Toms OF THE DAY.
THE NEW REFORM BILL: GOVERNMENT AND ITS ADVISERS. le the Electorra 'Reform 'Bill of next session -prove a failure and a sham, it will certainly not be because those whose business it is to frame it have been either -taken by surprise or left to their own unassisted invention. Statesmen of all parties must have been long aware that changes were demanded, and must have seen clearly enough the general direction those changes would take. If they have not yet made up their minds as to the extent and ac- tual details Of change they are prepared to propose or to acquiesce in, it must be attributed to the tendency of acting politicians in this country to delay-making up their minds till the last moment, and then rather to follow than to lead the public opinion on which action must in the last resort depend. It is quite in accordance with this tendency, that we hear rumours that supposed leaders and representatives of variouresections of political opinion have been invited-by Lord John Russell -to impart their views on the Reform question, forthe guidance of the Government in the discussions which must precede decision on the part of the Cabinet. This step, while it indicates that the members of the Government have as yet arrived at no clear and settled convictions as to their own measure, implies no less a desire to make that measure broad and compre- hensive. And it cannot be denied, that the wider the range of suggestions submitted to the framers of the measure, the more chance there is of its satisfyring the wants cif the nation. Only, judging from the very narrow and ineffective nature of the propo- sals for Reform of- the Representation made in Parliament during the few past years, there -seems reason for fearing that leading Members of Parliament are either too much absorbed in business demanding immediate attention, or too much afraid of committing themselves, to be taken as adequate exponents of the views which are widely 'entertained among the educated classes on this question, or of the 'changes 'which men both thoughtful and practical consider as both desirable and capable of being carried into execution. The counsel and suggestions of Members of Par- liament will represent 'rather the general level of opinion on this question in 'their respective cliques, than either the aim which 'the highest minds have conceived, or the methods which the most sagaeieus experience can devise for securing them. 'Without undervaluing the advice of acting politicians, we cannot help feeling that the Government will neglect a rich 'resource -if they banish from their deliberations the various schemes of electoralreform which have appeared from time to time within the last two or three years, in the shape of pamphlets, papers in quarterly-or monthly periodicals, and in the columns of newspapers. An English Ministry may always trust itself not to be too theoretical : however wide the scope of its preliminary dis- cussions, however far 'from existing practice the schemes that are laid 'before it'may 'diverge, there is not the least fear but what the sense of se/f-preservation, so conspicuous in our public men—the aversion to -originality or boldness that characterizes modern English statesmen—will keep them from erring by excess of speculation. Let them only try to'find out what changes are ab- stractedly best, and how they could best be executed, we will venture to prophesy that the via inertim of English wealth and respectability, the- inevitable.compromise that intervenes between thetonception and- the execution of a great political measure, will reduce the pure-and. perfect theory to a very modest and sufficiently fragmentary and inconsistent practical result.
Xnowing how inevitably the -party in power in this country is
tempted, both for the sake- of ease and to avoid risk of its own continuance' in office,tcr satisfy itself with' the minimum of change, we cannot'but regret thatthe- writer of an excellent paper on Par- lianrentary'Reform in the current number of the Edinburgh _Re- view should have thought it -necessary to be so very emphatic in impressing on the Government the remembrance that their coming task is not to be a remodelling of the electoral system,•but simply the removal'of tertain specified blemishes and the addition of cer- tain specified improvements. The writer may be 'sure that- the framers of the new bill would not have alarmed his susceptibility on the score of innovation. And now, probably, while not an atom of his other recommendations will find, favour, we may predict that we shalthave Lead:John repeating to the House of Commons, with
emphasis' when'he utters a 'truism -instead of per-
forming a great riot, "the wise and statesmanlike sentiment of a well-known writer, to the effect that we are not—thank God we have neveryetbeen,-please God we never shall be—in the position of having to mustn't:it a constitution wholly afresh.'" The writer in- cludes under schemes that would be a reconstruction of the constitu- tion' "universal suffrage" and "electoral districts" : yet he him- self, in hisplan -for admitting to the franchise persons who have a certain sum in the savings-banks, by no means guards us against that single danger to 'Which universal suffrage owes all its odium, the der- of the-richer--andmore educated classes'beingswamped by the poorest and lowest. For, be-it remembered, it is -not the Positive poverty-of this lowest -class which readers-it so important that it should not be allowed to swamp the voices of-all -other classes, htit its comparative poverty—such a position of inferiority as constitutes it a class, and inspires It-with special tendencies. The time -may .shortly come when the -majority of our-hand-labourers waattsuir the franchise if it were made to depend on the possession of so much money ; in which ease, all the evils of an unmixed demo- cracy grout& be imminent, and all the-fine theories of our constitu- tion securing by indirect means that repreeentation of classes which it -would be "theoretical" and " dangeroiv " to attempt to secure directly, would vanish by spontaneous co*buetion. The writer of the article appears to hold with ourselve< that the representation of classes, in opposition to the representatlen of numbers, is-the safeguard of liberty • among us, and thA gsiu'ha4e of pregress.
Then, we must ask, why refuse the only plain and ard way of securing this ? why take pains to assure the Government that such a plan would be too wide a deviation from existing prac- tice—too French, too doctrinaire, too everything that is horrible, logical, and sensible ? We repeat, that a direct scheme of repre- sentation by classes would not be so much a deviation from exist- ing usage, as a clear bringing-out of the spirit of existing practice —the development to which our constitution has been ever strug- gling—in one word, its "idea."
With the exception, however, of this House-of-Commons cant, whereof the Whigs, even more than the Tories, have sickened the public who seek for meaning in words, there is much of valuable suggestion in the article of the Edinburgh. We only wish we could feel as certain that the Government would embody in their measure the positive proposals of the writer for the extension, re- distribution, and purification of the electoral franchise, as we are sure that they will carefully observe his solemn warning not to make a tabula rasa of the British constitution and fancy they have all to begin again.
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