The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-03 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—" Rash men, who slew the sire but spared
the son !" will rise to the lips of some who read Lord
Amberley's speech at the Leeds Reform Meeting.
What is the use of making a man a Peer when
there is a son who can not only take up his father's
cause, but take it up without his father's compro-
mises and shackles ? Here is the next generation
already looking us all in the face. Lord Amberley
was in petticoats when the Corn Laws were re-
pealed, and happily not old enough to know what was
meant by a 6s. fixed duty on wheat. The sayings
and doings of thirty years are the sweet traditions
of his nursery, carefully culled, and warmed up with
filial devotion. In his little antiquity there stand
out prominently the foolish things that Sir Robert
Peel said, and what Lord Lyndhurst said, and what
Peers in general are apt to say, if they have narrow
minds and are not worthy of their fathers. Most
fortunate is it for Lord Amberley that he was not
the eldest son of a Peer till his mind had done grow-
ing—that is, his body, for, of course, his mind will
grow still. His appearance at Leeds is to be regarded
as a solemn installation in his father's political
honours. Our early Kings had their eldest sons
crowned, and thenceforth rested and were thankful,
if their sons would let them. It was ten years
before the Reform Act that Lord John Russell
proposed to give members to Leeds ; and he had a
part in the management not only of that Reform
Act, but also of the Municipal Reform Act, which
invested Mr. Luccock with a gold chain. So here is
a tradition of more than forty years, and Leeds is
just the place for his successor to start on his great
career that is to be. Educated for a commoner, un-
trammeled by office, he goes forth to reap the har-
vest left for him by the neglects of his elders and
the hindrance of circumstances. Nor has culture
been wanting to so high a vocation, Lord Amberley
has been thoroughly indoctrinated in the logic, the
controversy, and the history of Reform. He has
even been told whom to look to. Mr. Gladstone is
the Mentor of the young Telemachus, who for a
time will want at least the decency of a guide. The
time will come when—but we desist. We shrink
from the contemplation of this pure, untainted, un-
sophisticated, unencumbered Reformer of his coun-
try as the wear and tear of life may present him
even at thirty. For the present he personates a
holy faith, honest convictions, and the sweetest
possible conceptions of honest and intelligent six-
pounders
and county ten-pounders, of working
men in general, and anybody who can read and
write, excepting the late Sir R. Peel and Lord ,
Lyndhurst, and large landowners, and huge capi-
talists, and haughty young Peers with minds so
narrow that they will only think on these subjects
exactly as their fathers thought before them. We
accept the young lordling and his speech, with all its
golden promises. Nay, more, we press him into
the service. Let him spend the few years of
unofficial life that a kind Providence may allow
him in working at a Reform Bill as good as
his father's. At present he would think ten years a
very long time to wait, but his father had to wait
ten years before he could give Leeds the two mem-
bers he had promised it, besides many years' waiting
before. He will not take it amiss if we drop a few
hints, which, ' if duly attended to, may make his
advice more palatable for the future. He deals much
—all boys do—with the argunientam ad hominem, in
the form of a retort. He tells the House of Com-
mons that it is very fond of reforming everything
but itself. It reforms Universities and Public
Schools, but does not take to self-amendment quite
so kindly. This may be sharp, but is it a practical
view of the subject ? Would the House of Com-
mons show less need of reform by refusing to make
reforms ? Would it be less an authority as to the
wisdom of immediate Parliamentary Reform if it
set its face against all reform whatever ? On the
contrary, it seems to us that if the House of Com-
mons does its duty in keeping our institutions
sound, sweet, and effective, it so far proves that it
may itself be let alone for the present. If a tenant
or bailiff improves everything under his charge, is it
good logic to say, " Now, my good fellow, you're
mighty fond of improvements, so I'll just remove
you off my property. Pack up and be gone ?" What
would Lord Amberley have the House of Commons
do ? Would he have it prove its right to remain as it
is by following the example of the young peers who
know no more than they have learnt from their
fathers? He sneers at the Commons for being progres-
sive, and at the Lords for being unprogressive.
Which does he prefer at heart? He does not seem
quite to have made up his mind on a very delicate
point at the other end of the social scale. While
intimating a philosophical predilection for an
.educa-
tional franchise, or rather an educational disqualifi-
cation, in the most obliging possible way he makes
the Conservatives a present" of those who cannot
read or write. The landed interest, he implies, is
that which would have most reason to regret their
exclusion. We wish everybody could read, write,
and keep accounts ; but we happen to know very
good labourers and very good tenant farmers, too—
aye, very good village shopkeepers, and others better
than labourers—who cannot read or write, but who
' know at least as much as their neighbours. Un-
fortunately, too, reading, writing, and arithmetic
have long ceased to be a guarantee for the moral
virtues we wish to find in a British elector. Land
and capital, says his lordship, are now abundantly
represented ; and why not labour ? The rela-
tions of land with labour we leave in his own
hands, for he makes them close enough. But how
as to labour as opposed to capital. We have the
greatest wish to see labour represented in the House
of Commons as fully and thoroughly as possible. We
should like to see a few members, and more than a
few, who would really place the case of the working
man well before the public. It is very much better
that labour should prosecute its claims by reason-
able arguments, in a fair and open field, than by
suicidal strikes, intimidation, conspiracies, occasional
acts of violence, ruinous self-taxation, and the dicta-
tion of public-house committees and secretaries.
But why is capital to be told that it is represented
more than labour, when it really has no life with-
out labour ? It is impossible to use capital without
employing labour, and putting the working man
into a better condition for enforcing his demands,
whatever they are. Nay, it is impossible to employ
capital to any amount without raising a number of
people higher in the scale of the Parliamentary
franchise. Unfortunately, there is an abusive and
corrupt representation of capital by the expenditure
of immense sums for the acquiring of political in-
fluence and obtaining of votes. But we must
record our sorrowful conviction that a very large
and comprehensive representation of labour, aiming
to include every working man, would fearfully ag-
gravate this corrupt representation of capital.
We have to deal with the mass as it is, not as it
ought to be. The vast majority of working men
have necessities that overpower their sense of inde-
pendence and instil the hope that their vote will
do them some palpable good. They are not worse
in this respect than their immediate betters, but
they are •as bad. Together with this state of
things we may have colossal fortunes, far larger and
more numerous than thirty years ago, in the hands
of men who can buy almost everything except social
and political position, and who will buy this if pos-
sible. It is not the " cleverness " of the thousand
low electors brought in by a lower suffrage that
can possibly enable them to turn the scale of the
2,000 old electors ; nor is it the dangerous eloquence
of the men they love to hear. Nay, there are many
places, perhaps Leeds is one of them, where we have
no fear. But the poorer the electors, the more ac-
cessible they are to corrupt influences. There are
many more millionaires in Parliament now than
there were before the Reform Act. There is also
more electoral corruption ; and a seat, from first to
last is much more expensive. It used to be said
that a general election involved an expenditure of
two millions. That would be a very low figure to
put it at ; but if every working man in the kingdom
had a vote, and the preponderance of the masses
was not neutralised as it is now by the great
inequality of our electoral divisions, we venture to

predict that not two nor yet five millions would
cover the scandalous and iniquitous corruption of a
general election. But by all means let Leeds send
Lord Amberley into Parliament as the representa-
tive of the virtuous, incorrupt, honest, intelligent,
and educated working classes. The town appears
to be under an obligation to the Russell family which
it cannot discharge better than by a means which
will tend to enlarge its own rights and maintain its
own moral purity. Lord Amberley must inevitably
learn a good deal by so intimate a relation with a
class not yet spoilt by hereditary rank and pri-
vilege, by the possession of excessive capital, by
office, by parental narrow-mindedness, or even by a
want of education. He must still have something
to learn. Rasselas had the advantage of a good edu-
cation and the most jealous attention to his manners
and morals, but nevertheless he picked up a few
" wrinkles" down the Nile. We may say that the
position is vacant. Even in Mr. Baines we cannot
recognise the working man's representative. His
arguments are logical as far as they go, or rather as
they come ; his statistics are unimpeachable, his ab-
stract principles unapproachable. They are above
our capacity, or below—it matters not which as far
as we are concerned. So let Leeds send to the
House of Commons a man who desires thoroughly
to enter into the inner life of the working man, and
who can fathom the depth from which his rights are
derived far more than from any "facts and figures."
The practical question really and honestly is not one
of figures. The figures are preposterous, but the
British public is accustomed to them, and sees
nothing improper in two hundred shopkeepers re-
turning as many members as two hundred thousand,
if the result be satisfactory on the whole. The
question has to be lifted out of the dull Rtnbo of
statistics, and we cannot think of a better man to
achieve this happy deliverence than this precocious
child of Reform.

Post —Lord Amberley has delivered, at Leeds, a
remarkably judicious and well-balanced speech on
the subject of Parliamentary Reform. The son of
Earl Russell is fairly entitled to claim a special his-
torical connection with this question. Reform has
come to be regarded as the hereditary appanage of
the House of Bedford. Lord Amberley is, therefore,
a Reformer; but, inasmuch as everybody more or
less professes to desire the extension of the franchise,
which is what Reform is popularly understood to
mean, he explains that he is a "moderate" Reformer.
The caution was perhaps necessary, though the re-
marks it prefaced are legibly stamped with the Whig
trade-mark. Lord Amberley's theory is exceedingly
extensive. The franchise, he contends, belongs of
right to a free people, and, when any large body of
such a people are not-permitted to vote, some strong
and sufficient reason should be given for their ex-
clusion. So that, practically, the theoretical right
is subject to conditions. Any measure of violent
or sweeping change would place the whole power of
government in the hands of a single class, and that,
Lord Amberley confesses, is an objection to his
theory which demands serious consideration. He
cannot agree to a proposition which would virtually
establish class legislation. He recognises the diffi-
culty in the way of effecting a large increase in the
representation ; he would not allow an unintelligent
class of voters to monopolise the government of the
country ; and he does not think it would be advis-
able to admit those who have little educa-
tion, and who know nothing aild care nothing about
politics. Not regarding the influence of democra-
tical opinions with " particular alarm," he is
nevertheless sensible of the dangers attending a
democratic form of government, and would pre-
serve the subsisting safeguards against the errors
or excesses into which such a government might
fall. It is possible, he truly says, to prove by
theoretical arguments that the working classes
should be admitted to the exercise of the suffrage,
but that it is for the working classes themselves to
prove, first, that they are earnestly and truly desir-
ous to be admitted to the trust, and, secondly, that,
if admitted, they would exercise it well and wisely,
and with a due sense of the responsibility it com-
prehends. Further, he advises Reformers to com-
bine energy with patience, resolution with discretion,
and to be charitable and courteous to those who look
upon their demands with suspicion. On the other
hand, Lord Amberley seems to think that these
fundamental objections to an immediate extensive
reduction of the franchise do not apply to the mea-
sures of Reform that are now proposed. The mea-
sures referred to are, we presume, the annual mo-
tions for lowering the county and borough franchises.
But the question, as Lord Amberley has himself
properly put it, is not whether Mr. Locke King's
bill and Mr. Baines's bill are drawn up constitution-
ally, but whether they represent the opinion of the
classes they are drawn upon, and whether those
classes are in a condition to fulfil the obligations
they would, in the event of the acceptance of these
bills, have contracted. Any measures that were
truly and generally required, and which approved
themselves to the reason and judgment of the coun-
try, would, however opposed, eventually receive the
assent of the Legislature. Lord Amberley has evi-
dently read history thoughtfully, and he must there-
fore be aware that a free people can experience no
difficulty in obtaining the redress of a proven wrong.
In effect, indeed, this is the gist of his speech.
Looking at the representative system as it is, he
remarks its deficiencies and anomalies, and, as a
matter of theory, he would like to see the one
filled up and the other abated. We are all agreed
upon that point. We all want something that we
have not got, and there are thousands of public
anomalies that we would all be glad to have re-
moved. Mendicancy, for example, is an aggravating
anomaly, seeing that there is a law for the relief of
destitution ; and the absence of education, which is
one of the strongest arguments against the exten-
sion of the franchise, is another. But what are we
to do ? A great statesman told us the other day to
rest and be satisfied. That, however, is scarcely
practicable, even if it were wise. At the same time,
it is preposterous to propose to reform the Constitu-
tion of a country as if it were a card-house. The
pulling down would be a formidable operation, and
the rebuilding could only be accomplished on the
grave of the errors and excesses to which Lord
Amberley adverted, and by the strong arm of
despotic force. Moreover, in talking about respon-
sibility, it ought to be borne in mind that If the
people are indifferent, those who, as Lord Amberley
suggests they should, endeavour to put an end to
that indifference, become answerable to the nation
for the consequences of their agitation. The very
people they stir up to demand privileges which would
make them neither happier nor richer, might, when
they discovered the delusion, turn round upon those
who had led them out of the ways of peaceful and
steady progress. Still, on the whole, Lord Amber-
ley refused to dissemble the prevailing conviction
that an indiscriminate admission of the working
classes to the franchise would be a rash rnd dan-
gerous measure. He pointed out that they would
be peculiarly liable to the influence of bribery,
.and
he might have added that they would be bargained
for in masses by political clubs formed amongst
themselves. But they must be taught, he said, not
so to violate a public trust. We humbly submit
that this elementary education should precede
their enfranchisement. It would certainly be the
safest course. Lord Amberley, Ifowever, urges
that, cogent as the objection is, it does not lie
in
the mouth of those who now abuse their privileges
to press it. That may be, but really it is begging
the question. The existence of an evil is no reason
for its. enlargement. In like manner, too, it 113
very well rhetorically to prefer the declamation
of a demagogue to the methods employed by
landowners to secure the votes of their tenantry
in a. contested election, but the answer is obviously
the same. Practically, the landowners do not do
much harm. Their representatives are, for the most
part, respectable and decorous members of the
Legislature. But a House of Commons returned
under the inspiration of demagogues would be a
very different affair ; and, in fact, this it is that
makes people doubt and hesitate as they do. It is
not the working classes that are feared. • They are,
many of them, not intellectually qualified to use the
franchise for the public benefit ; but, as a body,
they are loyal and honest. It is those who would
come forward to lead them, and who would make
political capital out of theirignorance and simplicity,
that are dreaded. What is apprehended and depre-
cated is the organic change that must ultimately
take place. The government of the country would
not be endangered, but, to preserve to the working
classes the free exercise of the franchise, the liberty
of the subject would in many respects have to be
abridged. It is incontrovertible that universal suf-
frage, or any considerable reduction of the fran-
chise operatively equivalent to it, is incompatible
with freedom as we enjoy and understand it in this
country.

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