The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-02 00:00:00

MEETING OF TILE CONSEICVA77VE
PARTY.

(From the Times.)

The meeting of the Conservative party called by
Lord Derby yesterday was attended by upwards
of 200 members, and it was resolved that the bill
presented by Mr.i Disraeli on Monday night should
receive their support. This gathering is certainly
larger than could have been obtained by any other
statesman, or probably by the two Whig leaders
combined, and it gives reason to suppose that
the measure of the Cabinet will be at least read
a second time. Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley were
both absent, but the demeanour of their party must
have been somewhat of a disappointment to both
gentlemen. No disruption of Lord Derby's follow-
ing has taken place ; no regret has been uttered
that the two retiring statesmen were not propi-
tiated by a change in the Ministerial measure.
The Conservatives have stood by their chosen
leaders, and the only result of Mr. -Walpole's and
Mr. Henley's scruples is that they are out, and Mr.
Estcourt and Lord Donoughmore are in. The ex-
planation given in the Hduse of Commons last night
adds little to what was known before. It only in-
forms us that not till the 25th of January was the
great principle of the bill decided upon. The mea-
sure is obviously one for the extension of the suf-
frage, and nothing else—a liberal measure certainly,
but simple enough, and the main points of it
could be jotted down in ten minutes at a Cabinet
meeting. Yet the only matter in it lint* to dis-
cussion was not approached until a month ago.
The whole of the past year seems to have been
taken up by. Ministers in resolving to avoid alto-
:;ether the question of disfranchisement ; for the
little appendage about the fifteensetits. is evidently
analogous to the legacy of one shilline, by which
the testator rebuts the presumption of having
forgotten his undutiful heir. It would seem, then,
that the Cabinet laboured hard in the production
of the measure on which public attention is now
occupied, and completed their task at last by-a
somewhat spasmodic effort, Unlike the Whigs,
-who are committed to certain traditional beliefs
concerning representation, Lord Derby and his
friends approached the subject with all the impar-
tiality of dislike. Any change they -Were opposed
to; the onlyquestion was which would least offend
their own party, while satisfying the Opposition
to whom they looked for support. This result was
to be expected from a Government existing by the
dissensions of a hostile majority. A Ministry with-
out any convictions favourable to reform naturally
fell into the notion of conciliating every claimant.
The people were supposed to be anxious for the
suffrage, but not very clamorous about electoral
districts, while tho members of Parliament do not
care about an addition to their constituencies, but
object mortally to a destruction of the seats they
pleasantly occupy.
The tacticians of the Treasury Bench accord-
ingly, after a year's reflection, determined to please
the people by giving the suffrage, and to please
the members of Parliament by preserving their
seats for them. The consequence is half of a very
liberal measure. The suffrage scheme is liberal,
and may be made more liberal in committee; it
moreover contains in the equalisation of the county
and borough suffrage a principle pregnant with im-
portant consequences. On the other hand, in the
Reform Bill proper, the disfranchisement and en-
franchisement of districts is laid aside for the pre-
sent. The Ministry will not undergo the baiting
of Wiltshire and Devonshire borough members,
furious at the thought of having to contest at the
next election some newly created Hoxton or Mile-
end, but they have no objection to a transfer of
political power by an increase of the constituency,
or to the sanction of theories which they formerly
declared to be mischievous and revolutionary. In
short, it is plain that the Government have in their
scheme been guided principally by their desire to
find a measure which was likely to pass. It is, no
doubt, a good common-sense principle ; feasibility
is a prime consideration in politics, but the result
in the present case is the production of a bill with
a very strange and truncated appearance.
However, we go with the Government entirely
in their plan for extending the suffrage, and we
can see no force in the objections and no ground
for the terrors of Mr. Walpole. In his letter to
Lord Derby he observes that "the reduction of
the County occupation franchise to a level with
that which exists in boroughs is utterly contrary
to every principle which the Conservative party
has always maintained." Now, this argument,
though it may have its weight among Conserva-
tives, who are presumed to be bound by a certain
party creed, is no argument at all to the commu-
nity at large. It is no concern of ours whether
the doctrine of an equalised franchise was held by
certain men ; we only wish to inquire whether it
is just and reasonable. So we pass on to the gene-
ral reasoning of the Home Secretary, as far as we
can understand it. "It is to my mind," he says,
" a most dangerous innovation, by giving to tem-
porary and fluctuating occupations a preponderat-
ing influence over property and intelligence, while
it throws large masses into the constituencies who
are almost exempt from direct taxation, and there-
fore interested in forcing their representatives to
fix that taxation on others." This piece of political
wisdom almost baffles criticism. We hardly know
how to approach a sentence which does contain
a

single clear statement or an intelligible deduc-
tion. In what way residence in houses rated be-
tween £lO and £5O is a temporary and fluctuating
occupation more than residence in houses rated above
£so—how any occupation can be considered legally
more temporary and fluctuating than that of a tenant
at will, are matters which Mr. Walpole would find
it difficult to explain, and it wouldbe desirable that
he should give the grounds of his belief that large
constituencies are likely to force their representa-
tives to fix direct taxation on others. The equaliza-
tion of the franchise only allows the same man to
vote in a county as votes in a borough. Why should
there be any distinction ? What social inferiority
belongs to the man who lives outside the limits of a
town ? If it is argued that in agricultural districts
rent is often paid on house and land, and not on
house alone, so that a £lO voter might live in a
house worth only £3 or £4 a-year, the land being,
in fact, the materials of his business ; still, on the
other hand, house rent proper is lower in the coun-
try than in towns, so that a rent of £lO for a resi-
dence in the former denotes a higher class of man
than it does in a borough. The two things compen-
sate one another, and justify the adoption of an
identical franchise. As for the assertion that the
counties are intended to return one class of mem-
bers and the towns another, it is an assertion,
and nothing more. We deny it, and say that the
distinction between boroughs and counties was
in times past, and still is, founded on the
principle of giving an individuality and a
corporate life to the electoral district. A borough
received a writ because it was a unity: the bur-
gesses knew one another, transacted public business
among themselves, and knew who was the best man
in their community to send to Parliament. The
county, similarly, had its own organisation, and was
deputed to return members elected by classes analo-
gous, as far as the state of society allowed, to those
which voted in boroughs. That the boroughs should
be commercial, and the counties agricultural, lay
in the nature of things ; but it certainly is not of
the essence of the British or any other constitution
that it should be determined a priori what element
in the representation should be furnished by par-
ticular districts." The distinction between borough
and county franchise is plainly 'unreasonable. The
man who is fit to vote in one place is fit in another,
and the arguments against " large masses," and
fluctuating occupations," ought either to be
dropped or carried to their legitimate conclusion by
a plan for restricting the borough franchise. It is
the misfortune of Mr Walpole and Mr. Henley
that they have resigned office through disapproval
of the very principle which will commend the bill
most strongly to the country.

IMPRISONMtNT FOR DEBT IN FItANCE.—It was
stated some time back that the Civil Tribunal had ordered a
11r. Lorck, an Englishman imprisoned for a debt due to the
Company of the Hotel de Louvre, to be set at liberty on the
ground that as the judgment sending him to prison did not
say for what length of time he was to be detained, he could
not, though a foreigner, be imprisoned for a longer period
than six months, the minimum fixed by law—which six
months' confinement he had undergone. The Hotel Com-
pany appealed against this decision to the Imperial Court,
and the Court lately heard lengthened arguments on the
appeal ; but the judges, being equally divided in opinion on
the subject, could not come to a decision. Three other
judges accordingly had to be adjoined to them to con-
sider the case. On Saturday the Court decided that the
judgment of the Civil Tribunal should be confirmed.
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