EAST RETFORD — PARLIAMENTARY RAUL WE are very little inclined to discuss
this topic : it is one of those where "talking is a folly." The proposition to throw the franchise of East Retford into the adjoining hundred, and thus to increase an influence which is all but predominant in the Commons, to say nothing of its sovereignty in the Lords,—an influence which has more or less moulded to its purposes every law that has been passed in England since the Conquest,—such a proposition is not to be combated by the forms of logic. We are not at all surprised at opposition to the scheme of radical reform. Not only has that scheme the defect of placing the representation in the hands of one class only of the community, but it leads necessarily to pure republicanism. This is so obvious, that we hold him who advocates universal sufthige, or general sufftage, and does not provide for that inevitable consequence, to be, either a most simple person, or one who has deeper designs than he thinks it prudent to own. But the stanchest opponent of general reform may not only with safety, but consistency, support partial reform. It was ever the language of the late Mr. CANNING—" I will not legislate on , theoretical evils, but show me an actual existing grievance, and I'll cheerfully go along with you in devising and applying a remedy." The existing grievance is acknowledged, and what is the proposed cure? Rotten boroughs are injurious because they are mostly subservient to the aristocracy of wealth ; and by way of mending the matter, the rottenness of East Retford is to be made permanently subservient to the aristocracy of land. Ministers, however, have said it shall be so ; and they have power to give efficacy to their words. Fiat voluntas magnatum ! The faster such things run on, the sooner they reach the end of their journey.
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