The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-04-16 00:00:00

in cannon and rifles; in sailariptudiadiers " Such,
according to the ieaaing joninal; la the perilo-as
. ,A •
position in which this country will now be placed.
therefore, to it 151;,::•3i.i declaring,
" Nii;; must profess our kelief, old...fashioned as it
may be,. that, thQ merit of a .'Qhatcellor of the
Excliegner.:Consiets. rather in,;fleveloping and
enlarging than in desti:ozipe' or drying up the
soUrces:of revenue ; that a nation is great and
powerful in proportion as it is able to meet what-
ever demands the public service may make on
its purse ; that a nation will be able to meet
thOse demands just in proportion as its "taxation
is evenly diffused over every class in societii and
that to limit that taxation or its increase to a
single. class ,is ,to place the, pyramid on its apex,
instead of on its base."

AMONG the various motives which give a zest to
the aversion felt by Mr BRIGHT and his sup-

porters towards the present constitution of the
Rouse of Commons, no
.one who cares to watch
the demeanour or this legislator when he is "on
the loose" can fail to appreciate the existence of
at least one very strong personal prejudice among
them. Popular as the- present make-up of the

Douse of Commons
.is, yet it cannot be denied
that its forms do practically' impose an irksome
restraint upOn the intemperateness, the -vindic-
tiveness, the arrogant egotism, and above.all upon
the severe class-antipathies :which. generally

mark the pattern demagogue. Happily it is ye

[eft us to congratulate ourselves upon the posses.

sion in the British House of Commons of one

broad and elevated platform where interested
politicians, one-ideaed reformers, popular agita-

,ors, and even mob-leaders, class legislators and

selfish obstructives are compelled to meet together.

Where selfishness and narrow-mindedness and

vanity, virtue and honour and wisdom, receive their

personification and have to frame modes of corn,

munication with each other, and do each other
mutual service; where the first are modified and

corrected, and the latter sharpened and made
practical, and to a fitting degree secularised. It

is surely not the least important or beneficial
feature of our great national assembly, that
there is about it a certain ideal atmosphere

which tends to raise men out of their usual
selves, infuses a healthy and elevated con-
ventionality into their modes of thought and

speech, and makes them treat existing relations

more as they ought to be, than as they are.
Although piactical observers of mankind tell us,
that to assume in our fellow men any otter than,
interested motives, or' in their suggestions and
-undertakings any other than a self-regarding
object, is to deal with them under a mask, or'in
the dark; yet we maintain that it is good on
certain recognised occasions, to wear such a mask,
and.to take for granted the existence of an ideal
character. To assume that every man, in all his •
efforts, is trying to cheat, or cajole, or oppress his
neighbour, is in a manner to sanction universal
corruption as inevitable, and to stamp upon it
the excuse of custom and recognition.
This is not, however, Mr. BRIGHT'S ideal of a
popular assembly. If any one wishes to form to
himself a notion of how galling the fetters mus
be which at Westminster keep in that impetuous
genius which runs riot in the provinces and
among his set, any one of his speeches will serve
as well as the rest ; but at the 'present moment
let him take the latest edition at Manchester.
The first thing that may strike him is a sense of
fitness in Mr. BRIGHT'S invariable custom,-before
and after every' assembly of Parliament,vof taking
occasion to blow off the steam. We might well
fear, that if this high pressure were left on until
Mr. BRIGHT had in due course arrived in sight of
the Speaker's mace, and become hedged in by the
rules of official decOrum, either the House,
With its party organisations and legislative
paraphernalia, or else the machine itself would
be blown fn nfnring 1:), n Tim
pared for this universal or this personal collapse ;
either of which might be fatal to his own stand-
ing and designs. He therefore wisely prefers to
fling out to his heart's content at Birmingham, or
Liverpool, or Manchester, where there is only the
air to beat, and a leading article or so looming in
the distance. But we apprehend our reader's
next thought will be one of surprise, that Mr.
BRIGHT, possessing this unhappy temperament,
and feeling it to be so much out of his own
control, dragging him into all sorts of quagmires
and dirty places, and giving him continually the
ugliest falls, betraying him into theperpetrafion
of every species of personal injustice, illiberality
and uncharitableness,—should be aiming at the
forcible riddance of those healthful restraints
which still remain, and which in spite of himself
compel him in the most solemn part of his public
career, to come to some sort of an understanding
with those of his fellow creatures who dare to
differ from him. Even the Roman slave- might
not have wished for a Saturnalia all the year
round, and a few days of his riotous freedom
would probably have taught him the necessity of
a return 'to servitude that he might be saved from
himself. \--t 13.:.

Now, it is doubtless, a large act of tolerance to
receive with unconcern, Mr. BRIGHT'S fanatical
abuse of every portion of the State but
one, when warmed to extravagance by the
presence of his picked and flattered admirers of
Birmingham or Manchester. We might concede
him thus much freedom, if he did not along with
it too plainly intimate his wish to turn the whole
State itself into the engine of his fanaticism. Let
all classes of the community,—and surely there
are some classes with a claim to have their
opinions respected, whose interests are not quite
identical with the interests of Mr. BRlGHT—bear
in mind this fact, that Mr. BRIGHT intends to
turn the House of Commons into a Manchester
Free Trade Hall. The avowed object of the
extreme reforms he recommends, and of which he
is willing to accept an instalment, is that he may
be enabled, by the overwhelming preponderance
of his own class interest, and the possession of
irresistible power, to bring every branch of the
State, and every constituent of national life, to
the test of his own personal feelinis7Predilections,
and antipathies. This is the most serious aspect
of his political designs. Even philosophic Radicals
warn us, that the most pressing evil we have to
guard against in the modern world, is that dead
uniformity of public opinion to which society gives
increasing signs of approaching. When all men
are to think according to one pattern set by Mr.
BRIGHT or other representative 'Otihe material
side of human life ;—when the rule of discussion
or action is supposed to reside among one set of
men, or in one form of doctrine, and not to work
itself out by the contact of differing intellects, and
the association of confliCting interests ;—when any
man or any class which differs from the one moral
or political or commercial exemplar, is to be at
once taken, from the very fact of differing, as
dishonest and unfit to be heard—then we may be
sure all traces of the best life are being crushed
out of society, and one evenness of stagnation and
decay is in course of assimilating whatever
spasmodic sign of kealth may remain to its own
barren level.

SHOCKING RAILWAY ACCIDENT.—A sad accident
has occurred at the Handborough station of the Oxford,
Worcester, and Wolverhampton Railway; through the
rashness f a passenger, who attempted to get into a
train while in motion. It appears that a farmer named
Powell alighted at the station for a 'private purpose, the
train exchangino.' passengers here for Oxford and Lon-
den. While on the platform he observed that the train
was moving as if to resume its journey, and
of one
PowellEiccordingly ran after it and jumped on the step
QP fire eatriages, when ho was thrown down, and,
.+Aerce7l ulatforth tl4d ttz from the
•- was nearly torn
crushed. ‘..,71i? hiq arms
d He wa' removed
Injure •
socket, and he was ot
nc'
where he now lies in a d.:s
to the infirmary at Oxfor
portion of one foot has
zerot,sstate. His arm and • e.arriage, as fearfull;
been amputated.