REFORM OF PARLIAMENT — IGNORANCE OF THE PEOPLE.
MORNING CHRONIC LE—According to the Rev. Edward Irving we are now dose upon the grand Millennium; and Messrs. Cubbete and Hunt have put forth a Declaration announcing an approaching struggle betWeen the Land and the Funds, which must etel either in the total min of the Landowners or in Parliamentary Reform. With respect In the religious Millennium we pretend to no skill in in- terpreting prophecy, and therefore we shall not attempt to gainsay the Reverend Commentator. But with respect to the political Millennium we are not so diffi- dent. We will frankly own that we do not believe that the struggle in question is fast approaching, and we will also own that we are not anxious that Parliamen- tary Reform should be too much accelerated. We mean, by Parliamentary Re- form, not a mere transference of the franchise from one or two corrupt Boroughs to Birmingham, Manchester, and a few more large towns, but such a Reform as would afford protection to the people. The people of England have of late years made considerable advances in improvement ; and we do not doubt that the progress in improvement will hereafter be greatly accelerated. The hope of Eng- land is the number of towns, which facilitate the circulation of knowledge among the people. Each town is a centre from which the rays of knowledge spread in direetiyas. If the people of England are yet too generally ill-educated ands, lirii.ssly ignorant and prejudiced, it is to be recollected that our civilization is 'recent, that our towns are of yes'terday's date amid that the character of a people can only be changed with time. _Allowing, dierefore, with the able author of the article on the Caries of the Population, in the last number of The Ediulmryle Review, that " what with nonsense verses at school. and novel-reading. Apl, !crypha controversies," and other misapplications of time, " notwithstanding all that is said about the march of intellect, and the efforts to multiply sixpenny sys- tems," we are still greatly deficient as a people in knowledge ; we contend hat the desire of knowledge, especially amoug the young, i, dec*diyilnthe_ increase, and that there is no cause to despair of the future." If a PatTiarnentary Reform of a searching kind could be effected without violence, ties ignorance of a very great proportion of the people (and after the late beastly exhibitions, no man would think of questioning it) might be productive of little injury ; because, though a man may himself be unable to arrive at correct conclusions with respect to political questions, he may err less as to the men deserving of confidence. But a Parliamentary Reform in this country (superseding as it would, to a cer- tainty, the House of Lords, or reducing it to a echo of the Democratic Home, whereas the Democratic House is at present the creature of the Aristocratic), will never be effected without commotion ; and we should exceedingly diead the letting loose the population of England, in their present state of ignorance. It would be easy to deal with questions of organicat Reform, if men were, in any giver country, what we wish them to be. But we must always bear in mind, that men are the creatures of the circumstances by which they have been sur- rounded. In England, the Churchmen, till lately, strenuously opposed all attempts to instruct the people, and they have been reared in ignorance, and inoculated with all manner of prejudices. As if ignorance was not enough, pains have been taken to demoralize them. They have been literally driven by Govern- ment into the public house. The hours that are not spent in hard toil, are spent, in too tummy cases, in gross sensuality. Though we should be sorry to subscribe to any system of Government which places any portion of the people at the mercy of others, we should at the same time be sorry, in the present state of the hingli:di population, to be ourselves futile mercy of no small portion of that population. We subscribe to the doctrine, that the object to be kept in view is the admission of all to the privilege which is now possessed by a few ; and also that there can he no adequate security for good government, so long as the property of all is at the disposal of a few. But if a man have been long in darkness he cannot see when he is suddenly brought to the light. If a man have been degraded into a beast of burden, and (like no small part of the labouring population) rendered worse by the little he has been taught than if his mind were a tabula rasa, the safety of others may dictate to them the wish, that the capacity to use his power wisely may precede his obtaining power. We confess, therefore, that our fear is, lest circumstances should put the people of England too soon in the possession of their franchise. \Ve are aware that when the circumstances which produce revolu- tions are in existence, wishes, either one way or the other, will be inoperative. Whether the people are wise or prejudiced, well or ill-informed. they will be appealed to whenever the wheels of Government are clogged. This ought to he a motive with all who have influence of disseminating knowledge as much as possible, that if a change take place it may be productive of as little injury as possible. The difference between Mr. Bentham and Ourselves is, that his non is a reasoning animal, whereas an Englishman hardly deserves that character.
11 STANDARD—For year:, it has been confessed on all sides, that the actual coil-
titution of the house of Commons is by no means faithful to the fundamental
rinciples upon which our system of government 'is professedly founded; and that it does not, in fact, represent the popular sentiment, as in theory it ought to do. The anomaly has been hitherto successfully met lee this one proposition- " The system works well ;" and so long as it did work well, the defensive argu- ment was unanswerable, because though the House of (.nmmons happened to differ front the body of the people (and the occasions were clot many), the silica matter of the difference was of too little moment to control the authority of those fundamental maxims of state policy, " Stare super vies antiques," "me quiets moveri." The last few years, however, have given a succession of proofs too striking to be overlooked, too uniform to leave the conclusion doubtful, that "the
House of Commons does not Work well." Trade fearfully and steadily declining at a time when we are said to maintain the best understanding with all the civil- ized world; manufacturers perishing for want of employment ; agriculturists ruined for want of sale for their produce ; a declining revenue, and approaching- civil war in one part of the empire—all at a season of profound peace abroad; this is a state of things incontestibly existing, and as incontestibly proving that " the House of Commons does not work well." The last year too abundantly shows that it is not merely in matters of inferior interest that the House of Commons can set up a will against the will of the people whom it is appointed to represent, seeing that it has confessedly " broken in upon the constitution," of which it was the guardian, in very disrespectful defiance of the most earnest remonstrances of the people of England. In this, too, it has set an example of innovation, which the people have not only a right, but which the people are bound to follow, upon that primary principle of philosophy, that to maintain the same results from a system, after a change has been made in any essential part, one or more of the remaining essential parts must undergo a corresponding change. * * * Amend- ed it must be, but we question much whether any man yet knows exactly the course of repair which will best suit the circumstances of the country and the times. The first step must be a temperate but strict inquiry into the state of the representation. If such an inquiry be not taken up within doors, the people will take it up without, "with a vengeance," as Lord Chatham foretold more than half a century ago.
Guate—Whatever we think of the cause to which the passing over of some of the Tories to the ranks of the Reformers is to be attributed, we are pleased at the result. We only fear the quarrel of these persons with the present system of representation, or non-representation, is rather in the nature of a lover's quarrel. The difficulty which stands in the way of the new Tory Reformers is this—that they wish for such a House of Commons as would oppose religious toleration, and they know not what plan of reform would get it for them. The plan of moderate re- form which would be the most popular, would be to take the right of electing members from decayed. boroughs, and give it to the householders of large towns and populous districts. But would this make the House of Commons less friendly to religious liberty ? If London and its neighbourhood, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, and other populous places, had returned by the votes of their householders a number of members proportioned to their wealth and importance, would the result have been a House of Commons unfavourable to the relief of the Catholics ? The fact has been repeatedly shown to be, that among the mem- bers of the most populous places, returned by the most popular modes of election at present known, the great majority was so decidedly friendly to Emancipation, that if the whole House of Commons had been returned in the same manner, the measure must have been carried long before the last session. Many of the Tory advocates of reform, therefore, wisely abstain front telling us what sort of reform they would have. To state their intention in the most favourable way, they wish for such a reform as would procure a House of Commons less disposed to change than the present House,—for the whole substance of their complaint is in the changes which the present House of Commons has made. Now, without prejudg- ing the question whether the changes likely to be made will be beneficial, this we take to be undoubted—that the general tendency of the public mind is towards change, which it believes to be improvement ; and that any reform which gave the public mind greater influence over the House of Commons would insure greater and more numerous changes than any which we have yet experienced ; and it is on this very ground that the advocates of reform, especially those among them to whom the Tory Reformists now approximate, have supported the mea- sure. A plan of reform, then, which will render permanent every monopoly and every abuse, and at the same time be agreeable to the people, is not easily to be had ; and a Tory, longer-sighted than most of his brethren, has therefore, with great candour, declared, that though, to bring it to his liking, the House of Com- mons wants mending, no one has yet discovered how it can be so mended. The state of feeling even among the Tories is, however, an argument in favour of re- form, because it shows one of the inconveniences of a body elected by so small a portion of the people as that which chooses the majority of the House of Com- mons. Every discontented party can allege that the measures of which it disap- proves are not those of the nation. If there had been in the House of CommOns an adequate number of representatives of the wealth and population of the great trading and manufacturing towns, who had voted, as we are persuaded they would have done, in favour of religious liberty, the decision of the House of Commons on the Relief Bill would have commanded more universal respect among the people. It would have been less open to suspicion and calumny. We do not expect to see a reform which will distribute the power of electing mem- bers of Parliament among all males of twenty-one years of age ; but the proposal to give the wealth and population of the country some greater share than now enjoys in the return of members, is so reasonable, that it must gain ground as the fears produced by the French Revolution disappear. The constitution of this country is aristocratical : it has been firmer than most other aristocracies, be- cause it has been less exclusive—because it has not been revolting to the pride of the people; but in order to maintain it under the changes which have taken place In property, its basis must be sooner or later still more enlarged. It might be well if a prudent Government effected this change before the necessity became too pressing to give compliance the effect of a boon.
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