QUALIFICATION OF MEMBERS. (Hansard, 6 April 1837)

§ Mr. Warburton
rose to move for leave to bring in a Bill to alter the property qualification of Members to serve in Parliament. He hoped the motion he was about to make would receive the sanction of the House without much discussion. It would be in the recollection of hon. Members, that early in the present Session the hon. Baronet, the Member for Cornwall, submitted a motion for the purpose of abolishing altogether the property qualification of 803 Members of the House. He (Mr. Warburton) would much prefer that motion to have succeeded, but as he thought there was no chance of its being carried, he proposed, not to abolish the property qualification, but to amend the law relating to it, and to enact that the property qualification should be 300l. per annum for cities and boroughs, and 600l. per annum for counties, but should not be confined to real property. The proposition was so reasonable that he could not anticipate any objection to it. The hon. Member for Cornwall, when he brought the matter forward, stated, and stated correctly, that the statute of Anne was founded with a view to increase the strength of Jacobite Members in the House, and that as the country interests were supposed to be more Jacobite than the town interests, the property qualification was required to be of real and landed property. But no such reason now existed, for it could not in these times be pretended that a gentleman who has property, not in lands, but arising from the funds, or otherwise, was not equally as fitting to be returned as a Member to this House as a person whose income was derived exclusively from real property. No one would now venture to assert, that Gentlemen whose property was wholly landed were the best qualified to discuss and consider many questions raised in the House. But the statute was easily evaded, and for that reason the present Chancellor of the Exchequer objected to its recognition in the Reform Bill. The oath, too, was left to the construction of the party by whom it was required to be taken, and being so, was not in any degree stringent. It was something like the declaration required to be made by a party who purchased a commission in the army. Such party was obliged to declare on his word and honour as an officer and a gentleman, that he had paid no more for his commission than the regulation price. The colonel of the regiment was also required to make this declaration, and yet it was notorious that not a single commission was sold for which much more than the regulation price was not given. If such a declaration as this was not binding, how could an oath upon which the party taking it could put his own construction, be so? It was because he despaired of persuading the House to get rid of the property qualification altogether that he endeavoured to persuade 804 them to agree to amend the present law. The House had already admitted the principle in two cases. By the Reform Act persons not possessed of freehold property, but holding leasehold property to a given amount, were admitted to vote for Members representing counties. By the Bill for regulating the jury-lists, introduced by the right hon. Baronet, others, besides the owners of real property, were called on to act with freeholders. If, then, they had broken down the old property qualification in some cases, why should they object to alter it in the case of Members of that House? He called upon the hon. Member for East Cornwall to support his motion. He could do so without being chargeable with inconsistency. Would not that hon. Baronet have a better chance of carrying his own views into effect with respect to this question, hereafter, if he supported this proposition? The principal clauses of the Bill which he proposed to introduce were to this effect:ߞHe intended to fix 300l. a year for boroughs, and 600l. for counties, as the amount of the qualification of Members of Parliament. He proposed to admit tenures of land of a different description of property to those now required. He would take leaseholds of a sufficient length of term to give the party a reasonable prospect of having an income of 300l. or 600l. a year, as the case required, secured on that leasehold property for life. He would take not only leasehold, but any description of personal property, property in the funds, for instance, or any other kind of property that, was likely to give the possessor a clear income of 300l. or 600l. a year for life. If a man had a valuable collection of pictures, although he derived no income from them, still they were to be considered as personal property, and if the pictures were of sufficient value to be equal to an amount of capital that would produce a rent-charge of 300l. or 600l. a year, why should not the possession of such a collection of pictures be admitted as a qualification? [Oh, oh.] Why not? He would also include professional men. Why should barristers, or physicians, or gentlemen in the army and navy be excluded, if they possessed an income of 300l. or 600l. a year? He did not see why he should not also include fellows of colleges, not members of the church, who were in the receipt of the required amounts of income, Such were the terms of qua- 805 lification for a seat in that House which he contemplated. In order to carry his plan into effect, he must provide in his Bill for the repeal of those clauses in the statute of Queen Anne and in the act of union between Great Britain and Ireland relating to the qualification of persons elected to serve in Parliament. With regard to certain exceptions, such as that relating to the sons of peers and others, he should leave them to be provided for in the course of the progress of the Bill. The hon. Member concluded, by moving for leave to bring in a Bill to repeal an Act passed in the reign of Queen Anne, intituled, "An Act for securing the freedom of Parliament, by further qualifying Members to sit in the House of Commons;" to repeal an enactment contained in the Act for the Union of Great Britain and Ireland, providing for the qualification in respect of property, of the Members elected on the part of Ireland, to sit in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom; and to make other provisions for the qualifications in respect of property of Members elected to sit in the House of Commons, in place of those repealed.

§ Mr. Roebuck
said, he could not allow this motion to be agreed to without addressing a few observations to the House in reply to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Bridport. He protested against any insinuation of a want of consistency on the part of those who were opposed to property qualification altogether if they did not support the present motion. He was of opinion that every attempt to alter the constitution and established laws of this country ought to be based on some grave and tangible principle. They ought not to interfere with any law without due caution and deliberation. The mere interference with any law was bad in itself; it was an evil, and one that could only be justified by some great and leading principle. It could not be justified by what was ordinarily, but correctly, termed a shifting expediency, which meant nothing more than a changing of the tack and a shifting of the sails to meet every wind that blew. No alteration should be attempted, then, unless we could tell what we were about, and what the precise end was we had in view, being fully aware what it was we were seeking, and using justifiable means to obtain our object. His hon. Friend spoke of the course taken in reference to the Ballot and the Reform Bill. 806 Why, if they had stood out for the Ballot, the same terror that carried the Reform Bill would have carried the Ballot along with it; and they who quailed before the people, if those who advocated the Reform Bill had stuck to the Ballot, would have agreed to that measure as contentedly as they did to the Reform Bill. He thought that it was a wise thing for those who at first opposed the Reform Act to accept the Bill as they did, and as it was. It would remain as it was for many a good day yet, and all those evil influences which the Reformers attempted to cut down at the time that measure was passed would again grow up in all their thorough pay and mischief, and they would yet have to carry a sweeping Reform of Parliament. He objected to the proposition of the hon. Member for Bridport, for, while the hon. Member stated that money-qualification was no test of the probity, honesty, or capability of any person in that House, he proposed that a person because he possessed a valuable collection of pictures should be qualified to have a seat in it. So that if a man possessed a Salvator Rosa, or a good picture of a robber, he would be duly qualified to become a Member of the House of Commons. With respect to the exception in favour of the eldest sons of Peers, it might be observed that they ought to be persons who had received an education that fitted them to occupy the important office of senators. But he had seen, day after day in that House, half a dozen instances of the utter inefficiency and incompetency of sons of Peers to sit in that House, and he could point them out. What was the qualification required to become a Legislator? In his opinion it meant that a man should have studied legislation, and jurisprudence, and human nature, and not that when he arrived at the age of twenty-one years, after having studied at Oxford or Cambridge nothing but Greek, Latin, and Mathematics, he should come into that House as a legislator. He was for carrying out a good principle to the full extent, and if their efforts to accomplish that object failed, let the blame fall on those who wished to keep up the exclusive system.

§ Mr. Williams Wynn
would not offer any objection to the present motion, as he thought it might be expedient to consider the state of the law of qualification as it now stood. He had no objection to have the qualification consist of a permanent 807 interest in landed property, but he had some doubt about the practicability of the scheme proposed by the hon. Member for Bridport. He had looked into a Bill passed in the reign of King William, by which qualification by personal property was allowed, but it was found difficult to render the plan really efficient. If the object of the hon. Member for Bridport in making this motion was to procure the repeal of the law of qualification by a side windߞif such was his desire, he would recommend the hon. Gentleman to seek that object by a distinct and positive motion. He said that, because he thought if any description of property was to be admitted as a qualification according to the owner's valuation, it would be folly to suppose that such a law of qualification would be of any use at all. Every one knew that property of the description referred to by the hon. Member for Bridport might be borrowed and transferred from hand to hand with great facility. To prevent a person from using a borrowed qualification, it might be required, as it was by a Bill once introduced by a noble Lord now in the other House that every Member should be required to retain the bond fide qualification during the whole of the time he sat in that House. He certainly was one of those who at that time did not wish the Bill to pass, but in the case of a qualification arising out of personal property only, some such provision would be quite necessary.

§ The Chancellor of the Exchequer
was glad to find that the right hon. Gentleman did not oppose the motion for leave to bring in the Bill. He was at a loss to conceive what could be the feelings of those hon. Gentlemen who wished to have no property qualification at all. That was a principle which he must oppose. The question now was whether the present law did not require some improvement, and whether the Bill proposed would effect the improvement which might be deemed necessary. If they interfered with the existing law, he thought they should do so effectually, and not leave it in an imperfect state so that it could be evaded. The course of objection taken by the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Montgomeryshire, would, he thought,. be equally applicable to the present qualification as to those proposed by the hon. Member for Bridport, because it seemed at present there 808 was somebody who would trust Members with qualifications when no property had really passed into their hands. He recollected a case, he should not mention names, of a gentleman, one of the richest men in England, and his son being Members of that House, although neither father nor son was possessed of the qualification by virtue of which they sat in it. He rejoiced that the matter had been brought before the House, and he hoped in the progress of the Bill proposed a proper amendment of the law would be made. He was therefore quite ready, for one, to give his most hearty concurrence to the motion, and even if his opinions were what they were not, and he was disposed to admit the repeal of all qualification whatever, he would not on that account object to a Bill for the amendment of the existing law.

§ Mr. Leader
thought, that if a variety of qualifications were allowed, as proposed by the hon. Member for Bridport, they would, in all probability, be very strictly enforced, and the law would be more stringent, and not so easily evaded; whereas now it was notorious that the present qualification law was evaded every day. There were, perhaps, a quarter, or one-half, of the Members of that House who were possessed of a fictitious qualification only. It would, therefore, be an improvement if the law were altered, so as to compel persons to have a qualification in either land or money, or pictures, or some sort of property or other. But his own opinion was, that the proper qualification, the only real and true qualification a man could possess, was, that he had the confidence of a majority of the electors of any place that returned him. That was the only true and real qualification that ought to be required. He wished the hon. Member for Bridport had been present at a meeting of the Working Men's Association the other day, for he would have seen there men who worked for their living daily, and yet were as well qualified as many Members of that House to sit in it. Entertaining these opinions, he felt it to be his duty to move as an amendment, that the property qualification of Members of Parliament be altogether abolished.

§ Mr. Warburton
had but a brief reply to make. He had mentioned the case of a collection of pictures merely in illustration of his argument. There were but two 809 general descriptions of property, and his Bill would go to make them both available by way of qualification.