The Express.
London, England, 1861-02-16 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, PBB. 16.

Coveasmeer propose to distribute the seats in
Parliament so long vacant between counties and
towns. No borough member in the debate on
leave to bring in the Bill for that purpose, ob-
jected to an equal division of what must somehow
be given away. But more than one of the Tory
members for counties endeavoured to raise a pre-
liminary objection to the Ministerial scheme upon
the fallacious ground that in the House of Com-
mons, as now constituted, the towns have more
than their fair share, and the counties less ; and
they sought to insinuate, therefore, though they
hardly ventured to argue explicitly, that the
seats forfeited by St. Albans, as well as those
taken from Sudbury, should be conferred on cer-
tain of the larger and more popular shires. Mr.
besrixec declared that taxation and repre-
sentation "ought to be convertible terms,"
and Mr. RAIN •LD )(NIG MIXT quoted round
numbers from a well-known Parliamentary paper
to show, as be said, that property in counties
paid much more to the income tax than pro-
perty in towns. We accept cordially Mr.
Bawnwea's rule, but we deny flatly Mr.
Keicurn.trea figures. As a mere matter
of arithmetic it is utterly incorrect to draw any
comparison of the kind in question from the re-
turn the bon. member relies on. For what is
that return 1 It is one which takes cognisance
only of real or fixed property rated under Sche-
dule A, and wholly omits the entire mass of in.
comes which are taxed under Schedules B and D.
Even this is but • very subordinate item in the
general calculation which ought to be made if
representation were to be allotted by • strict rule
of proportion to the places where and the persons
by whom taxes are paid. In the statistic:so/ Tory
country gentlemen it may seem very well to make
a grand total of taxes charged on the rent of land
and set it off on the taxes charged on the rent of
houses ; but everybody else is aware that the
chief contributions of the dwellers in towns are
not paid under this head at all, but principally in
one form or other of indirect taxation. tat us
have • return, if Werra. Kemeny( and Bait-
Timex can frame one, showing how much of the
seventy-two millions raised annually in one form
or other is paid by landlords and labourers on the
one hand, and by bankers, merchants, trailers,
professional men, clerks, and skilled workmen of
all sorts, who dwell in cities and towns, on the
other, and then we shall see what the crazy argu-
ment is worth in favour of "140 more county
" members," founded upon the ludicrous delusion
that the inhabitants of the agricultural dis-
tricts contribute in the proportion of six
to four to the taxation of the State. In
point of fact they do nothing of the kind. The
preponderant weight of national burthens falls on
the industry and enterprise and skill of the
towns ; and these have really far less than their
due in the general representation. It is only in
a mere parliamentary sense that real cities and
towns are to be classed with the political
hamlets and villages in whose name peers and
country gentlemen send their nominees to Parlia-
ment. As well might parrots and starlings be
classed among articulate speaking mortals, or
sedan chairs be counted among ordinary vehicles
for the conveyance of passengers. In what con-
ceivable respect do Arundel, Thetford, Richmond,
or Ashburton resemble, we do not say any great
town, but any town worthy of forming an element
in the comparison between rural and municipal
life T The anti-Reformers of the House of Com-
mons well know that the landed interest in that
assembly consists not merely of county members,
so called, but of the nominees for close and rotten
boroughs, some sixty or seventy in number ; and
we shall not be very far front the literal truth if
we say, that with this addition the landed interest
already possesses more than its full share of seats
In parliament, even supposing its claim could be
maintained to a moiety of the general taxation.
Waiving all nice questions, however, of class
claims, Ministers have not unnaturally resolved on
fairly dividing the vacant seats between populous
counties and populous towns. The West Riding
and South Lancashire are each to have one, in
virtue of their pre-eminent wealth and popula-
tion ; and whatever the impracticable' of the
Opposition may say to the contrary, it will be
difficult for Mr. Diskant or any of his late
colleagues to object to a proposal which, as far as
it goes, is, in fact, their own of 1852. In that
year they suggested the bestowal of two seats on
each of the great counties referred to ; and if it
was just nine years ago to give each of them two,
it can hardly be unjust now to give each of them
one. Between the West Riding and South Lan-
cashire the Census of 181 showed much less
difference than between either of them and any
other county that could be named, the highest
having less than one-fourth of the population
pommeled by the West Riding. These counties
stand oat conspicuously above their fellows ; and
we take for granted that in the further progress of
the measure we shall hear as little objection to
their further enfranchisement se we have done on
the introduction of the Bill. Between the boroughs
designated for admission to Parliamentary rights
there is a much greater disparity. Chelsea
and Kensington contained at the last
Census more than 100,000 souls; and byi