The Express.
London, England, 1861-07-08 00:00:00

TO OUR RZADERS.

SPORTLNO INTILLIG LN CE.

A late edition of Ilse Express is published every
evening during the rain easaou, containing the
results ot tie day's MIL

DIINISTSMO Nes be be troubled with a certain
conscioumeas that the course they have of late
encouraged thu House of Commons to pursue,
not only as to general measures of reform,
but to those of partial amendment and repair
in the electoral system, is likely to beget oon-
sequences which they cannot anticipate without
mortification. During the die' minion of Friday
last, on the motion for tho ISM of the Wakefield
writ, these mini% ings were betrayed by more
than one member of the Cabinet.

Having broken pledges by means of which they
ejected their opponents from offiee two years
since ; tiering spent two Sessions in aiding those
opponents to preserve intact the abuses and
anomalies they vowed on the hustings their im-
patience to overthrow ; having stultified themselves
by allowing their antagonists to pervert the Appro-
priation of Seats Bill ; and not having the ()enrage
to propose any further sequestration of other seats
impeached for corruption, they resort to the time-
serving expedient of arbitrarily suspending writs
for Gloucester and Wakefield, and importunately
claim credit for a zeal in the caws of purity and
improvement to which oo man out of political
livery can look you in the face and say they are
entitled. Times without number Lord Parma-
Brox and his colleagues have been called upon to
bring forward a simple and Wiest measure of some
kind for the expurgation of attaintedconstituencies,
if they would not attempt their disfranchisement.

Again and again has this appeal been reiterated ;
but always has it been made in rain. AA each
new instance more glazing than the lest of
electoral turpitude has been exposed before
Committees and Commissions of Inquiry, the moral
sense of the country has loudly and angrily de-
manded that one or other remedy should be applied

—disfranchisement where the evil habit seemed to
be predominant, and excision of the corrupt por-
tico where a portion only appeared to be corrupt.
But year after year has rolled by and nothing has
been done, or is likely to be done. Pharisaic
phrases and fantastic periphrame about public duty
and eciestitutional precedent, flung out in debate
as an answer to a party motion about a writ for
this or the other place, will not pomade the
people against the painful *Aisne, of their senses
that our r. root Malone= in high places really
mean to abate, or really &eke to abate, the power
of corruption. If they did, they would at lead
bare tried in some way, theorelkel or practical,
general or special, to deal with the foul and filthy
thing about which they talk so sanctimoniously :
but they have tried none. They have willingly
suffered the spirit of Conservatism in all things to
become insolent and rampant ; and instead of
resisting, as they were bound to do, the blind in-
fatuation and folly of a reactionary Home of
Commom, they have made tbounehve the too
ready instruments of its will, first to tionserre &-
groat injustice, and lastly to condone flagrant cer•
niption. Bet even the two great hereditary factions
there is a momentary difference of opinion about
the issue of a particular writ. One Committee of
Managers in Pall-mall think they could win the
seat for Wakefield at a moderate km; sod the
other Committee du not consider it for their In-
tired just now to try a contest there. Bo there'
is a rusk and a squabble late one night to try and
snateh a shabby advantage ; and then there is a
set wrangle about the matter on a subsequent day
which ends in leaving matters ea they were Ulm.
But the public, who one for none of them petti-
fogging motives and Magnificent considerations,
look on in disgust and in grief ; and ask moodily
how long is this burlesque upon constitutional
right sad eonstitutMnal justice to be prolonged
On the one hand it is urged that the writs for
Wakefield and for Gloucester ought to go, because
the House of Commons has no right Indefinitely
to suspend them. If these places be incurably
corrupt they ought to be didranchised ; if they
have in them a portion which has been convicted
of corruption it ought to be cut away and cast
forth, while the remainder should be enabled to
perform the constitutional functions which the,,
have
pared to overrule all evidence and proof auto past
delinquencies the writs ought to issue at ones. The
logic of these alternatives is incontrovertible ; but
logic, truth, or decency has nothing to do with
the matter. Projects of total disfranchisement are
at present at a discount. So long as the idea
might serve as a pretext for getting rid of •
Reform Bill we were told that specific sequestra-
tion of seats and their transfer to other places were
the older and more e-xellent way of the constitu-
tion ; but since the abandonment of general reform
by the present Government we hear no more of
the older and more excellent prooses, and it is not
even pretended now that there is the least notion
of reviving it. Ministers shrink from the naked
scandal of unconditionally issuing writs to places
one-fourth of the c'nstituencies of which have
notoriously and c.sifeseedly taken bribes ; but in-
stead of adopting the obvious and honest 'ltems-
tive of depriving the sordid of the opportunity of
trafficking again in the franchise, and then restoring
to the incorrupt majority of the inhabitant. of
Gloucester and Wakefiekl their rightful pri-
vileges, Sir (irolli:E Gary tells us that
the stupid and senseless device is about
to be recommended of suspending the write for
five years, and that a Bill is in the course of ges-
tation for that and other like purposes. A more