TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE NEW REFORM BILL.
Inn Median law of Finality is relaxed, annulled, and we are once more in motion, drifting out with Russell at the helm into the Sea - or Change. Of Lord John's new Reform scheme as a substantive thing, or as a whole, it is not easy to form a distinct judgment : we see what it liaises, not what it is to do in return. You cannot vieigh.pr measure it, since considerable portions of it lie beyond knowdground or overlap each other.
We incline to surmise that it will prove, in practice, larger than it looks. That it would yield a not inconsiderable extension of the franchise; there can be little doubt; and from its very nature, so far from being liable to the reproach of " finality," it will evi- dently be the instrument for obtaining a still larger extension subsequently: it will not satisfy the new classes whom it will ad- mit, and obviously, on getting the franchise, their first exertions will be to extend it to others of their unenfraLhised fellows. The bill must be judged, therefore, as a transition measure, with an- other and an unknown measure at the back of it.
The present bill is not to be estimated on its own merits, as they are in themselves undetermined. For example, it will in some cases add to the electoral body the residents in dis- tricts or towns to be added to small boroughs. But what kind of people are they ? Is there any existing description of their characteristic traits, so that we can pronounce the franchise to have gained by the accession of a class peculiar for its in- telligence, its respectability, or its honesty P No such special description exists. In the annexation of existing towns, what machinery is to create that geographical consolidation which shall really bring the electors together and open the field for the action of really popular sentiment? Practical men must have the ut- most uncertainty as to the beneficial result of uniting many small boroughs, not already possessing any community of local interest in themselves, but intended to receive it solely for electoral pur- poses. We have all witnessed that arrangement Scotland, and experience confirms what might have been the conoThsion a priori— that the unity will be furnished by the machinery of the Parlia- mentary agents' offices : the probability is, that the reform will but substitute for the corruption of local family influence the ex- tended practice of contracting for constituencies—transferring the privilege, in fact, from the resident gentlemen to the class of pro- fessional undertakers. What will be the number of additional electors ? This question would not be answered until we know how many of the new kinds of franchise will be concurrent or separate. The lowering of the franchise is based on the :inference that intelligence has widely extended ; and it appears from the figures that the author of the bill reckons the five-pound mind of 1852 as equal to the ten-pound mind of 1832 ; birc he -has not stated his specific data for that calculation. Such are examples of the doubts which suggest themselves on the first review of the new Reform Bill ; doubts, however, which rather preclude a distinct judgment than instigate a prejudgment against the possible work- ing of the measure.
The probability as to the passing of the bill is a necessary and a large element in the estimate of the scheme, even from the first ; since we are not to judge of measures by their intentions, i
but by their effects. If a measure which is introduced be to result in the passing of some measure founded upon it, but different, evidently we cannot ascribe to that ultimate enact- ment the traits of the original draught. Now it would seem almost as easy to carry a large glass chandelier through a crowd in the streets, as the present bill, with all its pendent ornaments, through the House of Commons. In the number of its "points " it excels the Charter itself ; and how many of those points are likely to catch by the way P Nor is it easy to tell winch may be torn off. Who can presume that the new five-pound franchise, the incorporated Jew Bill, the new Assessed-tax franchise, &c., will all come through; or any one of them entire ? This bill which we are now contemplating, then, may as little resemble the ultimate bill, as the uniform and features of the newly-equipped conscript resemble those of the war-worn and weather-beaten hero returning from Algerine campaigns.
Regarding the scheme not as one to be carried, but as one to furnish its authors on their " going to the country," it must be confessed to supply them with a full quiver ; but it does not give any one weapon of commanding power. The very desire not to offend keeps all the shafts down to a moderate size ; and the whole, though multiplex, is as inoffensive as the armoury of a "lady's companion." It is true that no interest will be provoked to re- sistance, except perhaps the important vested interest which is to lose an appanage in the disfranchised borough of St. Alban's ; and that intelligent interest will discern its compensation in the united boroughs of the present bill. Still, for election purposes, it wants a leading idea as " a cry." The name of this multifarious conge- ries of ideas would be a gigantic periphrasis; but you cannot cheer your soldiers to the battle with a periphrasis.
Its principal force, perhaps, will lie in its operation as a damper on rival measures and the schemes ascribed to the cogitations of the ingenious Conservatives : coming with the prestige of a "party in power," it is "good" enough and tempting enough to spoil the market of other agitations; so that it may prevent any of the schemes which have so long been competing for public attention— at least for the present. But beyond?
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