law, or under the authority of consuetudinary usage, it is accomplished by the force of intrigue, and the power invariably acquired by a narrow clique of six or eight individuals, who, by loud professions of patriotism and constant flattery of the lower orders, have gained the lead in their administration. This evil, the well-known concomitant of democratic municipal institutions in the republics of antiquity, has acquired such consistency in America, that a separate name (the hocus) has been devoted in their vocabulary to the permanent committee, which constantly sits for the purpose of guiding and directing the returns of the numerous bodies there intrusted with the elective franchise, whether for political or municipal offices. Short as has been the period (two years) that the popular system has been in activity in Scotland, that evil has already grown up. Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, and all the considerable towns, have each their clique of bustling intriguing attorneys, or jobbing place-hunters, who, by constantly working at the electors, incessantly canvassing for one object or another, and considerable skill in the management of numerous bodies, have acquired the entire dominion over all the returns of individuals which the lower orders are empowered to make. We say, and say intentionally, the return of individuals, for doubtless these democratic intriguers must make some sacrifice to acquire such a sway over the electors; but this sacrifice is speedily made, and in general costs them little. They sacrifice to their followers every principle of reason, every lesson of history, every dictate of experience on general subjects, and slavishly advocate whatever extravagances or absurdities, the populace, under the guidance of their demagogues, think fit to press upon the legislature, and obtain, in return, what is the real object of their desire, an unlimited power of directing the popular votes towards whatever candidate, either in political or municipal contests, they choose to support. To such an extravagant length is this already carried, that if the clique in any of the great towns of Scotland were to put up the most worthless and in

VOL. XXXVII. NO. CCXXXVI.

capable man in existence for any office, however important, a Robespierre, a Catiline, a Marat, a Collot d'Herbois, or a Fouché, and he were opposed by the ablest and most upright statesman that ever lived, by an Aristides, a Cato, a De Wit, a Sully, a Pitt, a Burke, or a Peel, the rejection of the opponent of the popular party would be certain. Under the guidance of such leaders, the populace are blind to every consideration which should influence them; they shut their eyes to virtue, talent, character, principle, beneficence, property on the one side, equally as to vice, recklessness, stupidity, profligacy, insolvency, on the other, and consider merely the one thing needful, viz. is he supported by their clique, and likely to do their work. If that is the case, though blasted by all the vices of Hell, he would prevail over a candidate arrayed in all the graces of Heaven.

Ignorance of the prodigious change which Burgh Reform has made in this respect on Scottish elections, leads our southern neighbours into frequent error on this subject. They are continually led to believe that the personal character of the candidate, or some other consideration foreign to the ambitious or selfish views of the ruling clique, will influence the electors; or that, exercising a dispassionate survey of public affairs, they will return such a representative as, in the existing state of the empire, is most conducive to the public advantage. It is natural they should do so; because they of course suppose that the elections in other places are to be governed by the same principles as in their own country. But we, who have gone through the ordeal of Corporate Reform, and know what it is to have all municipal officers subjected to the direct control of the ten-pounders, have learned, from the stubborn evidence of facts, that this is not the case. Woful experience has taught us, that when the elective power is vested in such vast masses, as necessarily contain crowds of dissolute abandoned men, like the urban constituencies of Scotland, all personal qualities, or general views of politics, go for nothing; and that the sole point looked to, is, whether the candidate will for

3 s

ward the views, or promote the selfish objects of the intriguing knot who, by bustle, activity, and ultra-democracy, have risen to the lead in municipal affairs.

Nor is it in Scotland alone that this effect has taken place; the same result has, in all ages and countries, attended the extension of the right of election to great urban constituencies. It obtained universally in the republics of antiquity, as all their historians and philosophers have testified; it prevailed, with the most frightful consequences, in France, during the Revolution; it is in universal activity, amidst the plenty and rude prosperity of America; it appears in full vigour amidst the starving multitudes and fervent passions of Ireland; and in equal force amongst the once sober and calculating manufacturers of Scotland. Effects so uniform, springing up under every possible variety of nation, race, climate, and political situation, point to one general law of nature. That law is, the inability of multitudes to think for themselves, or form a dispassionate judgment on any subject of general interest; and the consequent necessity of their submission to the dictates of a single or a very limited number of leaders. It is the same principle which speedily brought republican France, with its enthusiastic millions, under the relentless yoke of the Committee of Public Safety; which now arrays the multitudes of Ireland in abject submission to the nod of the salaried Agitator, who enforces his mandates by the death's head and cross bones; and has long since vested the whole practical powers of the state in America in a very few individuals, who have acquired the lead in the different committees, to whom it is remitted to carry through the different functions of Government. The idea of the mass of the people practically exercising the powers even of municipal or corporate government, is, therefore, a mere chimera, which never yet existed, and never can exist among mankind, not even for six months. It is always, even during the heyday of democratic fervour, the beck of a few leaders which is obeyed; the difference only lies in the character of these

leaders, and the degree of deference which they pay to the pas sions or vanity of the multitude. If every municipal institution and corporation in the United Kingdom were to be thrown open to the rule of the ten-pounders, as the Scotch burghs have been, the consequence would be, not that abuses would be rectified, or the people would acquire the practical control, but that these abuses would come to benefit a different class of individuals; they would be fastened on with insatiable avidity by the hungry crew of democratic adventurers; by the coalesced ranks of Catholics, infidels, bankrupts, and prodigals, who have overthrown Sir Robert Peel's administration; and the last state of the nation would be worse than the first.

There is this especial circumstance worthy of note, and in a peculiar manner to be dreaded, in the government of corporations or municipalities by the cliques who rule the democratic constituencies, that the real movers of the machine, those who practically benefit by its abuse, are shielded from responsibility by the multitude who are put forward in the first instance, and are the persons by whom all the powers of Government are ostensibly wielded. Nothing can be worse than this; it is like the present state of Government, when the persons intrusted with the seals are overruled by an irresponsible power, wielded by an individual who bases his authority on the co-operation of the multitude. Such a state of things opens the door to abuses tenfold greater and more dangerous than any which obtained under the close system. For, under the fixed and acknowledged government of a few individuals, though abuses, and flagrant ones, may exist, yet it is impossible that responsibility for them can in the end be avoided, and the persons intrusted with the management soon become gorged, and, from affluence, less active than formerly in the prosecution of corruption. But the case is widely different with the succession of hungry, needy adventurers, who, under the democratic system, are successively elevated to the direc tion of the cliques which govern the multitude of electors. They exer

cise an unseen, and therefore an irresponsible authority; no permanent situation or visible power is in their possession; like the great Agitator, they may rule three kingdoms, and yet neither wear a crown nor hold the seals of office. The multitude are the apparent depositaries of power, and what is the responsibility of the multitude? Nothing; for the share of every individual elector, in an improper choice, however destructive in its consequences, is so inconsiderable, that it can neither be the subject of opprobrium nor punishment. The persons whom they instal in office or power also are not either wealthy or permanent, but needy and changeable; precisely the class of all others most likely to profit by the fleeting enjoyment of power, to realize all their long wished for projects of spoliation. The management of corporations and municipalities by the multitude, therefore, is the certain source of abuses and corruptions infinitely greater than the greatest which were complained of under the old system; because, supposing the tendency to evil to be not greater in the one class than in the other, the likelihood of its commission is so fearfully increased, by reason of the total want of responsibility in the real directors of affairs, and the needy, desperate character of those who, in such a state of things, are invariably brought to the helm of power in villages and cities equally as empires.

The result has abundantly proved the justice of these observations. Corruption and the rule of a few were the grand evils complained of in the outset of the French Revolution, and the prominent abuses put forward to justify all the innovations which were introduced. What was the result? Why, that, when the rule of the multitude was established, corruption tenfold greater prevailed, and an oligarchy an hundred times closer was established. Great and crying as the abuses were in the days of the Regent Orleans and Louis XV., they were nothing to the wide-spread, the universal corruption which prevailed under the Republic, and literally, in Napoleon's words, "under the Directory, swallowed up more than half the revenues of the state." Nor need we go

to former times, or other countries, for proof of the same unhappy tendency. We have only to look at home to see its real working in the clearest light. Ireland is in reality governed on democratic principles; agitation has there long had full sway; a Voluntary Church is supported by the contributions of the Catholics, and leaders elected by a newly enfranchised multitude sit in Parliament. What has been the result? Has corruption declined, or selfishness disappeared, or patriotism flourished, or abuses expired, or oligarchy been overthrown, since agitation was made a trade, and the religion selected by the multitude has all but superseded the established faith? Have not the reverses of all these things occurred? Was ever oligarchy so powerful, or nomination so flagrant, as that now exercised in Ireland? Who appoint the sixty Catholic members? Is it the people? It is O'Connell and the junto of agitators. In choosing or rejecting the candidates whom they bring forward, the people have no more share than their own pigs or poultry. Are there no abuses in the Irish Popish Church? Is money never there extorted by spiritual terrors and the force of superstition? Is religion maintained by the property, in opposition to the industry of the country; and are the poor never taxed by their voluntary priesthood for the purpose of chicanery, imposition, or delusion? Whence comes the L 12,000 a year paid to the Great Agitator? Is not the payment which perpetuates the misery and pauperism, because it perpetuates the agitation and anarchy of Ireland, wrenched by the force of spiritual thunder, or threats of death, from a deluded peasantry? Is not he that resists any contribution ordered by the church denounced from the altar? What is the death's head and cross bones meant to signify? Is it a symbol of the freedom of choice of the people under the democratic system, and the perfect security with which all persons can exercise their will under the shadow of a ten-pound Government? And these are not the result of any casual or extraordinary combination of things in Ireland; they are the uniform and unvarying

effects, in all ages and countries, of vesting the multitude, that is, a fluctuating irresponsible mass, necessarily under the guidance of demagogues and agitators, with the supreme direction either of municipal or public affairs. And it is a system, proved by experience to have such consequences, which the Revolutionists, under the name of Corporate Reform, would force upon all the subordinate institutions of the country.

For evils, of whatever kind, in the political or municipal system, the Whigs and Radicals have but one remedy, and that is to vest the government of the body in which they have been detected in the ten-pounders. They deem it utterly impossible that they can ever become corrupted, or lend a hand to any abuse, in any situation; and therefore all, in their estimation, that is necessary to ensure practically a good Administration in every department, is to have its governors chosen by that democratic body. They have already, with their eyes open, subjected the University of Edinburgh to their government; and erelong they will do the same with Oxford, Cambridge, and Trinity College. If an arc of the meridian were to be measured, and ten-pounders were to be had in its neighbourhood, we have not the smallest doubt they would vest the direction of the affair in their hands. The effect of such a system, acting universally and simultaneously in every part of the country, is fearful to contemplate. Judging from what it has already done in Scotland, during the two years that it has prevailed, it is hardly possible to overrate its disastrous tendency. It is impossible to contemplate, without the utmost alarm, an irresponsible mass of ten pounders, under the guidance of agitators, exercising an irresistible authority over all the charities, corporations and municipal Institutions of the country. What will be the first effect of such a system? Why, that in every city or town, or village, where corporate funds exist, or municipal authority is to be exercised, there will spring up, as has been the case in Scotland, a little swarm of pestilent democratic intriguers, who, warmed into political life by the prospect of the

good things to be got out of the corporations; or the influence to be exercised in the magistracies, will devote themselves as to a separate profession-to the art of swaying and canvassing the electors, and, consequently, installing themselves in all the situations of trust or emolument which are at their disposal. To the race of low attorneys it will be life and joy; to every other class of men a subject of lamentation. With professions of patriotism, liberality, and purity for ever in their mouths, they will have gain, and lucre, and intrigue invariably in their hearts. This dismal brood, the invariable concomitant of popular election in municipal and corporate matters in every age and country, has already been hatched, and thriven apace, under the wings of Burgh Reform in Scotland. It does not require the gift of prophecy to foresee that it will infallibly spread with radical corporate reform into every part of the empire. When it does so, farewell to the application of charitable or religious bequests to the purposes for which they are destined,-farewell to rational or religious education out of the pious gifts of former ages,-farewell to the pure and upright administration of funds bequeathed by the beneficence of former times. Every thing will be jobbed; every thing will be the subject of intrigue with the clique, from the situation of lord mayor in his ermine to that of room-sweeper in his rags. This may seem strong language; but we are persuaded it is not stronger than every candid Whig who has witnessed the practical working of the new system in the Scottish_burghs, or is aware of its effects in other states where it has been long established, will admit to be just. It is so, not because the democratic leaders are in their own nature more liable to corruption than the aristocratic, but because they are not exposed to the same responsibility, or influenced by the same feelings of permanence as those who, not being shielded in their administration by the power of the multitude, and holding only a brief tenure of office, exercise a visible, and therefore responsible and durable, authority.

There is another reason, and it is

a most powerful one, why democratic bodies, when they once obtain the command either of municipal institutions or corporate funds, must always be much more corrupt and selfish in their administration than a more limited class of office-bearers. The great and salutary control of public opinion is totally lost upon the persons appointed by such bodies, because the abuses which arise are in favour of those who direct the opinions of the mass of the people. It is a common observation, that the Whigs can venture upon abuses which the Tories could never set their faces to; and the remark is founded upon a general principle applicable to all the branches of government, and in the highest degree important. That principle is the experienced impossibility of providing any adequate check to the abuses or corruptions of the democratic party when their own leaders are the persons who profit by them. The great check of public opinion, the restraint, and the invaluable restraint, under a proper system of government, on the errors or selfishness of those intrusted with the administration of affairs, is not only lost when the democratic leaders acquire an uncontrolled ascendency, but its weight is thrown to the wrong side. It is then employed not to correct but to defend abuses, and it is astonishing how long, under a skilful set of leaders, the popular press can be made to support corruption and iniquity of the very worst kind, provided it is shared only by its own supporters. The loud and indignant declamations of the Conservative or Aristocratic journals produce no sort of impression upon the immense constituencies invested, under such a system, with supreme power; for they never read a word of such productions, nor are made aware even of their existence, and what the Conservative party either think or say on the subject is to them a matter of perfect indifference. As the order of society, in short, requires that public opinion should be the requisite check on authority, so, when its leaders become possessed of authority itself, the two opposing powers are made to draw in one direction, and the nation is speedily overwhelmed by a spring-tide of

despotism and corruption. It is impossible on any other principle to explain the enormous and unprecedented abuses which sprung up in every department of the public service in France, during the whole course of the Revolution, or the incalculable evils to which the Irish now willingly submit for the selfish purposes of their democratic leaders. And the case is the same with muni. cipal or corporate administration as political government: the principles are identical in both cases, and the same causes which overspread France with the worst and most degrading corruption during every stage of the Revolution, and now retain Ireland in its present miserable and distracted state, will operate with full force in every corporation, municipality, and village of the empire the moment that the tenpounders are intrusted with their administration.

Is it then impossible to devise a system which shall be free from abuses, and must we cling to the old system of self-election and close corporations, to avoid being deluged by the flood of popular corruption and rapacity? No. It is possible, nay, it is easy to devise a system of Corporate Reform, which shall, as far as human weakness will admit, provide a check to the abuses of the burgage aristocracy, without opening the door to the still greater abuses of the populace and their demagogues. The principle on which this Reform must be based is

that which lies at the foundation of all good government, whether in municipal or political matters, and that is, that property must be the governing, and numbers the controlling power. The actual administration must be few in number, and appointed by persons who have the fly-wheel of property and station to steady their conduct; but they must be laid open to the vigilant control, and subjected to the readiest examination from the persons, or their representatives, who are subjected to their authority, or interested in the funds of which they have the management. Property in municipal institutions must be represented by classes or professions, the only permanent and enduring bond which holds men in society together. Mere numbers