The Press.
London, England, 1853-05-28 00:00:00

74

servative into a Radical; and afterwards
found Conservatism so strong that he has
been obliged to creep into office under the
skirts of a soi-dives/ Conservative Prime Minis-
ter. lie always mistakes the tone of the public
mind and the bent of the nation. After the
break up of —l6, irritated at the obstinacy of
the country gentlemen in adhering to that
industrial system, the policy and necessity of
which no one had so strongly and painfully
impressed upon them as himself, he fell
rashly into all the schemes and dogmas of the
revolutionary school, which would destroy the
.just preponderance of the landed franchise in
our constitution, in order to change the de-
positary of power in this country. In the
conferences which took place during the inter-
regnum of —5O Sir JAMES GRAHAM impressed
these views, and successfully, on Lord Jona
RUSSELL. He persuaded Lord Joss RUSSELL
that no strong Government could be formed
until the wings of the landed aristocracy
should be clipped, and that the most expedient
method to effect this was to introduce the
urban qualification into counties, and transfer
the franchise from rural boroughs to trading
towns. He wished to destroy that balance
which he had assisted Lord GREY in 1880 to
establish awl secure. Two years have scarcely
elapsed, and the whole country views the
elements and the conduct of the town consti-
tuencies with distrust and alarm, and clings to
the present arrangement and distribution of
the rural franchise as one of our best practical
securities for pure and efficient government.
It must never be forgotten that Sir Jams
GRAHAM is at this moment a Minister only be-
cause Lord ABERDEEN has promised him " a
" large measure of Parliamentary Reform,"
which large measure Lord JOHN Ressau.—a
convert to Sir JAMES GRAHAM from the great
Lord Gity, their common master—has
pledged his personal as well as political ho-
nour shall be introduced at the commence-
ment of the next session of Parliament. To
suppose that such men, in such a position, me-
ditate the evasion of their engagement is not
merely to believe that grave statesmen have
obtained power under false pretences, but that
they have premeditatedly practised a hoax
upon a nation. Yet what is their reform to
be? Is Sir JAMES GRAHAM still of opinion that
the introduction of the town franchise into
counties is the best security for pure and free
election ? as good a security as that process of
secret suffrage which he once approved, but
which he recently has discovered has pros-
trated the liberties of forty millions of human
beings at the feet of a despot? Does he still
believe that it is an impolitic arrangement
which in a free country deposits a large por-
tion of political power in the hands of the pro-
prietors of the land, and of that considerable
section of the middle classes who are con-
nected with the cultivation of the soil? Or
has further reflection, at his mature period of
life, convinced him that it may be well for a
free country to have such a bulwark against
the corruption of cities, as well as against
their tumultuous passions and precipitate ca-
price? Is Sir JAmEs still prepared to strike at
those limited but unsullied constituencies
which, by securing that the minority, as well
us the majority, should be represented, have
mainly contributed to the continuous and be-
neficial working of our representative system?
Is his large measure to be of the shape and
colour of his secret project of 1851 ? or has it
assumed altogether another aspect, with quite
a different bent, and quite a contrary bias ?
Experienced without being wise, ever schem-
ing without prescience, and always the first to
fly from the consequences of his own rashness,
what, in short, does this presumptuous states-
man mean ?

The time has gone by when Parliamentary
Reform can be a phrase with which trading
politicians can palter ? A large measure
of Parliamentary Reform means changing
the chief depositary of power in this
country, or it means nothing. Those who
believe that public liberty depends upon
the maintenance of our institutions in Church
and State, and that those institutions, in their
turn, depend upon power being distributed
over the land, instead of being centralised in
a huge and corrupt metropolis, with ready