''' T ' OPIPS 0.1' THE I) A 1 1: TifE BETTER* I;E,PRES.ENTA1,TION OF
L.M.iLIND. urn; 1832 AND 1858.
\VS ElkikvIt Alitstaineq fioci i41Q0 1.6tOdiar, in the discussion of pwcpecliipcloApit Ililts, On: thifsuNcet,, int least, we liayp,,pot depattearfiffNA t40 POsiiiull a a Ill'Af1444410,140*n.C9nek410 " Spectator." We have been content to describe the imogress.4 • leiiiifttiont, whiell'isi:undoubtedly•lhofegrat impottance.•.,IWe 1C.,i,Se::7Cti'de#O)trect -siiity! 'to' marlv'tilie heiglit'lof 'the `melte );}§4pg.,gii„,116 tl.41ii:fontlitcr, within '"t3h6:sieniii'lehAd - .4iitutipn..;;Me now pr000se to withdraw into a sOM'ei-410 ka, land: i■ (WrotruSt 'tau reaelLs will agree with. us.tititre.e.e.caneVaaet `,6101,11ei` atinosphere.' it ie'true•ive have not beenmble:to_oonasal lit,jiA'4re0Sible syni,pailiy for thoie who, with the stuff of itiabh- locid3,n,thein, have 44444 and. are Vattling, at a,great scie114.- udtantage; for the attainment of . ;electoral righL. .I3iit ,ile -*Meet! endorse • the i notion; that in the, preselit p4itiers,..cof itrib'0ffii lair aty grAvt 7 tlititt,,d, ' ,fer :the bet ter is .1si r lid .)exf- ,11c4d, from iut.l.e. mechaniell reclistrilthons, or shifttnetti liticnl. privilegti: .. `Is. liarftiTy agree with iq. )1:w it tlei,ibbiT,"_, • WO the que,itionalorgEnglantiv now Pik: liot iiitLri,;;1, but c;44 Leo 2' 117 i8 bisofals W 1eaivifais:iiiirils dui pays :at son 4 piss 1q ,o7 on a Covta me" (10'11,es"'f.e);67e14'. v. 3t'Steais that the atenitithiteil Orrom of n.long tiiiitill* intpolicy are too likely to Teturn nrcit vs.'',t behoyea us neWl?0iiteuire„ if we are to speak of iZt:pr«.,elitation,* t 1 liowthistemethatletauditueuty,• but how Eog/ao (1 h er.iqf 1144,114n feketifek'did,isittilbevepreSetited for the future. We fear,thot r 'fbil. pgOolit'l-",'1fOti ilie- !At' f 6\4.1 efi'r. 1, is:but *a long 14ciitylasf .epperiiinitiga h` it Cr ihi'sustd. Lord Palmenqon app'ee.ti tit any rate as the ostensible agent in the lowering of England, 'b _tie tlie diminution Of her moral influence, to a position not easily distinguished from that of a second-rate Power. It is his doinii, more than that of any other single man, that - England, is tiOw disliked and inveighed against for veering ineonstancy and fickle- ness, a.s:raueli as Russia is dreadedj for her tyranny. We believe it would have been better. to have imitated the "United States, and to have abStained altogether from any interference in Europe, than tO.,have interfered so lamely and inconsiderately. And if there be anything worse than simple inconsiderateness, which has marred otir European policy, not ours shall be the task to dwell on w44 'is apt honolirable to the country. Though, indeed, we lay not all the blame on the shoulders of a particular man. Lord Palmerston is guilty ; but the nation is not innocent. We, the people, have been with him ; we ourselves cognisant and 'consenting. We say advisedly, " the nation." For let no one lay the faults and shortcomings of late Parliaments and Administrations to the charge of the electoral body alone. It were vain for the non-electoral classes to disclaim the possession of political weight and influence ; as if they were expecting powerlessly the emanci- pation of a new Reform Bill. Is a man not a citizen, until he gets within the precinct of a polling-booth ? The working classes do already possess great political power ; they know it ; they have exercised it ; or else consciously refrained from the exercise. In either case, to them belongs their share of the re- sponsibility for what has been done well or ill for England, by the hands of her statesmen-representatives. It is because we entertain these views, that we do not enter zealously into the Re- form movement as popularly expounded; that we do not concern ourselves ad infinitum with the claims of rival boroughs, and population pitted against population, or with a new map of Eng- land to be ruled on the rectangular pattern. We have no fancy, in truth, to deduce a Reform Bill from the Census-tables. And we feel a strong interest in preserving rather than destroying the time-honoured varieties of our system, which indeed belong to it, not as lichenous excrescences, but as displaying all the beauty and serviceableness of a spontaneous natural growth. We would not surrender these things at the bidding of the men of theory, or in obedience to the absolutism of an idea. And lifting our gaze beyond the circles of local jealousies, or the conten- tions of large or small boroughs, we would seek to draw at- tention to the truth, that it is not Birmingham, or Hull, or Newcastle, but rather it is Britain herself, tarnished in her fair fame by her authorized and accredited agents, that now needs a truer representation. It is for the great Parliament of Europe and the world that we must learn to choose our spokesmen. If any one denies this truth, we will not enter into matters which may be put aside with that phrase, that very melancholy phrase, so often used to seal the lips of patient independent members, that they are become "part of history." The actual present trUl suffice us. We are now in a wrong relation with respect to France, and to her Emperor. This difficulty increases day. day ; the aggressive acts of the Emperor following surely, and not very slowly, upon our own acts of abdication. And the longer the solution of this problem is delayed, the more painfd will that solution be. This is a question that every boron* Rid ivory county will have to take note of whether. ft.1.9"?.. it
ei no, d kOrltite, linosin, a suocessfal blekv aiimed ht
Portugal has been considered, and rightly considered, as haying virtually fallen irporsEngland. Under these circumstances what is the detnialibineof our statesmen and our party-leaders:?-. Take 'flit the Minister, ,Lora Derby. We listened to him the other day at the Guildhall ; he was still cooing about the French ai- l:woe: Aid Lord Pelmerston at the same moment, tame to the imperialT hand, alights at Compiagne to pick the Emperor's biscuits fr !These are they to whom we trust it to oppose the insult • bisthe Peace Party to enrol militia, east cannon, collect stores, equip moveable batteries, and provide, in fact, for public honour and security ? Is it they who will recover for England her as- cendancy, and place in Europe ? Then the sooner they set about it the better. ...1t is useless to pursue the subject. We surely stand in need of an. agency, to render impossible such anti-national proceed- ings, and to declare once for all England's meaning with re- spect to them, But what agency is that to be ? Is it Household Suffrage, or the ballot ? We hope that a Reform measure might con- duce to the required result. At e cannot affirm it, nor deny it. But at least we must express a doubt, as to the strict adaptation of such means to such an end. It is probable that many persons, im- pressed with the recent practical failure under the present electoral system, may deem it now desirable to bring up the whole or a part of the reserved forces of the constitution. By extended suf- frage they might seek to rectify, morally, the constituencies ; which would then rectify Parliament; and Parliament, again, the Administration. But how doubtful, hazardous, and circuit- ous, does this process appear, considered with reference to the imperial end in view 1 It is a chain of probabilities which may be falsified in any link. Besides which, the present con- stituencies, doing their duty, might as easily rectify the evil. We feel doubtful, we confess, as to the operation of any electoral change for eliciting the required new type of statesmanship, and compassing the administration of the empire. It seems too like throwing out a drag-net with the vain phantasy to catch the stars. We doubt, therefore, as to the working of any Reform Bill for giving what the nation needs. Nevertheless, honouring and respecting as we do the earnest and intelligent among the workers in towns, as well as among the dwellers in the country, we should be sorry to look unfavourably on any scheme for en- duing these with the present enjoyment of that franchise, which is undoubtedly their heritage in time to come. But we are at a loss to conceive from what quarter such a scheme will be pro- duced. It would be hard, in fact, to imagine one. Universal suffrage would be a risk, a hazardous unsettlement, to which no serious thinker can easily make up his mind. The present line of demarcation, is, on many grounds, unsatisfactory. What line of demarcation should be drawn ? Those who find this problem insoluble may fall back on the reflection that the question of suffrage is, after all, not the pressing question of the time. We have already traversed Mr. Bright's claim to be considered as the statesman of the future. We now add our strong and intimate conviction that the question he represents, in spite of the importance which is inherent in it, and of the prominence which will be given it both in Parliament and out of doors, is not a question which images the needs of the time. With the Chartists it is continually in season. According to them, it is always the hour for widening as much as possible the suffrage. But we will not do our Chartist friends the dis- courtesy, as well as the manifest injustice, of supposing that they alone of all persons are insensible to state-necessities, indifferent to "signs of the times," and incapable of modifying their pro- gramme. To them, therefore, as well as to others we would sspeak. People talk of the unanimity that prevails. Un- doubtedly, the movement is regarded with a kind of calm con- sent. But it is one thing to consent, another to vehemently de- sire. What, then, is the movement a mere " sham," the agita- tion. purely a factitious one ? We should shrink from enter- taining that opinion. Doubtless there exists in many quar- ters a feeling, dim, vague, and undefined, that some great change is needed, and that a new era is setting iu. In so few 'oases, however, is this feeling guided and enlightened by a true perception of the realities of the new time, that num- bers will instinctively revert to the precedents of 1832, unroll the Reform Act, and declare that we must now do likewise. Yet it is lost labour to endeavour to resuscitate for 1858 the feel- ings and the arguments of 1832. Let the difference between the two cases be observed. The Reform Bill of 1832 has prospered, because the means were strictly in harmony with the end in view. The means employed were the renewing and quickening of a 'Legislature ; the goodly fruit has been gathered, in two great decades f4 , kgioaltiopi I iBmtntit itirlse0 lif,,yy.".-middrig is not the caneumniation thnt ,we ne_ed, te w , asarel(is ?et pur pose, now, should be comp, tir■,1fq, of , Me A m;t1 itration The difficulty settles upon Downibg Street. Thelegitimate fruji should be, unless we are entirely mistaken, the deVelopment of an Ithperial Policy. Here, we observe, the democratic thinkers are manifestly behind the, age. Or certainly, they are elpof from the aee They are still engaged with the old precedents ofjd2 ; and se&n. Seeking to meet a new problem by a mere extension of the old me_ thod. If this be so, it may have been quite as much with a prevision that nothing could in reality conic of it, as out of mere reckless indiscretion in the Conservative mind, that party-leaders have been so forward in promising Reform Bills. inequalities in the electoral system there' must always be ; it were useless to attempt uniformity. But it willlurn to the advantage of the Derbyite-Palmerstonian sections, and of the "used up" clement in general, that the people should be spending time and strength in grasping at a mere shadow. This is not precisely- the juncture at which the nation should trouble itself by taking to pieces a representative system. A truer path was entered upon when the motion of Captain Vivian for reform of the Horse Guards was carried. Then it, was that " the fabric of privilege," which democratic orators talk about, was shaken in the rig t manner. Let the House go on in this mood, and. it need fear the inroad of no demoeratic Brennus. We are far from wishing to deny that an extension of the suffrage, if a rational scheme can be devised, might work, in- directly, towards the great end we desire. We cannot see that there is any clear difference in political wisdom and virtue between the lowest rank of the now enfranchised and the highest of the unenfranchised. class, Possibly', indeed, the difference may be found somewhat in favour of the latter. Nor can We attach very great weight to the rather doctrinaire theory, advocated with great ability in the pages of the Economist and elsewhere, that the influence of cultivated intellect should be studiously protected. This view, in fact, is retrogressive ; for as far as numerical strength is con- cerned, that element is already made of very small accuunt. The bulk of the present constituencies neither possesses it, nor is sensi- tively amenable to its influence. It is to other and far meaner influences that they most usually succumb. And again, the ex- perience of the last few years, during which the country has been practically under the guidance of its cultivated classes, is far from being altogether favourable to their claims. Political knowledge may be conjoined with political insensibility ; and it is of little avail where the will and purpose are wanting to direct righteously the affairs of a nation. The utmost that can be said against the working-classes is that they are, electorally, untried ; whereas wealth, rank, intellect, station, at the present moment have much of their political character to retrieve. The idea of Class-repre- sentation, so generally connected with the former, has evidently much to recommend it. But we see little use in dealing with these questions while yet they remain in the impalpable form of theory. On practical proposals alone is it useful to come to any definite opinion or conclusion. The last few pages of Count Montalembert's most timely article may perhaps open the eyes of many Englishmen as to the true condition of their country. We do not say that his words ought to be taken as infallible. But those who lean on authority ought to notice the faint, and we might say, imbecile effort made by the Times on Wednesday to express dissent from his conclusions. The writer was wishful to refute, his better genius prevailed, and he scarcely succeeded in disagreeing. If that article be sig- nificant, it is a sip of returning health. It may, perhaps, be taken as a sign, m a quarter where the sign was much needed, although little to be expected, that the feverish glow of a too thoughtless national self-complacency is perhaps beginning to abate. At any rate it is instructive to see the Times, that great organ of the popular self-esteem, scarcely able to do more than lisp out a young lady's No, in reply to the clear and measured state- ments of a continental thinker about England. Were there a states- man among us who, sharing the genius and truthful vision of Montalembert, and being ready to share, if necessary, some por- tion of similar annoyances, would take the impregnable ground of his convictions as a basis for immediate action, we should have good hope that much trouble might be averted. At any rate the ft.ift of such a man, whether he were discoverable in these islands, which indeed would be our chiefest desire,) or should come hither om Asia, or from some unheeded corner of the empire, if such a thing could be, would be a better answer to our real needs than aught our ingenuity could devise. Unless indeed rich i and poor, learned and ignorant, refined and rude, joining to- gether in resistance, it should be found that the army of pre- judice, in the great issue which is impending, was stronger than the army of reason. But unfortunately the wanly of such a combatant is not heard. Else would it be echoed through the length and breadth of Britain. Those who are penetrated with these sentiments will run 1. headlong into no Reform Bill agitation. They will have no "programme" to put forward ; no elaborate theories of any kind, either to defend or to impugn. All conceivable forms of popular agitation will appear to them but trivial, in comparison with the needs of the time. They may probably be accused 0, indifference ; for indeed there is. little that they. can do. But events, meantime, are moving forward ; events which, it behoves the lovers of freedom to await with anxious expectation: .
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