The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-07-08 00:00:00

REVISING BARRISTERS.

We are glad to see that Sir Robert Peel has taken up
the question touching the appointment of the revising
barristers, and that he views with patriotic indignation
the infamous attempt made by the whig-radical ministers
to get into their hands the selection of the men who are
to enfranchise or disfranchise the electors of the empire.
We have before spoken out upon this subject, and we
earnestly entreat all who are not bound like slaves to the
chariot wheels of the whigs to show their independence
and hatred of corruption, by depriving the ministry of
the chance of exercising the unconstitutional power they
would seek to obtain. We trust, at all events, that in
bringing up the report of the registration bill no conser-
vative member will be absent from his post, and that all
will unite in proving by their votes that they will be no
parties to the infamous and corrupt scheme for whig do-
mination.
Well and truly did Sir Robert Peel say, " that the first
alterations in the principles of the reform bill would ori-
ginate with the reformers themselves, with the authors of
the bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill." Every
session has produced some new " amendment" upon some
bill connected with the " reform measure," but all the
new machinery that has been introduced has been cun-
ningly devised and constructed to diminish the influence
of the conservatives and to increase that of the impartial
whigs. The reformers have every session been reform-
ing their own pet measure. They found, when the fever
of reform had subsided, that they had not succeeded in
strangling and annihilating, the conservatives—they
found that with every fresh election that party were,
even under the working of the bill, gaining upon them,
and it was therefore deemed necessary that, some new
check-springs should be introduced to clog their progress.
The revising barristers, it was suddenly discovered, had
not done their duty. There were " too many tories"
amongst them ; and as the shortest way to effectually
destroy conservatism would be by getting the appoint-
ment of men of their own faction to the office that has
the power to qualify or disqualify, it was determined that
the revising barristers should be carried away at one fell
swoop—that a new corps of functionaries, of limited
number, should take their duties—and that the selection
should rest with the ministry, who will take care that no
tory shall be nominated, and that even no whig shall re-
main in the discharge of his functions if he allows a ma-
jority of conservatives to be registered
If this atrocious scheme to get possession of the fran-
chise of the people of England is passed into law, going
to the poll will be a wasteof time, and the day of election
a day of farce: The struggle has been hitherto fought in
the registration courts, before a body of men who were of
all shades of party, of competence to, fulfil the duties, and
who were as a body untaxed with partiality. By this
measure the struggle will be fought before a select clique
of party factionists, whose fiat will, upon appearance of
any flaw, disfranchise the claim of the conservative.
Wicked, profligate, and corrupt, as every action of the'
whigs has been. we must confess that this endeavour to
grasp the domination over the franchise for party purpo-
ses, excels all they have ever attempted in gross political
iniquity. But however, as Cobbett said, "Thank GOD,
we have a House of Lerds