The Sun.
London, England, 1867-03-28 00:00:00

PARIS EXHIBITION.

L. F. Mellen, formerly of Northampton, and
President of the Canada Coal Company, has
been appointed by Governor Patton and con-
firmed by the Alabama Legislature as Commissioner
from that State to the Paris Exposition. During
hie absence J. C. Bridgman, of this city, treasurer
of the company, will assume Mr. Mellen's duties at
the mines in Shelby county, Alabama, if he sells his
interest in the firm of Bridgman and Whitney, as
he now proposes to do.
The Ames manufacturing company of Chicopee
have lately finished an iron copy of Ball's statuette
of Webster, bronzed by the new method, and which
is to be sent to the Paris Exposition.
The Chester (Hampden county) emery mine has
continued operations uninterrupedly all the winter,
and is steadily increasing in production and pros-
perity. Nearly a ton of refined emery for each
working day has been manufactured during Decem-
ber and January,,t%nd for the current month thirty
tons will be produced; A large collection of the
best saules of the emery in every stage of its
manufacture, and specinialm of all the associated
minerals in the mine, has be'd.'trepared and for-
warded to the Paris Exposition.

Governor Bramlette, Colonel A. G. Hodges,
editor of the Frankfort Commonwealth, and other Union
men of Kentucky, have been notified by Judge Lynch,
the pseudonym of the rebel regulators, to desist from their
efforts to stop mob proceedings, and to leave the State.
They are threatened with violence if they do not. Go-
vernor Bramletto has received a letter warning him against
issuing any morn proclamations against Judge Lynch's
court. _

TlbfES.—The happy turn in the progress of Re-
form triumphT ueTuesday
yo fcommon
rnoon sense.
erery No further
everything was
wasin
afternoon
back ithansuspeise. It was doubtful whether the Ministerial
scheme could possibly survive the coming day, and
those most fallacious guides—persons of authority—
were well assured that if the bill passed a second
reading it would disappear at the very next stage.
We had better confideuce in the wisdom of Parlia-
ment. and our confidence has happily proved well
founded. The House of Commons is wiser than
any Cabinet, and the House of Commons has pre-
vailed. Mr. Bright's charge against the present
Ministry was perfectly true, but it was too partial.
They are able, they are distinguished, one or two of
them are even endowed with the rare quality we
designate by the name of genius, and yet they pro-
duced a measure which was not inaccurately described
as the worst Reform Bill ever submitted to Parlia-
ment. Was there any trustworthy hope of better
things on the other side the house? Strong in criti-
cism, and criticism is easy, the leaders of the Op-
position betrayed their weakness the moment they
began to construct a policy. Mr. Gladstone, openly
acknowledged how completely separated he was
from the bulk of his followers in lamenting the ex-
tinction of the " ten minutes' " bill. Mr. Bright's
powerful speech on Tuesday night was powerful
from the sincerity of despair it betrayed. lie had
spent his days, he had consumed his. strength, in ad-
vocating Reform, and he found as his reward that
he stood alone, even below the gangway, having at-
tracted no support he could call his own, having
made no convert to keep alive his sacred zeal.
The " unerring instinct" of the House of Cony- .
mons discerned the critical nature of the situation,
and discovered what ought to be done. It is the
good fortune of the Government to have recognised
the unconscious manifestation of this instinct, and
to have frankly acted upon it. Men who take a
superficial view of current events may talk of
sacrifice-of principle, "amt-of -a degradation of
policy. The opinion will not bear examination.
The question of Reform is essentially one of more
or less—of the extent to which alterations may
safely be carried without threatening danger from
the mere momentum of change, of the strength of
safeguards, and the stability of social arrange-
ments. We are apt to think that the men of 1832
were childishly timid, because, having been bred
under a Parliamentary system which had remained
unaltered since the Restoration, they dreaded the
effects of Reform. We have had a wider expe-
rience, and ought to be wiser. We have seen too
many changes to be timorous of revolution; we have
known too many disappointed hopes to have a pas-
sionate belief in the immediate consequences of
Parliamentary Reform. The Cabinet might iu any
case defer to the better wisdom of the House of
Commons without an imputation on their motives.
Directly it became apparent that 'the majority of
the House thought they had been unwisely scrupu-
lous in one direction, or heedlessly lavish in another,
it was incumbent on the Ministry to reconsider their
steps. Beyond, however, these general considera-
tions, there were special reasons why the Govern-
ment should assent to the alterations suggested to
them. They were recommendations to recur to
their own better mind. We are not disposed to
quarrel idly with those who have repented ; but the
offence of the Ministry was that they had de-
parted from their own counsels. When Mr.
Disraeli complains of the tone in which the
Ministerial plans have been assailed, it must be
retorted that the House of Commons had a right
to complain of the Ministry. Not only were their
counsels secret or ambiguous—they had Absolutely
put aside proposals which they themselves had de-
cided on. The Ministry have redeemed their error,
and we refer to it only to show that they could
do so without suspicion of-impropriety. The Lodger
Franchise had been omitted from their bill. It is
confessedly a Franchise which requires careful defi-
nition, but without a Lodger Franchise the opera-
tion of the bill in large boroughs, such as those of
the Metropolis, would be most insignificant. The
Lodger Franchise in large constituencies is an im-
perative necessity in any measure of Reform, and
we rejoice accordingly that the Government are
pledged to concede it. Is it in any way to their dis-
credit that they have done so? So far from it, Mr.
Disraeli was right on Tuesday night when he
claimed to himself the merit of having been the
author of this franchise, which first appeared in his
Bill of 1859. A further reduction of the County
Franchise was equally inevitable. Lord Derby's
former Administration had proposed to reduce the
occupying qualification in counties to £lO, and,
what was more to the purpose, the House of Com-
mons had last year, in a great division, approved
£l4 clear annual rental as a fit qualification for the
County Franchise. Their own measure—for we
may treat the Ministers of 1859 and 1867 as the
same—no less than the judgment of the House of
CoMmons, justified the willingness the Chancellor
of the Exchequer expressed on behalf of his col-
leagues on Tuesday night to reconsider their pro-
posed limit. The Dual Vote—but we will not be
so ungenerous as to dilate upon the Dual Vote.
Let us put it as Mr. Disraeli did, ou the phi-
losophers, whose probable complaint that their
too eager disciples have mistaken their meaning
will be so much in the style of philosophers
that, though true, it may be neglected. The
monstrosity is gone, and there is none so poor
as to lament it. The essence of the Ministerial
Bill was acknowledged by Mr. Bright and Mr.
Disraeli to lie in its treatment of the Borough
Franchise ; and here, again, the Ministry
have shown a commendable zeal to meet the
wishes of the House of Commons. That their ori-
ginal proposals—overlaid as they have been by the
voluminous commentaries of parochial and legal
minds—were conceived in a practical spirit will not
be denied by any candid critic. By common con-
sent personal responsibility to rates is acknowledged
to be the utmost limit of the Occupation Franchise
in boroughs. This is allowed by Mr. Bright as
much as by Mr. Henley, by Mr. Gladstone as much
as by the Ministry. It is true that the personal
payment of rates is contended for on the one side,
while the other is content with their payment by the
tenant in the shape of increased rent ; but the fact
, of punctual payment is with both an object of con-
cern. And it is well it should be'so. All men are
at last agreed that the franchise is a trust which
ought not to be given to those who cannot meet the
most common obligations of citizenship, while it is
confessed with equal unanimity that it is vain to
choose any figure arbitrarily as a resting-place for
the suffrage. How to reconcile these conclusions
is a fair subject for discussion. The Government
proposed that all ratepayers should be enfranchised,
and that those who pay rates indirectly should be
enabled to claim on the register of direct ratepayers ;
and, subject to certain obvious corrections of ma-
chinery, there is much to be said in favour of the
elasticity and variety of the franchise which would
thus be conferred. Mr. Gladstone suggested that
below a certain limit—for example, a £5 rating—.
the owner should always be rated, and that the
franchise should be conceded to all above that limit,
whether. direct ratepayers or not. Lord Grosvenor,
with, perhaps, a sounder discretion, would have all
rates below the limit charged on the owner, all above
on occupier—thus reducing the range of the Small
Tenements Act, but making it within that reduced
range universal—and would then enfranchise rate-
payers, and ratepayers only. Mr. Poulett Scrope
revives an old suggestion for exempting from all
liability to rates houses below a certain low rental,
and would grant a household franchise above that
limit. It is impossible to believe that, amid such a
multitude of counsellors, animated by a common
desire, there cannot be found a solution of the diffi-
culty. No one, in fact, doubts that it will be found
and with its discovery the last obstacle to the pro-
spect of passing a Reform Bill in 1867 will disap-
pear. The Chancellor of the Exchequer rightly said
yesterday morning, that the House of Commons was
a practical assembly, and we are glad to add that the
Ministry have proved themselves to be praotical
men. They have submitted to be taught by that
conflict of minds which the House of Commons
above all deliberative bodies can display, and the
improvement of which is the first object of Reform.
The character of the house is high, and its intrinsic
excellence has never been better exemplified than it
has been this session. A great question was in jeo-
pardy. The Cabinet had misunderstood the ele-
ments necessary for its solution. The leader of the
Opposition, with the assent of his more prominent
associates, maintained that its solution had by their
error been rendered impossible. The House of
Commons was, however, resolute in its determina-
tion that the question should no longer be bandied
about by opposing combinations of official men, and
both Cabinet and Opposition leaders deferred to the
resolution. The Ministry has assented to the alte-
rations essentially necessary in their measure, and
n
the good auguries of the early par t
When'
though often overcast since, will be f t
fulfilled.
Parliament rises, some four months hence, it may
look upon a great deed accomplished —upon the ad-
mission of a large number of citizens now unenfran-
chised to the privilege of voting—upon an enlarge-
ment andja reform of our representativve system ;
and it may look forward to a career of renewed activity
undisturbed by the agitation of organic changes.

The pair of oxen, which took the first premium
at the Bradford cattle show last autumn, were sold
in. the Cambridge market, Feb. 27, for $l4 50c. per
hundred. They weighed 4,700 pounds, and were
admitted to be the finest yoke of oxen ever raised in
Orange county, having increased in weight 1,000
pounds since they were turned out to pasture iu
June,