The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-04-10 00:00:00

declined to seek the suffrages of the constituency at
the recent election,

We give full details of the Foreign News this
morning.

The price of meat goes on constantly increasing
in France, notwithstanding the importations of
foreign cattle. The return of cattle sold at the
Paris markets in the first quarter of the presen
year shows a diminution of two million kilo.
grammes, as compared with 1856, and of three
millions two hundred thousand with 1855.
The approaching elections to the Divans in the
Danubian Principalities draw great attention to
that quarter of Europe, and the departure of the
Turkish as well as the Austrian troops has given
great satisfaction. Even that portion of the
German press which professes a fear of Russian
influence in the provinces does not venture to hint
that military pressure on the part of the other
Powers is desirable.

Among other news from the East we have it
confirmed that the Sultan had thought fit to make
a demand on the Shah of Persia for the cession of
seven towns, stretching in a line of considerable
length through Koordistan. The most important of
these is Urmiah, on the borders of the Salt Lake in
Azerbidchan.

The fact, now pretty certain, that in the dispute
about the Danish-German Duchies Denmark
will be isolated, none of the great powers taking
her side, tends to ally uneasiness respecting this
quarrel. _ _

A letter from Cadiz of the 3rd states that intern.
hence had been received in that port of a terrible
revolt of coolies that had taken place at sea, on
board the Spanish vessel Amelia Felipa. Details
of this revolt, which forms the sixth of the same
character that has taken place within the last ten
months, have not yet come to hand.

There is further evidence of efforts on the part
of Russia to reconcile the two branches of the royal
family of Spain; and considering the recent course
of events in that country, it is not improbable that
Count de Montemolin may have dissuaded his
adherents from troubling its repose.
The Australian Company's steamer Jura arrived
at Southampton yesterday with the Australian
mails brought by the Simla. She left Alexandria
on March 28, and Malta April 1. She brought 29
passengers and £BB,OOO in specie. The letters by
her were despatched from London to the provinces
last evening, and will be delivered in Liverpool
this morning.

THE general election has all but terminated.
The triumph of Liberals has been complete.
The members returned to the new House of
Commons pledged to reform, economy, and
peace, constitute an overwhelming majority. • No
minister, be he who he may, can stave off the
consideration of all questions having reference
to the principles of progress. Seeing, then, that
so many members are pledged to reform, parti-
cularly as regards the representation of the
people, it is now the duty of the public calmly
to /consider, and deliberately foreshadow, their
wants and wishes. By so doing, the newly
elected members will be reminded of their hus-
tings pledges, and know the exact opinions and
feelings of the country on this first of constitu-
tional topics.
The Reform Bill of 1832 was, without doubt,
an important advance upon the representative
system which preceded it. It swept away the
strongholds of aristocracy rottenness, and at
once annihilated the system of freemen, a system
which had become an intolerable nuisance, and
was the fountain of political corruption, render-
ing it almost an impossibility to effect any well
devised scheme of legislation for the ameliora-
tion of the country. In lieu of these freemen,
and the disfranchisement of the rotten boroughs,
Lord John Russell's Reform Act conferred the
franchise upon 101. householders, in boroughs;
and 501. tenants and 40s. freeholders, in counties.
This was, perhaps, as much as could be exacted
from the then reluctant parliament. It made
property the basis of representation ; for, no
matter how great the intellectual attainments,
unless accompanied by a house or land standard,
the claimants wish to be placed upon the electoral
roll was rejected. But this was not all the conces-
sions granted to property. In looking into the
provisions of the Reform Bill of 1832, it will be
found that freeholders can vote in as many
counties as they possess property in. In dealing
with the representation of the people, with a
view to its improvement, we have to consider
what are the main and vital defects of the exist-
ing system, and by what means can they be
remedied ?

As to the former of these enquiries it is almost
answered in the previous remarks. Our present
representative system is restrictive, exclusive, and
one-sided—restrictive, because it limits the exer-
cise of the franchise to an exceedingly small
portion of the population ; exclusive, because
it makes property the basis of an electoral
vote ; and one-sided, because the landed interest
is the pet of the scheme. It requires no argu-
ment to prove any one of these propositions.
It cannot be denied that the mere holding of a
house, or a piece of land, per se, is insufficient to
confer the franchise, much less to justify its ex-
clusive exercise. Every member of a commu-
nity, every subject of a kingdom or an empire, is
equally interested in the prosperity of that com-
munity, kingdom, or empire. Its prosperity is
his gain. The extension of its trade and commerce
brings with it increased and better remune-
rated employment. Happiness and content-
ment become, as it were, general ; crime is
arrested—for breaches of the law are far less
numerous in extent, as well as less serious in
character, among an industrious and steady
people, than in a locality where habits of indo-
lence and dissipation prevail. Pauperism, too,
is not so rife, and the general taxation of the
whole is greatly lessened on these accounts. For
these reasons objection is taken to a property
qualification as the sole basis of the franchise.
By intelligence alone can be ascertained the
qualifications'of candidates for senatorial honours,
it sifts their pretensions, and ultimately decides
which way to vote, not for personal, but national
advantage. The industrious and plodding agri-
culturist, who cannot spell, much less write, his
own name, is, of all persons in the world, the
least fitted to decide by his vote who shall be
Premier; whether we shall subjugate China,
push on a war with Persia, dispute about Central
America, Repeal of the Maynooth Grant, or
extend the Education of the people. Yet, by
virtue of his territorial holding, he is enfran-
chised, whilst the cultivated mind, the keen
observer of men and things, is excluded, simply
because he cannot claim the occupancy of a
farm rented at 501., an annual income of 405.,