The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-20 00:00:00

TUESDAY EVENING, MARCH 20, 1860.

matter of pleasure—no doubt it must have been so to those
who had to pay—that a great many constituencies had not
even the liberty to sell themselves. (Hear.) But if one-
half of the constituencies of those counties were in this
condition, they, on the other hand, knew that in one-half of
the boroughs, probably, coercion and corruption did their
work. A real bone fide representation was not, under the
present system, obtainable amongst the populations in those
small boroughs. Well, if that be so, he wanted to know
whether the right hon. gentleman opposite really believed
that 1,000,000 of voters out of 7,000,000 of men was a
satisfactory state of the representation ? He asked whether
it was safe or wise to maintain any longer such a state of
things. The hon. and learned gentleman who spoke from
the opposite benches a short time ago appealed to the house
as if he believed that the sky was about to fall, and he
asked, to use his own language, when the Government were
going to pull up. He could tell the hon. and learned gen-
tleman, if he talked of pulling up, that there were two who
.could play at that game—that he would find himself pulled
up a great deal sooner than the people of England would
be when it was proposed to add 300,000 or 400,000 voters
to the electoral list. (Cheers from the Manchester party.)
The right hon. gentleman the member for Buckingham-
shire, in his speech last session, told the house—he was
then rather wild in his statement, but the Government was
iii extremis, and it wanted to get a vote or two—that he was
going to add 500,000 to the electoral list. The right hon.
gentleman said that his proposition would double the num-
ber of the constituents of the United Kingdom. He pre-
sumed that the right hon. gentleman believed what be then
said, but he afforded the house very little information in
regard to those fancy franchises which he proposed. He
(Mr. Bright), however, was sure that the result of the right
lion. gentleman's calculations would disappoint himself as
well as the country. Now, the present bill proposed rather
less than that of the right hon. gentleman, but he thought
it would add much more to the constituencies than the
measure proposed by the right hon. gentleman would have
done. The hon. gentleman who last addressed the house
spoke of the vast increase that would be made in certain
boroughs, and quoted certain statements which appeared in
the Times. But they all knew that there were no persons
in the world more capable of dealing in mares' nests than
the directors of the Times newspaper. (Laughter.) Look
at Liverpool, with its 80,000 houses, and only 18,000
electors ; Manchester, with its 70,000 houses, and 19,000
electors ; Birmingham, with its 50,000 houses and only
9,000 electors. Did hon. members suppose that those
restrictions were tolerable or would be tolerated ?
Was that a state of things they could justify by
any kind of logic, or for one moment defend without utter-
ing a libel upon their countrymen? He found, looking at
those returns, that the number of voters to be enfranchised
was small, and behind all their expectations. The right
hon. gentleman the member for Buckinghamshire made
several blunders in his figures. He first spoke of 257,000,
' and at last brought down the number to 217,000 electors,
that would be added to the list. Take the whole if the
number of £6 householders and over, and deduct from them
the present number of electors in boroughs, the number
could not be more than 162,000. That number, compared
with the whole population, was ridiculous and contemptible.
Throughout the whole of the boroughs the increase of the
franchise would not be more than 40 per cent. As to the
counties, the right hon. gentleman said he could not make
out the exact number of the electors. But what did it
signify whether there were 100,000 or 150,000 mere or less
electors in the counties ? Was the voter some pestilent crett•
tion that they wanted to put out of existence, or a man that
they were bound to take by the hand, and to ask to be a
participator with them in the working of the parliamentary
power of a great empire ? (Hear, hear.) Taking the whole
number of the county occupiers from £lO to £5O a year, he
thought the return showed something like 400,000 occupiers;
but they should deduct from them the women occupiers, which
made one-fifth or one-fourth of the whole number. Well, then,
deducting all those new occupiers of £5O and upwards, and all
those who were freeholders, Bte., they would in all probability
reduce the number of those qualified to vote below 200,000.
He thought that the right hon. gentleman the member for
Buckinghamshire last year estimated them below that num-
ber. According to his (Mr. Bright's) calculations they would
not add to the county franchise more than 100,000. Now,
the great blot of the bill of 1832 was its absolute exclusion of
the working classes from the franchise, he meant those who
were paid weekly, or at short intervals, their wages. If
they wished to maintain that system still, let them say so
boldly. They often stated that there was no clamour in
favour of this bill for reform. But only let the Earl of Derby
in the House of Lords, or the right hon. gentleman the
member for Buckinghamshire in the House of Commons,
declare now, as the leaders of that same party declared 30
years ago, that the working classes should not be admitted
to the benefits of a measure of parliamentary reform, and he
(Mr. Bright) undertook to say that such a whirlwind of
public opinion would be at once raised as would convince
them of the serious mistake they had made. (Hear, hear.)
Well, then, if they did not wish to exclude them from the
electoral system, let them admit them immediately. If they
consented to admit them, he asked how many were they
prepared to admit less than this bill proposed to do ? He
thought that the whole number of persons admitted by this
bill, according to his calculation, in boroughs, would be
160,000 or 170,000. But how many of these were really
working men ? Not more than 100,000. If that be so, he
thought to reject the bill would be in effect to invite the
working classes to the house, and when they were about to
enter, to slam their door in their faces. He need scarcely
remark that that would be a rash and a perilous proceeding.
They had much better assent to the bill of the noble lord,
or to a more extensive measure which he advocated, than
to take any such course as that to which he had alluded.
The right hon. gentleman and some other hon. members
dwelt largely upon this question of swamping some of the
constituencies. If they turned back to the discussions of
1832 they would find that every argument that could be
used was put forward by Sir Charles Wetherell and Mr.
' Wilson Croker ; and they said that persons of the position
• of clergymen, bankers, manufacturers, merchants, would be
• overborne by the number of persona below them in position
who were admitted to the franchise. That had been said,
but he never heard of boroughs which had been absolutely
swamped in that way. He had represented three boroughs,
but he bad never heard a complaint from the more wealthy
classes of those boroughs that their influence was swamped
and overborne. Take the case of the city of Coventry,
which contained 4,300 freemen and 1,200 householders,
they never Jieard complaints that the freeholders
were swamped y the <.• that the two
members for that city represented one class of
' than the other. This was altogether a childish fear; there
was no foundation for it, but it was the offspring of privi-
lege and:of monopoly. If they looked at the class about to
be admitted more fully to the franchise they would see that
' their opinions differed as much as did the opinions of those
above:them on almost every question of religion, of politics,
or of municipal affairs, .and they were subjected to the in..
fluence of association, wealth, character, opinion, and all
those powers which directed and influenced the course of
society, and every and all the individuals who composed
society. As to "swamping," hon. gentlemen opposite need
not cherish the fears which they seemed to entertain. They
knew that half-a-dozen landholders might swamp a county,
that was notorious ; but ho had never heard that in a large
and free constituency there had been a large class in that
constituency that had been able to swamp the legitimate
influence of any other class associated with them in the
franchise. The other class of argument against this bill was
that it was not extensive enough. He found this part of
the question infinitely more difficult to argue than the other.
That was a most rational objection. In the boroughs of
England and Wales the average number of adult men, ac-
cording to the poor law return, was about 1,750,000. Out
of these only 440,000 at present had the right of voting, and
the effect of the present measure would be to add only
160,000 to this number, making a total of 600,000, and
therefore, in the boroughs of England and Wales only one
man in three would still be entitled to a vote. But if they
looked at the United Kingdom, they would find that there
were 6,000,000 of families, while there were only 1,000,000
voters, and if this bill were to pass there would still, at the
utraost, be only 1,500,000 voters, which would leave
4,.500,000, families, representing 22,000,000 of population,
without a vote in the election of members of Parliament.
Surely that statement would supply consolation to the
hon. and learned gentleman (Mr. Rolt). Now this, as
regarded votes, seemed a mistake on the part of the house;
it indicated a distrust altogether unfounded. He
thought the character of the population would justify
the house in taking a more liberal and generous view of
them, and in proceeding much farther than the noble lord
proposed by this bill. (Hear, hoar.) But viewing this bill as
only a partial act of justice, and seeing the large amount of
acquiescence it obtained, he could not refuse to accept it,
although only 300,000 or 400,000 new electors would be
admitted by it to the franchise, though he should be glad
to see the number doubled. He recollected with respect to
free trade, which had only just been accomplished, that in
1842 they had made a considerable step, which was repeated
in 1846 and in 1853, and at length they saw the work carried
far towards completion, and so he believed that this addition
would give a large amount of satisfaction, but that the time
would come when of these 22,000,000 of whom he had
spoken they have to open their doors to a large number, that
they might participate in those rights which the constitu-
tion offered to them much more generously than that house
seemed disposed to do. With regard to the boroughs, he
should like to tell the house one or two facts—that for the
consolation of the right hon. member for Buckinghamshire,
who was sorely afflicted at what was about to take place—
having reference to the large class of poorer voters within
boroughs. With respect to them, hon. gentlemen seemed
to think that a great democratic step had been taken that
would materially affect the constitution of the next Parlia-
ment. Let the house look for a moment to the other side of
the picture. Let them look at the small boroughs. In the
bill which he prepared last year, and which he should have
brought before the house but for the haste of the right hon.
member for Buckinghamshire and the noble lord the member
for London to introduce their proposals to the house, he pro-
vided that every borough whose population was under 16,000
should only have one member, and that every borough hav-
ing a population of less than 8,000 should be disfranchised.
The first borough whose population was under 16,000 was
Berwick-upon-Tweed, and of the other boroughs in the same
classification there were 101 returning 106 members to Par-
liam:nt. Let the house observe how this bill affected these
constituencies. At present the whole number of electors in
the 101 boroughs was 61,009, and the number to be added by
the bill was 17,000; the present average constituency was
610, and the average number of new electors would be 176 ;
therefore in these 101 boroughs the bill would not add quite
30 per cent. to the existing constituencies. But to come to
the lower class of boroughs, beginning with Woodstock, of
which there were 54, returning 85 members, the present
number of electors was 22,000, the number to be addeti
was 5,000 ; the average number of electors was 420, and
the average number o 2 new voters in each would be 102 ;
therefore, in eiese 54 boroughs, the bill would add to the
existing constituency less than 25 per cent. This brought
the house to the fact that these small boroughs were in such
a condition that no re2erm bill could help them out of it—fie,
condition which called for the care and attention of the
house in disfranchising them end transferring their racri-
hers to larger paces. If they took the 101 boroughs com-
prising Berwick-upon-Tweed and those below it, they would
find that these returned 141 members to Parliament, a num-
ber which was within nine o4:one-half of the entire borough
members of England and Wales ; and if they compared
the
number of electors in these boroughs with the number in
the remaining boroughs, they would see how impossible it
was, notwithstanding the fears of the hon. and learned gen-
tleman (Mr. Rolt), that this question should remain per-
manently where they were about to place it by this bill.
From the return made to the Poor Law Board it appeared
there were 14 large boroughs of England and Wales, the
constituencies of which would, under the bill, amount to
262,000. In the 101 boroughs of which he had spoken, the
constituencies would amount to 79,000, but the 14 boroughs
would return only 32 members, while the 101boroug,hs would
return 141 members. If they wanted to have a still more
accurate illustration, they would find that, comparing the
Tower Hamlets and Liverpool with 54 of the smallest
boroughs in England and Wales, the former, with double
the number of electors, returned only five members, whereas
the latter returned 60 members to Parliament. Hon. gentle-
men opposite did not seem to give full credit to this state-
ment ; it might be that property had nothing to do with
the matter, or that men had nothing to do with it. It might
be that " intereete" must be taken into consideration, which

were to be found in great abundance in very:small boroughs,
though they were not to be found in those boroughs of
which he had just spoken. But, having stated thus much
about the bill, he hoped the noble lord would permit him
to show where he thought the bill failed in that which the
Government ought to feel themselves pledged to accom-
plish. He maintained, and he thought hon. gentlemen
opposite would agree with him in this, that at whatever
amount the franchise were fixed, it should be so settled as
that it would be real, without question—that it should be
made so plain and simple that all should be able to avail
themselves of it to whom the act of Parliament professed
to offer it. Now, in the case of the counties, the noble lord
had inserted a proviso in his bill which was most objection•
able on several grounds. He proposed to apply to county
, electors enfranchised by the bill the ratepaying, clauses,
which had given so much trouble in the boroughs. In the
case of occupancies above £5O the ratepaying clauses were
not to apply, but they were to be made applicable for occu-
pancies between £5O and £lO. He objected to that distinc-
tion as tending to encumber and
,embarrass the county
franchise, and he hoped that when they went into com-
mittee that portion of the bill would be amended. Then,
further, as to the question of that occupancy in counties, it
was provided that if the land were not held along with the
house there should be a building of the annual value of not
less than £5, but if it were held with the house there was
no specified value to fix the character and condition of the
house—the object being to prevent persons from lettiug a
field to somebody who might build upon it a hut, and claim
the right of voting in respect of it. He thought that with
respect to this county occupancy, the noble lord should pro-
vide that no person should have a vote, unlrss the building
or house in respect of which he claimed should be of the
annual value of £6. The noble lord did not propose that
in boroughs they should go below a IX rental—why, then,
should they go below it in counties ? If they allowed a
man in a county to have a vote for a house of £3, £4, or £5
value, which he made up into a £lO occupancy by holding
two or three fields, this would introduce into the county
constituencies a much lower class of electors than those who
lived in £6 houses in the towns ,- and this objection would
apply with still greater force in the case of Scotland than of
England. If such a provision were introduced into the
Scotch bill it would introduce to the franchise a class of
persons who were probably the most dependent of any in
the United Kingdom. There was another question to
which public attention out of doors had been directed—the
payrrient of rates. He should like to ask the noble lord
why, in giving the franchise of £6 and £lO, they should not
let it be sufficient that a man should be on the rate-book and
rated, so that his name should be transferred to the elec-
toral list without its being necessary to prove VW on the
20th of July he or some one else had paid the rates that
were due on the sth of January ? In the borough in which
he lived this peculiarity had very little result—the embar-
rassment was inconsiderable, and therefore he would not
speak of it ; but he had seen in boroughs great perplexity
and embarrassment to arise from it. From what had taken
place, especially in the metropolitan boroughs and others,
that condition which was of no avail in making our con-
stituencies more select, was a condition o: great embarrass-
ment. It often put men off the list, not, perhaps, the
poorest, but those who had not paid their rates, and it was
one of those irritations which every elector seemed to think
a rather shabby contrivance to deprive him of what Parlia-
ment professed to give him. There was one other point in
which the bill was not intended to be defective--namey,
that of compound householders. In 1850 Sir W. Clay
passed a bill through the house to facilitate the claims of
Persons whose rates were compounded for by the landlord.
lie (Mr. Bright) proposed a clause, which was inserted on
the third reading, in order to meet this anomaly, and by
which the tenants were enfranchised. It was held that
if the landlord paid the rate of the tenant, or com-
pounded for it at 75 per cent., and the parish au-
thorities agreed to receive it, that that was not
payment of the full rate according to the Reform Act, and
all these tenants were disfranchised, and in Manchester
4,000 were placed on the register in the succeeding year by
the operation of that clause. It had not been acted on, per-
haps from its not being known, in many other boroughs,
but the overseers, like all officials who did not want to give
themselves unnecessary trouble, disobeying the law, for he
believed there was no penalty for neglect, refused in the ma-
jority of cases to put any one's name on the register notpay-
, ing rates. They put the landlord on who paid the rates, but
the tenant's name was not entered and he was accordingly
insisted disfranchised. By the clause he that all tenants'
names should be on the rate book, and that then if their
rates were paid, the tenant's name would find its way by a
regular process on to the rate book and the register, and
these persons would not be altogether disfranchised as
hitherto. If that were not done, this extension of the fran-
chise, limited altogether to a great number of boroughs,
would be nothing but a delusion, and when you made up the
electoral roll, you would find the constituencies to be ex-
, actly what they were on the past. He would say nothing
about the question that would have to be discussed on the
motion of the hon. member for Bristol beyond this. Let
hon. members not deceive themselves because the noble lord
with an adherence to consistency which was sometimes ad
paired, but in this case much to be deplored, had abstained
from giving the ballot in this bill : that question was one
nevertheless whioh was already at the door, and one which
they would have to consider in a short time. He spoke
now of those boroughs in which the great constituencies
were to be made greater. Some of these boroughs were
much in the position of the counties, excepting that the
rich men in the former had factories, and the rich men in
the latter large landed estates. He could conceive that in
these boroughs in the north and in the south of England
political feeling would run very high, and that there would
be the greatest possible effort to win on one side and the other
and that great numbers of men now about to be en-
franchised—as had been the case where a great number
had already been enfranchised—would find their liberty
crippled by the fierce political contention of the rich and
powerful in those constituencies and towns. He believed
they would find themselves driven, if they were not now
almost driven, to their very wits' end, how to put an end to
coercion and corruption in our constituencies. He believed
that when this bill passed they would have a greater neces-
sity for that measure, and that they would have, as he be
lieved and hoped, a still less resistible power to demand it
at the hands of Parliament. Now, if they supported the bill
as a redemption of the pledge given by the noble lord, and
which the noble viscount willingly accepted when he took
Mice, they had a right to call upon the Government to keep
faith with them. When he saw men in that house who
really wanted some honest, if it were not an extensive,
measure of reform, and the thousands and millions not in
that house who were anxious as to the result that it might
L. , 3r .3. Poem le« it b. clone, and he
would ask the hon. and learned gentleman whether he
thought that, if it was rejected by the house that it word
again come before the house in a milder form ? rig—
hon. gentleman, the leader of the Opposition, both in that
and the other house, had had one trial. Did they sids;h
them to have another ? Was it desirable that they shutild
submit to what he called something like humiliation in
having it put upon them to try to make an adjustment
of the question. Was it not better to leave it in the hands
of the noble lord the member for the City of London, who
had no very strong democratic feeling, who looked with
veneration to the throne, and no doubt with affection to the
order of which he was so distinguished a member. Could
they not leave the matter in hit hands ? He had given to
it many times moreconsideration and examination than the
great bulk of the hon. gentlemen opposite, and if he were
one of them—fearful of such changes and wishful to go with
gentle footsteps and not far—he should say the noble lord
in this measure broughtforward a bill, which had considering
the circumstances of the country and the wishes of the people,
it was not only their duty, but their obvious and pressing
interest to accept, and would give them, without any re-
striction, such changes as might be suggested, which might
make it more acceptable to the people, and more beneficial
to the country. Were not the people qualified ? The hon.
gentleman said in America they had a population so edu-
cated that you could never hope the people of this country
could reach to theirposition, or at least exceed it ; but it was
impossible for men to have lived among the people for the
last 20 or 30 years without knowing to the contrary. The
right hon. gentleman the member for Bucks probably did
not know much about the people down at his delightful ma -
nor, where he spent the recess, in Buckinghamshire, and
saw little of the classes they were speaking of between Gros-
venor-gate and the House of Commons; but he (Mr. Bright)
lived among them when for six months down in Lancashire,
and knew something of what they were. The other day,
when at Manchester, he visited the manufactory of Messrs.
S. and J. Watts, the most magnificent establishment per-
haps in the kingdom. He went through the spacious rooms
and saw the articles of manufacture collected from all the
looms and manufactories in the kingdom, in all their amaz-
ing stock, amazing variety, and amazing beauty; and when
they had finished their survey he said, " Is it not an amaz-
ing and an astonishing thing for contemplation that proba-
bly if we could bring every man whose hand and skill pro-
duced these wonderful assortment of goods, there is not ono
man in 50 of the whole of them, that by the law of the coun-
try was permitted to vote for a member of Parliament."
(Laughter, cheers, and ironical cheers.) Hon. members
might cheer, but these were men who were fit for something
else than to be rated and taxed, and if the spirit the hon.
gentleman exhibited when he laughed at the statement had
been displayed when he sat on that side of the house, he
would tell him that he was taking an infinitely more dan-
gerous course that he was taking in connection with any
proposition on that subject that ho could make. (Oh, oh,
and ironical cheers.) No doubt the hon. gentleman, if he
spoke, would tell them that the people did not want this
measure. He would tell them that there Was no
turbulence. He admitted there was no turbulence, but
advancingand strikingof
there was something more than that. He had seen, and the
house had witnessed a storm at sea. It was a very grand
and impressive spectacle, and sometimes it was very appall-
ing
the
ng; beuotnttheemrpelwataiosnsoomf
tehtheincaglmnoatndlemssagrjesi
atnod
the tide. The turbulence and passion of 1832 were hap-
pily not present with us now, and nobody rejoiced more than
he did that they could discuss this question under circum-
stances very different to the bill of 1832. There was no
howling wind, no imminent convulsion, no turbulent storm;
but there was existing in its place the calm, the steady, and
irrisistible tide of great public opinion ; there was the con-
sciousness amongst the millions of our countrymen that
Parliament did not adequately represent them—that, in
fact, it was not just to them; and silent'y, but surely and
inevitably, this opinion was marching on to its triumph.
The very footpath on which gentlemen on this bench trod
not a long time ago was now swept away, and the stand
point that they occupied not long since upon this question
had been submerged, and was gone ; and he would ask
them not to resist this growing and gathering opinion by a
concession even so small as that which it was the object of
this bill to give, and if so, they would show that they had
a u t o of
a generous
thecountrymenrepresentationthatof
peopletheycountrybe-
lieved
andfaithin e
;;
and they would show farther, what he hoped they would
ienv id by
the by
iall s
ttiht
ue itri votes
eoynhthioasstbeidlhstohniatutehheyowf
anere will-
pro-
fessed to love so much, should repose in the good-will and
in the intelligence and virtue of their fellow countrymen.
(Cheers.)

Mr. KNIGHTLEY said the hon. member for Birming-
ham had spoken about the marrow of reform. For his own
port, he wondered he did not say, " Go ! get thee gone :
thy bones are marrowless I" The great evil in our pre-
sent representation was that the large constituencies were
scarcely better represented than the smaller towns.
The west riding of Ycrk, for instance, with a con-
stituency of 36,000, had only two members, and there
were other examples that might be adduced. How did the
bill propose to deal with these anomalies ? Lord Derby's
Government proposed a bill which was open to some of
these objections, and he (Mr. Knightley) expressed his dis-
approbation of those portions of that measure, and there-
fore he was perfectly consistent in objecting to the present
bill. The bill of 1852 proposed to extend the area of these
boroughs by incorporating other places with theia ; the bill
of 1854 disfranchised many of them, and the bill of Lord
Derby's Government, while it did not disfranchise, yet in-
troduced a considerable modification. But this present bill
did not disfranchise. If they kept continually altering their
policy in this matter they might eventually find themselves
in the position described in the old epitaph—" I was well ;
I wanted to be better, I took physic, and I died." (A laugh.)
They were told that the ballot was the universal panacea