The Express.
London, England, 1867-06-01 00:00:00

THE WEEKLY PRESS.

Dealing with the subject of reform and the re-
distribution of seats, the Saturday Renew attributes to
public discussion a settlement of the franchise so totally
different from any which any ministry at any
party has ever proposed or conceived. We have
been governed in this great matter not by the
Ministry, or by the House of Commons, but by
a sort of mucus of all the world. As to Mr. Mill's
scheme for the representation of minorities, the Sarnia,
Renew maintains that the representative of • very small
minority would be about as bad • member of parliament as
oould be found. He would, in nine cases out of ten, be a
miserable little fanatic, oaring only for one subject, and
bating the vest bulk of the human race for disegrearig
with him. The representative of political minorities in
particular constituencies la • very different thing, and
there is no necessity to prejudge tie question before it is
fairly discussed. But its good effects are ridiculously
overstated. What it would do is to give swat in some con-
stituencies to candidates who are now excluded by • email
majority. In Berkshire, for example, it would allow a
liberal to share the representation with two conservatives,
bat it is ludicrous to speak of this as the one thing nears.
eery in a reform bill.

In an article on the state of parties, the So/today
Review comes to the conclusion that what the terics have
gained in popularity they h►ve lost in political honour;
and loop of honour or credit in the long run and in •
hundred impalpable ways tells on a party's strength. At
the present moment the House of Commons and Mr.
Disraeli are on the best of terms, while the House of Com-
mons and Mr. Gladstone have apparently but slight sm.
pathy with one another. But the country outside takes a
larger and broader view of Mr. Gladstone. On the whole,
those in whose hands Mr. Disraeli is placing a large share
of electoral power, are on the aide, not of Mr. Disraeli, but
of his rival. They prefer Mr. Gladstone, with all his faults,
to Mr. Disraeli and all his virtues.

Condemning the course taken by parliament with regard
to the four rotten boroughs, the Examiner urges that sus-
pension for a moderate period of the right to return mem-
bers would be a more suitable penalty. The process of
annual change in the constituencies is everywhere steady
and rapid. Corruptibility no law can excise ; but corrup-
tibility is a question of extent and of degree. Take it the
other way, and see what is likely to happen. After two
or three years, when the fit of virtuous indignation has
plumed off, sympathy will begin to grow again for the ex-
cluded town, the overwhelming majority of whose rate-
payers qualified to claim the franchise will justly feel
themselves aggrieved, being wholly innocent of the sins of
those who went before them.

In the University question, the Spectator cannot but
regret profoundly that Mr. Gladstone has thought it his
duty to throw his influence into the scale of a party which
is masking political with religious! aims. It is, no doubt,
only a fresh proof of his scrupulous conscientiousness ; but
the Spectator cannot but wonder that such a statesman as
Mr. Gladstone should either be blind to the danger of
drawing invidious distinctions unfavourable to dissenters
in our national universities, or, on the other hand, dis-
posed to exaggerate the danger—trivial enough, if it be a
danger—of disturbing the minds of university teachers
by piecemal reforms of their educational system. Cam-
bridge and Oxford Fellows are not of such delicate organi-
sation that they are mentally paralysed by the prospect
of receiving power to associate dissenters with themselves,
if they think fit. The fear for their character, and espe-
cially perhaps for their theology, usually is—not that it
will be endangered by disturbing changes, but that it will
be endangered by mouldering decay. Mr. Gladstone im-
ports the fears which his own active imagination conjures
up in case of a change of this sort into that drowsy dislike
to being disturbed, which alone possesses the good dons at
Cambridge and Oxford. They sign their petitions against
change chiefly because they reward them as petitions
against active exertion. " You have waked me too won,
I must slumber again," is their real feeling. Mr. Glad-
stone could not sympathise with them if he would.