The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-15 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, MAY 15, 1865.

The working classes and their friends are appa-
rently determined to give active evidence of the in-
accuracy of the charge of indifference to reform
which has been brought against them in several
quarters. A public meeting was held in St. Martin's
Ball on Saturday evening as a sort of metropolitan
inauguration of the National Reform League. Mr.
BEALES, the chairman of the League, presided, and
took the opportunity of declaring the principles
upon which the association was established, and the
objects which it proposed to its members. A goodly
company of professed reformers supported the
meeting by their presence, and a considerable num-
ber of working men formed the audience, so that
altogether the proceedings may be taken as a fair
representation of the views and sentiments of the
Manchester and Metropolitan League. The opinions
of Manchester and London, however, are not gene-
rally identical. Manchester has done good service
in the cause of free-trade, and has boldly advocated
principles which London has cordially accepted and
adopted as its own. But in other respects the Man-
chester school, like the New Englanders of America,
is too often represented by men of strong character,
inflexible determination, and firm convictions, but
narrow and intolerant views. The same defects
which marred the excellences of the Puritans of the
Old World are repeated in their descendants in the
New, and show themselves on a smaller scale
in the advocates of similar principles among
ourselves. Foremost among the defects is the
impossibility of respecting the convictions of oppo-
nents. The absence of that mental mag-
nanimity which can believe in the sincerity
of men totally opposed to itself, and though it can
only see one side of the shield is willing to give
credit to the assurance that there is another aspect
of the question that is in other circumstances quite
as natural and as reasonable. Perhaps something
of this is inseparable from the strong wills and the
earnest convictions which work reforms and over-
throw established abuses. But moderate men of
all parties will do well to remember that there is a
tyranny of the many as well as a tyranny of the
few, and that those pilgrims who crossed the Atlan-
tic rather than submit to the thraldom, "When the
Old World grew in dotage, and by priests and
kings was bound," were the precursors of those
legislators who forbade that a mother should
kiss her child on Sunday. The evils of Demo-
cracy do not exist alone in the imagination
of aristocrats, and it is this which forms the diffi-
culty and perplexity of genuine Reformers. But we
shall not avoid the difficulty by leaving it alone, for
it increases year by year, and the anomalies of our
representation have become so glaring that it is
impossible for politicians of any class to defend
them. We have boroughs with a population of two
or three hundred returning two members, while large
towns and districts, whose electors might be num-
bered by the thousand, are actually unrepresented.
The vast outlying districts of the metropolis itself,
which contain householders enough to people some
continental capitals, have no vote, and, consequently,
though they contribute largely to every tax, have
no voice in the regulation of the finances.
Then as to the constituents of the electoral districts
themselves, the anomalies of the present state of
things are absurd and intolerable. An English
Parliament is supposed to represent the people, and
the constitution is especially framed to include the
delegates or representatives of all. No one can
pretend to say that we have attained this end, any
more than they can maintain that our elections are
always pure and honest. Yet, considering the vast
importance of our House of Commons, and the in-
fluence which it exercises not only on this country,
but on the whole world, it is not too much to expect
that it should move a little with the times, and en
.deavour to approach a little nearer the Utopia of
Reformers if it cannot obtain absolute perfection.
Between the wholesale Radicals, who would carry all
before them, and the obstinate opponents of every