The Express.
London, England, 1855-02-20 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 20, 1855.

upon them will be much better employed
It the present time on Election Committees. Let all
the earnest and sensible men who are anxious to see
a new spirit breathed into our administrative Go-

vernment, combine in their respective localities to
promote the interests of able and trustworthy candi-
dates for seats in Parliament. The men who are
most wanted at the moment are those of the
LINDSAY and PETO clue, whose competency
Government has reluctantly recognised by in
yoking their aid for the construction of rail-
ways, and for the expediting of transports.
There are amongst us many who are familiar with
the organisation of labour on a large scale—many
who have practically teamed the art of finance in
great combinations of capital. It is alleged that
these men have not leisure to attend to the affairs
of the State. This is a mistake. The landed aristocracy
are not singular in belonging to "families." Our
' merchant and manufacturer princes have " families"
also, one or more members of which can be spared for
the service of the State, while the others continue to
manage those enterprises, which are as valuable and as
enduring properties as the broad acres of any family
that dates from before the CONQUEROR. And these
Industrial magnates have cultivated their minds at
least as much as the aristocracy. There are libraries,
the properties of private individuals, in the manu-
facturing districts, which would put to the blush
the collections of the aristocracy. Ask our
painters who are their best customers? There
ON in the great industrial middle-class robust
and cultivated minds, who have hitherto wasted
their time in scribbling for reviews and local
papers; or in acting on election committees of men
infinitely less capable and reliable than themselves ; or
in cramming poor creatures who occupy seats is the
House of Commons to make a show in some impor-
tant debate. At a crisis like the present it is the
duty of such men to come forward, toes into some
lumber room the puppets whose strings they have
contented themselves with drawing, and take upon
themselves the honour and responsibility of serving
the country.
Unless such men come forward to assert the rights
of themselves and their class, there is not the remotest
chance of an infusion of new blood into the adminis-
trative ranks. The old stagers confess this them-
selves. They complain that all our prominent states-
men grow old, and that no younger generation is
rising up to take their place. This deficiency of
official aptitude in the young of their class they attri-
bute to the loss of the nomination boroughs. They say
that when peers or wealthy landowneis had such bo-
roughs at their disposal, they sought out young men of
talent to fill them, and that thus reserves of prac-
tised statesmen were formed in anticipation of emer-
gencies. But what kind of men did these borough
proprietors select? There was the father of the
present Marquis of LANSDOWNE—one of the least
prejudiced of his class. In filling up ono of his
boroughs, he had a choice between BENTHAM
(BENTHAM in all the full-fledged vigour of
manhood, before exclusion from active life
and repeated disappointments had rendered
him crotchetty and eccentric) and a man like BARRE..
And Lord SHELBURNE preferred the glib.tongued
jobber to the man of the most powerful, the most
comprehensive, the meet practical intellect of his
day. Such were the fruits of the nomination borough
system; such were the "statesmen" it produced.
But even had the system been better, it has passed
away, as all things earthly must pus away in turn.
The country can no more revert to nomination
boroughs than the mature man can resume the cha-
racteristics of boyhood. We must acquiesce in the
necessity of our position, and work as we best may
with the materials placed at our disposal. Aid this
can only be by our best men laying aside
their overweening fastidiousness, and asserting their
claims to popular confidence; by the electors recol-
lecting that the choice of a member of Parliament is
at least as important a matter as the choice of
book-keeper or clerk; and by the hereditary holders
of high offices in the State accepting, on a footing of
perfect equality, the co-operation of the able and
judicious, though plebeian, representatives of the
people.—Daily News.