HC Deb 16 July 1873 vol 217 cc482-91

Order for Second Reading, read.

MR. COLLINS,

in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, he had to express his great regret that the subject should have to come before the house at a late hour on a Wednesday afternoon. He would endeavour, however, to explain as 'briefly as he could the object of the provision of the Bill, which was to apply the principle of the cumulative vote to the election of aldermen by town councils. It was no new principle, for already Parliament had sanctioned it as regarded school board elections; in the English Act, unanimously on the Motion of the noble Lord who represented the North West Riding (Lord Frederick Cavendish), and in the Scotch Act, after a. full discussion of the subject, on the Motion of the hon. Member for Lanarkshire (Sir Edward Colebrooke) also a ministerialist, by 162 to 36, and the question was not at all one of a party character. The present Parliament had therefore decidedly approved of the cumulative vote. Admitting that the mode of representing minorities in Parliamentary Elections might be open to objection on account of its partial operation, he considered that the local representation of a town or borough should afford a correct picture of the several interests represented; but in respect to the election of the aldermen that was not at present the case, for they, instead of being elected by the municipal electors themselves, were selected by the town councillors out of their own body. It was in consequence of that, that whenever there was a political question, or even such a question as that of providing gas or waterworks for the town, great agitation took place with the view of disturbing the balance of public opinion by the election of aldermen who would throw the majority of the council into a minority. It was another subject to be deeply regretted, that those municipal institutions, which had been originally established for the administration of local affairs, had degenerated into political organizations of the most violent character. This was the case in Liverpool, in Bristol, and in Leeds, and the wide-spread nature of the evil had been abundantly shown by the evidence taken before the Select Committee of 1869. A great deal had been said about the reform of our municipal corporations; but it was only justice to the unreformed Corporation of the City of London to say that, so far as he knew, it was the only municipal body in the kingdom the elections to which took place more out of regard to local affairs than to party politics. As an example of the way in which the Alder-manic Bench was monopolized by the party of the majority, he would refer to the fact, that at the last municipal election for Leeds, though one-third of the council was Conservative, the whole of the eight aldermen appointed were Liberals. He maintained it was unfair to give a majority in the town council the power to swamp a considerable minority by electing aldermen in all cases agreeing with their own views, and hoped that if the re-action in progress there resulted in a Conservative majority, they would not exercise their power in the same tyrannical and exclusive spirit. The theory of the Municipal Act, that the best men, irrespective of party, would be elected aldermen, not having been realized, he would urge that his proposal was the most available remedy, and with that view, he would give as a testimony the opinion of the late Mr. Mill, on the superiority of the cumulative over the limited vote, as being more popular and giving the most faithful expression of the wishes of the electors. It might not be possible to apply the cumulative vote to the election of all members of the council, because the larger towns were divided into wards; but the aldermen represented the whole of the town, and might without difficulty be chosen by the cumulative vote. No doubt, it would be said that nobody wanted the Bill. He held that that was a most unsound objection, because it was unreasonable to suppose that a dominant majority should endeavour to curtail their own power; and besides Parliament had dealt with the old municipal corporations, the Universities, and endowed schools, without expecting those bodies to ask for their own reform. He wished the measure could have been brought forward earlier in the Session, but that was impracticable; and in commending it to the justice, moderation, and fairness of the House, he hoped that it would not be overborne by mere brute voting power, and that some defence of the existing system would be offered by its opponents. Believing that the Bill would remedy a glaring injustice, he begged to move its second reading.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Collins.)

MR. HARDCASTLE

said, he had been curious to know why the hon. Gentleman opposite took so great an interest in the cumulative system of voting, and from his speech he discovered that as the present constitution of the Corporation of Leeds did not satisfy him he desired to alter it by introducing the cumulative system. The Preamble of the Bill was founded on the erroneous assumption that aldermen were representatives of the town council, whereas they were chosen by their fellow town councillors, and their duty was to act at elections in the absence of the mayor. It also assumed that aldermen had the power of meeting to consult about the interests of the borough in a separate chamber, whereas that was the case in London only. The object of the cumulative vote was to enable a minority to send a representative of their opinions into some representative body, and it did not apply to the case of the election of aldermen. He might observe that the cumulative system did not work well in small constituencies. It either enormously strengthened a minority, so as to make it practically a majority; or, if the votes were well divided, several of the candidates had an equal number of votes, and a fresh election was rendered necessary. He had not heard of any Petition for a change in the present system, nor of any complaint out-of-doors as to the mode in which they exercised their functions. Moreover, instead of seeking to introduce the thin end of the wedge by such an infinitesimally small application of the cumulative vote, why did not the hon. Member for Boston at once boldly propose to apply that principle to the election of town councillors and also of Members of Parliament, and not to that of aldermen only? Believing that the Bill, if passed, would produce greater evils than they had at present, he begged to move its rejection.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."—(Mr. Hardcastle.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

MR. MORRISON

in supporting the Bill said, he should be glad to see cumulative voting extended to the election of town councillors generally; but if the friends of that principle wished to legislate in that House, especially at that period of the Session, it was necessary to confine their efforts to a moderate and modest measure. He did not think the Bill would necessitate second elections, because where two candidates had an equal number of votes the mayor's casting vote would obviate that difficulty. The aldermen of the City of London were elected not by the common councillors, but by the citizens generally—a much better system than that which prevailed in other parts of the country. As to the fear that a disciplined and intelligent minority might carry most of the seats on the aldermanic bench, if the majority should run candidates for all the vacancies, he had a much better opinion of the good sense of the majority than to think they were likely to fall into so stupid a mistake. In the case of such a small body as a town council it would always be easy to ascertain how the voting would go before the actual election occurred, and thus to find out how many candidates could be safely nominated. The object of the cumulative vote was not merely to obtain a fair system of voting, or a supply of speakers, but to make the representative body as fairly representative of different opinions and interests as possible, but where the election took the co-optative form, the representation of one side only surely could not be called a fair reflex of the constituency. In a town council they required, not great genius, but chiefly honesty, intelligence, and business experience. He found, however, that complaints were made everywhere, and even by town councillors themselves, that town councils were not as good as they used to be, and that it was a growing custom to make those institutions more and more instruments for the aggrandizement of political parties, instead of bodies for managing with proper skill and care the local affairs of a town. In the 'United States of America, where almost every evil of our representative system existed in an exaggerated measure, opinion was growing rapidly in favour of the cumulative vote for electing administrative bodies and various public officers. That principle was largely applied in Illinois and Pennsylvania, and many of the other States of the 'Union were advancing in the same direction. In forming our municipal corporations, it was thought that by a secondary election a better class of men would be obtained; but all experience showed that expedient was a failure. Town councillors had become mere delegates, instead of representatives, and their election was always arranged by a preliminary "Caucus." He admitted that that was a very small Bill. He advocated it only for the sake of the principle it involved; and he hoped if the measure were brought in again, that principle would be applied to the election of town councillors as well as of aldermen.

MR. LOCKE

said, he must object to the second reading of the Bill, as he was opposed to the new-fangled method of election by the cumulative vote. When the Municipal Reform Act was introduced, Lord Lyndhurst proposed that aldermen should not be elected by the voters in the different wards, but by the town council itself. That was a bad principle, and he for one had always objected to it. He had proposed in the analogous case of the Metropolitan Board of Works, that the members of that Board should be elected directly by the ratepayers, and not indirectly through the medium of the different vestries. Modern inventions in politics, at all events in regard to elections, did not answer. The old system carried on the City of London from time immemorial, under which the aldermen as well as the common councillors were elected by the different wards, had answered. It was a system to which no objection had been taken, which could be clearly understood and by which the representation of the people could be secured; but by their new-fangled principles Heaven only knew who would be represented, or what would be the result. The cumulative vote would only introduce perplexity and confusion. It could not be right. It was impossible to say why it could not be right, and equally impossible for anybody to prove that it was right. He had never been able to understand the arguments urged in its favour, and he was sure that those who urged them were as much in the dark as he was. The hon. Member for Boston (Mr. Collins), who had given them a lecture about Yorkshire, with which no man was so well acquainted, should ask the people of that county whether they would not prefer the old principle so long carried out in the City of London to the new-fangled scheme contained in his Bill.

MR. BAINES

said, he had not intended to speak on the Bill, partly because the subject had excited very little public attention, and partly because he feared that he differed from a majority of his constituents with regard to it. But as his hon. Friend the Member for Boston (Mr. Collins) had so largely introduced into his speech the borough which he (Mr. Baines) had the honour to represent, he was sure the House would indulge him with permission to make a brief reply. His hon. Friend had stated that since the Municipal Reform Bill the Corporation of Leeds had elected all the aldermen from the Liberal party. That was true, and he regretted it; but he would inform the House how it came about. The fact was that the old close Tory corporation, which had governed the town for ages, had never admitted into its ranks a single Liberal; and when a representative corporation was elected, and the Liberals obtained the ascendancy, they resented their previous exclusions. But there was another reason which had exasperated the Liberals still more strongly. When the Tory party were unshipped from their seats by the Municipal Corporations Reform Act, they determined to alienate the whole of the property of the corporation for the purpose of weakening their successors. They did so alienate it, and there was an action at law then pending on the part of the new corporation to recover the funds which had been alienated by the old. That had a powerful influence on public feeling, which still prevailed. Another reason tended to perpetuate the feeling which had been referred to by the hon. Member for Boston. When he (Mr. Baines) argued with some of his own friends, that it would be more just and expedient for the public interests that some of the best men of both parties should be admitted to the bench of aldermen, and that the municipal elections should not be conducted with a mere reference to political party, the answer was—"We have two well-known parties, Liberal and Conservative. They have election committees and organizations, and they would not consent to set up a new organization for the election of the municipal council, and therefore we must go on in the old grooves, and work by means of the old organization." He was sorry to say that the same argument was to be met with everywhere. In Boston—his hon. Friend's borough—every alderman was a Tory; and in Liverpool all the aldermen were Conservative, and they would not ap- point a mayor who was not of the same party. The fact was, that the same thing prevailed over the whole kingdom. He believed that the local bodies were, notwithstanding, doing their best for the management of their property and the improvement of their respective towns; and he must say that, on behalf of his own constituents, that he believed there was no corporation in the kingdom more desirous of promoting public improvements, whether with respect to the streets, the sewers, with respect to the gas or water, or in improving public buildings and institutions, than the Corporation of Leeds; and he did not think that there was any town which had been more distinguished by its advancement in recent times than Leeds had been under the corporation which his hon. Friend had thought fit to denounce. He was well aware that it would be stated that all the salaried officers employed by municipal corporations were of one party; but as far as Leeds was concerned he was prepared to contradict it, for he knew, and could give the names, if it were desirable to do so, of several of the highest paid officers of the Corporation of Leeds who were of the opposite politics to the majority of the town council. Still he must say, from his own conviction, that it would be better and more fair, and, on the whole, for the greater advantage of both parties, and. the whole community, that the plan for electing aldermen, sketched out by the hon. Member for Boston, should be adopted. The aldermen were all elected by a majority of the town council, whatever might be its political colour. This was not the case with the town councillors, as they were elected by the different wards, and, being so elected, represented many different opinions and principles. His hon. Friend, with whom no doubt the wish was father to the thought, expected that his own party would soon get into power again; but if they did, he (Mr. Baines) was convinced that they would act on the same principles on which they had acted for ages. Still, he believed that the election of the best men of both parties to the office of aldermen would everywhere prove the most beneficial, and must, therefore, give his vote in favour of the Bill.

Mr. WHEELHOUSE

rested the question on a much wider basis than the ease of any particular borough, and ap- prehended that any process which tended to swamp the votes of the ratepayers in a municipality must be an unconditional, indeed, an unqualified evil. In nearly every borough in the North of England these elections were matters of political feeling; but he believed that if the cumulative principle were carried out, it would be found that many gentlemen occupying the aldermanic bench would find themselves so no longer. The exclusive principle had been earned out in Leeds ever since the passing of the Municipal Act, without paying any attention to the feelings and wishes of the ratepayers, and he maintained that the party whom he represented in Leeds were not responsible for the existing system which prevailed in that borough. If it was bad in the old corporation to be exclusive—that was purely the old argument that two blacks would not make a white—and surely there was no reason for the new corporation to follow a bad example. He thought the town council should be wholly elective, for he had never seen the advantage of the Municipal Act over the old system, and. the City of London had acted wisely in adhering to its ancient practice. During the last 20 years he had heard continual complaints on the part of the electors against being swamped by the aldermen, who said that it was quite useless to make any attempt to remedy the evil with which they had to contend as things now stood and were conducted. The fact was, that people were selected for office not because of their fitness, but from political considerations. That being so, he should be glad to see a return to the good old system which prevailed in London at the present moment, where the best man was chosen, whether he happened to be Whig or Tory.

MR. CARTER

said, he must strongly deny that the aldermen of Leeds were elected entirely on account of their political opinions, and in order to show that the corporation were not governed by political motives, begged to state that the town clerk was a Conservative, and that the surveyor for the borough, who was more lately appointed, was one likewise. Besides, those several other officers of the corporation held the same political opinions. He had a long experience as a member of the corporation, and could assert that the best men were appointed to seats in the council, irrespective of their political views, and the same rule applied to the official appointments. In fact, the question was never raised as to the political opinions of candidates for appointments. The hon. Member (Mr. Wheelhouse) had been elected to the Corporation of Leeds, but he had quarrelled with the committee to which he was appointed, and his constituency consequently quarrelled with him. Hence, his complaint of the corporation as it existed at present. He had originally opposed the principle of the Bill, because he thought it would not work well; but from what he had seen, however, of the state of feeling in his own borough, he felt satisfied that if the principle of the Bill were adopted, it would, when prejudices were overcome, be likely to produce a beneficial result. Looking at it in that point of view, he should vote for the second reading.

And it being a quarter of an hour before Six of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned till To-morrow.