The new agitation for " Complete Suffrage" has been intro-
duced into Parliament by MT. SHARMAN CRAWFORD. The Com- plete Suffrage is a sort of compromise between a section of the Household Suffrage party and the Chartists; but it differs little in the main from the doctrine of the latter. Mr. CRAW FORD'S motion consisted of a resolution setting forth the points demanded by the Complete-Suffragists, and promising a Com- mittee of the whole House to consider the matter. Of the sixty-seven Members who supported him, many went merely for inquiry; some dissenting altogether from essentials in the scheme. As a proceeding in Parliament, it possesses little present interest or appositeness; it belongs not to the questions before the Legis- lature1 nor to the time. But it is one of the signs that occasionally appear of a vast question behind, which approaches with the lapse of years, slowly, but perhaps as inevitably as slowly. The strange debate—a sort of sacrifice of an evening by Parliament to the ab- stract reasoning of the subject—is but the murmur of the loud dis- cussion which may be heard in the far future, on the right and the power of the few to exclude the many from the rule of all. It can receive no other than a practical solution. Some day, per- haps, there will be no excluded class : in the mean time, such dis- cussions as that of Thursday serve as a memento of the danger of leaving a vast multitude, with growing intelligence and activity, exasperated at disabilities which are justified only by assump- tions. Something was observed which is pertinent to the immediate time—all the late Ministers were absent. They did not think it necessary, or they did not think it prudent, to appear in defence of either of the principles which they profess—Reform Bill "Finality,
or "Progressive Reform." They left the Tory Ministers to make excellent Whig speeches for them on both heads ; Sir ROBERT Pram defending the Reform 13111 and Lord Joan RussExn himself, and vindicating the title of the poor to exemption from more taxes. The Whigs even abdicated their office as leaders of the Opposition in Parliament, as well as withdrew from communication with the people out of doors.
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