The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-03 00:00:00

SPIPJT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIIE " SATURDAY REVIEW" ON THE REFORM BILL

—One of the most unfortunate consequences of the
exceedingly unsatisfactory manner in which the
Government has dealt with the Reform question is
that the discussion on it shows an increasing ten-
dency to assume a wrong character. A bold measure
dealing with the whole question would have chal-
lenged a definite and well-directed criticism. But
this poor fragment of a measure impels men to wan-
der on all sides from what ought to be the realissue.
On the one hand, far too much is made of the pos-
sible evils which any Reform Bill that lowers the
franchise may be expected to create in boroughs
that must remain among the chief centres of our
representative system. No Reform Bill can be per-
fect, and every Reform Bill must in one sense be
artificial and arbitrary, for no argument can prove
that the particular figure selected as the measure of
the franchise is the only right, legitimate, and
defensible figure. If men do not want a Reform
Bill at all, and object to all reduction of the
franchise, they had much better say so. But it
is absurd to say that a Reform Bill is desirable,
and that a reduction of the franchise is desirable,
but that it is a great pity that the reduction of the
franchise which is desired should not produce the
right results in this or that large borough. Discus-
sion cannot proceed unless political crisis will stick
by their own first principles, and the first principles
by which a Reform Bill is to be judged are, we
think, sufficiently simple. For a variety of reasons
'it is desirable that the franchise should be reduced,
and for a variety of other reasonsit is desirable that
a eonsiderable number of the smaller boroughs
should have their political power decreased or taken
away. A good Reform Bill would be a bill that,
while boldly reducing the franchise, distributed
the seats so that every class of English society
should be fairly and adequately represented.
But the best Reform Bill that man could devise
would do harm in some particular constituencies,
and we ought to be prepared to suffer this in
order to attain a great national benefit, if we
wish for a Reform Bill at all. But if it is idle
to attack the bill on the ground that it will notwork
well everywhere, the language in which the bill is
defended is much more than idle ; it is wild and ex-
travagant to the last degree. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer, for example, declares that he cannot
understand h'ow his opponents can object to enfran-
chising £7 householders, who are our fellow-Chris-
tians, and men of our own flesh and blood. This is
not argument ; it is declamation of tha most un-
meaning kind. Are not £6 householders also theo-
retically our fellow-Christians—are they not just
as much of our flesh and blood as £7 householders ?
We are debating how many of these Christians and
brethren we are to endow with political power, and
if we say that all English Christians ought to be
enfranchised, we come at once to universal suf-
frage. Smaller men carry 'this wildness of declama-
tion to a pitch that makes it almost doubtful whe-
ther sense and truth have not said good-bye altoge-
ther to the world of English politics. Mr.
Fawcett attended a meeting at Brighton, and
gravely assured his hearers that the only reason
why the Government Bill was opposed was because
its opponents were determined that Mr. Gladstone
should never be Premier, as not being aristocratic
enough. Human perversity can scarcely go further
than this. The Government proposes a tiny frag-
ment of Reform; it is objected that to deal with
Reform by fragments is impolitic ; and men like Mr.
Fawcett declare that the only conceivable ground
for such an objection must be the secret wish to
have a Lord at the head of the Treasury. But if
• other men are wild and rhetorical, what is to be
said of Mr. Bright ? His letter to his Birmingham
constituents is a masterly example of all that a
politician at such a crisis as the present ought not
to say. In the first place, the bill is declared to be
an honest bill. It does nothing but fix on a figure
for the franchise, and Mr. Bright acknowledges that
the figure fixed on seems to him the wrong one. But
then this •simple fragment of Reform, doing no-
thing but fix on a wrong figure, has a subtle moral
virtue about it. It is a poor thing in itself, but ethi-
cally it is beautiful. The only attempt that Mr.
Bright makes to give a meaning to his words is by
saying that what he likes about the bill is not its
contents, but the resolution of the Ministry to stand
or fall by it. If so, Ministers have the satisfaction
of imparting a moral excellence to their bill at a very
cheap rate. If they did anything- else, or gave any
hope of doing anything else, besides proposing their
fragment of Reform, it might show that they at-
tached a value toßeform thatßeformers might admire.
But as they do nothing else, and show themselves
utterly unable to do anything else, they could not
help standing or falling by the most dishonest, as
well as by the most honest, bill that could be framed.
But this bill creates dismay and horror, not only in
the breasts of Tories, but in the breasts of sound
and undoubted-Liberals. These Liberals object to a
fragmentary measure of Reform as much as the
Tories do, and they arc then, in Mr. Bright's opinion,
guilty of having formed one of the dirtiest conspira-
cies ever known, a conspiracy, for example, far blacker
than the conspiracy which successfully opposed a
Liberal Government on the occasion of the China war
and the attempt to murder the Emperor. If a Libe-
ral votes with Tories to reprobate a too meek way
of treating France, or to stigmatise a war as unjust,
he is a noble, honest man delivering his soul, and
trusting in a Providence that is above human parties.
If he votes with Tories to reprobate dealing with Re-
form by halves, he is a dirty conspirator. So far as
blackguarding him and abusing him or denouncing
him can make him change his mind in time, or
punish him if he does not change his mind:Mr.
Bright is not the man to stint the necessary abuse.
Nor is it to be doubted that in some instances he
may succeed. Sir William llutt, for instance,
thought of taking quite an honest and independent
line, thinking for himself and showing that he was
not afraid to express his deliberate convictions.
But some Gateshead Bright was down on him, and
he succumbed at once, and promised in the most
delightfully amiable way never to be a dirty con-
spirator •any more. But all members are not so
meek as this, nor do their constituencies wish they
should be. If Mr. "Bright blackguards them they
can stand it. They are not like the fishwoman who
was shut up when O'Connell called her an isosceles
triangle. Like the gentlemen of Nottingham, they
will not think " scoundrel" an abusive term when
they consider who it is that uses it. And it must
be owned that Mr. Bright is quite sharp enough to
see this. He has resources at his command. He
can coax or he can threaten, as well as abuse.
Within a few hours after his letter was read at
Birmingham, he was at Manchester, protesting that,
so far as Lord Grosvenor was concerned, he only
called him a dirty conspirator in the Pickwickian
sense, and meant by it that he was a most estimable
young nobleman of sound Liberal principles, and
descended from a grandfather who had supported
the Anti-Corn-Law League. And if coaxing fails,
as well as abuse, then th last, the surest, and the
sharpest means must be used. Mr. Bright will call
upon his " lambs." Let him only have enough of
them to line the advances to Westminster on the
voting day, and he M ill engage that the bill is
carried, as sure as Robert Clifton was returned for
Nottingham. If there is apathy in the country as
to the Reform Bill, and if the arguments are all, so
far as we can see, one way, and the abuse the other,
it certainly cannot be said that the Ministry and its
more determined suppoi ters are apathetic. Next
week the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to
raise the war-cry in Lancashire, and some of
his subordinates are going to see what can be
done in the West Riding. But the warmest
friends of the Ministry must see that the
issue is no longer whether the Reform Bill shall be
carried, but whether the Ministry shall get a ma-
jority on the second reading. Mr. Gladstone is de-
termined to have a majority if he can, and to get
it distinctly in favour of a measure dealing only
with a fragment of Reform. If that can but be
achieved, the honour of the Government will be
technically taken as saved, and the bill may be left
to its fate. It is obvious that all the difficulties
that could have been created by dealing with Re-
form as a whole will be greatly increased by the
proposed plan of drafting bills for the redistribution
of seats, but not proceeding with them. Unless
these bills are adopted as substantially parts of the
Government measure, there is no probability that
they will ever be carried ; and unless they ate car-
ried they will not show what the ultimate conse-
quences of the bill are to be. Every clause of the
Franchise Bill will be discussed with reference to
them just as much as if they were part of the pre-
sent Government proposal. But, at the same time,
those who object to the redistribution of seats which
the Government may propose will not even have
the poor consolation of knowing the worst that can
befall them. If they pass the Franchise Bill, and
wait for next Session to deal with redistribution,
they may have a more obnoxious measure pressed
on them than that which the Government may now
suggest. For, without imputing insincerity to the
Government, the accidents of political life may
easily retard the settlement of redistribution until the
new voters under the Franchise Bill come on
the register; and then it will be the new constitu-
encies and not the present ones, that will settle by far