The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-28 00:00:00

EiToNE—but when, instead of that, Mr. GLADSTONE

himself has had to propose the re-imposition of the
Income-tax, at the alarming rate of 10d. in the £l,
or, in other words, to the agreeable tune of
£10,000,000 upon the year ! This beneficent year
of 1860—the year of peace for England, during
which, however, England finds herself constrained
to expend a round sum of £30,000,000 upon war-
like armaments ! This superlatively beneficent year
of 1860—(surely in this particular, if we were to
believe all we have recently heard in its regard,
The Year One of the Millennium !)—when if the
child was not yet to play with the Basilisk, the
Eagle and the Lion were to associate in the closest
intimacy—when, in other words, England and
France, constitutional England and despotic France,
were to be linked lovingly together by newly
woven commercial bonds, and, like the wedded
levers at the end of one of the old-fashioned Rosa
Matilda novels, they were to close the re-
cord of their previous quarrels and misunder-
standings by being " happy for ever after-
wards !" Here, however, the fair promises
about the certain effects of the Commercial Treaty
negotiated by that political Dove, Mr. COBDEN,
could scarcely be articulated when wo have had
reason to recognise what, from the first instant, we,
at least, had ourselves clearly foreseen—their other
falsification. It is in this same delightful year
and session of 1860 that Lord JOHN has had his
new opportunity vouchsafed to him as a Reformer.
Pre-occupied as he might, with some degree of
reason, have been supposed to be by the considera-
tion of our foreign relations in his administrative
capacity as her MAJESTY'S Chief Secretary for
Foreign Affairs—he deems the Question of Re-
form to be so entirely his own that he and no
other member of the Cabinet must introduce it to
the popular branch of Parliament. There is a
flourish of trumpets—there are the subterranean
thunders, as of an approaching earthquake—par-
turient montes et nascitur ridicules mus ! The
Bill has now been some time before the Commons
and the country. Like a puzzled correspondent
over an unfamiliar letter, we have turned it this
way and that ; we have read it upside-down, and
backwards and forwards; we have looked at it
under all points of ♦iew ; we know it pretty well
by this time through and through. So do the
Commons. So does the country. And who
now cares for it—one straw—a single fig—
the toss up of a brass farthing ? Does any
one individual in the land—besides Lord
JOHN RUSSELL himself ? We doubt it. We
doubt if there be even one, from Land's End to
John o'Groat's, who could get up in favour of the
new Reform Bill the merest " show" of what the
late Mr. BRAHAM, the singer, used to pronounce
" entuzimuzzy." Punch himself—who very often
indeed hits the right nail on the head with his
queer little sledgehammer baton—has ♦ery ludi-
crously, but quite truthfully, called the Bill and
its Author—" A Pair of Smalls 1" The Bill, in
point of fact, is no more than another practical
argument in favour of what is termed bit by bit legis-
lation. And it is so, for the simple reason, that as an
instalment of Reform, it is just the least little bit
in the world. Looking calmly and dispassionately
to the simple fact before us, we would say—Better
do absolutely nothing in the way of Reform if you
can venture upon no more than this, my Lord
JOHN. You arc dumb in regard to the Ballot
—the one all essential reform. You do
nothing in the way of the re-distribution of
the electoral districts. You don't touch
a single one of the little pocket boroughs yet left
to the large landowners. 'You concede the
smallest extension of the franchise upon which you
could well have the face to adventure. You take
off one or two of the surplus members and give
them grudgingly to a few new constituencies—one
to Chelsea, for example, and one to Kensington.
Certainly looking at these shortcomings and do-
nothings of the Bill, there is a large amount of
work in the way of addition and expansion left
over for Committee !

To-day candidates will be once more nominate,
for the honour of representing the old city of Nor
with. Short as the time will probably be before
the city will again be appealed to, a fight there
must be. In Norwich not to fight, would, under
any circumstance, be thought discreditable. No
matter the occasion, if there be but an opportunity,
the two parties cannot forbear spending money,
and the subordinates of the two parties from de-
manding it. Poor electors want their money, and
would not vote again for the party which backed
out and deprived them of the opportunity of
pocketing the bribe.
One would have thought that now, if ever, the
Liberal candidates might have been allowed to
walk the course. At the last general election both
parties bribed equally and notoriously. Those
who got in bribed enough to be easily turned
out ; and those who failed, bribed too much to
ashkowefovrer,
a
tvheen tuiterrnetiom the
byfoerfeelieteedtiens,eattis;at In
f
Lord BURY, took place, at which, through terror
gs, bribery was let alone on
of the late proceedin
both sides, and then the Liberals returned their man.
This would seam reason enough to let the Liberals
have their way this time, and for such a probably
brief term of representation. Not so thought the
Tories ; but after a little looking about they find up
two, politically, obscure candidates, and propagate
the report that " one of them is made of money
and of course that he means to win ;—an intimation
perfectly Nell understood amongst the freemen of

Norwich.
Hereupon, the Mayor of Norwich, a gentleman
of very decided liberal principles, and long a sworn
foe to corruption of every kind, determines to pre-
vent, if possible, the disgraceful scenes of former
elections being re-enacted in the city during his
Chief Magistracy. It seems that in August last,
the Council resolved—Conservatives and Liberals
to a large extent concurring—that in the event of
another election, the candidates and a number of
influential men on either side should be called
upon to bind themselves to abstain from and dis-
countenance unfair and corrupt proceedings in any
and every form ; and two referees of the highest
standing—Mr. GLADSTONE and Mr. WALPOLE—.
were named to determine, in case of dispute,
whether the understanding had been fulfilled;
such referees to have the power to call upon the
successful candidates to resign their seats, if they
adjudged that faith had been broken.

The Mayor, accordingly, on the occurrence of