TORY ELECTION PROCEEDINGS: PROVOCATIYES TO "AGITATION."

THE object of the Reform Act was to enable the People of England freely to elect Members to represent them in Parliament: the Tories appear determined to prove its insufficiency for that purpose. By profuse expenditure, they strive to convert even extended constituencies into rotten boroughs. They shake wellfilled purses in terrorem over Liberal candidates of moderate fortunes and prudent habits, who look for nothing but toil and trouble from a seat in the House of Commons. It is to no purrose that a majority of votes is secured, unless the Member can defy the cost of a petition, by which he may be ruined according to law. The money which was formerly spent in bribery, is now in many cases applied, with more security, to the unseating of Members by petition. Partial success always attends this mode of operation; for the person assailed is weakened by the expenditure he is compelled to submit to, and is the more likely therefore to shrink from another contest. In this way the electors are baffled, and the Reform Act is evaded. Public report says, that the Tories intend applying the system generally on the next election, and calculate on succeeding in one case out of ten; which would give them sixty-five votes. They are in fact fighting pro aria et foci* ; and every man of them who sees a hundred a pair ut prospect from the public purse, can afford to expend a large fraction of the market value of the annuity in its defence. An aim of the Tories was to force several members of the O'CONNELL family out of their seats by these means: they did not succeed, but the cost of resistance must have been very heavy. In like manner, they attacked Colonel Tuomesoe, the Member for Hull : here again they r eie defeated, but the same plan may be successful next time; for it is not to be expected that the Colonel will consent th be ruined in a struggle with the Carlton Club and the house of BARING. The teal nature of the contest in which he has been engaged, may be seen from the following admirable letter, addressed by Colonel THOMPSON to the Reform Association at Hull.

" 1 3. Hanover Terrace, Regent', Park. 1st Angust 135.

.4 SIR AS the only communiration I have received from Hull since the abandon. meet of the petition against tlw election has been through the newspapers. I feel appre bensive that we may have been waiting for each other ; aml so proceed to put au end to it.

" On the subject of that petition and its coniequeuces. I have no hesitation iti statiug lay persenal conviction, that / hirrt been luki down and rotbed at the door rf the noose Commons, with the single ubjeet tit holding att an example or the punishment to be hillkted on in individual who is bold enough to allow himself to be reunited to Parliament by a m.urity of his fellow townsmen. The smallness of our majority in the first instauee, was effected by subornation of perjury on the part of our opponents ; to whiell I refer to the evidence before the Committee of the 'Iroise. Awl they alter. war di n01410041 it impossible that I should tivo'd the einate4. by lob-awing against nie disreputable charges, of no ono of which they at tempt any proof betore the Com. mittee. There are few terms of dis2raee which public opinion would not justify 00 in applying to Rilel COHdllet ; bid I chute.% for conciseness, to comprehend them all. by st inpiog each and every,of the 'ladies concerned. m MI the elaborate hirstny of rubbing

by means of charging with ifsreputable S.

" As your Representative, I take Iht• opportunity to point out to the Hull Reform Association, and through it to every association of t he same oat are throughout the country, the insnttirg falsehood contained in worsting Hutt you, or any other st electors, hare freedom of election. You are five to net whom y on please, under the understand. hie that he shall be mulcted in his personal property Wavy extent the a,:versaries may choose to effect by the expendittio. of perhaps a much inferior slim or their own. ee take the present case: here am I. a man ut comparatively small property. and no means of increas.ing it.—one, in ftlet, who could just, consistently with prudence. pro (hime the moderato sum tveessary to defray the legitimate expenses of an eh•e, ion.— rutted oldie prorision if my rhildren to the (summitfr, I ;reprise. cereal VIOES,111(1 portrels, by possibly a cramp racy of the richest and most proterld iodic duals in the kingdom.—rtam, for aught we know, not confined to the rank of Monitors of the Commons House or Parliament, but extending upwaids to the very fitotstrps of the Throne. Vor that the ostresible instruments are not the substantial ones, is matter of public evidence and notoriety. And this is your freedom or election. " But the inference I want to draw from the exposure of this falsehood, is the practical inutility, in the existing state of the laws, or, on. or me, or anybody. attempting to artive at political amelioration through the instrittnentality of the House or Commons. Cattail ite, for example, how omit the money and trietble which have been extracted from you and from me in the present attempt to obtain one vote in the liott,e of Coin. monk would have effected if applied in the way which was our natural channel. -the rais log up that ' pressure front 'vaunt ' whieli is daily reconsmended to tig by the terrors of otsr opponents. I do not advise you hastily to lay aside altogether the ',tomtit of lin. eroeement by the first and feebler mole; but I do advise you to make it entirely subordinate to that more politic and useful mode in which your natural strength lies. and to give no effert to the one, except what you have nut the means or opportunity of applying to the other.

" It is scarcely necessary for me to say, that the power lodged in a Committee, of finding a petition ' frivolous and vexatious.' is no security against the recurrenee of a ease like ours. We Inul the option of expending perhaps ten thousand pounds more, for the chance that the Committee would give us a claim on, it may be, hall that sum lodged as security.

" Trusting that we alien all learn from experience, I remain, Sir, your very obedient servant,

"T. PERRONET THOMPSON.

" To the Secretary of the Hull Reform Association."

The case is here strongly pot; and it will not be easy to show that the advice tendered to the electors is impolitic or improper. The People have the right to choose their own Representatives without let or hindrance: but the Tories step in and say that no such freedom of choice shall exist, for that they will ruin the man who shall dare to oppose their candidate, by involving him in unlimited expense; and the existing law countenances this mode of proceeding. The question then arises, how are we to find a remedy for this? Plainly, by an alteration of the law. How is this alteration to be broueht about? By the same means which carried the Reform Act—agitation and pressure from without. This is the surest and most economical way of fighting the Tories; and to this the People will assuredly be driven if their adversaries persevere in their present system.

The want of foresight betrayed by the Oligarchs of all grades is marvellous. It is strange how any one can imagine that the People of this country will be satisfied with less political influence than it was supposed the Reform Act would secure to them : yet, to deprive the People of the fruits of that measure, is the constant aim of the Tories. They will never rest until they demonstrate the folly of the notion that aristocracy and popular freedom can thrive together. In 1832, the People supposed that they had obtained the power of choosing their Representatives freely : the course of the elections which followed seemed to confirm this notion ; for the Tories generally gave way. The progress and result of the last elections, and the ulterior proceedings to eject Liberal Members from their seats, have demonstrated the insufficiency of the Reform Act. 'Well—is the Nation to rest satisfied with a failure? Will it not, on the contrary, when again roused, see that its work is more thoroughly performed? Undoubtedly it will; and the time is approaching when all scepticism on this head will vanish. We shall be deceived if Colonel THOMPSON'S advice is not speedily and extensively acted on—if the experiment is not again tried whether the" pressure from without" will not anarer the parpose of a large majority of Liberal Membeis within the House. There are already sy inptoms of the coming

" agitation;" which the conduct ef the Lads threatens to aggravate.

THE ORANGE PLOTTERS.

THE Duke of CUMBERLAND has written a letter to the Committee on. Orange Lodges, denying all knowledge that the blank warrants signed by him were used to establish Lodges in the Army. Colonel PERCEVAL and Mr, MAXWELL have soletnnly asserted

their ignorance of the existence of such societies previous to the inquiries of the Committee. Courtesy would ask us to believe the assertions of all the three gentlemen ; but then, conscience would

compel us to declare that our astonishment at the possibility of their ignorance is extreme. It seems especially surprising how the Duke of CUMBERLAND should have been kept in darkness on the subject; for there appears to have been no attempt at deception towards him, on the part of the inferior officers of the suciety. Quite the eeverse ; for at a meeting held at Lord KENYON'S house, the Duke himself presiding, it was determined, that non-commissioned officers, soldiers, and sailers, should be exempted from payment of the usual fees on admission to the Orange Lodges. That this resolution implied the formation, actual or intended, of lodges in the Army and Navy, is undeniable ; and yet it was passed at a meeting with the Duke of CUMBERLAND in the chair. Mr. Wean was so much staggered by this circumstance, that he declared as a conscientious tutu, he could not onto i tam n a doubt but that his Uoyal Highness knew to what use his blank warrants were applied. The feet of' the resolution being passed in his presence, and of course with his sanction, is strong evidence, certainly, that the Duke was cognizant of the illegal proceedings of the body whose Grand Master he is: against this evidence, is his simple asseveration of ignorance. In eoortesy, we repeat we are bound to believe the latter—if we ean. But our readers must judge for themselves. The only apology which Colonel PERCEVAL could offer for the existence of Orangeistn, was the asserted preexistence of Ribandisin among the troops. It has not been proved, but it is highly probable, that the Catholics are banded together ie secret societies. The formation of one confederacy would surely be followed by the establishment of another of opposite principles and hostile intent. But what a picture does not this give us of the condition of the Army ! In case of war, little dependence could be placed on a force split up into fierce factions : its utter uselessness for any good purpose in time of peace is undeniable.

We trust that the necessity of remodelling and greatly reducing the Army, will have become more apparent by the disclosure of the secret sectional conspiracies carried on within its ranks. It is indeed moestrous that so large a stun of money as is annually voted on the Army Estimates should be expended in the support of a body of troops so demoralized, and systematically regardless of even military law. '

Great good, we foresee, will arise from the discussion of this subject. The public eye will be kept on suspicious characters. The real designs of certain high personages will be more than guessed at, and will be assuredly counterworked. The thin mask of a zeal for Protestantism will be torn from off the Orange plotters. The line of' succession to the Throne will be preserved; and, in defiance of all disloyal combinations, we shall in due time see her Majesty VICTORIA the undisputed Queen of' England.