The Express.
London, England, 1856-05-26 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, MAY 26.

TUE actual state of Her Msnurrr's Opposition
begin, to cause us unaffected concern. To friendship
or intimacy we lay no claim; and to sympathy
founded on soy other feeling than that of ordinary
humanity we can make no profession.. The con-
templation of human weakness in its more aggra-
vated forms, however, is always painful; and when
sudden prostration of the mental faculties occurs
before the show of physical strength is wholly lost the
case is rendered peculiarly distressing. It was bet
the other d.y that we beheld the sturdy aspect and
heard the significant laugh of coming triumph. At
Easter there was a certain scornful air of dignity
and forbearance noticeable in every word and gesture,
as tbosgh the official rivals, whose doom was said to
be sealed, were pitied for that they should take so
long to die. At Whitsuntide things had somewhat
changed. " The sick man" was no longer the man
in Downiotstreet, but in Pall-mall; and haughty
accents of compassion have given plus to
grumbling. and murmurings that there was some-
thing unaccountably wrong somewhere, or at least
great want of proper arrangements for the great
political change that was still (though more gravely)
talked of as impending. Within the last fortnight
the condition of things has undergone a more serious
alteration. It is obvious that the mind has become
affected. The most painful symptoms of incoherency,
accompanied with violent spasmodic action in the in-
ferior extremities, and morbid restleasnees at all
times, indicate the presence of some grievous malady,
each as must occasion total incapacity for responsible
duties of an intellectual kind for some dine to oome.
Partial loss of vision, calming the most dangerous
mistakes as to the plainest matters, adds to the com-
plication of the disorder, or rather is to be classed
smug its most lamentable symptoms. In the agony
of unexpected affliction dark insinuations have, we
are told, been thrown out by free-spoken friends—
and there has even been a whisper of " poison," but
we shrink from attaching any credit whatever to the
fearful suspicion that any one long confided in, and
hitherto bearing a character for frankness and fair
dealing, should prove guilty of the unnatural
political act inconsiderately attributed to the bead
consulting doctor of the Tory party. It is indeed
incontestably true that at his instance, on one resent
ciegssion, and under his personal guidance still more
lately, the unfortunate Opposition has with dreadful
deliberation been seen to knock its head against stone
walls of the most apparently obvious solidity; and
we have hardly a doubt, we must say, that the
learned Coroner for Middlesex will feel himself
bound, in eau the act is repeated and death ensues,
to direct a jury to find a verdict of foto de es ander
the influence of insanity, produced by anses un-
known.

Be that as it may, it no longer =mite of metro-
veny that the great Conservative party, as they used
to call themselves, are in a bad way. At the begin-
ning of the session their hopes were high. As fax as
any definite= intelligent intentions could be imputed
to each a body as the present House of Common, it
seemed to be bent on obeying every caprice of the
Carlton; while the House of Lord. was equally is
the humour, se it appeared, to thwart and nullity
every proposal, however useful or innate= that
emanated from the Rummy= administrations In
ens or the other Chamber every Government mem%
whether is form of bill or resommendatioc, intro-
duced by a Minister, wee sammarily cuhioned,
with Use single exception of the Polio* Bill,
and that was compelled to undergo several
amputation& Enumeration would be tedious,
and is altogether unnecessary. The existing
Parliament, true to the purpose for which it was milled
into being in 1852, declared itself on every question
resolved to impede and hours= Liberal legislation
and popular progress. It would neither acknowledge
the right of the Crown to make Life Peers, nor the
right of the people to enjoy an hour's innocent melody
la the parks. It would neither reform Testamentary
Jurisdictions, nor relieve shipping from fraudulent
and oppressive charges. It would neither debate the
question of the Ballot, nor listen to so mush as the
enunciation of a plan to extend and equalise the
Fraschise. It would neither abrogate Ministers'
Money in Ireland, nor adhere to the compact sano-
timed by the House ten years ago to deal with the
grant to Maynooth as an endowment. In a
word, there has been nothing reasonable, wise, or
honest proposed this session which Parliament hss
not oostameliouly spurned at the bidding of the
Opposition; and nothing raischievoo& °eyrie/one, or
Glossies to the mass of the community which it has
sot evinced its resdiness to adopt as soon se sag.
gelded. Yet, strange to esy, in the midst of all this
unparalleled triumph of thwarting and perversity, the
Opposition appears to have boeo stricken with soar
thing worse than paralysis, sod, without a total =-
Unction of power, to have been bereaved of the cape.
hility of distinguishing between what its own
devoted parliament would swallow, and what eves its
Soma= would reject. Everybody bet Lard Dinar aed
hie =cadential assistants in blundering knew, ten
days befogs the WHITESIDE each, was administered,
that the patient would not staid it ; yet, as all the
world knows, the prescription was persisted in with
childish petulance to ludicrous discomfiture. Co-
warned by the mischance in question, Lord Dame,
the other day, ordered a special muster, ander his
ewe personal iospectioe, and entsiauded a form pre-
lude of defiance to be sounded on behalf of oar
national Maritime Rights, about to be perfidiously
surrendered at the bidding of oar meant enemy; yet,
after all the pomp and circumstance of set array aid
protracted battle, this more =comprehensible of com-
manders discovered, or pr tended to discover, for the
first time, that one half of his men were not upon the
groncd, and were not &beet to contribute their firs.
even from a distance, wording to the long range
practice of hereditary warfare. Why they were not
present, or did not vote by proxy in support of a pro-
position so clearly and ooneervatively wrong as that
of Lord COLCHESTER, remains to be explained. Dose
Lord DERBT know the reason why P
Par centavos, we are beginning to get excessively
uneasy at the condition of affairs we have thus briefly
iadieated ra'her than described. With us it has
always been a matter of profound conviction that, for
the well-working of constitutional governasat, a
good, strong, healthy Opposition in lissiutely
ledispensable. We therefore view with appands.
little shut of dismay the sodden prostration d
tt
moral sad iotellectual faculties is the party Aim
dissosaioss occupy so large a space is the oasillis.
tiro of our present Legislator*. We have been OM
costomed to regard that ponderous seas as toe all
riot ice! porpoise the nether-raillitoso of legislation—

impracticable but immovable, not making much of a
show indeed, bat quite essential to the great work of
grinding new wants and old remedies int. one uni-
form mw of sound law. What is to become of as if
the millstone is broken—broken into many and an-

guise fragments, some of them difficult to find, others
very disagreeable to meet with P

By a report inserted in another column, it will be
seen that at the meeting of the Carlton Club on
Saturday' Lord Ranelagh's motion was not pushed
to a division, but that there was • pretty
strong and general expr• lesion of opinion that mem-
bers of the club should abstain from using it so long
as they hold office under a liberal government, or
habitually support the liberal party. Every man
with the feelings of a gentleman must cordially oon-
our in this view. For our part, we are dis-
posed to go a little further. It does appear
to us that any person remaining • member
of a party club atter he has left the party,
thereby indicates that he contemplates the possibility
of his again joining it. What faith Gan the people
have in the sincerity of public men, when they see
them in the vere act of apostasy making arrange-
ments for being reconciled at some future period to
their original church ? The inevitable inference is,
that the principles professed for the moment by those
political Dvald Dalgetties are merely the uniforms
of the armies in which they are serving at the time.
Hence, it would follow that political clubs are mere
houses of call for unemployed politicians, at which
any firm—Whig, Tory, or Radical—may apply with
a tertainty of finding workmen.