The Express.
London, England, 1867-03-11 00:00:00

THE COMING REFORM •ILL

Ono thing the Daily News says is now clear, that
household suffrage must he a part of any measure of reform
which can be accepted by all parties se a settlement of the
question, we will not say, for a generation, but for six
monthA. A leaser scheme will not now abate agitation,
though last year something much smaller would have I
served the purpose. Though her Majesty's ministers
favour household suffrage with checks and safe-
guards, still in offering it at all, they concede as •
fact that the persons whom it would enfranchise
have, on the whole, the qualities which fit them to make
an independent political choice. The social organisation
of England, its histcric traditions, and the feeling of the
pe ,ple, supply the real checks and safeguards which are
wanted, and to give them shape in definite legal provi-
sions would provoke an inquiry that might not stop
its course when that which lust roused it was removed. If
the safeguards provided for property are to be discussed
anew, the peculiar securities for its influence which are
provided in the 80 or 90 pocket boroughs and nomination
counties will not be left unquestioned. The liberal party, ,
however, will do wisely if, sparing no pains to improve
the government scheme, they resist every temptation
to throw out the ministry, and thwart the efforts of men
like Mr. Lowe and Mr. Hemmen and the smaller theorisers
and crotchet mongers, who, in the interest of obstruction
are anxious to put the conservatives out. These classes
of politicians desire to throw out the present ministiy,
not because it is an obstacle, but because it may be an in-
strument of reform. From their advice, the liberal party
may learn what is the course which it ought not to pursue.
Considering bow it happens that sensible and honour-
able gentlemen who trembled last year at the pro-
spect of a 71. franchise now talk glibly of house-
hold suffrage, and almost terrify veteran liberals
by their unwonted intrepidity, the Times puts aside
the hope of power as inadequate to account for conversion
on so considerable a scale ; and, moreover, Lord Derby
informs us that remonstrances against a scanty and pro-
visional measure of reform flowed in from conservative
adherents in all parts of the country. The change of tone,
the Times ventures to hope, is genuine, and springs from a
conviction that a liberal, though discriminating, extension of
the franchise is for the good of the country. The Times then
proceeds to show how the dangers of an increased weight
of working cleats representation are weakened byself.adjust-
log natural safeguards. The number of adult artisans with-
out receipt of parochial relief, and who pay rates, is much
less than we might have expected, and were they really
animated by unscrupulous objects, is there no danger in
excluding them ! Would the most levelling measure of
reform paralyse the social forces which so vastly outweigh
political forces in our body politic ? and Is it not pos-
sible that a moderate and statesmanlike measure of reform
might strengthen their conservative efficacy ! In the lower
house the increasing preponderance of wealth over Math
is viewed with dislike both by advanced radicals and by the
best and ablest of the present governing class, and it is
possible that reform might extirpate the chief strongholds
of this new aristocracy.
The Star gives a rumour that the government intend
asking for further delay in the production of their bill, and
insists that no such postponement ought to be endured.
The Tilegrriph believes it can state Mr. Disraeli's mode
of proceeding. Household suffrage will be announced in
the boroughs, without distinction ; but the vote thus given
will be made to depend, like the municipal franchise, upon
• residental qualification of two years and eight months.
and upon the personal payment of rates ; while the grant
of an extended franchise is to be counterbalanced by
duality of voting.

The Post stirs up the government to rigorous measures
in Ireland, entering rather more into detail than mine of
its contemporaries have done. every insurgent who can
be proved to have crossed the Atlantic for the purpose of
exciting a civil war in Ireland should be treated as a mere
filibuster, and consigned to the gallows. A special com-
mission is on the point of being issued for the trial of such
of the leaders of the insurgents as have fallen or may fall
into our hands, and it is scarcely necessary to my that
they will be indicted for the capital offence of high
treason.

The thrall tells the American leaders that although
they have escaped through the wise decision of the
government the prompt condemnation and instant execu-
tion consequent on the decision of a drum-bead court-
martial, to which in almost any other country they would
have been subjected, they are certain to meet at the
hands of a civil judge and jury the doom they have so
madly called down upon their ow a guilty heads.
The Teleyraph tells a story of a guest who, when neg-
lected in the dining-room of an hotel, called several times,
but no waiter came. He then threw on the ground •
valuable vase, smashing it in pieces; immediately several
waiters surrounded him. " Now that you are here," he
said, " I want my dinner." It was a costly way of calling,
and Fenianism is a very expensive petition to the house ;
but it is a petition, however insane in its tuna ; and it
must be beard.

The Star holds the suppression of the revolt to be a
mere matter of time, but remarks that euppresirion by
Beat even were it as savagely retributive as some of our
contemporaries desire it to be, is no security against re-
newed revolt. The horrors of 1798 did not delay one hoar
the rising which Emmett headed in 1803. Let Lord
Stratbnairn and his subordinates be entirely freed from
magisterial control, and allowed to deal firmly with any
armed resistance. Bloodshed in the field does not rankle.
It seldom originates revengeful feuds, such as are begotten
of courts-martial and wholesale hangings, and the other
tune-bonoured devices of the Orange squires of Ireland.