The Express.
London, England, 1866-02-06 00:00:00

THE WI

TSB OF

QOKKOiiB.

(Fro. tie Daily New.)
Tau Howe of Commune, whirl to-day will
complete its organization and enter upon its work,

commences not only a new Session and a new Par-
Lamest, bat a now amatory of its existence. It

has attained its fia hundred and tint year. The
anniversary banters who vulgarise everything that
they touch, missed twelve months ago a rery great
"find," and those to whom the degradation of noble

names and memories by bustling committees and
fidgetty secretaries gives only pain, escaped a pro-

poaiointta annoyance. It was inJannary, i 265, that

Sn D/L MONTFORT called the Howe Of Commons

into existesoe by summoning to Parliament, in the
name of she King whom he held captive, two
knights from each shire, two citizens from each
city, and two burgesses from each borough. The

erudition of centenary celebrators does not per-
haps extend so far back as this, or we should almost
certainly have been disgusted with banquets and

.peaches, and all the accompaniments of pompous
commemoration. Now, fortunately, the opportunity
is lost for another century ; and in the interests
of posterity—notwithstanding that posterity, as
Sir Boma Rocas complained, has done nothing
for as—we sincerely hope that, to use the lan-
guage of the mistress of Do-the-boys Hall, it may
be all the same a hundred years hence.
There are occasions on which those who are
engaged most closely with the affairs of the day
and hour are forced into retrospect ; and there
are present controversies which cannot be solved,
and future probabilities which cannot be estimated,
without reference to the past. The impending
reform of our representative system recalls
its origin and its history. The differences
which distinguish the House of Commons of
the nineteenth from the House of Commons of
the thirteenth century measure the moral
interval which the nation has traversed in
that period; and the vicissitudes and develop-
ment of Parliamentary history correspond to and
faithfully reflect the vicissitudes and growth of
the national life. The conversion of the feudal
monarchy of the PrAlcrmierrrre into the kingly
commonwealth of England is one of the greatest
transformations of time ; and if it be considered
in reference to the work of preservation
and completion which it bequeaths to
the future, rather than for the glorifica-
tion of the poet and to promote foolish complacency
in the present, the retrospect may be fraught with
instruction, and needs not minister to the
national vanity, which is the most formidable ob-
stacle to national progress. The reactionary and
stationary parties of our time, notwithstanding
that they plume themselves on a peculiarly Eng-
lish temper, do in fact least understand and are
least faithful to the traditions of English history,
which witness to a perpetual change and a com-
plete though gradual re-misting of our institutions.
Whether the French Count to whom we owe
the essential part of our constitution—that in it
which is really living and formative—knew what
the work was which be was doing, may be very ra-
tionally questioned. It is impossible that he
should have comprehended it in its entire scope
and extent. As little did the mass of men, individu-
ally free, whom it was destined to organize into the
unity of a free people understand what wasbeing done
for them. The earliest use of the new privilege was
not calculated to enamour them of it. The me-
chanism of representation was employed by the
Crown as an improvement in the machinery of ex-
tortion. The trouble and inconvenience of ex-
tracting money by pressure on individuals
was avoided by dealing with communities. The
first business of the delegated knights, citizens,
and burgesses was simply to distribute and appor-
tion burdens the absolute amount of which was
fixed by the King in Council with his Barons and
Prelates. He used their local and personal know-
ledge to get what he wanted more speedily and more
completely, and with smaller loss in the process of
collection, than he would have suffered through the
random extortions of his officers. Soon, however,
it became necessary to purchase the local know-
ledge and the practical co-operation which he could
not do without. It was found impossible to work
effectively with reluctant instruments. The good
will, the approval, the consent of the Commons be-
came first practically desirable, then formally in-
dispensable. They required to know the purposes
for which the money was asked, and insisted on
canvassing the legitimacy or expediency of those ob-
jects, and on estimating for themselves the sums
which were adequate for the execution of them.
Within a generation from the first summoning of
delegates from shires and towns the Commons had
been recognised as a separate and co-equal estate
of the realm, and the statute de tallagio non con-
cedendo had been passed, which makes liability to be
taxed correlative to the right of being represented.
This gained, everything was gained. "The revenue,"
as Btraire said, "is the State," and the power which
controls it oontrols every department of the Go-
vernment. Thus the institution which was at first
used to facilitate the exactions of the Crown, be-
came the check upon them ; and that which at

one time was the instrument of arbitrary power
was speedily converted into the safeguard of •
larger and more chastened freedom than the world
has known elsewhere. In its very germ the
elements were present which ensured that the
House of Commons must, if it retained any inde-
pendent life at all, become, sooner or later, the real
ruling power in the nation ; and its history records
the unsucceesf al efforts of King and Lords to de-
stroy its independence, save on the occasion when
they needed its strength as a help in their conten-
tions with each other. The arbitrary creation,
revival, and suppression of parliamentary boroughs,
practised alike by PLANTAGENET, TUDOR, and
STUART Kings ; the exclusion from the county fran-
chise, under Hamtv VI., of all below the rank of
forty-shilling freeholders, then • wealthy class, and
the restriction of the right of representation to
knights and those able to become knights, thus de-
barring the yeomanry from the Commons ; the direct
usurpations of TuDox.s and STUARTS, the corrup-
tion and intrigue of the succeeding dynasty, and
the aristocratic ascendancy which was checked by
the Reform Bill—are a few of the obstacles with
which the principle of popular self-government has
had to contend in this kingdom, and which it has
practically overcome. England, it has been said,
with some truth, if with some exaggeration, is
now ruled by a single legislative and representa-
tive assembly, nominating in fact, if not in theory,
an executive (the Cabinet) responsible to itself,
made up chiefly of its own members, and own-
ing no other check than habit and voluntary
deference to the personal influence and wishes of
the Sovereign, and the suspensive veto of an
hereditary Chamber.
The secret of this suooess—almost sole among
European failures—is very simple. The House of
. • Commons has known how to enlarge itself to the
' lexpanding limits of the nation, and, growing with
the popular growth, has strengthened with the
. ' popular strength. Restrictions on the suffrage,
1 the complexity of qualifications, the capricious
i selection of constituencies, and the unequal dietri-
: button of members among them, which are the
L favourite subjectsof much modern eldogy, and an