PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE.

HC Deb 25 February 1867 vol 185 cc937-93

Order for Committee to consider the Act 2 &c 3 Will. IV. c. 45, read.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

Mr. Speaker—In rising to move that the House resolve itself into Committee of the Whole House to take into consideration the most important statute of modern times, it might for a moment be supposed that proposition was one condemnatory of the great Act of 1832. I can assure the House, however, that nothing is further from the intentions and from the feelings of Her Majesty's Advisers. What they wish on the present occasion, if they have the opportunity, is to do that more efficiently, and not less sincerely, which they attempted in 1859, and that is to improve and complete the Reform Act. Sir, the men who devised and carried the Reform Act of 1832 were statesmen, and their names will live in history. They encountered a great emergency, and they proved themselves equal to the occasion. A national party, a party which is nothing if it be not national, had by too long a possession of power shrunk into a heartless oligarchy. The Whig party seized the occasion which was before them, and threw the Government of this country into the hands of the middle classes. Never, to my mind, was any political experiment more successful. Never has a country been better governed, to my mind, than England has been during the last thirty years. Never during a like period have the annals of the House of Commons been more resplendent. But, Sir, there was a deficiency in that Act—I will not say an intended deficiency, but one which certainly arose from want of useful information on an important part of a great question; and, perhaps, without any offence to hon. Gentlemen opposite, I might say that omission was perhaps more naturally made by a party which, generally speaking, had built up their policy rather upon Liberal opinions than upon popular rights. The political rights of the working classes which existed before the Act of 1832, and which not only existed but were acknowledged, were on that occasion disregarded and even abolished, and during the whole period that has since elapsed, in consequence of the great vigour that has been given to the Government of this country, and of the multiplicity of subjects of commanding interest that have engaged and engrossed attention, no great incon- venience has been experienced from that cause. Still, during all that time there has been a feeling, sometimes a very painful feeling, that questions have arisen which have been treated in this House without that entire national sympathy which is desirable. Well, Sir, it is our business on this occasion, in the first and most important place, to endeavour to offer some proposition to the House which will restore those rights that were lost in 1832 to the labouring class of the country, and which will bring back again that fair partition of political power which the old Constitution of the country recognised, and which, if practicable, it seems to me that all of us are desirous should be accomplished. There is a very great difference between the period of 1832 and the period of 1867. In the period of 1832 Parliamentary Reform was a subject to fire the imaginations and excite the passions of all men. It was one which banded parties together with a heat and with a power such as very rarely occur. But on the present occasion there is great unanimity on the subject. We who have succeeded to the place which we occupy in the spirit of the Constitution, finding that question unsettled and by universal consent requiring settlement, can appeal with confidence, as I now understand, to the candid interpretation of the House of Commons upon our plans and motives, and can count even on the support, of course the discriminating, but still the not less generous support, of our political rivals.

Sir, with these feelings, I shall endeavour to speak to those Resolutions which I placed only a fortnight ago upon the table of this House. [For these Resolutions see Contents, February 11, and the Appendix.] It is only a fortnight ago that I asked the House to consider the propriety of permitting Her Majesty's Government to proceed on this subject by way of Resolution, and it was then more than doubtful whether that permission would be conceded. It has been said that the Resolutions placed upon the table are vague, and not intended to lead the House to any practical conclusion. My presence to-day, according to all Parliamentary practice, to give the explanations which the House has a right to expect, is a sufficient answer to that charge. I confess for myself, Sir, that I cannot agree with those who, in attempting to settle great questions, begin by disregarding the importance of principles. It appears to me that it is of great importance, if we are endeavouring to bring about a general un- derstanding in the House upon a subject of great moment, that we should begin by seeing whether there is between us a sympathy on the principles on which that settlement is to be founded. And although I was never less inclined to enter into controversy with the House on any part of the subject before us, yet still, in vindication of the Government, I do not think the period fixed for the consideration of these Resolutions, which form a whole and are connected together, and which at least are the result of reflection and pains—I do not think that the period was unreasonable. Because, what has been the practice under such circumstances? Gentlemen take these Resolutions, and endeavour themselves to see what they lead to and what would be the practical results. They themselves make combinations and applications which fail, and some of which, perhaps, are partially successful; and when they find that the solution of the difficulty is not so easy as they imagine, they come, as it were, into a more practical state of mind, and at the right time they treat Her Majesty's Ministers with more candour, and aid them with more zealous co-operation.

I will first ask the House to consider that portion of the question which is, perhaps, immediately the most interesting, and which has occasioned of late years the most controversy in this House—namely, the state of the borough franchise. In considering this question our anxiety has been to widen, as far as we could, the right of exercising political suffrage; and, while retaining the general character of this House, and while we endeavour to give to the working classes their old share in the formation of Parliament, at the same time not derogating from that variety of character in this House which I believe to be so important, and the main foundation of our influence and authority. We have endeavoured, in considering the question, to see whether we could not improve and increase the suffrage for boroughs, with a due regard to three important qualities—capital, intelligence, and labour. With this view we have resolved to recommend the House to adopt four new franchises in boroughs. These four franchises have no novelty to recommend them or to alarm the House, for I believe they have on several occasions been the subject of our discussions, and in all instances they have experienced a very favourable reception from the House. The first new franchise that we wish to establish would be an educational franchise. In 1859 we introduced a Bill in which we proposed to give the suffrage to the graduates of all Universities, to the members of all the learned professions, to clergymen and ministers of religion, to certificated schoolmasters, and others. I should myself wish to see such a suffrage extended. In the present Resolutions, or in the Bill which, if the Resolutions are sanctioned, it will be my duty to bring in, that franchise would to a certain degree be extended, although not to that degree to which some would wish to see it carried. I believe, however, that under it a considerable number of persons, comparatively speaking, would exercise the franchise who otherwise would not enjoy it. To that point I will advert afterwards. The next new franchise that we wish to establish is a savings bank franchise. That is a franchise which has always been favourably considered, and which has been included in almost every project of Parliamentary Reform of late years, but to which one objection of considerable importance has been urged, and that is, that it is very difficult to establish and register the names of those who would be qualified under it. We hope to be able to lay a plan before the House which will be found easy and practical, and to render that franchise self-adjusting. In that case it will be a very satisfactory and important franchise. We propose that a qualification of £30 in the savings bank, with a retention of it for one year, which is a necessary condition, should be the subject of the second franchise, while the third new franchise that we should propose would be established on public property, so that any person who has £50 in the debt of this country—in the public funds—shall be entitled to a vote. The fourth new franchise is one founded upon the payment of direct taxation. We propose that every person who pays 20s. a year direct taxation shall have a vote to elect Members of Parliament. These are the four new franchises that we propose. I will give the House the numbers that the Government believe will register and record their votes under the savings bank franchise—not the numbers that may appear on the first blush qualified to vote under that new franchise, because that would be deceptive. But we believe that under the £30 savings bank qualification in boroughs there will at this moment be 35,000 persons who will register and record their votes. [Sir GEORGE GREY: Having no other qualification?] Yes, having no other qualification. We believe that under the education franchise in boroughs there will be 10,000 persons, and under the funded property qualification there will be 7,000 persons, while the direct taxpayers will not be less than 30,000 persons entitled to vote.

Having stated the new franchises proposed for boroughs, I will ask the House to consider the question of the re-adjustment of the old franchise. The Resolutions which I have placed upon the table are connected together, and I wish to call the attention of the House to the fifth Resolution. What is expressed in the fifth Resolution is the belief of the Government that— The principle of Plurality of Votes if adopted by Parliament would facilitate the settlement of the Borough Franchise on an extensive basis. I wish to make an observation on that Resolution. In the first place, a very great error has prevailed as to the meaning which the Government associated with this plurality of voting. Our intention was that any person who possessed one of the four new franchises that I have mentioned, if he were an occupier in a borough or if he had a right to vote for a Member of Parliament, should vote, not merely for the occupation qualification, but also for any one other of the new franchises which he might possess. We believe that if that principle were adopted it might have led to results very satisfactory to largo numbers of the people of this country; but we are bound to state frankly that this is not a view of the case which, if we are permitted to bring in a Bill, we shall at all insist upon. It seems to us that it is not desirable to make any proposition on these questions which we have not a fair prospect of carrying to a successful issue, and, therefore, although I myself believe that it is a principle well worthy of our consideration, for it involves nothing invidious in its character, applying alike to all classes, yet it is not one which I am now in any way recommending to the House, or announcing that we should act upon it if we had permission to bring in a Bill. It is, however, necessary that I should speak frankly to the House on the subject of the fifth Resolution.

Then, Sir, having been obliged to give up acting upon that Resolution, we had to consider the basis on which, in our opinion, Parliament should fix the borough franchise so far as occupation is concerned. It must be remembered that Parliament has asserted the principle of rating as the basis of our electoral system. It must be remembered also, in offering the general views of the Government on the matter, that we have placed the assertion of that principle among the Resolutions on the table of the House; and therefore I will assume that on that subject there is now no question. We have, then, to fix upon some franchise with regard to the boroughs of which rating shall be the basis; and our object being that we should fix upon an authentic basis—one not nominally of ratepayers, but, as far as possible, really of ratepayers—that we should have some resting point to remain upon, and rating being now, as I hope it will be, accepted as the basis of our whole electoral system, we should recommend the House, having relinquished our fifth Resolution, to adjust the occupation franchise in boroughs upon a £6 rating basis. It now devolves upon me to show to the House what will be the effect upon the number of the constituency of the new franchises which we have proposed, and of the re-adjustment of the occupation franchise in boroughs which I have just mentioned. I must again remind the House that the numbers which I place before them are the numbers which Her Majesty's Government believe will really be added to the roll. We make all due allowance for those who do not register, and all due deductions for other classes, in respect of which I will not now weary the House. But we believe that with a £6 rating franchise, the number qualified being, I think, 203,000, there would be new voters to the number of 140,000. But we must make a deduction of 10,000 from that, because probably that; proportion may be already qualified as electors. Therefore, we place the number of new voters under a £6 franchise in boroughs at 130,000. We place the savings I bank voters at 35,000; we place the direct taxation voters at 30,000; the funded property qualification voters at 7,000; and the educational franchise voters at 10,000; making altogether 212,000, which is the number that, iii our opinion, will practically be added to the constituency of the boroughs. It will now be my duty to call the attention of the House to what we propose with respect to the county franchise. We propose, in the first place, to extend to the counties the four new sub- franchises which I have already mentioned; and the effect of this upon the counties will be to add to the constituency by direct taxation 52,000, by funded property 13,000, by the educational franchise 15,000, and by the savings bank qualification 25,000 voters. I must here remark, both with reference to the county and the borough franchise which depends on the savings banks, that all these estimates are made upon the old savings banks. There is no Return yet of the Post Office savings banks; but of course in time, if that national institution advances and prospers, it will have a very sensible effect upon this matter. Extending, then, to the counties those four new franchises, we propose to reduce the occupation franchise in counties to £20. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Will that also be founded upon rating?] It will be founded upon rating. This will add, after all deductions, to the occupiers having votes in counties, 82,500. The whole of the increase to the constituency of the country, in round numbers, will be 400,000.

The House will now permit me to advert to one of the Resolutions, not strictly in the order in which it is placed on the paper, but on which it would be more convenient for the general management of this subject that I should at once touch; and that is the Resolution to which an Amendment has been given notice of—namely, No. 9—which declares— That it is expedient that provision should be made for the better prevention of Bribery and Corruption at Elections. Sir, I have heard that in dealing with 'this subject we have only ourselves to blame, because we thoughtlessly, and, perhaps, incautiously, supported an hon. Baronet, a Member of this House, in the last Session of Parliament, in a Resolution which we must now find very inconvenient to us. [An hon. MEMBER: Hear, hear!] Sir, I can only say to those who have made that observation, and to the hon. Gentleman who cheers it, that they are under a very great mistake. After what happened, not only before that Resolution was passed, but after what has occurred subsequently and recently in this country, I think that any Ministry, of whatever party it might be formed, would not be doing its duty to its Sovereign and its country if it did not attempt vigorously to grapple with this question of bribery and corruption. And, Sir, we have given to it our anxious attention, and are perfectly prepared to act upon the conclusions at which we have ar- rived. This is not the occasion upon which it would, I am sure, be agreeable to the House to enter into minute details on such a subject; but I may, perhaps, advert to one or two of the principal conclusions to which we have come, and which we shall recommend the House to adopt in regard to it. In the first place, it is our opinion—and we hope that we may induce the House to agree with that opinion—that after an election, if the decision within two months is challenged, either by the candidate who was defeated or by the electors, he or they shall be empowered to serve the returning officer with their protest; that when that protest has been received the returning officer shall communicate it to the proper authorities—the Clerk at the table, for example, Mr. Speaker, or it may be the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas; and that then these authorities should have the power immediately to authorize the despatch of two assessors to the spot, to hold their court and conduct their examination at the locality, and there decide upon the question at issue. Of course, these assessors are not to be sent—that protest is not to be acted upon, unless the persons making it enter into their recognizances to bear the necessary expenses of the investigation. And as we are unwilling in any way to diminish the jurisdiction of this House, or to take its real business from out of its bosom, in case we give an appeal from the decision of the assessors, we propose that it should be given in this way—that the person decided against may make his appeal to this House, and that this House may, if it thinks fit, appoint a Select Committee to investigate the question. ["No, no!"] The decision of the assessors will remain fifteen days on the table. If it is not questioned it will be acted upon; if it is questioned, the person who questions it and makes the appeal must, of course, again enter into his recognizances to bear the necessary expenses, and it will be open to the House, if it thinks proper, to act upon that appeal. The next conclusion upon this matter which we shall recommend the House to adopt is to declare that, when a candidate has been convicted of bribery, the other candidate whose conduct is proved to have been pure, although he may have been in a minority, shall be returned to this House. Sir, these are two important recommendations to which, from a desire not to weary the House, I have done very imperfect jus- tice; because, of course, all these regulations are very much matters of detail; but I hope that I have succeeded in conveying to the House the general results at which we have arrived. We believe that their consequences will be very considerable upon the conduct of the constituencies, and also of the Members of this House. [An hon. MEMBER: What about the punishment?] I would rather decline to enter at the present moment into the subject of punishments, and prefer to leave it till this branch of the question is more specifically before the House. I hope, although this is a subject involving very great difficulty, that we may be able to arrive at certain conditions by which inveterately corrupt boroughs shall after a certain time, and after the fulfilment of those conditions, by their own conduct lose, as a matter of course, the power of returning Members to Parliament. If the Resolutions are passed, and it should fall to our lot to bring in a Bill, we shall be perfectly ready to act upon this question of corruption by introducing clauses to carry these propositions, or propositions of an analogous character, into effect. But it will be for the House to decide whether they shall be adopted. I cannot conceal from the House that this is a subject which must lead to prolonged controversy, and as it is no doubt their desire that a Bill affecting the representation of the people in Parliament should be carried, I will not say with precipitation, but, at least, without any unnecessary delay, it will be for them to decide whether it is to be dealt with in that or in a separate measure. I can assure the House that the Government are prepared to fulfil, not only in the letter, but in the spirit, the engagements which were entered into on this question last Session, and to which they themselves were a party. If the House should be of opinion that it would encumber the Franchise and Distribution Bill or the other subjects which must necessarily enter into a measure of Parliamentary Reform too much to couple with them this matter, all I can say is that I will personally undertake to bring in a separate Bill dealing with it on the very same night, so that the passing of the Franchise and Distribution Bill would be disembarrassed of the delay which might otherwise take place.

The subject on which I have just treated leads me to the consideration of those venal boroughs which have of late so much engaged the painful attention of the country. It is the opinion of the Government that no delay should occur in enabling the House to decide on the position of those boroughs, and that is a very relevant part of the task which if these Resolutions pass we are prepared to undertake. The boroughs to which I refer are Great Yarmouth, returning two Members; Lancaster, returning two Members; Totnes, returning two Members; and Reigate, returning one Member, to Parliament. The Government have given to this part of the question anxious and painful consideration, and they think that it is their duty to recommend the disfranchisement of the whole of those boroughs, and to transfer the seven seats thus rendered vacant to towns which have risen into importance since the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832. Those seven seats would not, of course, meet all the fair claims to the distinction of being represented in this House which might be urged; but on that subject, notwithstanding the communications which I have had made to me, the Government have been guided by the principles and feelings which are expressed in the 7th and 8th Resolutions. We have, in fact, in considering the question of distribution, entirely been influenced by the consideration of enfranchisement and not disfranchisement. We are alive to the great difficulty, and even the great danger, of rashly, recklessly, and thoughtlessly interfering with the representative system of a society so old, so complicated, and now so vast and various as that of the British Empire. We are unwilling to disturb any centre of representation, our main consideration being that in the revision of our electoral system which must necessarily be periodical, however distant, from one another the periods—we should confine ourselves, as far as we possibly can, to giving representation to those places which ought to be, and are not represented, duly maintaining at the same time that balance between the various interests in this House which, I believe, the majority of us are anxious to preserve. We have anxiously examined all the claims for representation which can upon any reasonable ground be advanced by the several communities which have risen into importance since 1832, and we have naturally, in coming to a decision upon the subject, been influenced by a triple consideration—in a great degree by population, by the distinctive interests of that population, and lastly, by locality. We are desirous, as far as we can, to maintain the distribution of representation over the country, because we feel that unequal distribution must lead to discontent. We have endeavoured to provide that each distinctive interest in towns should be fairly represented, and the towns which, after the most anxious and careful investigation, we will, if the Resolutions should pass and we have the opportunity, recommend to Parliament to enfranchise are Hartlepool, Darlington, Burnley, Staleybridge, St. Helen's, Dewsbury, Barnsley, and Middles-borough. I stop at the next, and the House will, I trust, not ask me to mention its name. We wish to give a Member to what is called the "Black Country." In our own Bill of 1859, as well as in the Bill of the late Government, a provision of that kind was introduced. To reconcile a rating basis and a mining population is, however, a difficult task. So many and such contradictory representations from different localities have been made to me, and I have been asked so anxiously and upon such good grounds not to precipitate the determination of the Government on this point, that I am sure the House, always anxious for fair play, will allow me to describe the town to which I am now adverting as one in the Black Country. The remaining towns which we propose to enfranchise are Croydon, Gravesend, and Torquay. The House will perceive that the North of England—and that very properly—has a very large share in this appropriation, and we think it extremely desirable that if there are towns of sufficient importance in the South their claims to representation should also be acknowledged. We look, therefore, upon the enfranchisement of Croydon, Graves-end, and Torquay, as only fair and just. Before I leave the question of boroughs I will mention that it is the intention of the Government, if they should have the opportunity, to recommend to Parliament to divide the Tower Hamlets, and give to each division two Members. In so doing it will, of course, be necessary to provide that its boundaries should not be allowed to remain exactly as they were left by the Act of 1832, but that they should be adapted to the requirements of the present population; and it seems to us extremely desirable that communities so populous and extensive should be made the basis of an increased representation. By these means fourteen Members will be given to boroughs.

I now come to another part of the important subject of distribution. The House has acknowledged that the counties in England are inadequately represented. No one, I may add, has acknowledged that to be the case more explicitly than Earl Russell himself. I remember it was from this very place that he did me the honour of stating that in one of his numerous Reform Bills he had given increased representation to the counties in consequence of the remarks which I had offered on the subject. The result, too, of our deliberations year after year, has, I think, convinced the House and the country that it is important the counties should receive a more adequate representation than they now possess. We are about greatly to increase the representation of towns, and we must bear in mind that in doing so we must diminish in a considerable degree the representative power of some of the smaller boroughs, which are generally supposed to furnish an indirect compensation to the counties for their entirely inadequate representation. What we propose, therefore, is that we should take certain counties and divide them, giving in each case a constituency composed, irrespective of the boroughs, of a pure county population, numbering 100,000, to the new Members thus created. The counties to the division of which we mean to ask the assent of the House are North Lancashire, North Lincolnshire, West Kent, East Surrey, Middlesex, South Staffordshire, and South Devon. We shall, if these proposals are adopted, have fourteen new Members for counties, and fourteen for boroughs, while the number of seats with which we intend to ask the House to deal is thirty. How twenty eight of these are to be appropriated I have just explained; the remaining two we would dispose of as follows:—We propose to carry out a scheme which was offered to the consideration of the House in 1859, and which, though the measure in which it was embraced was not passed, received the entire approval of the House. I allude to our proposal to divide South Lancashire, as well as to give a Member to Birkenhead. Although that proposal was not then carried into effect, the vacancy created in certain seats two or three years afterwards furnished the House with an opportunity of re-considering the matter; and so irresistible were the claims of Birkenhead found to be—those of South Lancashire being also very great—that a compromise was made by giving a Member to Birkenhead and an additional Member to South Lancashire. We propose that South Lancashire should be divided, and this will make twenty-nine Members. We also propose that the House should recognise the claims of the London University.

I have now explained the distribution of scats proposed by the Government. Fourteen Members are given to boroughs, and I earnestly hope and fervently believe that Parliament will never have any cause to regret the transference of the franchise to the new boroughs. Notwithstanding all that has taken place, I believe that the real opinion of this country is opposed to the practice of bribery at elections, and I believe, too, that these communities will repudiate such practices. I expect with confidence that their Members, on whatever side they may sit, will add to the honour and utility of this House. There are, according to the list I have read, fifteen Members given to the counties, and they, no doubt, must be, considering their constituencies, men of very great importance. The presumption, therefore, is that they will add to the strength and reputation of the House of Commons. I may remark that in proposing the division of Middlesex we are proposing a plan which will at last give more peculiar representation to Kensington, Chelsea, Hammersmith, and the populous districts in those neighbourhoods. Therefore, to the claims both of the West and East of London, which are at present most inadequately or not at all represented, the plan of the Government will afford some satisfaction. We can only carry this plan into effect by availing ourselves of the seven seats justly forfeited in the opinion of the whole House and the country, and by appealing to the patriotism and public spirit of some of the smaller boroughs in the country. The principle of this plan—a principle which I trust will always be adopted in this House—is never wholly to disfranchise, except on account of corruption, and those boroughs, therefore, to which I now allude will still remain Parliamentary boroughs; and we shall still have the pleasure of listening in this House to the hon. Members who represent them. I will not trouble the House with the names of these boroughs. [Cries of"Name!"] Their names are on the table, and when I state the principle on which the Government propose to appeal to them to curtail their superfluous representation, every hon. Member will then have it in his power to ascertain what boroughs they are. [Cries of"Name!"] That is not in the Reso- lutions, and to the Resolutions I mean strictly to confine myself. All boroughs under a population of 7,000 will be asked, in all courtesy, by this House to spare one of their Members. These are in number twenty-three, which, added to the seven forfeited seats, show how the plans of the Government can be carried into effect.

It now becomes my duty to call the attention of the House to other important Resolutions, which, if sanctioned by the House, will materially affect the question of corruption, because they tend to terminate the expenditure on a great scale in county elections. If the House will agree to the three Resolutions which refer to the registration of county voters, to the manner in which the voters shall be polled, and to the mode by which voters at a distance may record their votes, the Government will introduce a series of provisions in their Bill which will, I may say without exaggeration, entirely put an end to the vast expenditure now incurred in county elections. If you combine these three Resolutions with the provisions, such as I have already indicated, of our Bill against corruption, and with the course which we recommend Parliament to take in reference to those boroughs whose conduct has recently been under the painful scrutiny of the country, I think you will agree that a great blow will be dealt against bribery and corruption in the election of Members to Parliament, which will afford a hope to the country that those evils may possibly in time be entirely suppressed. Therefore, I have great confidence that the House will pass those Resolutions; and I undertake, on the part of the Government, that if they are passed we will bring forward a series of practical proposals which will be easy of adoption and beneficial in operation. The registration of county voters will then be assimilated to the principle on which the registration of borough voters is placed. The polling places will be increased. I will not say that every parish will be a polling place, because there may be some parishes with no voters; but we would have polling places so frequent, and polling districts so limited, that county elections might be carried on so economically that it would be utterly impossible to incur the vast expenditure which even now occurs. If the Resolution with respect to voting papers be adopted by Parliament, we have reason to believe that that system may be acted on with beneficial effects, and thus there will be an end of the im- mense abuses arising out of bringing up voters from an immense distance at a fabulous cost.

I know not that I hare omitted noticing any Resolution before the House except the last, on which it is almost unnecessary for me to make any observation, because I have already on a previous occasion referred to it. I will only say that I have learnt that there exists some misapprehension of the remarks I made with respect to a Commission for settling the boundaries of boroughs. I am told that it was understood from what I said that freeholders in boroughs should no longer vote for counties. No such idea ever occurred to my mind. There is not in the Bill which I hope to introduce any attempt to disfranchise any voter. We respect the Resolution which the House arrived at on a previous occasion, whatever my private opinion may be, and J always expressed it frankly, to the effect that every man should vote where his qualification is. I am, however, satisfied to submit to the decision of the House, and all I urged on the House was to consider the question of defining the boundaries between boroughs in a just and fair manner. The House will observe that on this head we recommend the issue of a Royal Commission. If these Resolutions pass, and we are authorized to bring in a Bill, it is our intention that the Royal Commission should issue immediately, and at once proceed to act, whereas if the Commission were made a Parliamentary Commission, and if it were bound up with the Bill, the Commission could not act until the passing of the Bill.

I have now fulfilled my task. I told hon. Members who made inquiries since the time when the Resolutions were laid on the table that I had taken a note of them, and that at the proper time I would explain to the House the application which the Government recommend should be given to the principles expressed in the Resolutions. I trust that the House will candidly consider the observations I have made. It will be our duty on the passing of the Resolutions to introduce a Bill, and I think that its provisions are such as will on the whole satisfy public opinion and the requirements of the case. It will add something like one-third to the constituency, and cause a considerable addition to the number of voters belonging to the working classes. I hope, therefore, it will be fairly considered that they have resumed their ancient position in the Parliamentary scheme of this country. At any rate, Her Majesty's Go- verument have brought forward, I will not call it an honest Bill, because that epithet has been used so often of late that it might lead to angry recrimination. But they have brought forward a sincere Bill, which they are prepared to carry. Moderate it may be in spirit, but essentially practical, and which I earnestly hope will be backed by the good feeling of an united people. I move, Sir, that you do now leave the chair.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)

MR. LOWE

Sir, the right hon. Gentleman has concluded his speech by telling us that the Government has brought in a Bill. If that statement were accurate I would not have troubled the House with a single remark on this occasion; but it is just because the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not conclude by asking for leave to bring in a Bill, but asks the House to go into Committee on Resolutions, that I feel bound to trespass upon its attention. I am not so presumptuous as to offer any criticism off-hand on the measure which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has laid before us, nor have I the slightest objection to the speech in which he has introduced the Resolutions. I think it however my duty, as an independent Member of Parliament, to call the attention of the House very seriously and very earnestly to the position in which we find ourselves placed, both with regard to the Government and with regard to the constitutional practice of the House, in reference to the course which we are now asked to adopt. There may be circumstances connected with party which would make it difficult for other Members of more weight than myself to make these observations; but being, at the present moment, independent of party, though I hope not for long, I can speak what I think, and what ought to be said, but will not be said, unless by some outcast like myself. Now, Sir, I wish to speak with all good humour of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but unfortunately, in order to explain fully what I mean, I am compelled to do a somewhat ungracious thing, to take a little retrospect of his conduct during the past fortnight. This day fortnight he made a speech of two hours and a quarter long in which—unlike his speech of one hour and a quarter to-night, which told us everything—he told us nothing. I listened to it, as I believe we all did, with the utmost attention, and the only two things which I could derive from it were that he was exceedingly anxious to sharpen the difference between town and country, and to make the House understand, that come what might—notwithstanding any measure they might introduce—it was absolutely absurd to think that the Government could go out upon a Reform Bill. These two things I clearly understood, but as to the rest, really I could understand nothing, neither why the Resolutions were brought in, what they were, nor what they were to do. Sir, the right hon. Gentleman did not so much as allude to that Resolution, which, if I am not mistaken, is destined to play the most important part in the whole list—namely, the one which refers to plurality of voting. Nor did he mention voting papers. Indeed, so inveterate was his reticence that he would not oven place the Resolutions before us by the usual notice, but left us for twelve hours, until the newspapers came out in the morning, in perfect ignorance of their terms. The effect of that has been unfortunate, because an opportunity has been lost of putting the House in possession of the wishes and opinions of the Government, and we have spent a whole fortnight, which ought to have been devoted to the consideration of the plan of the Government, in puzzling our brains to try and find out what the plan is, and I believe that the Government themselves have been engaged in pretty much the same operation. I say all this breeds delay, because it is impossible that we can go into Committee to-night and debate the plan of the Government which has been only just explained. Indeed, I maintain that the plan of the Government, clearly and ably stated, as it has been by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is really not before the House at this moment. It is like a balloon in the air. We are not in contact with it. The Resolutions of the Government have no more to do with the plan of the Government than Squire Thornhill's three famous postulates had to do with the argument he had with Moses Primrose, when, in order to controvert the right of the clergy to tithes, he laid down the principles that a whole is greater than its part, that whatever is is, and that three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles. This delay is much to be regretted, because I believe the House is really in earnest and wishes to come to the consideration of the question of Reform; so that I am justified in saying that it was very unfortunate that the past fortnight should have been wasted. I must say also that it appears to me that it is very much the fault of the right hon. Gentleman. In the first place, we had a speech which told us nothing; then we had Resolutions which told us little more than nothing; then we had the reasons (which came afterwards, instead of before) given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, why Resolutions were proposed instead of a Bill. I certainly myself could not conceive why they should have been proposed. We know why the Indian Resolutions were proposed. It was to found a Bill. They were precise and accurate—the heads of the Bill which was afterwards brought in, and in fact, after they were proposed and adopted there was little more to do than to clothe them in the technical language of an Act of Parliament. For instance, the first Resolution said that a Secretary of State should be appointed, and that all the power then held by the Board of Control, the Court of Directors, and the Court of Proprietors should be transferred to him. That was something like a Resolution. It was so drawn that it could be made into a clause of an Act of Parliament. If the right hon. Gentleman had put his Resolutions on the present occasion in that way, although I am not partial to the mode of proceeding by Resolution, I should have thought it captious to have objected to them. But the Resolutions which he has now moved are mere hungry and empty abstractions, which give us no definite idea whatever. They are simply abstract propositions, which can neither be said to be true nor false, and only derive meaning when applied to the details of the thing with which we have to deal, which is not abstract, but concrete. We are not accustomed in England to the discussion of mere general principles which a philosophical mind may extract from the details of a measure, but what we ought to have before us is some real and definite scheme. So this House has proceeded for centuries past. In this case, so far from that, I assert that the Resolutions which the House is asked to discuss do not in the least involve the matters which the right hon. Gentleman has opened to us to-night; and, if we pass them all, do not commit us to one statement he has made. If the Resolutions were made use of to conclude or to exclude something, or to mark out the limits of the Bill, I could understand them, but they really do nothing of the sort; they neither conclude nor exclude anything, and, if they did, they would be still open to this objection, why not do so by a Bill? I have no secrets to tell, because I know none; but it is perfectly notorious that there have been changes of opinion in the Government within the last fortnight on this question of Reform, and it is equally notorious that whatever difficulty the Members of the Government found in reconciling their differences of opinion, they never found any at all in making them fit into the frame of these Resolutions. They really are no framework at all, but an elastic band, which will hold whatever you choose to put into it. The first Resolution enunciates the general principle of the extension of the franchise. What trifling is this when the right hon. Gentleman has told us this evening that he proposed a £6 rating franchise for boroughs and a £20 for counties, with other collateral franchises. Why, Sir, if he had brought in a Bill with that provision it would have got rid at once of the first four Resolutions. The first four Resolutions do not help us to those proposals, yet the proposals are said to depend on the four Resolutions. The first Resolution states that the number of voters should be increased; the second, that the qualification should be reduced, and collateral franchises provided; the third, that no class shall predominate over the rest—no doubt the right hon. Gentleman will argue that such is the effect—and the fourth declares that the basis shall be rating. They tell us nothing, they prove nothing, they do nothing, whether we pass them or leave them. He might have struck the whole four out of the list, for they are all included in the single proposition of a £6 rating franchise. The right hon. Gentleman makes a statement of one set of things, over which statement the House has no jurisdiction, and then asks the House to vote upon another state of things. The right hon. Gentleman said, on Friday night, that he was going, in pursuance of the practice of Parliament, to explain the intentions of the Government with reference to the Resolutions submitted to the House. I should like to know where he finds such a practice of Parliament. Parliament, whatever faults it has, at all events has maintained its character as a business-like assembly. But is it business-like to introduce a number of abstract propositions, withholding the concrete scheme, and to ask Parliament to waste its time in the discussion of abstract theses almost too general to be submitted to boys in a debating society. I maintain that there is no precedent whatever for such an extraordinary course as that which has been taken. I racked my brains to find out the reason why it was taken, and I could find no other than the disciplina arcani, which affords a convenient method for the development of any particular doctrine that happens to be wanted. The right hon. Gentleman, in answer to a question from the noble Lord the Member for Huntingdonshire (Lord Robert Montagu), took us into his confidence, and told us why he introduced the Resolutions, and the reason is so incredible that I could hardly trust myself to state it to the House if I had not the words in my pocket to refer to. The right hon. Gentleman, in effect, said that both Whigs and Tories had tried their hands at Reform, and had failed. Therefore, said the right hon. Gentleman, the argument is irresistible that no Government hereafter ought to be turned out on the question of Reform; and he drew the collateral inference which tended to the same conclusion, that no party spirit ought to exist upon this question, but that it should be put aside altogether. Having advanced so far he went a step further, and his Parliamentary experience suggested to him that the way in which the Government was likely to be defeated on Reform was by means of abstract Resolutions, because on a former occasion some evil-minded person had moved an abstract Resolution and had defeated a Government upon it. Therefore his mode of reasoning was, if we do not move abstract Resolutions others will; and, to prevent their turning us out by them, we will take all the abstract Resolutions we can think of upon the subject and move them. This is actually the precise reason the right hon. Gentleman has given to the House for introducing these Resolutions. It was that he might bind over the House to keep the peace. We were to enter into recognizances towards the Government not to move any abstract Resolutions at all to torment them. The right hon. Gentleman is a much better tactician than I am; but I doubt most extremely whether this was a sound way of proceeding. The House will remember the fairy tale of the princess, of whom it was foretold that she should be killed by some sharp instrument. The King banished from the court all the sharp instruments he could think of; but fate would be accomplished, and the princess was killed by the sharp point of a spindle. So, Sir, if it be the will of the House of Commons to turn out any Government, and to perform the operation by the way of abstract Resolutions, it is not thirteen, or even thirty, which would exhaust the possible number. Human ingenuity would be found equal to the task of framing yet one more for the purpose of effecting the object. But, Sir, I would ask, is it because Whigs and Tories have alike failed to carry a Reform Bill, that the right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues are to enjoy absolute immunity against the consequences of failure? What right have they to petition to have the mark of Cain set upon them, that nobody should kill them? I confess that I should have thought just the contrary—I should have thought that the very fact that men upon both sides had tried and failed—though no reason against future trials—yet ought to operate as a reason why you should not relax the penalty which awaits such an attempt. Surely if Governments with majorities, and Governments with minorities, have alike tried and have alike failed, the House ought not therefore to relax the Parliamentary safeguard it possesses—the power of holding the Ministry responsible for failure, the proper check on rash and ill-considered undertakings. If men undertake such a task, who have not the strength or the union to carry it through, I think we should not unduly endeavour to discourage them; but I can imagine nothing more unreasonable, in a matter of such grave importance, than to relax those safeguards which are of the highest possible value to us and to our posterity, relating to a question which ought to be entered on with the greatest deliberation, and with all the calmness, wisdom, experience, and moderation that can be given to it. As to divesting ourselves of party spirit—if we can so divest ourselves while considering this question, why not get rid of it altogether? But, Sir, party spirit is inherent in the minds of public men. Therefore the wise men who framed our Constitution said—with that true practical English instinct which would not assume that men are not actuated by the motives which do actuate them—We will take human nature as we find it, and as we find the evil existing we will neutralize it by opposing party spirit to party spirit. Thus it is that we have the party spirit of the Government met by the party spirit of the Opposition, and we find that by the collision of both, ideas are struck out which benefit the public interests. It is the best safeguard we have; and I should think that nothing was so undesirable as that it should be removed. So far, therefore, from the argument of the right hon. Gentleman carrying conviction to my mind, it has had precisely the contrary effect; and I think that we are bound, especially in this instance, to adhere to the safeguards which exist.

Look at the constitutional relation existing between the House and the Executive Government. It was only the happy obstinacy of William III. which prevented the Executive Government from being altogether excluded from the House; but on the terms upon which it has remained its presence has been most beneficial: it has received support from us, and we from it. What was the condition upon which the Executive remained? On the condition in which alone it could remain consistently with its duty. It was that the Members of the Government should be as responsible for its acts as if they had not seats in the House; that their duties should not be absorbed in their duties as Members of Parliament; that they should owe one duty to Parliament as Members of the House, and another duty to it as Members of the Executive Government; that while the Parliament on the one hand has the power directly or indirectly to make or unmake the Government, on the other hand it should not use its power in order to coerce its liberty. If the Government is to continue responsible, it must continue free. What is it that the right hon. Gentleman now proposes? With "candied courtesy" he addressed the House in language which, as the 658th part of it, I was a little ashamed to hear, and he said—If the House will only take us into its counsels and co-operate with us in this measure, we shall receive with cordiality, with deference, nay, with gratitude, any suggestions you like. In other words the right hon. Gentleman said: "Say what you like, do what you like, but for God's sake leave us our places." I think that, pathetic as may be the tones of the entreaty, the supplication addressed to the House by the right hon. Gentleman ought not to be granted. I think we ought to hold the Government to that responsibility which all Governments undertake who bring in great measures of organic change in the Constitution. The right hon. Gentleman proposes that we should go into Committee with the distinct understanding that the Government should not be responsible for anything which is to be proposed; but that every man should be left to move any Amendment without the hand of his party leader upon him to restrain him, and that we should put the Constitution into a kind of alembic, and take the chance of what comes out of it. I say, Sir, that that is a wild, dangerous, and unconstitutional course. It puts me in mind of what happened to the children of Israel when they were desired to throw all their gold, jewellery, and ornaments into the fire. There came out—what? A calf. Now, Sir, permit me to say a word for myself and some other Members of this House. We bore rather hard upon the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire last year; and here, before I go any further, let me make an apology which it is due I should make to the House. Some time ago I wrote a letter to The Times in reply to a correspondent, in which, trusting too much to my memory, I stated that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) had made an apology in this House for something that he had said with regard to some words of mine, which have been much discussed and censured. I am sorry to say that I made a mistake in that letter. If you refer to the 125th page of the right hon. Gentleman's public speeches, you will see that there was an apology for another matter, not for the one to which I referred. I can only say now that I am very sorry for it, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept this expression of my regret. There is no place where it can be better offered than here. Well, Sir, I was about to say that we bore rather hard upon the right hon. Gentleman. We said that he treated us with reserve; but I must say that his reserve was openness itself as compared with the miserable instalments of information furnished us by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman never gave us the slightest information upon any part of his plan when he was repeatedly asked to do so, and he asks us now whether we will accept a plan to which the Government is neither pledged nor bound in any way. It is quite competent to the right hon. Gentleman to come down to this House to-morrow, and to say that the Government has changed its mind; that it is not pledged to anything in the shape of a Bill, and to leave the House with these Resolutions absolutely in vacuo. I need not point out that his speech is made in relation to nothing before us, save what we have in these abstract Resolutions, abstract Resolutions which may be taken or left without reference to the speech. I therefore beg most earnestly to press on the House the extreme inexpediency of going on with them. What possible good purpose can they serve? If we vote them all in a lump, what can we do except disgrace ourselves? Is it creditable to be fighting things of this kind? I am not going to waste time and criticism upon them. Some of them are ambiguous, and susceptible of two or three meanings, some of them mere abstractions. They do not furnish any foundation for a Bill, they are not instructions for a Bill, and the framers of a Bill will not be in the least assisted by them. The Bill itself, when it is introduced, must stand on its own merits, not on theirs, nor will the right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues be in any way preserved by them. On the contrary, I believe that they will prove a trap for him, and whether that was the intention or not, their introduction will prove a fruitful source of delay, for it will be altogether out of his power to prevent any Member of this House from moving Amendments or substantive Resolutions as often as they like upon them, when in Committee. If it be the will of the House we may waste weeks or months in Committee. On the other hand, we shall have a Government, duly installed in office, renouncing its responsibility. Sir, I think this is one of the most dangerous positions possible. It is the duty of the Executive Government to give advice to this House, to initiate its business, and to decide on what propositions shall be brought forward on important public occasions. It is the business of the House to decide on the acts of the Executive Government, and, if it does not approve them, to censure them. If the House allows itself to be induced to take a consultative position—if it begins a measure which Government ought to begin, and allows itself to be asked questions and to give its views to the Government, the House will be taking away the responsibility of the Executive Government. By so doing it will expose itself to the unpopularity, and will embark upon the path which has been fatal to so many legislative assemblies. Never, in the history of the world, was there known a legislative assembly with such powers as the House of Commons that has had the moderation to confine itself within its own legitimate functions and to abstain from using, or rather abusing, its powers to coerce the Executive. When we abandon that safe course of moderation which has been handed down to us by our forefathers, we I are in a fair way of transforming this great legislative instrument into something like a convention, and reducing the Executive Government into the station of clerks who fulfil our orders, instead of, as they now do, guiding and leading us, forming the connecting link between the Sovereign on the one side, and the public of this country on the other. The consideration of these Resolutions in Committee is absolutely useless and worthless. I defy anyone to suggest any useful purpose which it may serve; but it may do incalculable mischief by setting the whole thing adrift, so that no man can tell where it will stop. I do not want to take any course hostile to the Government, who I trust will meet the House half way. I am in hopes that they will see that there is reason in what I say, and that they will withdraw these Resolutions and undertake to bring in a Bill. We have to-night heard a statement which would be a sufficient preface to the introduction of a Bill. Nothing is needed but its reduction into clauses. The consideration of these Resolutions would be an exercitation which would be most discreditable to the House of Commons, and most prejudicial to the interests of the public. We have much legislative business in arrear, and we ought not to waste time upon empty propositions, many of which do not at all apply to the measure. I therefore earnestly press upon the Government the propriety of re-considering the question. I shall refuse my assent to your leaving the Chair, if it be only to record my protest against the encroachment upon most valuable Parliamentary usages and traditions, to which we owe it that we have in this House been able to discharge both Executive and legislative functions without injury and indignity to either.

I might conclude here, but, encouraged by the kindness of the House, I am anxious to say one word for myself upon this question of Reform. The House is well acquainted with the position that I have taken up. I consider that the burden of proof is on those who attack our existing institutions, and that I am bound to hold to what exists until something better is shown. That was, is, and always will be, my opinion; but I believe that I am nearly solitary in entertaining it. I have never been able to persuade anybody to adopt the process that I have recommended:—"Examine our institutions, see what is wrong, and then amend it." I have never been favoured with any answer. The recommendation has been simply ignored, and the reply seems to be, "How can you say that a Reform Bill is not wanted when I have one ready drawn up in my pocket?" All I can say is that I am not going to weary the House any more by defending the ground that I have unsuccessfully maintained; and I desire in the future to be regarded as ready to go heartily and honestly into any proposition for Reform that is laid before us, and to do anything that I can to make it an efficient and useful measure. I say this in order that it may not be thought that, in what I am about to add, I am acting in a spirit of hostility towards any measure that may be proposed. But I do think that the position which we now occupy is a most unsatisfactory one. You see what the Government have proposed. They ask us to go into Committee upon the Resolutions, but no one can see what may come out of that Committee. It was said, at the time of the old Reform Bill, that we were within twenty-four hours of a revolution. I believe that we have been within much fewer hours than that of household suffrage. I am not going to argue the question; but I, in common with a great many other Members of this House, hold household suffrage in very considerable dread. It was for that reason that I most unwillingly opposed the Bill introduced by the Government last year; because I believe that any resting-place that you suggest between the present franchise and household suffrage will be a very temporary abode. It seems to have been carried in this House, not by argument, but by acclamation, that we are not to remain as we are, but to commence that course which leads direct to disaster. It reminds me of what may frequently be witnessed upon the Alps. You see before you a snow slope, down which you are invited to slide, to which you reply, "No, I should like to go as far only as that rock, and then I will dig in my pole a little deeper, and will pull up." You try the experiment, and you find that you turn head over heels and go headlong to the bottom. That is a homely illustration of my views and of those of many Members of this House. To those who are satisfied with household suffrage, or to those who think that they will find a resting-place in a £5, £6, or £7 franchise, I have, of course, nothing to say; but of those who, like me, are convinced that the first is ruinous and the second impossible, I earnestly beg that they will re-consider the whole question. Time will be required for the preparation of the Government measure. That time will not be thrown away if it is employed in a little examination of the principles of Reform. It appears to me that the principle of a fancy franchise is of itself a bad one, because I understand by it an arbitrary connection between two things which have no necessary connection with each other. When you fix upon an incident, like that of a man being an M. A., or of his having a house of a particular value, or anything of that kind, upon which to found the franchise, you put together two things that have no necessary connection with each other. Such a view is a most imperfect one, and does not and cannot exhaust the question. What I desire is that we should go a little deeper into the question, and try if we cannot find some better principle than that. If we are to invent new machinery for determining who shall have a share in the full office of citizen, and in deciding upon the government of the State by appointing its governors, it seems to me that we ought to consider not a man's property, his status, or such things as that, but his relations towards the State, the full citizenship of which he claims. The principle you ought to seek to establish should be drawn from his performing his full duties towards the State. I therefore hold that, if we were going into the thing anew, the proper foundation of a Parliamentary franchise would be the bearing of all State burdens. In stead of fastening upon some particular incident, you should look at the man in reference to the State whose welfare you intrust to him. It seems to me that a man so poor that he is excused on the ground of poverty from bearing any burdens due to the State, though entitled to the rights of a citizen, is not in a condition to impose burdens upon others, because he is imposing upon others burdens from which he himself is on the ground of poverty excused. I think, further, that the franchise should not attach to any particular kind of property, because that is a clumsy way of getting at classes. It is an awkward thing to give a vote because a man has a house of a certain value; and then because a man is an M. A. We ought to have some principle that will take in those above the line of £10 as well as those below. It is right that the élite of the working classes should be admitted to the franchise. That is all that was professed to be done by the Bill of last year, though the words of my right hon. Friend were rather wide, and I am not aware that more is proposed this year. It is a great omission in the Bill of the Government that they do not deal with the important question of lodgers. If universal suffrage finds its way into this country it will be through the lodger franchise if neglected. You will go on lowering the franchise for houses until there comes to be a great disparity between tenants and lodgers, and then the lodgers will get it removed; and as everyone is either a householder or a lodger, unless like Diogenes he lives in a tub, or sleeps under the dry arches of Waterloo Bridge, you will get a very low franchise indeed. This is a matter that calls most imperiously for arrangement. How are all these things to be reconciled? It seems to me in a very simple manner. If you retain the existing constituencies in boroughs, and add to them all payers of income tax, you will go a great way to do what I want, by giving a gradual and safe extension of the power of voting, and if you consider the income tax too high you may lower it. Look at the advantages you would gain. You would include the upper classes who are now without the franchise. I lately received a letter from a correspondent who told me of three managers of public companies in a county town who received salaries of £1,000 a year each, but not one of whom had a vote. You would settle the lodger question in the most satisfactory manner. You would admit a great number of the working classes—certainly the élite—because £2 a week is by no means high wages for a skilled artizan. There- fore, if we were arguing this question in the Republic of Plato, instead of in free Romuli, I should have great hopes of this proposal, and that not only for what it does, but for what it does not do. It does not, under the form and pretence of admitting persons to a voice in the Constitution, give them all the power in the State. It does not, while speaking of the élite of the working classes, hand over power to the poor in a body. And it would have this safeguard, that such a payment of income tax, being not something different from the franchise, but being the franchise itself, could not be separated from it; and further, that the franchise being attached to a burden, the tendency to lowering is corrected, because as you lower the franchise the burden becomes more onerous, and therefore, instead of always having a tendency towards enlargement—towards universal suffrage—the income tax franchise carries with it its own check. I do not, under the circumstances of the case, expect that anyone will pay any attention to this opinion; but I am bound to say that, if not right in itself, it is a specimen of the direction in which we ought to look for the extension of the franchise. There may be some other plan which persons who are better informed than I am can devise for carrying out the idea; but it is in the direction of the public burdens, rather than of rent or rating, that we should look for the enlargement of the franchise. I hope that, anxious as the House is for the settlement of this question, they will not think it necessary to act in a spirit either of panic or precipitation. Nothing of the kind is needed. There was never less excuse for such feelings. The meetings that have been held throughout the country have died away and left scarcely an echo behind. Though organized at considerable expense, and supported by the most unsparing misrepresentation and abuse—they have failed to take hold of the mind of the nation. As for the "metropolitan demonstrations," they have demonstrated nothing except the impotence and vanity of their authors. It is not by men decked with ribands or bedizened with scarves that the foundations of ancient monarchies are shaken. I believe that the mind of the public at large, of the educated public, of the possessors of property, is singularly well disposed towards settling this question. The agitators who go about the country preaching manhood suffrage, nothing that we can do, or that any set of reasonable beings can do, will satisfy; but the great mass of the country would, I believe, be satisfied very easily indeed. Let us, then, give up this miserable auction—this competition between two parties which can bid the lowest, at which the country is put up for sale and knocked down to the person who can produce the readiest and swiftest measure for its destruction. We have this matter still in our own hands. Let us bid a long adieu to shams and pretences. Let us deal with the matter frankly. Let us call upon the Government to withdraw their Resolutions, to introduce a Bill, and to bring the matter to an issue fairly and plainly in the old English fashion, and deal with it in our own downright way. There is no danger—there is every safety in such a proceeding. But there is enormous danger in throwing the question loose before the House. Every Member will be urged by his constituency, and we shall be hounded on by a portion of the press, who will point out one Member after another who seems to hang back in the race for bringing down the institutions of this country as speedily as possible to the level of democracy. Therefore, I appeal to you to act boldly and decidedly. Touch the nettle with timid hand it stings you, and you drop it; grasp it firmly you are unhurt, and tear it up by the roots.

MR. BRIGHT

I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has not taken some definite mode of bringing the proposal he has made to the decision of the House; because I think there never was a proposal made to this House—I speak of his observations on the abandonment of the Resolutions—that more entirely agreed with the almost universal feeling. I am not speaking of what is thought on this side only I speak also of what is thought on the other side of the House. I do not believe among the ranks opposite me there is a single Member of the Treasury Bench who really believes that the course that has been taken by the Government is a wise one, or one that ought to be persisted in. Hon. Gentlemen show it in their faces. They feel beyond all question that their principal Minister in this House has led them into a very ludicrous position—and not them only, but that there is great danger of his leading the House also into it. His speech, which we have heard to-night, and which is so definite, shows how much easier it is to make a speech which says something than a speech which says nothing. The right hon. Gentleman took two hours to say nothing a fortnight ago, and one hour tonight to say a great deal. If the latter had been delivered a fortnight ago, during the whole of this time we should have had an opportunity of fairly canvassing the proposals of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lowe) was doubtless correct in his assumption that probably up to Saturday last the right hon. Gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) and his Colleagues had not decided what to propose. They come forward now with a statement which clearly makes the Resolutions out of place. The officers of the Government to whom these things are generally intrusted put every single proposal of the right hon. Gentleman's speech into a Bill, in correct language, so as to be laid on the table this day week. I say, therefore, with the right hon. Gentleman below me, to go into a discussion on the Resolutions is merely a waste of time. But to go into a discussion of them with a view of treating them as we were invited to treat them a fortnight ago would be much more than a waste of time, for it would be to throw this question of Reform, which, after all, is a question of some seriousness, into a Parliamentary chaos, and at the same time it would depreciate, to an immeasurable degree, the character and the power in future time of the Executive Government in this House. The right hon. Gentleman a fortnight ago flattered us by telling us how superior we are to certain legislative assemblies in other countries, and he referred, amongst others, to the one which sits at Washington. Now, I undertake to say that there has been no proposal made to this House, during the four-and-twenty years I have been here, which has tended so much to Americanise the House of Commons—the chief legislative Assembly of this country—as the proposal which the Government has made to-night. What takes place at Washington? Mr. Seward, Mr. Stanton, and other eminent men, heads of departments under the President, do not make their appearance in the House of Representatives, or even in the Senate. These two Assemblies discuss any measures they like; they pass any measures they like, and it is not necessary that they should consult the President or his Ministers. So here. Ministers are to sit on that Bench, and, as a newspaper which has lately been doing its best to lash the Colleagues of the right hon. Gentleman into some obedience to his views, says, the right hon. Gentleman is to stand at the counter in a decorous garb, as if he were in Swan and Edgar's, and ask whether there is "anything more, gentlemen, you would like?" I say, then, that the advice of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne ought to be taken. The Government should withdraw these Resolutions, which will serve only to waste our time and to embarrass the question; and then they ought to bring in a distinct and definite Bill this day week, and submit it, manfully, to discussion and the decision of Parliament, as was done, by the right hon. Gentleman who sits on these Benches, last year. What becomes of all your arguments against the right hon. Gentleman? Was it not one of your first arguments that the plan he submitted to the House was crude and ill-adjusted? But was there ever anything submitted to this House before, by any Minister of the Crown, so ludicrously crude as the proposal which the right hon. Gentleman has submitted by the Resolutions which are on the table? Did not nearly every speaker I see before me, either of his own invention, or, what is more likely, following the lead of somebody now on the Treasury Bench, say last year that the measure introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire was fragmentary to the last degree; and that it would be quite out of the question for Parliament to decide what should be done till they saw everything? Did not the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley) make a speech which Gentlemen opposite, having great credulity, believed to be unanswerable. But, unanswerable or not, it amounted to this:—that Parliament would not agree to a certain thing, at the invitation of a Minister, till they saw precisely that which the House would be likely to agree to in regard to some other proposal affecting the general question. Hon Gentlemen opposite must find themselves in a curious position. You have been kept in the dark, we are told, until half past two to-day. What was told you at half past two is, of course, not publicly known. But you have heard tonight from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman what are the proposals he is willing to make to the House, if the House will pass a certain number of Resolutions which have really almost nothing to do with the proposals he wishes us hereafter to discuss. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lowe) has made some reference to the sketch of a Bill which the right hon. Gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) has shadowed forth. Not knowing what the House will do with regard to the Resolutions, whether we shall go into Committee on them or not, I shall take the liberty, on this first occasion, of saying a few words with regard to the proposed measure. Let mc ask the House what it is that is wanted by the country, or, if the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne takes objection to the phrase, I will modify it so far as to say, by those who ask Parliament to grant some considerable measure of franchise extension? It is notorious to every man—the right hon. Gentleman himself will not deny it—that meetings have been held at which many hundreds of thousands of persons—I speak of the aggregate—have attended, and it is known to every man living in the districts in which those meetings were held, that the universal sympathy of the working classes went with the persons present at them. What have they asked? They ask the House of Commons that the barrier, which was put up in 1832, shall be thrown down—some that it shall be thrown down to let in the bulk of those who are disfranchised, so that they may come in; whilst multitudes of others ask that it shall be carried so far only that a large portion, such as would sensibly affect the representation, shall be admitted. The Bill introduced by the Government last year proposed, at an extravagant computation, which no man can prove to have been true, to admit about 204,000 persons to the franchise. These would have been admitted by the abolition of the ratepaying clauses in the Reform Act as it stands, and by having no ratepaying clauses for the new voters of values from £7 to £10; and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire assumed that the entire number of new voters would be 204,000. Now, what is it the coming Bill proposes to do? Instead of a £7 rental, it proposes a £6 rating qualification, which will vary according to the system prevailing in different boroughs. In some, possibly, there may be a few persons to whom it would be about the same as a £7 or £7 10s. rental; but it will vary from £7 to £10, and I will undertake to say it would not be equal for all the boroughs of England to an £8 rental franchise. The right hon. Gen- tleman argues that that would admit 130,000, and he proposes other franchises, of which I will say no more now than that, generally speaking, persons who are investors in the funds, or who pay direct taxes, or are investors in savings banks, or who possess education such as is supposed in his scheme, must have votes at present. The right hon. Gentleman's computation is framed, like his computation of 1859, upon nothing better than the loosest guessing; and I do not think it is worthy the consideration of the House, in a question of reducing the franchise and admitting the working classes to vote. He said he took it that the House had decided the question of rating last Session, and therefore he chose a rating franchise. He knows perfectly well it is not the best franchise; but it served to destroy the last Bill, and to overthrow the Government. It served a Minister who now preaches a total absence of all party spirit, and he proposes that we should accept the rating franchise as a thing settled definitely by Parliament. But why, when he came to the county franchise, did not he accept the vote come to last Session relative to the county franchise? This House, after a debate and a division upon an Amendment, moved by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Walpole), decided in favour of a £14 qualification for the counties. Why has not the right hon. Gentleman the liberality and the manliness to accept an accidental, if you choose to call it so, but certainly a deliberate vote of the House of Commons, which was favourable to the extension of the franchise in the counties, when he accepts one that was unfavourable to its extension in the boroughs? The right hon. Gentleman proposes to enfranchise 130,000 new voters in the boroughs, and 82,000 in the counties; he extends to the counties those most childish qualifications of a £30 savings bank investment, a £50 investment in the funds, and the payment of 20s. direct taxation. Why, under this Bill, a ratcatcher who keeps four dogs would pay a direct tax to the amount of 20s., and, of course, would come into that new constituency, which the right hon. Gentleman says is to save this country from destruction. I ask the House, whether they believe that the project of the right hon. Gentleman, putting out of consideration the distribution of seats, will settle, or do anything to settle, the question of the franchise? The right hon. Gentleman assumes that the House is almost unanimous for something, and is willing to accept and pass a Reform Bill. But, there may be a great and substantial difference, a perilous difference, between a Reform Bill and Reform. I tell the House, in all honesty, for I never use subterfuge in speaking on this question, that if you permit your Minister to go so far, unsettling what now exists and settling nothing, you permit him to do whatever mischief may lurk in his proposal; and, if you will not let him go further if he were so disposed, you cripple him from doing an act which I will venture to say that twenty years hence every man of you who may be living will rejoice that there were Ministers at this day to do. Have you not read what has been in the public papers during the last six months? Have you not heard or read what has been said at public meetings of every kind? There have been more than 1,000 public meetings; at every one, the doors were open, and any man could come in, whatever his opinions, and the all but unanimous vote of these meetings has been in favour of something much larger and more complete than the plan of the right hon. Gentleman. There has not been, so far as I know, during the whole of that time a single real public meeting which has asked for, or even hinted that it would like, a proposal like that which the right hon. Gentleman has submitted to the House. I am appealing to hon. Members opposite in their new position. You are not anti-Reformers now. I believe the season of transformation is almost over at the theatres; but it appears to extend so long and so far as this in the House of Commons. Last Session there was no language too violent for you to use against the moderate proposals of the then Government, and you will have now to get up and to unsay all you said, and to try to say the exact opposite in support of the present Government. But I will not quarrel with you for that; you have as much right to change your opinions as the right hon. Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe) has to change his. His speech to-night—though he may quarrel with me for saying so—is a wiser speech than any I heard him make last Session; and if he advances and improves at the pace at which he is evidently travelling, I have no doubt that, before this question is settled, we shall have something very lucid from him in favour of a substantial Parliamentary Reform. But hon. Gentlemen opposite have become Reformers. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Huntingdon (General Peel) is a Reformer now, and I will not charge him with wearing a mask. Eight or nine years ago, when the present Chancellor of the Exchequer came down in the same office to the opening of Parliament, he had two Colleagues by him (Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley), and at the end of a fortnight or three weeks, when the Reform Bill was introduced, those Colleagues retreated to the back Bench, and one of them told the House that during that period he had worn a mask and was tired of it, and he wished us to believe it was a very unpleasant process. The right hon. Member for Huntingdon, the noble Lord the Member for Stamford (Viscount Cranbourne), the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Stafford Northcote) are not wearing masks. They have cast off the musty habiliments of last year, now come before us as Reformers, and hon. Gentlemen opposite have agreed to follow them. If I use words of ridicule on that change of opinion, do not for a moment believe that I regret it. I am very glad you are Reformers; what is more, you will be glad of it too hereafter; and your children, when they look back on the records of this Parliament, will judge you the more favourably as the more honestly, generously, and completely you do the work which now apparently you are permitting Ministers to try to do. Last Session I took the liberty of telling hon. Gentlemen opposite that though they got rid of that Bill and of the Government, they would not get rid of the question of Reform, and that they would have to settle that with the great people of the United Kingdom; and now they come down to Parliament and are trying to settle it. Do not try to settle it in a hocus-pocus fashion, which many in this House would agree to without reference to persons outside. Persons outside know that this House is not in favour of any far-reaching or complete measure of Reform; and if it had not been for the great pressure outside, neither the present Government, nor that which lost office last Session, nor any which has existed for the last fifteen years, would have undertaken such a great and dangerous question. But if it be such a question, why will you not attempt at least to step so far forward as that we can meet the views and the honest sympathies and desires of the most intelligent and resolved portion of that great body of the people which is now excluded? If you tinker this little Bill, if you stick to this £6 rating franchise, you touch the lips but leave the palate dry. The great body of the people will repudiate the measure; and I venture to say that in the very first Session of Parliament which is held after the elections under the Bill, you will have further propositions made to the House, certainly with respect to the franchise, and I believe also with respect to the distribution of seats. The right hon. Gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) some years ago, just before he was Leader of your party, made a remarkable speech on another question, in which he showed how very awkward and almost impossible it was for a Member of this House, in office, to undertake to carry great questions, to which, when in Opposition, he had been constantly opposed. I will give you a quotation from the speech he then made, which shows what the right hon. Gentleman might now have said if he had been sitting on these Benches. It was on the subject of the endowment of Maynooth, for which Sir Robert Peel had introduced a Bill. He (the right hon. Gentleman opposite) opposed the Bill on account of the men by whom it was brought forward. He said— I do not think that the Gentlemen who are now seated on the Treasury Bench are morally entitled to bring such a measure forward. This measure, Sir, involves a principle, against which the right hon. Gentleman and most of his Colleagues have all along signally struggled. When I recall to mind all the speeches and all the Motions, and all the votes which have emanated from the present occupants of the Treasury Bench on this and analogous questions.…I consider that it would be worse than useless to dwell at any length upon the circumstances which induce me to adopt this opinion. And are we to be told that because those men who took the course to which I have referred have crossed the floor of this House and have abandoned, with their former seats, their former professions, are we to be told that these men's measures and actions are to remain uncriticised and unopposed, because they tell us to look to the merits of their measures, and forget themselves and their former protestations? …I appeal to the noble Lord opposite (Lord John Russell), the hereditary Leader of the Whig party, he will, I am sure, not withhold his concurrence with the principles I have laid down. That noble Lord, the representative of Mr. Fox, will not gainsay the motto of that great Leader, 'men not measures,' and I would ask hon. Gentlemen on this side, how has the opposite system answered for them? You have permitted men to gain power, and enter place, and then carry measures exactly the reverse to those which they professed in Opposition, and carry those measures by the very means and machinery by which they conducted the Opposition and by which they gained power. You are recon- ciled to this procedure by being persuaded that by carrying measures which you disapprove of and they pretend to disrelish, they are making what they call 'the best bargain' for you. Here is a Minister who habitually brings forward as his own measures those very schemes and proposals to which, when in Opposition, he always avowed himself a bitter and determined opponent.…But let me ask the admirers of 'the best bargain' system how they think the right hon. Gentleman would have acted had they been introduced by the noble Lord opposite."—[3 Hansard, lxxix. 561.] I might say, by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) who sits there. Now, do not let it be supposed that if hon. Gentlemen opposite are anxious to carry a real, substantial, conclusive, and satisfactory Bill, if they are ready to support such a measure, do not let them suppose for a moment that because I am not of their party, or because they have opposed all the propositions made upon this subject, and those which I have been concerned with in particular, I shall factiously oppose their Bill. But, having now turned round and become Reformers, having concluded at half past two to-day that they would allow the right hon. Gentleman to appear in a new character as a Reformer in this House, I ask them for their own sake and for his sake, and for what is worth infinitely more than their reputation, or his official position, I ask them for the interest of this great cause, and for the satisfaction of an excited and anxious people, that this measure, if it is to be passed this Session, shall be one at least which shall release me, and every other man who is in favour of Reform, from any further discussion and agitation of the question during our Parliamentary lives.

MR. WALPOLE

Sir, the last words of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down furnish to my mind the very strongest argument in favour of the proceeding to which he objects. He taunts my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer with reference to a speech of his on a former occasion, as if that speech shows that in the proposal he is now making he is retracting the opinions he formerly professed. According to the argument of the hon. Member my right hon. Friend has only just become a Reformer. But the hon. Member knows perfectly well that in the year 1859 my right hon. Friend proposed a measure to this House for the extension of the franchise which, with regard to the savings banks, with regard to education, with regard to funded property and direct taxation was, in effect, the same as the measure now before the House. What is the use, then, of digging out quotations from Hansard which have really no relevancy to the question before us? But the hon. Gentleman says he desires a settlement of this question. How, I would ask, can he have that except by proceeding in such a manner as will enable the House to come to an agreement on the subject? The hon. Gentleman further, objecting to our mode of proceeding, says that we on this side opposed the Bill of the late Government because it was a crude and fragmentary measure. We did object to it as a crude and fragmentary measure. It related only to one part of the subject—the suffrage. It was crude and fragmentary in that. It did not touch the question of re-distribution. It was crude and fragmentary in that. It did not touch the question of corrupt practices at elections. The same objection applies. But the Resolutions now before the House embrace all these points. Instead of being crude and fragmentary they constitute a large and comprehensive measure, and one which I firmly believe, if the proceedings now suggested by the Government are carried into effect, will be more likely to lead to a settlement of this question than any proposal which, during the last fifteen years, has been brought before the House. My right hon. Friend the Member for Calne, followed by the hon. Member for Birmingham, take great exception to proceeding by Resolutions; and they both invite the Government to withdraw these Resolutions. My belief is that it would be an utter mistake to withdraw the Resolutions; and I think there are reasons, and cogent reasons, why we should endeavour to do what we can towards that which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer so strongly, as well as so fairly and so frankly, urged upon us—namely, the complete settlement of this question. There are two things which are of immense importance. The one is, that after all the discussion this subject has undergone we should come to a satisfactory, and, if possible, a conclusive settlement, in the present Session. The other is—not as my right hon. Friend the Member for Calne seems to intimate—that the Government should abandon all responsibility in the matter, but that they should, by a series of Resolutions laid before the House, enable the House to co-operate with them in eliminating those points upon which we are agreed, and to pro- nounce its opinion upon those subjects which it has been thought necessary to introduce into a measure of Reform. We shall thus be, for the first time, furnished with starting points for the settlement of the question. For what has happened? We have had six different Bills on the subject within a period of fifteen years. We have had Bills rejected without having over come to a conclusion on any one point, except that of the rating qualification in boroughs. [An hon. MEMBER: And the county franchise.] Yes, and the county franchise. These are the only points on which you have come to a conclusion after fifteen years of discussion. Now, if you are desirous of arriving at a settlement of the question, every Resolution which you pass embodying a principle will form a good foundation on which to proceed hereafter. You may bring in Bill after Bill, and yet be as far as ever from the attainment of your object. But again, my right hon. Friend the Member for Calne seems to think that the Government are going to abandon their Executive functions in dealing with this subject, and are not prepared to stand or fall on the principles which they deem to be necessary with a view to its solution. Now, no such language as that ever escaped the lips of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Government will stand or fall on those principles which they believe to be vital and just, and therefore essential to the proper working of the Constitution. If that be so, is it of no advantage that hon. Members on both sides of the House should have an opportunity of discussing, in detail, the principles upon which it is proposed to legislate? Is to afford them that opportunity an unfair way to treat the House, or does it not rather put them in the fullest possession of the whole subject? This consideration furnishes the second reason why I think it desirable to proceed by Resolution. A third, which ought, it seems to me, to have great weight with hon. Members is this—that if we were to proceed in the first instance by way of Bill, there would not be that facility for bringing forward the various views entertained on this question by hon. Members which, in Committee of the Whole House when discussing the Resolutions, will be afforded. In my opinion Parliament will gain a great advantage by forcing the course which we propose [for adoption on those who advocate one set of measures within the House and another out of doors. We have heard of demonstrations and public meetings throughout the country, some of which have been attended by the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright), whose avowed object was not to support any measure which he has proposed here, but one which went far beyond any such scheme. He assumed to himself the merit of being a Reformer in the spirit of the men by whom those meetings were convened; but he will not venture within these walls to submit to our notice proposals which they regard as the only ones calculated to effect a permanent settlement of the question. We have in the House of Commons at the present moment more than two parties. We have those who hold Conservative opinions. We have those more moderate Liberals, usually designated as the old Whig party. We have the philosophical Reformers. We have what are called the advanced Liberals. Between the two former parties the difference which exists is slight, both with regard to the franchise and the re-distribution of seats. A liberal measure acceptable to one would be also to the other. When, however, we come to the philosophical Reformers, and the advanced Liberals, as represented by the hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. Stuart Mill), and the hon. Member for Birmingham, it will be seen they will have no fair opportunity of laying their views on this subject before us, unless it be in Committee of the Whole House. The former could hardly introduce his opinions in a Bill. It is true we know the opinions which are entertained by the hon. Member for Birmingham with respect to the re-distribution of seats from that memorable schedule which he drew up in conjunction with the hon. Member for Edinburgh; but then I should like to have his propositions before us in the shape of a Resolution, so that we might see whether his scheme or ours will turn out to be the more in accordance with the feelings of the House. The same remarks apply to the question of the reduction of the franchise. Instead, therefore, of our having adopted a course of proceeding calculated to impede the settlement of this question, or to prevent hon. Members from laying their views before us, I cannot help thinking that had those been our objects they would have been J more completely secured if instead of Resolutions we had introduced a Bill. My right hon. Friend the Member for Calne touched on certain principles upon which in his opinion we ought to proceed; but the principles which he lays down are those, I would remind him, on which our proposals are based—namely, that taxation and representation should go together. The hon. Member for Birmingham says that the Bill of last year did away with the ratepaying clauses, but one of the main objections to the measure was that it proposed to enable those who did not pay to govern; while we contend that the franchise ought to be given to those who do pay, in order that taxation and representation might go together. I forbear from entering on the present occasion into a full discussion of the Resolutions of the Government, because they are not distinctly before the House. I venture to say, however, that in principle our measure meets the requirements of the case. It is rooted in well-known principles, principles which are a part of the Constitution, and are therefore likely to last. It embodies in its provisions a large and free extension of the franchise; but while it does that it embraces those Conservative elements that will ensure permanence and prosperity to the Constitution and the country.

MR. LAING

said, that in the re-distribution scheme of last Session it was proposed to take forty-nine seats in all from the smaller boroughs, and to assign seven of them to Scotland. He wished to know how the present Government proposed to deal with that country with respect to those seven seats. He did not speak as an advocate of Scotch interests, when he said that the necessity for Scotland obtaining every one of those seats was based on principles of justice and expediency, if a reform of the representation were to be attempted at all. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had informed them that in accordance with his scheme twenty-three seats would be taken from the small boroughs in England, in addition to which he would have seven others at his disposal, in consequence of the very proper disfranchisement of four boroughs on account of bribery. The whole of those seats, he added, were to be devoted to increasing the representation of English counties and towns; but he made no mention of the important question how the increased representation of Scotland was to be secured. He should like to know from him, under those circumstances, whether he meant to add seven to the total number of Members in that House, or, if not, in what manner he intended to meet the just claims of Scotland. Did he propose, for instance, that while English counties, with a population of 150,000, should be made up to three Members, Scotch counties with 300,000 should remain with a single Member? Was it seriously proposed that a Member was to be given to the London University, while the Universities of Scotland were to remain without having representatives allotted to them? But the complaint he made as a representative of Scotland was of minor importance, compared with that which he made as a representative of the United Kingdom—namely, that there was a general want of finality in the scheme proposed by the Government. In his opinion, finality should be made the cardinal point in any scheme of Reform, and acting upon that belief he had, on one occasion, during the last Session, given his vote against the party with which he generally acted, on the ground that the Government scheme did not include re-distribution, and was therefore not final. The great danger consisted, not so much in a large and liberal reduction of the franchise, as in the prevalence of the idea that the Constitution required perpetual tinkering and patching up. The Government scheme of last year proposed to take away forty-nine Members from the small boroughs, and to deprive all small boroughs, with a population under 8,000, having two Members, of their second Member, whereas by the present scheme only twenty-two Members were to be taken from them, and it was only from boroughs with a population of under 7,000 that the second Member was to be taken away. If they were to make a great and comprehensive settlement of the question of Reform, they could not reasonably expect the country to be satisfied with any scheme of re-distribution which left a second Member to any borough with a less population than that of 10,000. In addition to this, there ought to be some grouping of small boroughs. He did not say that the system of grouping proposed last year was perfect. No measure of Reform could be said to be a final solution of the question which left two Members to Chippenham or Bridgnorth with a population of 7,000, while large and important cities, the centres of the great branches of national industry, like Dundee or Merthyr Tydvil, had only a single Member. The same objection that applied to the re-distribution part of the Government scheme equally attached to that portion of it which related to the lowering of the franchise. He felt that there was much force in the observation of the right hon. Member for Calne that if the £10 franchise were once departed from, household suffrage would inevitably be forced upon the country. He had therefore hoped that the present Government would have adopted at once a household rating franchise, coupled with certain tempering provisions calculated to prevent the ascendancy of mere numbers, instead of endeavouring to stop at the half-way-house of a £6 rating franchise. It was evident to him, from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that some such proposal was not far from being one which he, unshackled and free to produce what he thought the best scheme, would have laid before the House on this occasion; for he told the House very distinctly that he thought the system, not of plurality, which would obviously be invidious, but of duality, might have been adopted with great public advantage; that as the Government represented persons and property, so, in respect of persons, every man who lived in a rated house ought to have a vote, while in respect of property, every man who paid by direct taxes to the State should have a vote; and that if the two qualifications happened to be united in the same head, he should have a double vote. If a large and comprehensive scheme based upon household rating suffrage, coupled with reasonable checks, had been brought forward by a Conservative Government and supported by the Conservative party, it might have been accepted even by very advanced Liberal Members as a fair solution of this question. If the only difference between the Bill of the present Session and that of last year was a £6 rating against a £7 occupation franchise in boroughs, and a £20 rating against a £14 occupation franchise in counties, he was afraid the country might ask why the House of Commons had not come to some settlement of this long-vexed question last year, instead of forcing the Ministry to resign, and of exposing the country to long-continued agitation. Without committing himself to any expression of opinion as to the course it might be thought proper to adopt, after due deliberation, with regard to these proposals, he must express his strong opinion that the scheme in respect of the re-distri- bution of seats was glaringly imperfect, and could not stand; and, with respect to the franchise, the opposite principle to that proposed would have been the wiser and more Conservative solution of the question.

MR. GLADSTONE

Sir, I do not propose to go over the controversial portion of the ground occupied during this debate, and occupied in common by my right hon. Friend the Member for Calne or my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham; but I think they deserve our thanks, as they have been the moans of eliciting from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department the declaration which is undoubtedly important, and which is supposed to be—I do not say whether it is, because I am not, perhaps, a competent judge on that point—but which is supposed to be entirely different from the declaration we received from the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon the occasion of his first bringing these Resolutions before the House. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department—and I do not want in any degree to establish the fact of the supposed contradiction—enables me to express the great satisfaction with which I listened to him when he said—I use nearly his own words—that it is the intention of the Government to stand or fall by principles which they may deem vital in the settlement of this question. This important declaration shows us that the Government are conscious of the weight of the question which they have taken in hand, and that they will justly endeavour to fortify themselves with all that authority that accrues to a Government in the prosecution of such a subject by the knowledge that it stakes its existence upon it. Sir, the right hon. Gentleman opposite has to-night laid before us, with very considerable clearness—when I take into view the multitude of points embraced in so wide a scheme as that laid before us—I say with considerable clearness—the principal outlines of the plan of the Government, and he has likewise conveyed to the House the intention of the Government that we are to be called upon to follow the method of procedure originally indicated when bringing these Resolutions first before you. I will divide the little I have to say into two parts, and will first advert to one or two points connected with the plan itself. This is not an occasion on which at a moment's notice we ought to be called upon or expected to give a distinctive opinion on the character of the measure. But I will make an observation or two which may tend, without introducing asperity into the debate, to clear up certain points, and bring out some explanation. I wish to know from the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government by what information to be presented to the House, they sustain the estimates of the number of persons to be admitted to the franchise by the various changes contemplated which he has stated. That, he will perceive, is a matter of considerable importance, and I frankly own I am the more desirous of being in possession of that information, because as to a certain portion of his figures I listened to them with some incredulity, and it is most desirable we should be right in the matter. The most important point in the statement of the right hon. Gentleman is that part which related to the number of persons to be admitted to the suffrage by the lowering from a £10 annual value to a £6 rating; and I dwell the more pointedly on this subject, because it was one which it was our duty to consider in the course of the last year, when we were in possession of figures provided by the most competent authorities, and when we endeavoured to estimate for ourselves as accurately as possible the number of persons to be admitted to the franchise by the reduction from a £10 annual value to a £6 rating. The right hon. Gentleman stated the number at 130,000; but, according to the best computation we were able to make, the number did not exceed 105,000. I am desirous that we should go to the root of the matter. And here I may allude to the total amount of enfranchisement which he proposes in boroughs, although, according to my view of the matter, it is not very necessary to consider that portion of the borough franchise which does not concern the labouring classes. Whatever may be the effect upon the vote of this or that Gentleman, I will state the estimate I form of the difference between the plan of last year and the plan of the Government this year with respect to the number of the labouring classes proposed to be enfranchised in boroughs. I admit, with the hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, that we gave a liberal and, perhaps, lax definition of the class "working men," but we proceeded on the definition to which we have been accustomed. We, by the provision for reducing the value from £10 to a £7 gross estimated rental by the provision relating to the class of compound householders, and the provision relating to lodgers, estimated in the boroughs an increase in the suffrage to the extent of 200,000, the whole of which essentially belonged to the labouring classes. The franchise we proposed, with respect to depositors in savings banks, we considered of such limited operation that we could not venture to state any figure which that franchise might possibly produce. We believed it to be unexceptionable in principle, but that its effect would be inappreciable. Instead of 200,000, the right hon. Gentleman admits no more than about 100,000. I take the effect of the £6 rating would be the admission of 100,000 persons to the franchise. The admission to the franchise, for degrees and certificates, will have no appreciable effect on the labouring class, and the franchise arising from money in the funds will have no operation in that direction. With regard to the franchise connected with savings banks, whilst I must confess that I am doubtful on many points as to that franchise, in the form it has for the first time assumed in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, yet, even if he gets his 35,000 real and true voters, and not faggot voters, they could not be properly taken as fair representatives of the labouring class. The number of artizans and mechanics who deposit in savings banks is unfortunately very small. And what is more, in the old savings banks there are found as depositors a considerable number of persons who have been in a situation assimilated with the labouring class, but who are the most dependent portion of them—namely, domestic servants, and therefore cannot be counted with the independent portion of the labouring classes. My hon. Friend the Member for Wick has referred to the important question of finality, and I may use the word, because we all understand what is meant by it. The hon. Member for Wick and the hon. Member for Birmingham are not far distant in their views. The hon. Member for Birmingham gave utterance to what I presume to be a common sentiment when he said that our desire was to get rid of the subject for the remainder of our lives. It is in that sense that I spoke of finality. I confess we did believe in the formation of our measure that a liberal admission to the franchise was essential to anything like finality. Therefore, when I point out that the popular element admitted by the present plan of the Government is little more than one-half the number included in the plan of the late Government, I am not currying favour with those who may prefer agitating for perpetual change when I claim credit for having by a liberal boon endeavoured to close agitation. But there is a question more important than any question of mere numbers, and that is the question of principle. We were content, in default of any more definite rule, to make a considerable selection of the superior portion of the working classes. Our principle was to make such a selection in the same mode as the selection made by the Reform Bill of the middle class, and to have regard to the line then drawn. I am well aware that there were many in this House honestly dissatisfied with the line then drawn. They wanted something more distinct—something more in the nature of a formidable barrier, marking off the ground between those who were admitted to the franchise, and those who were not so admitted. On this point I am desirous of asking the right hon. Gentleman a question, and I hope he will excuse me if it is somewhat minute. Does his extension of the franchise embrace only those who are rated at sums over £6, or does it embrace all those who are rated at £6 and upwards? If it embraces all those who are rated at £6 and upwards, I must observe that his proposal is precisely in the same condition as ours, with a total want of any fence, or hedge, or barrier. It is so open in the abstract to argument that you have no security against its being carried farther. It is still more open to objection than our proposal, for we, by a liberal concession, sought to put the question at rest, but the right hon. Gentleman, by granting only a moiety, gives a premium for continual agitation. I did not hear him state any provision with regard to compound householders and lodgers. That portion of the subject is so important that I presume he would have included these if they were intended, and perhaps the omission will be supplied hereafter. There is one portion of the plan to which I refer in terms of satisfaction, and that is the bold proposal made by the right hon. Gentleman with respect to certain corrupt boroughs. I must not be understood to speak of any Report except those I have seen. I have read Reports concerning two boroughs, and I must confess that I think upon the whole, whether disfranchisement for a very long period might have sufficed or not, undoubtedly, if the Government make a proposal for their total disfranchisement, I shall not object. The right hon. Gentleman might derive some encouragement from the warm and lively cheer which he received from this side of the House at that passage in his speech. I am glad he has given in the engagement—conditional perhaps in terms, but substantially unconditional—that the very important general change which he contemplates in the law relating to bribery and corruption will not be saddled upon the Bill relating to the franchise. The proposals of the right hon. Gentleman touching matters of the utmost delicacy as connected with the rights and privileges of Members of the House, deserve the most careful and above all the most impartial consideration. Provisions relating to bribery and corruption are matters which do not affect one party more than the other; and I trust we shall consider the question calmly and with open minds, for to treat it as a subject which bristles at every point with old controversies, and anticipations of new ones, would be most unfortunate. I am glad therefore that the House will not be called upon to consider these proposals as a portion of the Bill relating to the representation of the people. I would make the same remark as to the Resolutions relating to the registration of voters for counties, and to the provision for diminishing the distance that voters have to travel. As regards both those Resolutions, the object which the right hon. Gentleman has in view is excellent, but it will involve much consideration in detail, and many difficulties will have to be surmounted. I would suggest that the separation of those matters also from the great question of the representation of the people would be a measure well calculated to advance the proper settlement of the question. I will not trouble the House with any other remarks on the proposals which the right hon. Gentleman has submitted, but I come now to the question of procedure. I think the right hon. Gentleman cannot have failed to notice, as truly remarkable, the precise concurrence of opinion between my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham and my right hon. Friend the Member for Calne. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman does not suspect those two most distinguished Mem- bers of this House of a corrupt collusion. When I came down to the House I was entirely ignorant that there would be any such manifestation of concurrent opinion; but that manifestation comes from Gentlemen pretty widely separated by their opinions, and whose separation in opinion has been certainly not unconnected with tolerably brisk political conflict. That concurrence of opinion is not a mere accident; it is a significant indication of opinion in this House. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Walpole), who is rather deeply responsible in this matter—for it was he who, with the most benevolent intentions, launched last year the idea of proceeding by Resolution—could not fail to become aware that, in the manful and energetic defence he was making of the Government he was not sustained by the expressed approval of his party, nor, after the question had been so pointedly raised by Members of such importance as the two I have mentioned, was the slightest indication given to countenance that method of proceeding. This is in my opinion a very serious matter, and for this plain reason, among others, that it is intimately connected with the question of time, which in dealing with a subject like this within the limits of a Session, becomes, not of secondary, but of primary importance. I do not wish at all to recede from the ground which I originally took with regard to that. If it is the view of the Government, if it is their distinct conviction, that procedure by Resolution is preferable to procedure by Bill, I must say that I entirely differ from the view; but I waive the difference. One thing, however, I contend for, and I put it to the Government, and that is, that if we are to proceed by Resolutions it should be by Resolutions that really embody the plans of the Government. Why, Sir, even the Government themselves would be embarrassed by the terms of their own Resolutions. Here, for instance, is a Resolution which says— That, in revising the existing Distribution of Seats, this House will acknowledge, as its main consideration, the expediency of supplying Representation to places not at present represented, and which may be considered entitled to that privilege. Now, what construction does that bear? Does it bear any other construction than this, that whatever number of seats the Government may be anxious to dispose of by its plan the principal part of them will be given to those communities which are at present unrepresented? The words drawn up in the Resolution will only bear that construction, and that must have been the intention of the drawer of the Resolution. But the right hon. Gentleman's proposal does not carry out that intention; on the contrary, it divides equally the number of seats which are to be given to new communities and to old ones; indeed, there is a majority of one in favour of old communities. That is one instance of the uselessness of Resolutions of this kind. Then, again, there is the third Resolution, about the predominance of classes, of which I must say that in its abstract character it is more like a proposition for the Oxford Debating Society than a proposition from the right hon. Gentleman opposite. It is more like a proposition for a class than a proposition to be submitted, and gravely submitted, to a Senate. Independently of that, I must say that the discussion of such a proposition ill accords with that admonition bestowed on us in the Speech from the Throne to charity, and moderation, and mutual forbearance. It would be impossible, when we consider all the former debates on the Corn Laws, and many other debates that would be raked up, if we were to go on. The sorest points of the question are all touched by raising in that indirect manner the question between class and class. For what purpose is it to be raised? The proposition itself is a truism. If you have a proposal for a £6 franchise that distinctly and intelligibly defines your view of the manner in which the relations of class and class are to be disposed of so far as regards the political franchise. The acceptance, rejection, or modification of that proposal will define the practical opinion of the House on the subject. What can be the use of debating these matters in the abstract when we are to decide them in the concrete, at a time when it is admitted on all hands that whatever differences there may be the thing of the most cardinal importance is that we should get forward with dispatch and expedition? When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department expressed his opinion in favour of Resolutions, on what ground did he recommend them? He recommended them upon this distinct, clear and forcibly stated ground, that by means of these Resolutions he, or rather the forms of the House, would coerce and compel every man, with a pe- culiar idea on the subject of the representation of the people, to produce it here and have it debated and decided, and all this as a preliminary to Reform. He distinctly challenged one well-known gentleman, and the challenge applied to many more, and the right hon. Gentleman used the argument, as it appeared to me, in the most forcible language. Taking the whole of that part of his speech bodily, sentence by sentence, and word by word, there could not be a better speech against proceeding by Resolution. Remember what these ideas are. Remember that they are not the mere crotchets of idle and light-minded men. Many of the most acute intellects in the country have been busy for years past on the subject of our representative system, and from closet and study have emerged many schemes, with regard to which it is quite true that we must, at the end of our discussions, find that they are not well suited for practical adoption, but they would have to be debated with respect, and could not be got rid of without long and intricate discussion. But all this is to be dealt with by us, not in Committee on the Bill, but in Committee on preliminary Resolutions, which define almost nothing with regard to the nature of the Bill. I take it for granted that there is no intention of pressing any proceeding to-night. It is quite evident that the position of the House is fundamentally altered by the proceedings of this evening. Until this evening we were wholly ignorant of the plans of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman has, however, laid before us in considerable detail, and for the most part with considerable clearness, the nature of those plans. I assume, therefore, that we do not proceed to-night even to move you, Sir (the Speaker), out of the Chair, because that Motion would itself constitute a very important step, and the House should be left perfectly free, even on that preliminary step, without giving an opinion. I assume that we shall not be called upon to proceed this evening, and probably the more convenient course on this great matter will be that the next Government night, if it be agreeable to the right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues, should be taken for the purpose; but that the interval which, I think, may be claimed, and I am sure the claim will be admitted in the interests of the liberty of the Members of the House—the interval will, I trust, have its value to the Government. I am not taking the part of an opponent of the Government in urging upon them this recommendation. I put it to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who regards the dignity of Parliament as much as any man who sits within these walls; and I put it to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has studied the history of the country and the Constitution, that this House has never been called upon to discuss Resolutions, necessarily of a vague character, subject to every kind of difference and interpretation, open to every man to construe in his own sense, and all this at a time when behind these Resolutions there lies a clear and definite plan announced to us. This position is novel, and I cannot venture to prognosticate what inconvenience might arise from it in the discussion; but, at any rate, I press on the Government that it is a mode of proceeding such as the House of Commons has never been called upon to adopt. The right hon. Gentleman said the other night that he thought the Government in a matter of this grave character were entitled to point out the method of procedure. I do not think that any undue impatience has been manifested with regard to allowing that function to be exercised. I will undertake to say that if we had definite Resolutions before us, framed so as to embody the main proposals of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, we might, rather than inconvenience or obstruct the House, proceed upon them; hat I do hope, and this is the last word I shall say, that we shall not be called on to proceed upon Resolutions such as those which are now before us. It is not compatible with the character and dignity of the House, nor with the desire expressed by a large portion of the House, to proceed with due despatch and dilligence in the prosecution of the subject, thereby preserving and vindicating, not only among ourselves, but in the face of the country, the character and credit of the House of Commons, which would otherwise be grievously imperilled, that we should allow it to be said that we did not exercise a sound and strict judgment with regard to all the steps in which we may proceed to the settlement of this question.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

, in reply, said: I need not, I believe, upon this occasion trespass at any length upon the time of the House. I differ from the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) with respect to a portion of the figures in this case. I believe that my estimate is the correct one; but that is a subject which can be much more conveniently discussed at a subsequent stage in our proceedings. The right hon. Gentleman called my attention to the position in which the House is placed by the mode in which it is proposed that we should deal with the general question of Reform; and he has drawn a powerful argument against our entering into a consideration of the Resolutions from the circumstance of the extraordinary concurrence of opinion expressed by the hon. Member for Birmingham and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne. That agreement is no doubt very striking. But there is one thing perfectly evident, and that is that both the hon. Member for Birmingham and the right hon. Member for Calne are very anxious that the proposed Bill should not pass; I am not therefore surprised that they should speak of the course we have pursued in so hostile a spirit. However great may be the divergence of opinion between them, no attempt has been made by them to disguise their desire that our measure should not be a successful one. I hope, however, that this is not the feeling of the House generally; and Her Majesty's Government do not certainly share their opinions, because we are most anxious to introduce and to pass a Bill upon this subject. As far as the Resolutions are concerned we shall be prepared to do everything in our power to meet the views of the right hon. Gentleman and of the House. I do not mean to insist on any Resolution that would lead to mere idle controversy. I am referring to those points on which there is no necessity for taking the opinion of the House. But many of the Resolutions are really of a very important character. I should certainly like to have a distinct opinion of the House on such subjects as the registration of voters, the employment of polling papers, and the payment of the travelling expenses of electors; and I am particularly anxious that the Resolution with regard to the Boundary Commission should receive the sanction of the House. It is of the greatest importance that the labours of the Commissioners should at once be commenced; and I should be perfectly willing when we get into Committee to begin with the thirteenth Resolution. With regard to the other Resolutions, I have no doubt that the House would on reflection take a sensible view of them, and would adopt those that it is desirable to have passed. It will be for us to consider whether there are not some among the Resolutions that need not be brought before the House. [Cries of "Withdraw!"] I would sooner come to an understanding upon this point when we go into Committee. We might then pass these Resolutions to which there can be no objection; and with regard to one or two others, on which it is not necessary to offer an opinion, I should not attempt to press them. I cannot have any objection to the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman that we should not proceed with the Resolutions to-night. I think it is a very reasonable one; but I suppose that we might proceed to their consideration on Thursday next. ["Hear, hear!" and renewed cries of "Withdraw!"]

MR. ROEBUCK

I would beg of the right hon. Gentleman, and of the House, to consider whether the mode of procedure adopted does not amount to trifling with the question. I give the right hon. Gentleman full credit for desiring to pass some Bill. Any stranger who had been here the other night, when the right hon. Gentleman addressed the House on this subject, must have thought that he was putting a trick before it. I am sure he does not desire to do that. What possible good can follow from our passing the Resolution about a Boundary Commission? The Queen has power to issue a Commission, and to invest it with power to make certain inquiries. What, then, can be the object of passing this Resolution, except the wish to ascertain beforehand what may be safely put into the Bill? I do not think that that is a position proper to Ministers of the Crown. Let the right hon. Gentleman, on his own responsibility, tell us what he thinks is right, and embody it in the clauses of a Bill; then the House can accept or reject as it thinks proper. That is the constitutional mode of proceeding; but the tentative process of ascertaining what will pass the House, in order that he may bring in a safe Bill, will do no honour to the right hon. Gentleman, and if acquiesced in will do none to this House.

SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL

said, he wished to take an early opportunity of expressing his disappointment that the claim of Scotland to some increase of representation had not been acknowledged on this occasion as it had been in former Bills. It contained prosperous towns and Universities larger than that of London, which were unrepresented, and he would beg of those Members of the Cabinet who represented Scotland to impress the facts on their Colleagues. He also gave notice that on Friday, on going into Committee of Supply, he would ask a question on the subject, to which he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would give an answer which would not disappoint the just expectations of the people of Scotland.

SIR GEORGE GREY

Before calling upon the House to resume the discussion of this question, I trust the Government will lay upon the table an amended copy of the Resolutions, showing those it is proposed to omit, the alterations it is proposed to make, and the order in which they will be taken. The right hon. Gentleman laid great stress on the boundary question; but I believe a Resolution to be quite unnecessary. It is quite competent for the Government on its own responsibility to issue a Commission to revise boundaries. Of course, its Report will have to be confirmed by Act of Parliament before it can take effect. I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether he is not departing from the invariable practice in asking the House in Committee to address the Crown; and I would put it to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether an Address to the Crown for a Commission has ever been adopted except by both Houses. I would also ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he will lay on the table the statistics on which he has made the calculations with regard to the number of voters who would be admitted into borough constituencies by the proposed franchise?

MR. WARNER

said, they were all anxious for a settlement of that question; but it was obvious that such a result could not be obtained by such a proposal as that which had just been laid before them by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He suggested that it would be a better and simpler arrangement to keep the existing franchises as they were, and in addition introduce a measure of household suffrage in the boroughs, with the restriction, that no person who was excused from payment of taxes on the score of poverty, should be entitled to a vote. That seemed a fair way of dealing with the question; it would disfranchise nobody, and would add greatly to the representation of the country.

MR. SERJEANT GASELEE

thought the mode of proceeding by way of Resolution was exceedingly objectionable, inasmuch as it would retard instead of advancing the question. There was scarcely one of the Resolutions for which he could vote. He hoped the Government would see that persistence in the course they had adopted would simply waste valuable time. The best plan would be to introduce a Bill at once. At the same time, so far as he had heard the provisions of the Government plan explained, it was the most ridiculous attempt to settle the question that he had ever heard propounded.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Committee deferred till Thursday.