The Express.
London, England, 1859-09-03 00:00:00

vm-

(Stamped id Additional.) [TWOPENCE.

THE FRANCHISE-MIL J. IL MILL

TO THII 301701 Or THI warualt.
SIR,—Mr. Darby Griffith and the public writers
who refer to Um pageant strata as art argument for a continued

limitation of the franchise, or far giving a " plurality of vote
to intelligenos and property," allege that the ignorance of
the workmen of the "general prim iples which regulate
bum= life" stows tbat they are unlit to eacrcite that con-
trol over the state which would be given them by household

--- _ - _
or universal suffrage. In their own sphere it is admitted

that the men on strike are excellent carpenters, lessons,

Joiners, plumbers, &a., or that they are well acquainted with
the principle' which regulate their daily toil, a eery large
portion of human life. But they are ignorant of the true re-
lations between eapttal and labour, a point on which there
are yet many differences of opinion amongst mien-
tido men. They are not profound political econocuiete.
They are not acquainted with its principles which
regulate *misty. They are to be excluded from
an equal chars of political powst, man for men with
the other classes, not bemuse they are ignorant of their
reveral bosineesse, bat teams they do not understand how
to regulate asthma: affairs.

This ism extraordinary meson for continuing the whole
power of the state is the bands which now exclusively pos-
e it. For the gentlemen who make this objection are
reformers; we are all reformers, Mul`reformers precisely
lacunae the clarets in whore hands the power sow is have not
mailleretood how to govern tocerry. Theffileti preened M
very badly. They are very ignorant of the social artimmes,
including political economy. They have brought authority
late disrepute sad government almost to • dead lock. They
Mee neglected the national defences, sad yet tbay have
wasted an anemone amount of public money. The nation
is overwhelmed with debt and plagued with an income tax,
after forty years of continued and profound pests. May
thsancial system, le system of legisistkin, its turd, eves es
now shoplifted, are masses of confusion—min Ma-
iled jungles, that impede the busboys of life sad
aN • perfect disgrace tu people culling themselves intel-
lectual. The representative system is a sad mixture of in-
congruities end corruption. Bad government, in fact, led
to the Crimean disaster', which roused the Indignation of the
public, and Ingot a determination to have both admiaistre-
tire and parliamentary reform. The former bas been began,
the latter as yet is only talked about. Now, sir, 1 ask the
opponents of the exteneiun of the franchise to remember that
the spirit of improvement, and the isdignstiou at national
disgrace spring up amongst the multitude and in the pram,
end only slowly and with much difficulty were the smallest
changes for the bitter extorted from the Tunas amuse. Let
me remind them, too, theta similar process, finally endorsed
by a peat natural calamity, procured the abolitioa of the
coon-laws. Tben the spirit of improvement began with
the people and the press ; but the public indig-
nation wee nut sufficient to extort justice Irom the
ruling chew till the lead was &violated by fa-
mine. If people are to be dislestishised because they
are ignorant of political economy, or of theism of to hernia
(gregarimu) Hid," or do not know how to govern society, the
chases at present enfraactiised should at once lay down their
power.
-- •

In spite of all this diaondit to our system, ft may be Mill
said by the advocates of exclusion that the nation has at-
tained a high places in history, and enjoys glen prosperity.
True, but not by means of exclusions. All knowledge, all
science, rests on the uniformity of causation, and when we
doily see improvement., like that which ensued in our ad-
ministration after the Crimean disaster, flow from the multi-
tude and from the maw, which, with great labour, influence the
authorities, mum we not conclude that at all times improve-
ments, and of course national growth and national great-
ness, have flowed from the mom or similar source., and not
from a few infraachied classes, who have presumed to know
all about " human life," and how to " govern society."
Another oljection to the extension of the franchbm equally
to all, drawn from the etrikaa, *that the working men, being
neomaarly ignorant of eorialeabjects and dependent another.,
choose se their leaders " talking agitators," and become no
better than toeds in the handout designing persona who are
. .

not workmen. To sue there seems a contradiction involved
in the statement. It Is asserted in one and the 11616111
pva-
graph that with universal stiffrege the Disuse, " will be
despotic," and yet it Is not the muses but their leaderewhe are
to be despots. It is the very arenas of polities' society that
its transactions should be regulated by !seders. The tory
party has for its leaders the Rail of Derby and Mr. Disraeli,
both of whom have acquired their ateredruicy by being
through their a hole lives " talking agitators." Their fol-
lowers have no love for them as individual", nor
for their princ.plte; they follow them as a matter cf
party combisurlon to get place and power. So
their opponents, as a party, rally round Lord Palmerston,
Lord John Rummell, Mr. Gladstone, &c., who
are followed far less hem their transcendent talents than
for their high birth sad their great success es talkers. True,
they deal in the language of politica, while the talking agita-
tors of tto workmen deal In the language of the workshop.
The leaders of perdu in each case use appropriate language
to influence their followers, end the main difference betwixt
the agitators in sad out of perhament is that the forma
address the privileged classes, and the latter the niateoe. The
objectsoe, then, to tea multitude being dependent and obliged
to sot by leached oomes only to the objection made by the
privileged classes or their champions that the multitude are
the multitude, and therefore are not to be eafranehlard.
Tested by facts this argument seems very futile. Anti-
reformers have become reformers because the multitude is
Inswing in power and is dissatisfied. By con.
tinnieg the disfruithisement the banes comet be
got rid of, nor their power Waned ; but it Increases their
diematietactiou, and directs their hostility against their privi-
leged fellow-thiseme If the multitude could speak through
parliament sa the landlords end ea the weslthy chimes can,
they, like these, would never have recourse to strikes. The
Ronan 'whelks. and diameters—ea compact bodies, waited I,
against the state by a:dubious, and strays agitating the
public to attain .cues end—have almost disappeared, by those
axidusi. no having bean abolished ; but despising the lesson
which their preeeut conduct teethes, professed reformers, on
very frivolous pretexts, would introduce new tests for the
multitude, and continue their exasperatiou by continuing
their disfranchisement. Such conduct in practical penu-
che" is the nears extraonlinary from the Get that all the
agitation for reform baa its source in the muses being dis-
esitithed ; end for a mere theoretical fancy of their own they
would continue and strengthen the cause of the dissalle-
faction.

Three who are acquainted with Mr. Mill's history cannot
be surprised that he should mistrust the multitude—he ma-
mas human Qatari. He was bred up in a school which
machos that human bangs have no rights sod no du ice but
those enacted by the legislature. Mr. Bentham thought
that the law enacted by parliament was the " triumph of
' humanity over itself." The elder Mill instructed his sea
and the public that government is "the means of making
' that distribution of the scanty materials of happiness which
ensures the greatest sum of it to the members of the com-
munity." Accordinyly, Mr. J. H. Mill says in his
latest publication, that "all that makes emineace valuable
to anyone depends on the entorcameat of restraints
on the actions of akar people." He therefore
' has adopted the teaching of his father and of
Mr. Heathen), and believes that this society of ours could not
' exist nattier restraints were enforced en the actions of the mul-
titude. He cannot, therefore, mnsatently support a system
which I. founded on the oatuaption that the multitude would
restrain iteelf ; and he advocates, se Mr. Darby Griffith haa
stated, the principle of continuing by a plurality of votes this
power of restraint in the bands of "intelligence and pro.
piety." Vary important principles are involved in Mr.
Kill's advocacy of a restricted franchise. If human beings
have, as Mr. Bentham thought, no natural rights, they have
no natural &Sim, for rights tad duties are correlative. If
they have, as the generality of mankind believe, some very
diadem natural rights end natural duties, then the
question wines, whether or not all their rights and all their
duties, eves to the moat minute, ere not equally dictated by
nature—and if they are not, where the dictates of nature
end and the enactment and enforcement of restraints by
legislation should begin. The latter impostor' question
Mfrorm. J.
i 8: IMbelllllefhaaindiscumdMr. Bentahtatnee'r dkierribnleesk,"thro unsaddle), but left:
Itort!, decided that I, for one, roust beg )(rave to discard hint
1
as an authority on the qwation of the franchise.-1 am,
fro., THOMAS HODOSKIN.
Isllegton, Sept. 2.

MR. DANA AND THE BALLOT.