The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1866-09-11 00:00:00

MR. ROEBUCK ON REFORM.

A characteristic speech was made by Mr. Roebuck,
N. P., at Sheffield, at a banquet in the Cutlers' Moll.
He thus Mates the result of his thinking why the
House of Commons represents the people of
England: -
"This House of Commons, the produce of the Reform
RU of 1863. has run • race of legbilation uneunipled in
the annals of the world--(henr). They found the people
of England at the time of 1832 in • situation which re-
quired Reform. Reform was given; and whet did they
do? Why, almost the first they diil was to wipe out
from the Anna.' of England the stain of slavery —(cheers).
They then rdieved the municipal government of this
country from Darlrollf, I might say almost corrupt, ad-
ministration, and they threw it into the hands of the
people—(bear). They then went forward and they made
a cola of laws that we* the least sanguinary and the
most merciful that the world know.; and, last of all
(for I won't mention many other good deeds), they freed
commerce, and they made the people of England 0001-
municaoteof their power and their wealth to all parts of
the world—(hear. hear). And this wee done under the
Reform Bill of 18.12; but I will state in one short phrase
the result of their action—that every man iii England
might say what he thought, and might do what he liked,
so long as he did not injure his neighbour, and that lie
was the freest MILD that walked upon the surface of the
globe."
The reasoning which led Earl Russell to introdace
the Reform Rill which eneotod the overthrow of the
Rumen-Gladstone administration is said to be on
this wise:—

" Lord Ross3ll, I bees no doubt, looking back upon
the career that be hem run, saw one event therein which
was distinguished in the annals of England and of Europe,
vim., the passiog of the Reform Bill of 1832. He 11411
like the tly ou the wheel: the wheel made a terrible
dust, and the fly said, "What a dust we make." He
believed that the Reform Bill was carried by himself.
No snob thing—(hear, hear.) It was not carried by Lim
or his a4ministration. It seas carried by the people of
England— (cheer.). But looking back, and with his
flatterers at his beak, he thought he was the man to
carry the Rill through, and believed that is his old age,
though he had been galled finality John, the present
was the time to carry a new Reform Rill."

Touching the subject of lteform generally, he
soya

" When Earl Rols3ll inquired about a new Reform
Bill, there were two questions which ought to have
presented themselves, and I bane no doubt did present
themselves to his mind—Was there any need or necessity
for Reform, and if they were was it practicable to cony
it—(hear, hear)? I would answer, first, that there was
need of a Reform Bill; and I would answer, secondly,
that with good judgment it could have been carried."

The failure of Earl Ragmen'., Bill he attributes to
to Mr. Gladstone's endeavour first tooajole the Rouse
of Commons into parsing the Franchise Bill,and then,
when he could not do that, but was obliged to add to
it the Ile•distribution of Seats Bill, his trying to bully
them. Although Mr. Roebuck holds that there has
been no default of the House of Commons to render
Reform necessary, be lain favour of • well ootuidered
Bill, and lie thus Mateo why, and the nature of the
measure which would meet his approval :

'lf there be no lack., in the Housed Commons, and
there be no natural right on the part of anybody ta have
the power of voting—what is it that makes be say that
there should be • reform of the constitutional govern-
ment of England? It is this. It is not enough that we
should have justice. Justice is not justice unless the
people think it be juatice. Well, then, I say that in
the distribution of power in England there are certain
toes who have not now the power of voting, but who
have the faculties and the capacity. Capacity in every
sense to entitle them to • vote, but they have It not;
and, therefore, for the puma'e of putting aside disco°.
tent. I would have brought in a Reform Bill that should
have satiafied the ditcontented of the welldntentioned.
well-condueted, and educated of the working classes of
the counter. The working claws is a most unfortunate
name. There are compretended under that term
persons of very different qualities. There are working
men to whom I pay every respect. They are well con-
ducted and they are instructed men; they behave well
to their families, they do their duty in that station to
which it has pleseed God to call them, and they deeerve
in every sense the respect and consideration of their
fellow catisens—(bear, hear). But there are others in
that alias to whom I do not pay any respect (applause);
they are fractious; they are drunken; they beat their
wives; they introit their children ; they don't do their
duty as men ought to do—(applause). Now I suppose,
air, it will be said that I am an enemy of the working
classee—(laughter). I am not an enemy of the
working clause.; the well-to-do, the well-conditioned of
those I bail as equal with myself, and worthy of every
consideration. But never will I condescend to flatter
the drunkard, or to give power to those who ere totally
Incompetent to use it well—(cheers). Therefore I say'l
in any well-considered Reform Bill care would have
been taken to separate those classes one from the other,
and that whatever power you conceded it would not be
in that wholesale way of giving it to the number of
pounds. but that they would hays taken some means of
separating the good men from the bad among them—
(applause).