The Express.
London, England, 1866-08-30 00:00:00

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

(THIS DAY.)

MN woes movawarr.
According to the Times Mr. Bright's speech was
eloquent and impressive, but it was not logical. One half
of it upset the other. His fallacy consists in representing
Lord Russell's Franchise Bill as a real reform bill. Pasha-

ment was pledged to reform and was prepared for reform,
but not for any bill that might be produced. Mr. Bright
himself did not like the late bill ; at least he only
tolerated it. On the part of the majority of the House
of Commons there was no objection to admit • larger
number of working men to the franchise, but there was
great objection to do this only when so much more re-
quired to be done, and still more to do it on theconditions
which the government had been m'sgelded enough to
impose. Even then, so strong was the liberal feel'ng, and
No sincere the wish to pass a reform bill that half the
house supported the ministers is spite of their errors.
Mr. Bright's present anxiety for ' a reform agitation is
superfluous. There is not the least fear that the subject
will drop or that • new Itefotm Bill w:ll not be produced.
Public opinion is fairly in favour of Mr. Blight's own
special object—the admission of working men to the fran-
chise ; but it is also in favour of other reforms. The
new Reform Bill must be • fair bill as well as an " honest"

bill ; and, above all, it must be a complete bill. To a bill
of this description every political party has pledged itself
in turn. The Times suspects that many of the working
classes are more disposed to conservatism than the small
tradesmen, for instance, and more likely to discriminate
and take sides of their own. An addition of electors to
the register must be, on the face of the measure, an addi-
tion of strength to the legislature and stability to the con.
stitution ; but in the preparation of a new Reform Bill its
authors should remember what proved fatal to the hat.
In another article, referring to the refusal of the Chief
Justice to re-appoint Mr. Beatles as revising barrister, the
Tines thinks the public will certainly be of opinion that
he has only done his duty. He reminds Mr. reales that
the judges are always expected to abstain from mixing in
party strife, and they are scrupulously careful to obey the
restriction. If such a course is considered fitthlg in a

judge who has so rarely to decide eases which involve poli-
tical questions, it must be infinitely more incumbent on a
revising barrister, whose decisions are always of political
importance. When Mr. Beales, therefore, urges that
some well-founded complaint ought to have preoadod his
dismissal, it is sufficient to answer that he has given
ample ground for very serious complaint. If Mr. Beales
had been a private person, no fault whatever could have
been found with him for indulging in any political agita-
tion he pleased ; but any political agitation is unbecoming
in a person holding the office of a judge. It is for this,
and this alone, that he has been deprived of his office ;
and it is sheer nonsense for him to represent himself, as he
does at the close of his letter, as a political mat:.
The Daily News reminds those critics who condemn Mr.

Bright in rather unmeasured language for having repe-
nted those who combined to defeat Mr. oladstone's bill
as opponents of reform, and described the means they
adopted to secure this end as a series of discreditable in.
trignes, that none of the amendments by which it was
successfully opposed touched in the remotest degree the
principle of the bill, and this seems in itself to justify the
charge of disingenuous resistance. If the amendments re-
ferred only to points of machinery and arrangement which
might easily have been settled by a friendly conference
between the government and their dissatisfied supporters,
without in the least affecting the substance of the measure,
why were they persisted in to the defeat of the bill I With
regard to the charge brought against Mr. Bright of repre-
senting the opponents of Mr. Gladstone's bill as op.
ponents of reform, the Daily News remarks that the facts
speak for themselves. The occupants of the cave
may be described politically as general lovers, having a
kind of platonic attachment to reform hi". general,
but pledged against espousing any individual bill, shrinking
from the dread alternative of accepting for better or for
worse its particular and necessarily imperfect provisions.
There is a touch of nairele in this representation that
almost obviates the necessity of any formal reply. Mr.
Bright's critic described the bill as a " great change," " a
new constitution," and justified the resolute opposition it
encountered on this ground. Those who resisted were
opposed to the change—in other words, were opposed to
real reform. No doubt the statement is substantially true.
But if so, why should it be indi7,nantly denied when it is
simply repeated at Birmingham ?
The Herald characterises the whole of Mr. Bright's
speech at the Birmingham Town-hall as proceeding upon
a policy of deliberate and intentional misrepresentation.
The dispute between the advocates and antagonists of the
late Reform Bill was not as to the policy of admitting
any of the working class to the franchise, but as to the
number whom it was safe or desirable to admit at once-
Mr. Lowe only expressed forcibly the objections which
every one admitted tacitly when he put his celebrated
interrogatory about the section in which to look for
venality, ignorance, and intemperance. His question
only amounted to a warning against fixing a standard too
low, and not, as represented by Mr. Bright, to a deliberate
declaration of implacable enmity towards the entire
order.