The Express.
London, England, 1867-03-23 00:00:00

Elie VPreoo♦

TO MARYUPON nv. yrs.
Advertisement, Intended for The lexpreee," London Evening
Paper. moat be at the Moe, 10, Bouverle-street, by Two
o'clock on the day of publication.

DVTRY LAVE.

Tnis rvirwma, ROB RDY. Neon. Phelps, T. Prnerle, W.
Ilarrlson, >l•lntyre. Barrett, and Hartmurt Mesdames K. erOak
R. u. Le Mien:, IlteLo th, and E. Itrungharn.—To conclude
with WANTED Ill'sß.lNlXs FOB BIN. Miss Iltbnpeth.

HAYMARk RT.

Ten /Minima, DAVID GARRICK. Maas. &Ahern. Mick-
None, Chippend.ile, Rogers, Clark, Mc, : %Mimes Moore, Chß.
pendale. &r.—THE SERDD's FAMILY ileum Buckatone,
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rItIIfCMS.

Tem Reims, TIN Liat:llo7 Menem Verner & Fenton;
Alm B. White and Wee Wentworth.—And TUN STREETS OF
LON In IN. Messrs, Vining, F. Villiers, Shore, Calheem. Forrester,
end Mellon ; Mrs. 11. Manton, Misses Montagu sod Rodgers.

TRII Err,' ivn, MARRIED D kI:aTERS AND TM-NO ITTJR-
BA Nui. EE‘LDA OR. THE RENq 4TioN GOAT.
Thorne, James, thtlw.n, a/Iti ttleadAmtw Swanhorough.
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HOLBORN.

THIS Br um MY TURN NICHT. Mr. Helmer*: Manes
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man, Blake, Willem, kc. Mesdames F. Josephs, C. tisuoden,
Beak: Foote, Mies, Lennox, Bayinowl, etc.

BRITANNIA.

THIS F:vliniaci, Till? FLIRT. ftessrs. Reynold'', Cranford,
and Ligwood Mrs. Lane .t Mesdames Edwin and Macarthy.
Aftcr which THE WATERMAN. Mika Esther Jsmobs.—To con.
elude with TILE LAST LINK OF LOVE. bliss S. Mlles.

MOH WATICE AT LONDON BRIDOL

Tort DAT —Horning, 31;.55te.:-..-.7AFtWoom7. th. 13m.
To-Itorrow—ltorntng. th. 30m Atterrocm, eh. 47m.

LONDON, SATURDAY. MARCH 23.

THLR6 is no provision in Mr. DISRAZLN Re-
form Bill more specious or more subtle than
that which gives the franchise to householders
who personally pay their rates. It merits careful '
examination, not only for what it gives, but for
how it gives. Taken broadly, it is household
suffrage, yet applied to the actual facts of the case
it would, out of 700,000 householders, only admit
200,000. But this restriction is effected, not by
the honest method of saying that none under a
6/. rating shall be admitted. but by throwing on
every town and every vestry the responsibility
and the power of admitting or rejecting the rest.
Yet, again, not even to the vestries is an absolute
discretion confided. The poor householder may,
by a few shillings overturn their decision. Thus
neither Parliament, nor the municipalities, nor
even the parochial authorities, are really
invested with authority to make any selection
of the fittest to exercise the franchise. All
that they are to do is to exercise the privilege
of making the attainment of the franchise a little
more costly to the poor than the rich, a little
more troublesome to the working man than to the
idle. This undoubtedly is the most remarkable
way of saving the constitution that has yet been
invented. It is perhaps not quite giving with one
hand what is taken away with the other, but it is
at least holding out a gift with one hand while
the other slily picks a few shillings from the
pocket.

But in operation the system would be altogether
noxious. We all know that money and trouble
are, with all classes, the most powerfully deter-
rent influences from seeking to exercise the fran-
chise. It may be sad that so little a thing should
be an obstacle to the attainment of so great a pri-
vilege; but as it has proved so even among the
ten-pounders, Mr. Lows at least will not assert
that it argues a low standard of patriotism or
intelligence. It will then operate thus also among
the class of compound householders, and all the
more powerfully because it cannot fail to be
attended with some peculiar inconveniences, and
very probably with the open or covert hostility of
the landlord. We must, therefore, assume that
the honest average working man will not choose
to seek this gate of admission to electoral rights.
But the class of householders who see their way
to make a profit out of the transaction will not
allow a little outlay, or trouble, or bad feeling to
prevent them from putting themselves in a posi-
tion to ask their price. All the honest elements
of a constituency will thus be practically kept out,
while all that is dishonest will be left in. This,
again, is a strange mode of strengthening the
party of purity. But there may often be an in-
termediate class between the respectable and
the corrupt which will be acted upon dif-
ferently. Too unsolicitous respecting public
affairs to be anxious for a vote, they will
be ready to exercise a vote if urged, not by
bribery, but by the desire to oblige a powerful
patron. Election agents will put this class on the
register by the hundred. Mr. DISRAELI seems to
have been struck at a late period of incubation
by this objection, and has sought to obviate it by
sticking in a clause at the end of the Bill making
it punishable "corruptly to pay the rates" for the
benefit of any compound householder. But such
a provision is ridiculously incapable of being
worked. To give money "corruptly " to influence
a vote can be understood, because it is given to
induce a man to do wrong. But to put a man's
name on the register of voters when he is by law
entitled to be put on it is not to do wrong, but
rather right. It is only helping him practically to
obtain a privilege with which the law has already
invested him in theory. It would be prepos-
terous to prevent a man's friend from aiding him in

achieving an object so laudable and constitutional,
and what a mares friend cannot be prohibited from
doing, it is hopeless to think of preventing a po-
litical agent from doing. So that we may expect
to see every borough contest decided henceforth by
the votes of men who have been beat up by the
agents on each side, and whn, having been placed
on the register by such influence, will feel bound
in honour and interest to vote as directed by the
party which has thus made them its own. A
strange remedy against local intimidation and the
influence of local interest.

It is next to be considered in what class of con-
stituency the restriction would have most effect.
In the very small boroughs there is comparatively
little recourse had to the Small Tenements Act.
In these accordingly nearly every householder
would be put on the register at once. In the
large towns, however, the Act is commonly in
operation, if not superseded by some local Act fix-
ing the limit of compounding at a much higher
figure—lo/., 151., or in some cases, we believe,
even 201. In these, consequently, all the class of
artisans whom we are most desirous to see ad-
mitted—nay, invited—would be excluded, save
at the penalty of a fine. This is precisely revers-
ing the process recommended, not without some
reason, by certain of the " thoughtful Liberals."
Their proposal was to make the franchise really
household in the large towns, where education is
diffused and public opinion active and healthy,
but to restrict it in the small towns, where intelli-
gence is more sluggish, where local influence is
more irresistible, and where house rent is cheaper.
But Mr. DISRAELI exactly reverses this plan. The
consequence might be that such an amount of cor-
ruption would be developed in the minute rural
towns unwisely retained among the constituencies
that the country, confounding their case with the
larger towns, would resist the passing of any mea-
sure for abrogating the invidious distinction which
would oppress the artisan class in the latter.

We may perhaps be told that the inequalities
of incidence may be got rid of by making the
Small Tenements Act uniform and imperative in
all towns. But this would obviate only the most
superficial of the objections to the idea. There
would still remain the scandalous principle of
making the poor man pay for a political right
which it is not pretended he is not entitled to,
and which the rich man gets for nothing. There
would still flourish all the abuses fostered by
openingthe franchise to the easy access of the corrup-
tible section, while deterring the more indepen-
dent. There would still remain the encouragement
given to political agents to secure votes by
the conferring of a favour, which the law could
never hinder. In short, no ingenuity could devise
a scheme better calculated to intensify all the evil
influences which we hope that the fair extension
of the franchise will tend to abate, and more
certain to reduce to a minimum the advantages of
the change. Yet this is offered by the Tories
under the name of household suffrage ; and the
name is undoubtedly correct. Household suffrage
it is, for it enables every householder to vote if
he chooses. There is all the more need that
Liberals should so frame their course of opposition
to the insidious gift as to make clear beyond
possibility of misapprehension that what they
object to is not household suffrage, but the condi-
tions which would turn the boon into a curse.