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June 16, I860.] The header andSaturday A...
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WHO KILLED BEFOBM? AN obliging nation is...
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Till': POT.KNTAT.15S AT BADKX. T1IK hold...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
June 16, I860.] The Header Andsaturday A...
June 16 , I 860 . ] The header andSaturday Anal ' yst . 559
Who Killed Befobm? An Obliging Nation Is...
WHO KILLED BEFOBM ? AN obliging nation is once more invited to weep for Lord 1 John Russell , who has had to perform the melancholy task of burying another Reform Bill , and of ca . sting additional doubt and ' contempt on the conduct and good faith of public men . For the Reform Bill itself , we imagine no one will put on crape . It was a foolish , sham , delusive measure , strengthened by no principle and enlightened by no expediency , and it was the offspring of a sectional agitation , that was neither honest nor wise . In the , late Josm'ii Hume the working classes had a sincere friend , who really did desire their admission into
Parliament ; and the appeals foi * popular support made during his lifetime would have proved successful had not Mr . Bright and his Manchester adherents succeeded in splitting up the Liberal party , and rolling back the tide of political progress , which then ran fast and strong . In 1851 , Mr . Bkig . iit and his friends propounded a scheme in their Free Trade Hall , which differed from that of Mi-. Hume sufficiently to create a division ; and , when that object was accomplished , they abandoned their offspring Avith less compunction than Lord Joiix Russell has just displayed . During the interval , peace-at-any-price notions and the direct-taxation hobby were constantly thrust forward as
integral portions of any scheme for reform ; and the Conservative partv gained an immense accession of strength from the un-English conduct of the Manchester School during the Bussian war , and also during theunhappy troubles that arose in our Eastern possessions . The Keform spirit was nearly extinguished by these circumstances , when Mr . Samuel Mokley and a few other civic admirers of Mr . Bright got up what they were pleased to term a Beform . . Committee . This body , for reasons it lias ncvei-. ventured , to explain , declined the task of agitating the country , but summoned a number of M . P . 's together , who formally efected Mr . Bright as their leader , and commissioned
him to prepare a Beform Bill . The Bill was drawn up m due time , ai ) dr was well calcxilated to create a host of enemies and secure no friends , -Ailparties know that the pretended compact between the hon . member for Birmingham ; and the less noisy individuals constituting the body and tail of the Liberal party , was a mere piece of humbug , and probably not one of those . who joinedin the requestihat Mr , Bright should draw up a Bill had the slightest intention of advocating its acceptance . By degrees the country got sick of Lord P-ALMEitSTOx ' s jaunty tricks , and even Liberals welcomed a Tory Government , not from any belief in its merits , but as a pleasant change from
the rule of a Premier who treated everybody with supercilious impertinence , and attempted to degrade his country by Conspiracy Bills , and prosecutions undertaken at the command of a foreign despot . In its turn , Toryism suffered an eclipse , and when Lord Derby's rieketty Cabinetwas on the point of falling to pieces , the '¦ wKo 1 e >> o . v * i ? ^ o 1 ^ ^ member for Birmingham , had an interview with Lord Palmerston , who made them no ¦ "definite promises for the future , but melodramatically told them to look at the , past . A so-called Liberal Cabinet was patched up , and the Manchester . School were bought over by the admission of Mr . Milnkr Crrnso ^* , and by promises that INIiv Gladstone would bring forth a
budget highly favourable to the interests of the manufacturers of the North . Under these circumstances , the Beform Light or Bill of Mr . Bkusiit was of course hidden under a bushel , and the hon . gentleman was ready to accept anything the Ministry chose to propose . It was easy to make a few eloquent speeches , proving that the Cabinet scheme would leave nearly all the .. excluded operatives precisely where they were—outside the door of the Constitution ; but the . member for Birmingham was surely the " man of the people , " for who but a real democrat would . fling so many rhetorical rotten eggs at the hereditary branch of the Legislature , or declaim so loudly against the military mid naval pickings of the Peers ?
A ltoform agitation which did not even seek to agitate , which enshrined no moral principle , and which would have called out , " Perish England , so that the cotton-trade flourish , " quite us readily as its chief did call out " Perish Savoy , so that tlie peace of Europe be maintained , " could not possibly gain strength ; but it did compromise the position of all its protended friends . Mr . Gladstone ' s budget did not meet the praises ifr-deserved , in -spito of its needless complications , simply
because the Ciianollloh of the Exciikql'er was represented as a mere agent of the Manchester School . The French Treaty became unjustly unpopular because its chief friends belonged to that un-English party ; the Lords kicked out the Paper * . Outies ltcpe . nl , inul overstepped 1 the limits of the constitution , because they thought they were defending England against Mr , Biuuiit ; ami , finally , Lord . lotiN s & kll , with the approbation of the Manchester School , threw over his Kefonn Bill in obedience to a Parliament which he ought to have defied .
Mr . Bright said he should not attack the Government for conduct arising out of difficulties for which they were not " entirely l-esponsible ; " and . he was , perhaps , right , for he was to the full as responsible for those difficulties as any one else . YVe cannot , however , on this ground exonerate ' the Ministers ;—they might have introduced their Bill a month earlier , and might have held out to the Legislature the alternative of sitting a month later , or suffering dissolution in the event of a
refractoriness that could not be overcome . The opponents of Beform have all along reckoned upon the well-known hostility of Lord Palmerston to beneficial electoral change ; and we should not in June have found 250 M . P . ' s voting for indefinite postponement , and seen , ourselves confronted with sixty Or seventy amendments , if the House of Commons had contained , in the Cabinet or out of it , even one dozen intelligent men who were honpst and sincere in their demand for electoral reform .
Lord John Bussell makes the China war and the great fortification job pretexts for abandoning his scheme ; but not for one moment since the disastrous blunder of Mr . Bruce and Admiral Hope , has there been the slightest prospect of an amicable settlement with the Chinese , and the fortification schemes would not be elevated into importance by any Government that deserved the confidence of the people . No prudent lover of his country can do other than deplore the close of a session under circumstances productive of so much distrust . The Tories have excited alarm by an obvious desire to go back ; the Whigs have excited alarm by an equally obvious determination not to move
forward . No independent Liberals have formed an English party , and the aggression of the Lords has brought together a Committee , led by Mr . Bright , which represents some ten or twelve millions of property , invested chiefly in the cotton trade , and whose owners entertain views of home and foreign policy to which the country is not prepared to assent . Mr . " rloitsMAN was not correct when he stated that most of the nation had discountenanced the agitation for Beform , for , with the exception of that carried on by Mr . Joseph Cowen and the Northern
Beform Union , there has been no agitation to discountenance . The repeated failures of Cabinets jjnd Parliaments to deal With the question after it has been pompously brought forward in the Queen ' s speech , must have their effect in rendering the continuance of the present state of tilings impossible ; and the tendency of provisions to / reach famine prices will not make manufacturers and tradesmen more Conservative , or enable the working classes to bear With patience the insult and outrage to which they have been subjected , by speakers who have preferred vituperation to truth .
The country has ample materials before it for forming a sound judgment . The existing House of Commons is the lowest in public estimation , and the poorest in public spirit that can be remembered . Some change must take-place , were it for no higher
reason than the convenience of material ^ nterest"s ^ Tln ^ lrTvr ( rne plorably affected by an uncertain Legislature ; and the people have to choose between commencing ah agitation for a wide and substantial improvement of our electoral system , such as would restore to the House of Commons the function of representing opinion , or of exhuming a . narrow scheme like that proposed by Lord John Bussell and advocated by Mr . Buioiit , which would have the effect of subordinating nil classes of the community to the compact organisation and selfish interests of the
Manchester School . ' Tor this sessibn nothing can be done m Parliament , for the Ministers are right in believing that its members would not sacrifice a little grouse and partridge shooting for the .. benefit of their country , and national interests must , be shelved the very moment that any form of ginne is legally of age . Kccent meetings on the usurpation of the . Lords- have proved , 'beyond a doubt , that the people are ready to respond to agitation , and those who are the first in the field will be the earliest possessors of power .
Till': Pot.Kntat.15s At Badkx. T1ik Hold...
Till' : POT . KNTAT . 15 S AT BADKX . T 1 IK holders of indigo , the purveyors of tea , collee , and tallow , the jobbers in stocks , the spinners of cotton , and the manufacturers of cloth , would each and all pay 0 $ oih \ round sum to know what the Emperor Xapolkon will confabulate with the Gorman Princes at tHaden . 'Italy waits the result with anxiety , and the dwellers oti t he < ' castle < t Bhine" l < j <) 1 c uponthe meeting ns a stop townrds , or n step away from , the pet project of readjusting the boundaries of France ' by another additioa of territory , which Europe-could not . view with calm and equal i . yes .. fc According to the o ' ilicial programme , the elect ol seven millions only , desires to give Mm : world assurances of peace —which was precisely the object , of certain proceedings immediately before the opening of ( lie Italian campaign . \> hot tho present interchange of Napoleonic and Prussian ideas
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 16, 1860, page 3, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_16061860/page/3/
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