The Sun.
London, England, 1859-04-22 00:00:00

it is impossible to predict the results, but
which must inetably produce vast expen-
diture and bloodshed, not only on the parties con-
cerned, but on those who have kept themselves
free from the scrape and are perfectly innocent in
every respect. We only hope that Great Britain
may avoid being implicated in any way or on either
side ; and although an armed neutrality may be
very costly, and lead to a considerable increase of
taxation, it will be far better than letting our
gallant soldiers bleed in a cause where neither
party can come into court with clean hands, or
reasonably anticipate any intervention on their
behalf by the English Government.

There is one fact relating to the Election and to
Reform Bills, which has hardly received the distinct
attention it justly claims—the position taken by
the working classes. Perhaps we might better say
their taking no position. They are just now one
of the cards of party, the football, or the corpus
vile, with which some play, and on which others
make experiments, but they hardly make any
movement themselves. We have Mr. ROEBUCK,
one of the authors of the Charter, honestly appeal-
ing to the middle classes to confer the franchise on
those who, in 1832, helped them to obtain it.. We
have LORD JOHN RUSSELL bidding much higher or
lower, as we may please to regard it, than ever he
did before ; the Government having, as he thinks,
given him this opportunity to outbid them. We
have Mr. BRIGHT consistently endeavouring to
enfranchise the class which he well knows and
trusts; it is a part of his scheme of Reform. We
have even Mr. HENLEY and many other. Conserva-
tives desirous to give a low borough franchise, and
thinking such a step a really Conservative one.
Meantime, we hear next to nothing from the
working men themselves ! Time was when they
could sign petitions almost a mile long for Univer-
sal Suffrage' and the Ballot ; and, a fatal step for
their object, could drill and arm themselves, as if
they would win by the pike if they could not by
petition. Now, except a few noisy fellows inter-
rupting meetings here and there ; a few gatherings,
in which Mr. ERNEST JONES figures as the fugle-
man ; the organisation of the working people round
Newcastle, and a few other insignificant meetings,
—there is hardly anything to show that our "in-
telligent artisans " who, every one says, " ought to
have the franchise, care a straw about the matter."
This is surely a singular fact, explain it how we
will. We do not deny that, whenever operatives
of any class assemble, they demand manhood or
universal suffrage. Of course they do. When the
question comes before them, they cannot—" write
themselves down asses." Working men who vote
on the subject will, of course, vote themselves into
the Register. The wonder to us is that they do
not bestir themselves universally. When, in 1831,
lit was proposed to enfranchise the middle classes,
there was no lack of enthusiasm, of almost terrific
enthusiasm for the boon ; less the actual electors of
the time, than those whom it was proposed to make
electors, compelled the proud British House of
Lords to give way to their demand. But for this
we should have never heard of ten-pound house-
holders.

It seems to us that the attitude of the working
classes entirely exonerates the Government for
making no offers to them beyond what Mr. BRIGHT
terms " fancy franchises." Ministers were unques-
tionably better acquainted with the temper and
views of the operative class than was commonly
supposed. Had there been a national and strong
feeling amongst those who live on weekly wages
to share with shopkeepers and tenants-at-will the
-privilege of-a vote, doubtless Mr. DISRAELI would
have been as ready as others to content that feeling
in any way which would not frighten the present
electors. But he probably thought it needless to
give what was hardly asked ; whether he was wise
in so thinking, wise for the interests of his own
party, may well be questioned. Some of them who
would not make the slightest pretensions to a frac-
tion of his genius, but who were men of wide prac-
ical knowledge, differed from him, and we must
,hink that, in the interests of their own party, they
took the sounder view.
'We must confess the apathy of working men
has somewhat chilled our own zeal in their behalf
Political rights don't, as the Germans say, " Fly
into our months, like ready roasted pigeons." It is
a thankless task to labour to get them for those
who do not want them; or perhaps an idle task, as
they would not be used if gained. Let not the
working classes imagine that a few noisy meetings
for the purpose will have any weight, much less will
interruptions of other meetings by roughs hired to
disturb. All such things rather indispose Members
of Parliament and electors to extend the suffrage.
If working men intend to be made electors in
another Reform Bill they must do two things—
they must bestir themselves pretty universally ;
and they must do it in modes which will convince
those in power that they may be trusted.
We should say that non-electors should hold
meetings, in every borough at least, in the kingdom.
That they should take especial care to conduct
them in an orderly manner ; that they should
abstain from vituperation and threats, while they
may be as firm and decided as they please in the
assertion of their rights. The most intelligent and
businesslike resolutions are those which have most
weight with Parliament and electors. The same
remark applies to petitions—let the arguments be
brief and unanswerable, but free from anything
which can be thrown aside as indicating ignorance
or passion. Why not, also, memorialise the electors
in each place? If every non-elector who can write
hiS name signs a memorial to the electors of his
own town, requesting them to elect a candidate
who will give them also votes, it would be a step
which must have weight, not only with the elec-
tors, but with Governments and Parliaments, who
do not fail to notice such movements. Were the
non-electors of some two hundred boroughs thus to
petition Parliament and memorialise the electors,
they would find Lord DERBY in the coming session
proposing to give them the franchise. Without
some such reason as this he will not offer it him,
self, and will probably, in the Lords, prevent its
being done by others should he not continue in
office.

If Lord STANLEY should, with or without his
own consent, be put in nomination for the City,
he will probably run Lord JOHN RUSSELL very
hard, and, more likely than not, defeat him. There
is, to our knowledge, a strong feeling in the minds
of many Liberals that Lord STANLEY is at least
one stage further advanced than the ex-Minister
on the now testing question of protected voting.
We believe Lord STANLEY has never voted against
the Ballot. We have heard that he has expressed
himself in favour of it. We all know that he
walked out of the house in the most marked way
he could when the late division was taken, while
the two Whig ex-Premiers, and some of the old
Amity party, walked into the lobby against it.
Perhaps, although Lord STANLEY is not the man
ordinarily to shrink from voting or speaking as he
thinks, we could hardly, in his peculiar circum-
stances, ask more than this. Lord STANLEY, as
far as public action is concerned, is neuter on the
Ballot ; Lord JOHN RUSSELL is hostile to it.

As at present advised, we should therefore fee'