[Sidenote: ADMISSION OF THE JEWS TO PARLIAMENT.]
Among the events of last week one of the most interesting was the Queen's visit to Birmingham, where she was received by the whole of that enormous population with an enthusiasm which is said to have exceeded all that was ever displayed in her former receptions at Manchester or elsewhere. It is impossible not to regard such manifestations as both significant and important. They evince a disposition in those masses of the population in which, if anywhere, the seeds of Radicalism are supposed to lurk, most favourable to the Conservative cause, by which I mean not to this or that party, but to the Monarchy and the Constitution under which we are living and flourishing, and which we may believe to be still dear to the hearts of the people of this country. This great fact lends some force to the notion entertained by many political thinkers, that there is more danger in conferring political power on the middle classes than in extending it far beneath them, and in point of fact that there is so little to be apprehended from the extension of the suffrage, that universal suffrage itself would be innocuous. Amongst the concessions of last week was the passing of Locke King's Bill for abolishing a property qualification, which was done with hardly any opposition. There can be no doubt that the practice was a mere sham, and that a property qualification was very often a fiction or a fraud, and such being the case, that it was useless to keep up the distinction; but it struck me, though I do not find that it occurred to anybody else, that the abolition might sooner or later have an indirect influence upon the question of the suffrage, for it may be urged, not without plausibility, that if it be held no longer necessary that a representative should have any property whatever, there is great inconsistency in requiring that the elector should have a certain amount of property to entitle him to vote.
_June 26th._--The India Bill appears now likely to pass rather rapidly and in the shape presented by the Government. Everybody is tired to death of the subject and anxious to have it over, and the general impatience is increased by alarm at the foul state of the Thames, which (long discussed in a negligent way, and without much public attention or care) has suddenly assumed vast proportions, and is become an object of general interest and apprehension. This makes the House of Commons eager to finish its business as expeditiously as it can, and members impatient to betake themselves to a purer and safer atmosphere. The Government continues to maintain its ascendency there, and last night Palmerston was beaten by considerable majorities on two amendments he moved to the India Bill.