The Express.
London, England, 1848-07-07 00:00:00

cal amty,hu itiltamt,:ihrftetatth.:
Cooper was therefore the nun fitted to leg
the helm of s
ot
thh
u of Stout ; and u far as For, inquiring not into tbe political
were rtsm:rely engaged people ot England, or to assist en guidine
in an "mitt to bring in
the
°creed, the Newdegates and tical conduetCooper—ethat did he Mid He fo
traditionary
it:4l'l"w' wa:connocthing in common with them. Mr. Cooper proceeding
Sibthorps of the day hid to the Staff, adebire Potteriet un!
el Ito "gin such a party. time when, in comet:maim of some unhappy etiffereneeelee.
They would be reluctant in ee j
The knights arc duet,
.----"""'""""---"";:7---.—'-------ISilalra: =l'l'6°7: hou:':
theityP "n
at
twee° the masters and the workmen, the mines of th.
Their good swords &reeled, . I
Cooper hraanguing those fierce mai excited • . men In
(Laughter.) I deny that those whom the hon. gentleman leagnege of the most inflammatory description in i •
p enneg
E land were ever the leaders of words, which, a day before, were sure to lead
rn ant by the gentlemen of ng f .
Take Hampden or instance. He war cut of violence. He found the heart's of those worilto deeds
popular opinion. le ohms
by the gentlemen of that day,
and if he were alive he wuuld the address urging them on was concluded, ?mem. e
And teed souls are with the mints, /root.
wucely be asked out te dmer. in the present doy. forth to acts of plunder and of outrage, menacing the' ---....s
"Tee gentlemen" resisted catholic emaueipt- district with desolation and flames, and °ray det.tesa *4l
(Laughter.)
tem and the Reform Bill formerly, and in the present day their purpo- o by the armed tetermoition of the eat,.
it Wall they who threw out the measure for destroying the beeeath ohege enforced fire one of Mr. Cooper', vi • ---"
last links of intolerance which had oppressed a long su ering for sash be moat al the unhappy men—fell eead, eheeme.
fi.
•I
I deprecate the placing of class against class—(hear),- by kin tall the advance of his cempaniuns, and thus meteeee
race.h
is no true friend of his country who looks down on the their lives by his deith. lie found them the eu.rages thus
'ttnndtrye the middle class or tie working Class. (liter, created by the glowing words of Mr. Cooper were 0:1 eeees,
hear.), I believe that the patticipatien of numbers in the lion of a special commission which sat for t tee weak;
government, and that the taking away of all restrictions on and sprawl terror and grief throughout liendrer],
education, religion, and liberty, is the best safeguard of the of families compromised in the guilt of the la„
state ; and entertaining these °pinkies I cannot hes:tate to surgenta. (Hear, hear.) Sur, ly the he, atd the
support the metiers ot my lino. friend. (Loud cheers.) country would cut sweet to the proposition that slice a tam
M jr. Ssreant
TALFO CUD said that having on former as the inciter to these acts of yeacece was a fit .n.l ropes
occasion
sympathised with and aided iu the cause of reform, representative to legislate for Regaled, or that hot %tense,
nefelt bound on the present occasion testate why he was not victims were fit recipients of the puli ical power ww. red bp
guilty of ieconsestency is opposing the motion of his hon.friend, them. (Item, hear.) The history of matikied we. not tim,
And when he looked neck at what had passed during the last history of the masses thinki•.g fur the masses, but to the ge.
3u years, when he lint entered upon public lite, and took an nitre, wadom, virtue, and heroism of the few viuoiering the
ardent interest in the reuse of progress—when he saw how liberties of the many, creating them by their gamy., inktrat.
the pow. r of the aristocracy had been diminished—what Mg them by their wisdom, and minfireeme them by their
great additions had been made to the popular strength— virtue, end cementing them with the te emni otfir,.4 „,,,y theft
when he remembered how the stability of a paper currency heroism. The time would come when the 'nee, s might be
had at that time been maintained by the sanguinary execu • safely entrusted with a full participation in the adue enee.
Lion of bleodahedding laws, and bow the p ewer of the press tent and Iceislation of the stet., hut that tires
had in those days been visited by the cruel oppresseons of had not yet arrived. The people, uninfoure d by
bigotry red tear, and when to saw how immens, ly the Knowledge, were as the ce.c m in his e,renq
direct influence of the aristocracy heel been curtailed by gigantic bat blind, blind with a darkness, which coati; ~has
the act of 1832--how every municipal corporation bad tem deepened by the light from SeilliC ~ by the lieht from
Ibeen popularised—how free was the ;less in thew days, learning, by the light from above. (hear, mere no
not merely from pro-ceuions, but even from anuoyance : wool I quote, to the purpose of these views, a lean hats from
when he recalled all these things to mind, he could not Coleridge:
think that he was ieconsistent in echoing to
.proce-d fur- My tu of these old narrow ordinances
la ton not hold too lightly. *lacy at e ir, ights
Of prtcele, rotor, which oppr.,..,eu inutik.i.d
should act more wisely by striving to consolidate our testing
tier in agitating for organic chunse, believing that he
Tied em the v.ilatile will of tle•ir onpreeso.s—
institutions, and to impart to the people that Knowledge For always formidable was Like league
which was essential to the exercise of public choice, and toot Atsl parukersuip of tree gout, with free will.
piety witheett which knowledge was rather a bane than a Thew ay of an
ordinance. thou:h it winds
Is n, deeiounth. Straight forwam g wi,
m maim befere them, lie was struck, in the first place, by its
ben. fit. ( Ministeri.il cheers.) Pram eding to examine the
The widw pith, and straight the fearful path
Of the cannon 1....11; direct It the., --ad taped
mirco larteous character. It ap, tared to be a smell attempt Flastternai that it way reach, and sham ring what it reedits.
to emulate a larger and infinitely nobler scheme. The Ply. aka, the road the human tains travel People's Charter was a bold plan: thin lesser charter seemed That On which isi.,,isti corms and goes troth fallow
The river's course, the valley ptasful windings,
firmed upon its model, only to induce more timid politicians
es prefer it. It was developed, as it was arranged, with etirves num,' the corn Held HMI tlie hi,' of sines
Lamming the holy holmium of property:
little caution. In the original plan there were four propoals;
And thus tom . c, th AO late, leans to its end.
but the hon. menet, r for Montrose had since offered them
Before he sat gown he would sty a wired or two Aleut the
a fifth point ; as it to show with hew little discretion the
petitions presented on this subject. Terre had ban a grim
whole pion had been arranged, and how little judgment had
nuioner of these, from very respectable perees, wle, in van.
been exercised in introducing mighty changes of the whole
owpoints of view were dissetisfied with this or teat haters
scheme of the British constituti in. The hon. member's first
in our present institutions, though probably for tie most
paint was the ballot. In his (the learned serjeant's)
end cart with no v definite notion of the neve
view, there could be little °ejection to any change in theend extent of the honourable geetlerran's einem;
but he denied that there had been mauffetted my
urit enthusiasm throughout the country oar the 'abject,
male of voting, which could save tne humble elector
from the ceercion of power and the temptation of gold.
Looking at the baled singly, and believing that the defect
it was to remedy existed, if it had been sinely proposed he le denied that there was any 'Meet of :hat kind whieh
manifested a desire in the country at large for great changes.
should have been prepared to give it his support—(hear,
There Woo, on the contrary, a vast na-ljurity eat .iglu-minded
Dear)—believing a: the same time that its ins
and sound-thinkiug men, who were of °pillion that this ass
penance was greatly exaggerated both by friends
the:
not sec
etime,un ,y .to be tallereg about wasettlieg the Irishmen. ot
and face—(cheering)—and entirely discrediting the notion
that there wan efficieecy in any mechanical contrivance which There were multitu ice of pi:Memel who
would never have coins forward but fur a speech which bad
could prevent tee greatest act of a pone man's life from being better never ben spoken. (Hear, hear.) Was it at a
known. (Renewed cheers.) But the hon. gentleman con moment
fired that if the conetitueney he proposed to create we moment when Eogland, by virtue of her instimeues, sad
by the providence of Oud, showed herself to be the Thee.
felt without this protection, then that the franchise would
mopylie of the world, that the House of Commons •AS to tis
be rather a besto then a bless'ng to them. Whycelled upon to proceed with these miserable tater .Ji,.g.. wee
.
surely, this was the greatest condemnation of his scheme I
Could they ho prepared to unsettle the whole system of the institutions, that weathered the smacks in a r..ousual
storms? Abeting, theretore, no jot of his boys ter the ad
-
nation of the species, he was oat tho lees diseeon to
nation to establish a scheme, the sole protection of which
await the time when the franchise might safely be b. rowed
was a ballot-box ? (Hear.) Was that the ark by which the i
new-h en voters were to be saved from the waters of revolu- I
upon the people. But belie visg that the isoplc, to that
CMS which were seeking to engulf them ? Why, he wanterde
shame be it said, were wholly unfitted fur that
no better conteession of the inefficiency of the plan—of i
privilege; believing, moreover, that the modoa befog
utter uselessness for the purposes, it sought to realise. (Much
the house would, it carried, ouly 1..1 to codes
cheering.) But then came the next point—triennial paella-
and fruitless agitation, he protested ageor.st it, and he should
mends. Triennial parliaments would produce se little practical
i his
gve voice against the reselutiorms, which woule hto
change that he saw little solid argument either tor or against ad
results no less unsatisfactory to the country than they would
them. The charter gave annual parliaments, and this plan rove destructive to the best interesa of the enaere.
followed at a humble distance. W teethe r, like the earth-born p
Mr. COISDEN.—I rise under a great diudr-ritatte in H.
giaut of oaf, who, every time he fell in the struggle acquired
lowing the son. and learned member after the heuse has
tresh strength for toe contact, they were to derive renewed
heard the ermquent speech that he has just ceneludiel, and(
energies from each retested reference to their constituents,
can only say I shall not attempt to emulate the hen member
he did nut know, but that was about the only argument th it
bi the flew of lauguege in whieb be has irelulgrel. I feel else
could be used in father of this bra ch of the proposition.
anothe r disadvantage in following the hon. aril levee*
But teen came the substance of the hen. member's scheme—
member—namely, ..n his not. having giceit the how: any
the e xteueion of the franchise and the new distribution
''' support her reasonings against cue resolutioas of my
of the constituencies. And hero he must admit that it the
bon. trhieeend.eoadieireedfact: cDe, h
ehoene. and
eleareen
eilegrre;tlette
scheme was'
a as it was int ruled to be, a scheme tor new
electoral districts, there ricts, then would be a terrible consistency L"
large is not in favour of my hon. friend's motka,
between the distresses of the time and this attempt to tear
I should be sorry to believe such an asserion, and I most
asunder the oldest political ties and local associations. But
mie, y. I. do not believe it—l ehould been a very pea
having evolved a cloud of " family peutions" in livoar of
the plan the memeer for Montrose started hack as if at the Fenton of my fellow-c.nntry men it I did. Bat there is this
sound himself had made, and cried " Ged forbid that I should • impertent element in the question. It you admit that
theepeople of this country do desire to particle-de is the
propose anything of the sort. I have no wish to cut the
country. up into parallelogrems." But the constituenciea tranrchise, then you must also admit this fact, that there are
understood tide to be a paralielegram project ;and that being ix eerenthe of the stele of the adult male pepulation by
six
this franchise is desired ; and if, in addition to the
se, what must they not think on the one hand of the studie a
you are eh arly shown that the middle chases are in emceed
disguise of the projector, and on the other of the value
bestowing this franchise on wows six sevenths of the adult
of the petitions? (Cheers.) Some of the petitioning
populatFoU, tnen I am entitled to say this is a most ire
'
families earnestly preyed for es Mr. Hume's motion" nude
which was mule enough ; °thin asked for electoral slietricts P°leant ele merit in the whole question. New 1 cal on the
non, and learned member to examine carefully the division
in particular. What must these worthy families think when
the y heard of Mr. Hume having got up to declare that toPaper
after this debate shall have been brosght to
.on, and he will
final that in preemelsa
house
re; rcsert the middy
did not want electoral districts at all? (Cheering.) The
a conclusion,
bow member's treatment of the suffruie question was as the members of this
dosses and the independent ill. hoot. holden, PO Y
scarcely any better. His resolution, as set out to the world,
was framed to include householders. lie passel over the
sill find th. eir runes recorded. in favour of the motion if .
subsequent introduction of time word" alb" my hon. femme I refer to this tut has order to row MX
it is not true, as has been asserted, that three exists a boas
:dr. 11 UM.E.—That was a mere error. spirit on the part of the middle classes to grant any, redeem
Mr. S.tj. TALFOUItD quite believed so. But the of political power to the masses of the people. I 'relieve
public understood the hon. member to go for " house- that a contrary spirit exists amongst the mid,Pe classes.
hold suffrage." If there had been a dinner, though he
These facts, for such they are. Drina admitted, what is the
would not insinuate that any such festivity be. I other amdereion of the boa. and learned member with which
token place, the tout would clearly. bare "•e ' I have to deal ? He stated that there had been no general
" Hume and household suffrage." The universal cry was
w
" Hume and household sullfrige." Tne babbling gossip of petitioning nor any great meetings held amongst the people
at large in favour of the resolutions of my h moue-
the a r repeated " Hume and household suffrage." But able friend. No e I will tell the hon. sod leareed mem-
when the hon. member came to explain his plan he intro- ber that there is a greater mevern, nt at heitalf of teem rue-
duced an interoretatiou deux; and, accustomed as he (Sets lotions, and a move meat more entirely divested rt oressisa-
jeant Talfourd) was to interpretation clauees, he cont. ssed non, than has bsen manifested of Lie years am eisst the
that this was the strangest he had ever seen. Some of them peopl e I have counted the numser of meeting. where re-
directed th .t every singular should include all the plurals; solutions have been passed in favour of these lee., aunt's, at
others that every masculine was to include all the Gmininee;
but this interpretancn clause was still more curious, for I find them recorded in the Daily News, and I Lad their
(said the learned serjeant) it explained the denomination number amounts to no 1 FS than 130. (Hear, hear) I
ehelietige the hon. and learned member to deny the
" household suffrage" to mean, not every man that fact that the movement has been mare ap ntineou
holds a house, but event house that holds a in favour of these resolutions thin eve was manifested
man. (Loud laughter.) Household suffrage was, no during the five year: that the corn-law movement was going
doubt, en endearing term. It was especially so at the on ; fir lam resty to adrift that the eau Lew movement
tea table, of the f may petitioners, but this plat of hou-e- was galvanised as from • centre, and that the meetiou as
hold suffrage included not householders alone, but ese ry that question were held at the instigation and by the eaten•
man alive in this country, except those who slept under meutelity of the men who were 'ward in that move-
gi peg tute. It was universal suffrage in another shape—less ment, whereat., the meetings hill in behalf of my hoe.
Wain and undisguised ; and so the family petitions a second
friend's resolutions
time had evidently prayed for nom thing the hen. member have been spontaneous, and wholy di-
never meant. But the reason he gave was still more edify- vested of such extraneous stimulus. There is also less of
the leaven of decordence of pelitical feel ng than bee ever
in e than the interpretation. " I did net put the words been manifested in former m ,cements of this nature. Titers
houachold suffrage in my resolution" said the hon. gentle- have been petitions presented in favour of the charter and
man, " because, although the committee. on whose part I preying for universal suffrage, but the greater numb' rof the
bring forward these resultrions, agreed to the words house-
petitions have been in favour of my hon. friend's rssolutiona
curious Now, 1 have nothing whatever to say against the charter m
result of the combined deliberations of the co
universal suffrage. I shall never say one word in oppositioa
mittee. The hon. member bad done well, however, in to those who advocate, upon general gnomes, what they
omitting the words, for the notion of household suffrage term the rights of man. The hon. and learned member bag
under the existing circumstances of the popular mind, addreased himself to the advocate for universal suffrage,
and the variety of conceptions formed of it was, of all notions, and he teems to think that they have greater right on their
the mist fantastic and delusive. Having thus toushed
propositions,
he now came It the hon.
to the question—was the contemplated measure intended as and learned gentleman gives his vote tor univer-
side than those who claim the right of household suffrage.
upon his hon. friend's principal
sal suffrage, I can understand his argument. But as lam
a settlement of the question, or merely as an instalment ? If nut one a theme who advocate that measure, I am
it were put forth as e eettlemint, it was wholly untenable in °enteral to leave the hon. and learned member to
argument. lib hon. friends must know that the more t'efi- those who do. But, in advancing the clients of um-
nite the euffrage was made the more you extended it within vernal suffrage against those which are set forth is
certain limits, the more agitation did yon excite among those the resolutions of my honourable friend the lion. and learn-
who still remained without those limits. The very infiuitude ed gentleman hes net, I think, shown hismual legal know-
of the tenures upon which the elective franchise was held li dye and acumen. Tne hon. and learned member does not
lessened the effect of their exclusion with those who did not seem to think that a lodger can be a householder—whereas,
exercise it, but once drew the line between a certain degree the Court of Common Pleas bee dee ided that a larger, wko
of poverty and the lower degrees beyond it, and
you would find these lower degrees assailing this claims t' be rand and is put upon the rate-book, is entitled
definite line witn the fiercest determination, told keep- the difficulties stated by the hon. and learn, d member to
le in g up, until they gamed their point, an agitation altogether to have his name entered upon the list of voters. Them
exist in the way of a self-denying unmerried clerk's possessing
destructive of the well-being of the state. (Hear, hear.) the franchise would he atonce removed, and that meritorious
Let hic not be taken as advocating the principle that, with el es of persons could become entitled to be re gistered in the
a people prepared for the exercise of their mainsl righei, list of voters as well as householders. There was one remark
property should be the sole ground on which political power made by the hon. and learned member with respect to MX
should rest. lie well knew that there is a nobler wealth Thomas Ceoper, the author of the " Purgatory of Suicides,
than what consids in acres or gold; he well knew that a upon which I think it necessary to make an otservaticala
deep.attacitment to country, a lofty patriotism, a generous lam sorry the hon. and learned member considered it to be
pride in the institutions and ancient glories of his native within his province to ally le to the put c steer of Mr.
land, held their existence among the very humblest Cooper, who would be as glad to forget the occurrences at
ceases of Englishmen, beneath the modest roof of past vests in the Potteries as the hon. and leerned m. other
the peasant as within the palace of the peer ; but he would doubtless be if they had never happened. Bat I
could not derive hence the conclusion that these suppose the hon. and learned member adduced the case of
humbler classes, in their present condition of knowledge, Mr. Thomas Cooper for the purpose of showing—which IS
were fitted to take part in the legislation of this country ; needed not to have taken the trouble to show—that a Teri
or to be admitted, even in the wholesale way proposed, to
good poet may be a very bad poll icons. (Laughter.'
the election of its legislators. To such a proposition the Now, the motion of my hon. trend the member Inn Moat-
education returns said No; the returns of crime, increasing rove is, that he may obtain leave to bring in a roil giving
not much in number but in the atrocious character of the votes to householders. that is to say, to persons who are not
• reported, repoel, said No; the terrible outbreaks which had only contributing to the taxation of the country, but is the
so disturbed the country, said No; the conscience of the
nt for rates for the support of the poor. Ile asks that they thecastatesman,
statesman, who felt how little had yet been done by hi
the spiritual and secular education of the people, emphati- have votes in the election of members of this house. Now,
the first difficulty that mee's us in prosecuting of such e
catty said No. (Hear, hear.) Could he see that any corre- scheme is, that we are acting on the theory that such is
spending increase bad taken place in the intellectual aggran- already the franchise of this country. The old constites
disement of the country since 1832, he wooed assent not to tional theory is, that the parliament of the country shoeld.
this motion merely, but to the admission to the franchise of
be
all his fellow-countrymen without dieduction as to their elected by the householders who are payers of toes sled
all
poor rates, and we ask is that doctrine to be
having or holding boasts or simply living in them, a sham or a reality ? (Hear, hear.) The PorPs
but he found that no such extension of intellectual
do not like sheens; they will not hove them say
power had taken place. His hon friend the mem- longer ; they want realities. (Hear, hear.) If this were a
her for Oldham bad eloquently cited in proof of the ad- government such as the hon. and learned genitalia
leas
vancement of knowledge among us, the vast diffusion of
shadowed forth, a sort of national despotism which word
cheap literature, and the names of several men, such as first educate the people, and then give them the firmel;
as Thom Coop:r and Ebenez a Elliott, who, men of the chise, it might do ; hut the theory is, that the people
humblest class in life, had distinguished themselves by their po'itical power already, and that nobody is resp 'mete, as
glowing and powerlul writings. The facts stated by his hon.
may
the hon, and learned gentleman in his poetic fights .
friend not merely prove) nothing—they indicated nothing imagine, for the task a preparing them to ex reuse the fer._
as to the existence of mental power among the masses. In chew. (Hear, bear.) It there bad been such • roper:me!.
all ages it had plc used the Creator to bestow the gifts of parts I think it would have been done long ago. (Le .1
genius upon the humblest among men as upon the highest. the franehme to
The bon. member for Oldham had cited the author I ask what danger can there be in giving ,
householders? They are the fathers of tamales,
ernes.
of the " Purgatory of Suicides," as a man, fitted by his persons whe fill your churches and your de. K_
glowing verse, to adorn the legislature of this country.
merits of Mr. 'Thomas Cooger, as a poet, no man better ap- is the danger, then, of entrusting them with the fr lei
The shop.; in fact the people of the country.
efiWele,eni
Why I hare
wholly
than he (tar. Sc giant Talfourd) did; but he (He", hear.) (Nu beetstut,onej you cry. . ,
wholly dissented from the proposition that Piz. Thomas always heard that oar institutions live in the afiestsols of