The Sun.
London, England, 1853-11-22 00:00:00

TEE NEW PARLIAMENTARY REFORM

BILL.

(From the Times of Wednesday.)

The time has arrived at which it is necessary for all
those who, in however humble a degree, aspire to influ-
ence public opinion, and to take a part in forming those
ideas and deducing those principles out of which the his-
tory of their age is framed, seriously to address them-
selves to the question of Parliamentary Reform. It may
come upon us at a time not wholly opportune for its dis-
costdon. Angry passions are abroad. The breach be-
tween masters and men exposes only too plainly the im-
perfect coherence of the fabric of society in some of the
wealthiest and most advanced districts of the country.
Moreover, the existence of war in the east of Europe not
only threatens to draw us, however unwilling, into the
quarrel, but to let loose once snore that raging torrent of
revolutionary passion in the noise of which the voice of
truth and soberness is sure to be lost. On the other hand,
the nation appears to approach the question with a calm,
sedate, and cautious spirit, very different from the vehe-
mence and bitterness of 1831. Not insensible to the bene-
fits we have enjoyed during the 20 years of our reformed
Legislature, nor eager to press into the period of a single
life a second constitutional revolution, we have now no
persons labouring under exasperating and intolerable poli-
tical grievances. The system of Protection, the fruitful
mother of endless heartburnings and aspirations after
change, is no more ; its very ruins have perished ; and we
believe the matter which excites most discontent at the
present moment will be found to be, not the working of
Parliament, but the excesses, corruptions, and inequalities
incident to its constitution. In 1832 we sought a reform
of Parliament, because we wished for good measures,
which we despaired of obtaining from an assembly consti-
tuted as it then was. In 1853 we desire reform, not be-
cause we have much reason to repine at the manner in
which Parliament discharges its duties, but because we
-cannot reconcile its constitution entirely to our ideas of
justice, equality, or purity. The demand of a nation dis-
gusted with the course of its past government, and, be-
cause anxious for great and beneficial changes, therefore
anxious for a new instrument of popular will by which
those changes might be wrought out, is something very
different from the critical spirit in which we review insti-
tutions with the results of which we have much reason to
be satisfied, but the machinery of which we are anxious to
review and repair. The Reform Bill is a measure which
the public of this country will try and judge for itself.
However willing to be thought for, talked for, and acted
for on ordinary occasions, every man will on this subject
form and pronounce an independent opinion. Great names
and great authorities will weigh for little i u the discussion.
It is, perhaps, in some respects unfortunate that, among
the statesmen who are to introduce the Reform Bill of
1854, there are some who played no inconsiderable part in
the stormy annals of 1831 and 1832. It is to be appre-
hended that those who look back upon that memorable
event as the great exploit of their lives and the turning
point of their political career may be too apt to consider
the present time merely with reference to the past, and to
see in the new Reform Bill nothing but a complement or
sequel of the old, to be carried out in the same spirit, and
merely by the further application of the same principles.
However plausible such a theory, nothing could be less in
accordance with the times in which we live. If principles
will not be taken on the trust of great names, neither will
they be implicitly adopted on the faith of great recollec-
tions. In some respects, we doubt not, the new Reform
Bill must resemble the old, but in others it ought to have
a spirit and character of its own. We are prepared, of
course, for a schedule A and a schedule B. In a country
where wealth so rapidly changes its haunts, and draws
after it so vast a stream of popuration, every periodical re-
vision must contain this element of the old Reform Bill ;
but it would be extremely unsafe to conclude that the
other leading principles of that bill must necessarily be
found in the new one. The old Reform Bill subdivided
the counties, and, in some instances, preserved the vitality
of boroughs by extending their limits, —it does not follow
that a new Reform Bill will do wisely in favouring the
notion of representation for hundreds or the additional
dissection of counties. The old Reform Bill recognised a
marked and very striking distinction between the franchise
in counties and in boroughs,—it by no means follows that
the new Reform Bill ought to preserve or perpetuate that
distinction. The old Reform Bill materially reduced the
franchise of the borough constituencies,—it does not follow
that the new Reform Bill ought to push that reduction
any further. We are not called upon to make a zew con-
stitution, but to remove inequalities, anomalies, and cor-
ruptions in the old ; and to transport the spirit of one time
into another will neither satisfy the wants of the occasion
nor redound to the credit of its proposers.
The public taste is not disposed to be exacting as to the
quantity of the changes proposed, but their quality will
be subjected to a severe and unsparing criticism. Those
who come forward to alter a system which has avowedly
worked well, and never better than in the session of this pre-
sent year, must be prepared with arguments of very diffe-
rent weight and solidity from those which satisfied the popu-
lar mind in the heated and angry struggle between aristo-
cracy and democracy. Vague generalities, appeals to passion
and prejudice, will weigh ittle now, while the public mind
is set rather on completing what we have than on sweep-
ing it away and snaking room for something which we have
not. The first thing which will undoubtedly be demanded
from our Cabinet is that its propositions should be wade
with the most stainless purity and the most rigorous im-
partiality. Wherever the dividing line is to be drawn, it
will not be tolerated that it should just preserve from ex-
tinction boroughs under the control of members of the
present Government, their friends or connections. The
preservation of certain boroughs of very questionable re-
nown was excused in the last Reform Bill, or passed almost
unnoticed amid the glare and tumult of a great and sweep-
ing change. That will not be so now. With our passions
cooled and our reason undisturbed by the heat of conflict
and the fear of defeat, we shall be able to look into these
things much more narrowly than on former occasions.
Besides, the railway system has at any rate done this —that
England is far better known to the English than it was
five-and-twenty years ago, and that it is infinitely easier
now than it was then to ascertain with accuracy the state
of small and remote communities. We are told that party
is virtually extinct in England, and we have a right to ex-
pect the first fruits of this extinction in a, spirit of justice
and impartiality, in which there shall be nothing either of
vengeance or of favouritism. We are not going to alter
our institutions in order to give one party of the aristoc-
racy of the land a predominance over the other, but in
order to bring our Parliament still nearer to a fair and
faithful representation of the nation. It might seem su-
perfluout to allude to this danger if we did not remember
that the Ministry which held office in the early part of
1852 introduced into Parliament a bill which was emi-
nently calculated to serve the interests of party, and open
to the very gravest accusations on the ground of unfairness
and inequality. Another requisite of our new Reform Bill
is completeness. What it does it should do thoroughly,
on clear and sharply defined principles, carried out to their
logical result. The country does not desire much ;it is
not, upon the whole, discontented with the institution as
it stands, and will therefore demand that those who seek
to alter it should make their changes in a workmanlike and
consistent manner, not sacrificing utility to symmetry,
nor, on the other hand, multiplying anomalies for the sake
of a causeless variety, or to gratify an insatiable passion
for compromise. Uniformity should be the rule, and,
where differences are left, those who leave them should be
prepared with a clear principle on which to defend them.

(From the Times of Friday. )
We think we have sufficiently shown that the proper
remedy for those boroughs which have been pointed out
as no longer fit depositories for the representative
principle is the application to them of schedule A and B,
with a decided preference for the former. The next ques-
tion which naturally arises is—Does reason or expediency,
the voice of the public, or the emergency of the time, de-
mand any alteration in the amount of the franchise which
returns the members of our considerable towns ? The sum
of ten pounds is an arbitrary amount, fixed upon on no
very intelligible principle, but it has been fixed and been
in operation for one-and-twenty years, and the burden of
proof lies heavily on those who would seek to alter it. We
are not called upon to show that ten pounds is the best
possible qualification ; it is for those who advocate a five
pound, or any lower franchise, to show that theirs is better
In arguing this question, we lay ' aside all those reasonings
which are based on the theory of universal suffrage. We
cannot imagine that in this practical age and countrye. any
weight will be attached to arguments drawn from '`The
Rights of Man," and claims to make representation actually
coextensive with taxation. We leave such logic to Chart-
ist orators and juvenile debating societies ; the question
for Parliament and the nation is—Will a five-pound fran-
chise Provide us with
give us a better constituency—one more calculated
to produce good government, and. to
honest and enlightened legislators, than the present ten-
pound voters ? We put the question advisedly in this
form, because in no other is it worth the attention of a
practical and prudent people. It has been said that we
ought to lower the franchise, in order to conciliate the
feelings of the lower classes. As we state the question,
such a reason would be wholly irrelevant. We have to
determine not whether giving the franchise to the five-
pound householder will be agreeable to his feelings, but
whether he will snake a good use of it ; not what tends to
his pleasure, but to the general good of the nation. Many
things would be very agreeable to the lower classes, and
extremely inexpedient for the country. It would be very
agreeable to the Preston operatives to pass a law fixing a
minimum rate of wages, and compelling the millowners to
keep their establishments open at all times and under all
circumstances. It would be very agreeable to the five-
pound householders of Finsbury and Marylebone to com-
mence an attack upon Austria, on behalf of Hungarian
nationality ; and any one who gives himself the trouble to
read the newspapers which circulate among the poorer
classes will see many other things which they earnestly
desire, but which the good of the nation forbids us to con-
cede. There is nothing threatening in the attitude of
the five-pound householders, and they assuredly have
no reason to complain that their interests have
been disregarded in recent legislation. For once,
then, we can afford to act according to the dictates of
reason, and to lay aside fear masked under the name of
" conciliation," and the desire for low popularity which
dignifies itself under the name of liberal and comprehen-
erre policy.
Will the five-pound householders make a better or so
good a use of their franchise as the present ten-pound
v..oters? The question is most important, because this re-
unction of the franchise is not so much the addition of a
new class as the swamping of an old, and the creation, in
its stead .
, 0 a virtually new constituency. To lower 'the
"'ullo to five pounds is to snake the proprietors of the
vet', smallest house in mtryta tea s towns the governing class in this
it, and of 'whose°
Inposawner from the hands.t which now possess
perience, and to _ er of using we have now some ex-
at whose future
this favoured class don
taZ it in hands untried and unknown,
uct we can only guess. What has
political
it should suddenly be elevated
to the summit of
towns
power ; and what have all the
other residents in '
virtually disfranchised
for done that they should thus be
benefit of a class of citizens
never yet called to the cares oeflgozrenment during the long
annals of this ancient country
together, and virtually disfran-
chised, because the class
aselndmhiatsteodulywitoll
greatly outnumber all othersprp°uT t!'ed say
proposition, rightly
be unanimous to be supreme. The
whole
considered, is not to transfer to the five-
a share of political power, but to give him the
,fouuntdtao
not to widen the present basis of our institutions, eb
of
it;
subvert it, in order to place them on a totally new
Con. This is not reform, but revolution, not the expound:
jag and developing our institutions, but the sweeping them
away, in order to make room for an untried and reckless
it, especially when there
experiment. We have no objection to conciliation, but
this is too dear a price to pay. for
seems to be no illwill to conciliate.
Whatever faults have been found with our present
ten-pound voters, we have never heard it alleged that they
were from too unsympathising
-
too far removed demo-
too enlightened, too aristocratic,
with popular prejudices, or
going further in the
eratic principles and influences. If this
forbe so, what neces-
sity, what excuse can there be,
same direction? It is argued by some sanguine geogra-
phers that, though the Polar Circle is beset with ice and
frost, around the Pole itself there is a milder temperature