The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-31 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

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TIMES.—If a keen competition for parliamentary
honours be any proof of vitality in a representative •
system, we may well place confidence in the stability
of our own. Not many years ago, during the admi-
nistrative crisis of the Crimean war, there were some
who lost faith, or affected to lose faith; in constitu- •
tional government. An unfortunate expression let
fall by the late Prince Consort was caught up by
admirers of French Imperialism, and echoed by
those whO should have known better. Representa-
tive institutions were " on their trial," so the phrase
ran, and the probability of their breaking down
under the ordeal of a war was discussed, as though
the history of centuries were unworthy of a mo-
ment's consideration. How these fainthearted pro-
phecies have since been falsified—how the Emperor
Napoleon, wiser than his flatterers, has borrowed
leaf after leaf from the constitution of this country
—how Italy has been regenerated and Spain re-
stored to prosperity, if not to solvency, by imita-
tions of the same model—how representation has
sprung into existence in Austria, has acquired new
life in Prussia, and is no longer a forbidden mystery
in the Russian empire, will hereafter be recorded
among the political marvels of our age. Equally re-
markable, and still more contrary to expectation, is
the fact that the House of Commons—that imprac-
ticable assembly, which Mr. Carlyle and his disciples
were so fond of ridiculing—exercise at this moment
a greater influence than ever upon the destinies of
England and the world. More than two centuries
have elapsed since Cromwell, ordering his soldiers to
" take away that bauble," anticipated the views and
realised the highest ideal of this modern school. Yet
the English Parliament is still the heart of the body
politic, and a seat within its walls is coveted with an
ambition which, but for the progress of political vir-
tue, would produce enormous and universal corrup-
tion. If the house does not contain the very elite of
the nation, the soundest thinkers and the ablest men
of business to be found in the three kingdoms, it is
exclusively the fault of the electoral body. Our
columns are daily crowded with the names of
hopeful aspirants ; but if we could publish those of
disappointed suitors and of would-be suitors, who
only abstain from making advances in sheer despair
of success, the list would, indeed, astonish our
readers. There are, probably, few Englishmen in
the prime of life, with sufficient leisure, and duly
qualified by fortune and education, who would not
be proud to become members of Parliament, if they
could but win the favour of a county or borough
constituency. It is to the new candidates, whose
theories have not yet lost their edge by Parliamen-
tary collision and legislative friction, that we natu-
rally look for advanced and suggestive ideas of Re-
form. Among these novi homines we observe the
name of Sir Charles Locock, whose voluminous ad-
dress to the electors of the Isle of Wight appeared
in our impression of yesterday. Sir Charles, how-
ever, though a young politician, is a veteran in his
own profession, and comes forward as a good Con-
servative on an invitation from " the large land-
owners of the island." Mr. Thomas Hughes, who
solicits the suffrages of Lambeth, is a candidate of
a very different type. As a successful authOr
and a professed friend of the working classes,
he has earned a right to be heard on questions
which affect their interests, but which demand
for their solution a disciplined and cultivated
mind. We regret to say that we cannot accept the
scheme proposed by Mr. Hughes, which seems
to be neither more nor less than a resort to the
Ballot and Universal Suffrage. As to the former,
Mr. Hughes explained to his audience that he was
" no great admirer of it," but was prepared to sup-
port it as a necessary adjunct to a large extension
of the suffrage. This reason strikes us as singularly
illogical. The grand objection to the Ballot is that,
while it purports to secure the elector against
being made responsible for his vote to an in-
dividual, it equally prevents his being made
responsible to the public. Whether the former
or the latter consideration should be paramount
is a point which admits of dispute. There are
those who regard bribery and coercion in their
various forms as evils so transcendent and so in-
veterate, and have such confidence in the efficacy
of the Ballot as a specific, that its tendency to
weaken political courage and to deprive society of
a safeguard against a large class of base motives
count for nothing in their estimation. There are
others, on the contrary, who, with Mr. Mill, re-
gard the illicit influences which the Ballot might
help to check as constantly diminishing, and the
mean self-seeking which it would certainly encour-
age as constantly increasing, and who, therefore,
dread the remedy more than the disease. Mr.
Hughes's position is equally untenable on either
side. He does not like the Ballot, probably appre-
ciating its effect in substituting covert suspicion for
open scrutiny, and removing from the franchise the
bracing restraint of public opinion. But, though
he does not like it on a small scale, he would tolerate
it on a large scale, combining it with a sweeping
extension of the suffrage. Now, we freely grant
that one popular argument for voting in public,
viz., that electors are trustees for non-electors,
would cease to be relevant if there were no non-
electors at all. Only it must be remembered that
in such a state of things it could hardly be needed
as a protection, while the sinister motives and in-
terests fostered by secrecy might be even more
rampant than ever. How it " would insure the
good working of an extended suffrage," though not
desirable at present, we are at a loss to understand,
unless Mr. Hughes suspects that the pressure
likely to be applied by trades' unions and
felow-workmen would be more unscrupulous than
the intimidation of landlords and customers.
A graver exception must be taken to that part of
Mr. Hughes's speech where he claims Mr. Glad-
stone's authority for a Reform Bill enfranchising
" the largest possible number 'of the working
classes." Assuming the proposition to have been
unqualified, it is unfair to quote Mr. Gladstone
as having declared that "every man not mentally
or morally incapacitated was entitled to the
franchise.'? We have never concealed our dis-
sent from the doctrine involved in Mr. Glad-
stone's statement, but the statement itself fell
altogether short of Mr. Hughes's principle. Mr.
Gladstone's words were these :—" I say that every
man who is not presumably incapacitated by some
consideration of personal unfitness or political
danger is morally entitled to come within the pale
of the Constitution." His mistake was that he ex-
pressed a presumption of which few would adopt
the converse in terms capable, to say the least, of
being confounded with the watchword of uncom-
promising Democrats, and that he left out of sight
a counter presumption, in favour of the status quo,
which no statesman would venture to repudiate.
Still, he explicitly allowed considerations of political
danger to be valid reasons for limiting the suffrage,
and went out of his way to explain that he would
be satisfied with such an extension as was contem-
plated in the bill of 1860. Mr. Hughes here deserts
his leader, and dashes forward on his own responsi-
bility. " Oh 1' but say some, this is manhood
suffrage.' Possibly so ; but he was not to be scared
by a mere word. He thought a manhood suffrage
was far preferable to a brick-and-mortar suffrage."
Without pretending to possess Mr. Hughes's intre-
pidity, we, too, are unmoved by mere words, and.
Venture to challenge the meaning of this last anti-
thesis, formidable as it sounds. If its sense is that
personal property as well as house property should
be recognised as a qualification, or even that intel-
ligence and moral character‘are as good a title to
the suffrage as either, we forbear to criticise it
strictly. If it implies that a £lO rental is no better
security for the honest exercise of a political privi-
lege than the circumstance of being a full-grown
man, then we recommend Mr. Hughes to read the
evidence given before a Select Committee of the
House of Lords in 1859 on the operation of the
municipal franchise. "Manhood Suffrage," more-
over, is something like an imposture if persons
convicted of crime, and paupers, and those who
pay no taxes, and those who cannot read or write,
, are to be excluded from the rights of humanity.
These conditions are obviously so many qualifica-
tions, and the simple mention of them proves that
we are still far from that social perfection which
extreme Reformers presuppose as their starting
point.
POST.—Throughout the civil war in America it
was exceedingly difficult to reconcile the sympathies
of the people of this country to the neutrality which
the Government scrupulously observed ; and now
that the reaction caused by a foul crime has subsided,
and the assassination of Mr. Lincoln is almost
forgotten in the measure of vengeance it has served
• to motive, the 'strain upon the public conscience is
still more acutely experienced. We must not, how-
ever, deceive ourselves. No interference on the
I part of any foreign Power would be admitted in re-
ference to a matter on which it is competent for the
Government of the United States to accept the entire
' responsibility of its action.' Nor could the interven-
tion that might have sustained a nation avail to save
the life of its Chief Magistrate. It only remains
for us to hope that, seriously considering the issue
and all it involves, the Americans will themselves
perceive what is owing to justice and humanity, and
to the civilisation of the epoch. It is utterly im-
possible to believe that Mr. Jefferson Davis was in
any way implicated in the atrocious conspiracy
which actually inflicted a heavier blow on the South
than on the North ; and the elected President of
sovereign States recognised as belligerent, and
negotiated with in that character by the Govern-
ment of the United States, cannot he adjudged
guilty of treason, or " constructive treason," what-
ever that may mean. Jurists and historians agree
that civil war is not to be confounded with ordinary
treason, and that the
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