G THE DAILY EVENING TELEGRAPH PHILADELPHIA, MONDAY, AUGUST 19,10'. snniT of the niEss. KD1TOIUAL OmiORfl OF THB LBADIWQ JOORHAAB BPOH CURRENT TOPICS COMPILED EVERY DAT JOB THE EVENING TELEGRAPH. Sectional Intercut and . National Unity. I Yom the N. Y. IHmcs. The obvious difference between those whose passions impel thetn to a continued war of opinion and those whose interests require a restoration of the Union spirit throughout the whole country, is too great to be reconciled. Everywhere there are indications that the Men who spin cotton cannot be much longer separated from the men who grow cotton, nor can those who sell goods at the counters of New York safely acquiesce in the continued disability of their Southern customers to pur chase and pay for their goods. There is the levee question. The measures necessary for the successful prosecution of the war levelled the levees and sent the lawless Mississippi rush ing over the whole arable Ielta. The policy of General Banks and others has withheld Federal aid as a new term of reconstruction. Now, who does this policy hurt most f Tlie Southern secessionists ? They are comparatively few in numbers. They havo been so long ruined as to be indurated and callous to further misfortune. Besides, they are the laud holders, and from the little that is produced they receive a frugal maintenance. Does the freedman feel this unusual destruction of crop and labor? Undoubtedly, lie has nothing except his labor. This he sails for subsist ence; but if he knows that all planting and ploughing is in vaiu where the rains descend . and the Hood comes to inundate the country lor weeks at a time, he can have no more mo tive to toil than have those tillers around the desert, who look with certainty for au annual ' visit of the Arabs to carry off the fruit of their labors. A correspondent mentions a conver sation with a freedman in an interior parish of Louisiana, in which he gave as a reason for not having hired himself to a planter, that tho latter would employ him in repairing fences and buildings, digging ditches, and cut ting down bushes and briers; that the "water ' would come," destroy the crop, and with that the planter's only means of repaying the freedman; bo he had deoided to cut wood for a steamboat lauding rather than plant. The same refusal of relief which punishes the Rebel with a reduction of income indicts the same loss upon his loyal neighbor, and deprives the loyal freedman of employment. Nor is this mischief confined to the popula tion of Louisiana. The sugar crop of 18U0 was nearly half a million hogsheads. It has declined to twenty or thirty thousand. The price of cane sugar has advanced nearly four fold. It is now produced almost exclusively by slave labor in Cuba and Brazil. Now note, the effects. The Northwest and the East once paid for the sugar crop of Louisiana in the respective product! of their industry. Now they export three-fold the price of that sugar in specie. This is in effect the destruction of a home product to build up a slave-grown product in foreign countries. Fanaticism is thus stronger than the protective principle. The reduction of the cotton crop ha3 had an injurious effect on the home manufacture of cotton goods. England has opened up her vast East Indian possessions. She has in creased the crop until the combined supply from countries other than the United States has reached nearly three-fourths of her con sumption. The stock on hand in the United States does not now exceed one hundred and fifty thousand bales, while in Liverpool alone it is four times that amount. The price of cotton is thus fixed abroad. The United States has lost its position as a regulator of price, and now takes whatever Liverpool will give. The restoration of the cotton crop would be much promoted by rebuilding the levees, and yet Congress has foi borne to do so lest the restoration of the Union should be thereby postponed. It is not necessary to pursue the effects of these reduced crops upon the shipping interest, which, deprived of out freights by thi3 cause, has lost its great ad vantage over the commercial marine of Eng land. The Government collects a tax on cot ton by the pound, and an income tax on the sales of the planter. It now receives a tax on one pound where it would formerly have re ceived a tax on three. The subject is too ex tensive to treat in a cursory manner. All are convinced that Louisiana cannot repair her levees. She has made the effort by offer ing her bonds at home and abroad. Capitalists will scarcely touch them at any discount. She has appealed to Congress for aid. Possibly the applications have been entrusted to improper hands. But Congress thus far has closed its ears to the in terests of the submerged loyalist and freed man, the Northwestern farmer, the Eastern shipowner and cotton-spinner. In the next place, the restoration of the levees is a national matter, for it pertains to the production of national staples and the employment of national interests. It is a humane measure, for if the Government issues rations to the destitute people of the South, and sends its vessels to Ireland to relieve a foreign famine, it may well lend its endorsement to bonds having for their object the employment and maintenance of a whole people suffering from a calamity which the war has rendered it im possible for them to control. In this connection we may quote from the address of the Police Jury of Concordia Parish, Louisiana, to the Major-General com manding the District. It seta forth the deplorable condition of the whole alluvial country as known to him, the suffering from the devastations of the war, the successive inundations of 18(j5-'CU-'(37, the damage done the growing crops by the cotton-worm, and the prospect of a cotton famine. With the desti tution of the people comes the utter annihila tion of public credit. Says the address: "Our parlsli In its coporate capacity, aud our citizens individually, are utterly overwhelmed With debt. It litis uefu found Impossible) forour parochial authorities to provide lor the ordi nary expenses of administration. Our Ijeglsla tine Iihh suspended the collection of taxes on overflowed hinds, and both theKlnte anil narlwh are without either money or credit, aud uitorlv powerless to muke any provision lor Indigents.'' Upon whom does this fall? The address supplies an answer: "As a necessary result of this state of facts, most of the freed men will soon be disclmrgud; inflict, it In not improbable that three fourths of them will be illKchHiged within two months. We nave no certain data to lcurn the present population .f the pnrlhh, or the relative propor tion of ttie white and colored rncus. It appears from the books of the Kenistcra for this parish that the total population of i oncordla Is of which UoO are win te,aud72H2 are colore ! pcroiiH. It is impossible lor us to approximate with any certainty us to l" number who will require aid- this will unatiy depend upon their ability to find employment." How may they be relieved ? The Police Jury remark: lne flow7wmTu "lapse to tnelr primitive That at the very time iun uui' ioWpi-h are likely to be thrown out of employ neut the tinki of the MlssUaippt will be in U e Lost," unable condition f.i Hid rccoiiHtruc uie uoi .iiii. which our oteo lur- forests. We consider It a Brent public misfor tune, and source of extreme regret, that so for lunHlenn opportunity for their reconstruction Mi on Id be permitted to pirns unimproved, and cannot but hope Hint tho Mnjor-Heneral com manding this district will, through his efforts and Influence, devise some means to give direc tion to this labor In the manner indicated, thereby resolving a present evil into a public good." If Congress w ill take tip this proposition, it will . do good to a whole people, without regard to color or condition. If it does not, these freedmen may sav: "You give us the ballot to vote for you, but withhold the bread to subsist ourselves and starving families." The employment and aid solicited would re concile all to the justice of a Government which, in the hour of triumph, listens to the cry of despair. General Grant Again! From the X. Y. Tribune. General Grant is suffering at the hands of Lis friends, and from no friend so much as the New York Times. That newspaper charges the Tribune with hypocrisy. Ivet us see who is the real hypocrite. The Times, in its Tuesday's issue, used these words: "Through many channels It will be asserted Unit General (jr. nit's complin lice witu the cull indie.iten his approval of Mr. Hmnlou's re moval, and consequently of tne policy wlilrh exacts II at proceeding. On this ne.ul, fortu nately, there is no room for mlKrepreseulatlou. (Jtntral Uriint has not allowed h!H habitual reticence to leave the ccuntry in doubt as lo his position on the uroat occasion of dlll'erence be tween Congress aud the lixeeuttve. He sup ports the plau of Congress, aud is In favor of Its prompt and vigorous enforcement. The Cop perhead counsellors of Mr. Johusou will derive no succor from Oeueral Grant." Hero i.s a plain statement. The editor prac tically t-ays: "General Grant is a radical. We know it. He supports Congress. We kuow that. It is a happy thing he does not sup port President Johnson. Wo feel very com fortable." No gentleman will make a state ment without authority, and no newspaper, especially, will venture to place a public man upon a political platform without reasons for so doing. It was very important for us to know that General Grant was a radical. We found all the evidence leading to an opposite conclusion. Supposing that the 2 lima really spoke what it knew, we asked for its authority. The reply is a coarse assault upon the Tribune, and a virtual admission that the statement above quoted is false, and of course printed to deceive. On Tuesday, it said that Grant's acceptance of the office was merely "temporary and formal" something disagreeable and peremptory and that the President virtually exchanged the radical Stanton for the radical Grant. Now we are told that Grant assumed the office to prevent the Government from stopping 1 On Tuesday, Grant entered the Cabinet a radical. On Friday, we are assured he repre sents the "conservative majority" ot Con gress. In the meantime, our demand for in formation is ignored, and the 1 ones, in failing to give us the evidence that General Grant "has not allowed his habitual reticence to leave the country in doubt" as to his radical ism, compels us to doubt and fear that its edi tor is endeavoring to juggle us now, even as when last year he sought to drag the Repub lican party into the Philadelphia Copperhead Convention under a pretense that the conven tion was to reform and strengthen the party 1 Those who charge us with assailing Grant entirely misapprehend our position. We are not conscious of having ever, in the slightest degree, done him injustice. The question is one of fact. What is his position f He is named as a radical candidate for the Presi dency. Is he a radical f If he is, let it be made apparent. If he is not a radical, very well. In that case we shall not vote for him, although we may respect him none the less. There is no soldier, for instance, we honor more than General Sherman. We should crown him with laurels, and write his name on a hundred monuments. But we do not think we should vote for him as President of the United States, because he is an avowed believer in the policy of Andrew Johnson. It is an honest difference of opinion, nothing more. General Sherman would make a sin cere President. He would do what he deemed to be best. But his policy would not be ours; his counsellors would, probably, be men we did not trust, and his administration would sustain principles which we deem pernicious. It is because General jSherman is so regarded that his name is not mentioned by some of our friends as a candidate. They honor him; but unless he accepts their platform they will not vote for him. Now, is Grant not in pre cisely the same position? We ask for infor mation. People tell us with wise mutterings that Grant is sagacious; that he bides his time; that the politicians will not trap him; that he will run uncommitted; that if he takes the Presidential office he will do as he deems best, and rise above party. Probably General Grant can afford to be a deaf-and-dumb candi date, but the country cannot afford to elect a deaf-and-dumb President. If these were ordi nary times of peace, and the Executive office meant the appointment of tide-waiters, post masters, and consuls, we might be content to see Grant in the office, even if he never had an opinion. If the country were in the condition it was when Johnson was elected, we might say "Take Grant; he is available; we shall have an easy, pleasant canvass, and no bother." But we are now confronted with a problem more serious than any before known in our country. It is a problem that will not permit of conservatism or compromise. It must be radically treated, and we must have a man whose soul burns with the work. A timid, hesitating, unsympathetic President would bring disaster, especially if his policy were masked by the dazzling and seductive splendor of military fame. If all our Generals were silent, it none of them had opinions, if the silence and uncertainty that rests like a pall over tho name of Grant were common to these warriors, we might even then consider his candidacy unavoidable. But the truth is, Grant is among the few Generals who have rot spoken. We know where Sheridan stands. We know what Thomas thinks. We have heard Sickles and Pope speak. We are sure of Butler and Logan. We nave no lear ot these men. They are not uniformed Sphynxes sashed and girded statues. If it is naces sary that a General should settle reconstruc tion, we can easily find one. The Republican party is too great; its mis sion is too mighty; to speak politically, it is too strong with three-fourths of the next electoral college almost inevitably in its hands to go begging for a candidate, or to intrust its work to a man who does not feel in sym pathy with it. If General Grant is the man, we shall be happy. But in the face of his recent record, iu the faoe of his silence, in the fai e of the appalling fact that the men who claim to speak lor him are the men who planned the great Copperhead Convention in Philadelphia, we are anxious and doubting. Great as Grant is, he cannot carry our banner unless he wears our uniform. He cannot leal this party unless wo know where he means to go. When he commanded our armies, every soldier knew who he meant to light. It is proposed to give hiia a higher command, aud I to begin even a greater canvass. Ia it too ' much for us to ask, before we fall in line, what colors are we to wear, and who are our foesf ! Tb Golden Rule-"Poetlc Justice From the JV. Y. Itocning Exprexa. We have no idea that any supporter of the Rump Congress, any Republican, or any Northern or Western man, would willingly place himself and his interests under a gov ernment of negroes and of negroes, more over, who have scarcely acquired the habits or restraints of civilization, aud in some cases, Still cling to fetish worship of their native Africa. To be forced into so unnatural and revolting a political connection, they would be very apt to consider a grievous hardship, which only the most implacable foes, not friends, could impose upon them. Now, what we could never be reconciled to ourselves, we are enforcing upon our own race, our own brethren, in ten States of the Union. Pluming ourselves upon our Christianity, it suits us in this matter to set entirely at naught the golden rule of doing unto others as we would that others, under similar circum stances, should do unto us. We do not know whether the great masses of our people ever take that idea into their heads or not; but of the fact itself there can be no gainsaying. The party by and through whose instru mentality this work is now in process of ac complishment, ostentatiously professes to be the exponent of "great moral ideas." Yet it boldly and persistently ignores that funda mental principle of the moral law which enjoins one to love his neighbor as himself. This may be good radical policy, but it is bad Christianity. It cannot be pleaded in justification of this stupendous wrong to our race, that negro en franchisement is but a temporary measure, to be abandoned when the white "rebels" become more attached to tho Union. A class once in vested with sullrage can never be deprived of it. That proposition may as well be accepted at once as an invariable truth and an unalte rable fact. Hence the perilous experiment the radicals are now making in the late slave States is to be attended by enduring effects. As the experiment itself cannot be reversed, but must go forward from development to de velopment, so its influences, whatever they are to be, must be borne. We repeat, that under the existing radical machinery established in Louisiana, the white man is placed politically at the mercy of the negro. We have a statistical demonstration of the fact in the returns of the registry lists, now for the first time officially published. Here are the figures: LOUISIANA. Blacks S2.1107 Whiles Black majority ..37,173 NORTU CAROLINA. As in Louisiana, so we presume it will be in all the other States. The so-called registry in the formerly geod old conservative Whig state ot IN or th Carolina has just begun and the complexion of that beginning, as seen below, is a foreshadowing of the general re sult: Blacks 320 Whites 21 Black majority SOUTH CAROLINA. ..305 In Charleston, S. C, the registry commenced on Monday last and thus far, we have the following returns: Blacks 10 1 Whites 153 Black majority '. 251 It may gratify the vindictiveness of a "party of great moral ideas" to witness this thorough subversion of the civilized Anglo-American to the semi-barbarous African; but vindictive ness ever brings with it, sooner or later, and in some iorm or other, its own punishment. and in this case, part of the punishment will be the presence of this new, semi-barbaric element in the halls of legislation (Federal and State), to help make laws for us of the North and West, as well as for the South. This is what the philosophers would call "poetio justice." It may not come at once, it may not come for a few years yet, but the radical policy lias set the machinery in motion w hich must, sooner or later, whether we like it or not, be productive of that very result. The Coming State Elections. From the N. Y. Herald. The great national issue which will over shadow all others in our coming fall elections in the Northern States will be the issue of negro supremacy hereafter in our national affairs, through a Southern negro political balance of power, contemplated and broadly foreshaddowed in the Congressional pro gramme of Southern reconstruction. The Republican party, from Abraham Lincoln's election to the Presidency down to this scheme of a transfer of political power in .the South irom the white to the black race, has been sustained by the almost unbroken voice of the Northern States in all its measures; first, for the suppression of the Rebellion, and next, for the reorganization of the Rebel States on the basis ot universal liberty. But m this bold and dangerous scheme of putting the Southern political balance of power over our national affairs in the hands of the blacks, just released from the darkness and demoralization of negro slavery, it strikes us that only in another form the Republicans are making the same fatal mistake which was made by the late national Democracy when they attempted to Eerpetuate the reign of the Southern slave oldiDg oligarchy, with their laws, decrees, and dogmas for the perpetuation and extension of slavery itself. This is but the swinging of the pendulum from one extreme to the other it is steering from Scylla to Charybdis. What peace or harmony can we hope for in exchanging the insolent rule of the late threa hundred thou sand Southern slaveholders for the rule of five hundred thousand Southern negroes, who but yesterday were slaves, and the descend ants of ignorant slaves for hundreds of years 1 The experiment involves an outrage upon the enlightened public opinion of the Northern States, which will surely meet with a decisive rebuke. We cannot doubt that this desperate experi ment of negro supremacy will be emphatically condemned by the voice of New York in our coming November election. A change of eight or ten thousand votes in the six hundred and add thousands of this great Commonwealth is but a bagatelle; but it will suffice to revolu tionize the State. Upon this broad and distinct question of negro supremacy, however, we may look for a change of thirty, forty, or fifty thousand, as compared with the figures of our last November election. In Ohio, with Vallan dighani and his obnoxious Copperhead notious again in the foreground, there is but a gloomy prospect for the opposition elements. They cannot be combined on Vallandighaui or under Vallandigham. But in Pennsylvania they have a very fair prospect of anticipating in October the inevitable November reaction in New York. The substantial yeomanry of Pennsylvania, who could not follow Buchanan in 1G0, in be half of Breckinridge and the Southern slave- holding oligarchy, will not be apt to follow "Old Thad Stevens" iu 18G7, in behalf of Southern negro supremacy. No political party, however strong it may have grown in the confidence of the people, or however confident it may be in its strength and resources, can betray the public confidence or outrage public opinion with impuuity. The penalty speedily follows the offense. Our po litical history abounds in such warnings. Take, for example, the nomination of a candi date for Governor in this State through certain party arrangements with a notorious gambler, and mark the result, notwithstanding the un popularity of the opposing candidate on local issues. On the other hand, we find the late dominant party in Connecticut reduced to a minority in presuming to bring forward a humbugging showman as a representative of their principles and their morality. How, then can the Republican party expect to escape the consequences of its bad faith with the people, when the people come to pronounce their judg ment upon this presumptuous and dangerous scheme of negro supremacy ? This is the question now awaiting the popu lar judgment: Shall tho ten excluded South ern Rebel States be reorganized and restored to Congress, each aud all under a predominant negro vote from the disfranchisement and dis gust of white men, or shall Congress itself be called upon by the people of the North to pause, reconsider and reconstruct its terms of reconstruction so as to give the Southern whites a chance, at least where they consti tute a heavy majority of the people, as, for instance, in Virginia, North Carolina, or Georgia? Upon this question we expect a political reaction in the North this fall which will enforce some attention and respect from Congress. It is to the people that we look for a rescue; for while the laws stand as they are, President Johnson can do very little to stay their operation, however great the number of removals and changes he may make. We look to the people for a reaction against this perillous scheme of fastening upon the coun try a controlling negro political balance of power. Personal Representation. From, the N. Y. Nation. The growing feeling in favor of the repre sentation of minorities, both here and in Eng land, is one of the many proofs that, however attached people may be to the principle of de mocracy, they are not yet satisfied that they have hit on the best mode of applying it. The people, even of New York city, really want a good government; they really want good men in office; if they did not, we should be ready this moment for Mr. Cushing's "man on horseback." But they have no power to secure a good government and good mew in office, because they possess no adequate con trol over the nominations made by party leaders. A nomination once made is a finality; fit or unfit, it must be sustained at the peril of the odium ot "treason to tne party," or the more real and serious responsibility of "giving aid to the enemy." Once overthrow the oligarchy of wire-pullers, make it possible in some way for the people to withhold their approval when incompetent or dishonest men are put into nomination, and other political reforms would speedily lollow. It would appear, at first sight, that a power which, like that under discussion, is exercised by wholly irresponsible private citizens, is of a so purely moral nature that it cannot be reached by legislation, but must be left to the good sense of the people to deal with. But this is precisely what we have been doing now for many years, and with only the result of seeing party despotism grow stronger and stronger. And the reason is that our political organization, being based entirely upon local districts, and multiplying to excess the num ber of officials chosen by popular vote, affords every facility for the manipulations of wire pullers. If it is possible, either by statute or constitutional provision, to lemove these pecu liar opportunities and temptations, the evil will, in a great measure,como to an end of itself. It is not desired to interfere in any way with the legitimate action of party organizations. TLeFe are an indispensable instrumentality in enabling like-minded men to combine their scattered lorces and bring them to bear upon definite objects thus converting latent power into active power. But what we do need is to give individual opinion a chance to make itself lelt upon these organizations, and render it possible to "scratch" a bad nomination with out practically voting for the opposite candi date. Mr. Hare's plan of personal representation, to which attention has been so widely directed of late years, promises to accomplish this object; and we wish to suggest what seems to be a feasible way of adapting the leading prin ciple of his plan to our American community and institutions. It is certain that, in the form in which he has developed it, it is so complicated and tedious that, whether intrin sically good or bad, it never could obtain ap proval or even serious consideration among our people. Whether the fact is to our credit or not, we may make up our minds at the start that no plan has any chance of adoption among us which is not easily and readily un derstood, and which does not provide for as certaining the result of an election as early as the day after it takes place. The undue stress laid, as well by Mr. Hare himself as by all who have advocated his plan, upon unessential details, which concern merely the method of putting it in practice, has had the effect ot drawing the attention away from the essential principle of his scheme. The essential and fundamental prin ciple is simply this that it is the people who are represented, and not the place, and that, therefore, constituencies should be personal, and not local. According to this plan, if a citizen of Syracuse wished to vote for Horace Greeley for Congress, or a citizen of Brooklyn for Millard Fillmore, he would have the right to do so; his vote for this candidate would count for him with those cast in every other section of the State; ami the constituency of the successful candidate would be those who voted for him, wherever they happened to reside. This is the simple and philosophical feature of Mr. Hare's plan, which has obtained the unqualified commendation of Mr. Mill aud other thinkers; the rest of his scheme con sists of devices for obtaining an absolutely equal representation of a community upon this general plan devices adapted, perhaps, to the English people, but so utterly foreign to the character and habits of our people that they may be passed over without description. It is very certain that a community which has almost universally adopted the principle of plurality in elections, ior the sake of the speedy i. suit, will not enter into an elaborate calculation of quotas, and potter over the "distribution of the surplus," in order that the canvassing of votes may be theoretically fair and every minority exactly represented. What our people want is a legislature repre- &uIjlcI LARGEST AND VEb? STOCK OF FINE OLD IH G VV H i 0"K I E 0 in Tin: LJVNP is now tossessed by. EHKHT S. H ANN IS & CO.. Nob. 218 and 220 SOUTH FRONT STREET, WHO UIFIKTHK MAMK TO IHK THAOK I SI lOM OS TEBT AD V AXTAUEOTJ1 TDIUIN, Their Stock of Rya Whlihlu, IN BOD comprises all tho favorite brand! extant, and rum through the various months ot 18o&,'uo, and of tula ytar, ap ta picstnt letc. , . , . Mi tral contracts made for lots to arrive at Pennsylvania Railroad Depot. Krrlcsson Line Mharl.or at ttonried Warehouses, as patties may elect. Renting them fairly in the main, and composed of honest and able lueu; and whatever pUu will secure this result is so far a salutary reform, evn if not theoretically perfect. Indeed, Mr. Hare himself confesses, in his last (third) edition, that "a perfect uniformity in the number of the quota of votes for every member" is "really important." This sur lenders the whole point at issue. If the proposition went no further than this, if every mau throughout the State voted for bis favorite candidate without regard to his place of residence, and the required number at the head of the list were declared elected, there would probably not be much more in equality than at present. A great disparity would, of course, exist between the number of votes received by tho first on the list and the thirty-first; but so there is now between Mr. "VVaid's 17,000 votes aud Mr. Morrissey's SJi OO. An enormous vote for any candidate would, under this system, be only a natural and, to a certain extent, proper tribute to his popularity. Still it would, no doubt, be wise to establicdi a definite tjuvta which every suc cessful candidate must obtain, as a security against the accident of persons elected by a mere handful of votes. Supposing the principle once adopted, the details would be very easy to arrange. The most difficult point to decide would probably be the filling of vacancies, whether occurring by death or resignation, or by the failure of a sufficient number to obtain the quota. It would seem that in these cases the best way would be to let the legislature fill the vacancy, taking as candidates the two or three highest names left upon the list. Tarty organizations would find a legitimate and very useful sphere of action in assigning candidates to the voteis of dill'erent localities, and thus preventing votes from being thrown away. It would be easy to calculate the number of members which each party in the State would probably be able to elect, and divide the State roughly into districts for these various candidates, taking due account of the natural and healthy local feeling. Most persons would, as a mat ter of course, vote for the candidate thus as signed, provided he were personally accepta ble; but it would no longer be possible, as it is now, to force an unfit candidate upon an un willing constituency. Such a candidate would be so sure to run behind his ticket, and fail of an election, that the committees would find it their only safe way to put up their best men. Another way of preventing the loss of votes would be by letting the election continue ten days, as in England. This was suggested by Mr. J.T. Fisher, of Philadelphia, who proposed a plan for personal representation, independent of Mr. Hare, without Mr. Hare's favorite fea ture of endorsing a second choice upon the ballot, and distributing the surplus votes. At the end of the first day it would be ascertained that certain candidates were surely elected, and certain others in doubt, and the voters of the second day would cast their votes where they seemed most needed. Mr. Fisher's other proposition for meeting the same difficulty, by allowing successful candidates to assign their surplus to other candidates who fell short, can hardly be considered practicable or desirable. lSy the adoption of this principle we should secure the chief advantage which the Eng lish Fysteni possesses, of allowing the choice of non-resident representatives, and thus remove one of the greatest hindrances to the development of a superior of publio men. A member would no longer be afraid to offend local prejudices or go against the opinions of his district, and a man of weight and charac ter might be reasonably sure of always find ing a constituency to support him, scattered through the State, but able to unite upon their man, and make every vote count for him. Thus local feeling could still be grati fied, but without depriving the State of the services of a valuable servant, as is now often done. It has seemed most natural to speak of members of Congress, as these are the most important and prominent representatives elected by the people. The system can, how ever, be easily applied to any representative body or board ot commissioners of sufficient importance to interest the mass of the people as the Legislature of the State or the Cr rauiou Council of the city. A Board of Aldermen, composed of a very small number, as pro posed in the Nation of May 30, would bo espe cially adapted to this mode of election. It may be remarked that, for a legislative body within the limits of a State or city, it might not be necessary to have any fixed number. There is no peculiar virtue in the number 120 or 240. It cannot be expected, nor should it be de sired, that so fundamental a reform as that proposed should be introduced at once upon a large scale solely in virtue of its apparent theoretical advantages. It seems as if au elec tion held in this way could not fail to give us a vastly superior body of legislators to the present, while every portion of the commu nity would be fairly represented. -The Re publicans of New York city, and the Demo crats of the western counties, would now have their rightful share of power. Ko mino rity, indeed, not too small to be relatively in significant, would need to be unrepresented, and no man of power would need to search for a constituency. Minority Representation In Kuglaud. Fom the A Y. World. We are in an epoch of marvels. That a more thorough Reform bill than was ever contem plated by the Liberals should have been origi nated and passed by a Tory administration, is wonderful enough; but even this is outdone by the origin in that citadel of Toryism the House of Lords of a measure so progressive as the representation of minorities in Parlia ment. But the winder ceases, in both cases, when we come to understand the motives. In J bringing forward the new Reform bill, Lord i Derby's administration have acted as our owu Southern statesmen might have done, had they recognized the inevitable doom of sla very, alolinhed it themselves, enfranchised th negroes, and claimed the credit and grati tude due Irom the emancipated race. In poli h'liislci&s. tics aud statesmanship, it makes all the differ ence in tie world whether you take the bull by the horns or by the tail. Earl Derby and Mr. Disraeli have a keen perception of this difference, and have put themselves iu a fair way to guide the animal instead of being gored by him. The introduction into the Ue loim bill of the principle of minority represen tation is also a concession to progressive ten dencies made iu the hope of its "profiting tin aribtocracy. The new Reform bill puts pro perty and intelligence in the minority, and sj the Lords evince great alacrity iu adopting a principle which enables the minority to elec some members of Parliament. Some American newspapers speak of Lor I Cairns' successful amendment as if it embo died the principle of cumulative voting. Tim is erroneous. Lord Cairns' speech introducing the amendment should have saved everybody fiom this mistake, for he in one passage con trasts his proposal with the cumulative vote. The essence of the cumulative scheme is, that an elector may give more than one vote for one person; as, for example, when three mem bers are to be elected, the elector may, if he chooses, instead of giving one vote to each of three candidates, give three votes to one. It is from this concentration or accumulation upon one candidate of votes by the same elector that the scheme takes its name of cumulative voting. Lord Cairns' amendment to the Reform bill is of quite a different complexion. By it, the privileges of the individual voter are not enlaiged, but abridged. Instead of enabling an elector to give his three votes to one candi date, it merely takes one of his three votes away. It does this, and does nothing else. The two votes that remain to him must be given to separate candidates, the same as his three votes would have been if Lord Cairns' amendment had not deprived him of one! of them. i The ostensible object, or pretext, of Lord Cairns in proposing this amendment was not so much the representation of minorities as the equalization of political power among the several constituencies. The greater part of the constituencies send only two members; but there will be eleven constituencies which will send three members each. As a voter ia one of these last would have a share in three members of Parliament, while in an ordinary constituency he has a share in only two, Lord Cairns artfully proposed to reduce the in--equality, by allowing each elector in what he called the "three-cornered constituencies" to vote lor only two members, the same as the others. Putting the amendment on this cround may not have been disingenuous, hut it was cer tainly dexterous, as tending to conceal the real purpose which was to recover to the aristocracy by the amendment a part of what it loses by the bill. The bill makes the "wages class" predominant in all the great centres of indus try. The amendment takes away one of the three members ttey would otherwise elect, and makes restitution of him to the higher classes. It is not meant as a step forward to a more advanced liberalism, but a step back 1 ward from the concessions made in the Re form bill. This is the reason why the Lords so promptly supported it; and thist perhaps, , explains why the Government opposed it. The Government, which, intends to make poli tical capital out of the Reform bill, could not afford to incur the imputation of wishing to back out of a part of it. In the so-called three-cornered constituen cies, the majority will elect only two of the three members, and a minority will have a chance of electing the third. If the system is found to work well, the number of three membered constituencies will probably be largely increased. Thus a great reform bids fair to get a handsome start by the reactionary tendencies of an ancient aristocracy. It will not be the first time in the history of human affairs that men have "builded wiser than they knew." ' The succesB of minority representation ia England will more and more draw attention to the necessity of its introduction, in some shape, into the United States. We believe that a good working plan is yet to be devised but of the fairness of allowing minorities to be represented In proportion . to their numbers, there , can be no reasonable question. It must be productive Of advan tages much greater and more solid than satisfying the sense of fair play. It will in troduce into our legislative bodies two classes of men, now generally excluded, whose in fluence will be most salutary. One of these classes will consist of cool, proud men of great personal independence, who scorn to play the demagogue by falling in with tho p pular delusions . of the hour. Such men could, of course, be out-voted; but supposing them to be right, they could not easily be out-argued. Their intrepidity and clearness of head would have a restraining influence at times when the majority were most prone to run wild in some temporary flush of passion. Another and still more valuable class who would be brought into the Legislature by the repre sentation of minorities, are men in advance of their time, and therefore condemned by the majority. The great improvements by which society is carried forward gather disciples but slowly. 1 he adoption of such improvements would be accelerated by giving their advocates an opportunity to explain and defend them on a stage where they would command publio attention. 'Ihe ordeal of thorough debate aguiTiBt we 1-equipped antagonists would ex plode pseudo reforms, and advance real ones. e can see nothing but gpod in minority representation, if some system can be found by which it can be made to work. gf C. L. MAISER. MANirifACTPBKB OT ' ' " I It 13 A N It It tl H t. A 11- f H O O F SAFES, . LtM liaMITU, lU Ll.-HAWUF.n, AKU 1 FAI.tu IN Mt'ILUIUti HABlMVAllE, - MO. HACK MIKKKf. Cu,j) A LAItGfc . ASSORTMENT OF VUXR L'U' unil Hurslsr-proofHAFES ou Jiand, wllb lunlJa "rs . lwt)Uiu-l,iiit tMWu. free iroui flmiiiineo. 1 rices luw, jj, UANtK.s H M.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers