The Express.
London, England, 1851-07-29 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUEsDAY, JULY 29.

MAT we advocate a further reform of our electoral
system is not owing to any impression that it
is a popular theme for the moment. The truth is,
indeed, that the public gives forth but few sym-
ptoms of caring about it : and this may be ac-
counted for without assuming that the public
regards it either with indifference or apprehension.
Neither do we advocate reform in parliament, as
some do, from any idea that it will redress the ba-
lance of parties in the state, and strengthen the one
to which we most incline. To alter, or even greatly
' modify, the framework of a government, simply to
bring a party into power, or keep it there, is a po-
licy almost as extravagant as to set your own house
in fire to roast eggs. But we advocate a new reform
bill from a rooted conviction that the present system
i cannot be made to work well, and that so much of it
has ceased to have vitality in it that crc long it must
of itself break down about our cars if not timely re-
modelled.
To begin with minor matters : within the last few
weeks we have had more than one point of parlia-
mentary law given up as obsolete, absurd, and im-
practicable, by men who are certainly no revolution-
-113•s. The decision of an election committee on the
property qualification of Mr. Plussm, led to an
attempt to render the law on that point a little less
unreasonable ; and this to a pretty explicit declara-
tion of opinion, by leading whigs and moderate re-
formers, that any property qualification at all is, for
all useful purposes, a rank humbug, a mere source of
captious and cavilling litigation. Again, the dis-
cussion of the claims of Baron ROTHSPIII.I) and
Alderman SALOMONS to take the oath of abjuration
in their own way has led to the discovery that ju-
dicial decisions have engrafted on this oath a pur-
pose and effect not contemplated by the law-givers
who first enacted it; and to a pretty general con-
viction that it is as useless as it is vexatious.
Mr. VEuxosi SMITH has given notice that lie will
next session attempt to cut the Gordian
knot of the controversy respecting the expediency
and justice of allowing Jews to take the oath of ab-
juration iu their own way, by introducing a bill to
dispense with members of parliament taking any
oaths whatever but the simple oath of allegiance.
On the more important question of those small
constituencies which inevitably become venal or no-
mination boroughs, public opinion, though not quite
so unequivocally pronounced as on the two points
already adverted to, begins to be pretty plainly
spoken. Not a session passes without an attempt to
place one or more of these receptacles of corruption
and servility in the same predicament as Sudbury. If
a goodly list of small boroughs have not been already
sent to keep company with Sudbury in its state of
suspended animation, it is from no doubts as to their
deserving to be so. Even the noble and wealthy
owners of close boroughs have been taught on recent
occasions that they are fragile reeds to lean upon.
l'ublic opinion is pretty well reconciled to the advent
of a new of Schedule A of considerable length.
.

Lastly, there are symptoms abroad thSt classes,
not avowedly received, by the concession of tho
elective franchise, within the pale of the constitu-
tion, have attained a degree of political influence
that enables them to sway and bias in many in-
stances the decisions of the legislature. We aro
quite willing to do our contemporaries the justice to
admit that, if not exactly more humane and kindly
than their ancestors, they are more considerate—
more sharp-sighted to discover opportunities of doing
benevolent actions. But this improvement is of
itself inadequate to account for the marked increase
of benevolent attention paid to the wants and wishes
of the poorer classes. 1 here is a good deal of fear
mixed with the humanity that takes such delight to
rear model lodging-houses, establish baths and
wash-houses for the poor, and pass short time bills.
At the time of the whip Reform Bill, the weight
of the unenfranchised masses was made pretty
apparent throughout the country ; since it became law,
their influence has been felt more or less in all the
great manufacturing constituencies. Thu tune in
which the non-electors arc spoken of by all parties, in
the discussion of all important political questions, be.
trays the consciousmss even of tories that the un-
enfranchised possess u power that is not to be wan-
tonly provoked. Even without votes the non-electors
do modify and to a certain extent guide the decisions
of the legislature. Now there can be nothing more
dangerous to the peace of a country, and the stability
of its institutions, than habitual appeals to a class
who are assumed by a fiction of the constitution to
possess no political power. It is a standing protest
against the constitution as unreal or unjust—an ever-
recurring declaration that its prescripts may and
ought to be set aside whenever they are felt to bo
inconvenient. If the intelligent, honest, and
steadily industrious among the uneufranchised
classes are entitled to a voice is the political
deliberations of the nation, let them utter it
avowedly, and in constitutional form. That is
safe; but there is danger in keeping them us a carps
de reserve, to be denied the right of expressing their
sentiments when the party in power is strong enough
to bid them defiance., but invited to interfere when
parties are so nicely balanced that they can turn the
scale. This is to establish a chronic anarchy.
If these observations are consistent with facts, and
we do not expect that any intelligent and close ob-
server of the actual state of affairs in this country
will call their correctness in question, it follows that
os political constitution de jiwt,r has come to vary
considerably from the theory of our political consti-
tution. Now such divergence and discrepancy, when
allowed to exist, has always been productive of trou-
bles and calamities in England. The English con-
stitution has never been a logically reasoned out,
theoretically defensible constitution; its strength,
its utility has consisted in its adaptation to tho
actual circumstances of the country fur the tiros
being. The constitution of one century has, in
despite often of earnest struggles, been made to
conform to the opinions and distribution of pro-
perty in society in the next. The Reform Act
of 1+,31 stopped short of the changes actually re-
quired ; the public of the day wisely resolved to take
lI• ha a loaf rather than no bread. The changes
-
; which have taken place in the last eventful twenty
' years have made what was from the first not exactly
adequate to the wants of the country still less so.
Sooner or later new changes must come; and it is
the part of wise men to make them easy by setting
to work to accomplish them before imperious neces-
sity compels them to be made in hot haste and in a
scrambling, unsatisfactory fashion.

THERE is now a bill before parliament relative to
the conveyance of mails on railways, about which a
good deal of misunderstanding appears to prevail,
and on which some little opposition seems likely to
be thrown away ; for the measure is a very proper
one ; such as railway companies ought nut to object
to. It is simply to remove doubts which have arisen
in the acts now regulating that service, to reconcile
conflicting judicial decisions, and to assimilate the
practice in Scotch and Irish lines to that which
has long existed, without dispute or litigation, on
English railways.
There are two acts on the subject; one the I 2
Vic., c. 98, the other the 7 tv 8 Vic., c. 65, s. 11.
It is under the former that the ordinary night and
day mail services arc established and carried on, the
latter having reference only to what may be termed

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