The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-02-02 00:00:00

PUBLIC MEN ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

Mr. Arnold, MT., in addressing a meeting convened
by the Accrington Liberal Association, upon Parlia-
mentary reforms, said there was no real similarity
between the case of 1866 and that of the coming
session. He wished to lay stress on the fact that
wsimilation of the franchise altered the problem.
The question oi 1884 would be the absolutely new
question of uniformity of franchise. Until that had
been decided by the House of Commons he held most
strongly that the Government would not be justified
in putting forward proposals for redistribution. He
thought uniformity of franchise the key to the political
future. If there were to be differences of franchise out-
side and inside boroughs, the future would be one long.
continued agitation. It would not be possible to stop
fagotting it they retained the freehold franchise. He
(Mr. Arnold) felt sure that whatever line Mr. Bright
took would be accepted, and that the freehold fran-
chise would not be abolished. Therefore, he wished to
seggest a compromise. Most people disliked disfran-
chisement, though it had formed part of every
Reform Bill, and many county qualifications had
been acquired with a patient frugality which made them
the honourable mark of successful industry. They
might deal with the property vote as the freeman
vote was dealt with in 1867. Let there be no dis-
franchisement in the case of residents, and no
addition. Let the property qualification be repealed
as a franchise, saving the personal rights of all
those now upon the register who are resident within
the county or division for which the vote is claimed.
In that way they would establish the principle
of uniformity, together with a sound basis upon which
to deal with redistribution. Liberals showed great
moderation in making no further demands. If the
reforms which Mr. Gladstone would propose should be
long obstructed there could be no doubt that the
memory of the Duke of Richmond of 1780—the father
of electoral districts and of manhood suffrage—would
be revived with a distinction which would astonish no
one more than the descendants of his grace. They all
desired that the settlement now made should have
some endurance. They did not wish to be engaged in
Parliamentary reform all the years of their lives. Bat
If the Government were to attempt to deal with all the
many parts of this subject at once imperfection was
inevitable, and agitation would be unceasing.

Mr. Marriott, M.P. for Brighton, speaking at the
annual dinner of the Brighton Parliamentary Society,
hailed with gratification the growth of kindred
societies throughout the country, regarding them
as a valuable vehicle of political education. In
alluding to the coming Reform Bill, without abso-
lutely expressing an opinion upon the desirability of
extending the franchise, he was understood to
suggest that such a step would be premature.
It would tend to make the country more demo-
cratic, and taking America and France as illus.
trations he felt that Democratic Governments
had not succeeded very greatly up to the present.
There were some people who looked upon the franchise
as a right; he looked upon it as a trust. It was a
question whether those who had not got it were in a
fit state to have it extended to them. We had to
govern r, population of something like 300,000,000 of
people in our coloniee, and probably not one of those
to whom it was proposed to extend the franchise knew
anything of the geographical position or customs of
those whose destinies they would help to control.

At a meeting of the Liberal Three Hundred at
Darlington, Mr. A. Pease, M.P., referred to the Ilbert
Bill, and spoke in high terms of Lord Ripon, express-
ing his strong approval of the Viceroy's legislation,
and especially of the Ilbert Bill in its entirety before
being altered. Alluding to the Egyptian Question,
Mr. Pew° cond mined the way in which the Tories
had tried to hound the Government on to war, and
now they turned round trying to make capital out of
it. and saying it was a blunder to make war at all.
He thoroughly endorsed the remark made by Sir
Ferrer Herschell that the great mistake of the
Government was not going in for a reversal of the
policy of the last Government. Referring to Ireland,
he said that the men who had cried out against the
breaking of law and infringement of order were now
trying cueir very beat to do what they had erstwhile
decried. Nobody but those who had been in Ireland
had any idea of the bitterness whicu was being created
between the two opposing sections.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the Sunderland
Shipowners' Society, Mr. Storey, M.P., thought the
experience of the last eix months had convincel Mr.
Chamberlain that he had acted hastily in proposing to
interfere with ship insurance and other matters. Mr.
Storey was therefore hopeful that when the proposed
bill did come it would be more moderate than the
shipowners now believed. Mr. Chamberlain might
press for the inclusion of shipowners under the pro.
vision of the Employers' Liability Act, but there
would be many members in the House of Commons
who would contend that such an extension was not
ust, fair, nor reasonable.

Speaking at the annual dinner of the Port of Ply-
mouth Chamber of Commerce, the Earl of Morley,
Under-Secretary for War, admitted that it would
strengthen the confidence of commercial men if the
chief coaling stations and home harbours were better
protected. The expense need not be enermous, and it
behoved the commercial world to cor.sider whether it
could not well afford it; as an insurauce premium it
ought not to be grudged. His lordship stated that
during nine months of last year 33,000 men were re-
cruited, which he thought showed that if we had not
solved the army proLlem in the beat possible way, we
were at an/ rate on the right track.

On Monday evening Mr. Herbert Gladstone and
Mr. Osborne Morgan took part in connection with the
opening of a Liberal club at Stanningley, near Brad-
ford. Mr. H. Gladstone, in the course of his speech,
said he hailed with pleasure the reform of county
government in England, and hoped it would be ex-
tended to Ireland. It was most encouraging to find
the great enthusiasm with which measures of re-
form were received throughout the land. The
Government meant to extend the franchise to Ireland;
they also intended to reform county government in
Ireland, and he hoped, although it might be left for
another session, that the Government would be called
upon to deal with the actual form of administration
in Ireland. Mr. Osborne Morgan dwelt upon the
advantages of political clubs as giving unity to the
party.

Mr. Hibbert, Under-Secretary at the Home
Office, and the Hon. E. L. Stanley, M.P., addressed
their constituents at Oldham on Monday night.
Mr. Hibbert said they met on the eve of very impor.
tent events, but there never was a time when the
Liberals were more truly and loyally united to each
other, or when a Government was more anxious to
bring in a large and liberal measure of reform.
Tory speakers seemed to think that a general
election was near at hand, but he did not think
It was so near as they imagined it to be. As
a working member of the Government he had
passed 26 bills through Parliament, and so he had not
been idle. If Lord Salisbury's advice was taken by
the Conservative party, and they were to resist reform,
It would lead here, as It had done in other countries,
to revolution, and, perhaps, to the extinction of Lord
Salisbury and his colleagues. In spite of the amount
of criticism during the recess, the Government was as
strong to day as when it was first formed. Mr.
Stanley repudiate 3 the social ties advocated by Mr.
George and others of the same school of thought.

Mr. W. R. H. Powell and Sir John Jones Jenkins,
the Liberal members for the county and borough of
Carmarthen, addressed their constituents in that town
on Monday night. Mr. Powell said that the redistri-
bution of seats ought to include the division of the
county into districts, giving each voter one vote only,
and that in the district in which he resided. He
denied that the Church in Wales would be ruined if
disestablished. Sir J. Jones Jenkins said a check was
Imperatively needed to the enormous expense of
private bill legislation. Daring the last ten years the
Great Western, the Midland, and the North-Western
Railway Companies spent £1,041,000 in legal and
Parliamentary expenses, and as the shareholders
looked for returns the public had to pay the interest
on those enormous sums in high railway fares and
Inefficient accommodation.

Mr. Bourke, 'M.P., speaking at a meeting of the
Conservative Association at King's Lynn, said a great
deal of factious agitation had been got up with regard
to what were called reforms, and they were told that a
Franchise Bill was to be the staple measure of the
session. With respect to the extension of household
franchise in the counties, he for his part would say
that if there were any irregularities which the agricul-
tural community complained of, and which they were
anxious to have redressed, he should wish to approach
that question having full coadence in the people who
comprised the agricultural community. It was quite
possible that in a reform of this sort the present
Government would not only enfranchise a large
number of persons, but they would also disfranchise a
large number who possessed the right of voting in
counties at present. A Franchise Bill would add a
large number of voters to the present constituencies;
some said as many as 2,000,000. What the Opposi-
tion wanted to know was how those 2,000,000 of
votes were to be distributed, and how the irre-
gularities which at present existed were to be
remedied. It was unreasonable for any Government to
propose to give a vast number of persons votes with-
out making equitable arrangements that those votes
should be fairly distributed. In conclusion, Mr.
Bourke said there was other legislation which he
should have liked to have seen introduced for in-
stance, the improvement of the dwellings of the poor,
and the subject of local taxation. If the programme
of the violent Radicals were carried out, this country
would no longer be England, but we should be
domineered over by persons who were not thinking
politicians.