The Press.
London, England, 1857-09-19 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 19, 1857.

906

fall on the illustrious family that fills so
worthily the Throne of these realms, and to
whom it will leave a beggared exchequer, and
a Crown of which the splendour will be
dimmed. These are the great interests that
really are in pail; it is by their united action
alone that the nation can be saved. It is by
them that an end must be put to the mis-
government and its fruits that are now agita-
ti,.g England and desolating the plains of
Hindostan. Soldiers are the fitting instru-
ments to deal with the miscreants who have
mutinied ; but words of justice will have more
effect than armies on all the rest of the
millions, whether princes or peasants, that are
subject in India to our Sovereign's sway.
The natives of that country may be led, but
they can never be driven ; and Mr. DISRAELI,
in his speech of the 27th of July last, pro-
claimed the orly course by which our power
can be effectually restored. " Let it be an-
" nounced (said he), in an authoritative manner,
" from the highest authority of this country, that
" you will no longer sanction the violation of right,
" that you will respect your engagements, and take
" care that those who are your subjects shall
" enjoy their just privileges, and rest assured that
" you will do more than all the devices of all the
"masterminds to secure the tranquillity of
"India"

THE REFORM QUESTION FOR 1858.
A WELL-INFORMED Liberal journal, the Liver-
pool Albion, states that the Parliamentary
return of the relative property and population
of the boroughs of the United Kingdom, and
of the counties exclusive of the boroughs,
moved for by Mr. DISRAELI, appears to have
been in such demand that " not a single copy
" was procurable at four o'clock on the day of
"the issue." We can understand that the
anxiety to procure the copy should have been
very great, for a more valuable statistical
document has not been published for a long
time. It will serve to open the eyes of many,
and we particularly solicit Conservative atten-
tion to its important facts.
It must be observed, also, that a weak and
plastic Cabinet cannot peremptorily decide,
like a strong Government, as to the adjourn-
ment or otherwise of such a subject as " Re-
form." Lord PALMERSTON, against his own
judgment, rapidly reduced the army and dis-
banded the militia. Then he obeyed an im-
pulse in another direction; and as to what
kis " appendages" could do upon the adjourn-
ment of " Reform," we (knot place confidence
in their resolution, and neither Parliament
nor the country have faith in their political
power. A large portion of the Liberal party
is notoriously most anxious to push on the
Reform question; and, although many of the
aristocratic Whigs are extremely hollow in
their affected zeal for further electoral changes,
there is a powerful family clique amongst
them who are desirous that the management
of " Reform" should not get into the hands
of Lord Jottw RUSSELL. It is an "open
secret" that the Noble Member for London is
unpopular amongst the patrician Whigs; and
if there be any doubt upon that point, let some
Radical member move for a return of the
number of times that Lord JOHN RUSSELL has
been seen at Brookes's in the last two years,
and the doubt would vanish. Another se:ition
of the subordinates of the Ministerialists
would prefer that " PALMERSTON" settled the
question, and that " Cambridge-house," not
" Woburn Abbey," should be the temple
'where real Reformers were to bend their steps.
Thus a variety of causes may contribute to
compel the Ministry into action next year
upon the Reform question. We again, in the
most respectful manner, suggest to the Con-
• servative body at large that it is imperatively
necessary to be forearmed on this great sub-
ject. As we scan the returns obtained on Mr.
'DISRAELI'S motion, we are convinced more than
• ever that the deepest injustice has been in-
flicted on the property and political interests
of the Conservative party,and care must be taken
that further wrongs in the name of " progres-
sion " be not committed by the enemies of the
institutions of the realm. Before elucidating
the important bearings of those returns we
shall pseface our illustrations by some remarks

reminding the Conservatives of the way in
which the present electoral system was pro-
duced.

In his speech on the Reform Bill in 1831
Sir ROBERT PEEL stated:—"This is the first
" Parliamentary Reform brought forward by
" Ministers of the Crown for four hundred
" years." Our Parliamentary system, as it
existed up to 1830, was certainly very ancient,
and depended much upon prescription, though
social changes had .often altered its vital
nature. It was powerfully influenced by the
Unions with Scotland and Ireland, by the rise
of the commeicial classes in the days of WAL-
POLE, and by the new wealth and massive for-
tunes of the East and West Indian interests.
The word " Reform " is of old date; and in his
" History of the Great Rebellion," the cautious
and rather timid CLARENDON has frankly
recorded his opinion that the then existing
system required change, and the Conservative
historian rather applauds than censures
CROMWELL for his designs about introducing
Parliamentary Reform. The vicissitudes
which this great question has undergone are
most curious, and deserve patient consi-
deration.

For example, it might be a cause of astonish-
ment to many persons that a system so full of
anomalies as the old Parliamentary system
should have stood so long without change or
positive disapproval. The explanation is easy.
After the Restoration the great political ques-
tion was only another form of the sanguinary
controversy in the da3 s of CHARLES I. The
question up to 1688 was as to the power of
the Crown and the nature of the Cabinet ; and
the introduction of the word and thing called
Cabinet was a virtual Parliamentary reform
of no ordinary importance. After 1688, and
down to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748,
we had a dynastic question which absorbed
all the attention of the country. The Septen-
nial Act was a sort of coup-d'etat to defeat the
Jacobites ; and while the Stuart dynasty was
plotting for the recovery of the Throne elec-
toral controversies would have been out of
time and season. The ascendant Whig
party, when the House of Hanover was firmly
enthroned, was too satisfied with its power
to venture on the perils of innovation ; and it
is both amusing and instructive to listen to
Ministerialists in our own days saying,
"We have a great majority as we stand,
" and why should we look for more reform,
" which might possibly let in the Tories ?"
Jn the middle of the last century the great
Whig families mainly monopolised the borough
interest, and, having a decided majority in the
House of Peers, they dictated to the Crown.
Lord CHATHAM, when he was the " great
commoner," nobly struggled against the oli-
garchy, appealed to public opinion, threw
himself on the " City," which played a great
political part in the last century, as Liver-
pool, Manchester, Birmingham, and other
vast centres of activity were unknown in those
times. Simultaneously %% ith, and subsequent
to, the American war, there was a great general
feeling in favour of Parliamentary Reform.
Associations were organised in Yorkshire ; the
printing press groaned with pamphlets, and
the subject was discussed repeatedly in Par-
liament. 13uaicE and Lord NORTH were op-
posed to Reform ; CHARLES Fox and his imme-
diate followers professed to be in its favour.
But the difficulties attendant on any practical
solution were found to be immense.

Amongst the first of these was the question,
" Whether rotten boroughs were private pro-
" perty 7' And, curiously enough, this question
was interwoven with " new men." Great
merchants had founded families by means of
nomination seats ; and the first PITT entered
Parliament by means of his family borough.
To wards the close of the last, and at the
commencement of the present century, a great
blaze of reputations were associated with the
nomination boroughs. Even Lord MACAULAY,
in our own time, entered Parliament for Calne,
a seat under the control of the Marquis of
LANsoowNE. The hungry sages from the
North who used occasionally to pause on
their busy forks at Holland-house to admire
the dull wit of their host, and imbibe the
brilliant champagne of his plenteous board,
owed much to rotten boroughs. CANNING
became an enthusiastic champion of the close

system. " He flashed," said COLERIDGE, "such
" brilliancy about the Constitution as it stood,
" that its ruins, were not discernible amidst
" the blaze of his genius." And in our own
opinion the finest eloquence of CANNING was
in defence of the system by which he rose to
fame tend power. , ,
While the perional, successes and the glory
of ambition were,thus ailiweiated with rotten
boroughs, the reantion used by the French
Revolutinn added to the force of existing
prescription, and almost placed the borough
system on a level with the sanctity of private
property The cause of Reform fell, also, into
bad hands; and the state of the country after
the battle of Waterloo, the transition from war
to peace, the reduction in prices, the discontent
of the working classes, the fury of their
leaders, and the factiousness of the ultra-
Whigs, compromised the character of Reform,
and stopped its progress.
But in 1826 " Reform " assumed a new
shape. There is a traditional story that Mr
CANNING pronounced the statement of LorJ
JOHN Russell. on " Moderate Reform," in that
year, as the best speech on that question ho
" ever heard." From that date down to 1832
the Conservative party endured heavy losses,
and had to submit to some disasters. The
strategy adopted rather injured the fortunes
of the Conservative body, and on another
occasion it will be our duty to illustrate how
those mishaps came about. The great cause
of them was, we have no hesitation in declar-
ing, attributable to the fact that, from a variety
of causes, the Conservatives had not made up
their minds in time abouthow far change might
be introduced. It will be necessary to under-
stand this clearly, in order to grasp tho-
roughly the facts relating to the present
system, which has just as many anomalies as
the old one.

We do not in the least blame the great Con-
servative statesmen of that time. Their
famous memories and vast talents we hold in
the highest reverence and honour, and even
in indicating their errors we shall recollect,
as the Duke of WELLINGTON said of Sir JOHN
MOORE'S campaign in Spain, that we are criti-
cising after the event. If there were some
mistakes made by the Great Duke and his
justly celebrated associate, Sir ROBERT PEEL,
those miscalculations were splendidly com-
pensated for by the decisive triumphs which
they afterwards gained over the Whigs and
Radicals, whom they prostrated so signally in
1841.