Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-02-03 00:00:00

THE NORTHERN TIMES THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3,

detail, for a borough may be put in or left out in
its passage through Parliament—but whether as
a whole it is a measure recognising great principle's,
adequate to meet great wants, and worthy of the irre-
sistible supportof a great people." This, of course,
will be the position which the question will take in
Parliament. What the country, wants—and what it

must have —is a measure of real Parliamentary

Reform. And it is not as to the population of Lan-
..
cashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire only,
but as to the general population of the whole
kingdom, that we_ would reiterate the words of
Mr. BRIGHT,—

" Let us give to this population, so
great, so powerful, so renowned, so irresistible
when united, let us give to them—for we ask no
more—what the ancient, the boasted, and, if you
like, the ' glorious constitution' of this country
says is right."

THE PARLIAMENTARY REFORM
QUESTION.

THE time is now so near at hand when some
definite idea can be formed of the shape in which
Ministers will place this question before Parlia-
ment, that it is scarcely worth while to indulge in
any more speculations .upon it. But it may be
well to have it remembered; nevertheless, • how the
case stands, at such a moment, before the country.
It is to be taken for granted, then, in the first
place, that the great body of the nation are now in
favour of a further reform of the system of
representation in Parliament. .Politicians of all•
complexions have, apparently, made up their minds
to it. The Queen upon her throne is on the point
of recommending the question to the consideration
of Parliament ; and white her Majesty's Govern-
ment are prepared to give effect to the
recommendation, her Majesty's Opposition will
doubtless be ready to push it even further than it
may be prepared to go. So that as to the necessity
of reform itself, in some degree, greater or less, of,
practical efficiency, there would'seem to be but one
opinion, and one intention. It is not, as it was
when the Reform Bill of 1832 was brought
forward, that there was one great party, that of
the Ministry of the day, for it, and another great
party, that of the Conservative Opposition, against
it,—one for a specific measure of reform, the other
for no reform at all. Tempora mutantur, et nos

mutamus in illis. The times are perpetually
changing,—they have been ever since the world
began, and will be until the world is at an end ;
and men change with the times. It is in the
nature of things that it should be so ; for what is
there that is likely to remain fixed or stable, either
in situations or opinions, as regards the affairs of

this world P Men, manners, tenets, even principles,
of necessity keep changing, according to the
varying circumstances of the age in which men

live. Reform, moreover, in a State, is a process
which cannot possibly be brought to a stand-still.

There is a principle of progress in it_whicb is not
easily to be stopped. And the Reform Bill, of now
more than a quarter of a century ago, having once
passed, every man, be his political party what it
might, was constrained, in some degree, to be a
reformer.

Now, on the present occasion, there are three
separate reform parties in the field,—there is the
Ministerial party, ready, it is understood, to bring
forward a measure carrying out the extension of
the representative system considerably further
than did the reformers of 1832,—there is the Whig
party, eager to take its advantage of any short-
comings in the Ministerial measure, and to
supplant both it and its authors,—and there is the
Radical party, which seeks to carry out a reform
far beyond the intentions, or the ideas, of either of
the others, who will probably concur, there-
fore, in resisting a measure which they think
would utterly upset that balance of power in the
realm, the preservation of which is the great secret
of the long endurance of the British Constitution,
and its admirable adaptability, hitherto, to the
growing necessities of the kingdom. And such

being the case, if ever there was a reason why
there ought to be but two great parties on such a
question—the party that would reform to
strengthen and consolidate, and the party that
would reform to deracinate and disorganise—there
appears to be such a reason now. Of course we
do not yet know exactly, either the purpose of
Ministers, or the views of their Whig opponents;
though in a very short time now, in all probabi-
lity, we shall know both. Yet much has tran-
spired, even within the last ten days, to indicate
the sentiments of the two separate parties that
stand in opposition to the Administration. Not
only have the Radicals put forth their Reform Bill,
but the Whigs have published two—issuing, appa-
rently, from two distinct sections of that party ;
one through the columns of the Times, the other
through those of the Spectator. And both these
measures arc, in their practical principles, as
thoroughly opposed to the Radical Bill, as that of
Ministers themselves will probably be. The
former alike seek to give property and education
their due influence in the representative system :
the other would swamp them both by the over-
whelming weight of indiscriminate numbers. The
Radical contends, that the question of Parliamen-
tary representation is one " where not taxes only
are to be considered, but rights, and personal
rights—and not taxes, and personal rights only,
but all questions affecting the great policy of the
country both at home and abroad." His opponents
reply, that if he grounds his franchise on personal
rights, it is most inconsistent to limit it by either
a ratepaying, a household, or any other condition of
qualification. " What," it is asked, " is the use of
importing into the discussion an argument which
is just as fatal to any plan which he ventures to
propound as to the existing system, or to any
other which his antagonists may suggest ? If
personal rights are to be the electoral qualifica-
tion, why has he not the honesty and the logic to
declare for universal suffrage ? But if property
and taxation are the basis of representation—an
admission which the proposition either of a rating
or household suffrage implicitly involves—we
demand that some better reason should be adduced
than has yet been put forward to show that the
franchise which is given on account of property
and taxation should not be proportionate to that
of property and taxation." And here is denoted the

common ground on which both the Ministry and
their Whig opponents, it may, we think, be pre-
sumed, will alike take their stand in opposition to
the extremer course which it will be prepared to
pursue.

At present, therefore, it is somewhat difficult to
ascertain exactly where the differences, will arise
on the subject, between Ministers and their Whig
opponents. Those between thein and the Radical
party are already plain, and palpable enough,—
but then they are differences common to both.
The time is now near at hand, hoWever, when all
speculation on this question will be at an end.
Let us hope there will come out of it all a measure
of Reform that will at least have the effect of
securing a system of full and tree representation
in Parliament.