We are far from wishing to maintain that the spirit which animated the councils of the Conservative leaders of the day was in all respects the most prudent; or that they did not to a certain extent accelerate the movement by withholding minor concessions, which might have been gracefully and advantageously given. But in justice to them it must be remembered, that they had a great principle to contend for—a principle too little understood then, and perhaps only now becoming generally appreciated on account of the pernicious effects which have resulted from its violation. The older Representative system of Great Britain might appear to the casual eye artificial, unequal, and therefore unjust; but it had this grand and wholesome advantage, which we look for in vain in its successor, that, by means of it, not only were the great classes of the community at home adequately represented, but our fellow-subjects of the Colonies could, and did, exercise a direct influence within the walls of St Stephen’s. To allow this influence to be encroached on, however covertly or plausibly, seemed tantamount to an abandonment of the principle by which the Conservative party had been guided throughout; and subsequent events have shown that no exaggerated estimate was formed of the tendencies of democratic rule. This conviction of the prospective danger of the Reform measure to the integrity of the British Empire was, we know, the main cause of that early, though perhaps injudicious, resistance to the extension of the electoral suffrage, which finally gave way before the impulse added to popular excitement by the example of foreign revolution. As regarded the welfare of our Colonies, the Reform Bill was virtually a death-blow. It laid the foundation for a rapid succession of measures, selfish in their tendency and grossly impolitic, which have already gone far to pervert the loyal feelings of the Colonists, by teaching them that the mother country has decided upon a policy altogether injurious to their interests as subjects of the British Crown. They have had no voice, no direction in the legislative enactments which have since that time so deeply affected their prosperity; they have been governed rather as tributaries than as portions of the Empire; and their complaints have been too often treated with undisguised contumely, or, at best, with haughty indifference. Our opinion as to the importance of the maintenance of our Colonial dominions, and the imminent necessity which exists of securing that maintenance by giving them some effective voice in the legislative councils of Great Britain, has been repeatedly expressed. No other step will suffice to stay the tide of disaffection; and happy will it be for all of us, if the practical refutation of the Free-trade delusion, now becoming every day more obvious and acknowledged, shall lead to such prudent measures, with regard to our dependencies, as may again consolidate into one great and united mass,