Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1864-06-02

We give 10 another part Of our paper to-day the
essential portion of speech delivered in the Brit
ish House of Commons on the 18th instant by Mr..
GLADSTONE, the present Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, In which he reopened the question of
"electoral REFORM" with a view to such an extern
sion of the elective franchise in England as shall
embrace the working classes.
Upon the subject to which it relates, this
speech is held by Englishmen of all parties to be
the most significant that has been delivered in
Parliament since the passage of the so-caed " re-
form BILL" which, it will be remembered, was
urged by its advocates as /" fuality." The
tendency of English public opinion in the matter
of suffrage cannot have escaped the observation of
any intelligent student of politics, and just as
little it be doubted that, whether for good or
for evil the Chancellor of the Exchequer has lent
the weight of his name and influence to accelerate
the drift of that opinion in the direction i'm
pressed on it by causes not likely to relax in
their operation until they have spent their force
by reaching the widest possible boundary within
which they can be permitted to play. The pro-
gress of change in the course of all Governments
under this head follows law which may be
distinctly marked by every thoughtful observer.
In monsrchical Governments there is constant
recoil of the popular instincts from the exaggcra-
ton of these prerogatives which give to monarch
every Government is most liable to offend by ex-
aggcrating its distinctive popularity, there is a
perpetual tendency on the part of dcspotc Govern
ments to become despotic beyond the power of
popular endurance, and on the part of democratic
Governments to become democratic beyond the con-
dtions of their existence stable and symmetrical
structures. In this way constant perturbation
marks the progress of nations in the great ecptic
OF history through which they move. Nations like
Russia it in the days when Voltaire called it
ga despotism tempered by assassination" are bound
by any progress which they make in the way of
political reform to become less distinctively mo-
narchical. Nations like tho United States, which
exaggerate the popular principle that lies at their
base until their institutions may be fairly charac
terized, as Carlyle once characterized ours when
he called them "anarchy plus constable" are
bound by irresistible law to expiate their trans
such purgatorial fires as those through which VIC
are now passing Nations like France, which
have not been able, either under monarchical or
popular auspices, combine the institutes of civil
security with tie aspirations of political equality,
are found perpetually osciating between absoutism
and democracy-extremes which are each produc-
tive of the other and each in turn selfdestructve.
Unless we misresd the signs of the times in Eng
land it is safe to prognosticatc that that country
has passed the period when the stability of its
Government is in any danger from the intensified
ton of the maxims and usages which constitute
the "fowers of prerogative," and will henceforth
be called to illustrate the pers which spring from
giving too much momentum to the popular element
in its constitution.