23 NOVEMBER 1861, Page 8

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

RR A T,TI:IY REFORM.

THOUGHTFUL Liberals will scarcely be satisfied with the result of the conference held on Thursday at Leeds, to agree on some plan of Reform. The meeting was well attended, and the speakers many and earnest ; the de- bate was conducted with singular temper, and the resolutions adopted acknowledged frankly the right of Reformers to differ among themselves. Throughout the proceedings there was a tone of frankness and fairness, a disposition to hear all sides, which was thoroughly creditable, and speaks well for the future career of the Radical party. The principal speakers—Messrs. Baines and Forster—brought a mass of new facts to the aid of their arguments, and though Mr. Bright had just suggested by letter one of his dangerous plans, the good sense of the meeting at once threw it out of discus- sion. He wanted to use the trades unions as democratic societies, and so at once urge capital into a Tory crusade, but the meeting calmly laid his proposition aside. In its stead they adopted a plan for forming Reform Associations, all directed to the same end, but each supporting the project which seems to its members at once more safe and equitable. No plan could be more satisfactory or provide more carefully against that oppression of minorities which is the discredit of most " agitations" and " leagues." The proceedings alto- gether indicated increased moderation in theworking class and reviving political interest, both of them symptoms which may be accepted with pleasure. But, nevertheless, the result was on the whole disappointing, for the one great need of the day, the basis of an affiance between the working men and the Liberal middle class, was not so much as proposed.

Indeed, the position of that great class was unconsciously misrepresented. Its members are not unwilling to accept a reform. They acknowledge that the working class are not represented, that they ought to be represented, and that now is the accepted time for securing them representation. But they ask in return from the working men some distinct guarantee that in admitting them they shall not themselves be swamped ; that the next Reform Bill shall be a new gate in the constitutional palace, and not a hole in a dyke. They admit to the full Mr. Baines's great argument—that the pro- perty of the working men ought to be taken into account. They concede to Mr. Forster that for so few working men in Bradford to have electoral votes is a grievous blot on the constitutional system, and they would willingly remove both these anomalies. But they demand in return proof that they are not asked to commit suicide, that property is still to have weight, and intelligence still to be powerful ; that wealth and intellect, education and experience, are not all to be beaten by mere brute force of numbers. As yet, they see no proof of the kind, and until they see it, they will—the working men'may rely on it—remain entrenched behind the fortress wall of the existing arrangement. To talk of driving them out by force is simply dangerous nonsense. The only effect of the attempt would be to strengthen the Executive till liberty would be imperiled. Even in France, where the workmen are soldiers by right of their nationality, the property-holders have proved too strong for any attempt at coercion. The working men cannot threaten, as the middle class did in 1831, to stop the payment of taxes, or menace individual families, or march on a power which could purchase allies in the peasantry as numerous as them- selves. The two classes must, if power is to be redistributed, come to some terms of copartnership, and the capitalist will retain in this, as in every other relation of life, the rights of the senior partner. As yet, no bid has been offered which has not been already rejected, and it is because none was proposed at Leeds that the meeting will, in our judgment, produce so little result. Only one offer was seriously discussed, and that has been already dismissed. Mr. Baines said he was willing to vote for the 61. franchise, and added no qualification ; but Mr. Forster, usually the most healthy of advanced Liberals, while making the same proposal, declared it was only a step towards household suffrage,—that is, in the judgment of most Liberal men, towards chaos. The latter was plainly the offer which pleased the taste of the meeting, and it is precisely the one of which the middle class is afraid. It is useless to tell them that the reduction would make little difference, that, except in some twenty boroughs, the same men would be elected. A hole in a kettle is always too big, and the principle of representation by numbers is just the hole in the kettle. It is that principle, and not this or that franchise, to which the educated classes object. Get rid of that, and they will consent to give the working man a share in the power of the State larger even than they at present de- mand. The direct effect of a simple 61. franchise would be to turn every town in the kingdom into a sort of metropolitan borough, a place like Finsbury, which is searching in vain for some one willing to bear the odium and the expense of being its representative. We know well that the working men will not elect members such as rejoice the crowd who encamp in Finsbury—a crowd hopelessly devoid of. the co- hesion without which representation is vain. But nobody wants to see every borough represented by men of one class, which would be the certain result if all classes were swamped by the weight of the six-pound voters. In Bradford, for instance, we imagine six-pound voting would about double the suffrage—i. e. it would make the single class introduced equal in voting power to all other classes, or, in other words, disfranchise the whole of the existing voters. What is wanted is, that the existing class should have votes, and a lower class their vote too. Better have a House of working men, as in Norway, than a House of Commons in which working men alone represent the nation. It has been said that it is impossible to secure a suffrage which would give the nu- merical majority their fair share of power, while leaving theirs to the cultivated minority, but if the working men accepted the compromise, it might be secured to-morrow. The working men might elect their own members as the collegians do, with- out opposition from the middle class, provided the number of members were definite and understood. Forty members, such as the working men would elect, would be a great deal less obnoxious than the forty members nominated by Archbishop Cullen. Earl Russell's proposal to give every man the right of clubbing his votes would have exactly the same result, the working men electing their representative, and the, middle class theirs. So would the scheme of restricting household suffrage to cities with more than a hundred thousand inha- bitants. So, in short, would a dozen plans, each possible the moment the working men have abandoned the theory, that number is equal to right, that, in Government, Hodge is equal to Locke, and has as much claim to be obeyed. Their present proposal is not one for an effective alliance with the liberal middle class, but only for superseding them. They do not ask to share in the joint estate, but to turn out the leaseholders, giving them only the privilege of getting it back if they can. Butwe shall be told that property will always have influence, whatever the suffrage, and as property is in the hands of the fiddle class, their share of power is secure. Is it ? They have not much of it in America, and just as little in a metro- politan borough. The first effect of a suffrage based upon numbers is to throw the elections into the hands of profes- sional politicians, before whom educated men retire in dis- gust. That is the case already in London, and would be the case universally if election could only be obtained by wild promises from the hustings. All history proves that there is a point below which educated men will never descend, and the moment that point is reached the State loses the services of the most able class. The introduction of forty or fifty representatives of labour would have no such result ; it is the universal dominance of the craftsman from which culti- vated men shrink back, not only with distaste, but a well- founded sense of injury. We entreat the working men to reconsider their theory of the right of numbers to rule, to plead for their claim to share and not their wish to monopolize, and, above all, to give some guarantee to the middle class that the new guests will not seize the whole of the rations. We have fought their battle often, in spite of much obloquy from the class to which we appeal ; but as the workman can only be heard in economics in common with his employer, so can he only bear rule in politics in common with the rest of the nation.