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    reform ? In 1830 , the reform of Parliament was said to be required to restore a balance ; to make provision for tile representation of those vast civic communities which had risen up since the beginning- of that war , which , nevertheless , we are told , ceaselessly , ruined England . ' A Reform Bill was required , it was . also maintained less publicly , to . let the Whigs have their turn at power—the Whigs having sided with the middle class against the country class , and having , consequently , according to the Whigs , been kept down

    by throne and peerage . But now ? The civic communities are triumphant : they have carried the repeal of the Corn Laws ; and they have got a representative Chancellor of the Exchequer who has put legacy duty on real property , land included . The Whigs have no complaint to make . Of the twenty years which have elapsed since the passing of that Reform Bill , which they drew up , they have been out of power only five years , —in those fifteen years having fully rewarded and enriched their party and younger sons by Government patronage ; and , at this moment , no more Whigs

    are left—Lord John Russell having , with their consent , destroyed them . On the other hand , there is no Tory party . Mr . Disraeli , who abused Sir Robert Peel for disorganizing it , has destroyed it . Hence a coalition ; hence , in consequence , the apparent infelicity of the period selected for a suggestion of a Reform Bill . A coalition Government , including nearly all the reliable statesmen of the day , represents the country : the House of Commons supports the coalition;— -therefore , the House of Commons represents the country . Why , then , a Reform Bill ?

    There is , perhaps , an argument left for the Reform Bill . The middle classes now overmatch , or are , at least , fully equal to , the aristocratic classes in the House of Commons ; if they hav ' n't all their own way , it is simply because , little as Mr . William Williams would suspect so simple a reason , they are not entitled to have all their own way—the land and landlords being still a considerable portion of the wealth and intelligence of this country . But as between 1800 and 1832 there grew up a great

    anti-aristocratic middle class , insisting , when it ascertained its strength , on practical power , so between 1800 and 1853 there has grown up a great , intelligent , wealthy working-man class ; and this class is in no . sense and in no degree directly represented in the House of Commons . For this class , to introduce into the " lobby" a third community to struggle with land and capital , a reform bill may bo necessary . But that can only be a theory . This class is not demanding a reform bill ; takes little interest in public affairs ; and would not appreciate the

    contingent blessing contemplated by Lord Aberdeen . It is a cln . ss which bus lost its faith in the possible blessings to be conferred by State interference—has lost this faith only a i ' years after the passing of the act which cheapened bread and emancipated trade ; and bo completely is it understood suul felt that our orators , and journnli . sf K , iind . statesmenare not to appeal to the people , which won't listen , but to " society" merely , which is interested , that , notwithstanding the Coalition , nationality of nini and style is the exception and not the rule in our speeches and leading articles , which arc addressed to an audience , not to u nation . This class ,

    which i . s no doubt the democracy Lord Derby gratuitously undertook to put down— -a St . George , who sef out after news had arrived of the death of the dragon will even bear patiently and unmurinuringly the noglect , not to eiiy the impertinence ! of Parliament , when its Interests are concerned . This i . s a year of strikes . a year in which the working classes have been intensely interested in the laws ailed ing combinations in referonce to wages ; and yet this democracy has not uttered a word in complaint of the insolence of dhe law lords in the- Upper House , and the ipdiileronce of country gentlemen and capitalists in the , Lower I louse , in regard to ibid , Combination of Workmen Bill which Mr .

    Drunnnond adopted from Mr . 11 nine , iind which contained the beginning of a candid politico-economical legislation towards tho artisan . With no enduring n deniooruey , which seldom rends the debutes , which laughs at corruption ami jokes ( . he , bribed , jiud which doesn't want votes , not evett being eugov for their

    . market value , so flourishing is the enlightened democracy as to wages , why should a Coalition Government precipitate a reform bill ? The capitalists , who have most that they want , and the aristocracy , which , not being led by Lord John Manners , cannot hope for allies in fustian-jacket members , must decidedly think that Lord John Russell , is , as usual ,, energetic at precisely the wrong time . " Because what may after all be wanted is not a reform of Parliament , but a reform of the country .

    Nevertheless , a survey of the session cannot fail to suggest , that if Parliament is to be congratulated on what it has done , Parliament is to be condoled with on what it has not done . The Budget was a great measure ; it manifested , in its author a really able man , inevitably the future Premier ; and its ' facile passage was honourable to the House of Commons . But though we are a commercial country , we cannot please ourselves with the belief that a session of nine months should be devoted merely t 6 the gestation of a single

    financial measure . To test the completeness of the " business" done in the course of a session , we should —alas ! for an enlightened and highly civilized country , the investigation would be disheartening—examine the prayers of the whole number of petitions presented , and then ascertain how many of all these alleged and probably admitted grievances have been redressed . Or , as it is the fashion in this constitutional land to sneer at petitions , we could go over the list of " questions of the day , " and observe how many have been settled , or

    even responded to . Reduced to such tests , sorry indeed are the results of the session , which lasted from the autumn of 1852 into the autumn of 1853 . We saw the Budget passed , and we saw the India Bill bustled through ; some customs reform ; a eab unsettlement ; a ~ wife-mangier discouragement ; nationality in the mercantile navy put down ; betting-houses put downtoriseupagain ; a fewgrosserlegalmischiefs partially remedied ; the voluntary principle adopted—for Canada ; transportation stopped—to Australia , not to Milbank :

    and that is all , literally all the results of nine months ' sittings . And of one in the list it is needful to remind people that the India Bill was the bill of a bureau ; that there was profound British indifference to Indian misrule ; and that the bill only received the assent and approval of Parliament in the sense that Parliament staid away from all the petty committee discussions upon it . No doubt there have been other " subjects " before Parliament . To go back : there was much public advantage derived from the debating-society sort

    of discussions which took place upon statute consolidation and codification ; tests in the universities of Scotland and the proper curricula for the universities of England ; salt monopoly of the honest East India Company in India ; the smoke , filth , and pestilence of this enlightened metropolis ; landlord villanies in Ireland ; trustees' villanies in charitable institutions in England ; families' rogueries in the ecclesiastical courts ; bishops' rogueries in capitular and other estates ; JcranjeeMerjee and his amiable relative , PcstonjeeMorjeo ;

    the Baron do Bode ; magistrate recklessness with county rates ; Mr . Keogh ' s veracity ; Lord John ' s sympathy with Jows ; Lord llothuin ' s horror of M . P judges ( eliciting a groat speech from Mncaulay ); that pure and honest establishment , the Irish Church ; that excellent and charitable system of church rates insisted on by the- Christian Establishment ; the tendency of lady abbesses to starve- and beat young nuns ; the honoura ble nature of the Irish members ( us sketched by Mr . Duffy ) ; the liberality of Liberal Lord Puhner . ston , when foreign refugees have to bo annoyed and tortured to please

    Ab-. sohitist courts ; our Australian colonies ; the virtues ol tho Duko of Wellington ; the ignorance of this enlightened country , as admitted by every oho in urgiiig Lord John to go on with an education wrheino ; iind lastly , the scoundrel ' ism , of this enlightened country , as admitted by every one in the course of tho debutes upon bribery petitions , election committee- reports , special commissions , and now writs . Then , t , 6 conclude with , eun there be a doubt that the highest national gain hns been derived , in the way of instruction and inereufie of national self-respect , from the repealed interrogatories of independent inomborfl , and tho an frequent explicit

    statements of Ministers , in regard to the conduct Great Britain in her protectorate of Turkey a ^ a' ° I Russia ? Did not the whole of the negotiations « manner of conducting them , the candour with wV h they were confided to us by our statesmen , and th happy and honourable issue , fully demonstrate that J * are a self-governed people , and that we passionatel " insist upon the Christian policy , of peace and good Vfl in the East ? Yet , balancing the results of the sessio against the length of the session , is it not clear , » tifying as ifc has been to have our selected representn " tives talking on all these mighty points , that it would have "been better to have had less talk ; and if ther could not be actual work

    more , at least less time about it ? However , it is to be remembered ; that this has been a session remarkable for the disappearance of the orators . A coalition Government , which included all the great statesmen , included , as a necessit yfor this is a country in which , in addition to bein ° - a sage , you must bo an actor — nearly all the great orators : and the Treasury benches are not often favourable to the graces of elocution , and to the exercitations of declamatory genius . And , unfortunately , the lucrative taciturnity of the crack debaters silenced by place and their awful sense of responsibility-r-which crushes even Bernal Osbornehas not been compensated for by the activity of the Opposition . Mr . Disraeli has looked an armoury of

    daggers , but spoken seldom : having no policy and no party he resorted to that wisdom so usual and so appropriate to men in a quandary-r-ho bided his time . Sir John Pakington rarely summed up to . the jury , which he ever believes to be before him ; Mr . Walpole only once got a chance of delivering a sermon , and he was irreverently laughed at for his pains . As to Lord Stanley , he has passed the session;—excepting a couple of evenings which he gave to Indiar—in the smoking room ; and it is understood that he-was making enquiries of the elderly Whigs left out of the Coalition , as to the exact traditional meaning of Toryism . Lord Stanley , ingenuous young man , thought that if he was to be a Conservative , it was his business to conserve something —so he selected church-rates . ~~

    -If in a week or two we have not altogether forgotten the Session , placidly reposing in our constitutional recess , which was invented by our ancestors for good reasons , but is maintained by ourselves" for none , we shall remember it only for one feature : that it was the Session in which Parliament and people alike confessed —a confession apart from the question of Parliamentary Reform—that the House of Commons is elected by a constituency two-thirds of which are utterly base and corrupt : the proofs of that baseness and corruption being ample and complete . And remembering this remarkable fact , wo shall wonder at the easy , happy ,

    confidence we have placed bo long , and aro likely so long to continue to place , in that assembly ; and we fchall also wonder perhaps at our own profound conviction that wo aro an enlightened nation , far away at the head of tho world ' s civilization . But no doubt we arc very practical ; we nro content with our constitution ; and so satisfied with our self-government that avc nro rejoicing at tho prospect of having no control whatever over tho Government until next February . Which must convince tho Emperor of Russia , just about to chango iiis tactics , that vro are an astoundingly free country . A Stiunqkk .

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    830 THE LEADER . [ Satpiu ^ y ,

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    [ IN THIH D 3 CPAKTMKN 1 ' , AH AJ . X . Ol'INIONH , nOWBVUK Jt * T " ] " ' , y AH 1 C AM , OWIM > AN 1 CX 1 'ItICNSlOlf , TiriC « I > H' <>» » K " Kti >> HOI . ptJ JIIMHiei , if JtlCHI'ONHUIl . 'H lfOlt NOKK . ] ¦ ,

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    Therein no lorn-nod man bul , will confoan ho Jllll ; l 1 , " '( . ( 1 . prontxMlb ywudjnKooni / iwenuoaJnH and m . M m < l ,. ( rnoni , MlmrpeiH ! fl . If , Hum , il j l ><* 1 >> ' < " i , lo lor him l . o rend , why nhould . il-, not ; , at ; lentil ,, bo U' - <•' lor hiu iidveroary l , o write . —MiW'ON .

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    SUNDAY IN GLASGOW . ( To tho Mlitor of the iMidvr . ) , )| H Km , —yom . eorrespondent , ' " Ion , " I" * fftVOlU , ' , *;„» . with a lojitf and extraordinary Jotter , nnont lh « jperor etcnnior . "

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• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 27, 1853, page 830, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2001/page/14/