The Express.
London, England, 1848-06-20 00:00:00

NOTICE TO ADVEILTISERS.

The number of STAMPS issued by the authorities or the
tamp-office, during 1847, to the
DAILY NIMS was 3.447.009

This, we believe, is within eight per cent ot the number
inroad to the Morning Herald, Morning Chronicle, auJ
Morning foie, ALL PUT TOOETBRkt,
In addition to the above, issued to the DAILY NEWS,
Morning Paper, there were issued tor the E.vonuni &Nan,
THE EXPRESS 778.714

-- . •
Which was more, we believe, than Inote usued either to
the Glob* of Standard. Evening Papery.

61011 WATIR AT LONDON Ilillooll.
Is
U —Norms& 7 nu. post 4 a II•rmod, II mt.. put 4
Mersi•A 46 Ws. WI 4; AItIMIII. 6 sin pal II

LONDON, TUESDAY. JUNE 20.
MR. HUME'S motion is evidently treated as a
parvenu endeavouring to thrust himself into good
society. The exclusive caste of the House of Com-
mons have first endeavoured to sneer at the new
corner, and abash it to insignificance. Lord JOHN
RUSSELL declared the thing utterly unknown and
=prised in any class of society, even ill the lowest.
The protectionist leader was just as rude and
jealous as the whig one, and Lord GEORGE
BCYTINCK stretched his ungainly figure to
eclipse and hide the reform motion. In short,
the new reform is just as unpopular as the
old reform movement was until Lord GREY took it up:
till then it was quite fashionable to confound BURDETT
and HOBHOUSE with Hume and Connerr, and to
treat reform as but a sneaking kind of treason.
It ia amusing to observe the same men and the
same parties who first po ,h-pooped the old reform,
then adopted it, and finally profited largely by it—
it is amusing to see the in treat the new reform in the
same way, putting on the same airs with respect to
it, and looking down upon it from the height of a
highly starched cravat. When lords and lordly com-
moners regard it with disdain, of course the gentle-
men of the press cannot bring themselves to tolerate,
much less to recognise, such a flagrant specimen of
vulgarity. The Times, having viewed it through its
eyeglass, declared that it war a middle-class affair,
and would come to nothing; those vulgar fellows
caring merely for pounds, shillings, pence, and sub-
stantial profits. Even the Spectator, which was
once so vorace in its hunger for liberalism
that no whig measure could satisfy it, now
talks of reform quite like a lord of the
bedchamber. To introduce eo intrinsically vulgar
a measure would, it seems, require a politician of
rank and fashion to patronise it; and as the Spec-
tator finds it merely heralded by Messrs. IiUME and
COBDEN, it bens the embroidered seams of its court
coat upon the reform movement, and will none of
it. Then, it seems, there are difficulties. The ques-
tion of electoral districts presents anomalies ; and as
Lord JOBS Ituestar. could not remodel the
income tax under a year's consid ration, nor
Lord GREY concoct a squatting bill to
please himself and the West Indians under u
similar lapse of time, so the Spectator demands a
y ear or two to excogitate the delimitation of electoral
districts, till which time it would recommend the
ballot and the extension of the franchise to go to sleep.
It is, however, with the new reform as with the
old. Parliament and the country rezarded that
great question in the past en totally different prin-
ciples, and they now leek to the new reform move-
ment with completely different calculations and hopes.
The country looked and looks to both as measures of
justice and fairness, as a mode of contenting the dis-
franchised, of bringing more talents and interests to
be represented in parliament, and allowing more
discontent and distress a vent, and, consequently, an
alleviation and a remedy there. As to parliament
and its politicians, they look to these measures more
to see their probable effect on the state of parties in
the house, than from any results they are likely to pro-
duce iu the country. As to the chartists, the police
may deal with them, coercion laws will tame the
Irish, alien bills will free us from foreign contagion.
Middle-class movements and discontent can be cajoled
during the six months which precede a septennial
election, and sneered down during the remaining six
years. The old Reform Bill was carried by the par-
liamentary men to place the whig aristocracy in the
same hold of power that the tories possessed.
Bat a new reform would not serve the
purposes of any party, except that of the
people at large and of the country. To keep
them out is, however, the first and last instinct
of your parliamentary party man. And, there-
fore, Mr. Heate's motion is to be put down, slighted,
sneered at, and attacked by all the efforts and all the
mameuvres of all the combined parties in press and
parliament. Even if the debate is unavoidable, care
will be taken that there be no division, in order that
the whole host of the epiceues, who are whigs in
heart and reformers in profession, may escape com-
mitting themselves with either their friends or the
country.
Yet, there is one argument used by the opponents of
reform that strikes us as a strong reason for their not
being so inveterate in opposition. It is, that, after all,
reform would make very little change in the constitu-
tion of the llouse of Commons ; that the same notalii-
lilies, the same men of talent and influence, would
find their way to parliament then as now, for the
great popular party has no new men to offer. We
admit this to be in a great measure true. We do not
kink that the reform to be proposed this night by
Mr. HUME would effect any great revolution
even in the members of the House of Commons, nor
would the aristocracy lose its legitimate influence by
the extension of the popular element in elections.
But it would change, if not the personal composi-
tion, at least the spirit of the House of Commons: that
body would not be, as now, divided into three
avowedly aristocratic parth s, in awe of each other, or
playing into one another's hands on all vital questions',
whilst the few men devoted to really popular interests
were intimidated and nullified by the prevailing
spirit of the house. With the present House
of Commons there is no use in any
man's serving the people, or looking to the
people. Obloquy, not Influence, awaits him in parlia-
ment, in consequence of such eminence. For, instead
of sympathy, tuere is really antagonism between par-
liament and the public, although the antagonism is
veiled over, and the overt politics of the house ate
little more them a dramatic exhibition.
Lord LANSDOWNE told the truth at the LORD
Meron'a dinner, when the health of the House of
Lords was drunk :—the House of Lords was nothing
of itself, he said, as possessed of exclusive pri-
vileges: it was as forming part ola harmonious whole
that the House of Lords was respectable and formidable.
No doubt the House of Lords, as House of Lords, is
powerful—powerful enough in the present session to
reject and nullify every, measure of tolerance, free
trade, and reform. But it effects this, not through its
exclusive power as an upper house, but by its rikini& I
cations in the lower, and, in fact, by its spirit and its
influence pervading all—elections, magistracy, society,
the liberal press, and the LORD MAYOR'S table. The
people of England are, in fact, nothing. The third
estate is but nominally independent, and really a re-
flex of sentiments not its own. To make the people
of England have a party, sentiments, and interests of
their own, not predominant over those of other chianti
but co-existent with them, and respected by them—
such is the simple and humble aim of the present
efforts of Mr. Hume and his friends.

WIT7LcT earnest in our endeavours to procure for
the poor, establishments for bathing and washing, we
should not forget the natural arrangement by which
ore of these wit rations may be canted on during the
greater part of the year. Our ponds, sheets of
water, lakes, rivers, and the ocean, can all be had
recourse to for this purpose. The only drawbacks