New-York tribune., 1867-08-06
lord SHlFTEsBURY ON REFORM.

The Earl of Shaftesbury delivered in the
House of Lords, on the 23d of July. funeral
Grafton on the destruction of the English aristo-
cratic system We may laugh at some of his dis
NAL forebodings; we mhy not join in his lamen-
tations over the prospective downfall of caste
and privilege; but we find in his speech some
very sensible predictions and some frank adj
missions which were hardly to be looked for
from a member of the House of Peers. He OBJ
iects to the Reform bill not only that it goes
too far, but that it goes too fast. That house
hold suffrage is inevitable he entertalns no
doubt. but he wants to come to it by degrees,
to give the people time TO grow accustomed 20
the change "Why are we to jump out OF a
"window,r he asks, "when we can go safely
"down stairs ?" But can they go safely down
stairs There are times when safety means
jumping out of the window When the
people become fully aware of their rights
and rcsOutc in demanding them, It is danger
Gus experiment to tantalize them 10y piecemcal
concessions. The Reform bill recognizes suf-
frage as a right "Wel my lords,' continued
the speaker, having laid down this principle
" | hold that you have also laid down the great
"principlc Of uRirersal suffrage. The Reform
~ y
" But what will the Reform bill of 1861 dot
"My lords, do not believe it will give us
"pause of Il single session. Hear, hear.l
Everything at the present day is swift and
gigantic. We have gigantic wars, gigantic
- ships gigantic speculations, gigantic frauds,
" gigantic crimes, n gigantic Reform bill, and
"much fear that we shall have a gigantic
downfall" The great Democratic wave, as
the Earl elsewhere expresses it, " is going on
"even in spite of itself" He admits that it
is irresistible, yet he has the blindness 20 pro-
pose giving way 10 it an inch at time.
His picture of the social condition of En-
gland to-day, and his prophecies of the effect
which Parliamentary reform will produce upon
il, are remarkable enough. 1T has occurred
to me for long time, and ! am certain it is
" true, that we hare in great measure outgromn
" omr institutions. There is an expansive force
"among the people The advance of wealth, the
increase of education, the capacity, or at least
the ambition, that every man now feels to
occupy higher station than that in which
"he has been placed by Providence-all these
things tend to make men dissatisfied with
the institutions of the country, because they
" feel themselves cribbed, cabined, and con-
" fined by the restrictions which those
institutions impose" He believes that
the House of Lords must become
extinct. The governing power will be trans
ferred from hereditary Legislators to the people.
The Church of England will lose its ascend
ancy, for il has no hold upon the affections of
the masses of the population. An agrarian
revolution may be expected, because there is
now an irreconcilabe antagonism of interests
between the laboring multtudes who are about
acquiring political prepOnderance and the hand
full of great landowners and capitalists who are
losing it. There will arise, and speedily too,
n revival of the great feud between the House
of Want and the House Of Plenty; and out of
all these changes England will come forth
great and powerful still, but not so great, and
not so powerful as she was before.
In all this there is good deal of truth and
n good deal of nonsense. We do not believe
that the House of Lords is to be abolished yet
awhile, though it has already lost its political
Importance. We do not believe that an agraran
revolt is at hand, though we do hope that re-
form in representation may enforce a speedy
reform in tho relations Of capital and labor