The Sun.
London, England, 1857-04-27 00:00:00

PARLIAMENTARY REFOR 31.

have not to apologise for omissions ; yet we cannot
omit that no Reform BM will satisfy the people,
once roused on the subject, that does not disfran-
chise a score cr two of the small boroughs, give new
members to the metropolis and other populous dis-
trict, and infuee new blood into the thin C011.311' u-
encies of the mere agricultural counties. There
can hardly be a question as to these requirements ;
it is common sense to grant them, temerity to re-
fuse them. There is plenty of time to weigh all
these demands and obviate the several difficulties
in their way between this and next February ; but
that must be done by the Minister, who would hope
to have a quiet berth to do any good in the session
of 1858.

(From the Times )
Parliamentary Reform is now a Parliamentary
question. This is no truism, for till quite lately it
was a popular question, and oue that had hardly
shown itself within the walls of Parliament. It is
now more Parliamentary than popular. Every-
where you are asked with much plausibility, and at
least a wide concurrence, " Who wants Reform ?
Do you want another vote ? Do you ? Have you
even registered ? When did you vote last ? Did
you ever vote? Do you know who are your repre-
sentatives ?" These particular questions will be
understood, of course, to apply to the metropolis ;
but the metropolis, it must be considered, has by
far the strongest case, in the abstract, for Parlia-
mentary Reform in the whole empire. Its popula-
tion is the wealthiest, the hest educated, the most
orderly, and the worst represented—that is,
with the least proportion of members. Scotland,
and even Ireland, are close boroughs compared
with the metropolis. So, if the demand for Par-
liamentary reform is at zero in the motropolis,
that settles the question as to its general popu-
larity. But all over the country it is a rare thing
to find a cry for Parliamentary Reform. Doesthis
country want more members ? Is that floaristiing
borough indignant at its unrepresented state ?
Where is the crowd of small yeomen, or even town
householders, asking for county votes? We are
speaking only of the fact. Tue fact is, that while
there never was a stronger case in theory for Re-
form, people generally seem to fe:l it only as a
matter of theory. But, granting all this—and it
matters not to our purpose whether it is granted or
not—how does it affsct thi question which a Go-
vernment has to ask itself ? When a Cabinet meets
at a critical season, and asks whether or when it
"hall eater on the field of Parliamentary Reform,
can it venture to rely on the fact that there is no
present palpable "pressure from without" on the
subject I No, it cannot ; for the obvious reason
that this is now a Parlitmentary, not a popular
question. At any reasonable time—next year, for
example—for it hardly seems reasonable to destroy
a Parliament before it has even broken its shell and
seen the light of day—anybody may rise up and
propose this or that partial measure, or a full-
grown reform bill, with the fairest chance of carry-
ing the House with him, and putting the Minis-er
into a most unpleasant situation. But, bad as that
would be, a worse contingency is possible, and, in
our opinion, even probable. It is, that on the re-
jection of such a bill by a well-disciplined Ministe-
rial majority, the country might be raised in its
favour, and the Parliamentary converted into a
popular question. In such au out-door agitation
there might be faction, there might be hypocrisy,
there might be pure mischief, but that matters
little ; an agitation begun under these circum-
stances would take its course, and carry the day,
to the great damage of all politicians foolhardy
enough to set their faces against it. So it is enough
for the present purpose that this is a Parliamentary,
capable of being turned, at a very short notice,
into a popular, question.
To anticipate such an agitation—and it ought to
be anticpated—we must consider on what points it
would run. For that inquiry an abvious clue is to
be found in the theoretical defects of the existing
system. These defects may now seem ridiculous.
They may seem but shadowy grievances, statistical
ghosts, giants on paper ; but they are the channels
and the hollows in which the inundation will run
and diffuse itself when the bank has burst. Every
spectral anomaly, each disparity of figures and ec-
centricity of proportion, that now shows only an
arithmetical or superficial or linear existence, will
then assume a substantial and tremendous vitality.
The people of England now repose upon Parlia-
ment, and are quiet ; because, though they know
the representative system to be very defective,
they think Parliament will set it right in due time,
and that befere very long. But this flattezingcon-
fidence ought not to be abused. With the memo-
ries of the last Reform Bill before us, we strongly
deprecate the logic of waiting tid the pressureis too
strong to be resisted. At present, we may say, the
game
.is in the hands of the more educate:l, the
more enlightened, and the more political classes.
Government, and those of whom Governments are
made, have still the initiative. The day may not
be distant when the ground will be occupied with
seme huge, misshapen, irrational creature of mis-
rule, too strong to be displaced, and but a sorry
subject for correction. We may have t deal with
the popular Reform Bill, an affair of points an t
first principles, made expressly to awake the agita-
tions of which it affects to be the fruit. There are
statesmen in the House of Commons who might
think it worth their while, anl not below
their character, to adopt such a battle-horse.
But if, as we fully believe, a Reform Bill, of
one kind or another, wilt be passed betore long,
then we submit it is very desirable that tee
first conception and the rough draught of the bid
should come from those who have to mould the
plastic material to the intended shape and cut the
block to the model. If Lord Palmerston has to
give us a Reform Bill, we trust he will have les
own materials to work upon.
Now, there are materials, or general principles,
of Parliamentary Reform of confessed importance,
but more likely, judging from experience, to pro-
ceed from Ministers and legislators than from out-
door agitators. The latter feel themselves under
no special obligation to guard the franchise from
disorder and abuse. It is not their affair, though
they might not object t see it done by others. It
is not the office, or always the interest, of a publi-
can to stop intoxication, though he does not wish
his customers to go too far, and is glad to see the
police doing itheir duty. But certainly it is the
business of a Minister still possessing the initiative
in Parliamentary Reform to provide that the fran-
chise shall go together as much as possible with
the best qualifications for its proper exercise—edu-
cation, character, and responsible employment. It
certaiuly is more important to give it to those who
are proved to be intelligent, and whose place in
society shows them to be trustwoi thy, than to those
who are certainly indigent, certainly ignorant, and
probably corrupt. If a large proportion of the
latter must be admitted to square our system and
remeve invidious exceptions, it is all the more
advisable to secure the correcting influences of
education and position. We fully admit there are
great practical difficulties to be encountered in giving
a political status to the free denizens of the iutellec-
tual world. Inrespectof rates, and even taxes, they
may be "airy nothings," without "a local habita-
tion or a name." But the whole question of Par-
liamentary Reform is one of difficulties, and we do
net see why they are to be weakly admitted against
the highest and best elements of our social system,
and boldly encountered only for the sake of tne
lowest. liWbatever the objections which reason or
wit may suggest, no principle cast be alleged
against giving votes to the memhera of all the
learned professions, to all university gratluittes anti
holders of certificates from arrhoiised Codeges and
Behests, to the commissioned officers of the Army,
Navy, and Militia, to railway servants of a cert tin
rune, to schoolmasters, and many inure of shinier
qualifications. On the other hand, while we are
opening the doors, and to a certain extent relaxing
those restrictions which are proved by printed
lists and rate-hooks, it might serve to counteract
the dangers of this course if we insisted more on
the personal qualifications inseparable from the
ele.:qor. Why net require cash inen to write his
own name and vote at the p Aline-booth ? That
would exclude the wholly uneducated ; and, even
if the younger hands could get up a sign manual
and a name for the occasion, as every rogue once
learnt his neck verse, still that would itself be a
first step in learning, and might lead to higher
achievements in the field of literature. We have
now been passing the whole population through
schools for half a century. We have had infant
schools in every town in England, for more than
thirty years ; and, if there has' not bean a strictly
national system of education, it has not been
through the fault of Governments,' or for want of
carefully studied proposals- The very objection
which has prevailed against the national plan has
been the sufficiency of private enterprise. So it
is high time to reap the fruits of a literary age,
and to require from every man what it must be
his own fault if he cannot do—one line of writing.
We have no bias whatever on this point, and if
any chance of an unfair operation does present
itself, it is rather in favour of the thin-fingered
mid supple artisan than the huge fist and horny
palm of the field labourer. The provision, how-
ever, is one to he considered on its OWII merits.
The results of the late election suggest another
proposal, often wade, and with much to
be saki
fo • it. When we see seine of the most important
conatituenciee in the empire bringing in two
midi-
votes, and throwine
dates with 6,01)0 out two
others with 5,000, or perhaps 5,500, it is impossi-
ble not to be sensible of a posetive loss tone Legis-
lature in the non-return of two good men, and a
positive injury in the virtual non-representation of
5,000 electors for a whole Parliament. In the case
of the " unicorn" counties, the return of the three
members by a lianguid coestitusncy, just strong
eaeligh and decided enough
majority and a minority, to he divided into a
is a still more flagrant in-
justice, and one without even long prescription in
its favour. Such returns would be prevented by
the simple expedient of three seats, but only two
votes to each elector. As a general rule,
t
minority ought not to be disfranchised ; and we
la(p;ro,viNE,BAsimpertsie,2sE.lniolut;teTroaloirto,
ofAl73:7tAoLnlil.s,
b—elSoOngUTinag-
cannot but suspect the Government of this country -
would have been steadier for the last 30 years, and , Messrs. Ten:perky, is fitting in the docks to oonvey its oscillations less violeiut, if minolities had enjoyed Government emigrants to Geelong, andisto beveady on
a lee. ieterrnittent and more recognised inth
ience. , the 14th of May. The Emigration Commissioners have
Our readers will observe that we are more upon ! chartered theirashiegton Irving to sail from Sonthamp-
principl, a than details, and that, therefore, we ton for Sydney on the 15th of June; rate 16?, 110, 6d.

DEATH OF MR. JOHN M'GREGOR.

We have to record the death of Mr. John
M'Gregor, at Boulogne, on Thursday, the 23d
inst. He had bee.i for some months past declining
in health—oppressed by pecuniary difficulties, and
painfully involved in the fall of the Royal British
Bank, of which he had been the original " go-
vernor." He had resigned that office three years
previous to its recent bankruptcy, but the late dis-
closures as to the mismanagement of the institution,
and his own considerable and unsecured debt to the
unfortunate shareholders, overwhelmed a shattered
body and a wounded spirit. A bilious fever and
paralytic affection, we believe, terminated his
physical and mental suff irins. Our respected Con-
sul, Mr. Hamilton, loudly afforded Mr. M'Gregor
every necessary domestic and medical at' ention,
and for the previous week his brother watched over
his deathbed.
Notwithstanding the later clouds on Mr.
M'Gregor's reputation, and his errors and foibles,
be was an intelligent, amiable man, of no common
mind, of extraordinary powers of applicaton, and
his active public life and his numerous pubiished
works justly entitle him to notice in our columns.
Mr. John M'Gregor was a Scetchman by birth,
parentage, and education. He was born at Stor-
noway, Ross-shire, in 1797. We believe that
at an early age, enjoying only at; ordinary school
teaching, he was placed in a mercantile establish-
ment in the Canadas, where he continued several-
years. During that period, and afterwards when
in business on his own account, be visited, and be-
came intimately acquainted with the colonies of
North America on the Atlantic and within the
Gulf of the St. Lawrence. He was afterwards in
business in Liverpool. His mercantile specula-
tions were there unfortunate, and, indeed, rarely
at any period of life successful. He first became
known as an author by the publication, in 1832, of
two octavo volumes, entitled " British America,"
published by Blackwood and Cadell. This work
reached a second and improved edition in the fol-
lowing year. It was not only at the period highly
interesting, but it abounded in facts and statistics,
and it displayed a large comprehension of our
future colonial interests. It may even now be con-
sulted with advantage.
On Mr. M'Gregor's enforced retirement from
business, his object in life seems to have been some
employment in the public service. Accordingly,
during Lord Melbourne's Ministry we find him
engaged on commercial missions to Germany, Aus-
tria, Paris, and Naples. We need not particu-
larism his multifarious reports, or comment on their
indisputable irerits or shortcomings. It will be
sufficient to state that his missions were generally
well performed—that they advanced sound princi-
ples of political economy, and that on the whole
the product w,is worth the cost to the public Ex-
chequer. In 1835 he published "My Note Book,"
dedicated to his friend Sismondi. This work was
chiefly a personal narrative of his tours on the con-
tinent. It was an amusing contribution to the
stock of our circulating libraries, interspersed with
some instructive no ices of the social habits of our
continental neighbours. Curiously, a note in the
first volume details the ruin of the old bank of
Amsterdam, instituted in 1689 as a bank of deposit
—" broken by an inconvenient mode of transfer-
ring sums from the account of one individual to
another," and by the directors secretly lending and
"locking up" 10,000,000 florins to the provinces
of Holland and Fritsland, notwithstanding its
original c,mstitution bound the directors to have
bullion in their coffers equal to the amount of its
liabilities. This old story might have saved our
author from much misconduct of the Royal British
Bank. But theory and practice are different
affairs.

These literary labours and occasional public
commissions ultimately led to Mr. M`Gregor's
appointment to a permanent place in the Board
of Trade, and he became one of the two joint-
secretaries of that important public department
in January, 1840. Thus installed in Whitehall,
•he lost n t;me in agitating for Free Tr:ide.
We believe that, with the late James Deacon
Flume and Ge.)rge Richardson Porter, he chiefly
induce 4 Mr. Joseph Hume to force upon the
House of Commons the appointment of the
celebrated Select Committee on the Import Duties
of the United Kingdom : the report of which, aft r
only 10 days' sitting, sealed the fate of our super-
annuated tariff. The " power to send for persons,
papers, and records " ransacked the 13oard of Lade
and let loose the tongues of the joint-secretaries.
Mr. M`Gregor was, of course, the first witness sum-
moned. His examination exclusively occupied the
entire first two days, and portions of the third and
fourth days. It has been the fashion to say that he
"lied through his testimony." The imputation is
untrue. His dogmatic confidence of opinion, with
an occasional reckless ' statement, gave indeed a
colour to this accusation, but the only resource of
his opponents was unfairly to discredit his im-
portant evidence ; and, the Protectionists not pre-
ducing any counter-evidence, thissiander was their
only alternative. But any dispassionate reader
will now give credit to the general and valuable
evidence of Mr. M`Gregor. Further, he was con-
firmed by the more reliable evidence of Deacon
Hume and Porter, to say nothing of the corrobora-
tive testimony of some of our most eminent-city
and provincial merchants and manufacturers.
The elation of Mr. M`Gregor thenceforwards
knew no bounds. He was exalted inhis own imagi-
nation to tie fifth heaven. Vanity was one of the
passions which poor John INl`Gregor, from an
unf..rainate nature and habit, could not control ;
and the abuse of it was, in truth, his worldly ruin.
It made him often the laughing-stock even of his
intimate friends, and in later years he perambu-
lated the Clubs, unconscious of the general ridicule
of his vain gloriousness. This inordinate self-
valuation involved him in the firm persuasion that
from his secondary office in the Board of Trade he
should at once vault to a seat in Lord John Rus-
sell's new Cabinet. He intimated this certain con-
viction t, all his friends and acquaintances. In
this dream he ier,signed his office of 1,5001. per an-
num, and having pre arranged his plans he became
a candid. eto for the city of Glasgow in July, 1847,
opposing the old Liberal members, Mr. Oswald and
Mr. Joho Dennistoun. Unf'rtunately for himself
he headed the poll. We need not enlarge on the
utter nam; of his absurd aspirations, or on the
bore and jests of his occasional exhibitions in the
House ef Commons.
Ile did not appear to discover his failure, much
less to feel its humiliation ; nor, to do him jus-
tice, did he relax in his statistical and in-
tellectual pursuit. In 1847 he had producel
two huge crown octavo volumes, historical and
statistical, on . " The Progress of America from the
Discovery by Columbus to the Year 1846," com-
prising, 3,000 pages. This work was no sooner off
bis anvil than he published four large volumes of
similar size, entitled " Commercial Statistics.
These volumes, in bulk upwards of 4,000 pages, all
rapidly appeared between the years 1848 and 1850.
In 1852 he published two octavo volumes, entitled
"The History of the British Empire from the Ac-
cession of James I." Nor were these voluminous
works at all the largest product of his active mind.
Earlier in life, in the Canadas, he had prararel
reports on North American emigration, on the New-
foundland fisheries, and on similar Transatlantic
subjects ; and we have to aid to his home produc
tions 22 "Reports on Foreign Tariffs and Trade,"
presented to Parliament by Royal command. To be
added to this summary of his labours are numerous
pamphlets on subjects of the day, and an extent of
private political and statistical correspondence al
home and abroad almost incredible.

On the subject of the Royal British Bank, which
he est Ab,ished, Mr. -M‘Gregor would take no coun-
sel, or if he promised to abide by any friendly
advice be was sure to relapse to his own opinion of
his entire self-sufficiency. The end is but too well
known.

Suet' is the melancholy history of a man of high
intellectual power,,, energy, and industry, who
might have secure;] for himself wealth, honour, and
old age. We almost reluctantly thus portray his
full c.laracter, but such a narrative was due to so-
ciety, and Mr. M 'Gregor was a public man. He had
not a single qualification for the governorship of a
bank, a; he confessed in the singular letter in which
he promised to make a future explanation of his
administration of its affairs. We believe that he
was mc,re a nominal than an active manager in the
chair. No friend irrnild attempt to excuse his
assumption of duties which ho could not or would
not discharge ; nor can there be offered any extenua-
tan of his appropriation of the assets represented
by his own private debt—now a dead loss to the
sbareliolclers.—Tiines.