The Express.
London, England, 1861-04-24 00:00:00

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LONDON, IVIIIINESDAY, APRIL 24.

Toole who affect to fathom tho perpeas of her
Opposition gravely hint that a fine
strategic 'movement will presently be developed ;
and that the demonstrations made on Mon.

day night are but preliminary and tentative.
The great C'onservative party desires to be thmight
dignified and patriotic in its pursuit of power. It
repudiate, all eager lust of place or pay, and dis-
dain, to hasten by an hour the resumption of
colic, winch it professes to believe to be certain at
no distant day. Mr. BARING more than once in-
sisted in his speech on Monday night how reluc-
tant he would be to precipitate • change of
Government ; and at the close of the debate, Mr.
Li.x itti told the House that he had not yet
nia.le up his mind how ho should vote on
the Resolution which is to form the basis
of Mr. Gtsosvoires fisted scheme, so little
thought has that sometime CBANCIIILLOR of the Ex-
cegvt'►:a of turning the exigencies of the Treasury
to personal or party account. All this, no doubt,
is very philosophic and magnanimous in sound ;
but being rather disappointing in sense to the
numerous followers of the right hon. gentleman, I
another interpretation is put upon it for them ; and
they are assured that if the first act of the per-
formance is suffered to pass without any scene
peculiarly exciting, it will only be to heighten the
effect to be subsequently produced. It is whis-
pered, in short, that while diaclaizning any general
attack on the ministerial plan of finance, because
that, if successful, would involve a change of Go-
vernment, it is intended, when the Bill shall be in
Committee, to do in the Commons what was done
last year in the Lords—namely, to amend Mr.
GLiiii,misa's reckoning by forcing upon him the re-
tention of the Excise duty on paper with which he
would fain dispense. The Lords, it is clear, can-
not perform the same feat again. Their
privilege, according to the dictum of Lord LlMO-
extends not to the modification of • Mousy
Bill. They must either peas it as a whole, or re-
ject it as a whole ; and when the proposed Bill of
Mr. GtscerroNg shall have passed the Commons,
the Peers must, according to their own version of
the Constitution, either negative or affirm it with-
out rewrvation. If any mischief is to be done,

therufure, it must this time be done in the Com-
mons ; and the project is said to be neither more
nor less than this—to let the Resolution in com-
mittee of ways and means, and the first and snood
reading of the CHANCrxwa of the EXCWINVIR'S
Hill, pass without any serious struggle, reserving
the whole strength of the meditated attack for the
period in committee when the clause repealing the
Paper Duty will have to be considered. The
rejection of this clause may then be advo-
cated, it is said, ea a mere question of
subordinate detail, which, if determined
on by the House, would not, it is pretended, imply
a censure on the Government--only the quiet

snubbing of the Cuero:m.l.os of the EXCHEQUER.
Tis a most excellent device, we are assured, for
serving the country and at the same time splinter-
ing the Cabinet ; for of course the calculation is
that Lord Peuiunimois would bear to be beaten on
thu Paper Duty with the same equanimity he
showed last year, and that Mr. atiewrose would
not. Rut, like all the devices which have emanated
from time to time from the same quarter, it is
founded upon a strange miscalculation of forces
and misapprehension of men.
Public opinion is the first element to he con-
sidered in all calculations regarding the success or
failure of • financial scheme, and publio opinion
cannot be played with or played upon in such
matters. Its attention is usually riveted by the
more prominent features of the plan, whatever
they may be. Lest year the French Treaty and
the abolition of • multitude of minor Customs
Duties fixed and fascinated public opinion ; and
these being accomplished, the postponement of the
repeal of the Excise duty on paper came to be re-
pented as of secondary importance, the more espe-
cedly as it was dealt with in • separate bill. This
year the position of the queetiun is wholly dare-
rent. There is but one lid! of Ways and Means
to be submitted to the Legislature, and its only
Heine of prominent significance are Paper Duty
remission and diminished Income Tax. Not
without grave consideration among themselves, we
may be sure, did her MkJ sixteen confiden-
tial advisers make up their mind, as a Cabinet to
yoke together these two principles, and to
rely on them to pull through an unreforraing
session. If differences of view prevailed amongst
them twelve months ago regarding one of these
principles they made up their minds this year,
to waive all such, and to commit their com-
mon fortunes to the power they believed that they
possessed to carry them safely to the end of the
next parliamentary stage. Public opinion has
accepted—without enthusiasm, indeed, but without
hesitation—the choice which they have made ; and
having so accepted it, public opinion will not be
decoyed or duped into unsaying or un-thinking
what it has once done. Neither could the Ad-
ministration entertain the offer which its opponents
would insidiously make, and which under the cir-
cumstances would amount in point of fact to
neither snore nor less than this, namely, that the
Goveniment should acknowledge itself incapable
of estimating the wants of the Empire, or calcu-
lating how they should be met ; and that the
House of Commons, in the plenitude of adminis-
trative irresponsibility, should take upon itself
the duty of deciding how the income for the
year ought to be raised. A Government
which should consent to hold office upon
such terms would compromise something far more
important than any tax ; it would compromise a