The Express.
London, England, 1851-12-24 00:00:00

TO LORD JOILI RUSSELL

Lartat VI.
Mr LORD,
We propose to disfranchise all towns bating lets than
2,000 inhabitants,

I quote from the records of Hansard, and take my !
extruei from your lordship's speech in Parliament on
introducing the Reform Bill of 1831.
Hitherto the object has been merely to determine a
boundary within which the clietive franchise was to be
exorcised ; but now, by the information you furnish, the
claims of these particular places to the posse,sion of a valua-
ble political privilege may be examined, and perhaps decided.
Hence the be-.laity of great care and accuracy iu procuring
the informatiou which has bean specified, and, indeed, of
adding anything to it that may tend to exhibit the real
and present condition of the town.
This extract I quote from the instructions issued
to the Boundary Commissioners by the direction of
the government, under date, "Council-office, Oct.
24, 1:531." _ . _

At the present time, my lord, it is of particular
importance that the nation should bo well in-
formed :

First, as to how you redeemed your pledge to
disfranellise all towns having less than 2,000 inha-
bitants.

Second, as to the effect which was given to the
reports of the Boundary Commissioners upon the
" real and present condition of the towns."
Third, as to the position at this time of the petty
♦illages which, despite your pledge, and despite the
Commissioners' reports, continue to return members
to the House of Commons, and thereby to encumber
the representation of the country.
' I will take in the first place the borough of EYE.
This is a village in Suffolk, in which many years ago
there was a manufacture of what was called bone-

lace. Before the Reform Bill it rasa scot and lot

borough, with about 200 electors. Thu entire popu-
lation m 1831 was returned at 1,890; the number

of 19/. housed was returned at 119- -" many of these
being occupied with farms." The Boundary Cow-
, miss:Goers reported of this place " that it had no
pretensions to be considered a place of trade. The
white-washed houses, the thatched roofs, and the

unpaved streets, give it the appearance of
a large, handsome agricultural village." As a
Cramer of the Reform Act, you professed to require
that a town which retained its franchise should have
a population of at least 2,000, and qualifying tene-
ments not less in number than 300. Eye had only
1,590 population and 119 dqualifying tenements.
The ease was an obvious ease for disfranchisement.
But the borough was not disfranchised :—lt was
placed in Schedule B, and the Boundary Commission-
ers were instructed to find a constituency fur it.
The difficulty of Diogenes in his search fur an
honest man appears to have had its parallel in
the case of a Boundary Commissioner hunting
after a constituency. What with the impossibility
of reconciling local interests and carrying out
the government instructions, his was no easy
task. In the case of Eye, the Commissioners found
that there was no legitimate or regular mode of in-
creasing the constituency of the totes. The only
possible way of making up :;00 houses of the value
of 101. was to include within the borough boundaries
as much of the county of Suffolk as might be
required for the purpose. They accordingly
added to the parish of Eve, itself containing 4,200!
acres, no less than tees surrounding parishes,
containing 15,159 acres more! But great as
was the space they thus included in the borough,
they were scarcely able by adding all of it to make
up the requisite constituency. On the 1:4650 acres
there were 211 10/. houses, but of these no less than
110 were farmhouses, occupied by farmers who, as
541/. tenants at will, were included in the county
franchise. The Commissioners represented this fact

and observed upon it. The government, neverthe-
less, extended the limits of the borough over all the
ten parishes; thus converting 110 .101. farm tenants
into 110 101. householders, and making borough

electors of so many county voters. These electors
were in no way benefited thereby—on the con-
trary, many of them considered themselves pre-
judiced. The national constituency was in no way
improved or extended ; and, as far as the borough was
concerned, Eve was in nu way purified or freed :—on
the emit' ary,the voice of the few independent towns-
pcopk there were was completely swamped by the
tenantry of the borough patron. Before the Reform
Bill, the influence of that patron was not altogether
lundisputed ; since the Whom Bill, there has never
been a contest for Eye, and there is not much pre-
sent prospect that there ever will be one.
I take another case. The borough of CitnisTenunell,
Hants. According to the report of the Boundary
Commissioners, it contained in 1831 a population of
1,509. "No trade or manufacture is carried on here.
The town presents no symptom of activity or in-
dustry. The houses are of a middling description,
and the appearance of the inhabitants, who are thinly
scattered, gives no indication of prosperity. The
number of houses worth 101. a year does not exceed
130." My lord, sum up this report in two words,
and those words will express " rotten borough."
I am glad to quote the Commissioners' report,
because it puts it out of the power of any one to
say that the framers of the Reform Act acted in
these eases without sufficient information. It was
with this report before them—with their eyes wide
open as to what they were about—that the go-
vernment of 1831 perpetuated this borough, and
made a constituency for it by throwing in an
extent of country of no less than thirty miles circum-
ference. Christchurch borough at the present time
extends from the boundary of Lymington to the
boundary of Dorsetshire. Though the town is three
miles distant from the sea, you may coast along the
shores of the borough for some fourteen miles, begin-
ning at the cliffs within the Solent, passing through
the Needles, and sailing onward till you pass the spot
which your lordship's good taste hasselected for retire-
ment and quietude—l mean the lovely bathing-vil-
lage of Bournemouth.
-The circumference of Christchurch is 30 miles;
that of PETEMIELD, in another part of the same
county, is nearer 40. This town boasted in
1821 of a population of 1,446; in 1831 that popu-
lation, contrary to all the ordinary Malthuaan
calculations, had declined to 1,423. In the interval
exactly one domicile was added to' the edifices of the
town ; and, considering that the population had di-
minished, ono would think that even this erection
would have caused a panic among proprietors, and a
consequent reduction in the rents. The Boundary
Commissioners reported of Petersfield that there
were only 84 qualifying houses in the. place, and
only 262 houses of any sort! They say it has but
little trade, and any consequence which it possesses
arises entirely from its lying on the high road from
London to Portsmouth!' At the present time I
believe Peterefield lies about 20 miles off the high
road from London to Portsmouth. In that point of
view at least its importance since 1832 has not
' been augmented.
here was another clear case of "rotten borough"
with which your lordship might have dealt, and, ae
cording to your pledge, was bound to deal. But no;
in defiance of every principle on which the Reines
Act was based: in contravention of every pledge,
made to the people by its promoters, this borough was
taken out of the original Schedule A, and a boundary
was made for it extending 10 miles, at least, from
north to south, and embracing, of course, the
white of the proprietor who now exercises
the power of returning himself as the bo-
rough representative. I know not what good,
my lord, you have done either to the nation or to
the locality by allowing Peterstield to remain a
borough. It has, since the Reform Act, been the
scene of far worse electioneering strife than was ever
known in it before. It has been almost ruined by
the conflicts of which it has been the theatre; and,
after all the battles it has seen, it is now precisely
where it was in 1830—a rotten borough of Sir Win.
That exceedingly corrupt town of HORSHAM affords,
my lord, a fourth illu,tration of the ill effects of the
instruction of the 2 ith November, 1831. Horsham was
reported by the Boundary Commissioners to be " a
small and inconsiderable place, irregularly and
poorly built, many of the houses being of timber,
and nicely exceeding a single story in height. It
is," they ear, " neither lighted nor watched, and
very indifferently paved." fhe population in 1831
was only 1,921, the total number of houses 344, the
qualifying houses 130. The Commissioners were,
nevertheless, instructed to thud a boundary for Hors-
ham. It was no easy matter to get it. After ex-