The Commonwealth. — 1867-01-12 (London, England)

GARTH.  Throwing water on a drowned sheep is proverbially recognised as wasteful and ridiculous excess in the way of unkindness. Not less foolish and superfluous would-it be to say another word for the mere purpose of condemning Mr. Garth. When the late Wilson Croker attacked Macaulay and brought down on himself the crushing essay with which we are all familiar, Samuel Rogers said that Croker meant murder, but only committed suicide. Mr. Garth doubtless meant murder, but his act was simply one of political suicide.—Star.  The Times thinks that the duel between Professor Blackie and Mr. Jones over the body of Democracy will probably do little harm, if it does not do much good. Should it set anybody thinking on the subject, it will need no further justification, for nothing was more evident last summer than the ignorance of the House of Commons on Reform. It was plain that it had never been considered as a practical question, and that men had talked about it for years without caring to examine what was meant by the phrases they glibly repeated. Anything would be better than such a condition of the Parliamentary mind. To be thus ignorant is to be the subject of blind impulse, of raw haste, and of rash errors which may be irreparable. We may hope that some improvement has since taken place, but it would be idle to pretend that much does not remain to be clone before any satisfactory legislation can be achieved, and if Professor Blackie does nothing but draw attention to the fact, that small result is not without its value.  The Daily Telegraph says :—We have only two faults to find with the clever lecture on Democracy which Professor Blackie has delivered ;n Edinburgh: in the first place, he does not -*and what democracy means, and, in the supposes that democracy is the Liberalism is bent. Now, if a mai. ."'r Philippic against  r- n-rivate Protestantisn, _ judgment, and becat,,.. , judgment had given us Jack Clootz, Cagliostro, Joe Smith, Barnutia;-n.Disraeli, we ghould not feel bound to hand over the Archbishopric of Canterbury -to Dr. Cullen, or to make the Home Office a branch of the Inquisition. We should simply • reply that in England nobody wished to see a hierarchy of fanatics, jugglers, and buffoons. And that is what we say to Professor Biocide. The Liberals do not want to overturn the Throne, to abolish the House of Lords, to be ruled by trades' unions, to send Mr. Leicester the glassblower to the House of Commons, or to kick over the British monarchy and erect a British republic. What we insist on having is, not a democracy, but a Government that shall more justly represent the nation. Arguments against such a state of society as that in America are thrown away upon us, who do not want, and who are not able, to turn England into a colossal New York, full of corruption, full of intrigue, with no purity and no patriotism. But what the Professor really combats, what be really hates, is the principle of popular government itself; and on that ground we are content to meet him,  The Morning Star alluding to an article in the Times, on the forthcoming Reform League demonstration says :—The proposition of the Reform League, as we gather it from the columns of the Times itself, is to resort to the constitutional right of petitioning; but, in order to keep within the strictest bounds of an all but obsolete law, that not more than ten persons shall at any one time approach the House of Commons for the purpose of delivering their petitions into the hands of members of the House, immediately after presenting the petitions, the ten persons are to leave the precincts of the building. We do not know whether this is the most effective kind of demonstration which might be rosorted to; but if the Reform League choose to go to the enormous trouble and expense of thus constitutionally showing their desire for Reform, we should like to know where a special constable would be if he broke the bead of an English citizen in the streets of this capital when the latter was committing no offence against the peace of our Sovereign lady the Queen? He would find himself in the clutches of the law, baton and all, and not even the influence of Mr. Lowe and his organ would save him from a severe punishment. Perhaps, however, we are wrong in assuming that law is any longer to be the rule in England. General Nelson, we believe, is still in England; Mr. Eyre can be found ; Lieutenant Brand is expected by the next packet, and it may be the design of our contemporary, not only that we should have a repetition of 1848, but Just the smallest dose of Jamaica politics, an order that the obnoxious members of the Reform League may be "disposed of" under martial law. We assure Mr. Lowe it won't do. He must not rely upon the 150,000 who might turn out being on his side. It is just possible that the Adullamite constables might be outnumbered, and that they might find themselves face to face with an uprisen nation. As for the military upon whom our contemporary seems to count, let him dismiss the vain notion from his thoughts. The army is not at the disposal of Mr. Lowe' and we venture to say the Minister has yet to be born who would attempt to give Queen Victoria the advice to shoot down her people in the streets of London to please a baffled and beaten political faction.