The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-17 00:00:00

THE NEW REFORM BILL

(From the Daily News.)
After vainly waiting for many .months, we have
at length a voice from the late Administration on
the impending question of Parliamentary Reform.
The tone is low but sufficiently clear; the tenor of
its utterance, cold, niggardly, and doctrinaire ; but
its drift, like its authorship, admits of no question,
and it is at least satisfactory to know what we
should have got had the late Ministers ever brought
forward a bill, and what manner of a bill they are
now ready to oppose. The horn pane through
which this light is now shed on the country's poli-
tical path is an article in the latest number of the
Edinburgh Review, professing to give the history
and prospects of Reform in Parliament. With
an elaborate show of particularity as to dates
and successive proposals on the subject, a nar-
rative is presented of bald and colourless facts,
calculated only to discourage and mislead all earnest
constitutional progress. Many, interesting and im-
portant facts are studiously omitted ; in not a few
instances grave mis-statements are made ; and
throughout the design is palpably revealed of 'try-
ing to persuade us that all Lord Chatham, Mr.
Fox, and the men of their time, valued in Reform
was its tendency to curb the jobbing power of the
Crown ; and that the only motive which impelled
Lord John Russell, Mr. Lambton, and Earl Grey
to advocate electoral change from 1819 to 1831, was
the desire of breaking up the close borough system,
which prevented the passing of salutary measures.
This desire we are told was accomplished by the
Bill of 1832, under which Parliament has become
a faithful and adequate representation of the wants
and feelings of the nation ; nearly everything has
been done which ought to be done, and hardly
anything done which ought not to be done. " That
the existing House of Commons has reflected with
fidelity the predominant opinions of the great body
of the community we hold to be a matter of fact
established .by the evidence of general notoriety.
We defy any person to produce an instance where
the House of Commons since 1832 has shown an
undue disregard of public opinion." If this asser-
tion be, good for anything; it is good for resistance
to any measure of essential change. It is a clumsy
and prolix reproduction of the old stock argument
of anti-reformers during the reigns of George 111.
and George IV.—never mind anomalies, the system
works well. The ex-Ministerial reviewer does not
venture' to make such an induction in terms ; but
he avows plainly enough that he and his friends
consider the Act of. 1832 final and conclusive
against all fur'. her claim of popular power. What-
ever revision of minor details may have become
necessary through lapse of time and the heat in
which the Act of 1832 was pdssed, th....t measure,
we are gravely assured, "has become a great con-
stitutional landmark, and has finally settled ques-
,tions as to the boundaries of aristocratic and demo-
erotic power which were previously in a fluctuating
state."

Here then we have it at last. There is no longer
any room for mistake or denial. Anti•Real-Reform
is the standard unfurled from Cambridge House;
and beneath it are ostentatiously piled all the
rusty weapons of attack and defence which the
Eldqns and Castlereaghs, Cannings and Peels, made
use of in their day. From the historic narrative
of the question every hearty or generous, states-
manlike or patriotic thought is jealously eliminated.
Of the burning words of Chatham or Pitt, Fox or
Grey, Brougham or Plunkct, Durham, Stanley,
Macaulay, or O'Connell, not a fragment is recalled.
Believe the organ of Sir Cornewall Lewis, and
reform of Parliament was at first but a war cry
between the landed oligarchy and the Court, and
subsequently between, the Whigs and the Tories ;
and the Court and the Tories being no longer for-
midable, the Whigs are coolly reminded that they
have no longer a motive for wishing any material
change in the present mechanism of rule. As for
the contentment of intelligent and industrious mil-
lions now insolently excluded from every pretence
of a share in political rights, the oligarchic reviewer
does not even condescend to allude to the vulgar
theme. That matter was " finally settled" in 1832
when the Court was compelled to take back Earl
Grey and his colleagues, and the Duke of Welling-
ton was obliged to strike the colours of Toryism in,
the House of Lords. A parenthetical exception is
made, indeed, in favour of what may be
ca 11 e d the
claims of the commercial magnates. We are in-
formed that there are not a sufficient number of
great monied men in the House of Comm
ons--that
a few more millowners, bankers, and
lYrewers might
be an improvement; they are declared to be a per-
fectly safe and docile element, and some provision
ought to be made for increasing their strength in
Parliament. But as for conceding anything what-
ever to mere intellect or mere industry, working
loyalty or moral worth, the notion is not even
hinted at in the manifesto of the Clarendon-Clarni-
carde faction. If the measure about to be produced
by Lord Derby is in accordance with the mending
and darning principles of strict finality thus
avowed, it may as well be allowed to pass. But if
it attempts to go in the least beyond these prin-
ciples, it ought by all means to be rejected. The
article concludes with these words The question
has been already three times postponed with the
approbation of Parliament ; and a further delay
would be preferable to a tame acquiescence in an im-
perfect and unnsatisfactory measure, which would
only lay the foundation for a renewed agitation of
the subject at au early period." Slam the door in
the people's faces, and bolt it; such is the "Edin-
burgh" order of the day,
We have not spaeo to enter at any length into
an exposure the multiplied misrepresentations
which the article referred to contains. To make
out a case m favour of the adequacy of the present
constitution of Parliament, and of the inefficiency
of that which preceded if, a blank schedule is pre-
sented of legislation for the first thirty years of the
century, while n raiscellanms catalogue of good,

bad, and indifferent measures, all labelled " great
benefits," are set down to the account of the subse;
quent period What class of readers this sort 0
historical caricature is meant to deceive we 03e
somewhat at a loss to -imagine; but most people
now-a-days are aware that, bad as the old borough'
mongering Parliament was,- it abolished the Slave
Trade—it repealed the Test and Corporation Aets
—it commenced the great series of tentative Inc'
sures of Free Trade ; it passed Catholic emanciPi
tion —it consolidated and purified the Criminal
Law and it sanctioned the establishment. of
National Education in Ireland upon neutral pria;
ciples. As against these great measures it were
vain to set up an invidious comparison by 01
enumeration of those that have since been enacted;
yet they are all coolly omitted by the candid re"
viewer. Why do we recur to them ? Assuredly
not to prove that nomination boroughs were advar
tageous or beneficial ; but simply to illustrate the
hollowness of the argument as to the sufficiency °.
the existing representative system, which it "
sought to found upon various useful things tlO
have been accomplished by means of it.

IR9NMASTE_RS' QUARTERLY MEETING

DUDLEY, SATURDAY EVENING.
The final meeting of the ironmasters of this dis'
trict for the current quarter was held in this town
;
as usual, this evening. This assembly was a less
important one than it usually is, in consequence °t
the large quantity of iron which has been sold ti
the two preceding meetings, and even prior to
quarter-day. The principal consumers had marl;
fested so completely their confidence in the firrano
of the present trade prices that few of them with
held or refrained from entering into contracts net,
the concluding meeting, so that to-night it 0,
very much of a formal character, and the attendellic;
of the trade was not so large as it usually is. Ti'
discussion which took place and the business tree
acted w ere, however, fully confirmatory of the pe
ceedings at the meetings held at Wolverhampton
and Birmingham. There has been a larger qua 1;
tity of finished iron sold at this quarter-day the ,
on similar occasions for two or three years at least' ,e
and the nature of the business has been such as
show that it has been of a bona fide character, l,j
fact, to supply the current requirements of e?!,'
sumers. The feeling of all present at the meetly
this evening was that the trade is rapidly regal,
,
ing a healthy condition ; the makers of best quay
ties of manufactured iron are all full of orders tc)l
at least two months' make ; and the good effect
this upon the trade has been evinced by the it r,6
provement which has been brought about in t°
price of the inferior make of iron, the margin,
prices being limited between it and the best quailq
There were more transactions in pig iron at
meeting than at either of the previous ones • and 0
the demand for it is increasing, it is probable
there will be additional furnaces blown in by
course of the quarter, but at present the price is '
more than moderately to the producer. There
been an additional furnace or two put in blast;
Shropshire; and the cold blast iron of that distil
is in good demand in South Staffordshire. .A,l
The coal trade in this district is getting bri"
and the colliers are all fully employed.
.„,
The general trade of this district is also in an tT,
proving and satisfactory condition ; the great von
in the neighbourhood are in active operation, it
the number of persons out of employment is small
The series of meetings terminating here to-nig
has passed off satisfactorily ; accounts have
well paid, and the prevailing feeling to-night irir
that the prospects of trade in this district ar
an encouraging character.