The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-19 00:00:00

MAJESTY'S army when they are first going through
their facings and practising the goose step. "Eyes
right"—when they are goggling in all directions !
" Stand at ease "—when every limb is in a
state of angular discomfort ! These and all
the other mystic directions of the drill-yard
are not one jot less eminently ridiculous
at the outset among one class of recruits than among
another—call them by what name you please, royal
soldiers, militiamen, or rifle volunteers. And as to
the hopelessness of any set of these recruits ever
winning their way to a state of efficiency, how
many raw recruits, we wonder—men who had never,
as the phrase is, fleshed sword or bayonet, men
who had never before smelt (when burnt in earnest)
a single grain or whiff of gunpowder—how many
of these recruits went up the hill of Alma to a
glorious victory ? How many for that matter
passed triumphantly through the deadly whirl-
wind of death careering forty-five years
ago, upon a certain Sunday in the Belgian
summer, over the plains of Waterloo ?
Why, it is a mere farce for Lord MELVILLE, as
General Commanding in North Britain—even sup-
posing, for the sake of example, that he were the
oldest veteran in the army—it is the merest absurdity
for him, or fer any other professional wearer of the
sword, to be jeering, and flouting, and deriding any
body of recruits, be they riflemen, or militiamen,
or QUEEN'S soldiers, simply because they were but
yesterday mere civilians, simply because the briefest
interval has elapsed since their enrolment. It is
an egregious folly this which might be demon-
strated as such by the light thrown upon it from
almost any page of history. To know this Lord
MELVILLE need not go so far back in his researches.
He need go no farther back than the annals of the
last generation. He may there recognise at every
turn of the leaf, as he reads the marvellous
volume, that the greatest soldier of modern, per-
haps of any times in the annals of the world,
overran Europe during several successive years
with a series of armies of raw recruits,
young artizans and peasants, gathered from the
plough and the workshop by the agency of the in-
exorable proscription. The vie ux soldats, the scarred
and tawny veterans of the Emperor and King
NAPOLEON being but a comparatively small and
numerically insignificant portion of any one of his
vast and triumphant armies, of the army of Ma_
rengo or of Austerlitz, of Wagram, or of Moskowa.
And the recruits there were led on for "glory "
they were martialled not so much for the defence
of their own homes, as for the ravage of the homes
of others. In a word, the derision expressed by
Lord MELVILLE, in reference to the Rifle Corps
movement, may be most aptly and accurately pro-
nounced a betise a word happily signifying,
among our gallant neighbours across the Channel,
at once a stupidity and an indecorum.
It is a pleasant indication, by the way, of the
enormous value in which the opinions of Lord
MELVILLE are manifestly held in this matter by
his gallant fellow-countrymen, that Scotland has
already, in answer to the national summons, en-
rolled under the two heads of rifles and
artillery a goodly total of upwards of fourteen
thousand volunteers. To Lord MELVILLE himself
this must be an indication of the value in which his
opinions are held, especially agreeable and de-
lightful.

Domestic politics will soon become of more
pressing interest than those of Italy and Hungary.
The latter will, wa hope, share in Parliament the
attention which would best represent the sympathy
of England with civil and religious liberty, and the
struggle to attain it everywhere. Parliamentary
Reform, however, must be the grand topic. It is
the one in which there will be most room for dis-
cussion. With the exception of Mr. BowYER and
the few Catholic members wbo fancy that the
Romans should be political slaves for "the glory
of God and the good of the Catholic Church," there
will be none to dispute that our practical policy
should be non-intervention, and that our moral
influence should be used, not to uphold incapable
rulers, but the right of subjects to be ruled as they
please. Reform will be the subject of conflicts
and divisions ; the POPE and his crew of eccle-
siastics will be left to steer their vessel as best
they can, and will probably not be the subject
of a motion on which a division can be taken.
Of course we are all in suspense as to the
specific intentions of the Government. It may
be that they will bring forward some fran-
chise practically very different from the one which
common report speaks of—the £lO county and
£6 borough franchise. Lord JOHN himself sug-
gested them on the eve of the great division, but
adroit limitations may reduce materially the not
very large addition they will make to the con-
stituencies—to the borough constituencies at least.
Now, it is surely time that intelligent Reformers
should consider well by what measure they shall
test any Reform Bill which may be presented. The
professed object of every bill is to make the re-
presentation of the people more of a reality.
Neither our Whigs nor our Tories will acknowledge
that the changes they may propose are designed to
strengthen their party. They all agree that
to collect the opinion of the more intelligent
portion of the public is their object. Pro-
perty qualifications for electors are adopted,
as all agree, because they are a rough test of intel-
ligence. It is presumed that the man who has a
little money has either possessed the native capa-
city which enabled him. to rise in life, or that he is
descended from those who could afford him a decent
education. The opinion of this large class of per-
sons is the avowed desideratum. To include it
within the franchises proposed, and to enable it to
elect those whose sentiments on public matters it
prefers, is therefore the practical object of every
Reform Bill. A bill which accomplished both
these points would make representation a reality.
Is the course now taken by reformers the one to
attain these ends ? We think not. We shall not
oppose the smallest bona
..fide improvement in our
representation, but we may be permitted to doubt
whether sincere reformers have done the best for
their object. They have placed extension of suf-
of Sufri•aye, last. Their
frage first—BealitY
alleged reason is that the extension will lead to the
reality. We doubt it. We must think that the
order could be more successfully inverted. In
Aus-
tralia, indeed, we have a case in
tection to the voter was followed by an almost uni-
versal suffrage. Be this as it may, we hold that a
pure but comparatively limited suffrage is of more
value than a numerous constituency exposed to per-
verting influences. What we want in judges and
juries is not numbers, but fair ability and indepen-
dence. We need the same in constituencies. A
sufficient number of honest and sensible men of all
classes, could they but rote free from any influence
but that of public discussion in the press and at the
hustings, would be a better constituency than ten
or twenty times their number, at the mercy of
threats and bribes,
Lord ST ANLEY ofa and s
personal
Sir E. L
fearsy and hopes.
T TON BULWER
both openly avowed that they wished the elective
power to remain, where it now is,
had used it well and would classes—that they with the middle
con-
tinue to do so. We have little doubt Mr. DISRAELI
If any class has the
cordially concurs with them.