The Sun.
London, England, 1866-06-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—If, as Mr. Goschen declared last night,
the great principle of action adopted by the Govern-
ment in framing their scheme of Reform was to make
one which should pass, they have been very unfor-
tunate in realizing their intentions. The bills they
have introduced, and which are now, or ought to
be, on the eve of being rolled into one, may have
every other virtue, but they make no progress.
They stick at the threshold of the committee, and
the prospect of getting them over the line is by no
means encouraging. Mr. Baxter recognizes the
fact, and consoles himself with the thought that
something better must be the result of this delay.
The country is apathetic now, the " spurt" of feel-
ing manifested in the Easter recess has died away,
reactionary influences gather strength, it becomes
plainly impossible to pass to any Reform Bill with-
out the assistance of the Conservative party, and
the Conservatives show their customary want of
foresight in refusing to help forward the moderate
measure brought in by the Government. They will,
however, be punished for their folly ; Ministers may
be reduced to consider the question whether they
would prefer being roast or boiled, but the final re-
sult can only be a more sweeping change the longer
the delay. We agree with Mr. Baxter in lamenting
the too probable fate of the Government bills, though
we do not share the sweet thought of revenge, which
is his consolation. It will, indeed, be a
,misfortune
if the chance of settling a great and complicated
question be thrown away, and it is certain that
those who are to blame for it will receive their
proper punishment. It is, however, by no means
clear that the Opposition should be the only section
of the House visited for the offence. They have,
perhaps, acted unwisely in preferring the chance of
au immediate triumph to the fairer prospect of
assured victory a little later • but they could not
have had the opportunity of so acting if the mis-
management of the Government had not given the
victory into their hands. The misfortunes of Re-
form have sprung from that extreme desire to frame
schemes that should pass, which is the especial ob-
ject of Mr. Goschen's self-satisfaction. The Fran-
chise Bill was introduced by itself, because it was
thought it might divide the possible opponents of
Reform, and it only served to combine them. A
great battle was fought upon a wrong issue, and the
influence from without which is desirable, if not
necessary, to force any Reform Bill through the
House of Commons,was spent in obtaining a victory
which caine to nothing. There is now no motive
power left. The spring is broken, and the Govern-
ment has to struggle alone against the natural disin-
clination of the members for the doomed boroughs
to commit an act of suicide. The Redistribution
Bill is sufficiently moderate in its scope, but it has
the faults necessarily found in so hastily conceived
a project. Haste, indeed, inadequately expresses
the way in which it was concocted, for it really
exhibits what Mr. Lowe last night called the mere
wantonness of precipitancy. It was framed to pass,
but it has created enemies, and failed to create
a single friend. The counties and towns already
represented do not seem to care about having
third members, the places to be enfranchised
for the first time are too few to be influential,
and the support to be got from Scotland,
though valuable, is limited. On the other
hand, the bill has given the enemies of Reform
a good case. Mr. Goschen said very fairly last night
that no possible scheme of redistribution could prove
acceptable to the members for small boroughs, and,
whatever might be done, anomalies must still con-
tinue to exist, but he failed altogether to show the
necessity of creating—not preserving—the particu-

lar anomalies attacked by Mr. Gadsmid. ln the
course of his able speech he mentioned once or twice

the blot of the Redistribution Bill in omitting to
group towns now unrepresented with those which
are represented, but he did not say one word to
justify this singular omission, or even to explain
how it had come to pass. The only deduction from
his silence is that it was a pure oversight, due to
the haste with which the Redistribution Bill was
concocted. It is more remarkable because, as Sir
John Pakington reminded the house, the Reform
Bill introduced by the present Premier in 1852 was
constructed on a totally different principle. The
principle of grouping was found in that bill, but
Lord John Russell then proposed to associate popu-
lous towns now unrepresented with towns which are
represented, and in no case did lie group together
existing Parliamentary boroughs. The plan was
obviously defective, because it failed to redress the
balance between different parts of the country. The
Government of Lord Russell now proposes an equally
defective plan of grouping none but represented
boroughs, so that it seems to be the unhappy fate of
the Premier to exemplify what Mr. Tennyson calls
" the falsehood of extremes." The faults of the Re-
distribution Bill are serious enough in themselves,
but, coming, as they do, after other errors of Go-
vernment management, the fate of Reform is no
longer strange, though it remains deplorable. The
attempt to seduce the House of Commons into accept-
ing an incomplete scheme failed, as ought to have been
expected,in itsfirst object,but served to arouscresent -
ment ; the hasty compilation of the Redistribution
Bill excited distrust which maturer consideration
has confirmed ; and the threats and appeals which
have been alternately addressed to the fears and the
sentiment of members have produced a temper which
may fairly be described as sullen reaction. The Go-
vernment scheme, taken as a whole, embodies no
principle but the idolatry of numbers, and, what is of
greater consequence, the arguments of its chief sup-
porters, as Mr. Lowe showed with unequalled force,
tend in the same direction. If the failure which the
members of the Government themselves appear to
consider imminent befall their scheme, it can only be
regarded as an effect of retributive justice. The dis-
cussion of last night would furnish additional evi-
dence, were it necessary, that had the Government
brought in at the commencement of the session a
complete and well-considered scheme, it would
have had an excellent chance of being adopted.
No one will suspect the sincerity of the declara-
tion made by Sir John Pakington of his de-
sire to see the Reform question settled, and he went,
indeed, out of his way to support the suggestion of
Lord Elcho in favour of a Royal Commission, which
should consider not only the reduction of the fran-
chise and the redistribution of seats, but also the
means of checking bribery, and the various modes of
voting proposed for better securing a perfect repre-
sentation of all classes of electors. There can be no
doubt that such a Commission could investigate many
branches of Reform with greater candour and impar-
tiality than is possible in the House of Commons; its
recommendations would command respect; and what-

ever may be the probability of the suggestion being
adopted, the fact that it was thrown out is significant.
It may even be found that it supplies the only hope
of escape for the Ministry out of their difficulties.
We are now in the month of June, and the dozen
nights which the Chancellor of the Exchequer de-
clared were all that the Government had at their dis-
posal when he firstintroduced the Franchise Bill must
have been long since expended. Other business is
delayed which requiresattention ; and since all parties
are agreed on the propriety of settling Reform, and
no one party seems able to settle it by its unaided
strength, it may be as well to have recourse to an
expedient which would at least have the advantage
of deferring all attempts at legislation on the sub-
ject for another year.
PosT.--It is surprising how many results the Re-
form bill is expected to realise. There is not a pro-
fessor or graduate in social science but expects to
make it subservient to the carriage of some dogma
or the development of some theory. It is to create
in the masses a healthy ambition ; it is to find for
them a staff to uphold them in their stumbling
through the valley of life ; it is to be a lantern to
their feet; it is to teach them reading, writing, and
arithmetic ; it is to make them pure-minded and
despisers of money ; it is, in short, to take part in
the fulfilment of every function save that which is
properly and ought to be peculiarly its own--the
creation of a good and useful house of Commons.
For our own part we would require no more of it ;
and theorists who expect the offer or possession of
the franchise to exercise the multifarious influences
which they talk of must know very little of the na-
ture, natural or artificial, of the people whom they
represent in Parliament. Bribery in its grossest
form, its base money form, is assumed to be the
great blot in our electoral system in actual practical
work ; and at that blot naturally most of our talk-

P ~~

ing legislators take aim, and each thinks he has dig;
covered an infallible device for knocking this crime,
as those who have to find the money for it naturally
call it, out of the ring. One thinks that electoral
corruption will vanish before the advancing foot of
education, as the savage falls back and dies out be-
fore the onward movement of the white man ; think-
ing, with the usual inaccuracy of English thinkers,
that education and instruction are convertible terms.
Another believes that we must look to highly Penal
enactments for prevention. Sir George Grey sees
no remedy save in wholesale and indiscriminating
disfranchisement ; and Mr. Bright, having no faith
in the honesty and virtue of the people whom be
assumes especially to comprehend and represent, can
think of no other mode of protecting candidates
than that of making constituencies so large and the
needy element in them so extensive, that corruption
will become impossible in practice from the enor-
mous number seeking to be bribed, and the conse-
quent infinitesimal amount of each bribe. All these
retailers of ideas are mistaken ; all misapprehend
the nature of the difficulty with which they attemp
to deal, and each entertains one error common to
all. In common they imagine that all persons have
political convictions, and are anxious to give to them
movement and weight, and think that, as a natural
consequence, their political action would be hide"
pendent if they were left to be determined by those
convictions. There is the fundamental error. Those
who have governing opinions or ideas to which they
desire, by voting, to give value and activity, con-
stitute a very small proportion of a constituency.
They constitute, naturally, the element that offers
the bribes, which they offer because they are
anxious and earnest. The major proportion COn:
sists of men who vote from considerations almost
purely personal, and among these is to be found a:
naturally the element which receives, and in grit
degree seeks for, the bribes. The well-to-do
in-
different, as regards abstract politics vote int
i
accordance with feeling ; the needy ndifferen
vote simply for money. They vote for whoever
gives them most, or if nobody gives theni
anything, they do not vote at all. Will
in-
struction in reading and writing change Of
class for the better, or will their indefinite multi-
plication make them impossible of manipula-
tion? We believe not. We have less faith thai!
Sir John Pakington in the influence of the national
schoolmaster, and a higher opinion than Mr. Bright
of the ingenuity of electioneering agents. Neither
do we believe in the efficacy of penal enactments'
They will never have efficacy so long as the Wert
tion of payment for a vote is not pronounced criinio,..
by public opinion as well as by Act of Parliareenv,
It is not so at present. No member of the House
Commons is less received by society, or less shake ti
hands with by his acquaintances, because he has lose
his seat for bribery. He is thought lucky
escapes from the difficulty of fixing him with age?ol
unlucky if his friends have unwarily committed let
and laughed at as clumsy if he has managed so bad;
as to be convicted personally of buying a cometodl4
offered to him notoriously, and pressed upon him.t`,
perseveringly as cigar lights in the streets. So le,
the bribed voter. The constituency regard an Cie,.
tion committee not in the light of a court of justie;
but as a tilting ground, and each witness looksuPnd
himself, and others look upon him too, as Pqtiee,
against the counsel and solicitors on the other sw,f
local and metropolitan, and if he gets the best ,:a
them he has a triumph, or, if defeated, is coal:4,or
with, or laughed at or blamed ; if the latter, not t.
having been bribed, but for having made a badfig
e't,
Bribery, in fact, is looked upon by the masses pr,
much as poaching is. The law declares it a crin?..`t
but public opinion does not really or in its he .51
denounce it, and so long as it is considered a veni
offence the statute-book will not do much to destr%
it. The best proof of this state of feeling is
rarity with which the law is put in force. In ,
as far as the greater offenders—members of Part-;
ment—are concerned it never has been. There
been a show on two or three occasions of proceeul"
to extremities with offenders, but those who rcnieln:
ber the circumstances which attended the prosecili
tion of Mr. Charlesworth and Mr. Leatham or
find some difficulty in persuading themselves
others than the vindicators of the law were 1/,,e,:6
much in earnest. The influence of the Election .6-'oo
is, we take it, merely indirect, but they hav_o
doubt operation to this extent, that the enornleo
expense which their action creates always in
candidates shy of resorting to bribery, awl
‘,°,,ed,
may deter them altogether. Sometimes, inue_'ibe
candidates have been known to agree not to they
on either side, but more frequently perhaps that
evade the risks by a mutual understanding
es
neither party shall petition. Of the other renlehu jo
suggested that of wholesale disfranchisernenv.oo
absolutely impracticable. It would not be Posgike,
to disfranchise such constituencies as those of NY„ a or
field, Kingston-on-Hull, Great YarmnutN,, to
Nottingham ; and it would not be permissiwycelt
employ a mode of treatment to small boroughswuleo.
we are afraid to adopt in the instance of large °_l2,,s,
The only additional mode that occurs to us as r
sibly efficacious is to deprive of the franchise Woe
term or for life, every voter reported to the 'Pip.
of Commons, or convicted in a court of law, cif.g,ioo
ing or accepting a money bribe. Such a pr°v%ill
might properly be introduced into the Itcforni s,
in accordance with the vote of the House on Sir 00
Knightley's motion, but it could only be c1°13,,,ed
the ground that the franchise is a privilege ,ati, a
trust, and not, as Mr. Bright and others 1101°2 &-
natural and inherent right. What amount 0, pie
terrent effect such a penalty would have on P;iroot
who will not register their votes, and who lv,"„otb,
walk from their own doors to the polling-P",,eut
may be a matter of doubt ; but its enforee,'-ody,
would in some degree purge the constituent test
and it might be worth trying. After all, the.,„otila
touchstone of electoral purity and earnestness "coo-
be to return to ancient custom, and make the ot
stituency, instead of the representative, pal the
of the return.