The Press. — London, England, 1853-11-05 00:00:00

626 clay moneyed property, is defrauded of its Lair share of electoral rights. Yet there are at this moment residing in London non-electors, and these not few in *umber, owners of inde pendent fortunes exceeding 1,000/. a year. Such defects are, and always will he, inherant in every electoral syrtaut which is based. as it ought to be based, not on the theory of indi vidual rights, but on that of national advan tage. They may be regretted—they may be repaired wherever it is possible to repair them—but they furnish no ground for a gene nil condemnation of the system under which they exist. Taking the country at large. we deny that education as such, which, to a certain extent at least, is usually coexistent with property, can fairly lay claim to a more exten sive share iu the parliamentary representa , snit we add that, if such a claim could be maintained, the project before us does nothing, or less than nothing. to satisfy it. One educational test only we arc willing to admit, and that not of a positive, but negative, character. That every elector unable to read and write, however otherwise qualified, should be excluded from the franchise, seems a pro position too reasonable to be objected to on any side. The time is gone by when one could suppose the existence of men naturally Intelligent and acute, but debarred from the means of instruction. By such a limitation no party could suffer, except, perhaps, the priest party in Ireland ; and the desire of knowledge would thus be stimulated by the dread of political degradation. But, rejecting wholly the idea of " repre sentatives of education," we are of necessity thrown hack on the stern, simple elements of property and population. And here it is not denied that many difficulties meet us. On the one hand, scarcely auy practical politician as serts the desirableness of throwing all the power of the State into the hands of a single class, and that the least educated of all—we mean, of course, the working class. Yet to this we come, if the influence of property be utterly set aside, and if population alone be taken as the basis of representation. The precedent of America dot's not apply. Transatlantic work ing men are on the whole more educated than taws. They have more leisure and more inde pendence, not from political causes, but be cause the state of the labour market ensures them remunerative employment at a high rate of wages. The some disparities of fortune. again, do not exist in the New World. That envy of acquired and artificial advantages which democratic institutions unquestionably tend to foster is not largely called firth. There are few very poor. and as few very rich ; to say nothing of the total absence of those traditional influences which in England exer • vise a power so vast and so little understood. But it is needless to multiply arguments. Universal suffrage, in the present state of the country, is a political theory only—an election claptrap—not a practical measure. Yet, on the other part, the line of demarcation be tween elector and non-elector—between the citizen and the simple subject—hi confessedly bard to draw. No arbitrary law, however in geniously laid down, will prevent the exclusion of many who ought to be admitted, and the admission of many who ought to be excluded. Restrict the franchise unduly, and you have an oligarchy. Enlarge it greatly—at the same tune stopping short of the point where it ap proaches universality—and you inflict on those without the pale a degradation which is the more acutely felt in proportion as it is shared by fewer. Include dependents of every kind. and you open a wide door to undue influences. making popular election a mockery. Exclude them, and there is hardly a poor man through out the country whose vote will not he in danger. Do what you will, the social difference between the must respectable non elector and the least respectable elector will never be suffi ciently marked to justify, in the eyes of the people, the political distinction which exists between them. Let us concede that much imperfection. and even some apparently gross injustice, is inevitable in framing a represent* Live theory, still it is the duty of statesmen to lessen, if they Cannot remove, these anomalies. and to bring within the pale of the Constitu tion every one whose admission cannot be proved dangerous. THE PRESS. Is this policy, at once conciliatory and Con servative, practicable? Can the franchise be placed on such a basis as, while giving to intellectual and social superiority their due weight, to admit all, save the actually house lots and pauper, to some participation in its piivileges? We do not positively answer " yes"; yet the possibility merits inquiry ; the object all must acknowledge to be good ; the means may fairly he discussed hereafter. THE LATE BOARD OF ADMIRALTY. WE report this week, at a length which is due to its special importance, a dinner at Dart mouth, at which Sir THOMAS HERBERT, K.C.8., vindicated tL. late Board of Admiralty, of which he was a member, from the petty &apen sinus of intriguing malevolence. Our first impulse was to comment on the simple and manly statement of the gallant admiral, but we prefer that, for the present, it should tell its own tale of honourable intentions encountered by underhand plottings, and of successful efforts disparaged by calumny. We have no desire to rip up an old con troversy, but we cannot avoid pointing at the detriment to the public service if a generous, a patriotic, and accomplished noblem in like the Duko of Neartium twit T.AND is thereby deprived of one tittle of his due honour for the most disinterested and successful administration of our Admiralty upon record. The Committees on the Capabi lity of Steam-packets and the Merchant Marine and on the Manning of the Navy vouch for his assiduity ; and the fleet which he created, but which others are incompetent to use for a cri tical emergency, is a monument of his success. In presenting the details of the Duke's admi nistration, Sir THOMAS HERBERT has not only rendered justice to himself and his colleagues, but, wherever public spirit is extant, an oppor tune service to his country. ENORMOUS SACRIFICE. WE have hoard before that Sir CHARLES WOOD and his colleagues, as he told us last week at Halifax, accepted office at "a great sacrifice ;" and from his case we obtain a clue to the meaning of this statement on account of which certain of his colleagues have perse veringly commended their pretensions to the public. The " great sacrifice " was not a pecu niary sacrifice, for that would be incompatible with the acquirement of official income, and, in the case of Sir CITARLES WOOD, who emphasizes the cry, peculiarly incompatible with a successful move which raised his peal. cular official income from 3,5001. to 5,0001. per annum. The " great sacrifice " must have been a sacrifice either of party or principle, of their friends or convictions. Mr. CrLADSTONE WON said at Manchester that party keeps up a high standard of honour amongst public men, and that the present Ministers had sacrificed party connections. Here, then, is perhaps an admis sion that they sacrificed both party and principle to no slight extent, if the sacrifice was as great as they stoutly profess it to have been. An " enormous sacrifice " is associated to the public ear with fraud, and is not uncommonly the preliminary to bankruptcy. if the Cabinet sacrifice has involved a political fraud, how natural will be the result in political failure, and how deserved the retribution of political punishment and disgrace. THE RIOTS AT WIGAN AND BLACKBURN. Tim population of Wigan was at the last census 32,000. Separated from it only by such boundaries as little brooks and streams are several townships. the aggregate population of which exceeds that of Wigan ; and of a Satur day night. at fairs, or on any special occasion, not less than 50,000 persons congregate in that opulent manufacturing town. Riots con- SATURDAY, 1 sequent on the resent strikes have occurred; shutters and windows have in hundreds been smashed in ; shops in scores pillaged and sacked ; money extorted by intimidation ; and the local authorities have required the protec tion of the military. In some instances, per haps, lives have been lost. Our purpose, however, is, not to inquire into the general bear ings of these deplorable occurrences, but simply to remark their immediate moral. Where, under these circumstances, was the police of Wigan ? " Chief constable SIM, a sergeant, and nine men, with one on the sick list," arc all on which the municipal authorities of Wigan have to rely for the preservation of civil order and the security of property in a population which practically amounts to 70,000. At Blackburn scenes similar in character, though not so serious in extent, have occurred. The banks and shops were closed ; two op posing mobs occupied the principal street, and made it their field of battle; windows were smashed in ; " the authorities were conscious " of their inability to cope with the insurgents. " and no effort was made the whole day to put " down the riot." When the account from which we quote came away, certain Scotch in habitants of the town were momentarily ex pecting to be attacked, with the pleasing cer tainty that, if such attack took place, " the " handful of police " in the town would be totally unable to stop it. At Blackburn communications with the military at Burnley by special train had been established, and at Wigan chief constable Sim and his army of " nine men and a sergeant, " with one on the sick list," having been rein forced by three companies of the 34th Regi ment, a troop of the Ist Royal Dragoons, fifty Lancashire leomanry, some county police, and " a strong body of Lord BALCARBE►3 men," are sufficient to maintain order for the present. It is to the miserable parsimony, to the utter incapacity of the municipal authorities at Blackburn and Wigan for self-government, that we owe scenes like these. In the hives tigation that has commenced, one of the wit nesses states that a body of rioters to the number of fifty, meeting the police—how many there were he does not say, but the whole force only numbered ten men—" skriked," that is, cried out in alarm. If the commonest, the most ordinary precitutions had been taken against these people who are so ready to " skrike " before they are hurt, does any one suppose that these disgraceful riots could have occurred ? What the value of the property thus abandoned to the mercy of the mob at Wigan is, what may be the amount of capital invested in the works and collieries in its vicinity, we do not know, but it amounts perhaps to some millions ; yet eleven men—the whole cost of whom can scarcely exceed 500/. a year —is all that the magistrates are willing to pay as an annual premium to ensure its safety. Would any prudent insurance-office undertake the risk for this amount? Yet this is the system which Messrs. COBDEN and BRIGHT would apply to the nation, and which, tried on that grander scale, would doubtless be at tended with similar, though proportionally larger, and therefore more disastrous, re sults. Well and wisely has Mr. DISaAELI said that " efficiency is the best economy" ; and the truth of this the magistrates of Wigan have, when it is too late, learnt to their cost. Messrs. COBDEN and BRIGHT would reduce the military—it is to the military alone that the manufacturing towns of 'Wigan anti Black burn are indebted for their present immunity from riot and pillage. Those " great twin brethren"—the luminaries—the sun and the moon of the firmament of the platform—have been singularly unfortunate of late. Inter national arbitration and peace on the Danube was the burden of their Arcadian song—and lo ! war has broken out at their own doors in Lancashire. Have they tried the effects of arbitration there ? Disband your regiments--!