The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-16 00:00:00

COLONIAL.

TEA.--The public sales of Assam and Indian continue
to proceed with some animation, and the prices obtained
show a slight advance on previous rates.
SUGAR.--A good business has been done on West India
and late prices are well maintained for refining qualities.
Good grocery descriptions also command full rates. Re-
fined goods are in fair request and generally support
firmer rates.

COFFEE.—OnIy a moderate amount of business has been
dine. Plantation Ceylon sold readily at about previous
quotations, while descriptions of native were a shade
cheaper.
RICE.—The market continues very quiet, and there have
been no sales of importance.
TALLOW.—Business has been very inactive, and quota-
tions generally show a downward tendency for both pre-
sent and forward delivery. Y.C. on the spot is quoted 44s ;
December, 44a 3d; and January to March, 44e 6d per cwt.

Outline of a Plan of Reform.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
SIR,—In spite of the attractions of temporary
:opics Reform remains the great domestic question

of the day. Our political doctors seem, neverthe-
less, utterly at a loss what to propose as a feasible.
scheme for the admission of the masses to the privi-
leges of the Franchise, without entirely swamping
the existing constituency, and reducing to mere
dumb show the expression of all other interests in
the community.
But something, it is evident, must be attempted.
As a matter of justice, expediency, safety, it behoves
the middle classes to contract without delay a treaty
of alliance with these unenfranchised myriads, be-
leaguering, at present peacefully enough, our con-
stitutional stronghold. Their welfare and content-
ment it is necessary to secure ; their views and
sentiments it is obviously, on every moral and civil
consideration, advisable to consult. It must not be
said of Englishmen of any social grade that they
are behind the rest of the world in the appreciation
or possession of political privileges, nor less capable
than Germans or Americans of exercising their
rights with intelligence and prudence.
Nevertheless, we do not want to have our insti-
tutions revolutionised. We wish to retain, under
every reformatory process, the leading features of
our ancient British Constitution. While acknow-
ledging the virtue of mere numbers as an element
in the distribution of political power, in other
words, while asserting the dignity of the indivi-
dual, paying homage to man, as man, we would
still prefer, in our deeply-rooted habits, and some-
what rigidly ramified system of old world life and
civic society, that station, intelligence, education,
and property should exert their just influence and
occupy their due and hitherto dominant position. To
reconcile these apparently antagonistic principles
divers schemes have been brought forward—some,
for instance, which would multiply the votes of an
elector according to the amount of his property, or
the number and variety of the qualifications he
might purchase or inherit; some which would em-
power the representative with a plurality of votes
proportioned to the extent of his constituency ; all
more or less complicated, unpractical, un-English.
Far from being deterred by these failures, my in-
tent in the present communication is to essay the
solution of the difficulty, and to prove, I trust, the
desired end actually and easily attainable.

Let me begin by premising boldly that the sub-

joined plan amounts to nothing less than a supple-
mentary constitution to our existing system ; that I
propose greatly to enlarge the present, mainly a
middle-class, constituency, and entirely to create a
working-class constituency, each to
.be based upon
an independent organisation, both acting harmo-

niously.
To commence, then, with the existing system.
1. Let the present £lO borough franchise, and all
other property qualifications created and confirmed
by the Reform Bill of 1832, relative to the right of
voting in cities and boroughs, be retained.
2. Let the burgess right of suffrage cease.
3. Let the county qualification be equalised with
the borough.
4. Let a lodger franchise amounting to double
the sum (£2O) required for the borough house-
holder, and to be paid for two years consecutively
before registration, be established.
5. Let the certificate or diploma of every learned
profession, and the second degree of every univer-
sity, or the first after the age of 25 years, entitle to
a vote.

6. Let an officers, military or naval, on half-pay,
residing within the British islands, have a vote.
7. Let articles of clerkship, indentures of ap-
prenticeship, tutorship, in which should be implied
the teachership of any of the liberal arts, and ser-
vice as an assistant for five years in any mercan-
tile or commercial establishment convey the quali-
fication to vote.
8. Let the possession of £5O in any savings or
other bank, bearing one year's interest, and an an-
nual income of £5O, derivable from landed, funded,
or other fixed and realised property, such as water
or gas works, railway or canal shares, life and fire
insurance companies, or from any bona fide invest-
ment of capital in works of public utility recognised
by Act of Parliament, be held a qualification for the
suffrage, whether the owner reside in town or
country.
9. Let every minister of religion and certificated
schoolmaster, by virtue of his office, if not other-
wise qualified, have a vote.
10. Let a registration society, with appropriate
machinery, be established in every rural parish or
ward of a borough, who shall see that every duly
qualified voter be on the register.
11. Let the second occasion of abstention from
the exercise of the suffrage, without good and suffi-
cient cause, render the voter liable to a fine of £lO.
12. Let the payment of income tax convey the
vote.

13. Let the mode of voting be either open or by
ballot, according to the option of every individual
elector.

14. Let boroughs with a population numbering
more than have three members ; no consti-
tuent having more than two votes ; so that every
concentrated local minority of importance may be
provided for.
15. Let boroughs with a population not amount-

ing to be disfranchised, the voters thence-
forth forming any part of the constituehcy ; the
qualifications being the same both for urban and
rural districts.

And now I come to the second part of my plan,
the creation of a working-men's constituency.
Let the seats gained as indicated in the last clause
be distributed in the interest of the working classes t
exclusively, on the following principles :-
1. Let the country be mapped out into electoral
districts, comprising each not less than two coun-
ties, an agricultural and manufacturing or mining
county where practicable, being by preference joined
together, but so as to be always conterminous, and
intersecting, where possible, the Diocesan circles.
2. Let all labouring men, whatever their
occupation—agricultural, manufacturing, min-
ing, or commercial—who have a settled
habitation, who receive wages weekly, fort-
nightly, or monthly; all who gain their living by
honest industry, whether as pedlars, hawkers, or
workers in any craft or calling not prejudicial to
society; all domestic or out-door servants who can
produce a testimonial to good character for three
years ; all pensioners in either branch of the ser-
vice ; and all public Ervin/Les, with the exception of
those in the army, the navy, the police, and those
in the receipt of indoor relief from the poor rates,
have a vote.
3. Let every householder or cottier, who has paid
weekly rent for two years, have a vote.
4. Let each electoral division in England return
two members; those in Wales, Scotland, and Ire-
land, each, one.
5. Let the suffrage of this branch of the con-
stituency be exclusively by ballot.
6. Let the elections be held triennially if the con-
stituency shall so decide, or otherwise.
7. Let there be no restriction on the social status
of candidates ; but if a working man be elected, he
shall receive an allowance—to be defrayed from the
county rates of the electoral division--of £250
or £3OO per annum.
8. The expenses of the election, which shall be
held where practicable, previous to the borough and
county elections, shall be leviable on the same funds.
9. As a tribute to public virtue, a test of social
progress, and an encouragement to popular educa-
tion, let there be no disqualification in either branch
of the constituency but convicted personal corrup-
tion proved before a bench of magistrates, and, under
30 years of age, the inability of the voter to read
and write.
By these means, Sir, I strongly hope to have made
it apparent that to give due rights and privileges to
the working masses of our fellow-countrymen, yet
preserve the just weight and influence of the edu-
cated and propertied classes of society ; to reconcile
the conflicting claim of numbers with old established
and complex interests ; to endow with the power of
the suffrage a vast and homogeneous multitude,
five millions of men, a Xerxean host, without
virtually disfranchising the present possessors, a
sifted and contracted constituency of at most a mil-
lion and a quarter ; to maintain the moral and legal
equality of all ; to confirm the independence of every

r,.~..

class ; to introduce into our Parliamentary organi-
sation an element which, while representing the
most enormous force in civil society, shall not ex-
ceed in its own proportions an eighth, or at most a
seventh, of the whole ; and while giving fair scope
and uncontrolled expression to the various social
forces of the day, to secure at one and the same
time the balance of our carefully-adjusted Consti-
tution, and prepare for the natural expansion of

liberal principles, is a problem not yet to be pro-
nounced insoluble.

On the contrary, it appears to me that by adoption
of the bases laid down in the above scheme, subject
of course to such modifications as further delibera-
tions might suggest, the existing constituency, and
the many and varied sections of the body politic
which it represents, may retain its original and jot
position instead of being wholly effaced from the
political eminence it has for so many years occupied,
to the honour and wellbeing of our country ; while
at the same time the demands of the advanced party,
vote by ballot, annual or triennial elections, paid
members and electoral districts being entirely, though
under safeguards, conceded, and universal or man'
hood suffrage in everything but name adopted, the
large addition made to direct and genuine represen-
tation of the industrial population will render cer-
tain the unrestrained expression of their views and
opinions in the Imperial Legislature, and confer
upon their order in the State a new and legitimate
dignity ; the forces of new factors will be in eer-
porated in the columns of our constitutional equa-
tion, and the landmarks of ancient and venerable
institutions be still beneficially preserved for Our
posterity.—l am, sir, yours obediently,