The Sun.
London, England, 1853-11-19 00:00:00

labourers are, in fact, as much antagonistic as those
of all other buyers and sellers. At the very time
when weavers were in opposition to their masters,
and would vote for a COWELL or a NEWTON, other
classes of workmen might be on the best possible
terms with theirs, ready to chair one of them as
well as to elect him.

Again it should be remembered that the work-
ing classes are both necessitated and disposed to
depend on the higher classes for leaders. It is
notorious that if they can find a man of their own
views amongst the wealthier classes, he is the man
of their choice. It may be partly jealousy, but
it is a fact that they rarely indeed elevate any one
of their own class to superiority over them.
They prefer the leadership of a man of property and
education, whose head and heart they can respect ;
they know that they have not themselves the in-
formation or the means to sustain with credit to
themselves the position of a Representative, and
they naturally lean upon those whom PROVIDENCE
has favoured with both. In quiet times this is
always the case. Then, again, all danger of work-
ing men choosing Members from their own body
is self-corrective ; if they sent to Parliament some
of the few whose native ability has secured the
respect of the community outside of it, this would
be a confessed gain. It is allowed that, if possi-
ble, some men of capacity from the working class
would have their use in St. STEPHEN'S. If, on
the other hand, they chose mere demagogues, whe-
ther from their own class or from those above them,
their emptiness and self-conceit would be no where
better exposed than in an assembly like the House
of Commons. Working men, like other men,
wish not to be ashamed of those who act for them,
and in the long run at least they would be as cer-
tain as others to select the ablest men. They
would not repeat mistakes if they made them at
first.

We may fairly add to all this, the general mo-
deration of Englishmen and Scotchmen, illiterate
as well as educated. Allowing for inflammatory
individuals, and moments of excitement,
common to all classes, as Exeter-hall not
less than Copenhagen-fields and the Birming-
ham Bull-ring can testify, the lower
classes of this country participate in that love of
fairness and reluctance to press hard upon the
opposite party, which we may justly boast as
national characteristics. English peasants would
no more use the suffrage like French ouvriers
than English Representatives would enact the part
of French Deputies. As a people, we shrink
from violent overpowering of our political oppo-
nents. American workmen are a much safer
mirror for showing us the workings of political
liberty amongst the operative classes; and it can-
not be denied that, in the United States, it is one
great bond of attachment between the citizen and
this country. The facts we have mentioned must,
we think, go far to show that, in this country,
the danger of a very extended suffrage cannot be
great; indeed, we incline to think it almost
imaginary. It would certainly have the advan-
tage of contenting the masses politically; it would
be following nature and PROVIDENCE rather than
dictating to them—the great error of Constitution-
makers as well as Protectionists ; and it would be
carrying out into legislation the Free-trade prin-
ciples which have proved so successful in com-
merce. Our faith leans to unrestricted competi-
tion in one department as well as in the other.