New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1867-11-20
RRITIEH RRIRERI.


BRITISH BRIBERY.
We think it was DR.. Franklin who expressed
a philosophical regret that he could not live the
halves of his life with hiatus of half cen
tury between them. Any public man who can
say "after me the deluge," is in compare
lively comfortable condition; but it is given
to very few men who originate extensive po-
litcal changes to be practically assured OF thelr
infalible success. Lord Brougham, VINO Is
ninety years old, is parsonage OF such extra
ordinary mobility of temperament that the
cold obstruction of the tomb must have Tor nm
a peculiar disrelish. We are not at all sur
prised to find him writing to newspaper tiat
"he is anxious about the course things are TO
"take after him. In the vigOr OF his years he
encountered and assisted to abolish the EVIL OF
close and rotten bOroughs now nearly q cen
tenarian. "his most important death-Ded
legacy I've writes, sis the repression OF eiec-
"toral cOrruption.p 1t is necessary to restore
the character of his Reformed Parliament
Bribery, he complains, is practiced with no
attempt at conceament prosecutions are IN
freonent and feeble; and men sell their votes
with rs much nonchalance as if votes were
legally vendible commodity. Lord Brougham'
ninety years old looking at this market-overt
of principles, of faith, and of manhood, may
well be "anxous about the course which things
"are to take after him.
II has always been the hope and the belief
OF such reformers as Brougham, Wnber1orce
Bright, and Golden, that the moral vlgor OF
England would keep pace with ITS material
advancement. Otherwise It was evident enough
that wealth and high intellectual cultivation
being brought into conflict with poverty and
ignorance, the result could hardly tall to be
Revolutionary Safety could be found only in
universal education, because this, apart from
its direct mental benefits, presupposed beneyo-
lence upon one side, and tractability on the
other; and any other relations must be, IN the
nature of the case, formidably perilous. From
the arstOcracy very little was to be hoped for (;
but there was n confidence i'll the middle and
commercial classes which we fear to some
extent has proved misplaced. On the list OF
English bankers and merchants distinguished
during the last half century, 1t would be easy
To point out the names of many gentlemen
who have worked wisely and well for the
intellectual and moral advancement OF the
lower classes but that they are not of the ma
iority in their own class is shown by the fact
that, in the legislation of the empire, there has
been no exhibition of disntercstedness. In the
struggle between the arlstocracy and the
moneyed middle class, it is easy to coniound
the sefshness of the latter with expansive be-
ncvolence rich trader is fighting his own
way to social equality, when he seems to be
solely engaged in indicating the canse OF the
poor and landless. The abolition OF the rot
ten borough system was an act OF simple com
mon equity, but it opened the road to the
House of Commons for untitled commercial
men-men of the same class with those who,
for twenty years, fought against MIR. WILDER
force and the abolition of the Slave Trade.
The reform of the Corn Laws is fairly open to
the same criticism. Great political and eco
nomical truths were practically yindicated but
at the same time the power of the commercial
classes was very much strengthened. Money
having thus become in some sort the sign of
political might, and the contest being between
blood and bullion, it is not wonderful to find
those who have money to spend spend
ing il at the hastings. When every
thing else is bought and sold why should
votes be an exception What else is to he ex-
pectcd when, upon the commencement OF the
American Rebellion. all the good anti-Slayery
dealers in cotton pulled ont their pencils and
began to ciphcr9 BY a mere handful of clear
headed Liberals, our cause was justly apprecia-
ted but the bulk of bargaining, buying,
specializing, and spinning Englishmen were
vexed with us for fighting, even upon the side
of Exeter Hall. This was nothing new for
De Tocqueville had complained of the same
pecuniary squirt, whenever French affairs and
the struggle of Frenchmen for liberty touched
the English market.
Lord Brougham, indignant at bribery, calls rs
loudly as he can for the enforcement of the
laws against it. But laws which everybody
agrees to break will never be enforced. Given
man with a vote to sell, and another party
wishing to buy the same, and all the ingenuity
of the laws will be wasted in the attempt to
prevent the contamination of the bargain. The
root of the evil lies deeper in the generally
acknowledged principle that money is and
should be the be-all aud the end-all of the
nation.