MR. JOSEPH PARKES.
This gentleman has been charged, during the week, by Mr. Cobbett, with having said in a bookseller's shop in London, and in the hearing of a person of respectability, whose name Mr. Cobbett professes his readiness to give up, " that the Reformers should take what they could get"—and "that it was very difficult to keep the people together." From this Mr. Cobbett infers that Ministers are inclined to tamper with the Bill, and more especially with the 10/, clause, as Mr. Parkes, he says, is in constant communication with them.
Mr. Parkes replied in the Chronicle of yesterday. lie denies generally the accuracy of the report made to Mr. Cobbett. He says he has always maintained that a scot and lot qualification was preferable to the quali- fication proposed in the Bill - that he was always of opinion that the Bill could not be carried without a creation of Peers, and that if no creation took place, its essentials would be modified or injured ; that the People were as deeply or rather more deeply interested in Reform than ever they were, but that their confidence in Ministers had been greatly shaken during the last nine months. One passage of Mr. Parkes's letter to the Chronicle we do not profess clearly to understand.
supported the measure as a whole, although I always did and do consider it too aristocratic in the preponderating inilnence given to tke Londoners, iu the division of counties and in the franchise."
If Mr. Parkes mean, that in giving eight additional members to London, the Bill augments the power of the Aristocracy, we must say, we think him egregiously mistaken. That the Metropolitan districts will choose members from among the higher gentry, is exceedingly pro- bable ; but, that they will either be swayed in their choice by the aristo- cracy, or select aristocrats for members, is one of the idlest conceits that ever entered the head of a Warwickshire man. Mr. Parkes will find, if the Bill were once passed, that the aristocracy, not of rank per- haps nor of family, but assuredly of principle, will have :a much better chance in Birmingham, notwithstanding its Union, than in Marylebone. There is no man who has power to constrain a voter equal to the manu- facturer who gives the voter employment—and we rather think that there is no man who, generally speaking, is more disposed to exercise the power he possesses.
In his letter to the Morning Chronicle, Mr. Parkes avows himself the author of the valuable pamphlet on the Prerogative of Creating Peers, which we noticed lately.
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