1 JULY 1837, Page 11

L TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE COMING ELECTION.

THE Ballot possesses two very different characters: it is an or- ganic change, because it would effect a great alteration in the

electoral body, giving the franchise really to those who are at present but nominal voters ; it is a practical improvement, because it would save electors from the evils which the possession of the franchise now inflicts upon too many of them. This distinction is very important at the present time. As an organic change, the Ballot will not be a rallying-cry at the coming election, any /note than Household Suffrage,Trienniai Parliaments, or Peerage

Reform. All those questions, and especially the Examiner's "question of questions," have been indefinitely postponed by the

last year's proceedings of the Melbourne-Whigs. No longer

practical questions, because there is no longer the least prospect of carrying any one of them, they have lost their interest

with the public. " Organic change is not going," as the

Morning Post says, but gone " out of fashion ; "* and we must now look, if indeed the political spirit of the country should not sink below zero, to those practical improvements for which alone organic change is at all desirable. As a practical improvement, the Ballot may still be a very inte- resting question. In that light, too, it is a question which the Conservatives, having regard to their professions of a desire to remove practical evils and promote practical improvements, may consistently support; as they probably will, one of these days, rather than continue out of office. This and every other question of practical improvement will perhaps occupy the country more, because questions of organic change are no longer practical, but have been postponed, not to say abandoned. Losing their in- terest in organic change, the People, we are inclined to think, will now try whether the ends of organic reform—the removal of abuses and promotion of improvements, which all politicians profess to desire—may be obtained without that sort of reform as to which agreeing Whigs and Tories differ with the Radicals. Fermi'. own part, we are not indisposed to join in this experiment. Not that we are very sanguine as to the result ; but at present there is nothing else left for those who would take some interest in politics. Our own feeling on this subject, however, is of Rite consequence : do we truly represent that of the public? We believe so, and shall therefore explain it further.

If, at the opening of the present session, the Tories had fairly earned the title of Conservatives—if they had followed the advice of Blackwood and the Standard, who urged them to introduce a number of measures for the removal of practical abuses and the promotion of practical improvements—this subject would not have required any Explanation. In that case, and considering what the Melbourne-Whigs have done with the organic questions, it would now have been plain to every body, that the coming elec- tion must turn upon things,—not upon men, or even principles, but upon measures. And such is the tendency of actual circum- stances, not because the Tories have established as yet any claim to popular support on the score of practical measures, but because the organic questions are laid aside, and there is nothing left by which to judge of men but the practical measures which they pro- mise to advocate. With the country in such a mood—brought about, be it observed, by the Whigs, who mieht if they had pleased, have "kept up the steam" of organic reform—the distinctive titles of Tory, Whig, Whig-Radical, Radical, and even Reformer, have lost their meaning. Henceforth, every public man, not a downright fool, may be an Improver, more or less in degree, with more or less of sincerity and ability—a worse or a better woikman—but still relsing on particular measures, rather than claptrap words, or names, or parts titles, or even general principles. Candidates %i ill say to electors, " What is it that you want ?"—electors to candidates, " What will you give us of the many things that we should feel as practical benefits ?" The mere Tory, or Whig, or Radical, or, as the Chronicle calls those Wing candidates who have nothing to say about praetical mea- sures, the mere "Queen's men,"—all these will either fall into disrepute and oblivion, or will drop unmeaning party distinctions, and Ind for popularity in the only coin that is now of touch or any value—namely, things or measures. This new standard is, oiler all, the best, if it can but be made to work. The experiment, at ally rate, is worth trying ; and we think so favoutably of it, as almost to thank the Melhoume-Whigs Cir having produced a state of things under which the old story of " nut men, but measures," may at lust become a reality.