The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1867-02-12 00:00:00

IUNTY

suffrage it cannot go; and a suffrage is not a
franchise where some remain or are made
free, whilst some continue not. Universal
suffrage in France is but a name; and the
ballot box the mechanism combined with
this sham power of the people in the
ultra Reform programme, is capable of
an amount of modification, trickery, and
deception, that human ingenuity can devise.
But the Reform League programme itself
goes no farther than household suffrage com-
bined with the ballot. The fact, however
that it could not give the IMMO latitude in
regard to country constituences as to those
of towns, proves that even the purest
patriotism cannot get above the spirit of
class legislations, and that, take it how we
may, the coming adjustment is simply to be
a scramble betwixt conflicting classes for the
political preponderance. If however we
could get quit of elements and considerations
which whatever the extent and expansion
are essentially mean and sorbid, we might
arrive at Reform principle founded on nobler
and safer grounds than the numfiers of the
masses, or the interests of the classes into
which they are distributed, say rather the
aims ot the leaders that urge them on.
Fancy franchises are, it is true, small matters,
and yet they may in sone respects embody
better compomenta than the popular ones.
Thus the lodger qualification might generally
be taken as a better test than ordinary
.rental, as far as money goes, the lodger by
the end of the year pays unfortunatly far
more for his occupation than the householder,
whilst as far as intelligence goes, in the lower
ranges of the franchise he will always be
found to be the better man. One thing is
certain, that, whether the new Bill is to
introduce a re-distribution of sesta or not, it
should be firmly directed to prevent the
owners of house property in towns, who are
paid in most cases far above the actual value
of their tenancies, and yet exercise the rights
of landlordsbip as if they were conferring
favours, from holding in terrorews over the
voter any possible influence connected with
the ownership of the house he occupies. If
small boroughs are found now to lose their
representatives it will be much more on
account of the notorious prevalence of this
sinister power than for any other reason
under the sun—Totnee and all other seats of
corruption notwithstanding.

lI.—To COMOT Till PtILSATIONS of
the Share and Money Market would furnish
scope for more adroit and dexterous states-
manship than any other Reform of modern
times. And in proposing to himself this
Herculean task Sir Stafford Northcote could
scarcely fail to remember that a miss is as
good as a mile. The subject indeed is so
thoroughly perplexing, that like that or the
currency, of which it is simply a new
and intricate complication, it is sure to have
its "doctors" in profusion, each prescribing
a remedy of his own. Whilst the law courts
proclaim that debentures, the favourite mode
of investing in railway stock, have nothing to
do with the substantial wealth represented
by these concerns but only with their
revenues; down goes the Bank rate another
per cent. nearer sero, and money which, in a
few months, may once more be at a ransom,
becomes a mere drug in the market. It is
perfectly clear, however, that without some
means of not only carrying out but of I
simply maintaining an enormous railway ]
enterprise, there will be a general crash of
all the money relations of the country.
Debentures Were most distinctly intended to
cover the property and plant over which
they were supposed to be secured, and it is
altogether by a fiction of law that the inten-
tions of the contracting parties are thus set
aside, and a very precarious security left to
thousands of investers compared with that oa
which they believed themselves to be advanc-
ing their . money. The idea of granting
facilities for investigation d railway affairs
may. be all very well, but that of winding up
is but a clumsy and wasteful expedient.
The true character and value of loans on de-
bentures must first be restored, and the sinews
of war will then be fortheoming without resorting
to s miserable winding dp of vast enterprises,
which never would cost the capatalista embarked
in them a thought, but would be death to the
employe& everywhere thrown oat of bread.
Assuredly there ought to be some consideration
extended in all thee, disourions to the large
claims they affect 11 paralysis( the springs of
industry, and dwelling exclusively on the safety
of the money, not ones on thr; existence of the
men dependent for a livelihood on these enter-
prises being oontin nod instead of being wound up
We should my that in nine cues out of ten •
little judicious strengthening of the monetary
resources at the proper moment would prevent
an °warren° of many • collapse, which the
alarm raised by the proposed process of
" investigation with • view to winding up" will
be certain to preeipitate.