The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-03-11
BALTIMORE.
THURSDAY, MARCH IL, 1858.

A telegram received at late hour last night |
furnishes us with the names of the new English
Cabinet of which Lord DERBY is the premier We
infer therefore, that in accordance with the theory
Of the British Constitution and established Parlia
mentary usage, LORD PALMERsroN resigned immed-
atey after the late defeat sustained by his Ministry
upon the Conspiracy to Murder bill His resignation
threw the responsibility of forming new govern
ment upon the shoulders of the Opposition, and to
construct harmonious cabinet out of the discord-
ant and heterogeneous elements of which that
Opposition is composed, could have been no easy
task. The fact is, that parties in England, as
in this country are in chaotic state. OF the two
great political factions of English history, it can
scarcely even be said, stat nominis almbra;' the
very appellations of Wing and Tory having grad
nally given place 10 those OF Liberal and Conserv-
alive. The differences of sentiment and opinion
which divided the older parties have likewise grad
ually lessened and faded until they have almost
reached the vanishing point. So far as principles
60, the Conservative Liberal and the Liberal Con-
sentative hold pretty much the same creed; the
only distinction between parties is that between
the lns and the Outs and the only line of demar-
cation that which divides the Ministerial from the
Opposition benches.
Times have somewhat changed, and perhaps for
the BETTER we may venture to say, since the days
of WENTWORTH and HARRY VANE and Mr. PYM,
even of HARLEY and ST. JOHN, of SIR ROBERT
WALPoLE and my Lord Butte In those ''good old
days of party rancor, of unlinchng Toryism,
and uncompromising Whiggery ministerial de-
feat and vote of censure by the Commons of
I'LL.
ton, and the accession of new men to cabinet
offices, but were not untrequently followed by inn
peachments for treason and writs of attainder-
trials in Westminster Hall, and executions on
Tower Hill. Ny lord in the blue ribbon who sat
yesterday at the council-board in the royal closet
and Mr.. Secretary who spoke for or against ''the
war last night in st. Stephens, to-day might dine
with the Lieutenant in the Tower, and make their
bed within prison walls. Happily, however, nous
a0ons change tout celia. My LORD PALMERsToN will
keep his head, although he may have lost his
place; change of ministers will be the only result
of the late signal rebuke administered by the
House of Commons to the present Administration.
Another consideration suggested by glance at
the present condition of parties in England, and
verified by survey of the political world on
tins side OF the water is the gradual decadence and
disappearance of political leaderships. Who now
are the acknowledged leaders of public opinion in
England or in this country? Who sit in the seats
OF PITT and Fox, or of SIR ROBERT PEEL; and who
stand in the shoes of HAMILTON and JEFFERSON of
CLAY and JACKSON? These great men have died
and left no successors to fill their vacant places
In reading the history of the political struggles,
and the records of Parliamentary and Congress
sional debates of forty or even twenty years ago,
we feel that there 'giants in those days. but
there are none now. The dapper gentlemen who
measure five feet ten and represent the manhood OF
the present generation not the Auakim of Scrip
ture times nor are the very respectable Senators
who daily prose over the rights and wrongs of UNI
happy Kansas, through whole columns of the
GLOBE, and deliver mild plattudes on the subject of
the Lecompton swindle, and the "Topeka
treason, - the intellectual Tt,ns of the days of old