The Express.
London, England, 1851-12-18 00:00:00

TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL

Lerrsa
MY LORD,
There is a weakness which is common to most
men and to all women, and from which even states-
men are not supposed to be exempt. The weakness
I mean is susceptibility to compliment. In Parlia-
ment, the foibles of leaders are not merely recog-
nised, but studied; and in your own case, especially,
the idiosyncrasy has been sedulously watched, and
the due attention has deferentially been paid.
Among the cld Whigs, indeed, it has long been, I
believe, a matter of principle to do nothing that can
be considered " disrespectful to Lord John." " What
am Ito do when I get in ?" inquired a young noble-
man of his father, who was insisting on the pro-
priety of his filling the family borough. " Do!"
was the reply,—"do, sir, precisely as Marcus Hill
tells you, and above all things be sure you aro
highly respectful to Lord John." "How is it
that Manful makes no way ?" asked a visitor the other
day at Brookes's :—" he is one of you, intelligent,
industrious, and makes uncommonly clever speeches
on the subjects of the day." Ah !" was the reply,
" it's true, no doubt of it, but Manful nevercan suceeca
he's .o v-c-r-y disrespectful to Lord John." In fact, my
lord, I don't believe there is an article of MagnaCharta
that a IVlng would stand by if he did not deem it
entirely consistent with personal respect for you.
My lord, these anecdotes occurred to me the
other mut wing whilst reading an old speech in which
one of your foibles was remarkably developed. There
is nothing of which you are so foul as the idea
of being thought a " constitutional minis-
ter." On every great occasion certain high-
sounding phrases are always on your tongue.
" The ancient principles of the British constitution ;"
the " Landmarks of the nation;" the "Old founda-
tions;" the "Constitutional lines of demarcation ;"
these are what you like it to be thought that you arc
specially appointed Prime Minister to save. My
lord, the House knows this, and we are consequently
always hearing front expectant members, some allu-
sion to " the consistent statesman who, by God's
blessing, holds the first place in her Majesty's coun-
cils, and under whose guidance, &c., our nation is
preserved." I remember a debate on the Reform
Bill, in which the young members seemed to vie
with one another in endeavouring to say something
" highly respectful of Lord John." At length
it came to the turn of a great man; and the great
man made, as everybody thought, a great hit. " I
praise you," said Mr. Macaulay, "for preserving the
ancient, principles of the British constitution.
(Cheers.) I praise you for preserving the land-
marks of the nation. (Loud cheers.) I praise you
for preserving the old foundations. (Renewed cheer-
ing.) I praise you especially"—(with a thump on
the table and the accustomed wave of his other
arm)—" I praise you especially fur not effacing the
old distinctions between towns and counties!" (Loud
vociferutions of " hear, hear," from the whip benches,
and bursts of cheering that were again and again
renewed.)
Dear Mr. Macaulay! For a Scotchman, he is
without question the most figurative and imaginative
of mankind. And so warmhearted, too; another
charming virtue by no means commonly supposed to
be identified with hie nationality. Ile has his
foibles, too. In the cause of a friend no one deludes
himself so completely as he does. Why, in this very
case, he absolutely believed every word he said ; aye,
and what was better, your lordship believed it too!
I see you trying to hide your blushes behind the
bill whilst the house applauded; aye, I see it as if
the scene had hams•ncil yesterday.
If the great historian had only imagined that in-
stead of enunciating a truth he IVIIS giving point to
a sarcasm! If he had only conceived that he was
uttering the severest and bitterest reproach that it
was possible to put in words! Ah! my lord, if
statecraft has left a blush remaining in your compo-
sition you may blush again at this moment, and
Macaulay may blush with you, you : that with such
a bill in your hand you should have accepted such a
compliment ; he, thnt in ignorance of its composition
he should have awarded you such praise.
Why, my lord, if there was one thing which your
Reform Act did more effectually than another, that
very thing was "to etface the old distinctions be-
tween town and country." Such havoc did it make
with those old distinctions, that there are absolutely
at the present time counties which arc electomlly
dependent on the towns, and towns which are politi-
, cally lost in the surrounding country. Tho "old
distinctions between town mid country:" why, my
lord, I can show cases of boroughs which are no
more towns than a turtle's egg is a new fledged
ostrich.

In the list of British boroughs, as your Reform
Act constituted them, there will be town(' several
which, like Droitwich, Wrexham, Chippenhum, &c.,
appear to contain considerable populations, though
well known to be subject to nonnuation influence.
How is this? people ask. Here arc places well
known to be close, which nevertheless are, osten-
sibly, as populous as many a town which; exer-
cises freely an unbiassed choice. A tory would pro•
bably suggest that large towns were just as bad as
small ones ; or that the effect was the inevitable con-
sequence of local and hereditary attachment. But is
this so? In order to arrive at the truth, let us ex-
amine a specific case. Suppose we take Woott-
STOCK for an example. The population of that
borough appears by the ordinary returns to
amount nearly to 8,000. Now a town population of
8,000 constitutes no mean constituency. There ought
to be, and wo may fairly expect to find, a certain
amount of independence among 8,000 towns-
people. And yet we all know that Wood-
stock is a perfectly close borough of the Duke
of Marlborough's. Is it, then, my lord, sim-
ple admiration for his grace's character and person
that has led the " 8,000" men of Woodstock to re-
' turn to parliament unfailingly, and without regard
of politics or principles, no other member than his
grace's nominee ?
On one of those holidays so rare to statesmen, and
consequently so precious and so vividly remembered,
it may have chanced to your lordship to visit the
classic ground of Blenheim—the splendid gift of a
great nation to undoubtedly one of her greatest
warriors. As you approached Blenheim Palace, you
may possibly recollect passing some almshouses—
the gift of a former Duchess to the poor. You may
remember a hall, unnecessarily large no doubt for
the extent of the place, but not the less munifi-
cently dedicated by one of the Dukes of Marlbo-
rough to the worthy burgesses of the enlightened
borough. You may recollect the inn, the church (a cha-
pel, I believe, of some adjacent parish), the stocks, the
grass-grown pavement, and the now neglected glove
shop. These are the objects which you see before
you reach the magnificent triumphal arch which
opens upon Blenheim-park; and these objects con-
atitato,the town of Woodstock.
" What, the borough town !" you will exclaim.
" What, the town of Woodstock?" Aye, my lord,
here is Woodstock. But where are the 8,000 in-
habitants ? Where is the town constituency which
Mr. Macaulay applauded your lordship for preserving
distinct from the constituency of the county ? Alas,
they exist only in the Reform Act! The borough
of Woodstock is a myth. The town population of
8,000 has no existence. There is no such population
—no such constituency. Who are, then, the worthy
electors who return the Duke of Marlborough's
nominee to parliament? We will look about us
and inquire.
You mount in Blenheim court-yard, and taking a
ride over the demesne, you pass the celebrated gar-
dens which, like those of the Hesperides, are watched
by the ducal dragon for the golden fruit which the
produce ; you pass the lake which legend says it half
ruined one of the family to attempt to clean; you
pass the pillar on which are recorded, deeply cut in
the hard marble, all the great achievements of the
greet founder of this house. In a distant and se-
qnestered part of the park you come, it may be, on
a keeper's lodge. Your lordship, ever vigilant and
eyeful of the privileges of the people, ventures •
ryiot, to the keeper as to his poli^ical rights.
on know something of
.ducal influences, it may
be probably without surprise you hear that this
keeper is, in right of his lodge—of which
the 101. rent is only nominal an inde-
pendent voter for the nominee at Woodstock.
Well, my lord, you go on. You get seven or eight
miles away from Blenheim. You see a stalwart

Iploughman in a distant field. Approaching him, you
ask him what county you are in ? It may be Bucks
or Oxfordshire or any other. " Whose is the land
here?" "Why, the duke's, of course." "And are
you a voter at elections ?" " Oh, yea." " For the
county, I suppose ?" " Non, for the town, just."
"Town—what town ?" " Oha—just the Duke's town
away there, Woodstock." This puzzles you ; but on
inquiry you find that you have got into one of the
" outlying parishes" of which " the borough of Wood-
stock'' is composed. They are the parishes around
the town in which the Duke of Marlborough has
property. Allow me to give your lordship the names
of them: you will probably have forgotten by this
time of what elements your Reform Act made a
town. Woodstock, as God and man have made it, is
a village lying. at the Duke's park gates, and contain-
ing a population of 1,000, cats and dogs included.
Woodstock, as the Reform Act made it, is a borough
consisting of the several parishcsof
" Bladon, Begbrook, Shipton-on-Cherwell, Hamp-
ton Gay, Tackley, Wootton, Stonesfield, Coombe,
and Handbrough ; the parish of Kidlington (except
the respective hamlets of Gosford and Water Eaton);
the old borough of New Woodstock, the new borough
of Old Woodstock, and [by way of a be-all and end-
all] B.enheini-park."
My lord, I 'hope this instance will serve to show
you how fully you deserved Mr. Macaulay s praises
" fur not effacing the old distinctions between towns
and counties."

Your lordship, in passing the Reform Act, ex-
pressed as its principle, that towns with populations
of less than 2,000 would he disfranchised altogether.
Woodstock had a population of 1,000, and was,
consequently, one of the towns originally iucludedin
Schedule A.

But the Duke of Marlborough wanted to preserve
a seat in parliament for a nominee. The
Lgovernment
wanted the Duke of Marlborough's vote in favour of
the bill. Woodstock was accordingly taken out of
Schedule A!

But as for very shame-sake it was impossible to
leave this village to return a member solos, the
Boundary Commissioners were instructed to include
in the borough such adjacent polishes as would
suffice to maim upon electorate of not less than three
hundred 101. householders. To get this electorate,
they were obliged to include in the borough bounda-
ries no less than twelve outlying parishes. And
these twelve parishes surrounding Blenheim Palace
you digtified with the title of " a borough
town." Yon gave the franchise to a noble-
man's woodrangera and gamekeepers, and you called
them " independent electors." You enfranchised
that nobleman's estate, and called it a " parlia-
mentary borough." You grouped together 14
agricultural paroles and called them " a town ;"
coolly accepting, at the same time, the praise of a
great statesman, " for that ycu have not effaced the
ancient bulwarks of the British constitution, but have
faithfully preserved the old distinction between towns
and counties."

My lord, Woodstock is not a solitary ease. There
are twenty others quite as flagrant. The " old dis-
tinetions"were effectually effaced elsewhere. What
shall we say to BeCKINGUAII ? Buckingham, which,
to the scandal of our representative system, returns
two members to the House of Commons, was
included in Schedule A of the first Reform
Bill as a place containing less than 2,000 population.
Dukes, however, were powerful in those days. The
Duke of Buckingham insisted that Buckingham
should be preserved. The Whig government sue-
cumbed :—the borough was preserved. But how ?
In the parish of Buckingham, of which the town it-
self forms a very minute part, there were only 7.10 1
houses altogether, and of these only 223 were
rented at 10!. To make up a constituency of
300, it was necessary to take in the surrounding
country. The duke's farms were large ; the tenantry
thin and scattered. The seven 'swishes nearest to
Buckingham contained no less than 13,000 acres,
and on these 13,000 acres there were only 140 en-
franchising tenements, and these, said the Boundary
Commissioners, " are occupied as farms." Neverthe-
less, " the duke's wishes must be met." The seven
parishes, and 13,000 acres, were, therefore, taken in,
and constituted a borough by the name of Bucking-
ham. This borough extends four miles in a straight
line, in almost every direction, from the (so embed)
town ; its circumference is no less than four and
twenty miles ; and it is almost needless to add, that
it is the tenants of the houses " occupied as farms"
—l. e., the tenants of the great estate of Stowe—
who return the two members who arc sent to parlia-
ment by Buckingham.
I intend, my lord, to instance other, and even more
extraordinary, cases, but before we go to their c'sn-
sideration let us see how these anomalies arose, let
us inquire by what perversion of the Reform Act it
was that rural districts, such as those of Buck-
ingham and Woodstock, became chimed as " towns"
entitled to send representatives to parliament. This
explanation I will afford another day. Meanwhile,
my lord, I have great honour to remain, your
obedient servant, WINN Y3IEDE.