The Sun.
London, England, 1851-05-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS•

FROM TILE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS nay.
TIMES.— the House of Commteas the not enter lust
night upon the reconstruction of this State under the
auspices of Mr. Joseph Hume. It did not sit at all. It
was not because the great race between Voltigeur and
the Flying Dutchman was to be run at York. It was
not for the Great Enhibition. First in the list of Par-
liamentary notices stood a comprehensive motion, in-
cluding under one bracket household suffrage, vote by
ballot, triennial Parliaments, and uniform constituencies.
The result was—" No House." No more than twenty-
one bad courage to face a danger which no longer in-
spires terror by its novelty. The remaining six hun-
dred and odd Members of the House thought that their
time might be better employed than in listening to inter-
minable essays on the manifest evils of the existing Par-
liamentary system, and the not so manifest certainty
that we shall better ourselves by a desperate leap into a
new model constitution. They also thought that it was
scarcely necessary to take the freshness off a subject
which is to come on in good earnest next year. By this
day twelvemonth we shall be deep in the mire of rotten
boroughs, wading through rivers of scandal, and
cutting our way through a forest of amendments upon
every clause in the (Sill then before the House. The
Reform Bill of 1852 will bo the Titles Assumption
Bill of 1851 ; a necessary evil, a painful duty, and
a crisis that must be got over. There are times when it
is necessary to take a leap in the dark, and to do what
would be scandalous imprudence if it could be avoided.
That is a true apology for the measure which a Liberal
Ministry feels to be forced on itself by the recent con-
duct of Rome; and it is the true apology for so serious
a step as doctoring the constitution of Parliament, am-
putating some of its limbs, and sticking on others. We
must do it, just as it may happen one of these days that
we may have to submit to amputation in our own bodies.
the holiday taken last night by the House proves some-
thing more than a reluctance to anticipate a disagreeable
question. It proves also that the House of Commons
nes very little taste for a Parliament which would bear
about the same relation to the present as one of the
11) iog machines in the gallery of the Exhibition does to
the more useful though less pretentious engines that
are spinning and weaving below. There are
plenty of people in this country who would be
glad to take their seat in a car, and by pulling a
taw strines, or flapping their arms, to find them-
selves soaring over the Thames or the Straits of Dover.
Thsre is only one thing they require. They must first
see somebody else (Ling it. Let one man fly from
Hyde-park to Woolwicb, and millions will hurry to foie
low his example. Let us once see any old-established
country like ours throwing away its old constitution, and
adopting a spick and span new one with success, or even
without any serious mishaps, and the British people
may perhaps follow the example. Hitherto there is no
such encouraging example. The United States have
been driven per force to a constitution which, atter all,
is not a mere democracy, and is very different from
anything our reformers have ever proposed for this
country. France, after trying all sorts of experiments
for sixty years, has slid to look about tor a constitution.
It is far eesier to cut down a tree than to supply its
place. It is impossible to make an old thing. No
adoption was ever a perfect substitute for a natural
relation. A man cannot choose a new father, change
nis brother, or select his children. So a political
constitution is a thing that exists, and cannot be
originated. We may watch its growth and
,correct it;
we cannot throw it overboard and get a new one that will
answer as well. Notwithstanding the • pains taken to
guard household suffrage by auxiliary institutions, the
reap. ctive authors of the six points, the five points, and
the four points, have all made one fatal omission. Every
elector Ishould be enabled to do his duty as a citizen
without cost to himself. Start not, gentle patriot, we
don't mean bribery. We only spy that, inasmuch as
householders will not register, and when they are regis-
tered will not vote, it is desirable that they be induced
to do so. At present, out of the many hundred thou-
sand persons qualified to vote, probably not more than a
tenth actually avail themselves of the privilege at any
one general election. Thus only a fragment of the State
is in action at the most important crisis of public affairs,
and the Legislature is the delegation of a tithe of the
constituency—itself not much more than a tithe of the
population. We suggest, then, that in considera-
tion of the trouble of registration, perhaps more ,
than once since the previous election, and in
consideration of the one day, if not more, lost in
the excitement, the mental struggle, the attendances at
public meetings, and other preliminaries of an election,
and the final day lost in actually tendering the vote,
every elector shall be paid 10s. each time he exercises
his suffrage. Let others boast of having discovered a
planet or added a star to the firmament; we have added
a seventh point to the charter, On a liberal allowance
of six million male, adult, resident, unconvicted, rate-
paying householders, 10s. a head for each triennial
election will only be 1,000,0001. a year, spent in realizing
that grand idea a universal act of household suffrage.
Of course, there would be always a contest, and every
elector would always be allowed an opportunity of ex-
pressing his opinions. What objection caa there be to
such a provision? Are not the members of the Legis-
lature paid in France, and in the United States?
Are not all persons paid for the discharge of high po-
litical responsibilities? durons,, are paid ; then why
not voters, who are but the great jury and
inquest of the State? At all events, we entertain
very little doubt that without this simple little pro-
viso, costing us rather more year by year than our
wars with the Kefirs, or our fortresses in the
Mediterranean, all the six points of the Charter, whe•
Cher Joseah Hume's or Feargus O'Connor's, will be
found wholly abortive. " Money," they say, " makes
the ware go," and a little of that invaluable anti-attri-
tion will be wanted to grease the wheels of the People's
Charter. We beg to submit this idea fur consideration
at the next general meeting of the Chartist Convention.
Should it gain the approval of that judicious and re-
apec'ahle body, we expect to see Mr. J. Hume adding it
to his motion next year, when he repeats it as an amend-
ment to the Ministerial Bill for Parliamentary Reform.
The old practice was to make political power coincident
with social consideration. As we take a strong man fur
an office that requires strength, and as we choose a
leading man for a leading ntiation, so the usage was to
take the ranks arid positions that were actually po-
tential and give them Political signification. Hence
freeholders, burgesses, and Other privileged persons
wei e made the depositaries of political power. When a
country was conquered its great men and its wealthy
men were taken as hostages, for the good behaviour of
the rest; and when it was governed in a peaceful
manner those same great and wealthy men were made
hostages in another sense, viz., as responsible for the
go d government of the rest. The continual necessity
that has arisen for enlarging the circle of privilege, and
adding more and more to, the original constituency, is
owing to the fact that the old theory had ceased to be
fulfilled, and there was actually more power and wealth
out of the constituency than iu it. The Reform Bill of
1832 only fulfilled the wcok of the Plantagenets. Had
a member of any Parliament before the ;Georges risen
from his grave and seen the late unreformed House of
Commons, he would ;have been astonished to hear of
very large and powerful cities that were denied a re-
presentative in that House, and of many leading people
in Parliamentary boroughs who had no votes. Thus
the Reform Act fulfilled the intention of Parliament, and
did not destroy it. The measures propounded by Mr. J.
Hume, and people of his way of thinking, begin with
destruction. Everything is to be
opourntlmedentwn,
operations. tc lear
platform made, before, they can
In the interval, of course, wo are to be houseless, and, if
any hitch should matte, houseless, inevitably, we must
remain.
DAILY NEWS.—:itast night the more voracious de-
vourers of news weather mystified by the late edi-
lion of The Sun. Turning to the place in that journal
where the commencement of the evening's proceedings
in Parliament are went to be recorded, they read with
surprise that " thesFlying Dutchman won by a neck."
Had a tyrannical Government compelled the newspapers
to substitute allegorical intimations of what was said in
Parliament, as used to be done in the early days of
Johnson, for the bond fide reports of our time? Was
Colonel Sibthorp, with his motion on advertising vans
and street organs, typified by the Flying Dutchman who
had won by a neck?--or was it Mr. Hume, with his Bill
for Parliamentary Reform? Further examination of
the broad. sheet showed that there had been " no House"
at the Commons, owing to the non-appearance of Mem-
bers at four o'clock, and that the news of the York races
had usurped the place usually devoted to the more tardy
movements of the Legislature. Various were the specu-
lations as to the cause which had prevented a House from
made. Some were of opinion that the Times had
"donein git all." Our contemporary had demonstrated in the
with great vigour of language, if not of logic,
tnrar i
tillirg:Htll33o and Mr. O'Connor were political Dro-
mios. Perhaps. Hon. Members, looking through the spec-
tacles of the Times,had seen two O'Connora in the House,
and had discreetly resolved to abstain from legislasing
at a time when they saw double. Otlaera, less charita-
ble, looked at the enormous list of motions for the even-
inginn
ye
fr
work le n enter-
priseo
as to go through it. ot
ate paper, and concluded that the House, in fit
of laziness, had recoiled
frrhe squileahn LHo ai
t
for: one evening was certainly appalling. There w. re
no less than twenty-six notices of motions of the must
varied and contradictory kind: Mr. Ewart had one
motion to reduce the number of Members composing
Stifect Committees to seven; and Mr. Peto another to
increase the number of Members on the Select Cora
mittee on the Kafir tribes to eighteen. In to far as the
principal _motion of the
evening—Mr. Hume's Bill to
emend the national representation--is concerned, it is
probable that little has been lust by the adjournment be-
yond an Opportunity
of witnessing some painful exhibi-
tions of tergiversation and equivocation on the part of
professing reformers. Want of harmony and concert
among Members professing the same opinions—the un.er
disruption and infiniteebn 1 subdivision of all, parties
in the Legislature, have reached their height. Every
man is for his. own nand," lika she bandy-legged smith
in " The Fair Maid of Perth." On the occasion of
the last division on the income-tax, the very small party
of sturdy' independent Liberals divided itself, and went
to buffets. Mr. Cobden took up the gauntlet thrown
down by Mr. Hume. Last night, Aar. Thomas Dun-
combo (of all men in the world) was prepared to give
Mr. nunac's motion for reform the go-by, by moving
that the discussion should be postponed till next session,
and even then confined to the question of extended
euffruge burking the other points included in Mr.
Hutne'a Bill. It is not
.worth while to conjecture what
moved the Honourable Member for Finsbury to take
upon him so invidious a task as resisting a motion for
Parliamentary reform, when there was Mr. Disraeli
ready to assail it with hostile arguments, and Lord John
Russell to smother it amid professions of devoted affec-
tion. It is enough that Mr. Thomas Duncombe has
confrluted another fact to prove that there are at this
moment almost as many parties in the House of Commons
as Members. Shall we condole with Lord John Russell
because the discussion has not taken place, or shall we
oongratultio himr On the one hod, be -pen

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