On this page

• Departments (2)
  • 
  • 
• Text (5)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    WHO KILLED REFORM?

  • 

    T11K POTENTATE AT BADKX.

• Transcript

  • 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.

    Untitled Article

    AN obliging nation is once more inyited to weep for Lord John Russell , who has had to perform the melancholy task of ' burying- another Reform Bill , and of casting additional doubt and contempt . on the conduct and good faith of public men . -For the Reform Bill itself , we imagine lio one will put on crape . It was a foolish , sham , delusive measure , strengthened hy 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 Joseph Hume the working classes had a sincere friend , who really did desire their admission into Parliament ; and the appeals for popidar support made during his lifetime would have proved successful had not Mr . Bright and his Manchester adherents succeeded in ' litti the Liberal i / ui i / Kiu ^ it

    sp ng , up HIS iWLUIlUUUoLOi iUiuui ^ ni / O ouv ^ vu ^ n ^ ijt nj ^ n *^ ^ jAwv ^** . party , and rolling back the tide of political progress , which then ran fast and strong . In 1851 , Mr . Bkight and his friends propounded a scheme in their Free Trade Hall , which differed from that of Mr . lit me sufficiently to create a division ; and , when that object was accomplished , they abandoned their offspring with ' less compunction than Lord John 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 Conserva-A ~__ .. 4 > - «*> Xtav *^ hri-h *^ - ** -t ^ l *^* % - ^*~ % ' % » -v » ^*« % rs ^ x * - * ri / inri £ r * A ^ "V >^ / "YT . OT 1 * 1 ^ VI fVt m \ T 'I' / 'XII ^ til /^ tive gained immense accession of strength from the

    party an un-English conduct of the Manchester School during the Russian war , and also during the unhappy troubles that arose in our Eastern possessions . The Reform spirit was nearly extinguished by these circumstances , when Mr . Samuel Mouley and a few other civic admirers of Mr . Bkight got up what they were pleased to term a Reform Committee . This body , for reasons it lias never ventured to explain , declined the task of agitating i the cbuntiy , but summoned a number of M . P . ' s together , who formally elected Mr . Bkight as their leader ,- and commissioned him to prepare a Reform Bill . The Bill was drawn up in due I time , and was well calculated to create a host of enemies and j know that ' the

    secure no friends . All parties-- - pretended compact j between the hon . member for Birmingham and the less noisy ' •} individuals coiistituting the body and tail of the . Liberal party , I was a mere piece of humbug , and jirobably not one of those who- j joined in the request that Mr . Bit I gut should draw : up a Bill i had the slightest intention of advocating its acceptance . ¦ j By degrees the country got sick of Lord Palmehston ' s j jaunty tricks , and even Liberals- ' welcomed a Tory Government , j not from any belief in its merits , but as a pleasant change from 1 the rule of a Premier who treated everybody with supercilious j impertinence , and ' attempted- 'to degrade his country by Con- ' spiracy Bills , and prosecutions undertaken at the command of a ! foreign despot . In its turn Toryism suffered an eclipse , and when Lord Dek-h y ' s ricketty Cabinet was on the point of falling ! to pieco s , vt 1 i < r ^ mlo ~ fflra ^

    member for Birmingham , had an interview with Lord PalmerstoNj who made them no definite promises for the future , but I melodramatically told them to look at the past . A so-called j Liberal Cabinet Mas patched up , and the Manchester School j were bought over 'b y the admission of Mr . Milxkii Cfiusox , i and by promises that Mr . Gladstone would bring forth a j budget highly favourable to the interests of the manufacturers of the North . Under these circumstances , the Reform Light or Bill of Mr . Bukjiit was of course hidden under a bushel ,

    Mr . Bright said he should not attack the Government for conduct arising out of difficulties for which they were not " entirely responsible ; " and he Avas , perhaps , right , * for he was to the . full- as responsible for those-difficulties . as any one else . We 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 Reform have all along reckoned upon the well-known hostility of Lord Palmekston 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

    f ^ nl *« n *~ . 4- n- » / MiJ- . /\ l 4- jtvr / -i- »^ s-kti / -fc jl nrrAii HIT Alll < vnn 4 ~ I * " ! Ait t * r !¦> / % ¦* WT £ \ % * f \ Cabinet or out of it , even one dozen intelligent men who were honest and sincere in their demand for electoral reform . Lord John Russell 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 . Bkuce 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 ; . I \ o prudent lover of his country can do other than deplore the close of a session under UUlUJLll Y ^< l * l WV VtLlCL I / Iltlll . ^ . l ^ JJ lUHv Vll ^ *^ IWOV > Ul < 4 . i 3 ^ aa ± \ JXX IAJ 1 U . I / X

    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 . aNTo independent Liberals have formed an . English party ,, and the aggression of the Lords has brought together a Committee , led by Mr . Bkigiit , 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 . Hoksman was not correct when he stated that-most of the nation had discountenanced the agitation for Reform , for , with the exception of lliat carried on bv'Mr . Joseph -Cgwen and the Northern \ JL tll (( U . Vtt IX IV ., 11 KJXM . * f t : . ' * -A * J v ^ fcj J ~* x . t ¦ ¦ v / vy » i -i- * * ¦* . i ^ tiyi iiiv - ' vji uiiua i * .

    Reform Union , there has been no agitation to discountenance . The repeated failures of Cabinets and Parliaments to deal with the question after it ' . has been pompously brought forward in the QuEEx ' s speech , must have their effect in rendering the continuance of the ' . . present state-of things 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 i > atience 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 rmiH'mbi'iyd . Spine nlyiiig-c must take place , were . it for no higher reason than the convenience of material interests which are dc-\ i \ ¦ / i&aii j / ?

    ituOyll LI Itll I | 1 | W V-V / ll i v . ii j , > j ^ v va w * ¦*** «»» -v . * v- * . ¦•• - » # »**••* *•« . v « w plorably affected by an uncertain Legislature ; and the people have to ' clioose between commencing an 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 Russell and advocated by Mr . Bkight , which would have the eifect of ' subordinating all classes of the community to the compact organisation and selfish , interests of the Manchester School Tor this session nothing can be done in

    . 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 game is legally of age . Keeont meetings on the usurpation of the ' -Lords-have ]) roveil , beyond a doubt , that the people are ready to respond to agitaiion , and those who are the first in the field will be the earliest nossrssors of power .

    and the hon . gentleman was ready to aecopt 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 moinbei * 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 brunch of the Legislature , or declaim-so loudl y against the military and naval pickings of the Peers ?

    A Reform agitation which did not even seek to agitate , winch . enshrined no moral principle , and which would have called j out , " Perish England , so that the cotton-trade Ilourish , " j quite as readily as its chief did call out " Perish . Savoy , i so that the ¦ pence of Europe be maintained , " could not possibly gain strength ; but it did compromise 1 the position of all its pretended friends . Mr . Gladstone's budget . did not meet the la-uiscs it deserved , iu spite of its . needless , complications , aim ply because the (' iianclllou of the Exciikqimlr Syns ' represented as a mere agent of the Manchester JSchooI . The 'French Treaty ! became unjustly unpopular because its chief friends belonged to that un-English' party ; the Lords " kicked out the'l ' nper Duties Itepenl , and overstepped the limits of the constitution , because they' thought they were defending England against Mr . Buioht ; , imd , finally , Lord John Russell , with the approbation of the ! Manchester School , threw over his Hefonu Bill in obedieneo to a Parliament which'he ought to have defied .

    Untitled Article

    TH 10 holders of indigo , the purveyors of tea , eoilee , and tallow , the jobbers iu stocks , the spinners of cotton , and the manufacturers of cloth , would each and all pay a good round sum to know what the Emperor Napolko . n will confabulate with the German . Princes ., ait . . Jhulcu . Italy , wuits tlic . r . efiiilt with anxiety , « i « i tho castled !\ inelook the st (;

    chvelli'V ' s oil the " U " upon meeting as a p towards , or n step nwny-lYoni , the pet project of readjusting tho boundaries <>' " France by another addition of territory , which Europe , eouj ( I not . view with culm nnd'cqnnl eyes . According to the ollicial prograuune , the elect of seven , millions onlv ' desires to give the world assuranees of peace —winch was precisely the object of oeiljiin jM'ocetidinivs immediately before tin- opening of the Italian ( . 'ainpaign . What the present interchange of Napoleonic and Prussian ideas

    Untitled Article

    June 16 , I 860 . ] The header and Saturday Analyst . 559

    Who Killed Reform?

    WHO KILLED REFORM ?

    T11k Potentate At Badkx.

    THK POTENTATE AT BADKX .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 16, 1860, page 559, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2352/page/3/