The Express.
London, England, 1868-05-01 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, 31.11 I.

THE MIN .I..:TERI. L

THE division in the Leese of Commons at
2 a.m. May morning, I 463, will be remembered
as one ' f the most remarkable events in the par-
liament:-.r history of England. No division of
greater or of equal importance has occurred for
thirty-six years. The division that abolished the
Corn Laws, and completed the discomfiture
of the Conservative i arty by the self-sacri-
fice of its great leader in Di 46, is scarcely to be
compared in significance with that which has
signed i':e fate of the Established Church in Ire-
land. .‘l'hatever may be the consequences, imme-
diate or remote, of this victory and this defeat,
the darn of this May 'Homing may be hailed
as the dayspriug of a new era in the rela-
tions of treat Britain with her sister island, and
in the la hey of the Liberal patty in the United
Kingdom. The House elected under the auspices
of Lord PAL !tt ER-sroN to do nothing but
sit still and enjoy tire ease accorded to
old age has regained in its last days, if not
notnethiPg of the vigour and the ardour of youth,
at least the courage and the dignity to set its hand
to a so:eenn testament of j!•,tice, and to redeem its
honour, too long at the mercy of tricksters and
trifiers, by a dying mandate and a supreme atone-
ment. The result of these eleven nights' debate
consigns to oblivion the weary, stale, flat, and
improtiteble speeches which consumed the lan-
guiahing hours almost from the going down to the
rising .a the sun. There never was any moral
doubt of the issue, and all the energy and the ski'l
of a Minster who is nothing if not a parliatnentar:
tactician, seemed to be exhausted in putting off
front night to night the inevitable end. Every
semblance of an argument, every shred and patch
of reasoning or prejudice, had been worn to tatters
before the Easter recess. This week has been
abandoned to the license of iterations. Living
voices were heard before Easter ; this week the
House has been a hall of barren echoes. Obscure
and irresponsible declaimers below the gangway and
behind the Treasury bench have vied in dulness
and dreariness with obscure and irresponsible
supernumeraries front the Departments. Rural
constituencies, which seldom find utterance,
have displayed the wisdom of their choice to a
sleeping er empty Chamber. Even Sotnersetahire,
that bemitiful Ikeotia of the West, which deserves to
be called "the silent county," has actually given
tongue during the dinner hour. Once and again, in-
deed, 11,,nest and respectable prejudice has asserted
itself with a dignity that deserved attention
and challenged reply, but the most authorita-
tive and weighty of these defenders of
the pact, even Sir WILL:AM HILATHOOTE and
Mr. WALPOLE, have only succeeded by force
of manner, and we may add of character, is
lending a momentary grace to that prophetic

fallacy whioh consists in conjuring up:a lamentsbi• 1
picture of woes and calamities to coma This indeed
is what ordinarily passes for argument with even
the most enlightened of the Conservative party.
It was the burden of all the maledictions against
Mr. Gt./anomie Reform Bill, as it had been the
burden of all:their maledictions, or of the maledic-
tions of their predecessors against the Corn Law
abolition and the first Reform Bill. Ea 3 it been
the deliberate purpose of Ministers to smother the
Irish Church debates under the weight of universal
weariness within and without the House, it must
be owned that the design was justified by its suc-
cess. In spite of the public meetings in the capital,
and the kindling agitation throughout the country,
in spite of the Pureien's letter-writing, there has
scarcely been a trace since Monday last of the popu-
lar animation and public interestwhich attended the
debates before the holidays. The galleries have
only been moderately full ; the House itself so far
from full that it needed all the vigilance and activity
of the Liberal Whip to keep a quorum together last
Tuesday. Unknown members, whose constituencies
it seems are anxiousto be heard on such an occasion,
have wasted their eloquence on the desert air, while
the Treasury Bench was thinly garnished by a soli-
tary subaltern.

It was not until Mr. GLADSTONE rose at
midnight, after in vain waiting for the
PRINT MINISTER to break silence, that the
House really warmed to the work. Then the
signs of an approaching crisis were manifest
at once in Palace-yard and in Westminster-hall,
alike in the precincts and the body of the House,
in the close-packed benches, the thronging lobbies,
the crowd of members gathering at the bar, the
galleries filled with eager and expectant faces.
If the PREMIER, by depriving the author of the
Resolutions of the right of reply, calculated
on depriving his great rival of an opportunity, he
was most lamentably mistaken. There can be no
question that, according to parliamentary usage,
and indeed, to the usage of discussion in all
assemblies, the last word belonged to the
mover of the Resolutions. We should be sorry
to see the manceuvres of the prize-ring intro-
duced into parliamentary warfare. In a pugilistic
point of view it may be permissible to the weaker
man, without the imputation of foul play, to use
any means to avoid " punishment." But. surely
in a great party fight in the House of Commons
other rules obtain, and the man who strikes the
first fair blow should strike the last. At all events
Mr. DISRAELI has gained very little by his last
manoeuvre. Mr. GLADSTONE was not to be de-
frauded of his vindication. Instead of being more
or less on the defenaive, as he must have been in
summing up the debate in a reply of his own, he
was compelled to anticipate and to exhaust the
possibilities of a reply from the Minister who was
to follow him ; and he found room and verge
to notice with infinite acorn and with condign
severity some former passages in this protracted
contest, and some irregular operations in " another
" place." Mr. Ozansroxr has often spoken with more
vehemence than he did this morning ; never, we
believe, has he spoken with a more intense, con-
centrated, determined energy of conviction and of
purpose. Even in his manner the consciousness
of a just cause and of an assured victory was visible.
Instead of driving home his sentences by incessant
blows upon the table, he stood with folded arms and
his eyes fixed upon the First Minister of the
Crown, and measured out his words with a cold,
calm, contemptuous, merciless deliberation, a lofty
and resolute decision, as though he were passing
sentence rather than answering attacks, and
performing a solemn act of justice rather than de-
fending a cause. Once or twice perhaps he seemed
to be rather the executioner than the judge.
Nor was the result doubtful. So accurately had
the estimate of the division been taken early in the
evening that " sixty-five" was the number fixed for
the majority. If Mr. DISRAELI'S reply before
Easter was a paroxysm, his reply this morning was
a collapse. The clock was perhaps his beat
friend, for ho rose and sank into his seat
like a shattered and hopeless leader of a party
which had not even:the heroism of a forlorn hope to
cheer its discomfiture. We cannot say whether
the few words he pronounced after the divi-
sion surprised the Committee. This was a penal
division, no doubt. Was a penal division to be
followed by a penal dissolution? and a penal disso-
lution by a penal vote of a new Parliament next
month? Few believe that even Mr. DISP.AELI
would attempt to pursue so desperate a course,
even were it barely constitutional, even were it
not an outrage which hie own supporters would re-
sent at least as much as his antagonists. It is more
than doubtful whether the state of public busi-
ness would permit a course which could only add
discredit and disgrace to defeat. Surely it is more
probable that Mr. DISRAELI will accept the decision
of the House of Commons with the best grace
ho can consistent with remaining in office, though
not in power, until the earliest poisible appeal
to the new constituencies.

THE *EXPRESS, F