The Express.
London, England, 1868-08-01 00:00:00

THE WEEKLY PRESS.

The Saturday Review briefly recapitulates the
most prominent events of, or connected with, English
history since the passing of the Reform Act of 1832. In
all that constitutes the peculiar inheritance of England,
the country has been since '32 what it was. The Reform
Bill was in itself a great change, and a great cause of
change; but, indisputable as are the changes it has
wrought, it has still left England as it was
in its most important and special features.
In spite of all that was prophesied when the bill of '32 was
pissed, England has for the last thirty-six years been a
country where loyalty baa been rendered with increasing
readiness to one of the best of sovereigns, where the
aristocracy has become richer, more popular, more re-
fined, more bent on doing its duty, and where the popular
element has gained a stronger influence and • more
uncontested supremacy. Lastly, the real life of Eng-
land has remained in parliament; it has not passed into
cliques or coteries, into aristocratic or demagogic
or literary circles ; but the ostensible governors of England
have been the real governors. The House of Commons is
still looked up to as the centre of English life; and in
oratory, in ability, in practical capacity, it has ended as it
began—the first assembly that England could furnish, and
the arbiter of English opinion. Nevertheless, by lapse of
time and change of circumstances a new order of things
was wanted, and it has come. We may be satisfied that it
was right it should come, without thinking that it is going
to bring with it a golden age, or that all that rash men ask
under it should be given them.
The Spectator, characterising the past session as "per-
plexing, and on the whole discreditable," remarks that
Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone have considerably altered
their relative positions as parliamentary leaders in
the eyes of those of the public who are not too
heated by party feelings to form an independent
judgment. Although Mr. Disraeli has shown
nothing like the cleverness and command of the house
which be showed last session, and has displayed an un-
scrupulous solemnity of Protestant zeal which has ren-
dered him nauseous, yet he has struck a series of patient,
skilful, and, so far as they go, successful blows at political
corruption, which impress our contemporary as earning
for him almost his very first true honour in political life.
Mr. Gladstone, on the other hand, has been singularly
sagacious as well as earnest in his larger states-
manship, and on all matters of the first weight
he has grown as rapidly as his rival has dwindled,
but still he has not been free from error
of a vexatious kind, error which was apparent in the
course he pursued with respect to the Corrupt Practices
Bill, the Telegraph Bill, and in the affair with Mr.
Rearden and the deputation of Finlen and his friends.
If the session has taught us anything, it is that, while
Mr. Disraeli's ministerial energy is of the kind which de-
teriorates the more rapidly in its influence the longer it is
applied to political affairs, and the more widely it is dif-
fused, Mr. Gladstone's is of that higher sort which domi-
nates lower purposes, constrains them into unity against
their will, and which will wear far better and win a far
more permanent success in the House of Commons than
Mr. Disraeli's strategic tact and angler-like delicacy of
play.
Although the past session has not been fruitful in
legislative achievements, the London Review quite agrees
with Mr. Disraeli that it has not been wasted. Parlia-
ment is not a mere legislative machine; and the fruits of
its labours are not to be measured by the number of bills
that it has converted into acts. Amongst its most im-
portant functions are the formation of public opinion and
the general direction of the policy of the country. Re-
garded from that point of view, the session which has
just closed has left a decided mark upon the history of
for our times.

Framing the character of the new parliament, the
Saturday Review seems to think that the immediate remit
of the election will be to give Mr. Gladstone an organised
party and a working majority, though Mr. Milner Gibson
and Mr. Ayrton have, by their proceedings on the Foreign
Cattle Market Bill, probably made Mr. Disraeli • present
of a dozen supporters. To some observers the composition
of the new parliament, and the more or less gradual nature
of subsequent changes, will be more interesting than the
overthrow of the ministry, as they will be less certain than
the disestablishment of the Irish Church.
Referring to the hitches which have marred some of
the recent volunteer demonstrations, the Sounitur con-
tends that the heart of volunteering is as sound and true
as ever it was; but its temper has for some time been
tried by the vexations demeanour of those in authority,
and of late) it has been ruffled by the open assumption of
• tone alike ungrateful and unwarrantable. The inex-
cusable neglect to make the common provision requisite
for the transit of large bodies of men to and from the
review ground at Windsor, and the perverse and Pr
terous want of arrangement, whereby they wereTe;
from morn till eve of a hot summer day without food or
drink of any kind, begot, as was but ton natural, a degree
of irritation which led to much irregularity on quitti.'g
the &Id. The com 'ye fewness of those who
mustered at Wimbledon, may, too, be matter for just
regret, though not for reproach. It is, indeed, matter
fur grave inquiry.