seems to have been comprised in the strange maxim, that the world is to stand still,-it necessarily appeared rife with interminable mischiefs. To the party of progress, who are too apt to fancy 'great changes,' and great improvements,' to be synonymous terms, it took the hue of the commencement of a sort of political millennium. Both parties have been, one disagreeably, the other agreeably, disappointed. After an interval of twenty years, the conservative party, as it now delights to style itself, finds the throne, in the judgment of all politicians, more secure than it has been since the accession of the Stuarts. It finds the privi leges of the peers unquestioned, not excepting that which is really questionable, the privilege of voting by proxy; and it finds itself again in possession of the government under the operation of an Act, which before it became an Act it absolutely stigmatized as a 'bill for a Republic.' On the other hand, the reformers are now driven to admit that, in spite of the change made in the close boroughs' system by Schedule A, that change has been so far neutralized by superadded corruption amongst the constituencies of such of the smaller boroughs as the Act of 1832 suffered to remain; that the state of society in Great Britain and Ireland, with regard to the great features of agricultural, commercial, and naval prosperity, pauperism, employment, and crime, is not so largely different from that in which it avowedly was, prior to the act of 1832, but that the question emphatically called the Condition of England Question,' still, ever and anon, rises before us, in one or other of its Protean forms, again to be debated-again to disappear, but again to rise in some other and more novel shape; again to occasion fresh contentions, and to ingender new theories. To the calm thinker this is not surprising. The rash and the sanguine only, forget that, in the moral as in the material world, the new structure is hardly reared before the tooth of dilapidation is at work upon it; that the corroding action of national vices is perennial, whilst the impulses of national virtue are mostly irregular, and dependent on occasional causes; and lastly, that when a nation has discovered the existence of some pervading distemperature, it still remains to discover the remedies for an evil, too potent perhaps to be denied, but too obscure and complicated in its symptoms to be easily understood and mastered. With this general reasoning the results of the last twenty years nearly accord. These years have not produced any really vigorous and efficient cabinet, in the support of which the great majority of the nation agreed. If we impartially review the succeeding administrations after 1832, we shall admit this to be true. It is true of Lord Melbourne's administration, which, during the entire period of its existence,

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lived partly by the aid of O'Connell, and partly by the wary forbearance of Sir Robert Peel. Sir Robert himself, when in power, found that he could only carry out the distinctive points of his policy by the aid of his opponents. The administration of Lord John Russell, throughout 1849, 1850, and 1851, depended on a small and variable majority. At the moment of writing these lines we see the Derby administration setting out with an appeal to the forbearance of a combined opposition, and with prospects that by its own partizans even are deemed at best precarious. Whence is this result?

The cause seems to be, that the combined energy of the government and its immediate supporters is ever inferior to the energy of the national mind, upon the whole. Hence the people are in advance of the government, instead of the reverse, or instead of the ruling mind marching abreast with that of the public at large; and from this spring an indecision and timidity so paralyzing, and so much uncertainty in the continuance of any existing administration, that parties at length become equally balanced, and the wheels of government, deprived of the motive power, stop. Whilst, during the close-boroughs system, the powers of rule were really vested in the hands of 154 individuals, upon whom public opinion acted very remotely, the government, whether for good or for evil, had an energy of its own. This energy, the re-distribution of power resulting from the Reform Act has, in practice, weakened. The new depositaries of power are still a minority, and are opposed to each other, and not mostly in union, as before. Hence the few decisive measures that have been carried since the period adverted to have been forced on by the action of public opinion. Those without the pale, when they combine, are too strong for those within it; and of this, the greatest of these measures-the repeal of the cornlaws-is a proof, as Sir Robert Peel himself distinctly admitted. But this is a state so anomalous as to be hardly defensible on any theory. If beneficial changes are only to be carried by the public assuming for a time the functions of a minister, we arrive at a political absurdity. The child who buys a toy-watch fancies it a watch, but soon discovers that, to make it indicate the hour, the pointer must be pushed round by his own finger. A government which only moves as it is moved is no better than a toywatch!

The conclusion that seems to flow from these premises is simply this,—that the energy gained by the extended franchise is more than neutralized by the want of union within, and the repressive action of public opinion from without. In short, the national mind is still partly unrepresented; and being so, is

almost ever in a state of repulsion with the existing government, which, conscious of its own weakness, is liable to be perpetually thus paralyzed. But if the knowledge of a disease is half its cure, may we not, from these conclusions, come at once to some remedial measure of which they are naturally the foundation? The inherent weakness of a cabinet, based upon a foundation too narrow, all men at this moment see. A house of commons based upon too narrow a foundation has no exemption from a similar debility. This, too, begins to be seen and admitted; and hence it is that, instinctively as it were, the current of opinion is now steadily setting in the direction of an extension of the electoral franchise, and those minor measures, such as a shorter duration of parliament and the mode of voting by ballot, which are calculated to bring the action of public opinion more directly into the legislature.

There is another symptom, also, which strongly proves the great alteration in the national mode of thinking, which has been effected since 1832. It is apparent in this, that no party in the state, nor any public writer, defends those smaller boroughs, in which corruption and intimidation have obliterated all traces of free election. Even upon the supposition of their purity, everybody sees the solecism of continuing to a borough of three or four thousand inhabitants, the same privilege that may be perhaps justly claimed by a town containing thirty or forty thousand; and it is a prevalent impression that Mr. Roebuck only speaks the truth when he asserts, that, in his opinion, every borough that helped to make up the original schedule B ought to have been classed in schedule A. Nor is this conclusion coupled with any wish that these burgesses should by this means be deprived of their electoral privilege, but only put into a position in which circumstances would favour its more free and honest exercise.

The anomaly of having so many and multiform foundations of the right to vote begins to be strongly felt. It is asked, why should a man living within the precincts of a county, and rated for poor or county rate, be denied a privilege which his neighbour, in a borough within a mile of him, enjoys? The imperfection of the present registration, with all its conflicting claims and discordant decisions of revising barristers, is strongly felt, and men begin to think that some simpler test of fitness for the franchise, applicable at once to counties and to towns, such as the fact of being rated to the relief of the poor, is desirable and just. Nobody can see why the small county householder is a person less fit to be trusted than the rate-payer of a borough; for if there be any difference, it is in favour of rural districts, where combination is less easy, and everybody admits the vast spread

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of intelligence that the press of the last twenty years has achieved.

If the propriety of a further moderate extension of the electoral franchise be now apparent, that of a curtailment of the duration of parliaments is hardly less so. Those who read the preamble of the Septennial act, and know its history, will see that it is self-repealed. It was enacted when the influence of the adherents of the Stuart family was so great that a general election would, at that period, have endangered the succession as settled in 1688. Upon this necessity alone did Lord Somers rest his defence of the act. But that necessity has vanished. The Stuart line is extinct; nor would it be easy to point out a period in our history in which the throne was so secure as it is at present. There is not certainly any especial charm in the term of three years, as provided for in the act of settlement. Were four named, probably there would occur no difference of opinion; but the term of seven is evidently too long to leave the representative without an appeal to his constituents; and this is evinced in the admitted fact, that the most questionable measures are always passed at the commencement of the parliamentary term.

As to the mode of voting at elections of members of parliament, there is still some honest difference of opinion. The first feeling of an Englishman is certainly in favour of the open vote; but then mere feelings must not be suffered to usurp the province of reason. Our ancestors so voted. True; but the state of society was very different. The aggregate wealth of the country was much less, but it was far more diffused. There was not then an excess of labour, either in town or country; and, hence, the working population enjoyed an independence and rough plenty. Exceptions, indeed, come to this state of things, but through a considerable space of the past it certainly obtained. The burghers were equally independent. The profits of trade were then very great, and taxation a trifle. So far from the boroughs being under the control of the feudal aristocracy, they were antagonistic to the barons, the policy of the Plantagenets in their erection, being to raise up a class capable of checking the power of the manorial lords. This was also for many centuries the policy of the Church, which, fearing the designs of the landed aristocracy, used every method, and encouraged every means for the extinction of villeinage or serfdom, and the creation of a middle class, dependent on handicraft and commerce. Thus, therefore, the burgess voted independently, and the representatives of the boroughs were generally a check upon the knights of the shires, amongst whom the landed interests were most studied. All this time has reversed. The town-tradesman now shrinks beneath

the eye of his wealthy or noble customer, and invokes the shelter of the ballot to enable him to vote freely and with safety. Those who now object to this method of voting, do so on the express ground, that, in their opinion, under its influence, bribery would be more easy, and conviction more difficult. With a very limited constituency, this may possibly be true; but with an extensive constituency, where intimidation also is a means used, we believe the ballot would check both; nor is it easy to believe, that if the class of objectors alluded to were really sincere in their creed, they would be so zealous in their opposition as they now appear to be.

Some worthy complainants, of another description, insist that it is a hardship to be prevented by voting by ballot from openly expressing their opinion of a candidate; but this objection seems a very nugatory one. Vote by ballot cannot assuredly shut men's mouths who wish to be communicative. If ballot were in use to-morrow, there is nothing to prevent any man's proclaiming, at the market-cross or polling-booth, the name of the candidate for whom he meant to vote. Were his character for veracity dubious, it is indeed possible that in the opinion of some the vote of the declarant might chance, in the end, not to tally with his declaration; to honourable partizans this, however, cannot apply; those of doubtful virtue must of course take their chance. That there exists in the breasts of some an honest dislike to this method of voting is nevertheless certain; and perhaps the best method would be to extend it to such constituencies as petitioned to be allowed to adopt it; such petition being signed by a clear and certified majority, or where the votes of two-thirds are fairly given in its favour. This would make it optional to each constituency without imposing it upon any.

Such, with regard to the question of Reform, is the direction which the public mind now seems to be taking. The present unsatisfactory state of parties is turning the attention of all reflecting men to the absolute necessity of resting the government upon an enlarged basis. In the present perplexed and complicated position of parties within parliament, the ordinary business of the country can hardly be carried on with safety. Under such a state of things ameliorations are impossible. It is in vain, however, to attempt to conceal from ourselves the truth, that the repeal of the corn laws cannot continue a final or an isolated measure. It can only make one of a series. Fully admitting the benefits which it has conferred upon the industrious classes, and upon a portion of their employers, we must yet repeat an opinion which we have before expressed, that it must eventually lead to a revision of various other portions of our fiscal system, without which it is one-sided, imperfect, and at variance with