The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-20 00:00:00

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voting,.• and about a multitude of other classes, for,
the rk .Heaven, they are all dead and buried, and
the fine upon the compound householder is likewise
gone, although it has been replaced by arrangements
mucli better than that., but still, I am afraid, very
bad, )11 the whole. But still the bill was not amended
—it was metamorphosed ; it was made into a great
act on ;behalf of liberty ; it assumed a character so
differen t from that with which it was introduced
into Pa •liament that one of the most distinguished
and one of the most sound men who supported the
Govern, neat through the whole length and breadth
of its CS isteuce•—l mean the Duke of Bucclench—
stated ite a speech on the subject of that act that
there was nothing left i❑ it of the original bill ex-
cept the single word " whereas" at the commence-
ment. (Laughter.) That no doubt was a poetical
method of speech, but poetry is often a vehicle of
truth, and I believe in the main it conveyed sub-
stantial truth upon that occasion. Well, gentle-
men, I now congratulate you upon the progress of
that act. I will by and by refer to what seemed
to me to be its defect, but it is without doubt an
enormous advance in the political growth of Eng-
land. (Hear, hear.) Many of the instances attendiug
it have been painful. I cannot be expected to feel
a great admiration, nor do I pretend to feel any
admiration whatever, of the manner in which it has
been carried: (Hear, hear.) But I must look at
the Act in itself ; I must look at what it does for
the people of England ; I must look at what it
promises to do for them. If we must look at its
faults, we must ask whether it involves principles or
confessed admissions which are sure to lead to
amendments of those ,faults, and so, looking at the
Act as upon a great progress in the career of
British liberty—(cheers)—it has been said, forsooth,
that the Liberal party—the great bulk of the Liberal
party—offered opposition to the Act. Gentlemen,
it is not so. What happened is this. When the bill
was introduced, and when that bill, professing to
confer household suffrage, withdrew on the one
hand what it had given on the other, and subjected
to such impediments and embarrassments and to
such actual penalty the attainment of the suffrage
in the majority of cases, we all saw it was going to
be male the instrument, really, I may say, of poli-
tical terror, to those who desire to be voters in
England. What we said was this—" Away with all
these conflicting contrivances ; don't let U 3 ask
whether the rate upon a man's house is paid by
himself, whether it is paid under the Small
Tenements Act or under the Compound Act by his
landlord ; quite enough for you and the public
authorities if the rate is paid at all. (Hear, hear,
and laughter.) Secure the payment of the rate if
you please, but beyond that let the arrangements be
made which are for the convenience of the respec-
tive parties—that is to say of the parishes, the
owners, and the occupiers." And therefore I made
a motion that the franchise should be enjoyed en-
tirely and irrespectively of the question whether the
rate was laid directly upon the man himself, or
whether it were laid upon him through his landlord.
For that motion 289 gentlemen voted. We were
quite willing, we desired rather to have taken a mo-
derate extension, say of £7 or £6, of the suffrage,
combined with clearness and with provisions that
would have made the enjoyment of the privilege
easy, rather than to have offered to the people some
high-standing boon which, when in point of fact it
came to be put to the test should be found to have
restrictions which would deprive them of the enjoy-
ment. (Hear, hear.) Well, the House of Com-
mons decided against us by a majority of 21, and I
am not going to throw any blame on those who
constituted that majority. When that question
was decided the Liberal party in Parliament made
❑o proposal and gave no vote except with re- '
ference to the improvement of that bill; and,
gentlemen, I think I may say we did improve the
bill. We struck out the two years' residence
and reduced it to one :year, although that
two years' residence was proposed to us by the
Government. We were told through the mouth of
Sir J. Pakington that it had this recommendation
attached to it—that it was intended to limit the
number of votes. (Several voices, "Oh !") Yes,
'that was the declaration made by Sir John Paking-
ton when he rose to support the two years' resi-
dence against the one year's. We got rid of the
tax franchise, we got rid of the voting papers, we
made some extension, though 1 am sorry to say we
failed iu making any reasonable or due extension.
For the redistribution of Beats, take the enormous
anomalies which, for instance, South Lancashire is
under. Not only is it now inadequately represented,
but after the dissolution would be represented very
little better. When we made a proposal for giving
additional members to large towns, the leader of the
House of.Cummons declared if that proposal were
carried by the house, Government must reconsider
the whole question, which is the Parliamentary
method of telling the House of Commons that they
would have to drop the bill. (Laughter.) I was
obliged to rise in my place there and then, and to
say that if the Government dropped the bill we
should take it up. (Cheers.) Well, the bid has
passed, and it has passed with some considerable
defects ; the redistribution of seats is totally inade-
pate ; the provision with respect to rating, I con-
fuss, I think very objectionable; but, at the same
time, that is a matter that is in the hands of the
people themselves, and I do not wish to make
it a subject of political controversy. We
made another great mistake with reference
to what is called the minority vote. With regard
to that vote there are two questions involved—one
is whether minorities should be represented at all,
and the other is, when they are represented, at
whose expense they should be represented. Now
observe what we have done. The question whether
the minority should be represented at all is very
open to debate. Now, I prefer the old English
principle, and my idea of the Conservative process
is rather in standing by old English principles when
there is no strong reason fur departing from them.
My idea is that the old English principle of dealing
with communities, of allowing each community to
speak for itself, and when the minority is dissatis
fled, of giving it an encouragement to struggle by
fair means to become a majority, I believe that it
is the proper basis of representation--(cheers)—
but still I admit there is a great deal to be said on
the subject. The mistake we have made is worse
than having come to an erroneous decision on de- '
batable questions. I will illustrate what lam saying
by the case of Liverpool. I take the case of Liver-
pool, because the majority there has exercised its
electoral power on the last occasion, and on several
occasions, in a manner which I do not at all approve.
(Cheers and laughter.) lam not invested with the
privilege of choosing members for Liverpool ; pos-
sibly I should make a different choice if that
were so. I will assume that the majority in
Liverpool consists of 15,000, and the minority of
10,000 or 12,000. I take the number arbitrarily,
because Ido not desire to be too precise. The ar-
gument is this—it is said that these 12,000 men are
so important that it is intolerable they should re-
main without representatives. Suppose that to be
true—and it is possible there may be gentlemen in
this room who think that the 12,000 should have a
distinct representation of their own—suppose, I say,
on account of their numbers, combined with their
intelligence, you will arrange a system under which
these 12,000 shall have a member. What 1 want
to know is from where that member is to be got.
L it just or tolerable, if these 12,000 are to be re-
presented, to teiie them from the number we had
allotted to the 15,000 or more, from the 200, 300,
or 400 who constitute the voting majority in many
of the little boroughs of England ? It appears to
me that a grosser injustice could not be conceived
than that after we had promised the majority in
Liverpool and other great communities, and after
in the case of counties the land had given to the
majority the power of returning those members
we should take one away from them and give it

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to a Minority in order to mainfiats•• .the „Lye'
tation of Houston or Ashburtcin, er 'some •othei':;;;7
places, the names of which I willa9tjtroUble'yeu
with, because if I did you wouldAarobalily ',not
.know whether they were in England otAbyminia?:.
(Cheers and laughter.) There is another por-
tion of the bill which I still consider unsatisfactory-,
and that is with resr eat to the county franchise. I
do not think it wise to establish so great a differ-
ence as we have got between the occupation fran-
chise in counties and the occupation franchise in
boroughs. (Hear.) At the same time, while I re-
serve my freedom to take any course at a suitable
time, and while I cannot pass by the subject of
Reform without naming those opinions, I do not
wish to name them so as to weaken the power of
those congratulations which I offered to you at an
earlier period of my remarks upon the passing of a
bill which constitutes so great an epoch in the hi;-
tory and progress of British legislation. (Cheers.)
We have not done with Ref A.m. (Cheers.) One of
the great charges made against our Government
was that we did no: propose to deal with all parts
of the question of Reform at once. But it was
found impossible to deal with the whole of them.
The only question dealt with in the manner to do
the smallest good in the last session was a part of
the question of franchise. It has been settled for
England, but remains unsettled for Scotland and
Ireland ; and as to redistribution, although s.one
good has been done, I put no great value upon it ;
for if you touch the question you ought to do so in
such a way as to settle it. (Cheers.) Now, I
do not think it desirable to come here to rail per-
sonally at antagonists, and I have endeavoured to
avoid, as far as I could, falling into that error. I am
not going to rail, but I am going to refer—(laugh-
ter)—and in a speech at Edinburgh, as I read it re-
ported in the newspapers, Mr. Disraeli, the dis-
tinguished gentleman who holds the position cf
Chancellor of the Exchequer, says that in his recol-
lection, and I believe during his Parliamentary
career, there were 32 measures of vital importance
and benefit--in fact, as I understood, the 32 mea-
sures which have done so much good in the country
within these last years—that they had ail of them
been supported by the party with which he was as-
sociated, and had been strongly, I think I even read
the words bitterly, opposed by the other quarters of
the House. Gentlemen, I read that declaration with
the utmost pain. It was beyond anything painful to
find that there were these 32 measures, none of which
I had had the pleasure of supporting, because, when"
reviewed in my mind the measures I had supported
and the measures I had opposed, I found that almost
withoutexception those measures which Mr. Disraeli,
had opposed I had supported, and those wh;.ch
he had supported I had opposed. (Laughter and
cheers.) I, therefore, found myself in this painful
predicament, of being totally excluded after a great
number of years of hard labour from having had
anything to do with any of the good laws that have
distinguished our recent history and given satisfac-
tion to the people and strength to the institutions
of the country. But, gentlemen, there was no list
given of those 32 measures—(laughter)—and I
cannot tell you to what a degree my curiosity was
excited with regard to that list. During the late
session of Parliament very trying circumstances of
a domestic character prevented us from asking for
any explanation of these matters, and likewise upon
other matters relative to that curious process of
what is called education—but it differs from educa-
tion in the ordinary sense of what is called educa-
tion—on the question of Reform, to which it
appears the Conservative party have, without
knowing it, been subjected for the last seven
years. (Laughter.) Now, of that process I will
only say one word in passing, and it is this, that in
general when people are put into education your first
object is to open their eyes ; but in this kind of
education it appears that it is essential that while
the thing is going on they should know nothing
whatever about it—(laughter)—and should suppose
down to the last moment the direct opposite ; but
that when the happy moment comes then they are
DO longer treated like people going to play blind-
man's buff, the handkerchief is taken away from
their foreheads, and they are told and they discover,
to their intense satisfaction, that they have been
undergoing without knowing it a process of educa-
tion for the last seven years. (Laughter and cheers.)
Well, gentlemen, among the advances in the art of
physic of late years there has been one very great
one—l don't know whether you experience the
benefit of it with the country practitioners as
much as we do iu London—and that is the art
of making physic agreeable, and now in a great
majority of cases you take it without knowing it ;
and it appears to me that this system of medicine
has been adopted by the Conservative party of the
country, and that the Conservative party has been
dosed with principles of Parliamentary Reform
while it believed that it was walking in the opposite
direction. It now discovers what it has been about,
and seems perfectly well pleased ; and if they are
pleased, gentlemen, I know not why we should not
be pleased—(checrs) —because the result has been
the attainment of an enormous benefit, and advan-
tage to the country. (Cheers.) I come back to
my point, and I should like to know if there is any
one that can tell me what were these 32 measures.
I declare to you 1 should be put very hard to it if I
were compelled to mention one of them—that is to
say, great measures of benefit for the people which
were strenuously supported by the friends of the
opposite party, and which were bitterly opposed
from another quarter—this is, of course, from the
Liberal portion of the house. Ido not know what
they were, bat, gentlemen, I do know what they
were not—they were not the repeal of the Roman
Catholic disabilities, which formed in part the
fulfilment and in part the promise of fulfil-
ment of the duties of this country towards Ire-
land, and of ourselves, as lovers of liberty to-
wards all our fellow-subjects, whether Roman
Catholics or not--(cheers)--they were not the
repeal of the disabilities of Protestant Dissen-
ters, they were not the repeal of the Corn Laws,
they were not Reform of Parliament, they were not
the introduction of principles of fair representative
government into the municipal communities of the
country ; they were not the repeal of the naviga-
tion laws, which was to ruin all our shipping, just
as the repeal of the corn laws was .to have ruined
our agriculture, but which resulted in an enormous
extension of our shipping, as the repeal of the corn
laws resulted in immense increase in the value of
our produce ; they were not the treaty with France,
which has opened and extended the commerce of
the country, and in extending the commerce of the
country has done more by joining two nations with
the right hand of fellowship, never again, I trust, to
be severed ; they were not reform of the whole
tariff of the country, which has given you, without
almost any exception, the absolute command of all
the raw material of labour and industry that the
world can yield without payment of a single
shilling to the Exchequer ; they were not
the establishment of that free press which now
circulates almost by millions, if not by millions,
throughout the whole of this country, and pene-
trates into every nook and corner of the land.
Well, gentlemen, I really thought, in my blindness
and benighted ignorance, that those were the mea-
sures, or, at all events, that they were the contested
measures, because some measures-1 am thankful to
say, many good and valuable measures—have passed
the Legislature without contest. I thought it was
the contests upon these measures which had given a
special character to the Parliamentary history of the
age. Gentlemen, I still tbiuk so, and I ask you if
you think the spirit which formed and conceived and
dictated such measures is to continue to prevail in
the councils of the country ? (Cheers.) Let me
refer, in one word, to a subject of the greatest im-
portance, which time absolutely prevents me from
developing. We must have a Reform Bill for Ire-
land. I must give the Government this credit—
that the franchise which they proposed for Scot-
land was conceived in a liberal spirit. The fran-
chise to be proposed forlreland will, I hope, be con-
ceived iu a liberal spirit also. I refer to it only
for the sake of saying that which I hold not
merely as an isolated proposition, but as a principle
to be applied to the whole policy of the country. If
this is indeed to be a United Kingdom, we non,.;.
endeavour to give one heart and one minet
people of all its three divisions, and that c: _