THERE are questions, showy and specious by their titles, which in virtue are far below the promise of their names. There are questions which, under obscure forms, mask a world of potential value. To this latter class belongs the case before us. And whatever interest it might otherwise have excited, supposing it left to the natural effect of its dry technical de signation, simply through one accident of its Parliamentary progress it has already gathered about itself a large body of notice and anxiety, viz. through the quality of resistance which it has provoked. This resist ance, in every stage, has been tumultuous and, in a parliamentary sense, disorderly. It has trampled on the usages of Parliament where they impeded-it has clung to the mere letter of those usages where they happened to assist. Such a zealotry, such a contagion of partisanship, drawing into one vortex of rabid animosity the courteous and the discourteous the most considerate temperance equally with the blindest malignityhas had at least one useful result; it has thoroughly awakened the public to a sense of some deeper interest at stake than is notified by the mere verbal decriptions of the measure in the daily records of public business. The pulse at the surface, running at so headlong a pace of fever, indicates some deepseated disturbance in the system. These bacchanalian movements of faction argue some vital interest in the background which is either disturbed, or is threatened with disturbance, by Lord Stanley's measure of reform. By this time the public mind is suffi ciently enlightened as to the nature of that interest. Two points, long since ascertained by those who were open to conviction, have been forced into relief and prominent notoriety by the frenzy of the opposition to Lord Stanley-1. That the present Administration substantially hold their official power by an Irish tenure: thrown upon English and Scottish resources, they would be turned out, and they would be kept out.

2. That even this limited tenure of power, this merely Irish tenure, is itself dependent for its present operation upon its present disorders. The very Irish basis of the Ministry would not suffice without an Irish derangement. The condition is itself subject to a condition. It is only as a channel through which Mr O'Connell is able to propagate an influence, that an Irish constituency is more available to the Government than a British constituency. It is only through its present state of disorder that Mr O'Connell can throw the requisite influence upon the electoral body. Were the electoral functions brought into a healthy condition, whether for the act of voting or the acts constituting the right to vote, from that moment would cease the O'Connell power to counterwork the Conservative tendencies of Irish property. Obstructions or non-conduct. ors to an O'Connell influence would come into play along the whole line of the electoral machinery, were those abuses once removed which at present give a large preponderance to priestly influence by multiplying the class of voters who are fitted to be its dupes.

Only by the disorder of the elective franchise, an O'Connell influence: only by an O'Connell influence, a Melbourne cabinet. Hinc illæ lachryme! Hence the dithyrambic frenzy of resistance. It was no longer a diffusive struggle maintained over the total field of politics, where progress for either side is gradual, and loss in one part balanced often by gain in another. The very key of the position was assailed; organs of life were menaced. The Ministers and Mr O'Connell clung to each other with the instincts that connect systems of power reciprocally dependent. A fatal sympathy, like that which the great poet represents as binding together Sin and Death, pervaded their separate tenures of authority. It was little in itself to each party as a separate interest that the other should be extinguished. But it was too evident that the extinction of either must carry with it the ex

tinction of the other; must presuppose it in the one case as a cause, or produce it in the other as an effect.

Motive, therefore, there was, enough, and more than enough, to sustain that bitter resistance to Lord Stanley which we have witnessed. In that, there is nothing to surprise us. Every man who has watched human nature in states of conflict, must know that no anger is so deadly as that which is the reaction of fear. Men are never so thoroughly vindictive as when they have been heartily frightened; and in this case there was the wrath of panic and of deliberate fores sight. In the agitation, therefore, of the Ministerial party, we see nothing but what is natural. Even the participation in this frenzy of persons as temperate as Lord John Russell, docs not surprise us: but one thing has perplexed us from the first, viz., what colourable pretext the Government would ultimately put forward, after technical delays should fail, as the ground of their opposition. The true ground nobody could mistake. All the world, when once put upon the inquiry by the desperate energies of the resistance, had learned what screw was getting loose in the government; but then that was not of a nature to be pleaded. True it was, that one Irish faction kept the Whig faction in power: true it was, that this Irish faction was kept afloat only by a monstrous machinery of fraud: true it was, that this joint life had been maintained by no other cause whatever than those disorders affecting the elective franchise, which it was the object of this bill to destroy. To maintain this disorder was a sine quâ non of existence to the compound party. But then disorder, as disorder, never could be urged with decency as a fit object of Parliamentary protecs tion. That was out of the question. Could it then be denied? could it be palliated? That course might have been open, and undoubtedly would have been adopted, at an earlier period of the Melbourne Cabinet. With the same interest at issue, and not yet committed by any public declaration upon the question, it is certain that Lord John Russell would have attempted an easy deliverance by roundly affirming that the Irish elec

toral abuses had no existence: or (like some Irish members at present,) he would have depressed them to a level with those local irregularities in England which have now and then vitiated an election. But, unfortunately, this evasion had been foreclosed to a Melbourne Cabinet by its own acts. Already, from the year 1835, and by direct co-operation with three distinct measures of reform, this Cabinet had recorded its acknowledgment of the abuse. The reform, it is true, had been in every case mere matter of moonshine; and had been meant for such. Means were taken effectually to prevent any substantial change from coming to maturity: and the outward show of reform had been pursued merely with the purpose, 1. of saving appearances; 2. of keeping other more effectual labourers out of this vineyard: so long as a Government measure was before the house, an excuse was always at hand for discouraging all other more serious reformers. These were the true motives for countenancing simulated reforms; but still, under what motives soever, a measure of reform, even when it is a counterfeit measure, must proceed from the first upon the admission of an abuse. Plans of redress, though hollow in every thing else, at the least were valid arguments of that particular derangement to which they pointed their remedies. If there were nothing to redress in the franchise as generally held, or generally exercised in Ire land, then what had been the meaning of their own repeated schemes for amending it? The special remedy had varied at least three times; but the general abuse had been recognized alike in all: too late and penitentially the Melbourne Cabinet discovered their own precipitancy. The best arrow in the sheaf had been shot away to no purpose; and in an unhappy flourish of theatrical virtue, whilst affecting to disclaim O'Connellism, they had thrown away-not indeed that excellent resource, but the means of maintaining it against all future reformers; viz., by point-blank denial that it existed, or (if that should happen to be the better course,) by treating it as a bagatelle too minute for legislation. Losing this plea, which they wilfully threw away by too adventurous hypo

erisy, it did and does appear to us, that the present Administration had forfeited every plausible artifice or evasion by which they could have confronted Lord Stanley's present bill. Accordingly, what is it they allege against that bill? What is left open for them to allege, after having so thoroughly cut away the ground from under their own feet? Why, simply this that, in narrowing the present excessive facilities for establishing fraudulent claims, Lord Stanley has proportionately fettered the esta blishment of just claims. But this ob.. jection applied equally to their own schemes of reform: and, secondly, it is an objection growing out of the mere necessities besetting the case, and one which must inevitably apply to any and to every scheme of reform, supposing it sincere. Previously to examination, all claims must in fairness be presumed equally doubtful;-those who are involved in one common suspicion, the innocent equally with the guilty, must abide the hardships of sus picion and the anxieties of trial. The distinctions of good and bad, of sound and fraudulent, apply only after the examination. That particular trouble, therefore, which arises from the process of investigation, it is an utter impossibility so to modify, as that it should proportion itself to the justice of the pretension; for that justice can be known only after the trouble has been endured. Human infirmity it is which makes any investigation necessary; and it is that same infirmity which proportions the trouble and vexation, not to the soundness and unsoundness by which one claim differs from another, but to the condition of doubt which affects all claims alike. There is, besides, a local argument applying to any Irish measure of reform, which too reasonably founds itself on the excess of the Irish abuse. It is idle to suppose that any man, having the chances of his bill staked upon the reasonableness of its details, would do so childish an act as to volunteer an argument against himself, by introducing one single vexatious or superfluous restraint. It is presumable that the machinery will be only so far elaborate and troublesome, as to qualify it for contending with the elaborate artifices and the trouble

some evasions which it contemplates. The tricks being complex by which the law is defeated, no man ought to make it an objection to the reform, that it is commensurately complex so as to measure itself against the abuse. In all this there is no hardship beyond what every one of us suffers in turn under given circumstances. For instance, in crossing a frontier peculiarly exposed to smuggling, what honourable man but submits cheerfully to have his baggage searched, under a general regulation, however much he would resent a suspicion pointed specially and unequally at himself. The abuses affecting the elective privilege in Ireland having matured themselves into something of a systematic form, now require something of a systematic remedy. To him who applies this remedy, and to him who suffers its application, there is naturally something more of trouble and of circuitous forms presented than where simple or more uniform modes of attack on this species of right have imposed less cumbrous modes of defence. Every just claimant should consider himself aggrieved and injured by every spurious claimant. And he should view any means of upholding his own right as a call upon him not only for the patience required in co-operating with public justice, but also for the gratitude due on account of a private benefit. the legislative remedy for redressing this wrong, there are two separate subjects of consideration-the thing and the person-the thing imposed, the person imposing. As to the thing, (the new trouble imposed,) any fair claimant should view it as his own private contribution or tax towards a new mode of defence established on behalf of his property. As to the person in whom this new defence originates, he must be blind, indeed, if he fail to see-that this person, as regards the efficacy of the defence, is the legislator-that this person, as regards its violation, is the fraudulent offender who had experimentally de monstrated the insufficiency of simpler

means.

In

Were the sole purpose, therefore, before us to defend Lord Stanley, by defending his measure now pending for the reform of the Irish registra

tion, we should hold that we had said enough; that not one word more was required; and for this reason— that any objections to the bill must apply themselves either to the general object of that measure, or to some of its special provisions. Now, as to the general object, that is undisputed: nobody denies the abuse which the bill deals with; least of all can the opponents of the bill deny it; that abuse having been denounced and attacked pro formâ in every session of Parliament except one since they came into office. This being so, and the general purpose of the bill being admitted as a reasonable purpose on all sides, it is in its special provisions that we are to look for any thing evil. But, if so, the onus of producing this provision lies upon the opponents. It is no duty of ours to imagine all that might be said under a misconception or a wilful misrepresentation of particular clauses. It is for those who quarrel with the bill to cite and verify the article by which any man's rights could be abridged, or any interest resting upon a foundation of reality could be damaged. The burden of proof clearly lies where we place it, that is, with the objectors; since it must be easy for them to substantiate any real grievance; whilst on our part, to anticipate all imaginary grievances would be a work of impossibility. But with this onus resting upon them, the opponents of the measure have been able to put their finger upon no one specific clause as tangibly vicious. The objection taken by Lord Morpeth, and upon which he divided the House, was not even by pretence an allegation of wrong done or to be done it was such a blank "grab," (to borrow a low word for a low act,) such a mere snatch at a bonus for his party, as we do not remember to have read of in all the records of Parliament. That we may notice elsewhere. But beyond that, which did not profess to touch any principle what ever, there has been no indication for good or for ill of any one specific clause or provision in Lord Stanley's bill. The general principle of appeals has indeed been denounced; but that, though indispensable to à searching trial of false claims, is not peculiarly connected with Lord Stanley's reform:

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public justice is more interested in that provision than the particular bill. A general objection, again, to the probable working of the bill has been started by the Irish solicitor, Mr Pigot. But this, when examined, proves to be nothing more than a lively sketch, or fictitious case, so imagined, as to embody the various possible extremities to which an imaginary voter might be reduced under circumstances uniformly the most adverse; that is, not as in real life, where excess in one direction is compensated in the long run by an opposite excess in another; but where all these excesses run constantly in one direction. His distance, for example, from the several places of registration, of appeal, &c., is supposed always the very outside of what the law tolerates : his luck is never the average mixture of good and bad which this world furnishes, but always the very worst: the opposition to his claim is never such as reasonable probabilities promise, but such as novelists imagine for effect. In short, the whole of Mr Pigot's case is the very outside case of all extremities. And when he asks -Now what do you say to that? our answer is that his imaginary client must have been the very first-born of calamity, a condemned subject, an enfant perdu from his birth. And, seriously, the entire objection is nothing more than a circumstantial repetition of the old original and sole objection which we have already noticed so fully

that in redressing the injury of false claims, Lord Stanley has circumscribed the privilege of the just claimant. And the short answer to that is, generally, a denial of the fact: all rights, all privileges, in proportion to their value, require efforts and personal appearances for their assertion and their continued exercise. The privilege of voting for a representative in Parlia ment is, after all, in the worst case, not so much encumbered with exertion as it was under the old modes of election, where only one polling place existed for a whole county. Secondly, that this "worst case" can rarely occur, because the objector to a vote comes forward at his own risk, in the contingency of his either making a false objection or of his inability to sustain a true one: that at any rate he rouses a spirit of deep resentment: and that

few men will choose to face this concurrence of risk and of vindictive feeling without strong grounds to go upon. Thirdly, were all this otherwise, and the evil as heavy as it is represented, still that the disease has dictated the remedy; and that at a less cost, the restoration of a sound state could not have been had. Grant that the cost were really a high one, still it is better at a high cost to have a perfect relief, than at a low cost to purchase such a palliation as leaves a constant opening to relapse.

We repeat, therefore, that, so far as Lord Stanley and his bill are separately concerned, there is scarcely a call to say one word more.

It would

be really to suggest arguments against the measure if we were to give hypothetic answers to possible cavils. Such objections as malice and ingenuity have been able to suggest, all resolve into the one general charge of a tendency to narrow the franchise, or at least practically to narrow its exercise, at an era when the spirit of legislation moves in the very opposite direction. That is the one objection. And the one sufficient answer is that an artificial abuse of a privilege cannot but react under all good government by an artificial contraction of that privilege. An excessive license must eventually issue in some legal limitation that would not else have been required. But these limitations will seldom affect the equitable claim; and, in any case where they should happen to do so, the blame recoils, to the last fraction, upon the original wrong-doer, who has furnished the necessity for the restriction.

But it is not as a subject of defence or apology, or within those narrow negative limits, that this Stanley measure of amendment calls for notice. It is by positive powers, by large com. prehensive indications of its author and its author's party, by large differences which it expounds broadly, as separating party from party, principle from principle, tendency from tendency, that this bill speaks loudly, plainly, and instructively, to all who would understand what are Conservative politics.

Let us preface what we are going to say, by drawing into notice a very general labit of thought applying to

party distinctions, which expresses what is at once true and not true, but for want of one important distinction, misleads great numbers of people; and those people amongst the most thoughtful and upright in the land. No sentiment is oftener heard amongst us than that which professes the most entire indifference for all parties, no matter how denominated-Whigs or Tories, Conservatives or Liberals,-in the very same breath with some earnest expression of interest as to a particular measure, or a particular line of policy. Constantly we hear people professing for themselves this total recklessness of party, and adding at the same time such words as these " We do sincerely believe that the vast majority of thinking people in this nation, who have neither great landed estates nor great aristocratic connexions, nor powerful journals to force them into politics, care not one straw for this party or that party-but simply for the national welfare wherever they can discover it, for the preservation of peace so far as it is consistent with honour, and for the fulfilment of the many duties which belong to the varied powers of so great a nation as ours.' Something like this is continually said: and it is said by people of sense and education beyond all others: and it does certainly wear the appearance of truth. For nothing is less common than determinate party connexions amongst professional people, or generally amongst people in the retired walks of life. Meantime, though there is an apparent truth in all this, there is also much falsehood.

For it is certain that this remotion from party is in no other or higher sense true at present, than as it has always been true! But so far is any such indifference to party from being historically true of the middle classes in past times, that since the very origiu of parties, always the mass of the people have had a party bias, and always this bias has been towards one party by preference to the other. The aristocracy for separate reasons may have divided themselves between the two great leading parties; but the people have always been attached exelusively to one. Thus, about the times of William III., can there be a doubt that the affections of the people were