The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-12-30 00:00:00

REAL AND SHAM REFORMERS

STRONG is the anxiety of the Reform-mongering
tribe of every shade to impress on the public mind
that the Conservative party are absolutely hostile
to all improvement of our electoral law; and pro-
portionately great is their vexation at finding that
that party takes the proposition for reforming the
Reform Act into consideration, without passion or
foregone conclusion. It would have answered the
agitators' purpose much better had the leaders of
the Conservative party hastily and hotly denounced
the whole scheme, and declared that no reform at
all was wanted, because magniloquent appeals
would have been =OP tf? the multitude; ,and op,

portunities without number would have been given
to the traders in reform movements to extol their
own patriotism and liberality at the expense of
their rivals. But the Conservative party could not,
consistently with their principles and with their
history, take any such course as that which their
opponents evidently expected they would adopt on
the spur of the moment. They could not stand
upon the Reform Act, to which they were no con-
senting parties, and maintain that it was perfect
and incapable of all improvement. They could not
enrol themselves as " Finality men," because they
had ever protested since the passing of the act of
1832 against its unfairness and defective working.
The Conservative party are for amending the re-
presentation of the people in parliament—a real, not
a sham, amendment; and this the soi-distant popu-
lar leaders will learn to their cost, should the present
Ministry survive long enough to meet Parliament,
and should theyactually produce their long promised
bill. Then it will be seen which of the two great po-
litical sections is truly desirous to have the House
of Commons purified from the taint of bribery,
to have the electors secured in the free exercise of
their franchise, and to make the representatives
directly responsible to their constituents. If any
party has particularly suffered from corruption in
the House of Commons, from the want of frequent
appeals to the country, and from the insufficiency
of the control which the electors are able to bring
to bear upon their representatives, that party is the
Protectionist; and they can hardly avoid entertain-
ing a desire to see the electoral law amended in
this respect. Whether triennial Parliaments and
the ballot-box contain the remedies for the defects
of the existing representative system, remains to
be discussed and decided. Should they be proved
to be indispensable to attain the end in view, then
we believe we are warranted in saying that the
Protectionist party will not oppose them ; but the
case of necessity must be thoroughly established.
On the other hand, it is manifest, that, to purify
the House of Commons, such hopelessly corrupt
snuggeries as St. Alban's and Harwich, with many
others, must be utterly disfranchised, and the
members thus at disposal distributed equitably
amongst the counties now most inadequately re-
presented. Will the purity-professing Reformers
heartily and honestly aid in effecting this palpable
amendment of the electoral law ? That will be the
test of their sincerity. Unless they agree to cut off
the rotten boroughs root and branch, and to en-
large the honest county constituencies, we—and
we believe the country—shall stigmatise them as
reformers merely for factious purposes, and their
reform measure an arrant slam.