The country has been undergoing that miserable juggle the re-
vision of the Parliamentary election lists ; and the Liberals in London are shocked at an incident which they have en- countered in the registration for the City : the agents of the Con- servative Association have objected to four thousand Liberals ! If the objectors were to succeed, the next election would result in the return of none but Conservative Members ; and the Morn- ing Chronicle intimates that the same sweeping " conspiracy " is carried on elsewhere. The Liberals are horrified at this Pro- tectionist threat of " wholesale disfranchisement by form of law"; but we do not see what right they have to complain : the attempt at wholesale disfranchisement by form of law seems the natural converse of that wholesale enfranchisement by form of law in which the Anti-Corn-law League exulted. In fact, we believe the bulk of the Conservative objections are directed against the freehold franchises created by the instrumentality of the League. Either party may plead a still higher authority than its own : Sir Robert Peel told the Conservatives that " the battle of the con- stitution" was to beebfeotryht in the Registration Courts: not only Conservative but Li election-agents heard and learned. Eng- land must have a remarkably good constitution, to stand all the to ials it has undergone; and this kind of' scramble for chips of it, which Sir Robert Peel pointed out, has been one of the severest. Of course, the Legislature intended the qualifications for electorship not as pretexts for being on, the list, but as tests of the electors' fitness—bad teats, no doubt, but still meant as tests. Extending Sir Robert's suggestion, however, the League busied itself not merely in registering electors qualified, but in urging all persons who could to fit themselves for passing muster. The plan was quite " 1 l ": the Le we took an unexpected advantage, but did not beak the law. The Conservative Association does not break the law. It is true that these contests over the letter of the statute are not creditable ; they subject great political questions to the disgrace of deriving advantage from manoeuvres very like pettifogging : but they are not worse on one side than the other. This last move, indeed, threatens an ulterior result ; but it is one to be ac- counted a danger more by the Conservatives than by any other party, and therefore it is for them to consider the policy of per- severance. If the wholesale disfranchisement were to succeed— if it were to have the effect of producing a House of Commons re- presenting only a residue of the constituencies—and if it were thus practically to alter the policy of the State—it would very speedily spur up the country to alter the state of the law. We should have a new Reform Bill ; and in the interval, just as much disturbance and turmoil as might be necessary to frighten Par-' liament into granting a further extension of the suffrage.
