The Express.
London, England, 1868-01-04 00:00:00

if not the splendour, of
sensor could ill be spared

WV-
These gifts, together
Mr. CARDWELL holds in e.
portance to his recent speech ae
always certain that the suggestions ,
Member far the city of Oxford will not go
beyond the programme of his party. Mr. CARD-
WELL is a master of the vernacular language of
office ; and the largest sense that can fairly be
put on hie guarded and reserved admissions is
likely to be the truest. When a politician so
little prone to exaggeration declares that the
Reform Act of 1832 established the principle of
government for the people, and that the Reform
Act of 1867 has established the prin-
ciple of government by the people, the democratic
character of the change is confessed. The
principle of government by the people implies the
withdrawal from small pocket boroughs or decaying
villages of the franchise to which they have no fair
title, and its transfer to large centres of popula-
tion. Such a measure of redistribution Mr.
CARDWELL advocates. Government by the people
ought to be government by an educated people ;
and if we rightly interpret his reference to Mr.
Banes, Mr. CAanwam. favours the scheme of
local rating which the late Vice-President of the
Committee of Council has brought forward. On
the Irish Church question, Mr. CARDWELL ridi-
cules the idea that any internal redistribution of
the revenues of the Establishment will meet the
necessities of the case. Justice must be done, he
says, to the Presbyterians and Roman Catholics. We
suppose that Mr. Caanwau. still lingers fondly
over the project of Lord GREY for creating three
Established Churches in the place of one. If he
thinks an arrangement of this sort practicable he
is the victim of an illusion as great as that
which he indulged when he fondly cherished
the idea that his " Iriah Landed Property Im-
" provement Bill" of 1860 would be a settlement
of the land question. In fact, it proved wholly
inoperative. Not a single landlord or tenant has,
we believe, ever availed himself of its provisions.
Its best part was derived, as Mr. CARDWELL states,
from the Montgomery Act of Scotland, which
enables limited owners to charge their successors
for improvements on their estate. But Irish land-
lords are not disposed to improve, even on these
terms. The parts of the measure which related to
leases, contracts, and tenants' improvements were
so fettered by cumbersome forms of procedure and
references to third parties, judges of the Landed
Estates Court, or chairmen of Quarter Sessions, as
to be wholly unmanageable. The machinery was
too elaborate to work. The land question is as
far from settlement as ever. A complex system
of rival Church Establishments in Ireland would
leave the Church question as far from settlement
as Mr. CARDWELL'S Bill left the land question.
Before another year has passed this " fond
" hope, " too, will have been abandoned. The
pet schemes of politicians for changing every-
thing without disturbing anything may be easily
pardoned. They will disappear when the facts are
confronted. The disposition to grapple with
the question of education, with the relations of
landlord and tenant in Ireland, and with the
Irish Established Church, which is apparent in the
almost artistically cautious language of Mr. CARD-
WELL'S speech, is a pledge of a thorough settle
ment. Ineffectual compromises may be in fashion
for a moment, but they will go the way of the
Whig fixed duty on corn, and of the fancy fran-
clises and anti-democratic safeguards of Tory
Wormers.

• OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)

While the Times considers it would be in the
interest of the Irish residents in England to voluntarily
make declarations of their abhorrence of treasonable

designs, it views with disfavour the proposal of the
Metropolitan Conservative Association to procure the
same kind of abjuration on the part of Englishmen. It
objects, not merely because this particular association has
a party character, but from its deprecation of any course
which would seem to place the English in conflict with the
Irish and increase the jealousy which the present circum-
; stances are arousing.

In another article the Tines reviews some of the pro-
visions of the Workshops Regulation Aot now in operation,
which it thinks will cost its promoters some trouble in

amending.
The Daily News comments upon the remedy which we.
recommended by a corresiondent of yesterday's Times for
the disaffection of Ireland, namely, martial law, and the
imitation by Lord Abercorn of the feats of Governor Eyre.
The Duffy News remarks that the circumstances which
might be supposed to call for the application of this
panacea do not exist ; there is no armed resistance
to the government, and the power of the law
is overwhelming. If we fail in preventing out-
rages it is not foe want of power but for
went of knowledge and promptitude, to ripply
which martial law offers us no help. The " Briton," to
whose letter nothing but its publication in the Times gives
the least importance, hes no helping counsel to offer. He
does not even appear to be one of those excellent, honest,
patriotic, but ignorant, mischievous Englishmen who are
always astonished when the Irish or any other people ima-
gine that they know better than we do what is good for
them, and to whom mainly we owe our present difficulties.
As far as be is con:erned, if only Governor Eyre can be
rescued from his terrible morel isolation, Ireland's welfare,
and the Queen's honour, and England's reputation may
take their chance. From such Britons Ireland may well
oak to be delivered.
Considering the question as to what we can do to pleas.
the Irish people, and putting aside the two standing griev-
ances of the Irish church and the land tenure, the Standard
comes to the conclusion that a member of the royal family
should reside in Ireland during a portion of each year, and
that there could be no great harm in trying the scheme of
provincial councils as recommended by Mr. Goldwin
Smith. The imperial parliament might learn something
of the condition of Ireland from these councils, and at
least they would prove a diversion to those more active
spirits who now pine for " nationality." The institution
of a regiment of Irish Guards, as ►n addition to the House-
hold force, is a smaller device, but a tolerably easy one for
winning popularity. There are many other such minor
suggestions which it would be the interest of the imperial
government to consider, the value of which the English
people, in their scorn of sentimentalities, are too apt to
despise.

The Telegraph denounces the letter in the Times coun-
selling martial law u infamous. Even if there were not
the miserable recollection of " martial law in Jamaica,"new
and unhealed, is not Irish history itself red with the records
of Darold kw ? Is it mot full of bitter proof that " the Ante
of siege" cannot win for as the affection or even the sub-
mission of Ireland? Two-thirds of all the effect of
Fenianism is due to poltroons like this Anonymous
Briton. The Star his a similar article.

pointed envoy to Washington, net begone, Lord Stanley
supposed him tcposess any specific& preeminent qualifi-
cation for the functions he would have to disharp, bat
simply because somebody snot be appointed, and as none
of the needy nobles of the conservative party happened to
be in the humour to take that particular place, it was
thought as well to send him as anyone else. One MOM-
mendation, indeed, he is said to posses, which, if true,
would naturally recommend him to the present Beerelary
for Foreign Affairs. He is said to be a man without opt-
pima ; and as Lord Stanley is • minister without a policy,
Mr. Thornton is just the man for him.
The Spectator sees even more arguments against est-
ceding a repeal of the Union than spinet the indsopied-
enoe of Ireland, and maintains that the base pay
is to establish, as far as we possibly can, reles=
equality, reform justice, modify the tenure, she
every rag of the wicked old gat= of amenfiew
and then, with our consciences clear, wait mini
for the reward which, unless all history has hem be
accurately written, time perforce must bring. If after •
generation of honest and laborious effort it is still char
that there is no unity, that the English are still invaders,
the Irish still disaffected, it may become the moral duty of
Britain to make the rudest
.sacrifice ever asked of a na-
tion, and to let Ireland go to pursue her own fate as an
absolutely independent country. But it never, under any
circumstances, can be our morel duty to retain Ireland
and yet surrender the power of governing what we retain
—to take all responsibility and preserve no privilege.
The Chronicle remarks that if Mr. Seward's position is
to be maintained with any consistency, the real question
for arbitration is of earlier date than any which have been
introduced into the correspondence between the United
States and Great Britain. The circumstance which, mesa'
than any other, stamped the Confederates with • lardS7
gerent character was President Lincoln's proclamation ges
blockade of the Southern coast. If there was no awn
war, he had no rigid to call upon other powers to rasped
an act which indicted a wanton injury upon their cone
memo ; and before the legitimacy of the subsequent course
pursued by Great Britain can be properly impugned, the
legitimacy of this initial act on the part of the United
States government would have to be determined. When
Mr. Seward is prepared to submit this question to arbi-
tration, and to accept the consequences of a negative deci-
sion, it will be time enough for Lord Stanley to reconsider
his resent noun.

Cite Court.

OSBORNE, JAW. 3.

The Queen walked and drove in the grounds yes- I
terday afternoon, attended by the Duchess of Roxburghe ;
and her Majesty, accompanied by Princess Louise, went
out in the grounds this morning.
On the afternoon of New Year's-day her Majesty gave
presents to all the servants of the household at Osborne,
for whom Christmas trees had been prepared in the
steward's room and servants' hall.
Her Majesty, accompanied by all the royal family, pro-
ceeded to the rooms where the servants were assembled
at six o'clock, and personally distributed the gifts,
assisted by the Princesses, Prince Arthur, and Prince
Leopold.
Prince Arthur and Prinoe Christian, attended by Lieute-
nant-General the Hon. C. Grey and Major Elphinstons,
honoured Sir John and Lady Simeon with a visit at
Swainston, near Newport, to-day, and afterwards went out
shooting there.
The Duke of Buckingham arrived at Osborne yesterday.
The Duke of Roxburghe and the Duke of Buckingham
had the honour of dining with the Queen and the royal
family last evening, and left Osborne to-day.

ITALY.
FLORENCE. JAN. 3, ivzinNo.
The ministerial crisis continues. Several mem-
bers of the Right have declined the proposal of NI
General Menabrea to enter the cabinet.
1
Railway communication between Bologna and b
Piacenza, and between Bologna and Florence is yaw
still interrupted by the snow. cl`P°

AUSTRIA.

VIENNA, TAN. 4. I Al
The Dchatte of to-day announces that the Turk-
ish Ambassador Haider Effendi has received an
order from Constantinople to proceed at once to
London. He leaves, probably, to-day. This mis-
sion is said to be connected with the present rela- g
dons of the Russian and Turkish cabinets.
The Prase of to-day 'Weis that it is reported in I reds
Perth that Baron Friedrich Podmaniczky, M. 1 847-
Trefort, and General Klapka have been respectively
made Under Secretaries of Foreign Affairs,
Finance, and War, for the whole empire.

ME TIMPRESS, SATURDAY WG, JANUARY
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mot *-. (Ira rainowis.)
ith tbn rtil„„te 117 • of ads. t.' • FRANCE.
• Vtontive •
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De..h at • It is ccaimon• in the Lot tendon to , • . ' , The Moniteur in its bulletin of this morning as
ggestions of the senior stases pugnacity that the Japanese Christians who were imprisoned
of Oxford will not go bee..lll. a Nagasaki have been liberated, a the request of
his party. Mr. CARD- P'in•••••frf! the Trench Ohargii d'Affluraa.