The Sun.
London, England, 1831-09-24 00:00:00

n o the attention the House, and also to that of the
Lordt Advocate.
Mr. DUNDAS concurred most cordially in the prayer
°f the petition.
Sir "I. RAE supported the prayer of the petition ;
tbserving that he had on. of a similar nature to present
from the most ancient University in Scotland—that of Sr.
Andrew,.
The LORD ADVOCATE said that no man was more
livou
..
ti .sposeu to listen to the suggestions of the peti
i,'"uers thin he was, and the subject of their application
had been
T
t underh the consideration of his Majesty's Go-
e time had neatly al riv
I • • el when the reasons
favour of the petition, and the difficulties which might
be urged on the subject, would be stated.
`I'•• WARBURTON considered the best criterion to go
by. in deciding whether the Scotch Universities should or
rn",tuuld not have representatives, was to see in what
En' n4"r the University representatives hail been elected in
ou!land and Scotland. Had they been elected in conse-
ce of their great talent and learning, or for party pur-
ti:iear,strForok:i himself, be could not but think the n'Pre'en-
theies generally sent from these places, were more noted for
v marked politics, tlnin their learning and
cid'
sn ~ ee• He should, therefore, eive the measure his de-
°l'Do,ition when it came before the House.
to tir GEORGE WARRENDER thought it would be
of 'se,,desirable to obtain representatives for the Universities
-r,
KENNEDY thought the present discussion mis-
feet should be prepare•l to enter fully into the sub-
jnen it came before the House.
pr,as.'seird J. WALSH intended to move, if the Scotch Bill
a second reading, that it be an instruction to the
'4,f,"ms,m,otiitteuedt.o provide representatives' for the University
vlAfter a few words from Mr. CAMPBELL and Sir R.
pri„;',, in favour of granting the Scotch Universities the ,
wh,";ege of returning Members to the House, the petition
on the table, and ordered to be printed.
Sir Jo
tuive u RAE presented a similar petition from the
rsltY of St. Andrew's.—Ordered to be printed.
of thr. LAME brought up the returns of the population
- muted
several counties of Scotland, which were ordered to
Sir
next
"e It. VYVYAN gave notice, that on Monday
ould put a question to the Noble Secretary
offietP°l.elgn Affairs relative to the continuance of French
s.ra inthe service of Belgium.
ti,t. PRICE brought up the minutes of evidence
tion- ''efore the Committee upon the Pembrokeshire elec-
which were ordered to be printed.
MEmuER, whose name we could not learn,
tend_e that due notice would be given when it was in-
d to move fur a new writ for Pembrokeshire.

SCOTCH REFORM BILL.
th,,,t,ll'lf-past Five o'clock the LORD ADVOCATE moved
tr;urder of the Day for the second reading of the Bill for
e4`lieg the Representation of Scotland.
the trOOULBURN begged to ask the Noble Lord oppo-
sho Te,ueo it svas his intention that the Irish Reform Bill
be brought forward ?
but rd ALTHORP said, at present it stood for Monday',
arid e would wish to consult the convenience of the Irish
er_cother
Members, as to whether the Scotch Bill should
'tiot be from day to day successively, or whether it would
in its convenient if the Irish Bill
(fwere taken
alternate stag wes ith the Scotch Bill.lear, hear.)
he„tv4idd endeavour to collect the opinions of Hon. Mem-
eea-ieu°_Pon the subject, with a view of consulting their con-
Tece as much as possible.
iief'ne order of the day was then read, that the Scotch
rhos Bill be read a second time.
er t e LORD ADVOCATE said, that he rose, in the
fur'r4 of the order, to prapose to the House that the Bill
see findingaln the representation of Scotland be read a
of °lad ime; and certainly, when he looked to the state
"t representation now, and to what had been its state
Which
the Union, and to the nature and extent of the change
t "'eh this measure introduced into it, he should not have
tiered it an arduous task, but for the greatness of the
euiref.tr to induce any man of common sense to give his
al assent to it. At the sametiirieitvnas
not
tptinsesriebil
e
Wit,to know that indications of dissatisfaction,
4 the details, but also with the principles of the meay-
'Ore, and to vv, `4 symptoms of tendency to discourage any attempt
ap-
peared a great change in that representation, had. ap-
Hu in the speeches of several Hon. Members in that
/, User and also in the notices inserted in the order book.
Would _therefore he necessary for him to trouble the
p44ouse with a few words before he came to the formal
that this
which lie intended to conclude—namely,
Thataen e
defects House be now read a second time.
He believed
whttation
use and the country had long been aware of
which had long prevailed in the repre-
of Scotland. Bqt from the opportunities
gentlemen
itch
he hail recently enjoyed of conversion with several
lino knew who knew not the state of that representa-
i„:" he was led to believe that, up to this time, an
"Perfect idea was entertained of the almost incredible
'eltent of its defects and enormities. They appeared
•Qt °4IY indefensible, but also incredible ; for no man
I°llld credit that aey could have existed so long in the
rglihourhood of such a country as England, forming
the British
they did, an integral part of the Constitution of.
• soritieli Legislature. He was led' to believe that this
itri4ePoebrsreeert. idea was entertained, in certain quarters, from
vation which surprise ad heard d.rop from
.a R. ight
lion p withoutp, but with some indigt!a-
eta,' in the course of his eloquent speech on the English
the
sel
The Right Hon. Baronet, in speaking of
pre "elieh Reform Bill, had stamped the system of re-
if:hetation in Scotland with the greatest reprobation.
ter„ I referred to the Scotch system in a lump, as a sys-
pe,;°! valuable as affecting the representation of the
the gs In Scotland, but as a system valuable on account of
a
-."m"lttte absence of all popular elements, and useful is
Lla:flee to the dernocratical changes introduced by the
the's'44l Reform Bill. He bad represented the system of
1-enteh representation as a part of the close system ;
If'''. classed it with the nomination boroughs, and the
T'eia'lee of the Peerage, which was now to be ale lielie*
feren-:`,''s certainly true in sonic points; but as it was dif-
eb," in others, it afforded but an imperfect picture of the
i.eentation of Scotland. The Scotch system was not
iefPresentation of the influence of the Crown, or of the
ariautetlee of the Peerage, or of the influence of the high
If 's-°447, or of the influence of the landed proprietary'.
seolt `Yits the representation of any thing, it was the repre-
hi
hatio..
2 "t a small and insignificant oligarchy, not of
reoh or station,—not of individuals connected with
The the landed interest or the aristocracy of the country.
law ti whsle of the constituency for the 30 counties of Scot-
litt according to the present roll of voters,
tied' More than 3,000 persons. But born that number a
tha`,.on was to be made on account of the notorious fact,
111;,6°0 or 600 of those voters were counted twice over,
diffce°49,llence of their holding a franchise in three or four
f
,t)t'ierlt counties. So that the whole representation. of
t last ,andr though it had increased very much within the
,5(1`,.? Years, did not embrace a constituency of more than
kersons,—a constituency trifling, indeed, in point
numberste and below the average of the constituency of
,°,ll'll Counties. Nor was this counterbalanced by the
ej;egii constituency in Scotland. The whole number ot
she
-'°" for the Scotch burghs, who, by the by, weretht,e,
14gietratr s annually elected by themselves, amounted
20-I°l' averaging for the 66 boroughs. of Scotland, about
the
re-retors each. The whole constituency of Scotland,
th nefere, was not so much as 5,000 1 proiably not more
itu4;„:4,500. lie did not know whether it was possiblein.
co ''ne that an elective system, conducted by such an
re-
se:siderable number of insignificant persons, could rep,.
ll
of at the interests, the intelligence, the wishes and the
whinet c°4llnunity. When he looked at the qualification
his entitled these electors to vote, he could not conceal_
pres:rPriee at the satisfaction which had been
waa :(1 for this system ; for although the. qualeficati
of thulltosed to be derived from titles given by
.oes. I
s
fro, ei,lanel, it might be, and indeed was, disjoined
join, tue Property of the land more frequently than it was
"uteri
with it. It depended upon individuals holding a
prrettiority over lands of which other parties were the pro-
bele °rsillusory rent of a penny Scotch per quarter
of tig, Paid as a rent to the superior. In short, the holders
exee,e superiorities exercised the elective franchise to the
onsets"
of those who, as owners of the land, ought to
ti it. A very valuable paper had recently been laid
eou 'e table of the House, containing a list, for all the
roedtiee of Scotland, of the number of freeholders en-
tie: ' and of the proprietors who had the real superiori-
half; arid from that list it appeared that more than one
the I°'c the Scotch voters for counties had no property in
look arlds for which they voted. Having had occasion to
ebatvreeently at that paper, he bad made an alphabetical
to eaet of the returns for two or three counties, in order
nure,"try hew enormous the disproportion was between the
couri.er of voters and the real landed proprietors. In the
hit °1 Argyle, which in 1821 contained 97,000 inha
riot less
the whole number of voters was 113, of whomthe than 81 were not proprietors of the lands for which
90,Y0 vOttd, thus leaving only 31 land.owners out of the
for t °Ohatinconsiinhabitants of Argyle to elect the representatives
it
county. The next in tis etical st
derable in extent,countand containedalphab only 14,000 i
or
vol;000 inhabitants—it was the county of Bute. All the
et:ls in that county were 21 ; and it was ludicrous to
shat Count
20 out of those 21 bad no poperty whatever ill
`lat Collilty...(Great cries of 44 hear."r) So that in that

county there was only a single voter connected with it by
property, who, like a sovereign, was uneontroulled within
it. At one electio❑ for that county, within the memory
of man, when the day of election came, only one person
qualified to vote attended, and that person was the sheriff.
He read the writ to the meeting as sheriff. Then he con-
stituted the meeting. Then, having constituted the meet-
ing, he called over the names on the roll. Then he an.
swered to the names himself Then he put the vote for a
preses to the meeting ; then he elected himself passes;
then he read over the minutes of the I ist meeting ; the,
he moved that they be confirmed ; then he confirmed them
himself ; then, last of all, he put the representation to the
vote, and, being himself the whole meeting, made an
unanimous return.—(Great laughter.) This farce was a
specimen of those farces called county election., which
were played very frequently in Scotland, for the sheriff
was often the only real proprietor in the county. But to
return to his abstract. In C tidiness the population was
:30,000, the number of freeholders 42. Out of that num-
ber 36 had no property in the lands of which they held
the superiority', and only six of them were quali-
fied by p :sse.sion both of the land and of the su-
periority over it. In the county of Dumbarton the pin-
fliation was 25,000. The enrolled voters were 71. Of
this number 52 hal no property in their qualleations. The
county of Inverness had a population of 90,000. AL
the enrolled voters were SS ; of these 88, 50 had no
property in the county. He would not fatigue the House
by going thr,aign the whole alp abet, but wcadd stop
where Ire was, at the letter I. He would only state, that
from this paper it was clear that more than one-half of the
Individuals who decided the county elections in Scotland
had no property whatever in land. H.• contended at some
length that this system was more injurious to the landed
proprietors and resident gentry of Scotland, whose in-
terests were swamped by the votes of those who had no
landed property whatever. The number, too, of these
superiorities had much increased of late years, as they had
repeatedly been made subjects of sale and barter. It was
notorious that they had often fallen into the hands of spe-
culating attorneys, who thought that it was a good mode
of investing a few hundred pounds ; for they knew that
they could secure by them the honest gain of being em-
ployed in the prolessional service of those candidates to
whom they gave their votes. He had already said that
there was no popular election in Scotlard, and that all the
sixty-six burghs of that country could not furnish more
than one thousand four hundred persons qualified to vote.
These were the Magistrates and officers of the burghs, and
that majority of them which controuled the rest succeeded
one another by a mutual and reciprocal selection of each
other. In Glasgow, with a popu'ation of two hundred
thousand of as intelligent and independent men as could
be found in the empire, the whole representation and power
of delegating an individual to Parliament was confined to
thirty. thr, e persons, or rather to any seventeen of
them, who, by banding together, could controul and
coerce the remainder of their colleagues. Even when
the body had made its selection, it had to share its right of
election with three or four other boroughs, which, though
far inferior in wealth and intelligence, still had a voice
potential in Glasgow in the election. In Edinburgh,
the Member was chosen by the same number of indivi-
duals as at Glasgow, and thus it was that the whole of

that intelligent and virtuous community was unrepre-
sented. He would not go through the details relative to
the town of Aberdeen, which delegated to twenty or twenty
one of its municipal officers, the power:of choosing a Member
to represent it, and then had only a fourth or fifth share,
with some other insignificant places, in making the return.
He had not exaggerated when he had stated that this sys-
tem, on all the principles of common sense, and with a
view to legislation, was not only in all its parts vicious and
indefensible, but also so vicious and indefensible that it would
be matter of surprise and even of incredulity to any person
to whom it was described on light authority. He had no
doubt, however, that he should be told that night that
Scotland, under the fostering care of this system, had ar-
rived at its present station in wealth, industry, and repu-
tation. But if there were any truth in that argument,
no answer could be made to one of those alternatives—
either that popular representation was of no value, or that
—(The other alternative we were unable to hear; indeed
there were, throughout the whole of this speech, many
sentences of which we could not take a note, from being
unable to interpret the strong broad Scotch accent
in which the Lord Advocate spoke.) He was prepared
to contend that the influence of the present representative
system in Scotland had not only not been beneficial, but that
it had even been pernicious to the interests of that country.
He was prepared to contend that in all stages of its history
the defects of its representative system had been exemplified
and felt in the distressed condition of its people. He
would pass over the feudal period, when chiefs marshalled
their clans against each other, and admitted no law save
that of the swot d, and when there was scarcely a dawn of
that intelligence and industry which was so necessary to
the existence of a free Government. From the time of
the union of the two Crowns down to the time of the
union of the two kingdoms, the condition of Scotland
formed a lamentable picture, which was a source of shame
and humiliation to every true Scoteliman. Her servile
Parliaments, her venal statesmen, her pliant and corrupt
tribunals, her extreme rigour in repressing disorders, spoke
volumes to the historical student. Scotland, considering
her small extent, had praduced more than her share of emi-
nent inert and of warlike patriots. Scholars and warriors
she had in abundance ; but she had no Parliamentary
heroes,—no champions of the people,—no noble leaders
in the popular cause in that arena into which the people
themselves were forbid to enter. At the last stage of her
separate existence there might have been a Belhaven and a
Fletcher of Saltoun ; hut no such char acters appeared
during that great outbreak of English liberty in the 17th
century, which, though it threw down the throne and de-
luged the land with a popular flood, carried along with it
a fertilizing power which gave vegetation and life to those
seeds from which succeeding ages had reaped a vast harvest
of Ireedom and happiness. Though Scotland partook of
that impulse, she partook of the worst part of it ; and
in
the exertions of her public men of that day you saw
nothing but a gloomy fanaticism and a stern unbending
devotion to religion. It was lamentable, and yet
instructive, to find that the people whose religious educa-
tion had been provided by the state, did fly to arms when
their religion was attacked, though they submitted pa-
tiently to the grossest political oppression. The only re-
sistance wade was made by the stern and fanatical Cove-
nanters in defence of their cunventicles on the hills ; and
when their apathy about political oppression, and their re-
sistance to ecclesiastical tyranny, were contrasted together,
no one could fail to see how necessary political instruction
was, and how much it was then wanted in Scotland. At
last came the union of the two kingdoms,—a bargain
harshly and ungenerously made by the stronger party, and
assented to by, the weaker, not, he believed, front the
most honourable motives,—a bargain by which a neigh-
bouring nation, pretending to treat on terms of equality,
had the lace to propose to another, that in order that one
room might be able to contain the delegates of each nation,
the whole of the diminution in the number of representa-
tives should lie on one side, and that to procure a fair ad-
justment, England should continue to return her 513
Members as before, and that Scotland should cut down
her 156 to 45. He could not, however, quarrel with the
Union. It deserved, indeed, the epithets which be had
applied to it. No doubt the representation of Scotland
sunk when it was absorbed into that of Great Britain ;
but it was absorbed into a noble element—it was trans-
planted into a favourable and auspicious soil. Though the
separate voice of Scotland could not be heard so loudly as
before in defence of Scotch interests, the rights and in.
terests of Seotchmeu were placed in the charge of Eng.
lish Legislators; bound to consider the wants and wishes
of tire United Kingdom. Had the appointment of
the 45 Members been made at the pleasure of
the Crown itself, he thought it highly probable that the
same talent, the same respectability, and the same personal
influence might have been found amongst the Scotch le
presentatives : but in that case, as in the present, there
would have been no responsibility to popular opinion, no
parliamentary impersonation of the people, properly so
called.—(Cheers.) Whatever concessions might be made
be granted as a boon, and offered jnst in the
an
by the representatives to their supposed constituents would,
necessarilyin which a virtuous despot might confer benefits
same
way
on his subjects.—(Cheers.) But who would say that
these constituents had any chains to such acts of conde-
scension,—who would pretend that they had any right to
have their wishes consulted on any political subject what-
soccer, or that their gratitude could be looked upon in any
other light than as the mere incense which they might
offerretporaesesi7letrivioersi ?—(Hear,onfatsurceotlands i
ne hear.) Looking to
the ethe Union, he wayquite willing to acknowledge that they were for
the most
part honourable, intelligent, and uptight men, but it
could not be denied that they had uniformly acted with
the Court party instead of siding with the people_
(Hear, hear.) Now the grand evil which this 13n1 had
been introduced to remedy was, not the indifference or too
great independence of the Members themselves, but the
alienation that subsisted between the people of Seotlanu
and those who were ostensibly sent into that House to re_
present them.—(Cheers.) For fifty years after the Union
the great body of the Scotch people were unquestionably
indifferent to the rights and privileges of freemen, but
during the last fifty years public spirit and national
intelligence had been growing up apace in the laud, and
assuming au attitude and position which rendered a total