Why is it that certain parties are now, more than heretofore, engaged in getting up a cry for reform and extension of suffrage? Why is it that some men, ostensibly belonging to the Whig party, who, a year or two ago, held such views in utter detestation, have declared themselves favourable to the movement? Has anything been done to curtail the popular privileges—to take away from the people any portion of the power which they previously possessed—to curtail the liberty of the press—or in any way to trench upon the rights which are common to every subject? Has there been any tyranny on the part of the Crown—any audible complaint against the acts of the House of Peers? Nothing of the kind. Has, then, the House of Commons failed in the fulfilment of its duty? That averment can hardly be made, with consistency at least, by any member of the Liberal party, since they have made it their boast that, at the present moment, they are in possession of a majority in the Lower House, and have taken credit to themselves for magnanimity in allowing Lord Derby’s Ministry to exist, as they say, by sufferance, until the ordinary business of the Session is completed. What, then, can be the motive for the change which is now so loudly urged? It is simply this: The Liberal party are aware that they no longer possess the confidence of the country, and they hope, by rousing a new and formidable agitation, to divert the public mind into another channel, and prevent it from dwelling upon the injuries which they have inflicted upon the industrious classes of the nation. How otherwise can we account for this sudden and violent mania for extending the suffrage, which is apparent in the election speeches of most of the Liberal candidates? Mark the inconsistency of these men. They tell us—no matter whether falsely or not—that the country never was in a state of greater prosperity than now, and that such has been the fruit of their earnest and triumphant efforts. Very well. If it be so, what reason can be urged for making any organic change? Are not the prosperity and the welfare of a nation, and that content which, as we are told, reigns among the working-classes, the surest proofs that the Constitution is working admirably; and would it not, in that case, be utter madness to alter its arrangement? Yet such is the dilemma in which the Liberals, including Lord John Russell, are placed. They dare not aver that the country is not prospering, seeing that, for many years, they have had it all their own way, and that any statement of the kind would be tantamount to a censure passed upon themselves. On the contrary, they avow prosperity in the highest degree, and yet they are clamouring for a change, which cannot improve, but may possibly imperil it!