The Sun.
London, England, 1835-09-01 00:00:00

PROT'EST OF LORD BROUGHAM.

The following is Lord Brougham's Protest against the Mu-
nicipal Rc:forrn BIN as pr.sed by the Lords :
" Dissentient-1. Because the amendments to the 'Lill alter
its whole structure, are altogether inconsistent with its prin-
ciples, and while they impair its efficiency to any good purpose,
present it to the view of the country in a light still more un-
favourable than even the meP.Are thus altered may in itself
deserve to be regarded.
_

" 2. Because the aTteged preservation of the rights of free-
men within the corporations is founded upon an entire misap-
prehension of the nature of Corporations, and of the title by
ixhich they hold property—it being a principle wholly unde-
niable, that whatever property is held by any corporate body,
it belongs to that body, under whatever form and with what-
ever modiF.eations the Legislature may be pleased to impress
upon it—and that all Corporations, as well ecclesiastical as
lay, only have a title to the property which they possess upon
the ground of the Corporation continuing identically the same
after its formation has been changed by law.
" 3. Because the continuing of the Parliamentary franchise
to the freemen, or those who would have been entitled to be-
come freemen but for this Bill, is a perpetuation of the very
worst evils of the representative system, the freemen being
the class of voters among whom all the evils of bribery and
corruption have been in all cases found most extensively to
prevail.

'f 4. Because the qualification adopted of the sixth part of
the rate-payers, those who pay the largest amount of rates, is
contrary to the whole principles of our free constitution ; esta-
blishing, for the first time, as a rule, that the political rights
and privileges of the state shall belong only to those who have
more money than their fellow-citizens ; not affixing, as our
order laws have done, a certain amount of wealth as the test
of the right to mingle in public affairs, but excluding all
therefrom except the richest class ; so that not merely rich
persons, or persons in easy circumstances, are henceforth to
be deemed eligible to office, but the richest; the persons who
excel their fellow-citizens in wealth are declared to be alone
capable of administering the municipal concerns, a principle
absurd in itself, and oppressive and fraught with the mischiefs
of oligarchy in its worst and most offensive form, the oligarchy
of mere property without any other qualification or modifica-
tion whatever.

"5. Because the introduction of this novel and pernicious
principle is rendered still more asurd by the alternative
tvhich is added, allowing any person, in some boroughs of
1,0001., in others of 500/. worth of property, to be eligible,
inasmuch as this wholly defeats the only purpose with which
the new principle objected to is adopted. So that the provi-
sion taken altogether is wholly inoperative to prevent fraudu-
lent and fictitious qualifications, the sole ground of intruding
the new principle, while it sanctions for the first time a doc-
trine altogether inconsistent with the spirit of all our insti-
tutions.

"6. Because the election of aldermen for life is the fruitful
source of manifold inconveniences and abuses, removing the
persons chosen from all salutary control, forcing them into a
class set apart from their fellow-citizens, to whom they are
wholly unaccountable, sowing the seeds of constant dissension
and jealousy between the different classes of councilmen, per-
petuating the power of men whom unfitness not originally dis-
covered, incapacity supervening, old age, infirmity of any kind,
may render wholly or partially unable to discharge the duties
of their office.

" 7. Because the continuance of the existing aldermen or
capital burgesses and town-clerks is the certain introduction
into the new councils of the worst evils of the old close and
self-elective system—making it inevitable that the same kind
of influence should continue to prevail in the corporations
affected to be reformed, and wholly preventing the change
which this measure professes to effect from producing any
substantial benefit in purifying the administration of municipal
concerns.

" 8. Because these alterations of the Bill, and more espe-
cially the last, have a direct tendency to exhibit this measure
to our countrymen as a mere mockery or pretence of Reform,
as holding out in words the promise of improvement which it
at the same time breaks.

" 9. Because the converting an office granted during plea-
sure into an office for life, without the consent of the grantor,
is contrary to all principle, without any precedent, and a much
more glaring violation of the rights of parties than any which
even the adversaries of the Bill have imputed to its provi-

sons.

" 10. Because the amendments, and those especially re-
lating to retaining persons in their office, proceed upon a sup-
position that the councils chosen by the people arc less fit to
be trusted with the administration of the corporate offices, and
more likely to do acts of imprudence and of injustice, than the
present bodies, which owe their existence and continuance to
self-election.

" 11. Because the requiring that a councilman shall be a
member of the Church of England before he can vote for the
presentation to a living, is utterly repugnant to the whole
spirit, and even to the letter, of the law of England, sanction-
ing the principle of tests long after these have been abrogated,
absurdly assuming that corporators arc less fit or less likely
honestly to exercise rights of Church patronage than private
individuals, who are by law subject to no such restrictions,
and stigmatizing Dissenters with the hateful imputation of
being disposed to violate trusts reposed in them, by appointing
unfit persons to perform clerical functions, with the view of
fraudulently undermining the Established Church, a conduct
of which we in our consciences believe the Dissenters to be
utterly incapable.

Bicause we believe that the character of these
amendments is to injure the measure in all its essential prin-
ciples, leaving only as much of it as could not have been al-
tered without rejecting the Bill altogether; while we are
firmly persuaded that the changes effected are calculated to
produce in men's minds an opinion of this House being far
more hostile to the fundamental principles of the measure
than it really is ; and because we thus hold it to be inevitable
that far more harm will be wrought by the changes made in
the Bill than good can be gained, even according to the views
of those who have propounded them."