The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-13 00:00:00

TIMES.—As for the particular proposals of the
Government' Reform Bill it would be unreJsonable
to feel and insincere to profess any fear of them. A
Conservative Government has proposed a £lO occu-
pation franchise in counties supplemented by a
savings-bank franchise, and no one can now be
alarmed at a £l4 qualification. Mr. Gladstone was
careful to assure his audience last night that he him-
self would not have been frightened at a £lO occu-
pation franchise, although the proposal of the Go-
vernment was that a £l4 franchise should be adopted,
and then only when thequalification arose • respect
in
of the occupation of a house with or without land,
and not of land alone. The distinction is evidence
,-distrust, and the selection of such an odd
.. seemed inexplicable until the borough
,ffOrded some explanation of it. But the
,nchise is not to rest there. Depositors of
ings-banks for two years are to be added;
Ladstone makes light °flans addition, be-
Links few people would take the trouble of
, annual claim which be believes would be
to keep
alive the savings-bank qualifica-
- is, however, one of the many slight evi-
dences the speech afforded that the proposals which
have been presented as an instalment on the ground
of due deliberation have really been hastily adopted
that such a notion as this of annual claims should
be entertained. Mr. Gladstone addressed last'night
a crumb of comfort to the Opposition by reminding
them that an admission of working men to the fran-
chise was not unfavourable to Conservative candi-
dates, but he did not venture to akirralit4 own sup-
porters by telling them that, when working men
formed half the voters, Conservative members bore
to Liberals the proportion of nearly three to one.
This is what the returns of Saturday prove to be the
case in the present constituencies, and, unless the
constituencies themselves be altered, there is no rea-
son to suppose that this will not continue to be the
case. The Conservative party might well make a
feint of opposition to the present bill, knowing that
if it pass the small boroughs are their own. We,
who do not desire such an end, cannot approve the
means which would insure it. If we have no sym-
pathy with those who proteit that the present sys-
tem
of representation leaves nothing to be desired,
we have less with those who would only alter it to
make it worse. Above all, we must look further
into the future than men can do whose only objects
are the triumphs of to-day.
POST.—When Mr. Gladstone, in the peroration
of an address the delivery of which occupied two
hours and a half, deprecated the opposition alike of
those who might consider that the Government had
done too much, and of those who might think that
they had done too little, by their scheme of Parlia-
mentary Reform, on the ground that they had at all
events done their best, he advanced what is perhaps
the most substantial justification of the general
scope arid tendency of the Ministerial measure. It
is notoriously difficult, if not impossible, to please
all parties, and if no other objection can be taken to
the new Reform Bill than that it will fail to give
universal satisfaction, it may be regarded as no un-
usual piece of legislation. But without venturing
at the present moment to discuss with particularity
its merits or demerits, we apprehend that the new
bill, at least in its present form, will fail to satisfy
the cravings of those who expected that it would
furnish at least a temporary settlement of a great
question. We can never hope to pass a Reform
Bill which may not need modification in the course
of two or three generations, but it would seem to
require no great effort of legislative wisdom to frame
one which might satisfy the requireMents of the
generation by which it was passed. The Reform
Act of 1832 was accepted by the nation without
serious demur for a quarter of a century, but the
man would be indeed sanguine who anticipated that
the present measure, if carried, would prove equally
successful. The basis of qualification for the fran-
chise continues to be a property one, and education,
unless coupled with the substantial goods of this
world, is still ignored. The distribution of seats
remains undisturbed. In a word, the new Reform
Bill simply extends the franchise, for the most part
by lowering it, and adds largely to the numbers of
the electoral body. That such would be one of the
results of the new measure every one expected, but
then it must also be said that we expected some-
thing more.
HERALD.--It is quite certlfia --that even if Mr.
Gladstone's general estimate should be correct the
working classes would in a number of boroughs
have absolute power. The inevitable result
of
.the operation of this bill would be to give
them that absolute power in all boroughs in
a yery short time. Mr. Gladstone professed to
stand aghast at the transfer of power involved in
a£6 borough franchise. In two or three years—
certainly before this Parliament would expire by
effiux of time—most of the houses the gross esti-
mated rental of which is now £6 will advance into
the £7 class, and their occupiers would be put upon
the register as a matter of course. The gradual but
sure increase in rent, prices, and wages, is already
adding every year a number of working men to our
large borough constituencies. It is adding them in
a safe and beneficial manner. The Government
bill, on the other hand, would at once give the
working classes complete control in the boroughs,
and would inevitably have for its effect the most
mischievous results. It is not, however, in the pro-
visions which the Government bill contains that the
radical and fatal objection to it lies. These pro-
visions might be modified; perhaps the Govern-
ment might show itself as ready to accept a restric-
tive amendment as Mr. Gladstone somewhat singu-
larly reminded the house last night it professed
itself in 1860. The conclusive, the inseparable ob-
jection to the bill is, that it does not even propose
to settle the question, and that to pass it would
1
merely be to throw the country into a feverish and
mischievous struggle for the redistribution of par-

liamentary power.
DAILY NEWS.—SO far as could be judged, the
reception given last night to the Government mea-
sure was encouraging. If the bill did not raise en-
thusiasm, it met with approval from all real re-
formers. The objections urged against it were for
the greater part self-refuting, or had been refuted
beforehand by Mr. Gladstone. The reasons which
he gave for not dealing with the vast and compli-
cated question of the redistribution of scats were
not invalidated by Mr. Laing's recitation of notori-
ous anomalies. The argument of the member for
Wick that no change is required, and that therefore
a great measure of change should have been pro-
posed, needs only to be stated to be judged. As
little consistent were those who urged in the same
breath as an objection to the measure that it was
not accompanied by a scheme of redistribution,
and, as a reproach to it, that it would be inevitably
followed by such a scheme. These critics can be
happy neither with nor without a project of redis-
tribution. The truth is that:the measure will be op-
posed by them on various pretexts, but from one
motive—because it is a genuine Reform Bill; and
it should be earnestly supported by all true Liberals
on the same sufficient ground.
ADVERTISER.—We cannot anticipate success for
a scheme based on compromise, growing, year by
year, less and less liberal. The measure offered by
Mr. Gladstone is a smaller one than was offered by
Lord John Russell in 1852 and in 1860 ; and in
one important point it is less liberal than the Con-
servative Bill of 1859. It has, too, the capital
fault of being only a portion of a measure. Reform
in 1831-2, and in 1852, and in 1860, always meant
a complete plan for the reconstitution of the House
of Commons. But now what is offered to us is
merely a Franchise Bill, to be followed next year
by some other fraction, and the year after blyn'!
third. We feel certain that the people of Etnog a
athe
will be in favour of no such
.delay.
tiArse in one
imossibility of passing an entire
sessionlB32 norn wsonuelhd
impossibility in 1859, iflorßut again we cite
impossibility
r.d Derdbyßliu,
hassas
cvdicieraeisfamoi nduendndo ot fa
nni
yn_
terposed his party opposition.n
It is not three months
Mr. Bright's declaration.
Lord Palmerston might have
since he asserted. that
pa
osusiedd
utuhtebßa
ve of alB6lo a
th
a complete
better he
f
spoken a single word. How, then,
n Mr. Bright doubt that wi
aiaoramons than the last Earl Russell might pass a
complete bill now, if he would but speak that one
word ?
TILE ANGLO-AMERICAN TIDIES" ON TILE UNITED
STATES.--Among the multitudinous propositions to
amend the Constitution of the United States which

are now before Congress is one which has the rare
merit of not being political. It is to reform the
national name, so that instead of being the "United
States of America" it shall hereafter be "America."
The idea is not a new one. It has been broached
frequently before, and advocated by scholars and
historians without avail. During the Revolution
" Columbia" was the popular name of the North
American continent ; when Hopkinson: wrote his
song, " Hail, Columbia, Happy Land," he did so in
obedience to this feeling, and because " Hail,
United States, Happy Land," or " lands," would
have seemed awkward. In various other. songs
once popular, such as " Rise, Columbia, Brave and