NEWS OF THE WEEK.
TEE hit weeks of the long vacation are marked by a slight flutter among tile Parliamentary Reformers; a "moving among the dry bones.„ It Manchester there has been a meeting of the local Financial and Parliamentary Reform Association ; at Leeds, a meeting convened, somewhat of the latest, to follow up the molt ment of the Reform Conference held some time ago at Mancheefor.:; at Birmingham, a meeting got up at the instance of Sir Rolm Walmsley and Mr. George Thompson. These two gentlemen have also been prosecuting their itinerant missionary labours in divers other places of minor importance.
The whole affair has been very decorous and respectable, and intolerably languid. The movement seems rather the result of galvanic action than of inherent vitality. It is nowhere a sponta- neous ebullition of popular sentiment, but a compliance with the wishes of a few leaders. It is brought about by a factitious agita- tion from a oommon centre. Its object is to support Lord John Russell, or to urge him onwards; to prepare a favourable recep- tion for his new Reform Bill, or to compel him to make the mea- sure a little more decided in its character than he may be disposed to do. Wkatever the motive of the movement, it is too feeble, too palpably unreal, too late. All the actors look painfully, conscious of their tardiness. They are setting on foot a tame and diffident agitation in a few localities, when to make good their boastful promises uttered long ago or to produce any effect, they ought al- ready to have roused. the land from one end to the other. The sentiments expressed, the measures advocated at all the meet- ings, have a strong family likeness, denoting a common origin: At Leeds there was a contest between the partisans of ” ratepay- ing " and of " manhood " suffrage, leaving it rather uncertain which had the majority. The Birmingham meeting was enlivened by a smart attack upon the Members for the town, who, after pro- nusing to attend, drew back at the last hour, on the plea that the movement was not local and spontaneous, but got up by foreign intervention. • At Manchester the promoters of the meeting had it all their own way. The inference naturally drawn from these proceedings is, that a pretty general conviction of the expediency of Parliamentary Reform exists, but no very ardent wish or hope to obtain it at the present moment. People are thinking of other matters ; our relations with the Continent, not the perfecting of our electoral system, are uppermost in their thoughts. They are
in a mood to accept thankfully . .
y a modicum of improvement but not to make any strenuous efforts for organic changes.
