The Express.
London, England, 1851-09-23 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23.

HAD we a new reform bill to discuss or to pro-
pose, we should certainly make the first clause,
article, or point of it the ballot, being confident that
all other concessions or extensions to popular desire
or of popular franchise, will prove nugatory, unless
the elector is protected from the consequences of
voting. according to his convictions and desires.
There is, undoubtedly, a better and an honester feeling
than there used to be on the subject of electoral
corruption. It is no longer a joke, a thing that
might be condemned, but must be tole-
rated. All are pretty well agreed upon the neces-
sity of strengthening the representative system, by
investing it with truth and respect and absolute
rottenness, though it had its champions twenty years
ago, will scarcely be defended even by the most
unblushing in 143.3. If a borough is shown to be
ocorrigibly venal, or confined to numbers which
act as a high premium on venality, parliament will
condemn it. Nay, we should not be surprised to
find certain plans for extending the franchise to
classes on whose dependence and subser-
viency the monopolists of land and wealth
might count, abetted by torics, on the un-
derstanding that voting was still to be
oven, and thus under their surveillance and retribu-
tion. The ballot alone can give verity to these re-
forms, and mako them other than a 'delusion and a
sham.
A ministerial paper told ns, not many days since,
that the chief aim of the governing classes should
be to settle the question of the franchise by a large
and satisfactory concession ; because the franchise
was a thing which the people at large prized and
understood, and would struggle for. Whilst, if in-
dulged in their desires, and deprived of their com-
plaint on this point, they could with difficulty be
got to interest themselves, to stir, or to agitate for
anything more. In other words, the counsel was,
Give them a low franchise, and we shall hear no
more of the ballot, or short parliaments, and equali-
sation of districts. The advice should be borne in
mind, and the ballot made the keystone of the arch

of reform.
With respect to the equalisation of districts, that
is port and parcel of the question of extending
and regulating the franchise. They are, in
fact, one and the i.amc question, it being
perkedy futile to concede the right of voting,
even to multitudes, when you pen off those multi-
tudes, and give them half-a-dozen members to amuse
them, whilst a few hundreds of an oppusite and aria.
tocratic interest are endowed with the return of a
dozen members to overwhelm them. This is so plain
a question, so fair and imperative a demand, that no
extension of the franchise in the present ratio, begging
the pardon. will ever settle, or ever fling it
into the shade. Dealt with it most be; and the'
longer the governing classes delay to deal with it, the
worse for them in the end.
We have heard a great deal of virtuous indigna-
tion in this country on the narrowness and impoliey
of Louts Pitit.teees maintaining the monopoly of
a few thousand elector; amidst the disfranchised
millions of the French nation. Hut what portion of
the French territory under Loris rummer: affords'
such examples as we have at home? Take the
county of Devon, fur example. It has a popu-
lation of 572.000, of which, according to
the census of 1811, one half is employed
in agriculture, one half in commerce, trade,
and manufactures. Of this more than half mil-

lion. how many electors are there registered for the ,
county of I Peron ? Just 17,712! Could any depart- ,
merit of France under 1-,outs Pitibiret: 'display a ,
greater ninekery of the representative arstem? But
some will say. is not this remeuied by the
existence of boroughs, cis of which, fur example,
in Devonshire, with a united constituency of 1,700
electors, return out of a population of 22,500, ten
members to parliament? In our opinion this makes
matters far worse, and adds to the delusion. The
borough representation of 1 fevonshire ennipriscs a
population of 150,4N)0 altogether, of which there are
11,000 borough electors. lf, as the census indicates,
one half the population are engaged in trade
and commerce. there are some 100,000 of
them unrepresented in boroughs, and there-
fore swamped in the county representation,
adding to its already sufficiently grievous mockery.
ILm.ohold suffrage, as we yesterday explained it,
with a proper grouping of borough representation,
offers the fittest remedy for such a mass of anomaly
and Rotten constituencies and nomi-
nation returns should be done away with in
country as well as in town ; fur a constituency of
400 in the latter is not more illusory and intolerable
than aconstitueney of 3.000 or 4,000 in a county. What
more right can ltutlundshire have to two members
than Harwich? Or Leicestershire to four members

when larger civic populations remain unrepresented?
This is a portion of the great question of reform that
requires to he considered and discussed at length.
The census ationls us all the materials, not only in
the amount but in its clamitiention of our numtiers.
For, if it be a fixed rule with parliament
and with dominant parties to consider the inte-
rests of town and country apart, the rag
should he to strike a fair balance by some known
and admitted principle, and not to assume, lazily and
coolly, that the present ratio of political power is foe
ever to be preserved between changing and conflict-
ing interests.
The next measure that we should urge is that of
a self-acting registration, which is an adjunct almost
as necessary as the ballot in securing the natural
results for which the franchise is required to be ex-
tended and equalised. To this, however, we shall
specially recur.
Triennial parliaments form another necessary portion
and appendage of reform. The snore popular the
representation, the more it is liable to mistakes, the
move requisite that speedy correction should be at
hand. What constituency could possibly foresee the
coming events and requirements of seven years? Let
us only look back to lsl7, the date of our last elec-
tion, and sec what a change has since then come over
every country in the world, and every department in
politics. The bare idea of an elector in 1817 making
a fit choice of a man to steer through the events of
Ifl3-1 is enough to expose the preposterous notion of
septennial parliaments. The question is so plain,
that in truth it scarcely needs discussion; it is not
one that an extension of the franchise would cause
to be forgotten. Just the contrary, it would bring
it every day to our memories, till the political entail
was cut of.
The doing away with the qualification is but the
dispensing with a trap for catching honest fools, the
prohibition being always evaded by the cunning can-1
didate, be he ever so poor, if any except the people
have an interest in returning him. The doing away
with the qualification gives to the people at large a
privilege already enjoyed by every wealthy man and
wealthy party, that of sending to parliament a poor
man, whom they may happen to like and to trust.
Having thus given our opinion on the chief points
of the reform movement, we nifty wait to see what
Manchester will say on Wednesday, and not only
Manchester, but those who, in these islands, have
sedulously turned their attention to the all-important
subject.

Tue discovery of gold in Australia, if even-
tually proved to be as considerable as present facts
seem to indicate, la a circumstance of no slight im-
portance in itself, sad will revive in a community so
purely commercial se oars those surmises aad specu-
lations relative to the valor of the praises metals,
the rise of prices, and thotuatics of the Sweign ex-
elrnges, so prolific OS • 'Wier discos is Clairol, I
nia. On that creessiso we mg raeollect law excited
was the iwsprgrperrits ammltant on tie one part of
yid,m sad signs on taw otherof
falling imams sad ParalYVapcs. Musa
way gurus, under no elm& hed a
Slam otlight thrown upon and mmay projects
to be defunct started into a momantary
Iliia
vitality by this kind of galvanic action. Amidst