The Express.
London, England, 1868-04-14 00:00:00

THR MARQUIS 0? SALIBBOBT.

Speculating on the future political career of the
new Lord Salisbury, the Tiatee observes that had he
remained in the Lower House it ia not impossible that he
would have become the conservative leader, and it may be
that be his an equally distinguished position before him
in the Upper House. If there were sufficient maim for
the attempt, Lord Salisbury and Lord Carnarvon could
assault the Treasury bench in such farce as to carry
it by storm ; but this would be of no value
if there were no allied body ready to light a similar fight
in the House of Commons. Lord Derby for years ruled
the Upper House, but without a sufficient following in the
Commons he could do nothing but lead an Opposition. It
is doubtful whether Lord Salisbury in the House of Lords
could reckon on any efficient lieutenant in the Lower
House. Persons of a speculative temperament may sug-
gest certain names, but none of them could be promoted
to the leadership of a party. There must undoubtedly be
• great rupture of existing alliances immediately after the
reformed parliament is convened, if not at an earlier date,
but the issue is too unoertain to warrant • conjecture as to
the form in which reorganisation will be accomplished.
The Daily Nem is of opinion that the representative
character of the House of Commons is impaired by the re-
moval of Lord Cranborne. He was the intellect of his
section of the Conservative party, which, now that it is
represented in the House of Commons only by the uncouth
eccentricities and dilettante churthmanship of Mr. Beres.
ford Hope, the bluff good humour and honest prejudices
of General Peel, and the feline smoothness and malice
of Mr. Sandford, ceases to be formidable, or to
have any corporate existence or force. While
he was there he was a standing protest, and an
effectual one, spinet the arts of trickery and deception by
which Mr. Disraeli has cozened his party and pilfered
power. With such a representative to rally round, and
with the reproach which his fidelity and contempt ad-
ministered to the men about him, there was no saying
when the reaction of conscience might not occur, and the
dupes might refuse to be hoodwinked longer. The loss
to the House of Commons is, however, a gain to Mr. Die.
raeli, whose most serious trouble and danger are removed ;
but the intellectual and moral supremacy of the noble
lord in the House of Lords cannot but tell upon a party
sympathising with him at heart, and no longer subject to
the personal authority of Lord Derby.
The Herold enlarges upon the honourable and useful
services rendered to the conservative party by the late
peer, observing that his sphere was in council and not in
debate. Before Lord Cranborne is a long and magnificent
career if he only chooses to run it. He has no superior in
the House of Peers as a debater, and he enters at a time
when the principles to which be is so firmly attached
need, especially in that assembly in which they should
naturally be triumphant, earnest and eloquent vindi-
cation.

The change, says the Star, which relegates Lord Cran-
borne to the placid and colourless society of the peers will
hardly affect to any marked extent the results of the
coming struggle. Lord Cranborne might have stood back
from such an amendment as Lord Stanley's, but in any
division taken on Mr. Gladstone's resolutions he would of
course have been found firm with his party, and him suer
censor, doubtless, will do just the same, and the questions
to be settled have now peened beyond the power of mere
eloquence to affect mush either way. Perhaps Mr. Dis-
raeli will not be very sorry that the sharp, unsparing
tongue which lately need to expose his tergiversations so
pitilessly can vex him no more in the presence of the
Commons.

Lord Cranborne is still a tory, exclaims the Telegraph,
but at his age Mr. Gladstone was a tory too—and look at
Mr. Gladstone now ! He is too personal in his speeches.
bat at his age Mr. Disraeli was nothint if not personal.
It is a cruel stroke el fate that a young man should suffer
thus from arrested development--should be fossilised into
a reactiosist peer—abould be petrified into an aristocratic
image of impraotibillty and pride. He will not be po-
lineally dead, but worse—he will kit) on like the Struld-
bruit', old in politics, but still alive.

Exercising no control whatever over its own destinies,
France, the Times points out, evinces a feverish anxiety
respecting the possible melt of the most trivial political
complication. The language of the mouthpiece of its
government may be equally taken as a challenge to disarm
or to fight. The only power she means when she talks of
foreign powers is Prussia ; and the question arises if the
duel for supremacy between the two is to be fought
by actual war or merely by preparation ter
war. But, if Pianos was not ready to try a fall with her
rival in 1866, en what ground an she now &UST hermit
that the last two years have changed their relative swim
Wee ? Has Penile lest either ierrilery ar poniaken ?
Or has she fallen haat her meradamay over Germany? is
her great shaken or her exchequer exhausted! Or has
she been lulled by success into a inacheroos semi* ?
WU the wand to ?mimes those martial isedteliono
which have tamed the whole of the Tentoate Wks
into an embattled boat ? Is France any more sure
of the odds in bet favour than she ever wan?

APRIL

—owl* the " more newel
~,_ —.meal! ha thee reliability of peace " dellijra no
emu. TM material Ms ark of Praia* would always
remotes Ur from eggremiss, even if ohs were set mfr.
eiesilireseir mast Bet it could set save
bier fry* areeelswesees this her armament is crushing
bre ; (Elena** ii must needs be wood to the injury of otbers,
sisal& effect her own decimation. When the
leabrey, the amblidos, all the dangerous passions of a
..ties have bra ministered to" in order to incite it to
asYesr Glee aggssimagon that its energies may be turned
to IMINIESI dierehanee toe readily suggests the expediency
of employing them in foreign enterprise.

The Pat bas no doubt that Mr. Ohdstone is prepared to
indicate the means by which the Irish church should be
diseetablialsed, and is confident it will be of such a
nature as will commend itself to the acceptance of parlia-
ment and of the country.
Giving an aexacit of the Indian budget, which Mr.
Mammy has just laid before the Legislative Council, the
IDoily New shows that the result of his examination of
I possible alterations in the system is to maintain with little
alteration ths present arrangement. It does not quarrel
with this as a provisdonal measure, but the fact is tolerably
plain th►t • stronger head in finance than the present
holder of the once will be needed soon in order to reduce
the system after the experiments that have been tried by
so many amateurs, into • method more in accordance with
sound principle, and weighing with leas injustice on the
inhabitants of the country.
_ _

The Times heeds but little the surmise of those who
think we may find it harder to retire in Abyssinia than
to advance. If the chiefs of the country respect our
force at present, surely they will do so with at least as
much sincerity when we have obtained a victory over their
dreaded monarch, and we shall have this advantage in our
retreat, that the roads will be ready made and the depots
established. When the news arrives of our sucrose at
Magdals our contemporary will be ready to regard the ex-
pedition as virtually at an end.
The Herold thinks we may confidently 'seams that on
April 2, just a fortnight ago, a division of the army,
numbering nearly 4,000 men, was in front of Maeda.
This army corps took with it a battery of Armstrong
guns and two mortars, with which ear It. Napier was
prepared to storm the place. Theodore, who probably had
not room for his army in the Amba Itself, was entrenched
on the plain of Dalanta, with a force variously estimated
at from 5,000 to 15,000 men, and with 26 guns.