The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-11 00:00:00

by the House of Commons—Mr. LOCKE KING °A

motion for the £lO franchise in the counties:,
Besides these, two Members have given natio
of Bills for extension of the Franchise in Boroughs ;
they will, we suppose, combine thee bills into one ,
for Mr. BAINES and Mr. DIGDY Sirraioun are not
likely to differ seriously in their views on e uch a
subject.
We venture to submit to our leading Reformers,.
as distinguished from those who merely desire to
make political capital, the desirableness of a con-
certed plan to carry one or two reforms, to which
they shall agree to give their strength. Those who
would. from natural inclination support the mea-
sures just mentioned, might assemble and discuss
their relative importance, the relative probability
of their being carried, and the course which they
ought to adopt to carry the measures agreed on
through the House of Commons. If all can be
successfully pressed, we can have no possible
objection, to all of them we should give
our hearty support, and nothing would please us
better than to see all of them become the law of
the land this session. But we rather surmise that
at a conference it might be found that practically
more could be effected by a more limited effort.
Our readers well know our opinion on the
claim of the Ballot as a part of Parliamentary
Reform. To us it appears, alone, to be worth
all the Whig and Tory Reforms of the Reform
Bill which have been proposed since 1832, It
It would really enfranchise more than will be
gained by any proposed extension of the franchise,
and it will practically consign to the waste basket
all the Bills and Acts relating to electoral bribery
and corruption. On social, moral, and, we might
almost say, religious as well as political grounds, we
should give the first-place to the Ballot. It.is an essen-
tial to the good working, indeed, of the other re-
forms—Mr. LOCKE KING'S and Mr. D. SEYMOURS,
New voters would be but so many additions to the
Free but dependent electors, unless they exercised
their new privilege under the shield of secrecy.
They would consist, in towns, chiefly of the work-
men who dare not contravene the political orders
of their employers ; and, in counties, of those who
would be dependent on the landlord and the clergy-
man.

" Mechanics, tradesmen, farmers, and so forth,
Are copy paper,"
on which their superiors may scribble their names
and claim them as their political own. On this
ground we should strongly urge on the better part
of the Liberal party to make the Ballot their
object, and to avow their intention of refusing, on
questions at all of a party character, their support
to the Government if it did not support them in
giving independence to the electors.

We know the difficulty of this course—that we
could not refuse to support Government in all its
good practical measures, and that it would there-
fore bring forward only those which, on their merits,
deserved support ; but it will be a singular session
if the ingenuity of Mr. DISRAELI does not devise
some motion which shall be a party resolution, and
on which, if the honest Liberals only quit the
House, they will not leave the Whigs in
the lurch. A few such defeats will teach
them their real position. They will show
the professedly Liberal party that that party
cannot be expected to hold together if one-
third of it will not concede to two-thirds in pro-
moting an advanced Liberal policy. The annual
BERKELEY motion, introduced by pleasant jokes
and amusing humour, has become an annual farce ;
we cannot doubt that the Ballot Society feels it, in
its present form, to be rather an incubus than a
help. No one in the House, or out of it, thinks of it
as intended to lead to action. It never even provokes
debates, and is hardly treated by the house as seri-
ous business. There is no question probaby on which
the evidence both from home and abroad is so com-
plete—it is ripe for settlement. It is the one mea-
sure which would be the political fortune of any
Government which really wished to confer the
power of " doing each his own voting" on the pre-
sent electors, and we must think that Lord JOHN
has, by retiring with his sham Reform Bill
from the field, left the course clear for
the friends of the Ballot, with 'their real
Reform Bill, to tell the Government—now, give
us your support, or on the next party motion we
shall fail you to a man. It is time that the policy
of the Whigs, beating the Liberals by Tory help
on this and other Liberal questions, were put an
end to• Let Lord PALMERSTON and Lord JOUN
RUSSELL see that we will he made tools of no

longer.
Should, however the other measures be brought
forward, they have, of course, much to be said in
their favour. The Horses of Commons, and the Lords
too, would much prefer them. They would prefer
them as extensions of the area of political serfdom.
They do not, indeed, wish just that, but they would
infinitely prefer it to liberating their present serfs,
and making provision that none who might acquire
the franchise in future should ever become serfs.
Let our Liberal members, however, meet, and
with them some leading Reformers out of doors,
and let them fairly consider the whole question.
This seems to us to be the first step.

I However it may perchance be modified this
evening, Lord PALMERSTON'S Select Committee
upon Public Business appears to have been chosen
in every respect most judiciously. As might have
been anticipated, the full compliment shows, as
nearly as possible, the two sides equipoised. At
any rate, " parties " are balanced as impartially as
such a balance could well be managed in a groupe
altogether yielding those " odd numbers" in which,
according to RORY O'MoRE, " there's luck."
Twenty-one members—that is the first intimation
(in this particular) upon the papers of the House
of Commons for to-night—twenty-one members to
constitute the Premier's proposed Select Commit-
tee upon Public Business. Five to be the quorum—
is there also, in the committee's regard the concluding
scrap of information. Inetrmediately between those
two announcements the names of the chosen one and
twenty are enumerated. They are as follows, viz.—
" Viscount Palmerston, Mr. Disraeli, Sir J. Graham,
Lord Stanley, Sir F. Baring, Sir J. Pakington, Sir
G. Grey, Mr. Walpole, Mr. Bright, Mr. S. Est-
court, Sir G. Lewis, Mr. Hardy, Mr. Bouverie,
Colonel W. Patten, Mr. Gregory, Mr. Maguire,
Mr. Dunlop, Mr. K. Seymer, Mr. Massey, Mr.
Deedes, and Mr. W. E wart." So that the com-
mittee, besides including, as a matter of course,
the Leader of the House and of the Government,
and the Leader of the Opposition, will include also
almost the two foremost men among the Independ-
ents—namely, a great ex-Ministei like Sir JAMES
GRAHAM, and the most eminent among the popular
Tribunes, the member for Birmingham. Besides,
these there are two other Cabinet Ministers to share
the responsibility with the veteran First
Lord of the Treasury : there is Sir GEORGE
LEWIS, the Home Secretary, and there is Sir
GEORGE GREY, the Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster, Counterbalancing these, there are no
less than four of Mr. DISRAELI'S colleagues in the
last Administration, whose names are recorded
above among the twenty-one select committee-men
—to wit, Lord DERBY'S two ez-Home Secretaries,
Mr• SPENCER WALPOLE and Mr. SOTHERON EST•