The Sun.
London, England, 1867-08-08 00:00:00

NATIONAL REFORM. UNION.

A numerous meeting of Reformers in connexion
with this union was held last night in the Queen's
Concert Rooms, Hanover-square, " to ptotest against
the action of the House of Lords with reference to
the lodger franchise and the three-cornered consti-
tuencies." Mr. M'Cullagh Torreus, M.P., was in
the chair, and among others present on the platform
were Mr. Goschen, M.P., Mr. Hughes, M.P.I Mr.
Crawford, M.P., Sir John Gray, M.P., Mr. Trevel-
yau, M.P., Mr. Dixon, M.P., Sir P. O'Brien, M.P.,
Mr. Lefevre, M.P., Mr. Beales, Mr. Mason Jones,
Mr. Potter, &c.
The CHAIRMAN said they were called together
to-night, to protest against what they conceived to
be a mutilated Reform Bill. They did not dispute
the constitutional right of the Upper House to
discussion and discretion on any matter. But
as the Queen through her Ministers was responsible
to Parliament, as the members of the House of
Commons were individually responsible to their
constituents, so the House of Lords, speaking by
its best and wisest men, had at all times laid down
the doctrine that it was responsible to the whole
nation. It claimed no function of irresponsibility.
The people, therefore, were bound to tell the House
of Lords what they thought and wished, and the
experience of their life showed that such out-speak-
ing was not in vain. He was old enough to re-
member when the Lords said they would not grant
religious liberty, but they conceded it. They threw
out reform bills, but ended by passing one. He
heard a prime minister say that the man must be a
madman who proposed free trade in food, but the
Lords were persuaded to grant free trade at last ;
and the curious thing was that after their conver-
sioi the Lords were uniformly glad they had been
converted. He had heard a distinguished member
of the :Upper House s ty in the discussion_upon this
bill that all his prognostications had been falsified
in 1832, and, therefore, he would not venture to
prophesy any evil of this measure. Coming to the
changes introduced by the Lords, he congratulated
the meeting upon the concession as to the lodger
franchise. But there remained the increase of the
copyhold franchise from 15 to £lO, and the repre-
sentation of minorities. That new-fangled notion
ought not to be adopted, nor yet the proposal which,
as Lord Cranborrie said, would allow a voterto vote
privately in the magistrate's drawing-room. lie
denied that, as Lord Derby had said, the decision
of the House of Commons on this point had been
come to hastily, and he had to-night placed on the
notice paper a motion that the Lords' amendment
should not be agreed to. These points, on which
he hoped the Commons would insist, were the bones
of the bill, and the Lords should be made to swallow
the bill, bones and all. (Cheers.)

Mr. GOSCHEN said they had of late seen prin-
ciples changed with extraordinary rapidity, and there
had been transformation scenes of a wonderful cha-
racter without a hitch. (Laughter.) Ile congra-
tulated 'the working classes of London on their ad-
mission to the franchise under thelodger qualification.
On this point a noble lord in the Upper House, like
a celebrated warrior, bad marched his soldiers up
the hill and marched them down again. The con-
cession which had been made, however, made the
suffrage a reality to the metropolis ; without the
lodger franchise at £lO the bill would have been
almost nil. He did not wish to say a word against
the Government, for reformers would want the Go-
vernment support in order to resist the Lords' amend-
ments. Indeed, in many respects the Liberal party
had great cause to be grateful to the Conservative
leader, for no one could be blind to the fact that he
bamboozled his own friends most successfully. It was
said that if a man's eyes were bandaged and you gave
him tea and coffee in rapid succession he would not

at last be able to tell the difference between the two

liquids. This experiment had been tried by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer with considerable suc-
cess on the Conservative party. Their eyes had been
bandaged ; the right hon. gentleman gave them
Liberal and Conservative doses in rapid succession,
and in the end his political friends did not know in
the least what they were taking, and swallowed a good
stiff Radical Reform Bill. (Cheers and laughter.)
It was the misfortune, not the fault, of the Govern-
ment that in the entire Cabinet they had only three
members sitting for English boroughs, and the
largest of those boroughs only contained 16,000 in-
habitants. Under these circumstances it was to
their credit that the Government had presented the
country with such a bill, but no one could be sur-
prised that the position of the great towns had been
misrepresented or misunderstood. The influence of
the great towns was menaced .by the amend-
ment for the representation of minorities, which
was a magnificent device for giving with
the one band and taking away with the other
—for satisfying the demands of large constituencies
with an additional member, and at the same time
diminishing their political power. About the prin-
ciple that minorities should be represented there
might be differences of opinion among Liberals.
What they had to do with, however, was the pre-
sent application of the principle, and that was un-
equivocally wrong. If, indeed, the country were
divided into electoral districts there must then be a
To ask
representation of minorities, but at present mino-
rities were, if anything, over-represented•
that minorities should be protected now was to pro-
vide for a state of things which had not come about
it was as though the timid driver of a four-in-hand
before he got to the top of
were to put on the drag
the hill. (Cheers.) Then it was said, " Oh, this
is a useful experiment !" Well, he pretested against
the trial of such an experiment at the expense of a
few of the largest towns. If such a system were
adopted their members would not be able to say that
they sat for such and such a place, but only for one
section of the place, and the influence of these towns
in Parliament would thereby begreatly weakened.
He cared not by whom the Reform Bill passed if it
passed in a straightforward manner. They need not
contest the authorship or the origin. Some might
think that the Government of ttrl Ituasell and Mr.