The Sun.
London, England, 1867-06-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TlMES.—There is a salutary pause in the Reform
labours of the House of Commons. Last night the
business of the committee was resumed, but nothing

was done beyond the rejection of two proposals.
The amendment of Mr. Sergeant Gaselee, for dis-
franchising absolutely all boroughs having a popu-

lation under 5,000, was defeated by a decisive ma-
jority, and Captain Hayter's suggestion that all

toro-nghs now having less than 10,000 inhabitants

should be enlarged so as to contain at least so many
persons was rejected without a division. When so

_
much had been done, the committee reported pro-

greys, with the understandini,a that nothing furthershould be attempted until after Whitsuntide. There

were several reasons for this course.

The amend-

went which Mr. Laing carried last week has placed

many more seats at the disposal of the Government
than they ventured to ask for, and it is, no doubt,
desirable that the Ministry should have time to de-
termine how those seats shall be allotted. A better

and a more genuine reason for postponement is,
however, to be found in the fact that the House of
Commons is conscious that it is as yet too little in-
formed upon the principles which should direct it
in the future redistribution of seats. The great
lights usually regarded yield little help; the trumpets
commonly blown so lustily give an uncertain k)und.
As Mr. Smollett truly said last night, the remodel-
ling of the House is by far the most important part
of Reform, and it has never been discussed from the
beginning of the Session up to the present hour.
The work of the committee last night was one
of negation ; but few will regret the decisions
upon either of the amendments. • The fate of

Mr. Sergeant Gaselee's scheme will certainly meet
with little commiseration. It was proper to allow
him to exhibit his powers as an advocate, es-
pecially after the loud complaints he made on
Friday night that Mr. Laing had appropriated
a part of his plan of redistribution. The exhibition
must, however, have convinced every one that, in
the interests of reform, Mr. Laing's offence, even if

it had been committed, deserved instant abiolution

If Mr. Sergeant Gaselee alone had advocated the
proposal he claimed as his own no one can tell what
would have happened. When Mr. Laing proposed
that the process of depriving boroughs now return-
ing two members of one of their representatives
should be applied to all boroughs of less than 10,000
inhabitants he submitted a clear and definite scheme
of redistributing the seats thus obtained, and his
success must be partially attributed to the evident
superiority of his plan over that of the Government.
Mr. Sergeant Gaselee simply desired to place a few
more seats at the disposal of the Government,
broaching no plan of his own, and suggesting no
goal towards which the committee should phape
its efforts. The committee exercised a wise discre-
tion in refusing to entertain such a crude sugges-
tion. It is true that his amendment received the
support of Mr. Cardwell and Mr. Gladstone, but the
speeches of these leaders of the Opposition were
scarcely equal to their reputation. They showed
a feeble and uncertain grasp of the principles of
redistribution which will, we hope, be strengthened
before the house reassembles after Whitsuntide.
The rejection of Captain Ilayter's suggestion for
the extension of small boroughs by ealarging
their boundaries or by grouping them with neigh-
bouring unrepresented towns was almost inevi-
table from the very form in which it was ex-
pressed. Independently, however, of the form of
the amendment, the force of argument was against

its principle. Its effect would have been simply
to disguise the meagre amount of town life
really contained in rural constituencies bearing the
inappropriate name of boroughs. Colonel Dyott
complained yesterday that in consequence of the
enlargement of Tam worth in 1832 Tamworth, re-
tained its two members now, while Lichfield, which
he himself represented, lost one, although the city
of Lichfield is as important and prosperous as the
borough of Tamworth. There is no reason why an
unreal importance and a different character should
be given to the small boroughs retained in our Par-
liamentary system. Their existence must be de-
fended on the ground of their uses, and it is certain
that they should not preserve their privileges any
longer because of the partial enlargement recom-
mended. Least of all is it possible to discover how
the complaint expressed by Captain Hayter, and
not unfamiliar to those who have attended to the
subject, that the South of England is over repre-
sented, would be met by enlarging the boundaries
of boroughs while retaining their present amount of
representation. The House of Commons has de-
ferred the further consideration of the Redistribu-
tion Clauses until Monday week, and fortunately
the progress made in the past ten days has been
sufficiently rapid to allow the delay to take place
without imperilling the fate of the bill. The Go-
vernment want time to reconstruct their scheme, so
as to distribute the 45 seats they have acquired by
the grace of Mr. Laing, instead of the 30 they
modestly sought. But more than a mere formal re-
construction is necessary. The subject of redistribu-
tion, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer said last
night, is one of vast importance,:and requiring grave
consideration. The House of Commons wants en-
lightenment upon it, and is conscious of its want.
The question of redistribution, however, is not
new to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The
elaborate speech he delivered on the Redistri-
bution bill of last year showed bow deeply
he bad studied it, but his speech in explain-
ing the Ministerial scheme of 1859 proved that
he was then master of the question. Challeng-
ing the notion that with our present system of
voting a representative assembly could be obtained
by distributing members in proportion to population,
Mr. Disraeli pointed out that if such a rule were
followed the metropolis must receive 60. members,
and the statesman whose too early death we com
memorated on Saturday told a Wiltshire audience
soon -afterwards that a 4, sympathetic shudder"
ran through the House of Commons at the sugges-
tion. The metropolitan members are of a different
composition now from what they were in 1859, but
it is still manifest that an accession of metropolitan
members in proportion to the population of the
metropolis would seriously damage the representa-
tive character of the House of Commons. The in-
stance is, in fact, a crucial test of the theory that a
representative body can be obtained by cutting up
an area into electoral districts, and allowing the
absolute majority in each district to elect a certain
number of delegates. It would be impossible to
construct a House of Commons in such a manner,
and the inevitable inference is that such a method
of election is radically erroneous. All the condi-
tions of the problem would, however, be changed if
the electors within metropolitan constituencies were
free to accumulate their votes upon the candidates
they favoured, and the constituencies were so ar-
ranged that a sufficient number of candidates
should be elected in each to allow of the represen-
tation of all the electors by free combinations among
themselves. In such a case we should see great
statesmen and great lawyerssitting for metropolitan
constituencies instead of seeking a refuge in such
pocket boroughs as Tiverton or Richmond. It rests
with the House of Commons to decide by investi-
gation and deliberation during the ensuing week
whether it will seize the present opportunity of in-
troducing a better system of election into our repre-
sentative machinery, and thus preserve the good
results of our present distribution of electoral
power, while relinquishing its indefensible form.
Small boroughs are already condemned to be shorn
of some of their privileges, 'and their future destiny
is uncertain. Will the House of Commons preserve
or even improve the uses they have served, or will
it blindly adhere to an established order simply be-
cause it is established, and so put the representative
character of the House of Commons itself in jeopardy?
We believe the courage it has manifested in dealing
with the enfranchising clauses of the Reform Bill
will not desert it when the redistribution part of the
scheme is under consideration ; and the Ministry,
which has been consistently supported in its bold
resolution to place the franchise on a broad and per-
manent basis, will be similarly supported if it mani-
fest a similar courage and a similar respect .to per-
manent and conservative legislation is reconstruct-
ing the clauses affecting re-distribution.
THE " WESTMINSTER GAZETTE" ON ENGLISH AND
CONTINENTAL MANNERS.—The Pall Mall Gazette
recently reproduced a part of Mr, Ruskin's cor-

1. .."

respondence with an artizan of the north of Eng-
land, in which Mr. Carlyle was made to complain
of the insults to which he was subjected by the
common people of his neighbourhood, whose con-
duct he compared with the invariable civility and
respect he experienced from even the peasants of
Italy and France. That Mr. Carlyle's complaints
are well founded no inhabitant of London can
doubt. The Pall Mall Gazette itself, in a subse-
quent article, acknowledges that the want of good
breeding among the body of the English people
is an irritating and humiliating fact, and pays' at
the same time, a handsome compliment to the
courtesies and civilities which a moderately
well-
behaved English traveller never fails to meet with
amongst all classes wherever he journeys in France
or Italy. A Protestant Englishman, however, with
his freezing exclusivism and his contemptuous pit.Y
for the benighted ltomanists amongst whom he 15
travelling, is hardly likely to bring out all the sym-
pathies and good qualities of his hosts abroad.
Even though he could, as the Pall Mall Gazette
presupposes, divest himself of his John Bullism, he
allows his other prejudices as to religion and like,
matters to appear so conspicuously that little goou
feeling is likely to manifest itself between thew,
and the natural kindliness of the continental charac-
ter is apt to be nipped in the bud. But the Pro-
testant abroad cannot divest himself of those odi-
ous characteristics which have rendered the llama
of an Englishman hateful to all continental peoplde
with whom he has ever come in contact. In
no English Catholic can ever have encountered 11'8
countrymen upon a continental tour without having
had cause to blush for his nationality. In fact the
same hauteur and selfish exclusivism are as plainly
marked, though, perhaps, not quite so offensively
displayed, at home as abroad. Any one in the,
habit of travelling much by our own railways must
have noticed with what defiance the average Briton
entrenches himself behind his Times, or novel, at
the greatest distance from his fellow passenger,
and generally stiffly resents as undue -familiarity
any approach towards conversation. Compare this
with the affability and universal good nature of
foreigners to each other, and even to people of a
different nation when thrown together under these
or any other circumstances, and our national pecu-
liarity requires no further demonstration. But
while this characteristic of Englishmen has been
widely acknowledged by the country at large, its
cause never seems to have been recognized. 11°,1(
is it that the English alone of civilized people
should manifest so great a distrust—for it is 110
less—of their neighbours ? Much has been bot
said and written in solution of the problem, an
u
the general conclusion is that it is due to our ill;
sular seclusion from contact and intercourse wi
other nations, which has almost brought us to think
that we are the only people on the earth—or at
least the only people for whose benefit the earv;
exists. Something, no doubt, is due to this cans,
with regard to our treatment of foreigners, thou P_
it can hardlaccount for our conduct to each othet
—for that want of charity and consideration O.'
the feelings of others which is so painfully manw
fest in the dealings of Englishmen. This,
is the more remarkable, as no people are rae,re
ready to put their hands in their pockets for tool
alleviation of distress, particularly of a nation
.
character, than the inhabitants of these islan"to
and their benevolence is by. no means restricted 4
home calamities, but has found its way in the in%
generous manner to every part of the globe
Never,
misfortune has been sudden and appalling. ,„al.
theless, in spite of this most excellent nat'?:lo,
characteristic there is certainly a marked wall", t
the intercourse of Englishmen in general, of thin
spirit of charity divinely recommended to alit,
their dealings with each other. It is from the evil
ence ence of this great virtue, so powerfully inculcal;
abroad by the doctrines and example of the Catbelef
Church, that springs the remarkable difference
re
manners and good breeding which is ever-PO:lea,
to be found in Catholic countries. The Chugr
teaches and requires that the highest in the 1' lila
shall respect, as well as help, the very lowest, of
treat them all as the members of one flock—a",lo
whom are equal in her sight. This is the 5`:33
cause which, abroad, banishes the supercilionsl3_ci,
and contempt of one class for the other so pr Tie,
nent in this country, and induces even the nol-!iti,
men of the land to treat the very tradesmen Is 1,
the same courtesy as they would men of their
tit
social position. This explanation is simple, blLng
is true. It maybe, as asserted, that there are sit:tit
of a better feeling springing up around its ;
if so, it can only advance parallel with the is
fiuence of the Catholic Church, which alone-
capable of breaking down the barriers that 00
effectully separate all classes in England. •