The Express.
London, England, 1851-09-15 00:00:00

THE NEW REFORM BILL.

(From the GkEr.)

•
If we lament the slight interest which the ap-
preaching revision of our parliamentary system has hitherto
excited in the country, we hare hardly feu reason to de-
plore
the general scarcity of any matured thought or care-
ful opinion even amongst those who prof.ss themselves
most anxious for a change. The ultra-liberals, with whom
this question had been identified for the last few years,
form no exception to our remark; and we hare searched
their organs in vain for any more definite scheme than is
suggested by the demand that whatever the new measure
is like, it must at all events be sufficiently sweep-
ing to set the question to rest 11,r a long time
to come. In the sentiment of this last prayer we
heartily acquiesce. There are a hundred reasons why the
suffrage question, above all others, presses fur a settle-
ment, and is the precise topic which we can leant afford
to !cove as fuel for perpetual agitation. It possesses n fund-
notion for the working classes from which almost every
other subject is wholly free. Nobody ever heard of an in-
surrectionary
movement fur the ballot or annual parlia-
ments. A very different degree of interest that attaches to
various articles of the ultra popular creed. The right to
vote involves the possession of at least some share in the
regulation of society. But such points as the ballot or short
parliaments involve only the conditions under which the
right to vote is exercised, and they therefore present them-
selves with infinitely less force to the mind of the non-elector.
Again, commercial and social ;grievances usually affect the
whole mass of the community, and the chances arc that a
little calm discu-sion will iliqusse of them, while the excite-
ment consequent on their agitation rarely extends beyond
the original objects of discussion. Ala whether the
immediate cause of popular discontent in the high price
of bread, or the misconduct of a Court, or the calamities
of war, or the pressure of an unjust law, the first thought
of the unrepresented classes is to secure the right of voting,
that they may forthwith make an end of whatever happens
to be their immediate grievance. Therefore, we say, we
yield to no oue in our sire of seeing this question settled.

We desire to get rid of the everlasting clainour going on
among the excluded classes, we desire to derive the dis•
affected of so handy and permanent a vehicle fur their
disaffection, and we need not add that we fully recognise
the ussistance which some members of the working class
might bring to the legislative efficiency of parliament. But
just in proportion as we appreciate all these advantages is
our reluctance to see the matter taken hastily in hand, and
our distrust of all rough-and-ready remedies. And we roust
take leave to say that moat of the rem-dies for tho acknow-
ledged defects of our representation which we have yet seen
proposed are exceedingly rough indeed.
For example, we are not liable to misinterpret the wish
so often expressed in favour of a sweeping measure, to
mean the concession of a IL, or perhaps even a lower,
household suffrage. We pass over all the objections that
may bo fairly brought against any scheme which in its
operation, though not, perhaps, in its intention, might alto-
gether swamp any very meritorious and useful classes of
the community, which might sacrifice the rural ropulation
to that of the towns, ur tee rerad. These arc considera-
tions which no thoughtful statesman would willingly over-
look, though they arc seldom mentioned by the vio-
lent partizans of household suffrage except to be pooh,
milted with the boisterous contempt of ignorance.
Nor, again, will we dwell on the obvious expediency
of so contriving any change that it should entail
the least prospect of a perm inent agitation for the purpose
of revoking it. But taking this idea of household suffrage
purely by it-self, will any one say that there is a chance of
its " working well, or satisfying the people for any length of '
time ?" In our opinion it would include those classes with
whom the franchise is a matter of creditable pride, but who
are not wholly without other means of making their influ-
ence felt; while it would exclude those with whom the
franchise is, rightly or wrongly, considered a matter of Ole
,tad death, and whom all experience shows us will continue
to plague us till they get it. Look at France, where even
the restricted suffrage of the 31st of May is enormously
more comprehensive than any household suffrage ever pro-
posed in England, and where nevertheless the cry for the
restorution of universal suffrage is infinitely more violent
than any movement directed even against our own
present system of representation. We may fix the exact
line of demarcation a few shillings higher or lower, we may
cut the country up into as many districts as we please, and
adjust to a roan the exact numerical force of each, there
will still remain the grand difficulty how to provide for the
excluded millions of the working classes. And we never
can repeat too often that the great problem for a st atss
man is how to satisfy this demand, without thereby letting
in a deluge to overwhelm all the existing institutions of the
empire.
It is now two or three years since Lord John Russell
showed the surpassing superiority of his cultivated intelli-
gence over the mass of noisy brawlers for household suf
frage, when he hinted at the possibility of giving a
franchise to the members of mechanics' inst;tutes,
or to workmen who had invested a given sum in
any savings bank. It matters little whether in the
first case each member has a separate vote, or whether a col-
lective one—as in Kossiith's scheme for parliamentary re-
form in Ilungary, and in Mr. Rowland Hill's plan for a mu-
nicipal suffrage for the town of Adelaide in Australia—is
given to a greater or less number of individuals. It is enough
that any such proposal would meet the precise difficulty that
we have been explaining, and it would meet it by what
would virtually be a system of double election. ha the
virtue of double-election dues not consist in any compli-
c dal machinery of colleges and presidents, but in the sim-
ple principle of passing the electoral body through such a
relining process as would leave us only its best and worthies-
element. Sometimes, as in France under the Restoration,
or in the American Senate, this process takes place by two
distinct elections. Here, the election would be made by
the parties themselves, and the standard of each man s
education or economy would decide how far he was fit for
the responsibility of a share in directly nominating a mem-
ber of parliament. Any such scheme would give us poi-
cisely what we want, and save us from precisely what we
dread. It would give us the goodwill and the assistance of
the working class, while it would free as from any necessity
of simultaneously admitting the nuisance of their ignorance,
numerical preponderance, and liability to sudden passion
under the pressure of occasional distress. No man would have
it in his power to tell the operatives that capital was making
laws against labour, fur to participate in making laws would
celyseed the exercise of self-denial and t 'forts at self-improve-
meat. Such a process would thoroughly engraft the work-
ing class into our social system. We should immeasely
profit by their co-operation and their contentment, while
the ordinary infirmities of human nature would, we fear,
be only too certain a guarantee that the registration list
would never be inconveniently overcrowded. It is unneces-
sary to specify the elisions provisions in any such schemes
fur readjusting the limits of boroughs and preventiug;the
manufacture of sham votes. It is enough that we have
sketched an outline which, in our own opinion at least, is
far more liberal, as well as far more comprehensive, than
any which we have yet heard promulgated from Man-
chester. And it may guide the people to the leaders most
worthy of their confidence and attachment, when we re-
mind them that the first practical scheme for giving any
direct legislative influence to the purely working class pro-
ceeded, nut from any loud-spoken demagogue, but from eke
Whig Prime Minister of England.

CONVERSION FROM PorERY.—Mr. Alfred Clarke,
a gentleman residing at 'Taunton, and who for many years
was an adherent of the Roman catholic church, has re-
nounced the errors of that communion, and been received
into the fellowship of the established church. The cere-
mony of renun.iation was celebrated at the church of St.
Mary Magdalene in the above-named town, the Rev. Temple
West officiating. The service, which was in the usual form,
was terminated by the penitent receiving the Holy Com-
munion. Before lie leR the church the officiating minister
presented to him an elegantly bound Prayer-boost of the
reformed church, to which ha had solemnly allied himself.
INCOME TAX DEFAULTER.—Mr. Young, collector
of property and income tax in Southampton,-has htien ar-
rested for a defalcation in his accounts. lie admitted be-
fore the commissioners that he.had not accounted fur 165/.
received, but the belief prevailed that 3001. was nearer the
real figure.—llanipshire Independent.
ALLOWANCES TO WOUNDED OFFICERS, &c., IN
1828 AND 1860-61.—8 y a government return of allowancts
to officers for wounds or injuries in service, of allowances
to the relatives of officers killed in action, and of small an-
nual pensions held by the children of such officers until such
children attain the age of 21 years, it appears that since
1828, a diminution in the annual charge has occurred, of
104,500/.
Return. Numbers. Charge.
In 1828—Wounded officers
. Bounty allowances
Compassionate do 3 616 .... 30,500

4,867

£ 196,500

In 1850-51—Wounded officers 415 .... i 53,443
Bounty allowance. 236 .... 19,699
Compassionat. do. 1,803 .... 20,082

2,44

93,224
2,224

Less saving by casualties -
-

f 91,000

SUSPECTED MURDER OF AN IRISH REAPER.—
The coroner's inquest on view of the body of Thomas
O'Hara, an Irish reaper, from the county of Sligo, an ac-
count of whose death appeared in the Express on
Thursday last, was resumed on Friday. The additional
evidence was as follows : During the last week in August
O'Hara and two other Irishmen, one of them calling him-
self his cousin, engaged to reap some corn un the farm of
I Mrs. Ward, at the Intake, near Sheffield. On Tuesday,
the 2od inst., O'llara left the harvest field at noon, and re-
turned to the farm-house, saying that he was ill. He ap-
peared giddy, and complained of pain in his head. His
comrades declined to have a doctor, saying that when the
work was finished they would convey him to the railway,
so that he Might return to Ireland. O'Hara lay in the I
stable. in which ho and the other two had lodged, until
Saturday monsing,when the three men went away together,
having received 22. 17s. 6d., the amount of their earnings.
O'Hara was supposed to be in possession of other money
that he had earned previously. ibis friends seem to have
deserted him almost immediately, for he was found on the
way.side the same morning alone, about three hundred
yards from the farm, and with only Bid. in his possession.
How he acquired the injuries of which he died that day
there was no evidence to show; but his comrades must
have robbed him, if nothing worse. They have decamped,
however, and cannot be found. The verdict of the jury
was, " That Thomas O'Hara died front a fracture of the
skull, but bow inflicted then is no evident° to show."