The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF T,

TOMES.—The Scotch borough constituencies and
their members have good reason in insisting that if
the business of reform is to be done at all it shall be
done well. The deputation which waited on Lord
Russell about a fortnight since professed various
opinions upon points of detail, but upon this cardi-
nal proposition they were agreed. The delegates
from Glasgow and Col. Sykes, representing Aber-
deen, declared that the men for whom they spoke
would be content with no half measure, and more
lately the constituency of the Ayr boroughs, dissa-
tisfied, as it would seem, at the ambiguous response
of the Premier, have sent their member to him to
protest that what they want is not merely a reduc-
tion of the franchise but also aredistribution of seats.
Never was a protest more seasonable, and never
were men more worthy of being heard. The
boroughs of Scotland enjoy a unique position in the
body politic. Their opinions are sober without be-
ing reactionary, and advanced without being fan-
tastic. There is not a single member for a Scotch
borough who is not a Liberal, and we do not re-
member any Scotch borough being suspected of cor-
ruption, much less any member for one of them
being unseated for bribery. While Berwick is one of
the most notorious of English constituencies, we
have only to step across the Border and we find
ourselves amid groups of boroughs whose purity is
above suspicion, and where the only contests which
arise turn upon the greater or less degree of Libe-
ralism professed by the candidates. It is impos-
sible to dissociate this comparative perfection of the
Scottish boroughs from that practice of grouping
together three or four towns to form a constituency
which is at once their leading peculiarity and the
readiest means of meeting the difficulty of dis-
franchisement, which is the sole excuse for
avoiding a redistribution of seats in England.
If we were to unite together the small boroughs of
the South and West, we should raise their cha-
racter, and have some additional seats to bestow
both upon the enlarged county constituencies and
upon the unrepresented inhabitants of the more
progressive towns of the North. We might, in the
case of such composite constituencies, adopt a plan
for the more perfect representation of the associated
voters like that proposed by Lord John Russell in
the Reform Bill of 1853. To disregard all such
considerations, to press on a reduction of the f ran-
chise, and a reduction of the franchise alone, is to
expose ourselves to the charge of hypocrisy, which
has been often brought against all recent Reform
agitators. The plan betrays a complete ignorance
of the drawbacks of our present system. No one
who has seriously studied the subject can for a
moment justify a proposal which will work no
amendment, and on some points will induce a posi-
tive increase of evil. The three great defects of our
electoral machinery are the exclusion of a large pro-
portion of the adult male population from any part
in its action, the capricious distribution of power
among those who are intrusted with votes, and the
inducement to corruption found in the fact that a
few unscrupulous electors can decide the event of
an election. A reduction of the franchise will, in
appearance, but in little more, do something to re-
move the first of these defects, but it will aggravate
the other two. The feelings of those who are now
excluded from the franchise may be gratified by a
reduction which will give them votes, but if consti-
tuences are left as they are the gratification will be
a very empty one. It would be little worth were
100,000, or 200,000, or 500,000 voters added to the
register to-morrow, if they only shared with fellow-
voters the privilege of sendin g the same men as before
to Westminster. The additions made to the metro-
politan and other great constituencies would in any
case be small, but, were they ever so large, they
would be absolutely powerless in determining the
choice or increasing the power of metropolitan repre-
sentatives. And it is in such large constituencies
that the men live whose exclusion is a special griev-
ance. The body of artisans congregate in the great
towns, where, moreover, few of them attain the
dignity of separate householders, partly on account
of its expense, and partly because of the nomadic
habits forced on them by their employments. A re-
duction of the franchise in smaller boroughs would
admit numbers bearing much larger proportions to
the existing constituency, but the privileges which
in large towns would be worthless would in their
case be too valuable. Every one knows what a
small and compact body can do in a borough of
limited size, and all experience points to the conclu-
sion that a reduction of the qualification in such a
case would aggravate the corruption already too
prevalent. The boroughs where freemen exist are
already such as all boroughs not overwhelming in
size would become ; the freemen are the men who
live in houses of less than £lO rental, and there is
no town in England having a large number of free-
men among its electors which has not been over and
over again the subject of an election petition. Not-
tingham, Norwich, Dover, Coventry, Maidstone,
Canterbury, Lincoln, Glocester, Hereford, Berwick,
Stafford, Maldon, these are a few found on the roll
of the Parliamentary return issued on the motion of
Mr. Baines, and every name is eloquent of con-
tests in committee-rooms. These are the boroughs
which are dear to Parliamentary agents, and there
are many of the number about which an election
petition is at this moment. pending. If the way
to improved government he through corruption,
no better plan could be devised than that of
reducing all the boroughs of England to the
level of these constituencies, but the hope of get-
ting at a better result by brutalising the machi-
nery is, to unsophisticated reasoners, unpromising.
The maintenance of anything like purity of election,
to say nothing of the redress of the present gross
inequalities of representation in the different parts
of the kingdom, demands that a reduction of the
franchise shall be coupled with a redistribution of
seats, which shall secure to the newly enfranchised
some share of legislative influence, and shall take
away the temptation to bribery, which is and must
be in small constituencies too potent to be resisted.
Reform has been before the country for fifteen
years, but though Lord Russell was powerful enough
to raise the spirit, he seems, like children in fairy
tales, to have forgotten how to undo the spell and
to lay it at rest. In his despair he proposes to cut
it in two, not knowing that each half will prove as
troublesome as the undivided whole, and that the
result will be an increase instead of a diminution of
mischief. We speak of Lord Russell as the head of
the Ministry, though it may be that he has been
vainly struggling against influence too strong for
his control. He himself, in the recent edition of
his work on Parliamentary Government, proved
himself still a genuine reformer, although charac-
teristically incapable of receiving new impressions
and benefiting by new thoughts. But whoever may
be to blame for the result, the voices which herald
the coming bill are confused and unpromising. We
are assured one day that we are to have two bills,
and we are told that there will be but one the next.
The bill is to reduce the property qualification, and
nothing more ; it is to create a lodger franchise, it
is to be supplemented by another dealing with the
redistribution of seats, and perhaps by a third in-
troducing some novelty in the method of voting.
The supplementary bill is to be introduced at once,
it is to be put off to the next session, it is to be left
for a new Parliament. All these rumours coming
in quick succession, or we may say all at once, only
prove that the bill or bills to be introduced will vary
directly as the pressure exercised on the Ministry. If
the House of Commons be sincere in its determina-
tion to settle the question, we shall have a complete
scheme brought forward, and the several branches
of it pressed on simultaneously ; if it be lukewarm,-
the second part will be deferred as long as possible,
and when introduced will be languidly promoted ;
if it be absolutely indifferent, the second part will
not make its appearance at all. Under such cir-
cumstances, it behoves members and constituencies
to determine whether they will accept a measure
which would unsettle instead of settling, which
would create a just resentment among those who
found themselves endowed with an empty privilege,
would rouse the passions of those who might remain
excluded, and would demoralize constituencies
which have as yet escaped the taint of corruption ;
which would, in a word, under pretence of re-edify-
ing the political system of the nation, endanger its
stability by exposing it to ruder and more violent
attacks than before.
POST.--It is probable that the Reform Bill which
is now in process of elaboration will prove, when in-
troduced on Monday next, to be of a more complete
and satisfactory character than,• from the composi-
tion of the Ministry, might at first have been ex-
pected. It cannot be too often repeated that the
introduction of a bill bearing palpably the traces
and exhibiting all the weakness of a compromise
between the desire to do everything and the wish
to do nothing, which are known to be opposed in
the Cabinet, would result in nothing but failure for
the bill and ridicule for its promoters. The ques-
tion of Reform, if treated at all, must be met frankly
and settled decisively. " L'appetit vient en man-
geant" is more true of political power than of any
other thing, and to give half a loaf instead of no
bread, although for the moment it may satisfy the
recipient, is but to weaken the hands of the donor
in meeting the next demand, which is certain to be
made for a whole loaf and something more. Re-
form has peculiar capabilities of being used in any
agitation of class against class, and since the ques-
tion is raised it will argue infinitely more wis-
dom to give all that is proper and just
now, rather than, by giving only .as much as can-
not be denied, to leave to the agitators the power
of coming again shortly with further demands
which would include much more than would be
either just or proper. If a stand against reform is
to be made, it were better to make it now, once for