The Express.
London, England, 1867-07-23 00:00:00

1101 sS OF LORDS.—I.AST NIGHT'S DEBATE.

The Daily News does nut estimate the oratorical
merits of last night's debate very highly. The only speech
which rose above the dull level of common-place was that
of Lord Carnarvon. The peers are but gleaner. in a well-
reaped field, and the interest attached to the pro-
ceedings was personal rather than directly political.
Lord Derby's own conduct being incapable of defence
he dexterously assumed the offensive-- feeling himself
reduced to the necessity of making the most petty and
gratuitous assaults upon the conduct of Lord Russell and
the temper of Mr. Gladstone. His historic review of the
course of the reform question from the Act of 1832 to the
bill of the present year was a petulant personal polemic.
The experience and comp anionshipof the last 15 years have
not been favourable to him. The tortuous tactics, the lax
principle or renunciation of all principle, the smooth flat-
teries,oonverted at the last moment intoeynical effrontery,
which have marked the conduct of the present Chancellor
of the Exchequer inspire the speech of the Prime Minister.
The Daily Ness then having extracted a passage from his
lordship's speech condenses its meaning, and says the thing
lies in a nutshell. Office for the sake of his party ; and a
reform bill in order to secure a working majority and a
lengthened tenure of office. The speeches of last night add
additional touches to the picture of political demoralisa-
tion and factious self-seeking which the debates of the
House of Commons have delineated.
The contrasts the scene in the House of Lords
lest evening with the events which those whose memories
can travel back to 1832 oars recaL Examining his lord-
ship's retrospect of the Reform agitation the rinses finds
it hard to reconcile some of his statements with those of
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and thinks it a little re-
markable that the fact of his lordship's conversion in 1859
to household suffrage was never revealed till now.
The assertion that the Conservative party offered
no opposition to the bill of last year is some-
thing very interesting, and sheds much light on the
credibility of history. As to Lord Grey, when he
averted that the will of the House of Comu.ons is neces.
sarily supreme, he virtually cut away the ground from
under his amendment, and the Times can only regret that
he did not formally signify last night his intention to
withdraw it.

The Post says that Lord Derby's speech is unexampled
in the annals of parliamentary history. That it should
have been made by Mr. Disraeli was likely enough, but
that it should have been made by the Earl of Derby the
Poet would, until yesterday, have pronounced to be
impossible.
The Conservative journals confine themselves to a reca-
pitulation of the chief heads of Lord Derby's speech, which
they characterise in the ordinary terms of laudation.
The Teleiraph feels bound to do Lord Derby the justice
to say that he brims over with homage to the principle of
household suffrage, quoting Mr. Henley and Sir Roundel'
Palmer as its epoesors ; and he professes a confidence in
the new class of voters as full as that which animates the
most unimpeachable reformer. When we smile at his in-
consistencies we may set this down to his credit, and
rejoice that he has brought the Tory party from the ends
of the earth to pass a Radical Reform Bill.

While allowing Lord Carnarvon's rebuke of the govern-
ment to be a fit punishment for so unblushing a confession
as its chief had made of the low motives with which he
bad been actuated, the Star says it would be unpardonable
if Liberal peers had been carried away by the disgust natu-
rally created by such avowals, and had joined Earl Grey
in his resistance to the bill. The bill having been made
in spite of its promoters, it will receive in the upper, as in
the lower home, the cordial Rapport of every genuine
liberal.