The Express.
London, England, 1853-05-04 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 4.

Toe division on the Income Tax was clearly the
crisis of the fate of the Budget, and the majority of
71 goes far towards assuring the success of Mr.
be eusroNes financial scheme—always supposing
him ready so to modify such portions of it as shall
reader his propositions more just and workable. The
majority was greater than the friends of the Govern-
ment expected—an excellent sign ; for when more
votes flock to the standard of a Ministry than
is generally anticipated, two or three things may
be fairly augured from the circumstance: first,
that the subject on which the vote has been taken
has more than usual claim on public support;
secondly, that real though often silent influences from
without have acted on the members of the House
of Commons ; and, lastly, that the members
themselves feel sure that the Ministers are likely
to be successful. Possibly, in this instance, the
probability that a dissolution might follow any
Ministerial defeat may have added a fourth reason
wily the anticipated forty or fifty majority was
swelled to seventy .one. In the season of success,
however, it would be both ungenerous and unwise
to:sean too closely the whole why and wherefore of the
first formal parliamentary pnnowaciansento on the
Budget. The elements of good contained in Mr.
61-11:03TONE'9 scheme have gained it a preliminary
success with which all may, for the nonce, be con-
tent. A further instalment of Free Trade is involved
in the decision come to, and at this all Free-Traders
must rejoice. Even Mr. DisttaEtt prefaced his un-
happy and unsuccessful speech by an admission that
the principles of the Budget could not be condemned.
As a rule, the blame of the EX•CIIANCELLOR of the
EXCI11.111:EIL is less suspicions and dangerous
than his praise, but in the present instance the
laudation he bestowed upon the principles of the mi-
nisterial scheme of finance may be fairly adopted as
no less than due.

But if the majority of ;1 must improve the chances
of the Budget, one candid declaration made in the
House of Commons last night will undoubtedly
strengthen the kader of that Louse, aud, through
him, the Cabinet to which ho is attached. What
the public wish to be able to feel is that the
present Government are to be trusted on the vital
question of reform of the representation of the
people. No one is now in a state of hot
haste for Parliamentary reform, but all honest
and far-seeing men are very profoundly in
earnest in their wish to see such reform
accomplished. The Election Exposures of the last
few months have demonstrated the existence of an
amount of electoral corruption far exceeding what
the nation as a body ever conceived possible. Those
who had knowledge of Club or Parliamentary life
always knew full well tho amount of combined juggle,
compromise, intimidation, and bribery, that entered
into the arrangements of a general election. All the
initiated were well aware that landed proprietors, whip-
pers-in, Parliamentary agents, and local attorneys, form
in fact the clique who dispose of the great majority
of the seats in the House of Commons. In the me-
tropolitan boroughs, in Birmingham, in Manchester,
in Leeds, in the West Riding, in Edinburgh, Glas-
gow, and in perhaps fifty other places, the popular
voice since the Reform Bill has been strong enough
to upset the calculations of the seatniongers. But
in most places the initiated have long known
that shoals of M.P.'s as a rule have been sent
to St. Stephen's nominally by free suffrages, but
really by corrupt agencies of one kind or other. In
onespot a great lord "has influence;" in another,
like Rye, a managing lawyer settles the election; in
I third, like Derby, open bribery does the week; in
another, such as Liverpool, corrupt freemen tarn the
scale ; elsewhere bludgeon-men, and
" bottled voters" have been the successful tools
employed. But in all, as we have just
laid, those who were behind the segues knew
that deep and wideepread corruption did the work
of those who desired to pack the. people's House of
Parliament. This year a new light has broken in
upon the community. The mere Aabituis of clubs,
or the loungers in the house, or the inheritors of
public ofßee, or the initiated of the law no longer
monopolise the secrets of the prison-house. By the ex-
posures before the election committees, all England—
lay all Europe and America—have becomeacquainted
with the corruptions before known only to a compa-
rative few. The honest stand aghast, the roguish
chuckle, and the despotic rub their hands with glee
at the revelations. Discredit is brought on Parliamen-
tary government by the exhibition of the loathaotnepa-
mites that have crawled, and fed, and fattened around
it. All men now see that though the law has long
declared bribery and corruption to be crimes, yet
agents known to be again and again guilty have
met no punishment—and this is the mockery that
has filled the whole nation with astonishment,
disgust, and indignation. The first surprise over, the
question in all quarters has been—" What shall be
done'" The despots and the rogues—the JONATHAN
WlLlii of electioneering life—and the men who
wants votes to use with the temper of Austrians—say
that representative government is a failure. But the
honest and practical have another and a sounder
reply. When a house is infested by rats or vermin
of any other or more odious kind, wise men do not
give up in despair, and go live in the fields that the
abominations and parasites may enjoy the mansions
meant for better tenants; but they rout the vermin.
They look the whole evil fall in the face, count up
its strength, prepare accordingly, and having utterly
routed the enemy, enjoy their quarters in peace.
touch a step, adopted by common sense men in
common-place life, for the cure of private nui-
sances, is just the course the nation is quietly
resolving to have taken in this public ques-
tion of the treatment of Parliamentary impu-
rity Of the evidence before the various Par-
liamentary Committees the people at large have
gale-1y but carefully " taken stock." As sach agent
Las been unkennelled—each briber exposed,—each
mode of electoral roguery unveiled—the shameful
facts have sunk one by one into the minds of the na-
tion to form the basis for ono loud cry hereafter for
Reform. And now—this process thus far corn-
plete—to crown the climax come the exposures be-
fore the Committee on Dockyards, and the discussion
last night about the prosecution of Sir FREDERICK
SnITH for bribery at Chatham. 'ro fill the cup to
overflow, we now have it openly shown how gip,-

! ringly and impudently the Tory Government of
Lord DERBY used the dockyards as wholesale means
of corruption. The hidden recesses where official
jobbery has hitherto worked unseen are now laid bare,
land rules established for getting competent workmen
to build national ships are seen in course of abroga-
tion that men may get wages from the public
pocket—not because they were good workmen for
the dockyards, bid because they were useful parti-
sans to the Tory Ministry. We see a titled officer,
high in rank, bribing a man by the gift of a berth in
the Post-office, and then, as a last and greatest
act in the drama, we behold a House of Com-
mons, the major part of whom have got
their seats by greater or less implication in corrept
practices, voting by a majority of 188 to 78 that
this officer, Sir FREDERICK SMITH, shall no be prose-
cuted for the commission of an act which the law
declares to be criminal, and which the House of
Commons has declared to have been proved against
him! It is clear that the House of Commons
as a whole feel themselves, in a debate like
that of last night on Sir Jour; SHELLEY'S
motion, to be in a false position. They feel doubt-
less very much like a jury of criminals called on to
punish a man perhaps very little more criminal than
many of themselves, but who has had what they
might call " the misfortune to be found out." To
his own honour and to the great strengthening of
the party he leads in the Commons, Lord ions
RUSSELL spoke out like an honest man on the
falsity and impolicy of such view. The House hesi-
tated to sanction the prosecution of Sir FREDERICK
SMITIL "Of this lam stare (said Lord Jolts), that
if we prosecute poor and low persons, and allow
cases like that of Sir F. SMITH to escape, our so doing
will be fatal to the reputation of the House."
But the fellow-feeling that " makes so wondrous
kind " prevailed. The House decided that the briber
should not be proceeded against by the ArroasEY-
GENERAL. Vulgar criminals like MANI% and Moa-
n INS may occupy the Courts, and—it may be—fill
the gaol.; but a General of Engineers shall be per•
mitted to buy votes by giving away places in the
Post-office with impunity. Mr. AUGUSTUS STAFFORD
need not therefore despair. He may, like the Chat-
ham candidate, be completely convicted of using the
vacancies in the public services as his own
property for corrupt partisan purposes. But
nil desperandune. The House of Commons
has within its walls enough of those who sympa-
thise with corruption to secure his reprieve from the
consequences of any official delinqueuey,—shouldsuch
be proved against him. Happily one statesman
spoke boldly in a different spirit, and as be happens
to be at this hour the Liberal ministerial leader,
his speech will go far towards strengthening him for
that coming duty of Reform which he is pledged to
initiate, and which the people will assuredly assist
him in bringing to a conclusion—fatal to corruption,
much for the public weal, and highly conducive to
his personal renown.