The Express.
London, England, 1858-11-08 00:00:00

BPORTDIO INTELLIOF.NCE.

A SPECIAL EDITION of the " EXPRESS,•
sestailting the results of the day's Races, is pub-
lished every evening daring the Sporting Seaeon, at
sin o'clock.

Tur. indications daily multiply that we are ap-
proaching the eve of a general movement towards
Reform. The air is full of questionings. What is
it to be? Who will have the doing of it? Will
the prevent Ministers have sense and pluck enough
to put their hand fearlessly on the mane of the in-
evitable ; or, ei ill they only try with wheedling
words, and the tempting show of • mouthful, to get
near enough to throw the noose over its head ? On
the other hand, what will their rivals do? The
Whigs are fond of saying that the Tories are not
agreed among themselves, and that, as for the
Radicals, they never could agree about anything.
But is BlOOlEl5'B Club at lenity with itself on all or
any of the main items of the great controversy ? If
Lard GRASVILLE is to drive the family coach next
eon over the Upper ways of legislation, is
he content to let Lord GEST put on his here-
ditary drag ? And if Lord JOHN Roseau re-
sumes his natural place in the Commons, will he
submit to creep down the democratic incline at the
pees which Sir CILUILES WOOD and Si, Conniernta
Lewis recommend ? It is quite true that the
earnest men of the popular party have not been run
in a mould. They have grown, like the trees of
the forest, dissimilarly, each with a growth of him
own, each with a strength of his own, end each
with a worth of his own. Would we have it other-
wise? Heaven forbid! All life and health of pro-
gress comes of the open and unshackled exercise of
that first and best of all rights, the right of indi-
vidual judgment. It is this protestantism of politics
that keeps the breath of freedom sweet ; that keeps
its vigorous pulse beating; that keeps it from de-
generating into formalism and a lie. But all this
need not prevent rational lull good men from meet-
ing upon common ground,and together breaking the
bread of mutual help, and when that is done
going each his separate way. We have
little doubt that whatever remnants of old
differences our Tory Ministers may bring to the
conaiderauon of the question, they will not have
sat upon it in council very long until the majority,
if not all of them, are brought to the conviction
that three-fourths of the rubbish they have worried
themselves so long to preserve is no longer worth
keeping, and that if it were it can no longer be
kept. We dare say many a stiffnecked Whig
will in like manner yield betimes to necessity, and
throw into the fire the chips of the stupid stook he
had laboured to make into a God. But we have no
doubt at all that the best, or rather the only way to
hasten the ripening of Whig and Tory minds, is
by putting on without delay, and keeping up with-
out intermission, " the pressure from without."
The popular pressure to be effectual must be
genuine, and to be genuine must be manifold, di-
verse, and free. Great armies do not advance
all with the rime step, nor march to the
same tune. And it were the mere "pe-
"dantry and pipeclay" of politics to attempt
to make the various classes and sections of a
vast community like ours pronounce the same
shibboleth or utter the same cuckoo cry. The gentle-
men who met ►t the Ouildhall Coffee-house on Fri-
day to confer upon some practical method of further-
ing the cause of Reform seem to have been wisely
aware of this truth. Comprising men of widely
different opinions regarding the franchise, the mode
of re-constructing constituencies, and other im-
portant points, they did not even try to make the
accidental minority yield or abandon their opinion
in favour of the majority. Beyond the reiteration of
general convictions in the direction of a widely
extended suffrage, and a c-maiderable transfer of
seats, they came in fact to no absolute decision ; bat,
entertaining a not unreasonable desire to see what their
thoughts would look like when cast into the form
of • bill, they asked the honourable Member
for Birmingham to undertake the task of
preparing one, and with some reservation
he has agreed to do so. The eminent artist is will-
ing to paint them a picture, and a striking one he is
likely enough to make of it. He tells them before-
hand, however, that, beyond • few prominent fea-
tures, he must be allowed to treat the subject in hie
own way, and that after it is finished it must be at
his discretion when he will produce it, or whether
he will produce it at all. Mr. TA TLOK, Of Newcastle,
and Mr. Cox, M.P. for Finsbury, a+.ure him that it
must be a failure unless menhood suffrage is
made the prominent figure; while Mr. BRIGHT
CONIAGRAM, M.P. for Brighton, and Mr,
Cur, H.P. for Hall, resisted the suggestion;
sod the Secretary, having explained that the
resolutions of the Conference sought to bind Mr.
Boone to no particular franchise, the liberty to
differ was finally put and carried. So likewise
regarding ribn• los of Seats. Some gentlemen
appear to have urged the propriety of embodying a
system of grouping together contiguous small towns
as the beet mode of forming larger urban constituen-
cies, while the project was warmly deprecated by
Mr. ki'Lantu of Edinburgh; and the meeting de-
cided only in this matter upon deciding nothing.
Mr. Baluttv's speech, in which he promised to try his
hand at working oat the details of a Bill, reveals fully