The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-11-10 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

THE MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS.
(From the Lancaster Gazette.)
What will the ministerial people say now? Their
last hope in England—the municipal reform claptrap—
is taKen from them. Never was anything more deci-
sive than .the result of the struggle on Monday last.
A glance :at the return will show that in every direc-
tion the good cause has triumphed. Amongst other
boroughs wiich on this occasion have vindicated their
loyalty and sound constitutional principles, the good
old town in which we live has not been the last. In
Lancaster we have gained four seats out of six, and on
a division at the council board we shall be found to
stand pretty near equal. When we call to mind how
exclusively radical was the constitution of council
at the first, and for some time after, and reflect upon
the almost hopeless state of things at that period, we
cannot but feel truly gratified with our present posi-
tion. There is, however, nothing in it to astonish
anybody. The evil was sure to find its own remedy in
time. But mind, when we do say that, we • must
not b supposed to subscribe to the doctrine that,
therefore, the conservative party had nothing to do but
fold their arms and look on. Quite the contrary. In
conservative exertion alone can the remedy be found.
True enough that general disgust must, in the order of
things, spring out of such exhibitions as " municipal
reform" has given rise to in this and other boroughs,
but conservative influence is the instrument through
which the popular indignation is to make itself felt as
well as known. It was nonsense, mischievous non-
sence, for conservatives to turn up their noses and talk
of the thing as beneath their notice, and as a nuisance
which, left alone, would cure itself. If, for instance,
in this town the system had been left to work its own
way, the entire council board would in time have been
occupied by the sort of persons whom all friends to
order and the respectability of the town desire to see
kept out of it. That was only to be prevented by the
interferance of the conservative party. The respecta-
ble portion of the radical party—the men who aspire
to the genteel, and sigh to escape the queer company
into which their unfortunate destiny has cast them—
these few persons have no power of themselves to keep
out the canaille, and in that case the duty of the con-
servatives is obvious. It is for them to come forth in
the strength of their commanding influence and save
the town from the disgrace that impends. They have
done, on this occasion, and by their exertions the evil
is to a great extent corrected.

WHIG CORPORATION REFORM.
(From the Times)
Of all the practical blunders ever committed by the
Melbourne ministry, probably that which has been the
most fatal: to their own interests was the bill for reform-
ing the English corporations. We do not mean to
discuss its intrinsic merits, irrespective of its bearing
on party politics. It is not thus that the Whigs look
at such questions. The corporation reform bill was
brought forward by them, just after their repossession
of power, in 1835, declaredly as a scheme for regaining
some of their lost popularity, and at the same time for
increasing their " borough interest." •It was no sooner
passed and brought into operation, than the treasury
journals openly boasted that it would gain them 40
votes at the very next election. That election, when it
came, speedily dissipated these hopes; but it is only
now after the lapse of five years, that we are beoinning
thoroughly to understand the extent of folly exhibited
by the whigs in bringing forward that measure, as a
political manoeuvre, intended to strengthen their own
interest.
The elections for the present year have just taken
place, and never was there a more total rout than that
which has been the lot of the whigs and whig-radicals
in every part of the kingdom. Whether we value the
corporations themselves at much or little, no one can
doubt the importance of such an annual encounter of
parties as this, even were it merely to afford to states-
men of every class an opportunity of judging of the state
and progress of public opinion. Even within these
few days have the ministerial journals ventured to coun-
terfeit a degree of the most blissful ignorance as to the
odour in which their masters were held by the people
generally. But after the transactions of this week, to
assume the existence of the least doubt upon the sub-
ject will exhibit an amount of effrontery which we are
hardly warranted in anticipating, even among the
lackies of Downing-street itself.
These municipal elections, be it remembered, are be-
yond all questions the most popular appeals that are
ever made to any English constituency. They are not
confined to the £lO householders, like the parliamentary
elections, nor yet to the freemen of the boroughs—still
less to £5O tenants or freeholders, as in the counties.
They rest upon household suffrage—the very point
which some of our ultra-reformers are now proposing
as an improvement on the franchise conferred by the
Reform Bill. And what has been the response just
given by this large and unexclusive body of electors in
a series of contests which, in every part of the island, as
the ministerial journals themselves confess, have con-
stantly resolved themselves into a choice between
" tories " or conservatives, and " liberals," alias mini-
sterialists or whip-radicals ?
The answer is of this kind :—ln Manchester and Bir-
mingham the conservatives contest the validity of the
charters, and consequently refuse to interfere in the
elections. But with these two exceptions, and perhaps
one or two others in which the conservatives have made
no exertions, every town in England of the first class,
and almost every one of the second and third classes,
has given a verdict of reprobation of the ministerial ad-
herents. Even a moment's recollection, without look-
ing to the reports, recalls to mind Liverpool, Bristol,
Leeds, York, Exeter, Oxford, Cambridge, Ipswich,
Bath, Macclesfield, Stockport, Wigan, Colchester,
Maidstone, Hertford, Bury, Boston, Bedford, Preston,
Bridgewater, Windsor, 'rotnes, Walsall, Shrewsbury,
Southairyton, Weymouth, Warwick, besides a variety
of smaller ones. Constantly, as we have already said,
the respective candidates have been opposed to each
other on political grounds, as " liberal," or " conser-
tive," and it is abundantly clear that the victory re•
mains, in a great majority of cases, with the latter.
But we have said that the, institution of these annual
contests, be they wholesome or unwholesome, was a
most unwise step on the part of the whigs, with respect
to their bearing on the interests of that party, and yet
we all know, that if it had not been for the hope that it
would serve those interests, we should never have seen
a line of the Municipal Reform Bill. The error appears
to have been of the following kind
It organised, and drew up, and banded together, in
hostile array, the two great parties, " liberal " and