The Express.
London, England, 1866-04-20 00:00:00

FABRICATED PETITIONS.

Mr. FERRAND celled attention to the means which
had been adopted to procure signatures to a reform peti-
tion in a village near to which he resided in Yorkahire.
The petition was left at a mill, and having been first signed
by the proprieter, was subsequently signed by his work-
people, who were called upon to do so as they came up for
their wages. There were 227 signatures, one, the brother of
the manager, who appeared to have signed three times,
and there were others who signed twice, but besides this,
there were 55 names of persons who, he was assured on
competent authority, were not known in the village. He
made this statement on the authority of a person who bad
lived all his life in the village and he moved that it be
an instruction to the committee on petitions to inquire
and report on the petition from Harden (as we understood).
Sir G. GREY said that if the hon. member would un-
dertake to produce evidence in support of his allegations,
he had no objection to accede to the inquiry, but he sug-
gested that it had better be conducted by a committee
specially appointed for the purpose.
Observations were also made by Mr. C. Forster, Mr. B.
Carter, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Mr. FERRAND then withdrew his motion, and gave
notice that he should move the appointment of a select
committee, in accordance with the suggestion of the Horne
Secretary.
The house was also addressed by Sir H. Cairns, Mr. W.
E. Forster, Mr. E. P. Bouverie, and Mr. Ward Hunt.

THE REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL.
The adjourned debate on the Franchise Bill was re-
sumed by
J. GRAHAM, who stated his opinion that the prin-
ciple of the bill was just and its scope moderate, eminently
judicious in its mode of introduction to the house, and
worthy of the acceptance of the great liberal party. He
argued that the opponents of the measure were either
those impracticable men who would only accept things
when they were done in their own way, or those who did
not desire any reform at all. Reviewing the speech of Sir
H. Cairns, he pointed out that that gentleman was at '
issue with Mr. Disraeli in regard to the extension of the
franchise, always presuming fitness in the enfranchised,
and argued in favour of the eligibility of the working- '
classes for that privilege.
Lord ELCHO disputed the opinion pronounced by the
hon. member for Glasgow in favour of the bill, and ob-
served
that the first thing which struck him with respect
to it was the indeoent haste with which the government
had dealt with the question, A day or two ago the house
was told by Lord Dunkellin that the British constitution '
was 600 years old, yet the Chancellor of the Exchequer had
told them that they had only twelve days in which to pull
the constitution to pieces and put it together again. Of
that period six days had already elapsed ; consequently
another six days only remained for the completion of the
work. Government might think they were wise in their
generation in acting as they had done ; but in so doing
they did not show that reverence for the constitution which
they had a right to expect from those who were its paid
guardians. He dreaded, then, the impulsive, fragmentary
and hasty manner in which the government treated the
question and, above all, he was alarmed at the wild sen-
timentalism with which the bill was defended. The noble
lord next proceeded to justify the course which he himself
had taken on the reform question, and replying to the
charge which had been made against him, that he was the
opponent of all reform, reminded the house that he had
voted for the measure of Lord Derby when the liberals
were ranged against it. If, therefore, the question of
reform was not settled in 1859, whose fault was it but that
of the great body of the liberal party. As to the position
of the house on the subject, he was prepared to deny that
parliament was pledged at all, and stated that in the debate
of last year on 3lr. Baines's bill the Home Secretary distinctly
admitted that the government did not go to the country on
the question of reform. To the bill itself he objected that
it said one thing and would do another, and that it was •
mere franchise bill, pure and simple. What he dreaded
was clan legislation, and the issue was whether the bill
would or would not give a preponderance to the working
classes. He did not oppose it because he saw in it future
danger from the preponderance of the working classes
more than he would oppose it if he saw in it the preponde-
rance of any other class, but because he objected than unfair
representation of classes, and wished to see a well-balanced
repren tat ion of land, trade, commercce, and industry. "Jus-
tice to all ; preponderance of none," then was his motto,and
seeing &class preponderancein this bill he felt it to be hisduty
to resist it. He, and the gentlemen with whom he was
acting, had been taunted with having taken refuge in the
Cave of Adullam because they were discontented.
He confessed they were discontented ; but what
did their discontent arise from From the fear of
seeing the tyranny and oppression of a Saul on the Treasury
bench, supported by the member for Birmingham as
armour bearer. That it was which had driven them into
the Cave, where, he assured the house, they were a
very happy family, daily, almost hourly, increasing
in numbers and strength ; and there they would re-
main until they could come forth to deliver Israel. The
choice to men of moderate and independent opinions was
a cave or a hut—Adullam or Gateshead—and he could not
doubt the course which they would take on the present
occasion. He supported the amendment then because it
pledged the home to consider the question of reform with
a view to its settlement. It was a pledge against the
hasty, fragmentary, unusual, and unprecedented way in
which ministers were dealing with the subject. Nay, it
was more than this ; it WAS a protest on the part of at
least some members of the house against the course taken
by the government in asking for confidence from their fol-
lowers when they showed no confidence in them.
Sir W. HCTT did not complain of the somewhat un-
usual and acrimonious manner in which Lord Elcho had
attacked him, nor of the lecture which, in the con-
sciousness of his own superior patriotism and virtue, he
had been pleased to read to him. On the contrary, he was
grateful to the noble lord for having given him that oppor-
tunity of defending himself from the injurious criticisms
and coarse misrepresentations to which he had been ex-
posed. In answer to the remarks of General Peel on a pre-
vious evening, the right hon. gentleman denied that in
giving the notice relative to the Reform Bill which he
afterwards withdrew he had taken up a hostile position
to ministers. His only desire was that a complete scheme
should be introduced with the present bill ; and he had no
intention whatever to make himself a cat's paw of the anti-
reforming party in the house. With the understanding that
the bill for the redistribution of seats should be introduced
immediately after the second reading of this bill, he was
content to give his support to the latter as a wine, salu-
tary, and conservative measure.
Mr. B. HOPE said the government appeared to com-
pletely misunderstand the character of the working classes,
and remarked that their proper course was to have pro-
posed some scheme by which they would have invested the
elite of those chusseswith the franchise, which this bill would
not do. The bill was, in short, a piece of blundering,
mechanical, hasty, tinkering legislation.
Mr. T. HUGHES asserted that the working classes bad

never yet been really and honestly represent;d in respect
of either their moral, social, or political interest'. He
argued on behalf of their fitness to be entrusted with the
franchise, defended the trades unions and their leaders, and
said he should support the bill as a moderate measure that
would admit the bat of the operatives.
Mr. DOULTON (the colleague of Mr. Hughes) followed,
"on the other side," defending the liberals who gave
their support to the amendment against the insinuation of
being the enemies of all reform. He believed that the real
reason why the scheme for the redistribution of
seats had been withheld was because certain gentlemen
who now gave their support to the second reading of the
Franchise Bill would not do so if they knew what that
scheme was to be. What, he waked, had the government
done to inspire him as a liberal, with confidence in their
administration? Neither on the Oxford University Test
Bill nor the church-rate question was their action such as
he could approve of, or as entitled them to command his
confidence. That being the case, why should he blindly
accept this bill on the faith of another bill which they
c ousimised to bring in hereafter, and of which they told the
nothing. By itself, and unaccompanied by a dis-
tribution of seats bill, the present measure would be an
rather than' good. Corrupt boroughs like Yarmouth
and Tana would become still more corrupt ; and enter-
taining these views he gave his rapport to the amend-
ment.
Mr. M. GIBSON was surprised that, after having valid
for the 61. Franchise Bill of Mr. Baines, the hon. member for
Lambeth who lasi addressed the hones should have ranged