The Express.
London, England, 1868-01-24 00:00:00

TIIE CONSERVATIVE DEMONSTRATION.

The nars represents the censer% ativea as leaving
the positions and passes behind which they have been so
long ensconced, and coming into the open field on which
the whigs have hitherto operated. Lord Stanley's lan-
guage on the subject of education and the Irish church is
very different from that which 35 years ago, and still more
recently, expressed the common creed of statesmen, di•
vines, philosophers, sages, madmen, and impostors, landed
by stress of polities on the conservative shore. After
fighting a lasing battle for many years by • series of
obstructive antagonisms. the conservatives are at length
better advised. Lord Stanley, and, in his own way, the
Home Secretary, will be understood as declaring that their
view of conservatism is progressive, not obstructive ; and
that they feel they can trust the nation at large, the newly-
created constituency, and the parliament it is likely to
return.

TheDerlp News says her Majesty's ministers will be
known in history as the convivial administration. Go-
vernment by banquets is a part of the new conservative
theory, but nevertheleu a duller piece of festivity than
the Bristol dinner cannot be imagined. Possibly Lord
Stanley was weighed down by his companion Secretaries
State. Programme there is none—Sir J. Pakington and
Mr. Hardy saying nothing by • natural gift, and Lord
Stanley by an acquired art. One thing, however, must be
said of his lordship—that he does not pretend to con-
sistency. All that he ventures to assert for himself and
his colleagues is that they " did not lightly abandon the
cause which they undertook to defend." Mr. Disraeli's
aseertion that the government favoured household suffrage
ever since 1859 is • statement which no one is surprised at

in Mr. Dinmeli, but neither Lord Derby nor Lord Stanley
has ever condescended to it. In his language on Ireland
Lord Stanley asserts in the most mischievous way
the irresponsibility of the government to the governed,
and his taunts and imputations are as inflammatory as
any thing the Irishman could publish. Though it may
be inferred that he i in favour of a liberal scheme of
popular instruction, his language is hesitating, and that
of the Home Secretary does not accord with it.
The Herald and the Standard regard the banquet as a

display of party strength and ministerial ability. The
liberals pretend to trust the people, but Lord Stanley and
his colleagues, observes the latter, have trotted them.
Lord Stanley has given concise and vigorous expression to
the national sentiment. The country feels that its honour
and interests are mete in the hands of Earl Derby and his
congeries, and it will not tolerate the attempt of a faction
to drive them from office by making party questions of
greet social reforms, which require for their success that
they should be considered without party bias, and for the
preparation of which no men are better qualified than the
present ministers of the crown.
The Tdegropl describes Lord Stanley as skating over
the thin ice of Irish questions with the wariness of an
experienced practitioner he cuts no figures, aims at no
graces ; be glides quietly sad quickly over a surface
marked " dangerous."
, The Star records with satisfaction its belief that the
capacity of the ministry for evil is greatly lessened by
every such illustratioa as Lord Stanley bee now gives of
the fitfulness and falseness of the libendiern which toeyhon
finds itself compelled hypocritically to prams.
I The Pod regards the banquet se an indication that the