THE MANCHESTER REFORM CONFERENCE.
Iwould be well if the gentlemen who, though Liberals, 1 vote against every Reform Bill would read the proceed- ings of the National Reform Conference which has been this week transacting itself at Manchester. They might gain an idea or two which would awaken them to a consciousness of the extreme danger involved in the course they are pursuing. We do not intend to point to the meeting as one of any spe- cial importance in itself; for it had exceedingly little, the best known speakers being a worn-out Chartist or two, by whom the Charter is acknowledged to be no longer possible, but who strive to save what remnants of it may possibly be made useful. The speeches were of the old and hackneyed type, with little new about them except some old denunciations of the aristocracy very rare in these decorous and submissive times. The resolution adopted was curiously feeble in its wording, implying a desire for a compromise between house- hold suffrage and a suffrage to include lodgers, and several of the committee naïvely admitted that a " Reform Association could not live in Manchester." Nevertheless, there was an idea visible throughout the proceedings in all the speeches and most of the resolutions which it is worth while to ponder, and that was that the only chance for reform was to attract the masses by making the suffrage excessively wide. Nothing else, it was alleged, would arouse the slightest enthusiasm. It was of no use to offer to admit a class unjustly excluded, for the class would not be strong enough to coerce the ten-pounders. " The thing," said Mr. Ernest Jones, taking his hint from Earl Russell, " was to unite a sufficient number of the people to exercise moral pressure' upon the House of Commons." They need not be afraid of asking too much, they were sure to get only an instalment ; but unless they could "obtain sufficient num- bers to form an organization which should impress the. Government " they would fail. That was the leading idea of the meeting, and it is that which members should study, for it is one which within a few years may be found un- pleasantly fruitful. The times are very quiet, but the re- newal of the demand for a change in the suffrage is as certain as the progress of democracy, as inevitable as the recurrence of a period of distress during which opinions now denounced as anarchical will once again be heard, as unavoidable as the burst of discontent which is sure to arise when the existing lull has wearied the consciences as well as the tempers of the mass of the population. They will not find it pleasant then to hear all moderate schemes denounced as useless because not supported by masses largo enough to coerce the constituencies, to see every able demagogue forced in spite of himself to reject all compromises, to see rising man after rising man giving pledges that if supported by the mass he will secure to the masses the control of political power. Yet that is what the silly talk about the absence of external pressure will inevitably produce. It is a mere political syllogism. If nothing is to be conceded without pressure, the pressure must be strong to obtainxeal concessions ; strong pressure in such cases means pressure from the whole body of the population ; the whole body of the population will not move unless its leaders promise in return that it shall as a body be enfranchised. The House of Commons refuses to lower the county franchise to 201., a measure which would have deprived county agitators of their only influential leaders, and so drives the discontented, who would, if left alone, be as exclusive as all other English- men, to admit the mob in order that its weight may open a door for themselves. The claim of the workmen, who have a real right to admittance within the pale, and who could be ad- mitted without drowning everybody else, is smoothly set aside, and the House by refusing to admit every income-tax payer, whether lodger, or householder, or wanderer, even declines to fill up the gaps still left in its own ranks. Anything more silly than the conduct of the House of Commons in rejecting Lord Palmerston's reasonable compromise on the county question, and declining to exert itself to admit every "black-coat," that is, every educated man not living by wages, into the suffrage it would be hard to find. The majority seem to be actuated by no political idea whatever, to be totally careless whether they are excluding those they wish to exclude, or those they do not wish to exclude, to be voting, as on Mr. Locke King's Bill last week, out of mere blind dislike to any change, even if it be for the advantage of the opinions which they themselves profess. They say daily they dread democracy, yet they will not include the remaining classes who they allow are not democratic, will not receive the country resi- dents who, having much to lose, cannot be democratic, and utterly reject that body of working men, whose absorption would break the force of all democratic organizations. This is not policy but silliness, an instance of that kind of want of wisdom which ruins not the wicked but the well meaning.. There was another idea very prominent at this meeting, with which the Conservative Liberals will sooner or later,. and the later will not be very long hence, have to deal, and that was the abstract justice of a wide suffrage. If a man pays taxes, said one speaker, he ought to be represented, and to that argument so advanced there can be in England no reply, and a just argument unanswered is in England certain sooner or later to lead to action. The duty of statesmen who believe vast suffrages dangerous, as we certainly do, is not to sit quiet and refuse to remove the injustice, still less to rest and be thankful till the " ugly rush" arrives, but to meet the admitted evil without overthrowing the equally admitted good. It is quite certain that a man who pays taxes ought to have a voice in distributing them, but it does not follow that his voice is to be equivalent to that of the man who pays four times as much, still less that it is to drown every voice but his own. It would be quite possible were that qualification once accepted to admit every taxpayer in the kingdom to his fair share of power, and only his fair share, without depriving everybody else of theirs. Suppose that the taxation of the labouring class and of the voting class is equal, which is very nearly the truth, they ought on this theory of representing the taxpayers to have about an equal number of suffrages. What would be easier than to give to every five of the non- voting class the right to elect one elector, which would precisely supply the demand for political justice. That proportion would, we acknowledge, be a little too much, payment of taxes not being the only qualification required, but details could be adjusted readily enough, if the House were but once in earnest. They could meet the whole question in a quiet year by simply admitting men to vote according to their taxes, using house-rates as the test, and so give property its full advantage without leaving out one man to protest that he was taxed, if not by a despotic indi- vidual, still by a despotic body. The House, however, will have none of it at all, will have no dismssion of the perfect justice and wisdom of the constituencies who prove both by sending up a body who reject a 201. country franchise, reject, that is, all country surgeons, schoolmasters, and upper trades- men, and pass new and more stringent laws for the preser- vation of game. It will do nothing to let off the waters, and will consequently have one day to face the rush of the whole body at once, and perhaps discover too late that of all substances the fluid which gives to every impact is the least compressible.
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