The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIDIES.--The hoarseness under which Mr. Bright
suffered last night, and which towards the close
almost impeded his utterance, diminished the effect
of a speech which would have been great coming
from another man, but which could in no case have
been remarkable as delivered by Mr. Bright. It is
not in argument that he principally shines, and
yesterday he condescended to reason with his op-
ponents. There was little trace of the passion and,
we may add, none of the vituperation which add
power to his provincial oratiens. At the outset, in-
deed, he was careful to apologise for an unintentional
misrepresentation at Rochdale of Mr. Lowe's famous
speech before the Recess, but no word was uttered
in explanation of the graver charge which he had
brought against the members of the House collec-
tively in his Sunday morning's letter to the people
of Birmingham. One thing, however, he did ex-
plain. It is now confessed, for we have the authority
of Lord Russell and Mr.' Bright for it, that the
method of dealing with Reform in fragments is due
to the advice of Mr. Bright, tendered in a chance
conversation with Lord Russell six or seven years
ago and repeated in his speech at Rochdale last
January. Br. Bright did not, indeed, use in the
House of Commons the word " leverage," which had
such an awkward appearance in the Rochdale speech,
but he entered at length in the subsidiary argu-
ments in favour of separating a Franchise Bill from
a Bill for the Redistribution of Seacs. It is worth
while to examine the arguments by which Mr.
Bright defended the introduction of the Franchise
Bill separately, and which he evidently thought
sufficient to demolish the position of Lord Stanley.
The gist of them lies in the notion that the power
of giving a vote for a member of Parliament is a
right, and that any concession of this right is but
au instalment of justice long delayed. The Fran-
chise Bill and the Redistribution Bill rest, he says,
on different principles, and while the first is an act
of justice to an excluded class, the second is a
matter of political expediency.. A measure which
introduced 300,000 or 400,000 new voters ought
therefore to be welcomed by itself, and any ques-
tions as to what may come after only betray the dis-
trust of territorial aristocrats. This mode of argu-
ment laid Mr. Bright open to the easy retort of Mr.
Whiteside, who inquired why the member for Bir-
mingham had joined in rejecting the bill of Lord
Derby's Ministry, which proposed to enfranchise
more than 500,000 voters ; but we do not press the
question, because we protest against the hypothesis
which justifies it. There are, 110 doubt, fundamental
principles of Government, but to suppose that any
principle can be carried into operation without respect
to the special conditions of each political society, and
to suppose teat there is any principle requiring the
suffrage to be conceded as an act of justice to every
inhabitant or every householder, are notions to be
entertained in what, with all respect to Mr. Bright,
we must call the babyhood of political science. The
Government of the United Kingdom is a very com-
plex machine, in which the real motive power is
often concealed beneath the machinery ; but, as a
matter of fact, the determination of the national
policy rests with the will of the House of Commons,
which itself represents the will of the people. By
checks and counter-checks every opinion held by any
important section of the community obtains expres-
sion in the House of Commons, though, as we have
always frankly declared, not in proportion to the
properweight which ought to be attached to each. To
redress this anomaly is the true end of reform. The
,Government has brought in a bill of mere enfran-
chisement, which of itself could do nothing towards
it. If passed, it would enlarge the numbers on the
register, and so far would increase the stability of our
institutions, were it not that the numbers are proposed
to be added in large and small boroughs alike, and

would thus exaggerate the anomalies of the distribu-
tion of power, deteriorate those constituencies which
are already bad, and corrupt some which have
hitherto resisted temptation. But a bill which has
thus little or nothing to recommend it in itself is
only a part of a great scheme ; and Lord Stanley,
looking upon politics as a science, very properly
objects that it is impossible for the House of Com-
mons to sanction such a part standing alone.
Voters cannot but be considered apart from con-
stituencies. As Mr. Bright himself said—and Mr.
GOschen, strangely enough, repeated the statement
later in the evening, as if it were an argument for,
instead of against, the Government plans—it does
not much matter what the votersmay be ; the power
of any class of them depends upon the distribution
of seats. This is sufficient to justify a demand for
the entire scheme, for if the branches of reform are
separated, the necessary consequence is that the de-
cision of the second branch, whatever it may be,
will turn on an appeal to condemned or to provi-
sional constituencies. It is beside the mark to point
out, as Mr. Bright did last night, that enfranchise-
ment was the main portion of Lord Derby's Reform
Bill ; however small the redistribution proposed by
it, that bill was a complete bill, and those who had
to discuss its enfranchising clauses were invited at
the same time to determine the distribution of seats.
Mr. Walpole disapproved Lord Derby's Reform Bill
for reasons fairly stateti, to
which Mr. Bright ap-
consider them.
IIEtReA Mr.L v._
pealed last night ; Mr. Walpole, however, at a later
bill, and we, in our turn, may ap-
pealc,
period of the evening explained the reasons why he
hbe
violent outcry by which it is
on every
devueryty
disapprovesß thisriTgh
in lependent member
of passive obedience
to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, appears (to as-
es of utghlei t
Liberal
einculcate
ral party
as-
sume the most charitable hypothesis open to us) to
be founded upon a singular misapprehension of the
real significance of existing terms of political no-
menclature. And, indeed, a spectacle hardly to be
rivalled in ludicrous absurdity, were it not at the
same time a portent of sinister import, is to be ob-
served in the circumstance, that those who arrogate
to themselves the exclusive claim to be considered
pure Liberals are busily engaged in daily demon-
strating to a wondering world their absolute igno-
rance of the fundamental principles which con-
stitute Liberalism. It is one fault in the some-
what too philosophical definitions, which, about
the period of the Reform Bill, superseded the old-
fashioned titles of Whig and Tory, that both
Liberal and Conservative are, in point of fact,
appellations that embrace many besides those who
can be reckoned upon as habitual supporters of
their respective party chieftains. A Liberal is, of
course, in the first and obvious meaning of the
word, one who loves liberty ; a Conservative, one
who appreciates so fully the value of our established
institutions that he is averse to measures of organic
change. But it is at once evident that so far from
being contradictory, these two descriptions can be