The Sun.
London, England, 1849-06-06 00:00:00

factoring towns. Well might the Honourable Member
exclaim that " no other legislative assembly but an
English one would suffer such an absurdity to exist."
Take the subsequent calculation, where the Honour-
able Member stated—

" He found 28 English boroughs returned two Mem-
bers each, with only 500 registered electors each.
Fifteen other boroughs returned only two Members, and
had each more than 5,000 registered electors. Thus,
while London had four Members with 20,000 electors,
Carlisle and Reigate, with only 606 electors, also re-
turned four Members. It was impossible to make the
absurdity more glaring; yet the country gentlemen of
England, and those connected with the aristocracy, sat
themselves quietly down under the mistaken notion that
nobody saw the inequality."
If statements such as these do not excite the atten-
tion of Members, it can only be because they are
determined to sanction " no further reforms."

Democracy is the very atmosphere breathed by
Frenchmen, and although Monsieur GUJZOT may
mutter a sardonic hint to the contrary, it is an atmo-
sphere essential to the vitality of the political insti
tutions of his countrymen. In proof of this we have
only to take the succession of events in France since
February. When, on Saturday the 26th of February,
1848, the Provisional Government declared Royalty
abolished and Republicanism proclaimed, it was said
that the whole affair was a coup cretat—that France
did not want any change of the kind, that the whole
was the result of a conspiracy, the contrivance of a
gang of adventurers, not the solemn and unanimous
wish of a population. Well, days passed over, weeks
passed over, months passed over, and what has been
the consequence ? Has Royalty been restored ? Has
Republicanism been repudiated ? Far from it. Every
additional act has been a confirmation of that initia-
tive act of the Provisional Government. And at the
very time when plots have been developing them-
selves both within France and beyond her frontiers,
both among the ultra-Socialists and the ultra-
Royalists, among the advocates of anarchy and of
reaction, the people have clung through all
changes, through all catastrophes, through all
vicissitudes to the democratic principles pro-
claimed by the men of February. Those democratic
principles survived the daring attack of 200,000
workmen on the 17th of March ; they called forth in
their defence, spontaneously, like the work of magic,
200,000 members of the National Guard and of the
Guard Mobile, on the 16th of April ; they survived
the desperate assaults of the pretended friends of
Poland on the 15th of May; they passed trium-
phantly through the tremendous ordeal of the three
sanguinary days of June. On the 4th
of May, 1848, they were consolidated by
the inauguration of the National Assembly, and
on the 28th of May, 1849, by that of the Le-
gislative Assembly. Even when the representative
of the greatest of all the sovereigns who had ever
wielded the sceptre of France, the representative of
the imperial dynasty, received the suffrages of the
electors, he was welcomed not as the descendant of a
crowned head, but as the representative of the Sol-
dier of Democracy, he was elevated not to the
throne, but to the chair of Presidency, the Presidency
of the French Republic. Beyond all which, it must
be borne in recollection that the Republic received
the truest expression of approval ever accorded since
the commencement of the labours of civilization to any
one form ofgovernment—it was accepted, and the accep-
tance was reiterated again and again under the cover
of the ballot and through universal suffrage! Show us
any monarchy consecrated by universal suffrage ! Show
us any political institutions the truth of the votes in
favour of which has been £0 universally proved by
the employment of the urn of election !