A WORD TO THE BOROUGHS.
If, we are told, self-preservation is the first law of nature, then there are a considerable number of English boroughs that ought in obedience to that law to support Lord Derby’s Reform Bill. There are fifteen boroughs which by the Bill are to lose one member each, and the electors of these places might perhaps be disposed to object to the partial disfranchisement. But in Lord John Russell's Bill of ’54, in Mr. Bright’s Bill, and in the Reform Club Bill (published in the OBSERVER) thirteen of these fifteen boroughs are deprived of both their members, so that the only chance they have of preserving their political existence is to support the present Bill.
Again, there are eleven other boroughs—Ashburton, Arundel, Abingdon, Calne, Dartmouth, Horsham, Lyme, Northallerton, Petersfield, Reigate, and Thirsk, now returning one member each, which Lord Derby does not propose to interfere with, but which the OBSERVER Reform Bill would disfranchise entirely. These eleven boroughs are all therefore specially bound for their own self-preservation sake to support Lord Derby’s Reform Bill.
We leave out of notice Mr. Bright’s Bill, because that is altogether visionary, impracticable, and has no chance being carried; and the one with which we are contrasting the Ministerial measure is not only the next most moderate Bill, and the least sweeping in its changes, but it is believed to have been prepared by members of Lord Palmerston’s Government, and to be sanctioned by several of the late Ministry. Well, there are 45 other boroughs with which Lord Derby’s Bill does not interfere, but which the Reform Club Bill would deprive of one member each. Hertford is one in the list, and these 45 places are all bound to do their utmost to help Ministers over the second reading of the Bill.
Thus we show, that the least obnoxious of all the other proposed Reform Bills interferes with 56 boroughs, which the Bill before the House leaves untouched, and this alone serves to shew the Conservative character of the measure.
The argument used against Ministers is, that they do not lower the borough franchise. To most mens’ thinking that is sufficiently low already; —but where is the use of disputing on that point? The political existence of nearly thirty places is at stake, and forty-five more are partially threatened. What will it signify to all these boroughs whether the borough franchise is £5 or £10? Unless they take good heed, they may some morning ere long find their franchise taken away. It is a question not whether £5 householders shall vote, but whether the towns can retain any representatives to vote for. This is the question now at issue; and we hope that all the boroughs imperilled by other proposed Reform Bills, and which the present Bill leaves alone, will put forward their best energies to support Ministers in the present crisis. They are both the same boat: the Ministry falls, the boroughs fall also.