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    1286 THE T/il A 1> -R.-R ¦ fNo. 405, Dec...

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    THE EDUCATIONAL SUFFRAGE HOBBY. We shall...

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    THE STAFF SCHOOL AND PU11CIIASK SYSTEM. ...

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    President Buchanan's Message. James Bxto...

    ing the real statesmen of the Republic who would develop the freedom of the Union , and would thus enable it to outgrow its negro encumbrance . In the name of the Black , White is set against White ; and the very question of Slavery itself is kept in suspense by the disputes about the method of terminating it . . The State of Kansas is a case in point . Surrounded

    - on every side , Southern men have endeavoured to preoccupy the new state in -order to maintain the balance of voting in the Senate . Instead of trusting to the rapid extension of free settlement , under which the pure Slavery interest in Congress is inevitably doomed , the Northern men have resorted to manoeuvres ; and at the present moment the Union witnesses a studied

    attempt to prevent the development of a fresh State , because the contending factions treacherously and disloyally seek to anticipate the free decision of the State . Neither one party possesses the virtue to collect the suffrages of the whole community , but each endeavours to thrust its suffrages upon the others as the decision of the entire State . One convention has confirmed rather more than its predecessors to the established rules of the Bepublic ; it has taken security for

    submitting the question of slavery or no slavery to all the inhabitants of the territory ; and notwithstanding the defects which may be found in the form of procedure— -defects which are likely enough to be repeated ad infinitum . in any future attempts—Mr . Buchanan proposes to start from the basis thus laid down ; to recognize the State , to develop its State organization , to endue it with responsibility , and to extract from it ,

    by Tegular means , its own decision upon the great question . This is a practical course ; out lie is impeded in it by the intrigues and agitations with which English statesmanship lias * had as much to do as Northern , statesmanship . It is plain that if the whole subject were thrown completely Open—if the very word * slavery' ceased to be the standard of contention—the simple march of freedom across the continent would soon hem in the

    States that are encumbered witli a ' peculiar institution ; ' while the statesmen of the South , who rise above the level of faction to the large statesmanship of Clay , would assist to reconcile , in political theory as well as in practice , the South to the North . It is in that noble reconciliation that the practical statesmanship of the President renders him a pioneer .

    1286 The T/Il A 1> -R.-R ¦ Fno. 405, Dec...

    1286 THE T / il A 1 > -R .-R ¦ fNo . 405 , December 26 . 1 RK 7

    The Educational Suffrage Hobby. We Shall...

    THE EDUCATIONAL SUFFRAGE HOBBY . We shall believe , if things continue in their present fashion , that when men of all persuasions agree on a particular point , their consensus is sure to be an absurdity . Two hundred gentlemen , of more or less culture , have signed a document which prays Xord Pai > meeston to establish , upon a plan indicated , an educational suffrage . It is not a Tory , a Whig , or a Radical scheme ; an official , a legal , or a demagogue scheme ; a medical , a clerical , or a scientific scheme , but a doctrinaire concatenation of a number of

    individuals who , perhaps , never before had a thought in common until , to speak in historical language , they found themselves thus ' pig & in & together , heads and points , on the same truckle-bed . ' Canterbuut , Dubiiam , Oxford , and Lincoln are on the roll with Gumming , Maurice , and Kingsxey . Sir

    "WiiiMAM Williams op Kaiis concurs , on tins occasion , with Dr . Locook , and Doctor Gumming is of one mind with Mr . F . O . "Wabd . Mr . Brock places his card by the Bide of Dr . Liddeli / s , ( Joiin Buskin and Edwin Chadwiok consort , Sir Culling Eaedlet mounts the hobby of Ciiakx . es Mebivale and Aetmtjb Helps , and Mr .

    Neate , sometime the elect of Oxford , jostles my Lords Fobtesctje and DTTNFEttMLiNE . That Lord Carnabvon should subscribe himself is not marvellous , since many young men living might have been his tutors , but Lord Campbell—que diable allait-il faire ? We can imagine Dr . Locock fascinated by so pretty an incubation , but in what moment of sublime contempt did Lord Brougham write " Brougham and Vaux" at the foot of

    this precious memorial ? Is this the time , when Canton is to be attacked , to copy our institutions from China ? Very probably the principle satisfies ILui-in , Eil-ivl , Wang , Yang , Tchin , and others of Wousi , near the city of Tchang-tcheou , in the province of Kiang-nan , but surely the Chief Justice , the two ex-Speakers , the Archbishop of Canterbury , the three Bishops , the Tory Peers , and the Dissenting Ministers must have mistaken their longitude . Thev

    ask us to create , from ninety thousand educated gentlemen , seventy constituencies , each returning a representative to the House of Commons ; and these legislators , representing the clergy , the nonconformist Ministers , the army , the navy , the universities , and the professions exclusively , will form a College of Mandarins in Parliament , capable of wrangling on divinity with Mr . Maubice , on art with Mr . Buskin , on prophecy with Dr . Cummino , on geology with Sir . Roderick

    Mubchison , on military engineering with Sir John Bubgoyne , on muscular religion with Mr . Eiwgsley . We may be sure that the elect electors would send up a good many clever men who would be useful any where but in Parliament , and the debates would out-GladstOnize Mr . Gladstone in rhetoric , to the bewilderment of the country gentlemen ¦; . ; " but what earthly right have the memorialists to suppose that they , or the classes they represent , are better qualified to

    depute politicians to the House of Commons than the average orders of the community . Give them votes , but not special , votes ; otherwise , the mercantile marine , the mining interest , railway proprietors , and a hundred other batches of citizens , might fairly claim to be marked off * the general , ' and ask for seventy representatives to mount guard over cqmmerce and industry . We should be

    getting up caste qualifications in England while we are raving at them in India . Wo should be taking lessons from Pekin while preparing to blow Yeh out of his government . Clearly some among the gentlemen whose signatures appear desire to make terms with the Heform party , and to keep multitudes out of the way . Others , we are firmly persuaded —indeed we know—sicmed the memorial

    inconsiderately , and are not ready to abide by the pedantries on which it is based . It is impossible to conceive men of judgment deliberately proposing to establish a set of electoral colleges throughout the three kingdoms , and seventy separate constituencies composed of the clergy , military men , professional graduates , and other experts in literature , science , and art . The ecclesiastical nominees , of course , would predominate , thirty thousand out of the ninety thousand proposed voters being ministers of religion ; and that is a point which we commend to the notice of Liberal politicians .

    Every one will admit that the persons included in the category set forth by the memorial ought to possess a vote It may bo granted to them on simple terms , by admitting lodgers , with a fixed qualification , to the exercise of the parliamentary suffrage , thus identifying them with the great body of citizens , instead of cutting them oil ' , upon the principles of Japanese heraldry , and creating a sort of spurious oligarchy of Prigs . They dislike being treated as units ,

    they say . If they are better than unitswhich ^ many a graduate and member of a learned society is not—they have abundant means of influencing society . They have their intellect , their eloquence , their culture the respect entertained for them by the less educated classes , the free range of pulpits platforms , and the press . But whence arose this political rage ? The educated orders of the nation , as represented by the memorial

    Have not habitually associated themselves with political movements , or enlarged their exertions beyond their churches , chapels lecture-rooms , and clubs . Whenever they do this , power accrues to them , and more they cannot have without doing an injustice to the country , and bringing ridicule upon the Constitution . The Eeforms of Parliament and the Executive have been of popular , not of learned origin ; for all that the bishops

    , the army , the universities , and the illuminati have done , we might still have been the subjects of a Georgian rule . INot so , they argue . They have spread knowledge ; to them is attrib utable the explosion of vulgar fallacies ; they , the educated , have shown the people the way out orEgyptian darkness . Then they did all this without the educational suffrage , and let them continue to do it , for it is their office , and their influence will not be the less

    because we refuse to render their importance a monstrosity . The principle of special suffrages could not stop , if once introduced into the constitution . Circle within circle , class within class , we should be the Chinese of the West within a century , unless , as is probable , we repealed pur fanciful new law within five years from its enactment , and resolved , in future , to remember what

    self-government means , and the true nature of a suffrage . It is the citizen , the Englishman , -who votes at the election of ft Knight or Burgess , not the Master or Bachelor of Arts , the Rector or "Vicar , the Brigadier or Captain , the Fellow of a Royal College , a Professor of geology or of prophecy . Carrying to its utmost the principle of a property qualification , it amounts rationally to this : that

    it is wise to ascertain whether the suffrage is exercised by a man competent to form a political opinion . It is no object of the electoral system to send up a gentleman from the Tower Hamlets , who , being the elect of nine hundred shall rise , when the two elect of nine thousand have spoken , and say , " Sir , as a man of education , 1 must dissent from the views of those members , the deputies of an

    illiterate mob . " The difficulty is to treat the proposal with seriousness . It is a sickly conceit of dilettantism . It is scarcely an expression of opinion , but a hesitating hint , that certain people would be willing to make an experiment upon the constitution . The constitution , however , is not a dog or a dead body for empirical or anatomical treatment . The reform to come must he a concession of

    solid power to the nation nationally . We find Mr . ' CoBDEK , Mr . Bright , Mr . Miltjee Gibson , Mr . Fox , Mr . Coningham , Mr . Miall , Mr . lion buck , Mr . Hadfield , Mr . Robertson Gladstone , Mr . George Wilson , Mr . Titds Salt , and others of that order , announced as having signed a memorial for a largely-extended suffrage , the ballot , and the abolition of the property qualification , and we are at no loss to decide which of the two programmes will rouso enthusiasm , and which will be civilly sneered into limbo .

    The Staff School And Pu11ciiask System. ...

    THE STAFF SCHOOL AND PU 11 CIIASK SYSTEM . According to all prognostics , ITeh ! Majesxy's Government are wot inclined to onlarge the field of selection for officers ; but

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 26, 1857, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_26121857/page/12/