The Express.
London, England, 1867-03-02 00:00:00

HOLBORN.

Tau Ending, MY WEN NEXT. Mr. Delmore: Maws
Paola sad lasn..x.—Aud YLYISII MCI f. Messrs. Sevilla Hel-
•ore. Blake, V..llalre, ; Mesdames Y. Josephs, C. assulden,
Isere Fouts. Fakirs. Les:lox, Rarreond, &c.

BRITANNIA.

TBa ETENINg, THE tiWir LINK ole LIOVE.—To conclude
with THE PRINIWAti 1W THE PEARL ISLAND; JR, THE
THREE KINILItaMiOF PEARL, GOLD, AND SILVER. Mrs.
Lane d; Mims Jac.llln—Geist .4 Mel.4Y ; First.rate Pantomimist&

FITOTI WATKR AT LONDON BRIDGE.

Tsl• DAT —ll(nrnlrm, 111. 17m Allarnomi, 11h.
TO-3101M0M-110rulag, Oh. Om Afternoon, O. 250.

LONDON, ,NATURDAY, M.4RCII 2.

MIL DIMRAELI'S sketch of a Reform Bill serves
so well to show what will )114 do, that it is a pity
to confine attention to only one of its features.
His ideas of redistribution of seats merit, no less
than his proposal for extending the franchise, to
be considered by reformers, as indicating the
species of constitutional amendment to which the
instincts of the Conservative party would incline
them. According to this suggestion enough is
done if boroughs having a population under 7,000
are " invited in all courtesy to surrender their
" second member." The condition affects twenty-
three boroughs, and furnishes an equal number of
seats to be dispostal of. To these are to be added
the seats gained by the total disfranchisement of
Yarmouth, Lana-tater, Totnes, and Reigate. Andtho
method is in accordance with the Resolutions at
first propounded, for the seventh of these famous
aphorisms asserted " that it is not expedient that
" any borough now represented in Parliament
" should be wholly disfranchised." So that we
know that the Conservative theory is, that you
may take one of two members away, but that you
are on no account (save as punishment for corrup-
tion) to take away the last member from any
borough that now has, or then would have, only
one.

All the grossest evils of the present system
would by this method of Reform remain in full
luxuriance. We should still have Arundel, with
its happy family of 2,498 inhabitants and its 174
electors, returning its member to Parliament ; we
should still have Honiton, Lyme Regis, and Ash-
burton, the biggest of which is a village of 3,301
inhabitants, each possessed of a representative in
the Imperial lAqislature. We should still have
seven more of these rural towns, ranging from
4,000 to 5,000 inhabitants, sending seven mem-
bers to the House of Commons. We should,
besides, have thirteen more with less than 6,000
inhabitants, and seventeen more that are still
under the figure of 7,000, all with a separate
member. Here are no less than 40 members that
the Conservative Reform would still provide with
seats in the House, each representing a consti-
tuency not averaging 350 voters. As London
has but 16 members, and no other of our towns
more than two, the result would be that these
forty villages could outvote the metropolis, Liver-
pool, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edin-
burgh, and Dublin, and still have two to spare.
This is no doubt an extreme example of a
Reform that would be at once ridiculous and
suicidal. But the question of the disfranchisement
of petty boroughs has never yet met with duo
consideration in any bill proposed by any party.
It is of course obvious that there are reasons for
this. Carried to even a moderate extent it would
affect so many seats that no Government will-
ingly faces the interested opposition that
would be aroused. Thus even the bill of last
year proposed only to operate on boroughs under
8,000 inhabitants, and preferred the way of
enlarging by " grouping" to that of disfran-
chising. But 8,000 is an absurdly low limit at
which to fix the popalation entitled to a separate
representation. A town of that size can rarely
have independence of external influence, and still
more rarely an exceptional intelligence entitling it'
to an exceptional proportion of representation.
It is far more likely to be under the entire con-
trol, either of some one neighbouring landowner,
or of the general body of the surrounding agri-
culturists. Its ideas must be narrow, for it can-
not support any high class institutions, whether
literary or commercial, by which they can be
enlarged. It is sure to indicate the smallness of
its intellectual capacity by being broken up into a
dozen circles of " society," enviously look-
ing up to or contemptuously looking down
upon each other; or into a scarcely less number of
local parties, all squabbling over some local job.
Such places as these are the last that should be
credited with representing the intelligence and the
large interests of the British nation. Not till we
reach the magnitude, at the very lowest, in