The Express. — 1866-06-21 (London, England)

THE SINISTERIAL CRISIS.—RESIGNATION OS DISSOLUTION Taunting the government with the confusion which its policy has brought upon it, and taxing Mr Gladstone with insincerity in having assumed that the lower end of the electoral toile is the true people of England, the Times proceeds to condemn the advice of s dissolution with which rumour credits the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Earl Russell. The Times supposes that the constituencies without exception remain of the same mind on the subject. Ministers cannot possibly count on even half-a-dosen members returned for the bill, the whole bill, sad nothing but the bill, while it is very pomade the smaller boroughs would return men pledged more stoutly against all reform what. ever. What quarrel have Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone swab the House of Commons, and what plea have they for inflicting upon it a flue of two millions by a general election I The house was quite ready to follow them and serve them moat faithfully. This loyalty they met with a design to destroy it altogether, substituting a now house elected by anew coestituency. If anybody had cause to complain it was the house, rot the leaders. The Daily News supposes that the country may look forward to a purely tory, or to a mixed tory and Adullamits administration, or, in any case, to a very earnest and resolute attempt to form one. It is a tribute to the national sense of the value of the retiring government that its slayers now charge it with gratuitous suicide. They are in Macbeth's plight, afraid to think on what they have done. The hostility to Lord Russell began before the session commenced, and various tactics were employed, particularly by the feasts, to drive Lord Russell from the premiership, and to prevent Mr. Gladstone Ram succeeding to it. The obstruction offered by this group of schemers to the progress of the Reform Bill has been part of a much larger design. It is natural that he who secretly abhors the end should cavil at the method of obtaining it, and when it is found that those whose hostility to the bill has been unwavering are angry at the occasion taken by ministers for withdrawing at once themselves and their measure, a strong presumption is raised that the government has acted with prudence, u well as with honour, in the course it has adopted. It was time that the curtain should fall upon a very sorry faros. We now wait the ministry of reaction. They will have the fair play which is due from the honour of opponents, even to men who have themselves played foal. But they must expect the suspicion which they have elaborately earned ; and not the " co-operation " which is shameleeely demanded in their behalf. The Post repeats its often-expressed opinion that the people are profoundly indifferent to any reform whatever, and that reform is the mere stock•in-trade of decayed and bent rapt potiticians The Herald thinks that all candid and thoughtful liberals will recognise the desirability at this juncture of the assumption of office by the conservatives. Sent back to opposition, the liberal party will be re-formed ; it will have definite and intelligible principles. It will of course lose valuable members, and that loss may have the effect of keeping it some years out of offioe, but then, whenever it returns to power it will return in a condition to hold power with more honour and with little chance of losing it again by its own dissensions. The Telegraph continues to pronounce for a'dissolution• No insignificant sign to guide the government to a right determination, stands forth in the fact that conservatives, Adallamites, and half-hearted reformers alike deprecate an immediate appeal to the country. Governments, however, should, as a general male, adopt the course of action which is least palatable to their enemies. To have a tory cabinet in power during the recess, while the most terrible and pregnant events may occur abroad, would be a public calamity, and the Telegraph is well persuaded that her Majesty, perceiving the gravity of the crisis, will seriously consider the only course that can preserve us against a war with continental powers, and secure for us progress at home.  The Star urges that from every great town the voice of a public meeting ought to call at once for an appeal to the constituencies. It is not necessary that a dissolution should take place at once and to the postponement of all public business. The government might go on for a few weeks, get through so much of administrative work as is absolutely necessary, and still have the election over in good time to give legislators their autumnal holiday. It may be that the course of affairs abroad would in any case require a winter session : let advantage be taken at all events of the present crisis to forward the work of reform. The government will certainly act unwisely—as unwisely as the promoters of a self-denying ordinance usually do— if they allow the dissolution which must coma before long to be taken under the auspices of their enemies.  EXPRESS, THURSDAY  icing  cm 01  'agent  pe met partid  ir"—quarre-sial, wltoee rather than provoke enmii  the origia hoOld dliktre  inscaurigious