The Sun.
London, England, 1853-12-29 00:00:00

rrLitt

',Y11,31

~}.

LONDON, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1853.

Some of our Liberal contemporaries appear to
us to place themselves in a false position ; they
practically argue for Government by a minority,
and they do so through fear that the majority of
the country, though Liberal, is officered, like the
Wallachian militia just now, by the enemy it would
rather fight. Boroughs are to be disfranchised,
spare Members are to be allotted afresh, of course
they must be allotted, say the Manchester Libe-
rals, and many others too, to fresh boroughs.
They are Borough Members, and the boroughs
ought not to lose the proportion they have always
enjoyed. The unavowed reason for this argu-
ment is, that the Liberal and Free-trade party
wordd be great losers by increasing the number
of County Members ; an avowed reason, and one,
e,n a certain hypothesis, of great weight, is that
the towns contain the intelligence, the education,
and the life of the country, and ought, therefore,
to have the large predominance of Members which
they at present enjoy.
Now, it is pure Conservatism, rather high
Toryism, to appeal to prescription. The very
sameprinciple which demands that the numbers
of borough members should be unaltered, might
with equal consistency have demanded that old
Sarnia" and Castlerising should return their two
members a-piece as of old, or that Evesham and
Thetford should continue to enjoy their Parlia-
mentary honours. Our Conservatives, on the
4)tlier hand, open the door to the widest of all
.r
jFtfcrins, when, they demand more members for
the counties (small towns included), on the score
of their
vatives, Population. Both Liberals and Conser-
Itowever, in thus exchanging weapons,
b ave a
good for doing ao present and practical reason
get more
votes Liberals think they should
In parliament by an appeal
to prescription—_Toll •
Tories by an aeal to the new
pp principle of representation
being squared with
both parties.
population. This is, however, really unworthy of
Nor is any stress to be laid on the fact of the
asup€Arior intelligence and education of the towns,
unless it be admitted that a Reform Bill really
should undertake to secure a representation of the
'wisdom of the country, or of all the classes into
which its population may be divided. We think
any Much attempts perfectly chimerical. Press the
for,ner, and it would resolve itself into a search
fo r the wisest individual, who, if lie could be found,
,would, on the principle of wisdom being the one thing
politically needful, be better than a whole house
of representatives. It unfortunately happens,
however, that the very condition (f our nature,
which chiefly necessitates government, deprives us
of all guarantees that the possessor of wisdom
will always use it. England can -never forget that I
tile wisest of her sons has been equally immor- 1
talised for his meanness. It would also, we think,
be a sheer impossibility to represent classes. How
are we to classify. Is property or nature of pro- :
petty, income or nature of income, trade, profes-
sion, craft, or what, to be the principle of classi-
fication ? When any new branch of commerce
arises, is it to be provided for y Of the thousand

-t