The Press.
London, England, 1857-02-28 00:00:00

AMERICA.

The dates from New York reach to the 14th inst.
The political intelligence is unimportant, beyond
the rumour that the Clarendon-Dallas Central Ame-
rican Treaty would be rejected.
Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet was not yet formed.

ELECTORAL INEQUALITIES.
LETTER IX.

TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PRESS."

Sir,—The debate on Mr. Locke King's motion to
extend the county suffrage induces me again to en-
deavour to direct attention to the real nature of our
electoral inequalities, for in that debate the speakers
on both sides seemed carefully to avoid allusion to
the real point wherein consists the injustice done to
the counties.

The truth is, there is no very great inequality in
the distribution of the franchise between town and
county. The town population of England is about
seven millions, that of the counties about nine and a
half millions; the number of town voters is 482,387,
and of county voters 418,785. Now, although this
inverts the just proportion, it does not do so to such
an extent as to justify organic change; but, when we
find out that the nine and a half millions are repre-
sented in Parliament by only 144 members, while the
seven millions have 319 members, we demonstrate a
case of injustice which no platitudes about the sys-
tem of compromise on which our constitution is based,
and the necessary anomalies it involves, can excuse,
and which twenty-four years' prescription cannot
consecrate.

It is, therefore, not an increase of county voters
but an increase of county members which the cause
of justice requires. Now, Mr. Locke King's proposal
does not meet the case; he prescribes for a cold in
the head when the patient is suffering from starva-
tion, and his prescription, being of a drastic nature,
rather tends to aggravate the malady, for if you in-
crease the number of voters and don't increase what
they vote for, you simply diminish the value of the
individual votes, without giving the interest they
represent the smallest additional influence. An
elector co-operates in the government cf the country
only by helping to elect a member, and once his
vote is given his political functions are at an end ;
so that, suppose you were to give the county popula
tion universal suffrage, keeping the town franchise
as it still is, so long as you do not give them
additional members of Parliament, and put them in
that respect on a par with the town, you do not
advance a single step in the direction of substantial

justice.
I observe that one of the speakers stated that a
uniformity of suffrage would abolish the distinction
between burghs and counties, and lead to the
splitting up of the country into electoral districts,
and he seemed to think that so terrible a result was
sufficient to negative any such proposal. But,
making due allowance, as I pointed oat in a previous
letter, for the exceptional case of the metropolitan
districts, I would like to know what is the principle
on which the objection to electoral districts is
founded. It would seem to me to be for the interest
of the country at large (not meaning thereby merely
the Whigs) that the antagonism between town and
county interests should be put an end to; and cer-
tainly, if the people by the theory of the Constitution
are entitled to equal privileges, it is an absolute con-
tradiction that a set of men simply because they livo
in a town should have twice the political power that
the same number would have if they lived in the
country.

The question simply comes to this,—Are we in
the nineteenth century to have a new privileged
class to lord it over the rest of the country ? Is the
feudal system, which we thought we had happily got.
rid of, to be reproduced in the form of an oligarchy
of towns? and is there never to be in reality what
the Constitution proclaims in theory, equal justice
among all classes of the community ?—I am, ttc.,

J. A. G:

THE EARL OF HAREWOOD, after three weeks'
suffering, died on Sunday last.
LADY YARDE BULLER, wife of Sir John Yarde
Buller, Bart., M.P., died, we regret to say, on Friday
week. The deceased laxly was eldest daughter of
Mr. Thomas Wilson Patten, and sister of Mr. John
Wilson Patten, M.P. for Lancashire, and married
Sir John, Jan. 24, 1823.