TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CANVASS : REPRESENTATIVES AND CONSTITUENTS.
THE canvass for the impending general election is fairly afoot : electioneering agencies are in motion from one end of the kingdom to the other. No step that has yet been taken gives any warrant to anticipate that the new Parliament will be more independent and intelligent—more earnest in its wishes to serve the public interests, and more enlightened as to the means of accomplishing that end— than the one which is about to make way for it. If any thing, a House of Commons even more obtuse in intellect and more ductile to the influences of party is likely to be chosen.
The candidates who offer themselves do not stand upon their capacity to discharge the duty of legislators ; and the constituen- cies who invite or accept them do not make their selection on that ground. The greatest recommendation a candidate can have is, that he will not presume to have an opinion of his own or be wiser than his neighbours ; that be will run with docility in the harness of certain party-leaders ; that he will gravely repeat certain for- mulas expressive of abstract principles, and cry up a certain mea- sure professing to believe it in accordance with them. He is only wished to give an unreasoning vote with one party : it is not re- quired that he should understand the reasons for the vote, or fore- see its consequences. However imbecile, however insincere, he is welcome so he pronounce the Shibboleth of party. His rottenness will be lackered over with irrelevant attributes—birth, valour, lite- rary fame, wealth—it matters not what, so that the glitter distract men's attention from his inherent worthlessness.
Examples corroborative of the truth of this general position meet us at every turning. The City of London invites the Colonial Secretary to be its representative. The Tower Hamlets and Li- verpool contend for the honour of being represented by the Foreign Secretary. This is done at the very moment that Whig-ridden Edinburgh is proclaiming aloud the inefficiency of official repre- sentatives ; and that the fate of Dundee represented by Sir HENRY FARNEI.L-8. Member of note and character until he took office under the MELBOURNE Ministry, since that event a cipher in Par- liament, (save when he betrayed his constituents on the Ballot question,) and jobber of small favours for any petty local interest likely to aid him in an election—warns against the continuance of such a commerce. Manchester, too, the centre of Free Trade agitation, was neutralized so Tong as its seat in- the Legisla- ture was occupied by Poueerr TsmarsoN. The executive du- ties of Ministers leave them no time to discharge the duties of representatives—and besides, must often force them into lines of action diametrically opposite to what ought to be pursued by the representatives of great communities. When men thus circum- stanced are pitched upon as the most eligible candidates, it is clear that not fitness for the office of representative, but unavowed and therefore questionable motives, have determined the selection.
Marylebone has selected Admiral NAPIER. The Admiral is a brave and skilful warrior, with an off-hand dash of sentiment that conciliates liking. The brusque manner in which he broke through the empty forms of red-tapist diplomacy at Alexandria, and the blunt truths he enounced at Liverpool and Manchester, by their piquancy rendered him still more popular. But his appearance before the Marylebone electors shows that he is utterly disqualified, by ignorance of general principles and want of statistical informa- tion, to discharge the task of a legislator. He feels about, to ascertain what will please his audience, and that he says, regard- less of its meaning or whether it has a meaning. The truth is, the Admiral is a soldier of fortune—one of those genial not over- scrupulous sort of persons who undertake to hew out a career for themselves. War is his trade : his sword has been hired to other sovereigns as well as his own. He is making hay while the sun shines, and availing himself of the eclat attendant on his Syrian exploits. He frankly tells the Marylebone electors that he goes _into Parliament not without hope of being actively employed in his profession ere long, and not altogether despairing of being allowed to remain their nominal representative while engaged at a distance in the discharge of incompatible duties. In short, he goes into Parliament to glorify and promote the interests of CHARLES NA- PIER ; and the Marylebone electors, knowing this, and knowing that he is destitute of the qualifications of a legislator, are satisfied that it should be so. The experience which Southwark and Westmin- ster have had of WILSON, COCHRANE, and DE LACY EVANS, are insufficient to warn their Marylebone neighbours of the unfitness of representatives heroical.
These are the great and startling aberrations from the dictates of sound judgment. But every little borough can show mistakes quite as egregious. One accepts the services of a candidate be- cause he defrays the annual registration-expenses of a party. Another supports the individual who has personal friends among all parties, has no opinions sufficiently prorioncie to excite decided opposition in any quarter, subscribes to the local charities, and gives a cup to be run for at the races. A third is satisfied with a representative who conciliates the Radicals by telling them that he " goes as far as they do," and always votes with the Ministers. Men not known to be qualified for the discharge of Parliamentary duty, and men known to be disqualified, are on all hands selected as representatives, for any reason but that which ought alone to decide the choice of electors.
The mischief does not stop here : fitness for the task of legisla- tion seems positively to act as a bar in the way of a man's getting into Parliament. The question in the present canvass is, profes- sedly, Shall we have an advance towards Free Trade, or a con- tinuance of the old restrictive system ? There are not two pub- lic men in Britain who have done more to further the cause of Free Trade rationally, or who possess higher qualifications for continuing to promote it, than Mr. GROTE and Sir WILLIAM MOLESWORTH. Mr. GROTE, to a high and pure sense of honour, which no contact with the busy world has been able to abate, unites moral courage, strong logical powers, and a temper corn- pletely under the command of his judgment. His acquisitions in the field of speculative knowledge and practical experience of business are equally great. His business connexions have given him the mastery of all those ramifications of trade which centre in this metropolis : his extensive acquaintance with literary and public men has developed in him the refinement and compre- hensive grasp of a practical statesman. Independent in dispo- sition and by circumstances—dispassionate, judicious, fearless without rashness—this is the very character one would have expected an important mercantile community to picture to them- selves as the ideal of their wishes for a representative. But Mr. GROTE is allowed by the City of London to resign, at this crisis, his office of representative in the Legislature—and thanked for re- signing, in the hearts of those who could not without sacrifice of all show of consistency have asked him to retire ; and no other con- stituency stands forward to appropriate the treasure which the ob- tuse Londoners have in effect, though not formally, rejected. Sir WILLIAM MOLESWORTH brought to the aid of Free Trade opinions, extensive information, industrious research, high powers of reason- ing, and a rare superiority to the indolence and prejudices of the class of society he belongs to. But his independent habits of thought and action render him an unfit instrument for the managers of Leeds, who, like most provincial political leaders, only care for leading, not much caring to what they lead; and he is asked to resign, lest their power, not their principles, should experience a shock. Mr. GROTE and Sir WILLIAM MOLESWORTH are not to be in the next Parliament, because they are among the most capable public men we have for general legislation, while they possess in a degree equalled by few, surpassed by none, the very qualifications for the special service which the appeal to the country turns upon.
These examples may suffice to show the errors which the active participants in the present canvass are committing. It was not to be expected that they should be avoided. Candidates and consti- tuents are alike found wanting. Our institutions have been, and continue to be, unfavourable to the production of those master- minds, who seeing clearly what ought to be done, and resolute to attempt it, compel the public, by the mere force of their prompti- tude and decision, to follow and support them. Such men are in all societies but few, and the excessive number of our House of Commons would render it almost impossible, under the most favourable circumstances, to bring together representatives enow of this calibre to keep that mob in order. Again, the practice of making the legislator pay for his honours, instead of remunerating him for his labours, either excludes the most efficient class of the community from Parliament, or forces such individuals as do enter it to betake themselves to all sorts of indirect jobbing in order to support themselves while attending to public business. Our Legislature seems framed for the very purpose of exclud- ing legislative capability, and for demoralizing all who enter it. But the incapacity and want of earnestness of the electors is still more efficacious in producing the evils we have been ad- verting to, than even the forms of the constitution. In general, they shrink from the labour of thinking with a view to detect the sources of the inconveniences they suffer ; and when they do ven- ture to form an opinion, they are too much afraid of being thought singular to venture to act upon it. The leaders among the various constituencies are the most forward and Stentorian repeaters of the no-thoughts of the greater number. These and their followers are fit instruments in the hands of the empty-headed ambitious, who merely seek to occupy the seats of power, too indolent and ignorant to discharge the duties expected from their occupants. Electors and elected conspire to corrupt each other. They are indefati- gably busy, and become adroit in their business ; but it is not the business of legislation or government : it is, on the one hand, skill in expressing only such sentiments as are likely to please, and managing such jobs as conciliate voters ; on the other hand, smoothing asperities among friends, and appropriating the largest possible share of what is going.
The Conservatives or Obstructives say this is the way in which the world has been and always must be governed ; and they are at least consistent. But the Reformers have denounced it as pro- fligate and mischievous. Unless, however, they venture to begin to think and act for themselves, the outward forms alone of job- bing and partisan delusion, not their essentials, will have undergone a change. Reform Bills can only be of use where there are men to work them. For ought we can see, the delusive party-watch- words and jobbery now putting in motion might have been quite as usefully played off under the old forms.
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