The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-29 00:00:00

that 120 would be a safer limit, being the point at
which the house tax commences, and at which the
jurors are summoned. His objection to the £lO
county franchise is founded on a belief that it would
subvert its character as the representation of pro-
perty by giving it principally to the unrepresented
towns. But we cannot believe that so temporising
a movement would be acceptable either in town
or country. The CHANDOS clause did not form
so popular a portion of the first Reform Bill
that it should be allowed fb influence the new
measure. Lord RUSSELL'S £6 Borough Franchise
does not meet with any more favour from Sir
EARDLEY WILMOT, who would stop at £B. His
argument against the lower franchise is based on the
Parliamentary returns giving the number of elec-
tors who would be added to the constituencies by
such a measure, and he is alarmed at their number.
"It appears," he says, " that taking the gross esti-
mated rental there would have been admissable to
the Register under a £6 franchise the immense
number of 288,889, of which the male occupiers at
the rent of £6 and under £8 amounted to 189,323.
The addition under an £8 franchise would have been
99,566, a very considerable accession of numbers,
but within a few thousand less than half of the ad-
dition under a franchise at £6." There is a point
which must at once strike the impartial observer,
and that is the immense number of householders
who are now excluded from the Electoral Register.
It is quite clear that some decided movement is
called for in the way of extension, and the public
feeling will not be satisfied with any such half-
hearted and temporising measures as a £2O and a
£lO franchise. Let the Government come forward
boldly and show that confidence in the people
which they well deserve, and they will have no cause

to repent it.
There seems to be a vague impression in the
minds of many politicians that there are great divi-
sions in opinion measured by classes, and that when
we get below a certain rank we shall find totally
distinct politics. The fact really is that in all
classes of intelligent English life there are many
conflicting views, and Quot homines tot sententia may
be as readily accepted as indicative of the £6 or £8
householders, or indeed of the non-householders, as
of the highest ranks among us. If there were really,
as some would seem to believe, a strong and united
phalanx of small householders whose politics were
totally opposed to those above them, our social life
would be something very different from what
Setting aside those Chartists and de-
magogues, and their immediate followers, who
form at any time a very inconsiderable
section of our population, the instincts, as well as the
convictions, of the English working men are all on
the side of loyalty and order. Even the strikes
and combinations, which are often cited in disparage-
ment of the artisan and mechanic class, are carried
on with some show of order and regularity. The
days of violence and forcible destruction of what
displeased them have gone past, even among the
most uneducated ; and it is among the higher mem-
bers of the class, not the lower and least trained,
that it is proposed to admit. Sir EARDLEY
WILMOT'S views are sensible and plausible enough,
but he puts the test a little too exclu-
sively upon property. He objects to a lodger
franchise because lodgers are migratory, and some-
times uncertain in their payments, forgetting that
there must be a test of continued residence, and
that the limit of a lodger's rental might be fixed
much higher than that of a householder's. The
wages franchise be does not approve of on account
of the fluctuating nature of the payment. The
Savings Bank test he thinks also unsatisfactory,
because it may depend on the number of a man's
family, while the nature of it is inquisitorial. The
educational franchise would, he considers,be trouble-
some in application, and the principle it contains
would be best amplified by giving additional repre-
sentatives to the seats of learning. He prefers the
qualification proposed by Lord J. RUSSELL in 1854,
the payment of Government and parochial taxes to
the amount of 405., to which he would add the
payment of income tax to any amount. " Such a
qualification," he says, " is in unity and consistent
with constitutional rights, which presume that
every person paying taxes ought to have a
voice in their administration." In addition to
these classes, the £8 occupiers in boroughs
and the £2O in counties, he would admit in the
counties freeholders as at present, copyholders of
the annual value of 405., and £lO leaseholders for
terms of seven years.

t is.

As we have said, he accompanies all his argu-
ments with carefully prepared statistics, so that his
suggestions cannot be set aside as hastily and ill-
considered schemes, but deserve deliberate atten-
tion. They are a little too much inclined to the
exclusion of those very classes who are beginning to
complain of being kept out of their rights. In
speaking of swamping existing voters by the whole-
sale admission of a fresh class, critics often forget
that if the franchise were properly extended, so
many new voters would be admitted from the pro-
fessional and trading ranks that they would of
themselves furnish a counterpoise if one were
needed.

In his second letter Sir E. WthmoT deals with
the redistribution of seats, and he makes
an ingenious proposal for getting over the
difficulty attending the disfranchisement of boroughs.
He suggests that our House of Commons, instead of
being restricted to 658 members, should consist of
700. There is certainly no reason why the number
of members should remain stationary when the
number of constituents has so greatly increased,

even under the existing regulations, and when any
comprehensive measure of reform must so largely
add to it. But on this ground there is no reason
for stopping at 700. We may as well haye 715 or

725, which would still further assist the Minister.
But the Government will do wisely to let this awk-
ward and invidious part of the business alone at

present. If they attempt to redistribute the
seats they are certain to provoke the opposition
of every member who thinks his own seat in
jeopardy, and of every town or borough whose

interests might be affected by the loss of the elec-

toral privilege. No doubt there are great anoma-
lies at present, but they can afford to wait until
the more important and pressing question of the

franchise is settled. It is better that a few boroughs

should return two members when they would be

fairly represented by one, and that some should be

represented who have no real claim to such im-
portance, than that a number of intelligent men,

who are reckoned by hundreds of thousands, should

be totally excluded from the old constitutional
right. If Lord RUSSELL will frankly and honestly

deal with the question of the suffrage he will do

quite enough for 1866 ; and when we have got our
new constituencies in good working order it will

be time enough to consider the redistribution of

seats.

THE CIVIL SERVICE.—Mr. Arthur Brookland
Mason has been appointed a Ceylon writer, on the result
of a competition of 14 candidates for six situations. Mr.
John Cowie has been appointed an assistant of excise.
MUNIFICENT DONATION.—At the ordinary meet-
ing of the weekly board of the Royal Free Hospital, Dr.
Marsden handed in a check for 100 guinens from Mr. Wm.
Crawshay, Caversham-park. Mr. Crawshay has already
contributed two similar donations, besides being a liberal
annual contributor to the institution.