The Express.
London, England, 1848-04-26 00:00:00

ELECTORAL REFORK=THE PROVINCIAL

PRESS.
The columns of the provincial press continue to be
devoted to the discussion of means by which the middle and
working classes may be re-united fur the purpose of seeking
further practical reforms in the constitution of the legis-
lature.
The Devonshire Chronicle, commenting upon the fact that
a meeting of chartists had been held in Exeter on Wednes-
day lout, to elect a delegate to the national convention, and
a meeting of inhabitanu next day to vote a loyal address,
throws out the following suggestion:—
The experience of the part 'should teach all rulers to take the initia-
tive in the reform of proved abuses. We hare now before our eyes,
in the present aeration, the eoeviction of many small boroughs for
bribers.; le, them be disfranchised, ad an election dinuict be
formed as near to them so possible: here we should have
the gradual and rate removal of one cause of discontent,
that the legbdatore a itself corrupt, and made up of •
elms. In our own county we have Ashburton, Tothese,
sad Dartmouth, altogether containing not one thousand voter% send-
ing four members to parliament—es many as the metropolis itself.
We do not intend to say that the four members of the Dart may not
be, are not, indeed, as good and as efficient members of parliament
as the member, elected on the hanks of the Themes —that is not the
question ; the complainanta ray it Is a representation of a few and
not of the many, and therefore not • representation of the people
according to the constitution. Out of this grows the discontent pro-
duced by over taxation. It Is no answer to tell the ballthaped
mechanic that the taxes are made by the remseenththres of the
people—he denies it; he say. the taxes are made to take a may
unequal portion of hie earnings when he bag labour, sad at
the some time they render employment more and more premien;
because the heavy amount of taxa absorbs the means of the
among those who have to pay directly Into the Exchequer. orb=
doe answer that can be given to this allegation; the exhavatka em
weaned by our fiscal system is quite enough to cause an extends,
feeling of discontent, net only among the lower but also the
middle clauses of society, in this oouutry. Look at the closest
the inrolvencies, the banktuptelm, and the compoeitions whisk are
of every day occurrence among the trading claws; they may be COD`
tent to keep the peace and compel others to do so, but they will not
long allow the deed. g by an unequal taxing system to be sectioned
when they see its effects in the failures constantly before their own
eyes. The wise plan, therefore. is to inquire whether these things
aremer not. Let us took first to our expensed. Gan we redoes them?
We answer in the affirmative. Mace the year IPe gouty three
millione Peed', have been added tothcmatof eolleedngthereanne;
cut that off. Reduce the pay of all government edam shove 1001.
per annum t nor twenty per cent. ; this thee efficiently would
enable us to remove the Income and window tax, which we have no
hesitation in saying would do DIMS to reopen our closed shops than
any other measure that can be adopted ; end farther, that this plan
may be carried out in a month, If the House of Commas were to set
about it with a will to accomplish such a purpose.
The Ipswich Express, published on the same day se the
Devonshire CAronicle, shows that in Essex and in Suffolk, as
in Devonshire, men's minds are engrossed with this impor-
tant question. The East Anglian Journal says :
It is well known that the great body of the literal party, at the time
of the Reform Bill, was in favour of hopehold suffrage; but the
torten, under the influence of eenselese terror. and exaggerated fan,
resisted it. Had that measure of justice then been extended to the
working clams wo are pensuaded that we lover should have seen
such a monstrosity as a„ Motional Convention." Here, then, is •
point of union among reformers. We call upon ad claws to respond
to the following resolution, which have been adopted in eeries cities
and tows:—^l hat we resolve to urge upon the legislature
the indisapserooble neoeseity of granting on extension of the
elective franchise, in order to secure representatives who will
honestly thrive fur large reductions to the public expenditure, the
equalisation of taxation, and other necessary reforms; and thus pre-
vent, by timely concession, the fearful consequences which never fail
to accompany deferred constitutional rights. That we believe the
duration of parliament, as it now exists, to be too long, and therefore
la:solve to petition for the shortening of its terra ; also to have • fair
and equal eyetem of electoral districts, as we look upon the present
mode to be unfair, as it gives to smell boroughs a preponderance over
the large manufacturing cities in this country." To the working
clamp we would say—lost ad of following men who would lead you
to ruin, who desire to fill the land with confuethe, and perhaps with
blood, who would stop trade, cheek the spread of capital, make feed
scarce, and injure the manufactue es that give work to our people,
juin yourselves with your fellow-citizens who do pores, the franchiee,
and who arc suffering under tango l biathlon ; and who, with you,
will endeavour by peaceable, legal, and cunatitutiond mane, to pro-
cure the changes that the exigencies of the times demand.
In Scotland, as in England, electoral reform is :he topic
of the day (longed for or deprecated according to the poli-
ties! views of the writers) with the political press. We yes-
terday presented to our rea:ers a sample of the terms in
which the 'step taken by the member* of the House of Com-
mons, who met at the Free Trade Ciub, is talked of by an
organ 01 Oxford high churchism ; so a pendant to that pic-
ture, we this day submit to them the strain of comment in
which Edinburgh whiggery indulges. The organ of the
party in Modem Athens, which was defeated by Mr. Cowan
at the last election (the Caledonian Mercury), is thus de-
livered :
While the great and Jeff iential section of the community, including
neat ly the wnule of the noddle, and no small portion of the humble
but boast a• d industrious carom are grateful for the excellence
of our uinnitutloos, whore debility has of late been the envy of
Europe, we fled another party who imagine that they are
bound to take rather an adetta view of those in titutiona, as if by
way of rendering some homage to the revoadionary principle. We
do nut allude to the oratore of the chartiet convention, who point to
mere anarchy, but to • very different order of enenorho desire to form
the extreme phalanx of constitutional reformers. At the head of these
stand Mr. Hume, and, so is dated, about fifty members of parliament,
including Mr. Waidey, Mr. George Thompson, lie. Boa-ring, Mr.
Bright, and then Mr.C.utoden. This combination hp been entered into
to agitate for the extension of the suffrage, an equitable arrangement
of taxation, a reduction of expenditure, and the general advance of re-
' form principles. Following up the movement which has cripreated
with thorn members of parhament, public meetings have been held here
and in Glasgow, and will of course be pretty general throughout the
country. Whatever we may think of the expediency of attenanting to
stir tap thin discontent and agitation undsr present circumstances, we
must of comae acknowledge the undoubted right of free dimunnion
which le here exemplified m its legitimate constitutional form.
Then follows a cent° from De Lolme, which is thus
wound up :
We therefore deprecate this agitation as calculated to serve no good
object in the torment period of ratstruet and depression. Willingly do
we give a few of those who lifOlit.itit it tl e credit for being actuated
by a desire to rthengthen social order by conceding before it is too
I late, to see their own pointed though inapplicable language. Its ten-
dency, in our apprehension, will be the very opposite, judging, ea we
do, from outdraws so strongly leavened with the chartist less—the
arguments used will make men rather tenacious at our institutions,
with all their alleged shortcominp in details, than anxious to mingle
in an agitation so enforced. We will not say that the suffrage in this
country too reached that limit, where it must remain in all time
coming. 'fiat would be the height of dogmatical absurdity. But
wo will say that see may said, all safety rest in the mean-
' time at the present stage, there being no pressing cause to make any
change, and no rational demand of the people which cannot be grai-
-1 fled by the legislature as it now exists. Neither will we assert that
the expenditure of the country ought n t to be scrupulously inquired
into with a view to reduction and the lightening of bantam ; on the
contrary, we think this in • task which must seriously occupy a
ministry who have been foiled in the attempt to increase our direct
taxation. In this meat we thick Mr. Cobden may lend good aid at
the fitting sewn. Then there to Ireland to be dealt "nth, toad
many other questions, especially those of a social nature, and to
which we deem our legislature both able and willing to render
justice, as has been promised by the government, during
the present session. But anxioue so we are to see the
interests of the people properly consulted in all the pend-
ing quations of the tamp, we do not dioguive our firm and doep-
rated conviction, that the institutions of this great empire, and
around which are entwined the happiness and security of the people,
are more safely confided to Lord John Rumen, Sir Robert Peel, Oa-
reedon, Grey, Lanadowne, Sir Jamas Graham, Gladstone, the Baring.,
end men of that high stamp, us remarkable for their talents and in-
tegrity as for the deep sake they looms in the country—than handed
over to men who are more likely to prove ambitious adventurers with
nothing to hoe, and all to hope for ,• and whose advent to power,
should at ever arrive, would be a woeful day for the men of the City
Exchmge. We do not allude to Mr. Ilume or Mr. Cobden, whose
probity we need not say ie unimpeached, nor to any one in par-
ticular ; we merely indicate the general thine, and which would be
the meet sequence of the harangues to which wo have referred.