The Express.
London, England, 1868-05-08 00:00:00

THE DIVISIONS.

Tea divisions in the House of Commons last
nightahow us " confusion worse confounded." Libe-
rals and Conservatives vote together pell-mell, and
while the Cabinet walk out of the chamber in a
body, the subordinate members of their Go-
vernment vote like ordinary party men.
Mr. Aytoun's resolution, disqualifying Roman
Catholics in particular for the reception of any
part of the secularised funds of the Anglican
Church, or of " any State funds whatever," was
supported by the votes of Mr. Adderley, the Soli-
' citor-General, Mr. G. J. Noel, Sir G. Montgomery,
Sir J. Fergusson, the Attorney-General for Ireland,
Mr. C. Du Cane, Mr. Sciater-Booth, and Sir John
Hay, while their chiefs of the Cabinet were absent
to a man. Mr. Aytoun, on the other hand, had the
support of Liberals like Lord Ernest Bruce, Sir
W. Russell, Mr. Wahlegrave-Leslie, and Mr.
Whalley ; and was opposed by Lord Bing-
ham, Mr. R. P. Dawson, Mr. *J. M. Gaskell,
Mr. J. G. King, Lord Robert Montagu, Mr. G.
Morris, Mr. D. Pugh, Mr. Waterhouse, and M,r.
P Wyndham, who are Conservatives, Lord R.
Montagu being a member of the Govern-
ment. In the Parliamentary paper there
is evidently a mistake as to the tellers ;
Mr. Whitbread and Sir John Gray, who
are put down as tellers for Mr. Aytoun'a resolu-
tion, having acted as tellers against it ;
while Mr. Aytoun and Mr. Lamont, who are
described as tellers for the " Noes,"
were, of course, the tellers on the opposite
side. The second division, which took
place at the instance of Mr. Greene, who moved
" That no part of the endowments of the Anglican
" Church be applied to the endowment of the
" institutions of other religious communions,"
adds to the medley. In this case the
Cabinet did vote, and that with the minority.
Mr. Greene had the support of the following
members of the Cabinet in hie anti-endow-
ment proposition :—Mr. Disraeli, Lord Stanley,
Mr. Gathorne Hardy, Sir J. Pakington,
Sir S. Northcote, Lord J. Manners, and the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Chief Secretary
for Ireland, and his colleague Colonel Wilson
Patten, neither voted nor paired. With the
Ministers were a few Liberals, viz.:—Mesas.
Aytoun, J. Candlish, R. Dalglish, C. Ewing, H.
Foley, W. Fordyce, I. Holden, A. Kinnaird,
J. Lamont, A. Lusk, D. M'Laren, John
Stuart Mill, W. Miller, W. Morrison, Sir
W. Russell, C. R. Talbot, P. A. Taylor,
G. Waldegrave-Leslie, G. Whalley, and J. Wyld.
With two or three exceptions these gentlemen re-
present Scotch constituencies. Three Conservatives
opposed the amendment, namely, Lord Bingham,
Dlr. Earle, and Col. Vandeleur. Sir Roundell
Palmer was absent from both divisions. Mr. John
Stuart Mill voted against Mr. Aytoun's
motion, but in favour of Mr. Greene's ; Lord R.
Montagu in the latter cane was absent. Altogether
the much-vaunted unity of the Ministers lists is
curiously illustrated by last night's exhibition.

We get at the unromantic aide of the Abys-
sinian expedition in a return issued this morning
for the information of Parliament from the India-
office. Writing to the Treasury on the
3rd ult. Lord CLINTON says that the charges
in India and England to the end of
the present month will probably amount
to about five millions sterling, the intimation being
added that the estimate must be regarded as ap-
proximate only. This sum is considerably in ex-
cess of the amount shown in the previous estimate,
made up to the end of April, after allow-
' ing for the additional month's expenditure ;
but it is even now admitted that the calcu-
lation is framed on incomplete data, and we are
told that Mr. TURNS; who drew up the estimate,
has " preferred to give totals which will doubtless
" prove to be considerably under the actual;
" when brought to account, than otherwise." The
difficulty in the way of preparing anything like an
accurate account of the probable expenditure
seems to be attributable to the government of
Bombay, to whom repeated applications have been
made for information, but without effect. The
total cost of the expedition for the five months
ending the 31st May, with the addition of
140,0001., to be paid on account of the
Indian store department to the end of June, is
5,351,0001. Of this sum 1,039,0001. will be
disbursed by the imperial government, and
4,312,0001. technically by the government of
India, the charges on the former being confined to
the payment of 650,0001., for Admiralty
ships, coals, and provisions, and 389,0001. for
mules, stable gear, &c. It was calculated that
from the Ist of January tha expense would be at the
rate of 370,0001. a month; but it has been found
that many of these items, sea transport especially,
were very greatly under-estimated ; and the
transport alone is shown to be nearly 400,0001.
a month, which is intelligible enough when it is
considered that in the baggage train alone
there are no leas than 45 elephants,
8,000 camels, 16,960 mules, and 5,000 bullocks,
the forage of which, and the pay of their attend-
ance, wet something like 90,0001. a month. It
is fortunate for English taxpayers that the expe-
dition was brought to so speedy a close, for,
were it to be continued beyond the 31st of
May, we are told by Major-General Jaireiqx,
the auditor, that it would be safe to calculate u
an increased charge df 600,000/. a month. '
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