The Express.
London, England, 1853-03-01 00:00:00

Vie 6)30,00*

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LONDON, TUESDAY, MARCH 1.

EVERT day now supplies its new budget of Elec-
tion disclosures. Another member—Mr. Marrwew
WILSON—has been unseated for Clitheroe, and we may
look for many more such expulsions unless the
startling character of recent revelations should drive
the election agents on each side into more compro-
mises. A step just taken may check any such ten-
dency. Mr. Duwoowne, last night, obtained a
select committee to inquire into the circumstances
under which the petitions against the return of
the sitting members for the city of Norwich
had been withdrawn. The incidents connected
with the withdrawal of the petitions are so
strange, and the fact itself is so illustrative of
a most corrupt tendency which appears to character-
ise our electoral system that all honest men must
wish success to the investigation about to take
place. The facts cannot be too often repeated.
10slonel Measure is a rejected member for Nor-
wich. Messrs. PATO and WARNER are the two
sitting members. Colonel DICKSON'S friends ima-
*tied, rightly or wrongly, that there were sufil-
sent grounds for supposing that improper means
bad been used to secure the election of his opponents.
Two petition., theretore, were presented ; one against
thejoint return of Messrs. Pero and WARNER ; the
ether against that of Mr. WARN= alone. Colonel
Measure quietly awaited the result. Fifteen hun-
dred person had signed a petition, and he was justi-
fied in supposing that a House of Commons, filled with
a due sense of its own dignity,could not refuse to enter-
tain the prayer of such a petition. To his amazement
he finds that his expectations are doomed to be
crashed. The House of Commons certainly is pro.
pared to enter into the question. But at the
eleventh hoar the petition is withdrawn. The House
which comes forward to examine certain allegations,
is told that its trouble will be dispensed with, the
allegations are not forthcoming. The Hesse, thus
unceremoniously dealt with, desists. Consoled for the
insult, by the reflection that it is spared the process
of a very dirty investigation, and rejoicing in its
good fortune, it would willing say not a word about
the matter. But the petitioners are not so
well satisfied; and Colonel DICKSON is in-
dignant. For they have nothing at all to do with
the withdrawal of the petition ! They who
have placed their supposed wrongs before the House
in the most moving terms find that a Parliamentery
agent has decided that the House shall take no ead.
nixance of their complaint.
Colonel Ettcasow's letter, which we published ea
Thursday last, and have since commented apes,
lets all the world into the secret of the arrange-
ment by which the representation of a constituency
is placed in the category of articles which may
be made a matter of bargain between a couple
of agents: Mr. Baowr, on the one aide, and
Mr. COPPOCK on the other meet together to settle
the trifling matter of the constitution of the House
of Commons. The representation of the geeateat
legislative assembly in the world, is placed in the
hands of these two gentlemen. The Income Tax
awaits a settlement—the nation is anxious about the
terms on which a reform in the representation will
be managed—the legislative arrears of two unpro-
ductive sessions have to be satisfied—all this
work is laid before the British House of
Commons, but nobody can tell what the
result will be, or how all these important
affairs will be twinged until Messrs. Baum; and
COPPOCK have decided upon the proper persons to
be entrusted with the consideration of these matters
in Parliament. While the electors of Norwich,
Gloucester' Middlesex, Kidderminster, Youghal,
County of Down, and Western division of Norfolk
fondly imagined that they themselves were the
parties represented by the sitting members, they find
to their discomfiture that no one is represented but
Messrs. BROWN and COPPOCK. BROWN and COP-
POCK, in fact, are institutions—fifth estates in the
constitution. They it is who ultimately decide apes
the integral constituents of the Howe.
This will be a curious fact for the consideration el
some future DE LOUIE. He will have to point oat
the curious circumstance, that the nation at large
had often' less direct concern in the election of its
representatives than certain intermediary institu-
tions—Blow:4a, COPPOCKS, Carlton Clubs, and
W. B.'s--through which the representation was fil-
tered before it reached the House of Commons.
He will have to relate that the true theory
of the constitution was this: certain parties
oat of the House provided certain sums to
constitute a fund to meet the necewry expenditure
in the manufacture of Members of Parliament. That
this being done, agents well skilled in their business
were WNW to lied "safe men," men namely with
=arsesa and easy consciences. That these pre-
being accomplished, the "safe men"
.put
themselves bound band and foot, body and soul, into
the bands of the age is aforesaid, who considered
as them bales of to be bartered one against the
ether, as time and opportunity required. The histo-
rian will report, as a classic instance, the way in which
unconscious constituencies and equally moan-

mime aspirants far Parliamentary honours irere bar-
tered against four constituencies and would-be mem-
bers equally unconscious. He may probably, if of a
speculative turn, suggest that much trouble and
sandal would have been saved if in such a awe as
this the writs had been directed to Baowx, Cop-
PM. and the Carlton Club, requiring them to send
geed and true men to Parliament to represent them-
/elves or the guineas with which they were bought.
No page in the history of our electoral system is
es dark -as that which will contain the history of the
lose of the last elections. The enormous number
if ligation. against returns, the disgraceful disclo.
that
have been made by the witnesses examined
the committees, the reckless conduct of the
Zakin withdrawing petitions without consulting
etertituenciee or the rejected members, all point
te t state of things that cannot continue to exist
Without bringing_ the representative system into dis-
LOUIS NAPOLEON'S scribes, who have fee the
last year been running down free Parliaments, will
have many an incident to "point a moral or
aims a tale," drawn from facts connected
with the last election. There may have been
oasesof squid enormity oecurring in times past,
but on no single occasion has there been so large a,
number—never has there been with proof ofa
tem. The evidemse OE the lewd petitions, together
with the other dietitians that -have been made
public, afford materials for a scientific treatise on
Bribery, which might be entitled, "Corruption Made
Easy ; or, Every Benegh Its Own Vendor." If
anything were Stela to sharpen the desire for
reform, or foe demenstrating its necessity, it will be
found in those Eden& Lord JOHN RUSSELL may
snider thispertien of the work done for him in the
disclosures andel to. In the meantime, the public
are beginning to fed that, antecedent to all change
in the representation, something must be done to
give assurance that any given member does truly
represent the place for which he stands, and that the
voter may be protected in the free exercise of the
franchise.