The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-30 00:00:00

THE ALLOTMENT OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Mr. Bright continued :

I come nos to the question which I believe all persons who
ha-e studied the matter will readily agree is one of great
importance to the country—how your members shall be
allotted to the various constituent bodies. I will ask you
this simple question. What is the obvious rule which
would recommend itself to every man when first about to
arrange this allotment? Would he not argue in this
way ? The law has given certain persons the right
of voting, and it presumes that every person who has
that right is capable of deciding how he shall vote.
Every elector, therefore, is of the same importance in the
eye of thr law, and why then should not every elector vote
for the sane portion of the whole Parliament? I shall be
told that I am not to go ti the United States for an illus-
tration of this. I will not. I will go a little nearer home.
Take the kingdom of Sardinia. I was in Turin last year,
and I made inquiries as to the mode of election and the
distribution of members there ; and I found that Genoa,
with a population of 110,000, returned seven members to
the Sardinian Parliament. Sardinia is not a republic; it
is a limited monarchy like our own. Let us go to the
colonies of Australia. Take New South Wales. The
capital, Sydney, returns eight members to the New South
Wales Parliament. In Victoria, the city of Melbourne re-
turns thirteen members to Parliament, and, by the bill now
introduced by the Minister of that colony, the number
thirteen is about to be increased to eighteen. I believe
that in Belgium and Sardinia, both countries under a
limited monarchy, the same rule applies, and we know that
throughout the whole of the United States the number of
members is allotted according to the population. In
every ten years this scale is rearranged—in fact, it works
itself. I do not for a moment argue that it is necessary
that we should get an actuary to apportion the number of
members exactly according to his calculations of the num-
ber of the population, bit; we have a fair right to an honest
approximation, and without it there can be no fair repre-
sentation of the people. Look at London, putting aside
the city. If you were to divide the six boroughs of which
the metropolis is made up, you would still nave twelve
boroughs with 300,000 population each (larger than the
population of Birmingham), and constituencies of 10,000.
Divide them again and you would have twenty-four
boroughs, each of 150,000 population, with 5,000 electors;
and when the franchise is extended, the number will be
still greater. I say that the metropolitan boroughs and
all large boroughs ought to be divided, or subdivided
they ought to have double, or treble, or quadruple tbeir
present number of members. What a miserable delusion
it is that this great capital of midland industry, with its
250,000 or 300,000 inhabitants, sends only two members
to the House of Commons ! But if every man I see here
before me had a vote, or ,if every man outside
had a vote, what better would he be if he sends
two members to the House of Commons, and some
boroughs of 10,000 inhabitants, equal to one of the small
corners of your city, have a right to return the same
number? The whole thing as at present arranged is a
disgraceful fraud. It ought to be put an end to,
and, if it is not put an end to, your representation
will remain for the future very little better than a
hoe, If you look at the county SOW you will tiod

1051

that the object of the present Government, and, in fact,
of any Government in which the aristocracy have so great
a power, and where landowners are so predominant, must
be in the distribution of seats greatly to increase the
number of members for counties. The Chancellor of
the Exchequer is a very ingenious gentleman. At this
very moment in all probability he has got before him rows
of figures to endeavour to make it out that the proper way
of reforming Parliament is to increase the number of
landed gentry in the House of Commons. I recollect on
one occasion that he referred to the county of Chester,
and showed that there were three boroughs in that county
which returned six members, while the two divisions of
the county only returned four, and that the four members
represented far more elect3rs and population than the six
members of the towns. Now, it will be unfortunate for
the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he ventures upon the
ground of arithmetic in connection with this question.
e are for arithmetic in connection with reform, and if he
proposes to deal with it in that way we have no objection
to carry out the principle fully.

THE HOUSE OF PEERS.

Mr. Bright then commented on the exclusive
character of the Upper Chamber:—

But now let me turn your attention once more
to the House of Peers. You know that the House
of Peers is a body composed. entirely of land-
owners, with the exception of a few lawyers and a
few successful soldiers. Have you ever been to the
botanical gardens in some of our towns, where a board is
put up with the words, " No dogs are allowed to enter
here "? There is a similar board at the dot.r of the
House of Peers, and, though you cannot see it without an
imaginary eye, it says, "No traders admitted here." The
House of Peers is a house for the great proprietors of the
soil. The county of Chester, to which Mr. Disraeli
referred, is very strongly represented in the House of Lords.
There are the Marquis of Westminster, Lord Combermere,
Lord Stanley of Alderley, and, no doubt, another peer or
two, if our acquaintance with them was only a little more
extensive. Take Lancashire. We had the Earl of Bur-
lington, now the Duke of Devonshire, the Earl of Derby,
the Earl of Sefton, and the Earl of Wilton. They come
up from their great lauded properties in Lancashire, and
sit in the House of Lord. Let us comet° your own county.
You have the Earl of Warwick, Lord Leigh, Lord Craven,
I think, Lord Calthorpe, and one or two others, for in a
county so charming as this there are sure to be many
estates and mansions belonging to the aristocracy of
England. The time was when both Houses of Parliament
sat together. They meet together now, but in different
chambers under the same roof, and no law can pass, or
the smallest modicum of freedom or of justice come to
you, until it has gone through the very fine meshes of the
net of the House of Lords. Well, then, I say that if the
landed proprietors of England insist upon a great addition
to their power, the House of Commons, with the inhabi-
tants of the towns and the traders of the country, will be
obliged to ask, " How is it that we have not our share of
power in the House of Lords ? " Only one word more on
the question of constitution. Whenever • Reform Bill is
brought into the House of Commons by any Government,
be as watchful and exacting as you like on the subject of
the franchise, but never, I beg, take your eye for one
moment from the question of the distribution of the
members, for in it hes the great subject of dispute, and
unless you guard your rights you will have to fight your
battle over again, and to begin it the day after the next
bill has passed.

THE BALLOT.

Mr. Bright next addressed himself to the question
of the ballot :

There is one other point to which I must refer,
and it is one upon whIA I presume I shall have
the cordial assent of this meeting. I believe it is the
opinion of the great body of the Reformers of the United
Kingdom that any Reform Bill which pretends to be
generally satisfactory to Reformers must concede the
shelter and protection of the ballot. I shall not discuss
that question or argue in its favour. I am quite sure that
in the minds of the electors of England it has long been
decided, and it has also been decided in the House of
Commons. Those who are for the ballot are for it
mainly because they wish free elections. Those who
are opposed to it are opposed to it chiefly because
they believe it would liberate the great body of the
constituencies from the control and influence of the
rich. The Times newspaper and others, but particu-
larly the Times, in discussing this question treat it
as if it were a question to be despised, and tell us that it
is mean and unmanly to ask that men should go to the
poll and give their votes in secret. The very man who
writes thus in the Tires writes his article in secret and
publishes it in secret, and if any voter says that he ought
to atilt his name to it—which, mind, I do not say at all—
what is his answer ? He replies " I am performing a
great public duty; I am obliged in the discharge of that
duty to comment with great severity upon Ministers and
public men, and to expose abuses, and in doing this it is
necessary that I should have the shelter of anonymous
writing." Well, Ido not dispute that, but if it is wise and
just for a writer in the Times to have that shelter in the
performance of a public duty, I say it is especially wise
and just that the humble elector in every county and every
borough should have from the law, if the law cau give it,
an equal protection in the exercise of his franchise. I be-
lieve that when the franchise is thus extended, when the
apportionment of members to the constituency approximates
to a just arrangement, and when pin have the protection of
the ballot, you will have that kind of representation in
the House of t.,ommons which will give to every man
who sits there a real constit4eticy, and will fi; NU) With
real raspougibility,