The Express.
London, England, 1851-12-17 00:00:00

TO LORD JOIN RUSSELL

LEITER 111.

MY Lout),

It has been said of your lordship that your parlia-
mentary leadership is so bold that there is nothing
you will not undertake, trout moving au adjoin,
meet to managing a nation. It could be wished that
there was more truth than there really is in what
was intended to be pointed as a sarcasm. But, un-
fortunately, as a public man, you are occasionally as
deficient in enterprise as the rest of those about you.
There are times, indeed, when no attempt seems too
magnificent for your ambition, and when no peril
daunts your daring. But there are other occasions
when, to the eyes of the world, you seem too apathe-
tic to avail yourself of an opportunity, and too insen-
sible to right to act upon the principles of justice.
If you had been firm, my lord, when you proposed
the Reform Bill to the parliament of England, whnt
a glorious measure might you not have associated
with your name! Looking forward to the difficul-
ties of next session, how forcibly must it not now conic
home to you that, at that time, you shrank from the
difficulty, and, instead of acting on the right, cowed
to the expedient. Had you been bold then, there
would have been no difficulty to be fronted now.
Had the national machine been at that time put in
thorough order, there would have been no corrupting
element to impede its progress; nor would you now
be obliged to stop the train of' improvement, whilst
the engineers are once more trying to tinker at the
boiler.

- -
Nly lord, it was a great opportunity that you lost,
a mighty public sentiment that you sacrificed. To
the bewailuigs of your own order you consented to
surrender your own sense of right, and a great share of
what you intended for the people's benefit. This was
shown in the way in which rotten borough after
rotten borough, condemned by your first Reform
Bill, and w•. 13 restored to its position at the re-
monstrance of its patron. It was shown by
the enormous addition you consented to make
to the influence of the aristocracy in parliament,
by increasing the number of county members in Eng-
land and Wales from 94 to 158, whilst you dimi-
nished the borough members from -119 to 312. But,
above all was it shown by the way in which the
large towns were sacrificed; which you did indeed
enfranchise, but after a fashion so inadequate to the
necessity, and so far below what justice would have
dictated, that one cannot but regard that part of the
Reform Bill as, like most other whig measures, a

mere delusion and a snare.
My. lord, I might dilate upon the gross injustice
and indignity of giving Paisley, with a population
of 50,000 ; Alierdeen and Dundee, each with 65,000;
or Salford, with its 10,000 residents, a single mem-
ber each. When we see such contemptible villages
as Buckingham and Thetford returning two mem-
bers a piece, whilst these great cities only return
one, the disproportion, which you once told us was
to last ter ever, becomes absolutely ludicrous. But 1
will not condescend to take my stand upon these
transparent cases. I will boldly meet what your
lordship has called a difficulty, and direct your at-
tention to the representation of this Metropolis, in
illustration of the glaring injustice of the present
system.
The Reform Act, my lord, added eight representa-
tives to the metropolis of the world. It gave two mem-
bers to the Tower hamlets, two to Finsbury, two to
Nlarylebone, and two to Lambeth. The City, West-
minster and Southwark were enfranchisedpreviously ;
and the group of towns in the county of bent, which
go by the name of Greenwich. no more constitute a
metropolitan borough than does Chatham or does
Windsor. You gave the Metropolis, then, eight addi-
tional members, making 16 altogether ll ell, my
lord, the Metropolis by the last Census exhibits the
following statistics:
Population 2,361,640
Inhabited houses
Rateable property—Middlesex, £6,648,668;
Southwark and Lambeth £1,248,931 £7,707,500
This is the London district, which reurns the 16
members. Let us contrast it with another district
given in the census tables; the district called the
„Borth Western Division," and which comprehends
the five counties of Wilts, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall,
and Somerset. Now, the following arc the statistics
for the South Western Division:
Population 1,303,706
Inhabited houses 333,'J26
Rateable property
The London division returns 16 borough members;
add four for the counties of Middlesex and East
Surrey, and we may say 20. How many members
arc returned for the South Western Division, which
has half-a-million less population, more than half-a-
million less property, and only a greater number of
houses because mere cottages are so enumerated in
the one case whilst palaces are only so styled in the
other. Let us take stock of the number of members
in the South-Western Division.
Wiltshire returns
Dorset „
Devon
Cornwall „
Somerset „

Total S3!
Eighty-three members for less population and less
property than that Metropolis which, including the
two members for East Surrey, can only be found to
return twenty! If your lordship, as a reformer, de-
mands representation for the people, here surely is a
case for you. lf, as an aristocrat, you demand re-
presentation in proportion to property. pray let the
Metropolis have its share in your new Reform Bill.
My lord, I am dealing kindly by you. I have
absolutely put the case in a disadvantageous view to
MielE I could make it infinitely stronger in ano-
ther way, if my ease were a weak one and
wanted to be strengthened. I could show you that
there are no less than twelve counties in England
which, in the aggregate, contain 100,000 less popu.
lotion, and a million and a half less property than
the Metropolis, and which yet send 69 members to
parliament beyondthe number sent by this great city !
But it is not necessary for my purpose to put the case
in that way. I state it, as the report of the Census
Commissioners affords me the most ready opportunity
of stating it, and if your lordship does not like my
mode of putting it, take the divisions of England in
any other shape you please, and you will arrive
at precisely the same result—namely, that in propor-
tiou to the population and the property of any other
portion of the country, London has not one-fourth
part of the representation that it ought to have.
My lord, do you know London? You will think,
perhaps, that I am putting a foolish question in a
foolish way. Pardon me ;—I believe I can show you
in a few moments that you know nothing about
London. Your lordship represents London ; you
were elected at the head of the poll at the last elec-
tion—the first member of the first City in the world.
I will not ask you if you know your own constituency
—of course you do not—it is impossible that you
should. But if your lordship cannot tell me the
boundaries of the City which you represent, do you
know the limits of any one of the other Metropo-
litan boroughs ? Your lordship has doubtless some
glimmerings upon the subject. Marylebone
Wu associate, perhaps, with Portman-square;
estminster you connect with your patrimo-
nisl property in Covent-garden ; Lambeth, it
occurs to you, is on the other side the river, ex-
tending, perhaps, from the Archbishop's Palace
to that soap factory of Mr. Hawes, which, worse
luck for him, he relinquished to attend to what
he does not understand so well. Finsbury-, you will
say, is up towards hlington ; or perhaps you may
know that " Russell" square is in it. As
for the Tower Hamlets —eh ? oh !—they are'
out at the eastern part—somewhere down
the river, you believe—near the Tower, doubt-
less. Your lordship rings the bell and sends
for Colonel Fox, who, you remember, once re-
resented the constituency, and who may possibly
know something of the neighbourhood. My lord, so
little is known of the Tower Hamlets at the Trea-
sury, that, with deference, I have my doubts whether
even you may not occasionally fancy that the Tower
Hamlets is a rotten borough.
Now, I propose, my lord, with your permission,
to take your lordship for a little walk through town.
Perhaps you would first like to surrey MARTLEBONE?
We will commence at Kensington Palace Gardens,
just at the border of the suburban town of Bays-
water. Through the whole extensive range of Pad-
dington, through all the terraces and squares on the
Bishop of London's property, through the great