places. It also embraces the condition of a twelve. months' residence prior to voting, which would necessarily exclude lodgers in a great number of cases, for they are a movable class, who enjoy their freedom with apparent zest.

which a large number of persons can be brought together with some prospect of immediate success, we notice all the schemes before the public. Intellectual and moral suffrage is now scarcely ever mentioned. It is considered as an unattainable degree of perfection in politics, which those who sigh for will vainly seek. That is its general character, and it is the worst character, nearly, that a great political scheme could possess. The general prevalence of this opinion must lead to its realisation. People will not labour for, and will grow not to love, the unattainable; and before the prevalent impression could be rubbed out, we suspect that a generation would be carried away. Ex

carries many recommendations, and removes various objections. The mere title conveys only a small idea of the object sought. An intellectual suffrage might be fixed high; and the moral addendum might be com plex and troublesome. Any legislators who had a desire to confuse the system, and render its working simple and efficient scheme might be readily contrived. The art of reading and writing legibly would not prove a high intellectual suffrage; and if its existence compelled many persons living in a state of gross ignorance to remove that reproach, the world would be better for a deed which had not made them worse. The registries of England show that many males, to the extent of nearly two-fifths, sign with "a mark." The fact is infamous; and we believe nothing regarding

Universal suffrage is definite. It leaves little room for cavil or doubt. If the parochial registrar has discharged his duty, a youth has merely to live on with the certainty of becoming qualified. The Charter contains, indeed, a moral qualification -it denudes those persons who may be convicted of crime. That form of expression is very general, and might be interpreted to include many persons. The law might recognise, as crimes, trans-cept for that fear, an intellectual and moral suffrage actions which are not at present within its grasp. Still, this system is more explicit than any other project, and has received some support on that account alone, apart from all other considerations. Those amongst its advocates, who believe that it will form the next step in advance, refuse to take a single hop in any other direction, or to contem-difficult, could propose means for that purpose; but a plate any route to their journey's end except the straight path which they have chalked. They probably forget the character of mankind; they seem never to have learned that men who cannot be driven may be led. They are unwilling to finesse, and they have a heart-hatred of expediency. The franchise at twenty-five would be deemed by them an invasion of natural privileges; although there is nothing more natural in twentyone than in twenty or in twenty-two, in twenty-the fitness of these men to elect representatives on any five or in thirty. It is an arbitrary line adopted by the public for general convenience; but another generation will have the same right to believe that males reach their majority at eighteen as we have to fix on twenty-one. Precedents exist: For the purpose of the "chief magistracy" of the throne, eighteen was named as the majority of an trious lady. "All males from eighteen to sixty," is the extreme call to arms. Eighteen is the verge, on the cradle side of life, where militia liabilities commence by our present law. Therefore many arguments might exist for eighteen, while another generation might take the next septennial period; and, for legislative purposes, some nations struck the age qualification farther into life.

We

sound political reason. They might confide in their neighbours, and do well; exactly as a blind man may follow his dog and be safe; but they cannot form an intelligent opinion on their own account. know that men have made money who were never at school. Men have been known even to do a large illus-business who could not write a day-book. We have met individuals who knew much of the world, past and present, and yet who could neither read nor write. Still, we have no reason to make a rule by deductions from phenomena, and we believe that few zealous friends for an extensive suffrage would deeply regret if an intellectual suffrage, in the simplicity of merely reading and writing, were conditional to any scheme of making up the electoral roll, provided they could The public require merely a convenient rule obtain a guarantee for its fair administration. Many whereby they may attain self-government, and of them revert in argument to the natural right, and regarding which few good citizens shall be able to insist that it should not be broken; but they say, very say that they are excluded by circumstances over clearly, that the only natural right in the case is, the which they have no control. For this great end will of the majority, who have a right to make condiof suffrage agitation, no necessity exists to stand tions calculated to improve individual happiness and stiffly upon any prescribed mode. The object in to secure the public good. "Taxation without repreview being onee reached, we need not quarrel resentation is tyranny," is a saying that does not possess garding the way. To those parties who believe a literal but a general interpretation. Many persons that twenty-one has an exclusive claim for adop-are taxed who can have no share in the appointtion, no alternative remains. They are boundment of representatives. Rich minors, of promising over by their creed to twenty-one, without any genius, possessed of great information, aged twenty change or compromise, and they cannot seek the adoption of a different system. The number of this class is comparatively few, and the great body of followers of twenty-one are merely jealous of new schemes, because, having often been cheated in past times, they are reluctant to run risks for the time to come.

Our object being to ascertain different means by

years and eight months, may miss an election with our septennial parliaments; and yet are not the objects of special tyranny. Females, in or out of business, who have no male delegate or representative, pay taxes, and cannot be exempted; yet they are not electors, and very few individuals, indeed, propose to enfranchise them. We are not sufficiently imbued with Mahommedan dogmas to excuse their

No

omission on the score of intellectual inferiority. The || to cross their names in the electoral rate, and suspend readers of this magazine could scarcely accept that them after two, three, or more transgressions, for a time. argument, for since its commencement it has been || If the majority adopt that rule; or if the present Pardeeply indebted to the pens of females for a great liament, or any similar Parliament, in passing a sufproportion, probably one-half, of its most interesting frage bill, insert clauses of that nature, we can see papers. We see before us a rich treat in a scientific no great objection to their conduct. They will punish work, published anonymously, and yet unread. We a vice that increases our poor-rates, our police rates, expect great delight from its perusal, founded on the our criminal charges-and is, in fact, the cause of threeinstruction and pleasure derived from its predecessor. fourths of the sums levied on these heads being requisite. Both volumes are written by a lady, who chooses at It has the office of paternity to a large portion of our public present to conceal her name; but three-fourths of her || begging; it is closely connected with all the overreaders, or more, ascribe them to some active and elo- crowding, the straw beds, the gross ignorance, the quent professor, some gentleman in black, whom the incipient crime, the sanatory defects, and the fatal Government would have deemed a windfall for the epidemics of large towns. Drunken fathers, husbands, Chair of Natural History, in one of their new Irish brothers, and sons, made Thomas Hood's "Song of the colleges; and who would not have thanked them for Shirt." They had more certainly to do with it than this presentation. The exclusion of females from the proprietors of shops for cheap needlework. They electoral lists must be defended on some other field have done more and worse than that; for they have than that of intellectual efforts; and is a matter of succeeded in making many drunken wives, sisters, convenience assented to, and enforced by, nine-tenths mothers, and daughters; and females, once given over of the parties affected by its existence. We must to intemperance, are the most helpless and hopeless grasp the spirit of the old Saxon saying, that "taxa- specimens of a fallen and degraded humanity. tion without representation is tyranny," instead of good objection, therefore, can be stated to any course losing time in splitting hairs or nice distinctions re- calculated to discourage this vice, and to affix a stigma regarding rights natural or acquired. The time has on its followers; but "the Charter" leaves this matter come to seek the rights; and when they are obtained open, and casts on the legislature the responsibility if we can settle their characteristics at leisure. A fair it do not classify all crimes under their proper names. and full representation of the people will cover all that|| Our criminal law is in a most imperfect state, and the rule quoted requires, by whatever means that repre- many positive crimes escape with a light punishment. sentation be obtained. The Charter itself embodies a To this intellectual and moral qualification for the moral qualification; the claimant for the franchise franchise we have given already space disproportioned must be unstained by crime. It does not clearly lay to its chances of adoption under existing circumstances; down the law on this topic, which it broadly announces. although both additions might be made with marked Is the man who has been convicted of crime to be advantage to any scheme of franchise, and both are permanently excluded from the rights and the roll of under fair restrictions, and, in the way and to the extent citizenship; or must his exclusion run only during the we have described, quite practicable. currency of other parts of his sentence? A different The employment of the forty shillings freehold scheme from either of these might be adopted, and the qualification in England points the way to a measure, franchise could be withdrawn for a definite period in which, without being objectionable to any party, may addition to the punishment otherwise affixed to crime. form the basis of a compromise, on fair terms, of an These questions are not idle inquiries, tending to no intermediate system that may be made, if it works practical end; for they must be answered and cleared well, and the country be brought into a prosperous away if ever the Charter be put in the form of a Par-state, a final measure. The forty shillings freehold liamentary bill, under the care of the leader in the qualification is confined to England; but no rational House of Commons. They are practical questions for ground for opposing its extension to Ireland and Scotwhich those in charge of the measure must make prac- land exists. We may at once state here our insupertical answers, and put them in the statute if their able objection to a bane already entering into, and movement be successful. A moral qualification must corrupting, the forty shillings franchise in England. always proceed upon the convictions of criminal courts. Societies have been formed for the purpose of advancIt must differ materially from an intellectual qualifica-ing money, by mortgage, on these freeholds. We care tion, although they are generally coupled. The intellec- not whether these societies be under the patronage of tual must be an affirmative, and the moral a negative. the Member for the West Riding, or the Member for The former must proceed on something possessed, and the Warwickshire. Even although both these honourable latter on something avoided. Other plans have been pro- gentlemen should have some responsibility for their exisposed, but they are all attended with insuperable ob- tence, yet their effect is only "swindling made easy.” jections in principle, or serious difficulties in working. Political swindling is not considered quite so bad as The law must afford the test. For that purpose the the same article in trade, but we do not think it callaw can be amended. Some persons have alleged, with || culated to improve public morals. This description of much apparent propriety, that a clever man who qualification for the franchise should be free. Our squandered intemperately the money that should sup- Saxon ancestors did not contemplate burthened freeport himself and his family in comfort, is an enemy to holds; and the procuration of forty shilling freeholders society, and a criminal. Their conclusion is inevita- | who are debtors on their property, to a large extent, is ble; and we could see no sound reason for refusing, only another system of fictitious voting, similar to that or deferring to give the police a right to seize all practised in Scotch counties. drunkards seen in the act, to bring them before the magistrate, to fine them, and, if the public consented,

All classes in the three kingdoms should have liberty to qualify upon holdings of this nature, if they

not judiciously buy land. He is ignorant of its ma nagement; he has not even the pleasure of seeing his property mismanaged. He cannot use, and he should not speculate; he may lose his earnings, but he is unlikely to increase his riches by that course. For him, therefore, the liberal terms of the legislature are offered in vain. The most sweeping clause of the Reform Bill does not include him, although he may work laboriously or skilfully, and spend with equal care. For him some new scheme is therefore requisite. He needs also some open door for getting fairly and fully within the Constitution, upon easy terms; and we believe that a plan can be devised for attaining this object, without infringing the principle of the forty shilling franchise, but by fitting it into the present state of society. The principle adopted by the legis lature, on the calculation that we have already given, is remarkably simple. A man is required to possess fifty pounds, not in cash, but in property. Any man, from a political purpose, may be enabled to exhibit fifty sovereigns; but the law requires some proof that the property is his own. This is a very proper view of the case, and we have already shown a disposition to have the law not relaxed, but tightened in that respect. Still we can see no imaginable reason for confining the qualification to land. At the period when the forty shilling franchise came first into use, land formed almost the only permanent property, and money was more valuable than now, of which we reap, so far as this qualification is concerned, some advantage. Circumstances have now altered greatly, and other descriptions of property are of equal importance to the country as land-equally dependent on, and equally promotive of, its prosperity. On that account, other kinds of property should be invested with the power of conferring the franchise; and thus all classes of society might profitably become voters. We shall enumerate some of those investments that might be advantageously added to freeholds.

were not burthened by debts. The public know nothing of private transactions, and cannot tell what money a man may be due on open accounts or bills; but when money is raised on the security of property, the latter should be deemed as alienated for any political purposes. One man may lend money to another man, or give him credit in business, on the understanding that he possesses property, and with arrangements of that nature the world is not concerned; but when property is put aside as a special security for a special payment, the owner has no right to anticipate a qualification to vote on ground, or any other property, that really is no longer at his disposal. This rule should be applicable in every case, and to all descriptions of property and qualifications connected with the legislature, so that our political system might be founded on truth. We assume, therefore, that the three king-|| doms may obtain this forty shillings franchise with the provision which we have stated. Mr. Cobden told a Bradford audience that an American in Paris, to whom he related the state of this qualification, held up his two hands in astonishment over the idea of an Englishman complaining of exclusion from the franchise while this 40s. freehold system remained; and Mr. Cobden shared this astonishment in some measure. The qualification is good so far as it goes; but it cannot be obtained for its value in all localities; and in others freeholds of this minitude cannot be obtained for money. To many persons they are entirely useless, unless four or five owners can join together to let their portions to one tenant. To other parties they are extremely valuable, for they afford ground for a cottage, a cottage-garden, and a small allotment which can be well wrought in leisure hours, aided even by children at school. Artisans in villages of all descriptions can render their freeholds economical possessions, if they are obtained in the neighbourhood of their employment. Sobriety amongst the colliers would stud the coal districts over with little ownerships and cottages of this character, and cover many political qualifica- Deposits in savings banks, which are avowedly purtions, if the landowners would divide parts of their chases in the national funds, must be, for national estates for this purpose. The iron districts would be purposes, a peculiarly good investment on which to mapped off in the same wholesome style. Lanarkshire found a qualification-better even than land itself; and Staffordshire might have several thousand voters because a more precarious property, although, at of this description. Tradesmen employed in rural present, one perfectly secure. In this case, a deposit affairs could qualify with the same kind of property. of £60 to £70 would be requisite to give a free annual All villages, or small towns in counties, should be sur- income of forty shillings; and £75 would not be too rounded with a belt or ring of freeholds. The move-high a sum to fix as the equivalent of a forty shillings ment is in every way healthful. It binds the electors|| freehold--because a deposit can be readily converted to the soil, and even to a particular locality. It would give employers security that the employed were in the right position-too rich to be trampled on, and too much interested in their neighbourhood to become wantonly, insolent. It would give the state electors, too numerous to be bought, and so far interested in the country that they would necessarily give votes calculated, in their opinion, to secure the public well-being. The men would have a stake, and to them a large stake, in the land.

A very numerous class can never judiciously avail|| themselves of this qualification; and some provision, on the same principle, should be made for them. Upon a twenty-five years' purchase, a freehold, to yield forty shillings, must cost fifty pounds. The latter sum, invested in the country, may therefore be considered as the real qualification. An artisan in a large town can

into money, while land, perhaps, may not be easily sold when its owner requires to realise his means. The depositor would require to be otherwise qualified as to age, and the various conditions common in every case; but then the deposit receipt, or his pass-book, intimating that he had that sum to his credit for twelve months before enrolment, should secure at once the entry of his name on the electoral list, with liberty to vote next day, if an opportunity occurred. As he would vote upon this deposit, the production of his qualification should be required whenever he desired again to exercise that privilege. He might be compelled to draw out his deposit, and, in that case, his privilege would cease, only to be renewed if he again lodged a similar sum for the same period previous to voting. In the event of a partial reduction of the sum of one-half for example

the full amount would require to be re-invested for onehalf of the full period-and other sums drawn to be re-lodged for a corresponding time, prior to the renewal of the qualification.

Building societies should furnish those members with a qualification who derive the requisite income from their funds, under similar conditions and provisions to those which we have already described as applicable to deposits in savings' banks. The money invested in this instance, to yield a clear income of forty shillings, should not exceed twenty-five years' purchase.

their increase, and make it a reproach, for a man who had enjoyed health and tolerable employment for several || years, not to be a voter and the owner of property. The legislation of the House of Commons perpetu ally affects labour, and it would be satisfactory to have the opinions of the best men amongst the working classes embodied in their votes. The friends of native industry, on all sides of the house, would thus have an opportunity of hearing the opinions of the industrious on their various projects, by the most constitutional

means.

The objections of the disfranchised to this system of suffrage would have great weight if the plan were a final settlement; but they would stand here on the ground which the Duke of Wellington said we occupied regarding the corn laws-if the plan do not answer, we can change again. The only difference between this property qualification and universal suf

Property, although not freehold, should convey this. In Scotland a large amount of this property is held on what may best be described as leases renewable for ever, at an annual rental. In all those cases where the real interest exceeds the annual feu duty by the sum mentioned, the electoral privilege might be conceded. We deem that every species of property, fixed in the country, and not requisite in the manage-frage is seven years on an average. The artisan who, ment of a man's business, or not used in his household, by the one scheme, would slip out of his indenture on but strictly to be regarded as economised, should be to the registry, would have, by the other, to fight his placed, for political purposes, on the footing of freeholds. way-to deny and to discipline himself for seven years. We would even yield an equal privilege to annuitants A determined saving, week after week, of half-a-crown, from the national stocks, although that form of invest- would accomplish the object. If these savings were ment is commendable only in peculiar cases. To the the price of the franchise and freedom, it would holders of life policies current for a considerable period, not be too high; but when they are to be made even although not of the value of £50, this right should for the benefit of the economist, for his own and his be conceded, because nothing can be more desirable family's independence, we see no hardship except the than the extension of this practice. All our readers delay of this septennial period. But how many sep may know that £50 paid in premiums will not render tennial periods have passed in the effort to obtain the a policy worth £50. An insurance company will not required extension of the suffrage? Seven times repay all the money that they have received; but an seven years and more have passed away since the late arrangement of this matter could be easily accom- Earl Grey, before he had attained a coronet, and while plished. We suggest the idea, which we once did for- a member of the House of Commons, introduced a merly, as the means of improving the position of the measure to enact universal suffrage. Aged men recall unenfranchised, who desire political privileges, and the days of their youth and manhood--the period of gratifying their wishes in that respect at the same time. Henry Hunt, of William Cobbett, and Sir Francis The leading principle recommended by us now was also|| Burdett, when they struggled from New-Year's Day to advocated in our pages a considerable period since. | Christmas, in the hope that the next year would witTwelve months' reflection has confirmed our opinion ness their great Reform Bill. We might easily now that the plan is practicable. The most extreme suf- flatter hope by saying that next year, or the next, the fragists, who will take no step short of the great leap, barriers will be broken down; but we know not that can derive no harm from the measure while it lasts. they will, and we say not that they will stand The Conservatives and Whigs, who are nervous from perpetually. Some of the recent continental efforts the fear of property being invaded, or wild measures have not been so successful as to warrant the being rapidly adopted, must be reassured by a franchise expectation that they will soon be imitated here, formed on the acquisition of property. They may be. And yet in no quarter have the representatives lieve that fifty pounds is, to a man who has earned the of the people, chosen amid extreme excitement, sum by hard labour, no inconsiderable amount. He by a majority, adopted any measure adverse to will guard it with the care bestowed by the rich stock-the rights of property, injurious to the fundamental broker on thousands. They should not overlook the interests of society, or likely to confirm the evil imindirect advantages of the system. Many of the arti- pressions regarding their policy entertained by their sans in this country struggle honourably to attain inde- former rulers, and by many who only looked at and pendence. For what other purpose are their benefit socie-watched European movements. But the blood shed, ties formed, and their building societies promoted? Why have they collected nearly thirty millions of money in the national security savings banks? How is it that whenever a system of life assurance suitable to their means has been offered, they have embraced it in considerable numbers? The desire for independence is the prompting cause in all these cases. Such desires would be sharpened, and these efforts would be measurably increased, by attaching to success the reward of citizenship in its fullest meaning. The poor rates in the three countries are very high, and they are increasing rapidly. This measure would check

the misery caused, and the business prevented, by political changes on the Continent, have damped the feeling in their favour here. The time is therefore favourable to the adoption of a measure that would make no violent change-that would teach as it enfranchised-give independence where it gave votes-would create habits of economy, and ensure respect for pro im-perty-would animate with an honest ambition all the unenfranchised, and inspire them with self-reliance and perseverance. The indirect benefits of this plan are more desirable than its direct results; for we believe it capable of gradually exhausting pauperism, as it

1

contributed to swell the number in possession of poli- of hope and of independence, and put into possession tical rights. It would not work for some years with of a real and substantial interest in the empire; in adgreat rapidity; but each operation would have a double dition to the interest which all men feel who live under character, for all whom it elevated into the political its laws, contribute to its revenue, and have their emregistry would be lifted from the probability of pau-ployment, where their fathers lived and died, within its perism, from the fear of degradation, into a position dominions.

LIFE OF THE LATE DR. CHALMERS.*

kind for this work. He was in terms of the most perfect intimacy with Dr. Chalmers, and he has the most complete access, not merely to all his papers, but to those of his opinions on public questions, that, though unwritten, must live in therecollection of the members of his family. Dr. Hanna is a native of Belfast; and although he was, previous to the disruption, a parochial minister in the Scotch Established Church, yet his freedom from

: MANY years must have passed since the death of any man in Scotland excited that sad sensation caused by the demise of Dr. Chalmers, and many years must pass again before death can produce a similar result by a single stroke; for we have no man with a character yet earned or formed, so high in general estimation as that his removal would be felt in the same extent to be a national calamity. The circumstances attendant on the death of Dr. Chalmers were well calculated to in-early prejudices and feelings may, on many topics crease its effect. The body with whom he was connected with Scotland, which will necessarily immediately associated had passed towards the come under his notice in the second and subsequent close of its annual assembly, when death came to volumes, enable him to adhere closely to the part him noiselessly, and without a warning. He lite- of a fair and candid historian. Dr. Chalmers' rally fell asleep; for, left at night in health, he was life is intimately woven into the history of all found at morn in death. No premonitory symp-national movements, from the day when he aided toms of bodily or mental weakness had prepared to form a small Bible Society at Kilmany, to his his friends for the loss that they were to sustain. last evidence on the site question, before a comHis pallid features bore no vestige of a struggle|mittee of the House of Commons. His biographer with the last enemy; and death, in this instance, must have been, from his earliest years, acquainted was very like “translation." All men were sad- with Scotch ecclesiastical movements: the son of dened by this change; for even those who were a minister who was long justly considered the leader uninfluenced by religious considerations, felt still of the evangelical party amongst the Irish Presbythat a man great in science, wielding an immense terians, and who retains, in extreme old age, no influence by the weight of personal character alone, small influence amongst that body; Dr. Hanna of undoubted benevolence and pure motives, had must have grown up familiar with ecclesiastical passed away, and left a place that would not be proceedings and questions of interest in Scotch soon occupied. It was curious and instructive to affairs, yet in a manner not so likely to warp the mark the haste with which death smoothed down judgment as might be fairly expected, and must feuds, and healed animosities, amongst various be cautiously watched, in one who has lived religious bodies. Few men had ever mingled more amongst the actors in party movements from than Dr. Chalmers in polemical and semi-political infancy, and gradually imbibed strong opini discussions. His opposition to any cause had been ons regarding them, even before his reason can long deemed a serious hindrance to its success. No have made an intelligent decision on their merits. party felt themselves safe before his marked dis- Dr. Hanna is a particularly unobtrusive man, but approval, and many whom he opposed were irritated his literary abilities will enable him to use fully under his arguments. At some period of his long and well the rich materials in his power. As editor and active career, he had been led into opposition, of the North British Review, to which Dr. Chalmers nearly to all the various denominations, except regularly contributed, he had the best means of that with which he was at his death connected. ascertaining his relative's impressions regarding Yet the general benevolence of his character had the current of events towards the close of his always soon effaced these breaches; and even his life; and the last volume of the work is likely rebukes breathed a spirit of love and truth. The to be the most interesting. posthumous publication of several works, and espe- It may be considered a curious chain of cially of his short commentaries, has increased the events that has given the narration of this lifeesteem in which he was long regarded in religious that of Scotland's greatest son, in the first part eircles. We mention these circumstances as cal- ||-of our century, tɔ an Irish gentleman. It seems culated to increase the responsibility of his bio-to accord completely with one of those objects grapher.

It was some time since announced that his life would be written by his son-in-law, Dr. Hanna, and he has several qualifications of a special

that we know to have been very near to Dr. Chalmers' heart in his lifetime, the strengthen ing of the link that once, more obviously even than now, bound Ulster to Scotland, and Scotland *Vol. I. Edinburgh: Sutherland & Knox.