HC Deb 22 November 1852 vol 123 cc298-302
MR. FREDERICK PEEL

said, that seeing the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies in his place, he was desirous of asking permission of the House to correct a misapprehension into which he conceived that the House could not but have been led by what fell from the right hon. Gentleman in replying, on last Friday evening, to a question put by the noble Lord the Member for London (Lord J. Russell), calling for an explanation of the delay that had taken place in transmitting the Constitution to the Colony of the Cape. He (Mr. Peel) understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that a general impression had prevailed throughout the Colony that Earl Grey, in his draft Constitutional Ordinances, had intended to confer the franchise on every man who occupied for a certain number of months any description of fixed property—that it was under that impression that deliberations had taken place in the Legislative Council, and amendments been proposed; and that the Council, conceiving that their franchise was so extensive as to admit the bulk of the coloured classes, and at the same time entertaining great distrust of those classes in consequence of their having united with the Kafirs in rebellion against the Crown, had made amendments restricting very considerably the franchise, with the express view of excluding the coloured classes. He understood the right hon. Gentleman further to state, that after all these proceedings were over, in the course of a conversation between Lieutenant Governor Darling and the Attorney General, Mr. Porter—the latter having, as he (Mr. Peel) understood the right hon. Gentleman, then for the first time taken the trouble to read the clause in question in the draft Ordinances of Earl Grey—observed that it was much less liberal than it professed to be, and that, in fact, it conferred the franchise only on the occupiers of one description of property, namely, house property, and that this qualification made the franchise more exclusive even than that adopted in the amendments of the Legislative Council, which were considered to be so narrow as to have been protested against by the whole Colony. The right hon. Gentleman proceeded to add, that under these circumstances the question of the franchise was involved in new and insuperable difficulties, and he did not know which franchise to adopt; that certainly he could not adopt the franchise contained in Earl Grey's draft Ordinances, because if he did he should be conniving at a delusion. Now, it was quite true that the franchise in the draft Ordinances sent out from this country was restricted to the occupation of house property of the value of 25l.; but the point which he was concerned in making clear was this—that there was not and could not be any misconception in the Colony of the Cape as to the fact of this limitation, because in the covering despatch in which the Ordinances were transmitted, Earl Grey distinctly stated that the question of the franchise was one on which he could not be expected to express any decided opinion; that at so remote a distance from the Cape he could not decide a question of that kind; and that he must abide by the views of those who, being locally connected with the Colony, might be presumed to be cognisant of the nature of its society and the tenure of its property, on which questions the franchise must mainly depend. That, in taking this course, he was prepared to follow the views of the Legislative Council, and especially among them the recommendations of the Attorney General, (Mr. Porter), a gentleman who was much distinguished in the Colony for his ability and for his long official service and professional attainments. Now, he should state that Sir Harry Smith, when Governor of the Cape, had directed the Attorney General (Mr. Porter) to draft a Constitutional Ordinance in accordance with the views of the Colony, of the Council, and of Mr. Porter himself. Mr. Porter proceeded to discharge that duty, and his draft Ordinance was transmitted to this country; and, as far as the question of the franchise was concerned, the only point to which he (Mr. Peel) now adverted, Mr. Porter's draft was the basis of Earl Grey's clause in the draft Ordinances. Without entering into particulars, he might state that Earl Grey made a literal transcript of Mr. Porter's paragraph, and transferred it into his own draft Ordinances. He confessed, then, it appeared to him quite impossible that there could be any misconception in the mind of the Attorney General at the Cape with respect to the precise nature of this qualification. It only remained for him to say, that not only Mr. Porter but every Member of the Legislative Council was, he was certain, quite aware of the nature of the franchise, because he found in the Amendment adopted by the Legislative Council—and he might mention that the question of the franchise was discussed for many days in the Council—the following words added to house property: "whether separately or jointly with any land occupied with the house;" clearly showing that they were aware that the franchise conferred by Earl Grey was restricted to the occupation of house property as distinguished from any other kind of immoveable property. That was the explanation he wished to make, and he trusted that if any hon. Gentleman had been misled by the right hon. Gentle-man the Colonial Secretary into the idea that Earl Grey had resorted to anything like artifice or stratagem to disguise the real nature of the franchise from the Colony, he would now give that noble Lord credit for acting in a plain and straightforward manner.

SIR JOHN PAKINGTON

said, he thought that the House would perceive that the question to which the hon. Gentleman had called their attention was not only one of detail, but one of an intricate and difficult character. He must say that he thought the hon. Member would have treated him with more courtesy if he had given him some notice of his intention to bring the subject forward. He (Sir J. Pakington) had not the slightest idea, until the hon. Gentleman rose, that it was his intention to refer to what had fallen from him on a former evening. He followed the hon. Member with as much attention as he could, and he confessed he could not clearly understand what his reasons were for introducing the subject until he came to his closing observations. From the words used by the hon. Gentleman at the close of his speech, he presumed he meant to say that it was his (Sir J. Pakington's) object on Friday evening last to impute to Earl Grey some intention to mislead the Colony, and to practise some delusion on this question of the franchise. Now, if that were really the hon. Gentleman's impression, he begged altogether to disclaim any such intention, and distinctly to state that he had no wish to make any imputation whatever upon that noble Lord. He wished, also, to correct a mistake into which the hon. Gentleman had fallen, and which, he believed, he had been led into by what he had seen in some of the public journals rather than by what he had heard in that House—namely, that he (Sir J. Pakington) had stated that this question of the franchise was surrounded by "insuperable difficulties." Such a word as "insuperable" he had not used. What he stated was, that the arrivals from the Cape when the Constitution came home in July last, showed that the subject was surrounded by "great and unexpected"—not by "insuperable" difficulties. The substance of all he had said on the occasion was, that by the Council which first took this subject into consideration, subsequently by the seceding members of that Council, and thirdly by the Commission which undertook the management of the subject—that in every one of these cases the franchise proposed was the occupancy of fixed property to the value of 25l. for the twelve preceding months; and the legal construction of that franchise had been, and was now, he believed, held to be, and justly held to be, that every Hottentot who occupied a hut, with adjacent land, provided the whole was worth 25l., would enjoy the right to the franchise. It was so held in the Colony; and it was not only so held in the Colony, but, as he stated the other day, it was ultimately promulgated that this fran- chise had been adopted for the purpose of embracing the greater part, if not the whole, of the Hottentot population. He had further stated that when Earl Grey's Ordinance was sent out, instead of the franchise being the occupany of a hut and land together worth 25l., it directed that the franchise should consist of buildings of that value. As to any imputation upon Earl Grey, he had made none further than this. His own belief was that the change might have been unintentional, nevertheless it was a very important change. The Colony was not aware of the difference when the Constitution was discussed last February. It was discussed under the idea and belief that it was a land franchise, and it was not until after the Amendments had been moved and carried that the difference between the franchise of huts and land, and the franchise of buildings alone, was discovered. He might add, that on this being discovered, the Gentleman who moved those Amendments remarked, "If we had only known this previously, we might have spared ourselves this trouble." All he had said, therefore, was that this discovery had been productive of considerable difficulty, and had involved the necessity, on the part of the Government, of using the utmost discretion before they decided ultimately what the franchise should be.

SIR CHARLES WOOD

said, he did not understand the right hon. Baronet to have imputed to Earl Grey that he had done anything to mislead the Colony; though he did use words which might seem to bear that construction. What his hon. Friend the Member for Bury (Mr. F. Peel) meant to say was, that whatever franchise Earl Grey gave was the precise franchise mentioned in the Ordinance which had been sent home from the Cape, drawn up by the Attorney General for that Colony; therefore his hon. Friend did not understand how there could have been any misconception at the Cape. That Ordinance Earl Grey had copied. So far as the subject of the franchise was concerned, he (Sir C. Wood) did not say what that franchise was, but whatever it was, it came from the Cape to Earl Grey, and was sent back by him as he had received it, unaltered.

Subject dropped.