The Express.
London, England, 1861-08-06 00:00:00

TO OUR READERS.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

A rate edition of the Emma is published every
eveuing during the racing season, containing the
results of the day's races.

AT the clam of each Legislative Year we have been
accustomed to write ite epitaph; and if the pen has
sometimes bad to record acts that must ever remind
us of days of national privation and pain, it has
much oftener performed the more agreeable duty of
chronicling the enactment of wise laws, and the
development of a great progressive policy. Years
of famine, distress, and war, have had their ap-
propriate parliamentary memorials, in statutes
which, though temporary•, were deemed indispen-
sable to meet the exigencies of the time, and wb"ch
therefore superseded by general consent the bad
considered projects of permanent improvement.
The practical instinct of the country bade it be con-
tent with having that sort of work done carefully
and well which could not be properly postponed,
and prompted it to look with confidence to less
troubled days for the resumption of the onward
course of legislative amelioration. Nor boo Pan
liament been slow to appreciate and acknowledge
this disposition on the part of the people to let
everything be done atthe right time, when a choice
was to be made between measures of exigency
and measures meant rather for the wel-

fare of the future than of the passing hour.
The probable approach of war was voted enough
in 1854 to warrant the laying aside of long-ma-
tured proposals of reform ; and on several auk,:
quent occasions excuses more or leas tangible were
resorted to readily, and in a certain sense success-
fully, to stave off the realiat►on of pledges which
too many had rather break than keep. In 1866
the settlement of the terms of peace was said to
be as much as Parliament could reasonably be ex-
pected to think of. In 185 i a general election in
April broke the Se lion in two ; and in 18b8 who
could think of anything but the Indian Mutiny
lu 1859 a change of Ministry and another dissolu-
tion were held to be a justification for no attempt
to pan great or comprehensive measures ; and
in 1860 the French Commercial Treaty was made
to preoccupy the time that might otherwise have
been devoted to them. But what of the Session
of 1861, or how will the future annalist
account of its six months of garrulous inanity
and little or nothing done I The Legislative
Year has come and gone, and with two cie
three small exceptions all things remain as they
were. The Bankruptcy Bill, shorn of its original
proportions, and the Irremoveable Poor
Bill have, indeed, been passed. The long
contested controversy about the Paper Duty has
been brought to a close ; and having said this, we
have come to the end of the shabby tale of the
legislative labours done. It is a miserable reck-
oning, look at it how you will. Blame has been
cast on Ministers and blame on the Opposition, and
both deserve to bear their share of it. But the
serious question for the public is—if this be done
in the green tree, what may be looked for in the
dry t If amid general peace and general pro.-
perity, with abundance of food and employment at
home, and externally no movement or menace
on the part of any of our neighbours
that ought to make us afraid —if with
the consciousness of palomino' infinitely greater
means of national defence than we have ever had
before, and a knowledge that a greater number of
our population than in any former period have
the means of employment and education—if in
such a state of things Parliament is not ashamed
to sit sod e'er and scuffle for six months, with-
out redeeming one of the promises it made to the
people when it was elected, what are they to expect
from it should evil days come, when the national
faith would be put to the proof and the national
resources once more tested to the utmost 1

In two great and vital matters it is impossible
to exonerate Ministers from primary respcominlity
in this matter. Retrenchment and Reform wens
demanded of them at the beginning of the year, and
with good moon, for nothing can be more unsatis-
factory, by it own confession, than the amount
of national expenditure, and the anomalous state
of the national representation. "Seed we quote
Mr. (Itsowrost as an authority on the one hand,
or Lord Humeu on the other? We do not, be-
cause it would seem almost like trifling to do so.
The foreman man in the House of Commons,
having charge of the finances of the empire, avows
that seventy millions is a SIM vastly too great
to be spent in time of peace ; yet he and his col-
leagues persist in spending it, and not an effort is
made or a proposal introduced to mitigate the
evil. Five millions of men who pay taxes, and
who live loyally, peaceably, and industriously in
the United Kingdom, are denied all semblance of
a place in the constitution, while corruption and
nomination are allowed to dictate how a great pro-
portion of the members of the Legislature should be
chosen ; yet the foremost man in the House of
Peers, while declaring that he has not renounced
his conviction of the danger and detriment of
such a condition of things, has suffered him-
self to be bullied or cajoled into renouncing
the attempt to amend it. In former years
we were told to wait for Retrenchment and Re-
form ; this year we have been legislatively told
that we need wait no longer, unless, indeed, we
are prepared to take the matter practically oat of
the halide of Parliament, and, as in 1831 and
1848, to decide by agitation out of doors what
Parliament must do. What the people will deem