nay pro-
bable, that Austria would have yielded to the moral
necessity of the case without trying the fortune of
war. Her power, which Lord DERBY and his col-
leagues are so fond of declaring necessary for the
equilibrium of Europe, might have been preserved
from humiliation and disaster, and Italy might have
been emancipated without being first turned into a
field of blood. But the imbecility and obstinacy of
the English Government during the last six months
has proved as fatal to the object of their friendship
as to that of their aversion. Miserable comforters
have they proved to despotism selfish, timid, and
faithless has their friendship proved. Up to the
hour when Lord COWLEY quitted Vienna not a
syllable was spoken or written by Lord MALNIEB-
BURY, or by those acting under him abroad, which
could lead the Austrian Government to doubt that it
possessed the confidence and the sympathy of the
British Government ; and a great deal too much
was said by leading members of that Government in
Parliament, still more by the representatives of
that Government at foreign Courts, calculated to
create the conviction that as soon u this country
was prepared the weight of her shield, if not
that of her sword, would be thrown into the scale
against the Allies. Yet, what have we heard dur-
ing the last few days? No sooner are the
un-English accomplices in Austrian oppression
put upon their trial than to save them-
selves they repudiate their principal, disown
the policy they have hitherto pulsated, and at the
very moment when discomfiture and loss sit heavily
on the haughty heart' of their Austrian friends, they
are not ashamed to protest vehemently their inno-
cence of the sympathy and approval they have
hitherto professed. Mean and miserable as this
political cowardice is, the effect of it abroad is still
more grave than the disgust it is calculated to create
at home. It is conduct like this which tends to give
...cation to enemies of England to accuse her foreign
policy of bed faith. No accusation can possibly be
more detrimental or mischievous; yet no accusation
is more likely to be made, so long as the conduct
of our external affairs is entrusted to men who
have the arrogance to speak confidently in
the name of the country, without having
the discernment to comprehend what the unspoken
judgment of the country will be. And Lord 'lease
and his colleagues are about to fall because they
could not escape from the dilemma of either having
tried to commit the country to the tide in the pre-
sent quarrel which they knew it loathed, or of
having been fatuously blind to the national feeling
and will.

It is matter for deep satisfaction that in the vote of
last night the Liberal party of all shades have
acted so thoroughly in unison. The exceptions are
so few as not to be deserving of any serious consi-
deration. We did not for • moment believe the ranks
of the Opposition could be thinned by the wane
end unparliamentary expedients which have been
employed within these few days; nor that bribes,
even though offensively obtruded upon honourable
men by Cabinet Ministers, could save the Govern-
ment. On the other bend, we never expected a very
large majority in a direct vote of censure like that
which has been carried. We always made allow-
ance for the indisposition that is always
felt by a certain class of minds to pro-
nounce • severe sentence even when they feel it
to be deserved. It would notoriously have been
eviler to carry a hostile vote upon the first of the
blunders which the Government were sure to have
made, judging from their confirmed habits in this
respect. To members elected for the first tiro* there
was, moreover, something in the plausible plea of its
being a hardship to condemn a set of men as in-
competent, the proofs of whose incompetence had
chiefly been rendered to a former Parliament. Bat
the strong and steady good sense of the country has
made itself felt in the speeches and votes of an all but
unanimous Liberal Party. Mr. ROEBUCK and Mr.
LienaaT have tatlod to find followers is the