The Sun.
London, England, 1838-01-22 00:00:00

a surplus of three halfpence. If any man has a dim
to the franchise on the score of contributing to the
public expenses, surely it is the man who contributes
his all—or nearly his all.
Far be it from us to dispute the stringency of the
taxation argument. Good had it been for this country
if those who pay the taxes had had a control over the
expenditure of their own money. The labour of the
working man—aye, and of his children to the latest
generation—would not have been mortgaged, as it
now is, to pay the interest of a debt contracted in im-
pious, though happily unavailing, attempts, to crush
the liberties of our fellow-citizens and of our neigh-
bours. Neither, perhaps, should we of the present
day have been fortuned to witness than most edify-
ing of all legislative spectacles which presented to the
eves of an admiring world the British Parliament—
Lords and Commons—Peers responsible to GOD
alone, but acting as the " tribunes of the poor," and
representatives (!) of the people responsible to their
constituents—screwing up the price of bread to the
famine point, in order to put money into their own
pockets ! This was the crowning mercy which put
an appropriate finish to the squandering of the people's
money in a long and bloody war abroad by the humane
policy of starving them at home.
These are some of the things that would not have
been had representation gone hand in hand with taxa-
Still the right to the elective franchise
must not be supposed to depend solely or even chiefly
on the payment of taxes. It rests on other and
higher grounds than any that have respect to property.
Many there are—too many--who possess but little
property; but as a man's life consisteth not in the
abundance of the things that he possesseth, and as
the life and liberty of the poor man—things which
are as dear to him as to the man of rank and wealth
—arc placed at the mercy of the law-makers, it is just
and proper that he should have something to say in
their appointment. As matters now stand what
interest have the great mass of the comtnu-
nity in what is called the British Constitution ?
What one privilege do the working classes enjoy—ex-
cept the privileges of paying taxes, and shedding their
blood in defence of others—in defence cf a system
which condemns them to degradation, and unremitting
labour at t'ree half-pence a day Look at the num-
ber of inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland,
and at the number enjoying the elective franchise, and
what is the result ? Why, that hardly one in fifty has
a voice in the choice of a representative.
We shall probably be told that these arguments go
the length of Universal Suffrage. We admit it. We
hold, that to choose his representative in Parliament is
the right of every man of mature age, of competent in-
tefligonce, and of a chat acter uestained by crime. But
it' we cannot obtain this right, or do not choose to
push it forward at the present moment, are we to make
no advance towards it ? Are we to be refused a por-
tion of our rights because we do not demand the whole
at once ? Are we to be denied any the smallest ex-
tension of the Suffrage because that Suffrage ought to
be universal ? What monstrous absurdity !
Neither must it be overlooked in discussing this
point that, if an extension of the Suffrage be an or-
ganic change, it is a change to those " old ways" in
which so many of our would-be Constitutionalists de-
light to walk. Household Suffrage is not only no in-
Tovation, hut was the original privilege of all the
English and Scottish boroughs, and continued in
practice in many of the former down to the passing
of the Reform Bill. The same constitutional argu-
ment is ap2licable to the shorter duration of Parlia-
ment. 'Without entering into the disputed question,
whether Parliaments were annual or not in ancient times,
we need only go back to the " glorious" revolution in
1688, when triennial Parliaments were the law of the
land ; which they continued to be, until the people
were swindled out of their rights by an unconstitutional
stretch of power on the part of their so-called repre-
sentatives.

Lion.

The extension of the Franchise, however, and the
shortening of Parliaments, unless accompanied by the
Ballot, instead of bettering our condition, would place
us more than ever at the mercy of our enemies. To
extend the Franchise is an unquestionably good general
principle ; but does it therefore follow that it is to be
acted upon at all times and under all circumstances ?
By no means. So far from it, that it is in fact to the
indiscriminate and unguarded application of this very
principle that we may, in a great measure, attribute
the failure of the Reform Bill to realize the hopes of
the nation. The fifty-pound tenant-at-will clause was
foisted into the Bill under the pretence of extending
the Suffrage, and though it originated in a quarter
which ought to have excited suspicion, was defended
on that ground by many staunch Reformers. And
what has been the consequence ? Has it not enabled
the tyrants of the soil to overpower, by the coerced
votes of their serfs, the independent portio❑ of the
constituencies, and thus thrown the representation of
almost all the counties into the hands of the Tories ?
Extension of Suffrage, therefore, without protection to
the voter, would be any thing but a benefit. Without
this protection too, to shorten the duration of Parlia-
ments would give a manifest advantage to the Tories.
They are the more wealthy party, and it would be
their policy, by contesting every election, to drive
liberal candidates from the field, by the fear of en-
countering the enormous expense to which they would
to a certainty be put, in having to struggle, not merely
against a rich and powerful antagonist, but against the
joint-stock purse of a whole party. We want no
ghost to tell us how the Tories would act in such an
event. The SPOTTISWOODE conspiracy has written
their character and conduct in letters of indelible in-
famy. It is a never-dying witness against them and
their atrocious principles.
We had prepared a few more observations on the
Ballot, but want of space compels us to postpone
them to another opportunity.

One or two weekly papers seeking to ingratiate them-
selves with the working classes, are throwing doubts
upon, or attempting to palliate, the dreadful crimes that
have been proved to exist. As to the question whe-
ther the individuals tried were or were not participes
criminis in the murders perpetrated and contemplated,
is a subject upon which we shall not enter. No mat-
ter who those parties were. The dreadful system was
proved beyond the possibility of a doubt ; and, being
so, it would much better become the friends of the
working classes, instead of making common cause with
the guilty, to draw a line of demarcation between
the guilty and the innocent. We have ever been, and
ever shall be the advocate of the operative classes,
knowing, as we do, that they are the bees of one com-
mon hive, and that upon their labours the whole social
fabric rests ; but we should ill do our duty to them
were we to believe them capable of viewing, with feel-
ings other than those of indignation and horror, the
dreadful system of crime that has just been brought to
ii2ht. We only now recur to it, in order to bring be-
fore Parliament and the public the fact, that in the
very scene and centre of this system another body of
operatives have for years struggled with the greatest
distress and destitution—have been " steeped in
p3verty to the very lips"—have toiled, with their little
ones, sixteen hours per dav, for a scanty pittance
of oatmeal and water, measured by about four
shillings .per man per week—and yet, with all
their sufferings, with all their temptations, have
for nearly twenty years patiently borne their ac-
cumulated distresses without ever resorting, or being