The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-11-22 00:00:00

Farewell to

to recollectio

rtue beyond mop

cotton spinning. Our navy would be dismantled,
our army disbanded, our colonies given up as

useless and expensiv

and when you

France

should attempt to

profiting by our suicidal foll 3
realise his long-cherished dream of invasion, we
should have nothing to oppose but cotton bales,

,nd no hands to rescue our homes from pilla

and our wives and daughters from dishonour, but
the attenuated forms of stunted weavers. The

foremost ground of charge against our existing

system of representation is the smallness of some
of the country constituencies ; but, before this
feature be condemned as a fault, it would be as
well to look at the comparative merits of the repre-
sentatives returned by the large and small
boroughs, for even Radical Whiggery would hardly
dare to meddle with the counties. It is assumed,

for it is necessary to the maintenance of the posi-
tion, that our ablest legislators represent the popu-
lous boroughs ; but what is the fact P With the
exception of Liverpool, which holds a glorious
pre-eminence, the representatives of the large
boroughs are without doubt the worst members of
the House of Commons, and few men at all worthy
of the position of legislators have any chance of
devoting their talents to the service of their country
except through the rural boroughs, which are
stigmatised for the smallness of their numbers.
We need not mention names, but we may refer to
the great metropolis, the vaunted centre of intelli-
gence, and ask how many of its eighteen repre-
sentatives are creditable to the good sense or
patriotism of the electors. Such men would not
stand a chance in any respectable borough, but in
a large town the low standard of qualification gives
the franchise to the inhabitants of the blind alleys
and back streets, who preponderate in numbers, and
the effect is as we see. The wealth, the intelli-
gence, and the respectability, have really no voice
whatever, and the representatives are men who
realise the predictions against the Reform Bill of
1832, that it would be the means of admitting into
the House of- Commons those with whom gentle-
men would feel ashamed to associate, and whose
conduct would be a burlesque on legislation.
A movement in the same direction appears likely
to be the tendency of the measure which is to
occupy next session, and yet there is an apathy in
the public mind, or a disinclination to interpose a
resistance, as though the public had really no
concern in the matter. The bulwarks of the Con-
stitution are being frittered away by a traitorous
Ministry, who would be nothing unless they kept
doing, and yet the Conservatives of England—
numerous and intelligent as they are—are patiently
submitting to injustice, because they will not be
convinced, and act upon the conviction, that union
is strength. There is not an individual whom we
address who would not willingly do all in his
power to rescue his beloved country from the
furtherinfliction of the deadlyincubus ofßadicalism,
and yet his good intentions go for nothing, because
Conservatives will not act together against the