Professor Fawcett made, in some respects, a very good speech
to his constituents at Brighton on Monday. He was not gloomy about the last session. The Tories, if they had joined the Liberals, he said, might three years before the repeal of the Corn Laws have had a fixed duty of 8s. on corn. The only result of their obstinacy was the total abolition of all duty. So they might have had last year a 71. franchise, and now the result of their obstinacy
will be, he says, household suffrage. We are not at all sure that household suffrage in every borough will prove to be an abolition of a monopoly of power. We fear that in a great number of them it would rather rivet the monopoly, as the Judge-Advocatei Mr. Mowbray, also thinks it would do at Durham. Tho machi nery which looks the most comprehensive in this case may turn, out the most oppressive. Mr. Fawcett went on, however, to surer ground,—the advantage to our Legislature of getting a real
representation of the artisan class into the House of Commons, however we manage to get it there. He pointed out that metro- politan railways which pull down the houses of the poor without
providing new Ones, London poor-rates which tax the poor to
support the poor and leave the rich unburdened, the profound ignorance of the agricultural labourer, and the not only unsolved but unattempted problem of conciliating Ireland, would all be greatly affected politically by such a change. He concluded an admirable speech by a manly expression of his entire confidence in Mr. Gladstone.
