The Sun.
London, England, 1854-04-18 00:00:00

(From the Times.)
form Bill has been definitively with-
. Review produces a laboured and.
Lust the measure. This is quite'm
.slings of the writer, who seems in•
capable of forgiving an old grudge, and who, taking his
stand on the now forgotten principles which prevailed
before the first Reform Bill, denounces with equal fury
the measure which has just disappeared and that of 1832 s
This writer seems to be a man of partialities and anti-
pathies, actuated by,something more than political ani-
mosity against Lord John Russell, and feeling a strong,
and we should think a perfect solitary admiration, for a
speech of Mr. Croker delivered in 1832, long consigned
to oblivion, together with much similar Parliamentary
rubbish. The point of view from which this mild and
judicious critic starts is, that in the first Reform Bill
the nation swallowed a slow poison, and that all that
remains for philosophers like himself is to watch her hot
agonies and catch her dying words. It was, we sup-
pose, this foregone conclusion which prevented the writer
from making himself acquainted with the details of
the bill he sat down to criticise ; for to one who con-
siders the nation as already ruined, the mere subse-
quent stages by which the ruin is consummated-must
appear trivial and insignificant. The writer has apPa-
reutly jumbled up in a brain none of the clearest the
propositions of individual writers with the recommen-
dations of the Government, and has thus obtained th e
inestimable advantage of being able to revile them bit-
terly on the adoption of propositions which they have
rejected. He is very eloquent, for instance, on the ab-
surdity of giving three members to each of the Univer-
sities, although no such proposition is to be found in the
bill. A less slashing critic would have perused the
measure he denounced, but this would have implied a'
degree of candour to which the Quarterly critic does
not even pretend to establish a claim. The greed pro-
position is, that this measure is framed with the express
purpose of giving the electoral superiority to mere num-
bers ; in fact, to physical force. This, we are told, is
the whole bill ; the rest is mere verbiage, useful for
the purpose of furnishing matter for abuse, but of little
consequence in any other point of view. At first
sight there seemed to be difficulties in the way of
this theory. The very moderate spirit in which the
enfranchising and disfranchising clauses are framed,
the great and striking inequalities which are still left,
and purposely left, in the population of electoral
districts, the greater variety which is introduced into the
electoral franchise, the attempt to establish the county
franchise on a footing more permanent. than its present
one, but one still very far removed from universal suf-
frage, the giving members to the London University and
the Inns of Court, and, most of all, tits provision for
the representation of minorities in large county districts
and considerable boroughs—all seem difficulties in the
way of this conclusion. But the writer in the Quarterly
has a short way with such puny obstacles, and this is the
manner in which he goes to work the first place,
he assumes his proposition to be true, and, having done
so, employs ten pages in commenting on the effects of
universal suffrage in France and the United States, and
half as much more in showing that universal suffrage is
not the true principle of the English constitution; Hav-
ing waded through this dreary disquisition, appterently
introduced fOr no other purpose than that of familiariz-
ing the mind of the reader with the association be tween
the two ideas of universal suffrage and the late l'sTinis-
terial Reform Bill, we trust that we are approaching
the argument by which the proposition is to be estab-
lished. But we are mistaken. InStead of the proof
we require as to the measure of to-day, we are com-
pelled to assist at the disinterment of the discussions 121
the House of Commons' committee of 1831, —to hear
how Appleby fell unwept without a crime, how Maltorr
and Horsham survived, how Midhurst was saved, and
Morpeth rescued. These discussions seem but poor con-
firmations of the assertion that the first Reform Bill

looked merely to numbers, since the very ground of com-
plaint is that in these instances numbers were not con-
sidered, .and those very inequalities were perpetuated
upon which the writer thinks the British constitution
rests. The man who thinks that nomination boroughs
place in the hands of their patrons a "great and useful
power" ought not to quarrel with Malton for being under
the influence of Lord Fitzwilliam, or Morpeth under
that of the Earl of Carlisle ; and the man who pretends
to understand the new Reform Bill ought to have
known that neither Horsham, nor any other place
of a similar size, was intended to be restored by
that act to its full representation. Still, we have
not received the demonstration that the new Reform

Bill was based on physical force ; and, as this is all the
argument vouchsafed on the subject, we must leave the
pr position to commend itself by its own intrinsic truth
0/ probability. We next arrive at the representation of
counties, and we are told that the minority clause, un-
der a specious appearance of fairness, conceals a deep-
laid scheme for proMoting Whig influence. Nothing
can be more shallow or more short-sighted than the
manner in which this subject is treated. It is assumed
that the 36 members who an: to 'occupy the third seat for
as many county districts would all be Whigs, that the
eight members given to eight boroughs containing above
100,000 inhabitants each would all be Tories, and con-
sequently it appears by an easy process' of subtraction
that this great change \vas Introduced for no other pur-
pose than to give the Whigs twenty-eight more seats.
In order to make this statement even plausible, it was
necessary to keep out of sight the great reduction
of the county franchise proposed by the bill, and its
probable effect upon the representation. In many coun-
ties the introduction of large towns into the franchise
will take the representation out of the hands in which it
is now held, and the Conservatives, net the Liberals,
will get the advantage of the third seat. But it was
necessary to suppress this fact, and therefore we suppose
it is that in an essay professing thoroughly to examine
the principles of the late Reform Bill all mention of its
most important provision—the reduction of the county
franchise—is studiously omitted. But why should the
writer in the Quarterly trouble himself with striking the
balance between the majorities and minorities, since he
has as little in common with the one as with the other ?
Of the Liberals he has nothing but evil tcesay, and of the
Conservatives he can say no good. The one are bespat-
tered by his abuse, the other are not disgraced by his com-
mendation; The Conservatives have accepted the Reform
Bill of 1832, and that puts them out of the pale of the
constitution. We should have thought that a writer so
apprehensive of the influence of numbers, and who saw
the inequalities and corruptions in which he delights
gradually slipping from him year by year, would have
at least rejoiced in the proposition to respect the rights
of minorities, and to substitute a principle sound and
honest in theory, and easy in practice, for anomalies
against which the common sense and conscience of man-
kind are becoming year by year more and more rebel-
lious. The writer asks, in what imaginable state of so-
ciety you can preserve the influence both of majorities
and minorities ? He does not seem to see that the whole
machinery of nomination boroughs of which he is en-
amoured was a clumsy and discreditable attempt to do
this very thing which he declares to be impossible.
That even Gatton and Old Sarum were not utterly use-
less arose from the fact that they might afford a refuge
for men whom popular constituencies would not elect—
in other words; for the representatives of minorities.
How perverse must that view of politics be which can
repudiate this principle in its honest and natural shape,
and cling to it with desperate tenacity when associated
with practices utterly inimical to the theory and exer-
cise of popular election ! We commend the article in
the Quarterly to the perusal of our readers, on the
ground of its intrinsic demerits. It is fitting that the
present generation should know what were the feelings,
• what the principles, what the power of reason, what the
) fairness of statement possessed by the so-called Tory
• statesmen of the last generation, that they may fully
I understand from what the first Reform Bill has delivered
I us in part, and the second would have emancipated us.
i altogether.

MANNING THE NAVY.