The Express.
London, England, 1861-06-19 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JUN I: 19.

!a old saying that " the less you ask the less
,ou will get,- seems likely to be strikingly seri-
& d by the results of attempted legislation during
the present sesdon. Never was so small a demand
made by a government upon Parliament as Lord
PaLesiorrus has made this scrim, but he asked
too lunch for the Houses to give without pressure.
The Budget has indeed been passed, and there
is an end of it ; but it is still exceedingly doubtful
whether the Bankruptcy Bill will become law, and
the Appropriation of Seats Bill has brought its
authors nothing but trouble.

I'he proceedings of hest Monday night in the
II .use of Commons can only be looked on with
mingled wonder and pain by all who value the
well working of our constitutional system or the
stability of a Liberal Government. The state of
the House upon the question can only be de-
embed as one of otter anarchy. All regard for
leadership is lost, and, we are bound to say, in.
itably so, when no discernible flag is held forth
to which men in honest doubt may rally. As
originally framed, the Redistribution of Seats
Bill was founded on two broad and intelli-
gible principles—namely, an equal distribution of
conferred power between counties and towns, and
an equal consideration of metropolitan claims and
those of smaller communities. These were fair
principles to build on. Ministers having discarded
all thoughts of a general reconstruction of the
representation, wisely took these principles for
their basis in the minimum measure they pro-
posed to carry. The public could not be ex-
pected to feel much interest in a proposal so
swell ; but they were told that in the minuteness of
its size lay its certainty of passing, and that
as there was so little else to do, this act of obvious
justice was sure to be done. But this is a maxim
which has never yet held good in Parliamentary
business, and principles and predictions have
alike vanished together. The fundamental grounds
on which the HOME SECRETARY rested his appeal
for support in March last have been wholly aban-
doned. There is no longer • semblance of equity
about the Bill as it stands. Two seats have already
been voted for counties ; and the only practical
question that remains to be decided is whether one
of the remaining seats, or both, shall be given to the
counties. Government no longer encourages the
hopes of either English or Scotch Univer-
sities. By its support of Mr. KNIGHTLEY'S
motion to give a third member to Middlesex it
threw overboard the right of tho towns to an equal
share in the redistribution. Instead of regarding
the unwarrantable concession as • peace-offering,
a majority of the House contumeliously spurned
it by 236 to 186 votes. Drifting ever further and
further out of their true course, Ministers eagerly
offered new terms of compromise, and agreed to
surrender • third county seat to the landed interest
of Yorkshire in the delusive expectation that they
might thereby be permitted to keep one seat out
of the four for Birkenhead. But no sooner was
the unwise and unwarrantable offer made than the
leader of the Opposition flung it back with scorn,
and declared that he would be satisfied with no-
thing less than the bestowal of both the third and
fourth seat on another county. A half-emptied
Mouse sevi content to allow the clause respecting
Birkenhead to pane pro foreid, it being understood
on all hands that no decisive battle could then
take place, and that the final struggle must be
deferred to a further stage of the Bill. But what
a coudition of things is this ? Point after point
has been given up in the vain attempt to purchase
an unworthy permission to pass a measure of some
kind ; and when everything which its authors
themselves laid down as essential in point of
justice and policy has been cut away,
the chance of any proposal whatever n-
earing this year the statutable impress
of legislation is less than ever. We cannot, in-
deed, permit ourselves to believe that the members
who sat for the great cities and boroughs of the
kingdom will tolerate any further trilling with
what has hitherto been held sacred by their con-
stituents—we mean the just power of the really
iudependent towns to return an adequate
number of representatives to Parliament. When
the nomination boroughs are added, as they
must be in any fair computation, to the agricultural
interest, the balance between town and county is
toleredy fair. But if the representation of every
borough disfranchised for corruption is to be
transferred to • county, or if three out of four
of forfeited seats are to be so transferred, then
we shall have made • stride towards a state of
things in which • Lower House is • mockery,
and shall allow the Lords to do henceforth
in their own name, instead of by deputy,
whatever may seem to them good with our
properties and taxes. All equipoise is gone
if this perversion of acknowledged right and
principle be sanctioned by the House of Commons.
While there is time let the Borough Members
look to it. They must know in their hearts that
they have no right to give away three out of four
boroughs to the class against whose preponderance
in the Ligislature they have been specifically set
as a counterpoise. As the mutilated Bill now
stands, but one seat out of the four that
espently belonged to the boroughs of Sud-
bury and St. Albans is even professedly

nu nat.,' fur a town, while two have
issen actually allotted to counties, and another

has been promised them by the Treasury
Bench. Supposing Mr. Dibasem's menace, there-
Ifore, never realised, of rescinding what leis been
nominally done about Lancabhire and Birkenhead,
in order that two additional representatives
should be given to Middlesex, the measure
will still remain one that no true or enlightened
representative of any city or borough in the
kingilini can support on the third reading ;
and there is no way of escape now left from
the difficulty into which Ministers have been
uuhappily betrayed but to withdraw the Bill.
Other cousideratious there are which we have not
prer.ed, Omagh full of weight and importance. if the
West Biding were to have the two seats forfeited by
Sudbury, and Lancashire and Birkenhead the two
but by St. .‘lbans, the Southern half of the king-
! dole would be despoiled, without any justification
l, or show of mason, to swell the already overgrown
pretensions of one limited region of the North.
We should be berry to stimulate feelings of jea-
lousy in the other portions of the kingdom towards
that favoured locality ; but for the sake of the
general peace and contentment wo must deprecate
favouritism so flagrant as this would be. Our
tirni pm-suasion is—and we already see good
grounds far our belief that what has
already occurred regarding Chelsea and Ken-
sington will awaken • spirit throughout the
metropolis and the other great cities of the empire
which has long lain dormant, but which, when
awakened, will assuredly not be appeased by any
temporizing expedients like that origins.Uy pro-
pounded in this Bill. We have no wish to see
the sense of injustice inflamed into resentful ex-
asperatiou by an obstinate attempt to carry the
measure further ; and if unhappily the attempt be
made, we trust there is sufficient self-respect among
the Boron:J.li Members of the House to interpose
their veto. It is not a question of party or creed;
it is, as the division lists painfully show, one of
class against clam