The Sun.
London, England, 1867-05-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES—Once more the cry of battle is raised over
the Reform Bill. The campaign has been arduous,
the fortunes of war have been 'variable ; some great
captains have been beaten, and have accepted their
defeat; others, who have been discredited and foiled
in their desires, have ietired, like Achilles, from the
fray. But the instinct of war is stronger than the
memory of failure or the resentment of disappointed
ambition. We are promised another contest over
the Government scheme, to be wagel with almost
more than internecinedfiury. Bill or no Bill, Re-
form or no Reform—nay, for many men Existence
or Extinction—waits on the issue. Tho Compound
Householder is the occasion of this last struggle.
That perplexing personage, of whose .existence the
world was happily ignorant twelve months ago, is
the direful spring of endless discussion. He now
stands revealed as a creature of overwhelming, if
temporary. importance. His relations with his
fellow-men, with his landlord, with the ratepayers
among whom he resides, with his parish, and with
his municipality, are canvassed under every possible
aspect. He is not a ratepayer himself by nature,
and the wisdom of Parliament has decided that in
order to become an elector of a burgess to sit in the
House of Commons he must become one. The
great problem is to determine how the transforma-
tion shall be effected. Under what conditions shall
the man who now lives aloof from the broils of
vestries and the disputes of parochial boards be
compelled to observe the local duties of citizenship,
as a condition precedent to the enjoyment of Parlia-
mentary privileges ? The Government take their
stand on their mode of enfranchising the compound
householder, and we wish we could believe that every
one understood the plan they propose should be
pursued. As Mr. Gladstone has given notice of his
intcution to ask some questions to-night for the
purpose of being better informed on the Government
scheme, professing to be at present somewhat in the
dark as to the meaning of its provisions, we may
as-value that the arrangement proposed by the
Ministry is still imperfectly understood. Under"
ordinary circumatauce3 tho obscurity iu Which a!

subject is involved tends to the advantage of a
Ministry, but it seems tolerably certain that there
are misconceptions entertained in some quarters
about the Government scheme which induce unrea-
sonable distrust,. and that when it is well understood
it will be accepted. In the first place,- what is a
compound householder? There are compound house-
holders under other acts, but the man who would be
most affected by the bill before Parliament when
passed into law is the compound householder under
the Small Tenements Act of 1850. That enactment,
where adopted, makes all occupiers of houses rated
at £6 and under compound householders—that is to
say, it makes the landlords of such occupiers the
persons responsible to the parish for the rates inci-
dent on their occupation ; and it goes on ty proVide
that the rates payable by the landlords shall be three-
fourths of the rates which would have been payable
by the occupiers had they been directly rated and
directly responsible. In other words, if a rate be
levied at the rate of Is. in the pound, the landlord
paying the rates on the small tenements he owns
shall he required to pay no more than 9d. in the
pound on their rateable value. It is, however, uni-
versally allowed that the fact of rates being primarily
demanded from a landlord does not alter their ulti-
mate incidence, and it is conceded almost as gene-
rally that the rates dependent" on the occupation of
houses are with very exceptions always borne at the
last by the occupier. Whether the occupier pays the
full rate, or the compounded rate, or something be-
tween the two, has been disputed. In truth, this is
fact of experience which cannot be determined ex-
cept by observation, and it is highly probable that
the exact burden on the occupier varies with diffe-
rent localities. It is plain that the landlord guts
something for the trouble he undergoes in collect-
ing the rates, and the risk he runs of not being
repaid what he is himself compelled to pay to
the parish. Mr. Gladstone has argued with much
fervour that the landlord obtains the entire benefit
of the reduction of 25 per cent. made in his favour,
and that the occupier pays the full rate. Sir Roan-
dell Palmer has supported this contention. The
Government have accepted it, and propose to act
upon it. Mr. Disraeli says that at first he doubted,
and, perhaps, disbelieved, the conclusions Mr. Glad-
stone laid down, but upon examination he has been
convinced of their truth. The concurrence of the
late Government and of the present Ministry on a
fact of observation may well be deemed sufficient to
overbear all dissent. Accepting the statement that
the compound householder pays the full rate, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer in his latest clauses
proposes to take the occupier who wishes to be a
voter out of the order of compound householders
altogether, and make him directly responsible for
the full rates he now practically pays. It is thus
evident that if the rent agreed upon between the
occupier and the landlord be settled upon the under-
standing that the occupier assumes the responsibility
of the rates attendant on his occupation, the whole
burden of rent and rates paid by the occupier will
be the same as if he had remained a compound
householder, and the difference in his position will
simply be that he will have to meet calls on his re-
sources at longer and irregular intervals. If, how-
ever, the occupier is in possession under an agree-
ment that the tenement he occupies shall be let him
rate-free, and he subsequently applies to be directly
rated, Mr. Disraeli would authorise him to deduct
from the rent payable to his landlord the full rates
he may be called upon to pay. At first sight it might
be thought that the " fine" of which we have heard
so much will thus be shifted from the tenant to the
landlord, but the impression disappears on examina-
tion. The landlordjis now compensated for his risk
and trouble by the difference between the full and
the compounded rate. When the occupier applies
to be rated, the landlord will be relieved from the
trouble of collection, and from his liability to the
parish, and, losing his burden, he will lose his com-
pensation. In no sense of this word can the conse-
quence properly be called " a fine." It is the revo-
cation of a bonus, or, more strictly speaking, of a
payment compounded of a pretnium on insurance
and a poundage on receipts. No one can pretend
that there is any wrong or injustice involved
in such a revocation. An arrangement of modern
growth, and in some of its incidents of doubtful ex-
pediency, is set aside, and the persons affected by
it are restored to the situation they occupied before
it was made. It may, perhaps, be thought that
landlords having once tasted the gain and the ad-
vantage of bAng collectors of rates wilt simply add
to their rents the amount they may lose ,by the
partial abolition of the composition. No such con-
sequence need be apprehended. There is a competi-
tion among landlords as well as among tenants, and
if the risk of being called upon to pay rates which
have not been received be removed, the payment the
landlord has received as a premium to cover this
risk cannot be retained. The abatement of the rent
by the average sum of the full rates must be main--
tainecl, and the tehant cannot be injured. A dis-
passiOnate inquiry into the proposed treatment of
Compound Householders may inspire some doubt of
the value of the machinery devised for their enfran-
chisement, but can suggest no suspicion of its injus-
tice. It is perfectly intelligible that any one maS,
believe it would be as well to admit the Compound
Householder to the register without taking him out
of his order. We undrstand this view, though we
do not accept it. The test of responsibility involved
in undertaking directly local duties is desirable and
material. But to hold that there can be any injus-
tice in retracing the steps of the Small Tenements
Act and placing enfranchised householders in the
same situation as before it was passed is in-compre-
hensible. This, simply stated is what the Govern-
ment proposes to do. The alternative
proposal, first
placed in the Notice Book by Mr, Hibbert, and now
espoused by the leading members of the Opposition,
is a partial reversal of the Small Tenements Act,
and it is partial in the sense of not making the
Compound Householders who apply to be registered
solely responsible for the rates, and of leaving in
the hands of the landlords the share of the rates
they now retain, although they will be relieved of
part of the consideration which entitles them to it.
Mr. Hibbert's clause would make the Compound
Householder
h pay the compounded rates, and would
authorise hint to deduct this composition from his
rental, and the liability of the landlord as a' surety
would still exist. We fail to understand the inesti-
mable value of the poilits of difference between this
and Government proposal which make the one desir-
able, and the other detestable. As we view them,
neither the one nor the other can be said to involve
any point of injustice, and the difference between
them is wholly
insufficient to warrant the tremen-
dous issues which hang Go-
Go-
vernment, desiring to make every
choice.
ry ratepa voter,Tyerahe
would make every compound householder who ap-
plies to become a voter wholly and truly a rate-
payer. Mr. Hibbert would leave him in an am-
biguous position, ready to come forward as a
ratepayer, or to fade away into compound house-
holding, at discretion. We prefer, and we believe
the House of Commons will prefer, the simple and
more complete method of repealing, as far as en-
franchised compound householders are concerned,
the Small Tenements Act altogether. We look,
indeed, upon the determination to support Mr. Hib-
bert's amendment, after the publication of the
clauses last inserted in the Notice-bdok by the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, as au instance of morbid
energy, and of that recklessness of all consequences
too frequently manifested whenever an opportunity
is afforded of a stand-up party fight.
Posr.—The Reform Bill now before the House
of Commons has weathered so_ many dangers, and
has sustained so many modifications, that it would
be a thousand pities if at the stage at which it has
now arrived it should make shipwreck upon any
danger which can be avoided by a further modifica-
tion not absolutely inadmissible. We hold that it
is for the advantage of both the great political par-
ties, and not less for the advantage of the country,
that, if it be possible to make it a fairly acceptable
and defensible measure, the present bill should be
carried through, and for that reason we are anxious
that the feature which now alone remains to prevent
its being either acceptable or defensible should not
be adhered to with greater obstinacy than has
hitherto been shown with regard to its other fea-
tures. If it should unhappily prove that the advance
which has been made by the Conservative party on
the one hand, and the anxiety felt by the Liberal
party on the other, to settle this great question are
not sufficient to produce in the present Session a
measure sufficient for the times, it Seems to us pro-
bable that we shall not succeed in laying the ques-
tion finally to rest by any concessions falling short
of the extreme demands of the ultra-Radicals ; and
it is only necessary to remember what has taken
place between this time last year and the present
time to produce the conviction that practically we
are this session much nearer to manhood suffrage
than we were last session to household suffrage.
'Ehose, then, who desire that we should proceed
step by step in this matter will do well to unite in
an endeavour so to modify the present bill as will
make it sufficient fairly to fill the measure of the
demands which are now allowed to be admissible ;
for, if this is not effected, we shall next year •have
to meet demands of a different sort, and the matter
will never be finally settled until we arrive at the
extreme limit of the popular requirements. It is,
above all, essential that whatever bill is passed
should be such as rests upon well-defined and defen-
sible principles, for otherwise it will be but an invi-
tation to the agitators to recommence their dis-
quieting work, and there remains really so little to
be done to make the present bill come up to this
condition that we venture to hope the effort required
to achieve the work will not be spared, and that we
may yet be enabled to regard the measure as one
really calculated to settle the question—at least for
a generation, if not for all time. The principle. of
the bill, as we have been authoritatively told, is that

the vote should be given to every man who has in-
habited a house during ,the space of time which
has been fixed at one year, and who has discharged
the pecuniary obligation which is imposed by the
State upon householders. As a principle, this is
certainly fair enough, but as the bill at present
stands it is not only not applied, but it is utterly
disregarded. By the provisions of the bill occupiers
of houses commanding the higher rents are to be
admitted without question and as a matter of coffee
but in the first stages of the discussion a distinc-
tion was taken between these and the occupiers of
the meaner sort, who, it was said, in consequence
of the special arrangement of a composition rate
which has been applied to them, do not in face
fully discharge the obligation in question, and
therefore it was contended fairly enough that they
should not have the vote unless they carne out of
the arrangement and submitted themselves to the
full burden as imposed upon their neighbours ; and
if it had been true, as was contended, that the
effect of the compo.sition was in fact to relieve
them from a portion of their proper burden,
the argument for their exclusion would. have been
complete enough. But in fact, upon a little close
examination, this assertion appeared to be utterly
false, and indeed it has been held in more than 000
case .by the courts of law that the householder who
pays under a composition does de jure and de facto
discharge his liability as completely as the house-
holder who pays in the ordinary way. And Air-
Disraeli has now frankly admitted that he has be-
come converted to this view of the matter, and has
promulgated his conviction that the compounder
does indeed " pay the full rate," so that it follows
that, as regards the principle upon which the bill is
professedly founded, he has fully as good a claim to
the franchise as his neighbour who pays the full
rate in a different manner ; and to visit him With
any exceptional treatment is clearly indefensible.
Indeed, the obnoxious regulations which have been
laid down for him would, if they could be complied
with, have absolutely no other effect than to bring
him back, as regards the rates, precisely to the same
position from which he started, .and this is the most
conclusive argument that nosuch regulations should
be made at all. Indeed, whatever reasons there
may be adduced for adopting them would have
equal weight in support of a similar course of pro-
ceeding for the non-compounding householder, and
there is no single argument to justify the admission
of the ordinary ratepayer to the franchise which,
at the stage at which the argument has now arrived,
is not equally conclusive for the admission of the
compounder, for it is now conceded that the fact of
his being a compounder doed not affect the question
of his satisfaction of the rates at all. If then the
Ministry is prepared, as it has proclaimed itself to
be, to treat the question on principle, and not with
sole reference to the effect of a given measure, they
may fairly be asked to adopt the same treatment
for the one case as they apply to the other. It i 8
not enough to establish an inequality of treatment
and then to make complieated provisions for remedy-
ing it, when the same end is to be attained, as,
thanks to Sir William Clay's act, it has been ,
at-
tained hitherto, by a similarity of treatment. And
as this similarity of treatment is based solely uP°ll
the recognition of the truth to which Mr. Disraeli
has now been converted, it may fairly be hoped that
upon further consideration the Ministry may be in-
duced to carry through the principle upon which it
has started, and to admit the compounder to the.
franchise upon his showing that the compounded
rate, which, so far as he is concerned, is admittedly
the full rate, has been satisfied.