The Sun.
London, England, 1854-02-14 00:00:00

liberalising, strengthening, and purifying our representative
government. The majority of the House of Commons may
possibly, in some cases, be dissatisfied with provisions which
seem to limit popular influence in elections ; but they will
see the prudence of abstaining from any collision with their
opponents, in opposition to a comprehensive and well-
conceived amendment of our electoral system. The total or
partial disfranchisement of small boroughs is a gain which
may well reconcile those who profess zeal for reform to any
shortcomings which they may discover, or imagine, in the
general features of the scheme. The new members for larte
constituencies may not be personally superior to the nomi-
nees whom they will displace ; but, on the other hand, they
cannot fail to be at least equally competent to their duties.
Should the counties be shaken out of their ancient custom of
confining their choice to local magistrates, the House of Com-
mons, as well as the electoral system, will be greatly im-
proved by the changes which are about to take place. Three
considerable modern townS are to be allowed single represen-
tatives, and the populous district of Chelsea and Ken-
sington is to receive the full honours of a metropolitan
borough. It may be hoped that a district abounding in
wealthy and intelligent residents will not sink to the Parlia-
mentary level of Finsbury or Marylebone. The proposed
enfranchisement of the University of London will be re-
garded as a boon by the medical profession, who constitute
the great majority of the graduates. The Inns of Court
have, perhaps, less reason to complain of want of legislative
influence ; and it is not impossible that the seats allotted to
the bar may, before the conclusion of the debates, be trans-
ferred to some urgent claimant. The franchise to be con-
ferred on the educated classes, as such, wherever they may
chance to reside, is a much-needed improvement in the re-
presentative system. The influence of the best portion of '
, the community will be further increased by the extension of
the franchise to all recipients of annual salaries to the amount
of 1001. to all persons charged with the income or assessed
taxes, and to the members of certain professions. It is not
impossible that even the metropolitan boroughs may be in-
duced to require higher qualifications in their representa-
tives, when their most intelligent inhabitants are for the first
time admitted to the franchise. Small fundholders, and
prudent men who have deposited their money in saving
banks, will also tend to raise the character of the consti-
tuencies ; while the enfranchisement of 61. householders in
boroughs, subject to the condition with respect to length of
residence required for the municipal franchise, is a mea-
sure alike popular and judicious. Among the many
valuable provisions of the bill, none are more impor-
tant than those which facilitate the admission of
the better class of workmen into the electoral bodies.
We have great satisfaction in finding that the plan of enabling
a minority to obtain that share in the representation to which
it is justly entitled is to be adopted in a limited number of
constituencies. No more prudent method could have been
devised for the introduction of a principle which, although
manifestly sound, is a novelty in the Parliamentary system.
In municipal elections, the same result has been obtained by
the division of boroughs into wards; and the aristocracy of
the provincial West-end return as many councillors as the
crowded residents of the poorer parts of a town. The Minis-
terial proposal, however, to confine each elector to two votes
out of three may tend to the advantage of all parties in their
turn. There certainly appears no reason why the Parliamen-
tary discussions on this wise, moderate, and statesmanlike
scheme should not proceed, whatever may be the external
circumstances of the country. It is one which in no way
appeals to the passions and prejudices, but to the reason and
the sense of justice of Parliament and the community. If
Ministers have been able to prepare such a measure in the
midst of the harassing anxieties of a protracted diplomatic
dispute, Parliament may surely deal with it in a spirit of
calm and dispassionate deliberation, even though the country
should be engaged in the vigorous prosecution of war.

(Front the Morning Post.)
" Went to the House of Commons with C., between four
and five. Lord John's speech (I could not help feeling)
somewhat feeble and diluted, except in one or two passages."
Such are the terms which, on the 21th June, IR3I, Moore
jotted down his impressions of Lord John Russell's greatest
effort in favour of his first Reform Bill. They coincide
curiously with those produced upon ourselves by his exposi-
tion of his third scheme on the night of February the 13th,
1854. The noble lord advocated but dispiritedly the bill
which he is to usher into Parliament, and to support through
what cannot but be a stormy career. The house received it lan-
guidly enough, and nothing ensued upon its enunciation, save
a few vindications de rigueur of freemen by members whose
electoral strength lies largely among that particular class, and
a little string of questions from a few Scotch and Irish mem-
bers as to the measure which is to be meted to their respec-
tive countries. In fact, it is abundantly evident, from the
tone and manner of the house that the representative body
entirely agree with their constituencies that—be the bill good
or be it bad—the present time is a singularly inopportune one
for bringing it under discussion. As regards the character
and merits of the scheme, apart from the question of its op-
portuneness, its supporters will, we suppose, designate it as
comprehensive, and its opponents may well describe it as
multifarious and destructive. Among the latter we are dis-
posed to rank ourselves. The act of 1831 involved, if it did
not distinctly enunciate, the principle of making population
the basis of representation buip to a limited extent only, and
that, not at the moment apparently, a very dangerous one.
There were many places whose industry had passed away,
whose population had dwindled, and whose members conse-
quently represented only a shadow or a tradition. There were
other places which, from hamlets and fishing villages, had
grown into large towns and wealthy cities, busy with com-
merce and replete with active and productive capital.
It was consistent only with common sense that, suppos-
ing there to be an invincible constitutional objection to any
enlargement of the House of Commons, representation should
be transferred from the shadow to the substance ; and, had
the operation been conducted on distinct and constitutional
principles, there would have been no ultimate hazardous pro-
gress involved by the undertaking. Unfortunately, Lord.
John, for convenience probably in the first instance, adopted
population as the measure of claim to representative privileges;
and the admission, however modified, of this principle has
compelled the author of the Reform Bill of 1831, as we al-
ways predicted it would, to adopt, now in 1854, that theory
for which the Radical party have so long and so steadily
struggled—the theory, namely, of proportional representation,
taking mere population as its basis. This is, indeed, the main
feature of Lord John's scheme. The accordance of repre-
sentation to the Inns of Courts we cannot approve of. As
well, it seems to us, might electoral rights be given to the
Shipowners' Association, to the Railway Companies' Clearing-
House, or to the Clergy Mutual Assurance Company. As for
the advantage of having more lawyers in the house, it will
give us no great pain, and will inflict on the nation no great
loss, to forego it. The extensions of the franchise which the
noble lord proposes we equally object to, as unfitting and un-
called for. That for which Lord John claims the credit of
being Conservative, is a mere sham, and can never have any
sensible influence. The number of? graduates of our Univer-
sities, of Government and of commercial clerks, who are
excluded by the existing form of franchise, we take to be
very insignificant, and even if they numbered three times
what we conceive them to do, would be nothing in the scale
against the mass who will rush in by the opening practi-
cated by the lowering of the county franchise to 10/., and
of the borough to a muncipal 61. rating. Neither do we see
any security for Conservative principles or Conservative ten-
dencies in the 501. savings bank provision, upon which Lord
John appeared to lay considerable stress. Judging from the
vast sums of money which they have expended, there was
probably scarcely one of the men lately out on strike who
could not have qualified under it; and supposing an election
to have occurred in October last, with Lord John's bill in
full operation, what class of men does he think they would
have returned to the House of Commons—a Lord John
Russell, or a Mr. Cowell—a Mr. Spencer Walpole, or a Mr.
Newton—a statesman and an upright gentleman, or a plat-
form spouter and an ignorant socialist. There is one more
proposed alteration in our existing system of which we have
yet to speak—the most uncalled-for and the most unjusti-
fiable. We mean, that by which it is intended to exempt, in
future, members of Parliament, accepting office under the
Crown, from submitting their new position to the approval
of their constituents. No one has advocated more strongly
than ourselves the proper independence of representatives, or
opposed more constantly everything tending to the establish-
ment of a system of delegation ; but this long-existing con-
stitutional usage involves no such thing, and only gives to
the constituency that proper control which they ought to
have over their representative, and assures them against the
possibility, without their own connivance, of their influence
being converted, by their member, into a means of personal
advancement for himself. Let Lord John Russell consider
well before he lays upon the table of the house, in the shape
of a bill, the scheme of which he, last night, gave a pro-
gramme, He may depend upon it, Mr. Drummond is right
_ _

—the measure contains that which must be, sooner or later,
destructive, and exhibits no reason in the world for stopping
where it professes to conclude.

(From the Dailg News. )

The great feature, and the very great merit, of Lord John
Russell's new Reform Bill is, that it proposes a large exten-
sion of the suffrage. The reduction of the county franchise
to 101., and of the borough franchise to 61., are bold, sound,
and excellent propositions. In places like the City of Lon-
don, St. Pancras, Marylebone, Islington, Southwark, Lam-
beth, Izensington, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, and
many others, a 61. franchise must be practically equivalent to
household suffrage, and certainly a 10/. franchise in counties
must " within the pale of the constitution" all those who
are above the grade of mere agricultural labour. All this is
excellent, and thoroughly worthy of support, and if the
scheme ended here, nothing better could have been expected.
But the bill goes much further. Its great and good features
are damaged by an unhappy crotchet—that of seeking " to
represent the minority." This is the drawback ; and it will
be the duty of reformers to decide whether or not a large ex-
tension of the franchise shall or shall not be taken as a suffi-
ciently great and sound instalment of reform—a sufficiently
bold step in the right direction—to cover, like charity, a mul-
titude of minor sins. At present we have about a mil-
lion of voters, and we may now consider that we are offered a
scheme which will certainly, if carried out, add some hundreds
of thousands to their number. Indeed it seems probable that
the effect of the GI. franchise in towns, and the 101. franchise
in counties, may about double the number of persons entitled to
be placed on the electoral rolls as compared with those now ac-
tually registered. With this extension we are asked to combine
certain crotchets more or less acceptable to certain cliques.
What shall we do ? Shall we take the bill or reject it ? To
take it would in all human probability strengthen the Liberals
in the House of Commons sufficiently to enable them at an
early future again to revise our modes of election. To reject
it would still leave us with the undiminished force of a just
cry for Reform. All the sham Reformers—all those who have
" bought " their seats in the House of Commons, and who
want of course to keep them as long as possible, will denounce
the Bill as a bad one. They will, under cover of a demand
for a better measure, do all in their power to inflict a mortal
wound on the Government Bill for the simple reason that to
pass lit would send them again before their constituents for
re-election. The array of the different sets of interested M.Ps.
against the scheme, joined with the open hostility of those
foes of the people, the Tories, may secure a very formidable
phalanx in opposition to the New Reform. But the pub-
lic, for their own sakes, must not be hoodwinked.
Theirs is the task to weigh the promise against the disap-
pointments—the good against the evil—the extension against
the crotchets, and to decide whether they will or will
not require their representatives to vote for the measure.
After all that may be said against the measure, the real ques-
tion is, Will it, or will it not, be found, after careful criti-
cism of the various provisions, that the good outweighs the
evil ? That is the point at issue. Considering the quality
of the house to which it is presented, is it as liberal a scheme

as could be brought forward with any chance of success ?
Against the proposal that each elector in constituencies re-
turning throe members shall only vote for two, we have