The Express.
London, England, 1851-09-10 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10.

Tim pee* of England, in the rest matters of
reform: representation, bath bon treated by
their nisi., ir rating partici, ands as Os plosion(
Ireland bow m rapist dis great
and evils d width they mospbboth No Mogi I
bra lass made to deal with either ea the laionlphs-
*le et mon and right, lets covegoribm. weelima.
rile a Awmpreary ene, has been mei. se neneh eon-
ceaed al WNW selii4r and allay tubing, for the
moment, nth as nub withheld es Nog be withheld,
without thy istoidoiollis of bow sloth hod
was left for fatness ansatest oil for deture
agitation. So that. Woad & lasi pion between
contending parties, suet as night bare permitted
them to lay down their mine, there has been but a
truce.
Now, what it is principally urgent and necessary
for reformers to know respecting the measure con-
templated and promised by the Prune Minister is,
whether it is to be an attempt to base the elec-
toral franchise and its distribution upon
a principle, or whether it is to be, like
the great measure of 1831, a mere compromise
between parties, establishing not what would be
equitable and just and wise, but what might be wrung
from one party, and might satisfy another. For
some time after the passing of that bill the leading
whigs adopted the idea that it was to be final. They
forgot that in order to render an institution final, it
must be based on some law of reason or right,
and not upon a compromise, of which the
continuance must depend upon the relative
strength and opinions of contending parties. We
deprecate altogether this system of compromises; but
if we do so, it is not that we consider them inimical
to the popular interest. Oa the contrary, we can
conceive nothing that a thorough democrat and re-
publican would more desire than that each conces-
sion to the people should he of that temporary kind
and indefinite nature, as to let the monarchic institu-
tions of the country down at last to zero.
Nothing, we feel assured, can be more fatal to the
salutary influence of the upper classes, and to what
is usefully conservative in the constitution, than the
theories and principles which guide upper class poli-
ticians in the matter of reform. All the old twaddle
about the constitution being a tree which had but to
be allowed to grow—all that fine and baseless theory
of Lord Jowl's, that the people of England had no
right to this or that degree of freedom or of
franchise, but to the best possible kind of govern-
ment, and to the franchise which would admit
of it—all this is utter nonsense, basing legislation, as
it does, on • metaphor or a conundrum, or assigning
to it • rale or a guide which no man can find, and of
which no one can be • competent or authoritative
judge.
Hut, in fact, these fine periphrases were merely in-
vented and put forth to hide the nakedness and
meanness of the compromise on which the great work
of reform proceeded. We have but to open Lord Jon N
Resszi.L's speech on introducing the Reform Bill
in order to see it fully and at once. After enumerat-
ing the number of decayed boroughs which, from
want of population, were to be disfranchised, amount-
ing to upwards of 180 members, his lordship
enumcrutra about 50 new members which his plan
gave to towns that had sprung up of late years, and
were totally unrepresented. But no sooner were
these enumerated than to allay the rising fears
and jealousies of the county gentlemen, the
same or a greater number of additional members
were given to counties. The noble author of the
Reform Bill deemed that by this they. were keeping
the balance even between the great interests. But
the truth was, that the 180 disfranchised members
had all originally represented the burgess interest,
and ceased to "do so merely by displacement of
the burgess population. The suppressing one-third
of these, giving another third to counties, and dis-
tributing but one-third amongst the modern or
existing burgesses, was as gross an injustice on the
civic interests as ever was committed. It was, in
fact, • fraud, if the ponderance of interests be con-
sidered the true basis of representation. It is this,
with the inviolability of the House of Lords,
that rendered the reform of Veal a sham,
and has compelled the people of England to carry
great measures of improvement since the Reform
Bill as before it, not by fair parliamentary divisions
but by agitation, intimidation, and moral violence
bordering on the physical.
We are therefore of opinion that the reform
meditated by Lord Jon% RUSSELL will utterly
fail, either in working well or in satis-
fying the people for any length of time,
if it be simply a new bargain or fresh compromise.
A statesman of the present advanced period ought
to abandon that old division of the landed and the
commercial interests. They are in reality identical,
or they ought to be so. Nor ought one kind of
wealth at this time of day to be endowed with privi-
leges that separate it from other kinds. The
influence of wealth and of the upper elems
can only be weakened thereby, and tars con-
servatism will lump them together. As hag es
we apply one scale and kind of taxation to one elan
and one to another; and as long as any different
share of political and electoral privileges and influence
are distributed between the classes, so long that
social war will continue which at present disuse*
confuses, retards, and neutralises every thing we
attempt or do.
We have no objection to consider numbers and pro-
perty as the joint basis of representation, taking it
tor granted that intelligence follows property. But
this principle once adopted, we can never admit
that one species of property is to be endowed with
an ascendancy over another because it is supposed to
be more conservative, ancient, or respectable. The
persistaire in doing this will only continue to set
one species of property against another, until com-
munism and democracy walk in to swallow up
both.
But above all things, let us have a principle, an
intelligible principle to go upon. Let us have no
compromise, no bargain, no tacking of a whir
bill between popular rights and aristocratic prin..
Humbug of that kind, we may feel assured,
ilieriga.not be much longer tolerated in England.

THOCGII there may not be any formula of So-
cialism to which all its disciples would subscribe—
though in France it takes the thapo more immedi-
ately of political revolutionism, and here the charac-
ter more exclusively of social and industrial changes
--Socialism, in whateveqvuse it appears, is the most
painful fact of the age. It grows; in spite of refu-
tation, it lives—nay. flourishes ; and even in its very
vagueness, it has a secret power over great bodies of
working men, who cannot be persuaded that, be-
tween labour and capital, the natural relations are
those: of benevolence and concord, but, on the con-
trary, believe them to be those of oppression and
tyranny.
This is very deplorable ; but when the classes fees-
maned by such feelings are told by men of education,
intelligence. and a sense of responsibility that there
are easy remedies for the evils they hold themselves
to be the victims of—when they are taught that
there are ways by which the profits of capital may
be transferred to labour—and when the very prin-
ciple of accumulation and consequently the agency
of civilisation is thus attacked, it will not do merely
to deplore this state of things. It must be
watched, attended to, analysed, cared for, and,
when and where reasonable. must be satisfied
too. We must not rely too much for safety on the
presumed freedom of the Anglo-Saxon race from
such influences; or imagine that, secure in our habits
of individual self reliance, we can look on with in-
difference at the inculcation of this heresy ; or trust
altogether to the beneficial effects of free-trade on the
nuterial condition of our working classes. The
events of continental Europe for the last three years
are a dreadful commentary on the fancied sceunty of
national optimism. Their least lesson to every
government is to be on its guard; their best, to re-
move by times every grievance, and make every con-

cession MAY fix tile=
at whet saidikes to r
favoarit=staralise.
To
objection I ties Ws a =wit
gether in a wadrisp, and to
at the prodwits of their labour
amass artificial reetrictioes
*dr Mae eitim filth lame
to iambi et amswinii Wag
is Asir allaialke-s. aspoisi pnviloges
modal croak if Iblitation of pecuniary liability for
all the consupsossa of their union and unity be given
them: far that would be to promote associations at
the coat of individual exertion and accumulation : a
contingency practically of a most dangerous character
in a country like this, and opposed to sound morality
everywhere.
But, pushed beyond very narrow limits, these use-
ciations must, we think, faiL For, after all, they
leave competition, against which they are meant to
~opd the workman, untouched. The tailors of
meet may form themselves into one moods-
rim mai those of Piccadilly into another; but their
imparals societies are as much rivals in trade as Mr.
Dr MUSTER and Baron STULZ ; and, being suds,
competition will, as before, determine prices.
For a while, indeed, the character of the mods-
ton may be improved ; their habits of ardor aai
industry may be better organised, and they thew
Waco submit to discipline. But even this would
mew, if they could absorb the whole tailor-6Na of
England into such communities and destroy in it
the application of individual capital. For, then,
without having got rid of competition, they would
have abated those agencies of superior skill, enter-
prise, and promptitude, on which the higher deve-
lopment of every trade so much depends.
But, say the promulgators of the co-operative the-
ory, we would remedy competition by putting all
trades into guilds; and they should regulate wages
and profits for all the associations of the same trade.
Now, setting aside the consideration that guilds
would constitute an interference with the indepen-
dent and free exercise of individuals such u is espe-
cially the duty of every state to secure is sub-
jects, these gentlemen forget, or overlook, that
great fact in the history of industry—popu-
lation. They could only regulate wages (and by re-
gulating they mean keep up wages), by restricting
population; by dictating and prescribing the numbers
of families; and by making procreation beyond cer-
tain limits an offence against labour. And, until
they can deal with the number of hands to be em-
ployed, the notion of a Central Guild to regulate
the price of work and the rates of wages is a mere
folly.
Without the means of regulating wages these as-
sociations must always be at a great disadvantage
in their rivalry with capitalists. They cannot pay
adequately for head-work ; they caunot command the
skill and sagacity which so often raise a journey-
man into a great manufacturer—still less, know-
ledge of markets, iudgmenttaste, foresight of events,
and the other qualities of the most real and influen-
tial character, but difficult to remunerate when pos-
seined on the co-operative principles. Associations,
when so endowed, will soon feel their power, secede,
and set up for themselves. In the same way the
best workman will discover that he can get better
paid by working as a journeyman, or by setting up
as a master. And thus associations will quickly
Is., the best heads and the best hands that co-
gitation attracted into them originally.
Nor will the ordinary motives that provoke exer-
tion induce a man who divides profits with ten or
twenty other men to put forth the same energy,
keenness of vigilance, incessant thought, and un-
flagging attention as if working for himself. And
then, too, the risks of fraud, carelessness and incom-
petency, what provision can a co-operative associa-
tion make against them? They will be endless and
immense.
One party in this great industrial heresy seems to
feel all this : it would fall back on Christianity,
justice, equity, and other such fine sounding names,
without, however, specifying the measures which
dam grand principles dictate. Another party take
another line, and assert that employers should never
go below a respectable rate of wages which shall be
fixed by custom as the normal law of the trade; and
of them a few pursue this proposition out to its
logical consequence, that all labourers who cannot
find employment at this rate should be undisguiseilly
made paupers. But what then? The old evils of
society would still remain; only their effect would
be concentrated on the miserable supernumeraries.
Nay, new evils would be added to the old ones, for
the general progress would be arrested in this extin-
guishment of the stimulus to invention and improve-
meat supplied by the extension of the pressure of
samaity to all.
Awl ft the deficiency caused by lack of demand be,
• dims contend it ought, thrown on the capitalist,
writ veal this process amount to but the gradual
wwwwaption of the savings of past generations?
lietilistinction being, in truth, the legitimate con-
chal,* of the proposals so frequently made about
champs of distribution of property, improved habits,
and what not.

'result of
voted

general throughout
exeepted, is 2,763. The
numbeis that have voted for and against revision in
68 councils is known. The number of revisionists in
these 68 councils is 1,384, and that of the non-
revisionista 617.
At the Bourse the Five per Cents. rose 65e. and
closed at 92.30; the Three per Cents. rose 26e., and
closed at 66.46.

eral welfare, ao matter Dr. Clot Bey bee jilt been promoted to the n
dar seetioes, hitherto the lal Corder if the Lagiss el Honour, after has
ion. - been trzigat ot titsareb
1
peratlon thereicapta no sr[ the. • Illvoli from
eat right to • to- Rae as the de tOrateire
to co-operant bale ,uarriages..
oar ; ant wilev, oar laws The, et coonalaibmeral the *mull
I to, aornbettiretippe on, . remehusi to be known has su
rs are bad, an r ought' to for the ' if the constitution.
aking !aro, however, that The number of councillors-general throne
eael onvileges ao to eom- Brarmarthosamt-the Seim *mired, is 2,753.
.