The Express.
London, England, 1848-05-04 00:00:00

onr foreign policy, our bold front, our negotiations
and interferences, our menaces of hostility and pro-
mises of support, are one and all nothing but a
mighty sham ? As long as this policy deve-
lops itself merely in foolscap and protocols, it is
all very well; but does not every one see
that on the least risk of its beooming se-
rious, our foreign minister would be left to his
arm-chair, without the least command over the ener-
gies, or resources, or passions of the country P With
the finances in the state they are, we maintain that
Ragland has, and can have, no foreign policy. It is
a luxury we cannot pretend to
y--a op
we cannot
gratify—a pride and a pretension that we have
neither the desire nor the claim to exercise. This, we
maintain, is both degrading and dangerous : de-
grading, because it renders our diplomacy an impo-
sition and a fame ; dangerous, because it may betray
us into a war, which the present system has neither
the power nor the resources to maintain.
In every department of the administration, in every
pogtion of the national policy, parliament and govern-
ment have come to a nonplus —have reached a barrier
impossible for them to surmount. We do not
blame the whigs more than PEEL, nor l'iret more
than STANLEY; for all, successively and together,
have brought us to this state, out of which
this same government and assembly of high-
born and high-placed notables cannot extricate
us. They. see tho present difficulty as well as we.
Yet how do they face it ? In utter stillness, per-
plexity, and paralysis; in an expectance that the
torrent will roll by and let them pee dry shod over,
without turning aside to overwhelm them. They are
living on chances, trusting to the chapter of accidents,
buoying themselves with small expedients, and
trembling before the future, which they durst not

trust.
It is the old position of France under the notables,
with the clever CALONNE striving to satisfy all the
world and make both ends meet. There is, in reality,
but one source of safety or possibility of refuge, and
that is to call in the country fully and seriously to
the aid of its present race of perplexed and baffled
politicians. A real electoral reform, a now parliament,
a multitude of councillors in which is wisdom, in-
stead of an aristocratic clique, in which dwell but
prejudice and panic, this is the true remedy, with-
out which national bankruptcy, disturbance, and dis-
grace are inevitable, and without which the dismem-
berment of the empire and the dissolution of society
are not improbable results.

To the examination of the bill to inquire into cor-
rupt practices at borough elections we brought a strong
predisposition to welcome it as a step towards the puri-
fication of the House of Commons. After a minute
and unbiassed scrutiny of it, we regret to have the
conclusion forced upon us that it can be of no earthly
use. Whether considered with respect to what it will
immediately accomplish, or with respect to indirect
but inevitable consequences to ensue from its being
passed, this is the only judgment that can be delivered
upon it.
The immediate effect of this bill's becoming law will
be the creation of • new paid commission. It will
authorise the crown, with consent of parliament, to
nominate immediately some half-dozen commissioners,
to whom the House of Commons may from time to
time add others. These commissioners are to proceed
forthwith to collect evidence relating to the nine
cities and boroughs named in a schedule to the ac:.
And " in case at any time hereqfter any election com-
mittee " shall report the existence of corrupt practices
at any election, and the House of Commons resolve
that further inquiry ought to be made, the Speaker
may appoint two commissioners, in terms of
the act, to conduct it. These commissioners
(two being a . quorum, and different sets autho-
rised to carry on simultaneous inquiries) are to
hold courts of inquiry within the culprit
12eroughs, "or within ten miles thereof," and to con-
tinue sitting day by day until their inquiries shall
be ended. They are to be armed with all legal
powers necessary to compel parties to give evidence.
They are to report from time to time to the crown.
and each report is to be laid before parliament withie,
fourteen days, if it is sitting at the time, and if 'it is
not, within fourteen days after its next meetir,g. The
commissioners are to be paid five guir.eas each fur
d eir
every day that they are activeme.oyed,
travelling expellees ; and the
e y
are to be eman powthered
to appoint and dismiss clerks, messengers, &c., who
are also to be duly remunerated.
Of the use to be made of the information thus col-
lected. the hill contain. nn hint; hot any portion
acquainted with parliamentary tactics must see at
once that nothing satisfactory can follow. That the
systematic corruption which has prevailed in the nine
boroughs named in the schedule, at lent since a seat for
one of them (Horsham) was bought by Sir SAMUEL
ROMILLT in 1807 for 2,0001., has suffered no abatement
by the Reform Bill, is already as certain as the in-
quiries of any. commissioners can make it. They
are charged, indeed, to report " the names of all
persons whom they shall find to have been guilty of
corrupt practices ;" and this will, no doubt, add many
piquant passages to the chronique scandateuse of
electioneering immorality. But the debates which
arks upon such reports will inevitably degenerate
into special pleadings as to whether the individual con-
stituencies are sufficiently guilty to deserve extinctiorr;
I into party contests to get their electoral privilege
transferred to this or t' other community, according as
either party may think it possesses influence; and
into personal attacks and recriminations. The reports
of the commissioners, therefore, will only afford addi-
tional opportunities to the members of the House of
Commons to waste more time in those mere party
/ struggles and indecent persoaal brawls, in which they
' waste too much time already ' • add to those deluges et
useless and unreadable blue books with which every
session inundates parliament ; and increase the num-
ber of those standing paid commissions, which have
of late years become so effective an instrument for
baying active and unscrupulous ministerial agents
among the young men of talent, education, and
limited means.
This is all that the bill, should it become law,
can accomplish directly and immediately. The ulte-
rior consequences of its becoming law have more of
promise in them. There is a possibility that the
clauses empowering the Speaker, when authorised by
the House of Commons, to appoint commissioners
" at any time hereafter" to investigate
. allegations of
corrupt practices " at any election," may bring their
scrutinies in time to bear upon such constituencies as
that of West Gloucestershire, or that of belkirkshire.
And whenever the corrupt and oppressive conduct of
the masters of county constituencies come to
be unveiled, some more comprehensive and
thoroagh-going. measure of reform will be in-
evitable. Again, the devolution of the function
of receiving evidence in extreme cases of electoral,
corruption upon parties not members of parliament,
might possibly. lead to its being devolved upon extra-
parliamentary independent officers in all cases of coo-
tested returns; and this, again, might lead to the es:
tablishment of an independent permanent tribunal for
deciding all election came. But the prospect of
these consequences being realised is so remote and so
uncertain as not to counterbalance the direct and im-
mediate mischief which the bill, if allowed to become
law, must entail upon the country.
The only benefit the community at large can de-
rive from this measure has been already obtained.
The House of Commons, br allowing it to be brought
in, have admitted that extensive and dangerous cor-
ruption pervades our electoral system. The country
at large does not care, and does not need to care, for
the exposure and punishment of individual delin-
quents. What it rtquiree is such a re-modelling of
the electoral system as will mininnee the possibility
of corruption. This bill is a fair sample of the only
kind of parliamentary reform that is to be expected
from parliament itself. The liberal members have
been taken in a trap set for them by the immense
majority who are resolute to uphold the existing sys-
tem, because it works well for them. They have
taken the professions made by this majority of a wish
to correct proved abuses for sincere, and have set out
to catch concessions which will prove so many poli-
tical ignes fatui.
The course to be pursued by reformers out of doors
is obvious. Leave members of parliament to them-
selves to battle about this bill, and try in vain to work
it should it become law ; and join with caul, inflexible
determination in the movement which has begun out
of doors for obtaining a real and thorough reform of
parliament. It is in vain that the obstractives, and
all who are interested in perpetuating the present
oligarchical and corrupt system, seek to represent
that movement as a mere factitious show, got up by
organised agitators. Even though there were any
weight in the remark that the most prominent
of
the leaders were also leaders in the anti-