16 JUNE 1832, Page 13

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

CANDIDATES FOR THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT.

IN preceding columns, we continue the Election Talk, collected from all quarters. The Times, the Globe, and various others of our

contemporaries, have been discussing the subject during the week, in some cases with more urgency and impatience than was need- ful. We shall have many opportunities of recurring to it : at present we wish to make two or three general remarks.

First of all, we beseech the electors not to hurry themselves, notwithstanding the clamour of the journals. What is done in

haste, will generally be ill done. They have plenty of time to go about their duties cautiously and deliberately: The dissolution cannot, it is clear, take place within four months at the soonest.

it is said the Tories are already very busy. They may spare their pains. The edifice which they are labouring with so much inge- nuity to construct, will tumble in an hour, before the realities of the election struggle. It is said the friends of the People, and the People themselves, are slow. Why should they be otherwise? Let the People form themselves into Reform Clubs ; let them ap- point Committees ; let them seek information touching proper men, resident in their own neighbourhood if possible—if such are not to be found, let them look for proper men among those whose deeds are recorded. This is all that is, for the present, required. In the mean time, let us have no foolish pledges. If a candi- date ask for any, the People have their ready answer—" it is the part of the candidate to give pledges, not to exact them. The electors intend in future to choose their members, not to be chosen of them."

In their search for fitting candidates, we would not have the electors confine themselves to Peers and Millionaires. We have no objection to a candidate that he is of the " Order." Lord AL- THORP is the son of an Earl, so is Lord MILTON; and these are men whose price is above rubies. To reject a man because he is allied to the Peerage, would be a mistake inferior only to the selection of a man for no better reason. Neither do we object to rich men as such. Without the assistance of rich men, how should we have carried the Bill ? What conduct could be more excellent than that of Sir RALPH LOPEZ? than that of Mr. JOHN SMITH? Such men are deserving of all the honours that an enfranchised people can pay. But in this, as in the former case, while we say," Don't reject a candidate because he has twenty thousand a year, we say also, " Don't choose him merely because he has twenty thousand." There is a strong reason why the People should not limit their choice to the higher aristocracy in rank or fortune—their number is necessarily limited. If in the many there be no more wisdom, there is at least more "safety" than in the few.

Of course, as long as the present fashion holds, a member must be a man of some fortune. If not, how can he devote his time to the public service? But if he have a fortune sufficient for that purpose, what more can the electors reasonably require? We would always suspect the elector who could find no candidate worthy his notice among men of moderate independence, as more anxious to sell his vote than to bestow it. And this brings Us to a paint that we shall often have to press upon public attention. We are by no means sure, that, in a few years, the good old custom may not be wisely revived, of electors paying their members; but whether it be or not, every principle demands that no expense be imposed upon those who are about to become members. No policy could be worse, under any system, than to compel a member, on any pre- tence, to squander a fortune in contesting a town or county. The town or county that did so, gained a master, not a member. Under the new system—one of the main objects of which is to put down useless places and to reduce overpaid places, in a word, to reduce to a minimum the wages of corruption—what was always ob- jectionable in principle will necessarily become rare in practice. Members will not buy seats, since they cannot sell them again. The expenses of elections must be thrown, where they always should rest, upon the electers. If the latter refuse to bear the very trifling burden thus imposed on them, they must at once make up their minds to take without grumbling any wealthy man who may be content to take them—to give up not only honesty and fitness, but to give up all title to choice of any kind in the candi- dates for their votes.

For, look to the cost of merely collecting these votes. Before Colonel JoNEs, for example, can ascertain whether the people of Marylebone wish to return him or his antipodes, he must be prepared to expend at least twelve or fifteen hundred pounds. The hustings and clerks, if there be a contest, will cost each of the three or four

• candidates that sum. If the electors be carried to the poll, three tunes as much will barely suffice. In a word, before any private . gentleman can represent, in Parliament, men nine-tenths of whom Perhaps really wish him to do so, he must submit to an extra ex- penditure of a thousand a year,—that is, be must spend, in order to get into the House, a sum which is sufficient to maintain -an honest and independent member when there. Will any man of-common sense submit to such a tax, for the purpose of serving

• those who, by exacting it, sufficiently prove that they are unworthy of being served?

Now, let us see how much each elector must expend in order to give his vote freely and fairly for whomsoever he will—in order to be an ekdar, in deed asin -name. The calculation is simple. The hustings (according to the provisions of the Reform Act) will cost 30/.; the clerks and other necessary officers somewhat less. than 30/. more; the expense to each elector will be two shillings —8d. per annum in a triennial, 31d. per annum in a septennial Parliament. And the elector must contrive to walk or ride to the hustings without assistance,—a tremendous exertion, no doubt! Such is the mighty sacrifice for which some (we trust exceedingly few) men, calling themselves Englishmen, would be content to forego a free, rational, and pure election, and to submit to a re- stricted, a foolish, or a corrupt election-8d. a year, and a walk of four or five miles in the country, or of four or five hundred yards in town, once in three years !