THE REFORM-DAMPING MINISTRY.
WITH a self-complacent chuckle the Downing Street journalists dwell upon the idea that Ministers have "succeeded in damp. , ing the steam of Organic Reform." The boast of success ie.!' plies design. The intent, then, of the MELBOURNE policy was put out the fire of Reform. In that case, we are bound to concede that Ministers are amazingly clever fellows. Their means were skilfully adapted to the end in view ; and their success—espe. cially in the master-stroke of the King's death, on which all turned—has been commensurate with the ability and perseverance with which they have pursued their object. We must now acquit them of folly or inconsistency : and those who supported Minis ters under the pretence that the real scope and effect of theit government was to demonstrate the necessity of Peerage Reform, must have been behind the scenes—in the Whig plot, after at. They too, we admit, were very adroit, clever fellows—admirable coadjutors in the process of lowering the troublesome flame of Reform.
It may turn out, however, that the success of these sincere and sagacious persons has only been partial and for a brief space. The
fire of Reform still smoulders. Mere-Whiggery is not every. i.
where in the ascendant. In the following places, for example,a
candidate's support of the Reform-damping Ministers would not
be taken as a set-off against his opposition to the Ballot, and other Radical and unfashionable things, which Whigs despise. Indeed, an avowed opponent of the Ballot would not have the slightest chance of being elected by the Reformers of London, Westminster, Tower Hamlets, Finsbury, Southwark, Marylebone, Lambeth, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Huddersfield, Wigan, Wakefield, Bristol, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Leicester, Devonport, Brighton,
And yet in all these places the Reformers are supposed to have the majority, as well as in several counties—East Cumberland and East Cornwall, for instance—where the Ballot candidates have the best of it. Now, wherever there is a majority in favour of the secret suffrage, which the Whigs deny to the people, we appre- hend that the. flame of Reform is not completely quenched ; and therefore, allowing that Ministers have laboured hard and met with much present success in their plans for damping the steam of Organic Reform, we must still think that something yet re. mains for them to accomplish in that line.
Cheltenham, Warwick, Sunderland, Oldham, Blackburn e, Macclesfield, Hull, Canterbury, Derby, Coventry, Boston, Bridport, Ashton, Cockermouth, Bolton, Carlisle, Bath, Glasgow, Dundee.
Previous page
