The Express.
London, England, 1857-05-08 00:00:00

expreoo.

TO CORRUPONDINTS.
abbablawati bra I to. -Yr laymb,,.. tiros ...Am pp,.
mit Is Om Illabbriwous. by Tee Vasil cs
ag sll.lllblb

MOH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Toe Do-Iliont. akIMINII. Os.
Tomarw-Tlersio. Iso.-.—.....Aamens. Th. SPo.

LONDON, FRIDAY. NAY 8.

TO OUR

A DOUBLE NUMBER of the EXPRESS will
be }Whin& se usual TOMORROW.

Tan Qezen's Speech is not very long. And yet,
Lathe conventional decorum of Parliament allowed,
It sight have been made much shorter. All that is
essential in the Speech is contained in the second
elauseet the first 'sentence :—" Her MAJESTY tenets
that there will be found sufficient time during the
present Session to enable you satisfactorily to deal
with various important matters, sonic of which had
occupied the attention of Parliament in the begin-
ning of this year." Such an unwonted expression
of confidence, that, in a Session which commences
when most Sessions have got half-way through.l
their business, there will be time enough to deal
satiefactorily with certain important questions,
mesas clearly that there will not be time. And to
make this broad hint the more intelligible, mit/ is
taken to slur over every subject that could give ries
to debate. Parliament is Wormed that there is
good reason to look for a contiansace of peace in
Europe; that the main stipulations of the Treaty of
Paris have been carried into execution, and the rest
will be speedily acoomptiabed ; that the negotiations
regarding the Needsisatel affair are drawing to a
close; that • Treaty for the redemption of the
Sound Dues has been concluded with Denmark ; and
that peace has been concluded with Persia. All
these sae mere items of rather stale news—para-
graphs clipped from old newspapers—matters of a
most Neenniferous tendency, capital anodynes for
overactive members, if any such there be in the
new Parliament. Two items of living interest are
skilfully presented in points of view as unex-
citing as possible. After beating the devil's tattoo
ups China throughout the elections, Ministers in
the Royal Speech merely allude to the despatch of
• Plenipotentiary to that country to "adjust dif-
ferences "—the naval and military force that is to
"support" him being judiciously kept in the back-
ground. Of the negotiations regarding Central
America, Parliament is simply told that they "have
not yet been brought to • close." The only topics
touched upon that point to action, are the Estimates,
and projected Bills relating to Testamentary and
Matrimonial Jurisdiction as exercised by the
Ecclesiastical Courts, and for declaring fraudulent
Leaches of tenet penal.
It would be the height of injustice to call this
Speech unmeaning. From the beginning to the end
of it every sentence is full of meaning, and that
meaning ono and the same. Every sentence is •
counsel or an incitement to repose. The whole
tenor of the Speech is as tranquillising and soporific
es the sound of the rain-drops oa the roof in
Brsareaa'• are of iforsehens. Every word is an
exhortation, es powerful as the exhortations of
Plearis en " the Idle lake" of the same poet,
to abstain from undue exertion. The Speech ssys,
as plain as speech can say—" My Lords and Gentle-
:am—Take it easy ; and get through your so-work
before the end of July."
In short, Lord PALMERATOn, having gone to the
country " without a policy," now asks for a year
to devise one.

THE first sitting of tho new House of Commons
for the despatch of business has been of brief dors-
tion, but of considemble importance: Amid 'concourse

of members unusually large, and in a House where
the absence of old, and the presence of new, faces
made itself immediately and almost startlingly felt,
the Secretary of the Treasury rose to announce the
Government programme. The Bill of last session
on Secondary Punishments is to be re-introduced to-
day by Sir CLORGE °HET-Abet CHANCELLOR of the
Hiatus 4n is to move for afteketCommittee =the
Bank Act on Monday—on the 14th Lord PALMER-
STON is to ask leave to bring in a bill to amend the
oatlia taken by members in both Houses of Parlia-
ment—in other words, for the repeal of Jewish
_ _

dimbilitise—on the nth, the ATTOKNIT-OKKEILAL
I. to introduce a measure for rendering fraudu-
lent IDSICIsIS of trust criminally punishable.
Amen the maims of motion that followed was one
by Mr. ROEBUCK, fora resolution affirming that the
representation of the people was not in a satisfac-
tory condition, sod another front Mr. H. Butrattr
on vote by ballot
The new Speaker having then read the QtErm's
Speech, with a voice by no means deficient in clear-
ness, though net remarkable for force, the business
of mowing and seconding the Address followed in due
coarse. Mr. J. 0. DODSON, the mover, went through
his routine task in th►t approved style of parlia-
mentary seesaw, which lolls the ear without inform-
ing the sense, clothes the tritest commonplaces in
the armies( diction, and only escapes the re-
proach of tedium by judicionaly shunning
the Mime of prolixity. Mr. RUCKANAN, the
new member for Glasgow, followed in a somewhat
Mfilment strain. With a rugged breadth of Doric,
sad a \measly avoidance of rounded periods, which
pretend at first a favourable impression on his
audience, the honourable seconder soon began to
forget that hie function was to echo, not to originate.
He WY betrayed into the indiscretion of letting
Wes the waters of strife, by the utterance of some
vary pronounced opinions as to the origin of the
Chinese war. The House was evidently in no
temper for going again into the torchn and bom-
bardment business, and when the honourable seconder.
warming with his subject, drew the fatal Arms° to
the head, a shudder of irrepressible impatience
thrilled through the ranks of the august assembly.
But the nerres of the orator were strung to a high
pitch of tension; his feat of archery had been possibly
some time in rehearsal ; nor did the rigidity
of the Caledonian muscle permit of any re-
laxation from his Pythian attitude until be had
duly discharged himself of the inevitable shaft.
A slight waving of the British tag, and a
step or two, not too dexterously executed, from
that late popular entertainment, the ministerial war
dance over tho " ineolott barbarian," hated the