The Express.
London, England, 1852-02-07 00:00:00

MB COMING REFORM BILL.

(From tie Daily New.)

On Monday Lord JOHN RUSSELL, is to submit to
the House of Commons his reform measure, and the
vital importance of the question involved demands a
frequent reference to the subject.
Now, the intimations of what Lord 'WIN intends
to propose which have been allowed to escape are
scanty and equivocal in the extreme. If, however,
any importance can be attributed to the expressions
of his partisans and confidants, there is but too
much reason to apprehend that his bill may be de-
fective in more than one essential respect. This may
be, as is apologetically hinted in certain quarters,
owing to the opposition Lord JOHN has encountered
among his colleagues; or it may be owing to mistakes
in judgment of tus own. The cause is of little con-
sequence. When the bill is produced, independent
liberals will ask what it is, not how it has come to
be what it is; and will not waste their strength in
straggling to promote a defective or equivocal mea-
sure. If the bill is a bad one, they will be inclined
to leave it and its author to their fate, and " bide
their time."

We have already freely expressed the fears which
were inspired in us by the diatribes against the
ballot and triennial parliaments, in which the mover
of the address in the House of Commons so wantonly
indulged. Since wo did so, other rumours, the
reverse of encouraging, have reached us respecting
what is contemplated in the way of disfranchise-
ment and enfranchisement.

One indication is obvious to all. Mr. IIAYTEIt,
after giving notice that the new Reform Bill would
be moved on Monday next, announced almost in the
same breath, that on that day week a bill would be
presented to disfranchise St. Albans. What is the
meaning of this? Is there to be no schedule A an-
nexed to Lord JOHN'S now Reform Bill, that a spe-
cial measure is to be introduced to suppress St.
Albans P If St. Albans can only be got rid of in this
way, what is to be done with Sudbury? This last
intimation of Mr. HAYTER'S does look as if ministers
were afraid to assail the small, corrupt, or de facto
nomination boroughs; that they have quailed before
the tempest in a tea-pot that " roared like any suck-
ing dove " last week at Tamworth.
But another report is abroad, relating to the dis-
posal of the small constituencies, as bad,—perhaps
even worse than this, of their being to be left un-
touched. It is said, in the old law slang, that they
are to be thrown open to the adjoining hundreds—i. e.,
that a scrap of the adjacent rural district is to be
added to each ; that they are to be transformed by
this &cue poems into so many little close counties.
Let us examine what would be the practical effect
of such an arrangement. One great ground of com-
plaint against the existing electoral system is the
undue preponderance of what is called the landed in-
terest in the representation. This undue prepon-
derance is mainly owing to the mode in which the
privilege of election is distributed among the consti-
tuencies. The counties return for the most part
members of the squirearchy; the great towns return
traders, or, at least, advocates of a rational and liberal
commercial policy. The small boroughs would ap-
pear to form a kind of neutral ground; but, in fact,
the most of them are subject to the neighbouring
landed magnates, and their weight is consequently
thrown into the scale of the landed interest. This
evil will be made worse it the constituencies of these
small boroughs are to be augmented by accessions
from the neighbouring rural population.
It is needless to mince matters. The elections in
the small boroughs are decided exclusively by cor-
ruption or "influence," which latter phrase, being in-
terpreted, means intimidation. Their representatives,
as a rule, do not represent the people, and cannot be
relied upon by the people. But as matters now stand,
there are two parties who have an equal chance
of carrying the day in these constituencies—those old
dead-weights the tory protectionist obstructives;
and the free-trade, semi-liberal conservatives or
whips. From the former the people have nothing
to hope; from the latter the people can count upon
concessions, though not upon full justice.
To extend these boroughs by rural annexations,
will throw them entirely into the hands of
the protectionists. Their constituencies will in that
ease be composed partly of the existing bribe-devour-
ing worthies, and of a number of tenants at will of
neighbouring landlords. The latter will be—must
be—the unmurmuring, implicit slaves of the protec-
tionists. Any candidate not belonging to that party,
therefore, to have any chance, must, by buying or
bullying, secure as many votes among the old briba-
bles as will neutralise the votes of the landed serfs,
and leave a majority of the residue in his favour.
Nay, more, the annexations may be so arranged that
the rural serfs will in all cases form a majority of the
constituency.
This is no mere theory—no plausible hypo-
thesis, resting upon the presumable tendencies
of different claims of voters. It is a plain state-
ment of the results of experience. Under the
whig Reform Bill, every. nerve was strained by both
factions of the landed aristocracy to have large rural
districts included within the boundaries of parlia-
mentary boroughs. Their efforts were in too many
cases successful; and the consequence has been that
upon the rural districts thus annexed to boroughs
the most extensive and shameless manufactories of
fictitious votes have been established and carried on.
Whole fields have been partitioned out by noble or
wealthy landowners, and upon these partitions huts,
pretending to be cow-sheds, pigsties, tool-houses,
what not ? have been erected. These have been os-
tensibly let or leased to dependents of the owner, and
apes these precious holdings the occupants (durante
t ?Imitate) have been registered. Throwing open
the swell boroughs to the adjoining hundreds, would
be the eigeel for the immediate resumption of these
operation' me a larger and mote shameless scale.
To leave the small constituencies as they are,
would be unjust to the people. To amalgamate them
into groups of small boroughs would be little better.
But to extend them by annexations from the ad-
joining rural districts would be to add insult to
injury :—would be to " keep the word of promise to
the ear and break it to the hope."
We are convinced that, with the existing distribu-
tion of the population among different professions
and punning, a broad re-construction of the elec-
toral districts would be perfectly safe. By sub-
dividing the country into electoral districts on a
broad basis, by keeping these districts suffi-
ciently populous to secure numerous coustituencies,
by adopting an electoral qualification that would
include all the industrious and intelligent classes,
and by making the vote secret, a prudent, intelligent,
honest representation might be obtained. But this
is scarcely to be hoped for,—tho actual holders
of political power will not concede it. Our next
sire therefore ought to be to ensure that in whatever
re-distribution of the electoral districts is conceded, a
fair balance shall be preserved between the rural and
urban populations. The non-agricultural population
is mainly concentrated in large towns. Justice,
therefore, which requires the abolition of the small
conatituenoies, requires that the seats in parliament
left to be disposed of in consequence should be con-
ferred upon considerable towns which are unrepre-
presented, or added to the representation of those
which are imperfectly represented.
These remarks are but another illustration or
application of the principle which we enounced
some time ago, that, let the new Reform
Bill be what it may in other respects, it
must be honest and real. Two things the l'aEntea
has promised—to extend the right of voting to
parties at present uneufmnchised ; and to remove all
obstructions that lie in the way of the fair and free ex-
ercise of the elective franchise. The latter is included
in the former ; there may he a purification of the
electoral system without any extension, hut there
can be no real extension without a purification. To
give a non-elector a vote, which either he is not to be
allowed to exorcise freely, or to find neutralised by
the simultaneous concession of a vote to some man of
straw, is no real extension of the franchise. The
annexation of rural districts to the existing small
boroughs would neutralise thegift of the fraiichise to
honest men in this way, and ought, therefore, to be
resisted by all means.

MINOR MONEY ORDER OFFlCEn.—Notioo has
been given by the Post•odlce authorities that Barrow-upon-
Mutnber, Lincolnshire. will be opened as a minor
order Ake, on the et of February neat. The lantet":3
payment of money orders ha been discontinued at the
minor money order office at Bodenham, Herefordshire;
postmaaters will, therefore, cruse to draw order. for pay-
ment at that place, and will erase its name from the printed
lists accordingly.