The Express.
London, England, 1867-06-15 00:00:00

THE WEEKLY PRESS.

The new redistribution scheme appears to the
Spectator to be the old one extended so as to give a wester
relative power to the counties. Mr. Disraeli thinks the
humblest clam in the boroughs can be controlled by the
wealthiest, and the boroughs, as a whole, may be controlled
by the counties. The scheme is abed one. The only interest
which has clearly lost greatly by the whole drift of the
measure is that of the borough capitalists, the commercial
wealth of the country. Household suffrage will give the
control to labour, and a third member to the large
boroughs with an election by single or by cumulative
votes would havo secured • real representation to this
important element in the country. As it ia, Mr. Dis-
raeli is going to squander all his means on the
county interest,—already over-represented in the house.
The proposal to group the University of Lon-
don with that of Durham is ridiculous. Why does
not Mr. Disraeli group the Royal Military College at Sand-
hurst with the Peace Society ? Of all the Mx university
members now sitting in the House of Commons not one is
a liberal. The government sec mto wish, by the proposal
they have now made, to stifle the unpleasant prxecst
almost certain to be made by a young but great university
in favour of the liberal tendency of the highest education.
The Spectator does not think they will succeed. The
attempt to trim the scales of opinion in the London Uni-
versity by incidentally throwing Durham into the tort'
scale, has been, already even, ridiculed in every direction ;
and it is, indeed, so unworthy a party trick that the go-
vernment will in all probability be compelled to withdraw
the suggestion almost without discussion.
For its own part the Eransiner is only too thankful to
have escaped a blunder so egregious as it would have been
bad the advisers of the Sovereign persuaded her Majesty
that, for some inexplicable reason, or for no reason at all,
it was her duty to go masquerading in mimicry of the Em-
peror of the French, and to put on the false and frivolous
semblance of joy and pride in compliment to him or to the
Czar. Not one hour sooner than she chooses would the
Examiner have the Queen come amongst us ; and it treats
with scorn the notion that the use of royalty, or
the chief duty of the Queen of England, is to
net upholsterers to work 'and mantua-makers' needles
going, and to keep French cooks incessantly occu.
pied in their vocation. Even to a West-end tradesman
the difference must be a comparatively small one. Is
there an open carriage or a thorough-bred saddle-horse the
less in Rotten-row? Is there an opera box or stall the less
taken? Is there • ball in Mayfair, or an epicure's dinner
in Belgravia the less given? Do old pictures or old wines
bring a lower price? Are the trousseaux of noble brides
less costly, or the rents of private palaces less high than
they were when, in straw bonnet and plain riband, with
her young husband by her aide, the Queen, in the bloom
of her beauty, might be seen every afternoon taking the
air in her pony carriage in Hyde-park? It is positively
humiliating to have to argue the matter, or to plead fo
the sacredness in which sorrow should be held.

The Saturday Review is not aware that any large town
wishes to have a third member, or that any minority is
burning to be represented. It is altogether a factitious
remedy got up by speculative politicians for a factitious
evil. How far the House of Commons will listen to its
advocates remains to be seen, but at any rate its total re-
jection by the government very much simplifies the dis-
cussion. The most striking merit of the new scheme of
redistribution is that it is marked by a total separation of
plan and purpose from all devices for creating artificial re-
presentation of minorities. There is no attempt whatever
made to conciliate those who think that, by adding a
third member of a different way of thinking from his two
colleagues, the representation of large towns would be im-
proved. This is u it should be. There are still two or
three great towns in the north which ought to have mon.
ben and are anxious to have them, and it is to be re-
gretted that their demands cannot be satisfied. If this
were managed, even though the young hopes of Luton
were nipped in the bud, the proposed scheme of redistri-
bution would be open to no serious objections. It is
simple, effective, and fair, and such improvements as it
may require will touch on details that may be very easily
arranged.
The Imperial Review must frankly state its conviction,
which it believes is generally entertained, that the govern-
ment will act wisely in cordially acceding to Mr. Laing's
proposition, to give a third member to each of the seven
largest cities in the kingdom, with the necessary corollary
of the cumulative vote.

The Chronicle thinks it important that the isolated cha-
racter of Berezowski's crime should be understood, lest the
event should bring undeserved odium on a cause which
may yet do some service to Europe. Among the deepening
cloud, of the political horizon few contain more posit-
bil ties of future mischief dam that general Pansgavonic
propaganda which openly aims at the extension of Russian
supremacy over Eastern Europe. To this movement the
Poles constitute the ono exception. They break up its
unity by holding aloof from it ; they discredit its sincerity
by being in themselves a standing evidence that the tender
mercies of Russia are cruel. They are the enemy in
the Pansolavonic camp. And since the war of last year,
Russia has become so important and so much courted,
that in the interests of European civilisation it may be
well to have such a counter influence in reserve.

THE PETITION ON BEHALF OF THE