The Express.
London, England, 1851-11-20 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY. NOVE.VBER 20.

Czarism inquiries hare recently been instituted
by order of government into the number and claasi-
Station of municipal electors throughout the king-
dom; and ere very long, if not by this time, the
authentic replies furnished by
.the local authorities
will enable the trainers of the intended Reform Bill
to estimate the extent to which the parliamentary
franchise would be enlarged by including all persons
who now enjoy the right of voting for the local
government of their respective cities and towns.
By the Municipal Act every tenant, whether by
WPM or from year to year, of a home situated within
the boundaries; of the borough and duly entered in
the rate-books as such fur a period of three years. is
poricturd of the corporate franchise. The law pre-
sumes with justice and with reason that none are more
competent to make a proper selection of persons to
administer the local taxes than those who regularly
pay them. For a century and a half the oligarchic
aystern was tried in municipal affairs, with what re-
walla few amongst us have forgotten. Wasteful ex-
penditure, family jobbing, and all the noxious under-
growth of evils that flourish beneath the shade of
clique, had attained a scandalous maturity, during
the period referred to. And one of the first fruits of the
Parliamentary Reform Bill of 1832 was the origina-
tion of inquiries, and subsequently of measures, for
the redress of so great a grievance. By the conces-
sion of the household suffrage above mentioned, a
thorough change was speedily wrought in the local
government of our towns; and though there may be
evils still existing there which call for specific reme-
dies, we may congratulate ourselves that in the main
the business of municipal self-rule is, generally
speaking, now pe.rfonned with diligence, economy,
even-handed justice, and a respectful deference to
the voice of public opinion.
And now, in the fulness of time, the influence to
which this ameliorated system owes its existence
seeks to renovate its own strength by a cheer imi-
tation of the more popular ways of its offspring. The
104 parliamentary franchise has already lost its
vitality and vigour. The sanguine anticipations
formed of its expansive tendencies when first pro-
mulgated have proved altogether illusory. Instead
of expanding, we have beheld its limits year after
year contracting until those of the leaser towns have
well nigh reverted to he dimensions of the an te-reform-
ing penod. The applicat ion of anew mi nimum whereby
a new Schedule A will be defined, has become impe-
ratively necessary. 'f lie seats thus suppressed must
be conferred on other communities, uud a general

redistribution of the representation can no longer be
postponed. Rut, without a great and general in-
clusion of additional classes of the people within the
confines of active citizenship, all shifting, and chop-
ping,. of the electoral system will be labour lost.
There do not exist generally throughout the country
enfranchised numbers sufficient to sustain freedom
and purity of permanent action. To what purpose
tth iuld we be at the trouble to divest Sudbury or St.
Albans of their established perquisites in the shape
of parliamentary plunder, if it be only to seek out
other circumscribed communities, or arbitrarily ex-
clusive sections of communities, by whom the like
practices may lie irrisponsibly carried on? Expe-
rience has demonstrated the unsafety of constituen-
cies consisting of but a few hundred electors. No
.weeping at specified periods of these filthy corners
will ever make them pure. No pulling of them down
with angry haste, in order to build up others of the
same narrow and obscure dimensions, will ever ac-

eomplish any real good.
There are many directions in which the end so
desirable may be attained. We do not say that
good and valid reasons cannot be adduced why it
should be sought in more wars than one in combi-
nation and at the same time. There are unquestion-
ably very considerable and highly-deserving
classes whom no single form of suffrage
will adequately reach. But none eon deny
that • most comprehensive test is that of
householding rateability. The municipal franchise
offers itself as a basis whereon to re-construct an
amended and enlarged representation for the empire.
It has confessedly worked well for now a period of
°amid' rabic duration. The adoption of the same
rule for both the national and local suffrage would
peerless many recommendations, of which simplicity
and uniformit)• are not the least. The more frequent
recurrenee of local duties would operate as a constant
revivification of the sense of public spirit eo needful
to be kept in the highest degree of development, in
order that the choice of members of the supreme ,
legislature may be made with intelligence, judgment,
and independence. Yet, with all its recommenda-
tions, the municipal franchise is not at present broad
enough to form the 11.4..4C of a system of voting for
members of the legislature.
To the condition of three years' residence, we
should indeed demur. We have seen some calcula-
tions of the actual extent to which, with this restric-
tion, the present lists of parliamentary voters would
bo enlarged in the lesser towns, and we have no
doubt that it would prove after a short trial insuffi-
cient t) guard against the insidious introduction of
the corruption and exclusiveness that now render
our electoral system a disgrace and an infamy.
The tendency of all petty oligarchies is to
contract, not to expand. Let a new constituency
be created to-morrow in a small country town, and
before three years means will be sought of still fur-
ther diminishing its circle. The power of resistance
within is too feeble, and the motive to attain what is
called " • manageable majority " is too strong.
Nothing but the identification of the political action
of the community with all its tax-paying members,
can effectually secure it from the eating canker of
individual cupidity. If a man is the rated occu-
pier of a separate dwelling within the limits
of the borough, why should he be refused the
right of voting because he did not
to reside there three years ago? What 111:C
magical merit of living three years in the mime
place ? If three be a virtue, five must he bell*, Ind
seven an approach to perfection. Hut the thief den
not bear argument. In the great majority at ewes
our fellow-citizens •ho occupy rated homes in
towns inhabit them without change for more than
the term specified. But the addition of such a test
is • miserable remnant of conservative jealousy of
popular progress, and ought to be discarded in any
new arrangement.

IT is with regret that we feel ourselves again called
upon to animadvert, in • deprecatory tone, on the
Cproceedings of Americans in California and the
henetiliut of Panama. We are quite aware of, and
are ready to make every allowance for, the digital-
ties wider which the American government libitum
Its entirely elective character, its extremely limited
means for enforcing its authority, increase the diffi-
culty it finds in checking local and partial ebullitions
of the popular will, exactly in proportion as the ex.
tent of its territories and the number of its new set-
tlements are increased. The pioneers of the back-
woods and prairies have always been a wayward
race, little amenable to severe discipline ; and the
Californians appear to be still more untna• ageable.
The Erpress can say with truth that it'
never has allowed European prepossessions or ,
national jealousy to bias its judgment of Aine-j j
riven policy. I%e claim credit, therefore. with our 1
Transatlantic cousins for good will, even when our
comments may wear the semblance of blame. If we
find fault with any acts of any section of American I,
citizens, it is in the same spirit that a JOHN QUINCT ;
ADAMS Might have done. And in this spirit we
would remind the citizens of the United States, and
the government at Washington, that while any irre-
gularities of the backwoodsmen—in the very heart
of the continent --are their concern, and theirs only,
similar, not to say greater, irregularities on the shores
of the Pacific or of the gulf of Mexico affect the
interests of other nations. They cannot expect
fureignerv, when they feel themselves injured by acts
of Americans, to he satisfied with explanatory state-
ments of how difficult the American government
Inds it to keep its citizens in proper order.
Two cardinal points in the political creed of the
pest founders of the American republic were, pro-

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