The Express.
London, England, 1857-09-07 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, MONDAY EVENING SEPTEMBER 7, 1857.

their willinf,;neis to let him have all his own way
whenever he pleased. On all other subjects they
meetni Council; ether topineatowever mamplitant,.
t:ney disease as a bogy ; on "MI other questions they
offer the Crown their common advice. Is it on India
alone, is it on India in its present state, that they
intend for the next three months to abstain from
common deliberation, consultation, and resolution?
It is one thing to commit the preparation of a
measure to be proposed for legislation to &committee
of the Cabifet, for the work of such a committee
will be afterwards submitted for the approval of the
entire body, and then discussed in Parliament. To
such a reference no one can object. But it is
another and • very different thing for the Cabinet
.to delegate all its authority, all its functions as the
Executive Government of the country, in the matter
of a horrible mutiny and a great rebellion, to a
couple of Ministers &misted by such of their col-
leagues as may happen to be in London for a day or
two. This is not what the Crown or its subjects
have • right to expect and require from a Cabinet.
Lord PALMERSTON has repeatedly, and greatly to
his credit, admitted the value of the assistance which
Parliamentary discussions gave the Government
daring the Russian war ; and the suggestive conver-
sations which took place last session on this Indian
mutiny must have been equally valuable. In like
manner the deliberations of fresh minds in Cabinet

Councils cannot be otherwise than advantageous.
But whether or not, u the Cabinet has in respect of
India, and as on all other questions, a common re-
sponsibility, it ought not to separate at a time when
that responsibility is the beet protection which the
country can procure for vigorous meuures.
We refuse, then, to inquire how many or how few

members of the Government are absent from London,
or whether "the best of them are here." The ques-
tion for the public is, Are the Cabinet Councils to be
suspended during this awful crisis? Is the country,
or is it not, in an unparalleled emergency, to have
the benefit of a Cabinet? This iv a much larger
question than the personal merits of the members of
the Government now in London, or any invidious
comparison suggested to cover and conceal the ex-
isting state of things. If in the growth of time it
has become a settled principle of the British Consti-
tution that, under any circumstances, however sad
and alarming, the Court is to bury itself in Septem-
ber and October, and the Cabinet to desert the scat
of Government, leaving the whole duty of Govern-
ment to concentrate itself in the First Lord of
the Treasury for those two months, let us have
the fact admitted and acknowledged. But if at all
seasons of the year the responsible political Minis-
ters of the Crown are bound, when occasion requires,
to meet in Council, and to bring to the service of
the Government their common deliberations and re-
sponsibility,then, sorely, never was an occasion more
imperatively calling for Cabinet Councils than this
mutiny in India.
Let us hope, then, that Cabinet Councils will be
immediately resumed, and that the Court will not
this year prolong a visit to Balmoral, which we ven-
ture to think ought not to have been made at all.