The Press.
London, England, 1858-01-23 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JANUARY 23, 1858.

patriotism and the self-sacrifices it involves ;
are they ready to prove by their acts their
belief in the doctrines they so sedulously
put forth? We anapeet, for our own parts,
that they will end es they began, and that if
India le to be saved it will not be by their
hands.hande to whjob the country owes all
the dishonour 11 has been subjected to, all tho
pangs has mitered, and all the losses it h*
d eplered•
ELECTORAL FAOTS ON THE BALANCE
OF PARTY.
Is reference to the recant disturbances of the
earth at Naples, philosophical authority has
lamented that there " no progress has been
" made in the treatment of earthquakes." In
English convulsions, and in social movements
heralding dangerous events, it is otherwise.
Experience has destroyed the illusions created
by the announcement of vast changes, and hope
and fear have to a great extent ceased to act
wits the,energy of former periods on the larger
portions of our English community. No one
can deny that the whole question of " Re.
form" is thought about and studied with a
scientific calmness that it would be vain to
have expected in the early years of the reign
of Wittistt IV. Continental Europe was then
in a universal ferment. France had the ricketty
throne of the barricades, and Onus tea like those
at the funeral of General La MARQUIC were
almost quarterly events at Paris. Belgium had
been divorced from Holland, Poland was again
struggling for a national existence, and the
South of Europe was involved in even more
excitements than in our days. In such times
it was not wonderful that a Reform Bill for
England, and the agitation attendant there-
upon, partook mast seriously of the nature of
a great revolution, with all its dangerous
symptoms and serious consequences to the
public+ peace.
As the times in which we live are entirely
different from those days, so the prospect of a
new Reform Bill is attended with only mode-
rate anxiety. Twenty Sears since the Whig
party invoked the aid of the masses, but it is
plain that the same party now, while using a
democratic cry with an artful hypocrisy, has
really a constitutional dread of a thoroughly
popular system. The difficulty of the Govern-
ment is to produce a Reform Bill which will
not virtually abolish the Whig party, with its
political oligarchy, its interlacing of cousin-
hoods, and its possessions of family boroughs
like Caine, Peterborough, Tavistock, and many
other places. How the Cabinet will deal with
that difficulty is a subject of no small curiosity
to Parliamentary politicians.
It has been affirmed that the whole question
of Parliamentary Reform attracts attention
only in Parliamentary quarters. To a great
extent that opinion is true, but it certainly
does obtain the most serious attention of
many reflecting members of the House of
Commons. It is felt that what we have
called the "balance of party" is seriously in-
volved in the consideration of this question,
and Conservatives well know that in the poli-
tical adjustment of that balance they have
been most unfairly treated. It will be well
not to lose sight of how the balance has been
made to bear against them. If we are to
judge by the pamphlets and dissertations that
have already appeared in relation to the new
Reform Bill, there is danger lest that portion
of the public which feels an interest in this
question should be misled into pedantic dis-
cussions and antiquarian arguments. We
must not on any account lose sight of the
practical issues which should be familiarised
to our political eyes. There has been much
irrelevant learning employed on the questions
incident to the ancient constitutional right
of the franchise, and ultra-democratic theorists
have disinterred old authorities to make a
case of legality and quasi-precedent for an
immensely extended suffrage. But we are
living in times when so many great social
changes have occurred, that the technically
legal rights of former periods would not be
accepted by the Legislature as proofs for the
expediency of conferring political power in

our times. Our Parliamentary system, with
.ionary
peculiar
elaborate

busi-
than
Whigs

com-
pecu-
of
cau
years.
first

Lord
OLARENDos proves, in hie immortal history,
that the two parties virtually existed in the
Long Parliament.
The question, in our times, about any new
Reform Bill, or method of " regulating the
" laws relating to the franchise," will turn very
much on social and practical considerations.
The English public does not wish to be
plunged into a great political revolution, and
it will jealously scrutinise any new scheme of
Reform, and see how it would be likely to
assimilate with our existing Parliamentary
system. It will be necessary that some great
leading facts about the electoral system as it
now stands should be thoroughly familiarised
to the public mind, because in the diffusion
of such knowledge lies the best security
against any dextrous legerdemain which may
be attempted by the present Cabinet.
1. The broad features of our electoral system,
as it now stands, may be stated thus: In
England the county representation has 144
members, representing 472,700 electors; and
the boroughs (reckoning the 4 seats that
belonged to St. Alban's and Sudbury) have
321 members, representing 399,200 electors.
In Wales the counties have lb members
to 38,400 electors, and the Welsh boroughs
have 14 members to 11,800 electors. That is
to say, England and Wales together have
159 county members to 509,100 electors, and
335 borough members to 411,000 electors.
2. In Scotland the counties have 30 repre-
sentatives to 50,800 electors, and the boroughs
have 23 members to 81,000 electors.
3. In Ireland the counties have 64 members
to 126,200 electors, and the boroughs have 41
members to 30,000 electors.
4. The total population of the counties of
the United Empire is 18,095,000, and for the
boroughs 9,897,000 persons, according to the
census of 1851.
So that the electoral system of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland rests
upon . this basis :—The counties of the
empire have 253 members to 686,200 electors,
and the towns and boroughs have 399 members
to 522 electors. In order to attain the number
of 658 members for the House of Commons it
, will be necessary to add the 4 members for
Oxford and Cambridge Universities and the 2
members for the University of Dublin. We
have carefully examined the foregoing figures,
and they seem to us perfectly correct. They
have been compiled by that accomplished
statistician, Mr. IsIKWKAaOII, from various Par-
liamentary documents, and the materials on
which he has based all his calculations (which
have no relation to " party ") are taken from
authentic sources.
But figures of arithmetic, no more than
figures of rhetoric, cannot absolutely govern
political conclusions. It requires au expe-
rienced eye to detect the inferences from rows
of statistical calculations, and some of our
readers will ask how the figures above may be
interpreted and understood.
Without at present drawing any ultimate
conclusions from the foregoing statement of
the electoral proportions of the empire, we
must ask them to observe closely some of its
most striking features. Let them remark the
great disproportions which at present exist
between the number of representatives allotted
to our English counties as contrasted with the
number given to the boroughs. These latter
have 321 members, and only 144 members (far
less than half) are given to our English
counties, although the electors in the counties
are 472,000 against 399,200 in the boroughs;
and furtherm.me, our English county mem-
bers represent an aggregate population of
9,769,000, while our English borough members
represent a population of 7,147,000. This die.

its intricate arrangements, its traditions
methods, its organised parties, its pectin
routine for buemees, sad all its most elabori
machinery fur the despatch of public bu
fleas, Ia s far more modern institution tb
arc of 'cal poligskans:yould admit. Whi
i
and To t , with tow *pure of truths co
mod to h peril an Of prejudices pec
liar h, with. conflicting views
poll , and their eveluped habits, c
iitr
scarce be traced beyond two hundred yea
Their names as such were heard for the fi
time in the days of CHARLES IL, but Lc