The Sun.
London, England, 1867-06-04 00:00:00

Lord STANLEY said he had not taken any part in such
a proceeding.
REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL.

The house then went into committee on this bill.
Sergeant GASELEE said, as the house had accepted
one portion of his plan—(loud laughter)—ho would now
proceed to lay the other part, or, he should say, the com-
mencement of his proposition, before the committee.
Owing to tho anxiety of the hon. member who introduced
his proposal to the committee, he had now only the duty of
introducing the remainder of it for consideration. (Hear,
hoar, and laughter.) In doing that he should have to
place the cart before the horse, but that was by no fault
of his own. (Laughter.) He therefore moved that after Mr.
Laing's amendment to add the following words—viz. :
" And every borough which had a loss p ipulation
than five thousand at the sail census shall cease
to return any member to servo in Parliament."
It was quite time, in his opinion, that the great anomaly
that had so long existed, that 10 boroughs, with a
population of 39,704 and only 2,700 electors, should
be precluded from sending no less than fifteen mem-
bers to Parliament. The hon. and learned member then
read the names of the boroughs, in mmy of which the
number of registered electors did not exceed 200, and said
he had now performed his disgraceful, he should say his
disagreeable, task—(laughter)—and if the Chancellor of the
Exchequer adopted his motion it would leave 10 more seats
at his disposal. If ho did ho would be able to satisfy
Chelsea and Kensington, neither of which were satisfied
with the proposal of the Government. Ho could also in
some degree satisfy Accrington, Doncaster, Harrogate,
Keighley, Bingley, Gosport, Leeds, Liverpool, Merthyr,
Salford, Birkenhead, Paddington, Birmingham, Bristol,
Finsbury, Manchester, Marylebone, Sheffield, and South-
wark, many of which had as much right to division into
two parts or an additional member as Glasgow and the
Tower Hamlets.

Mr. J. GOLDSMID said ho hoped the house would
pause before they adopted the motion of the honour-
able and learned member, because it was, in effect,
converting the country itto electoral districts. He
thought it unwise to do away with the small boroughs,
because it was well known that some o the greatest men
who had ever sat in that house had been re-
turned to Parliament by such boroughs as the hon.
and learned gentleman sought to abolish. With respect to
Paddington not being represented, he had to tell the hon.
and learned member that that place was in Marylebone,
and that Kensington and Chelsea would be, in consequence
of the lowering of the franchise, represented in Middlesex
for the future.
Mr. SCHREIBER moved an amendment to that moved
by the hon. and learned member for Portsmouth, the
effect of which would be to spare the five boroughs with
500 population, but the remaining five, he was afraid,
must be left to their inevitable fate.
Sir L. PALE. said he did not think it would be
advisable to abolish all small boroughs. Arundel returned
the only English Roman Catholic, and he did not think
that that largo body should be grudged a single repre-
sentative. With respect to Ashburton, Lord Lyndhurst
first obtained his seat in Parliament for that place.
Mr. CARDWELL said he should support the proposal
of the hon. member for Portsmouth in preference to the
amendment that had been made to it. (Hear, hear.) If
they wanted to keep up the agitation for electoral districts
they would reject the amendment of the hon. member
for Portsmouth, but if they wished to keep the agitation
down they would adopt it.
The use and value of small boroughs were enforced by
Sir L. Palk (North Devon), Mr. J. Hardy (Dartmouth),
Mr. R. Neville-Grenville (West Somerset), Captain Hayter
(Wells), and Mr. Harvey (Thetford).
Mr. SMOLLETT supported the amendment, in the hope
that it would to the recasting of the whole scheme of re-
distribution, and in a caustic speech recommended a large
reduction of the numbers of the House, with the view of
getting rid of the " talking potatoes," who wore the real
cause of its deliberative inefficiency.
Mr. LAING pointed out that as 55 seats at least would
be needed for the adequate representation of the counties
and the unrepresented towns and for the addition of the
Scotch representation, and 45 only had been obtained by
his amendment, it was a choice between grouping and the
total disfranchisement of these ten boroughs, and pressed
the Government for some explanation of their views.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said—
Whatever difficulties may arise from this question of the
redistribution of seats, there is ono point which the house
has reason to congratulate itself upon, and this is that we
can consider and discuss the subject without exciting the
party passions which it formerly aroused. Tbis is a result
with which we may be well satisfied. I think I may claim
some share of the credit of this condition of affairs for the
Government, on account of their practical and temperate
proposal. This proposal, which was intended to do justice
to the counties and to certain large towns, was ono which
entailed a great sacrific upon our colleagues, for the groat
majority of the seats to be ~.btained by partial disfranchise-
ment would ba taken from our own party. Wa were
pressed very much to ex tend that proposition, but we could
net do so without d parting from the line wo had laid
down, and if we had advanced as far tho hon. member
for Wick had successfully gone on Friday night we should
be asking a sacrifice, in a great majority of instances, from
our political opponents. (Laughter.) That was our re-
luctance. (Renewed laughter.) The hon. member for
Wick seems to be disappointed because I did not come
down to the house with the plan which the Government
were prepared to recommend. It appears to me that would
have been premature upon our part (hear)—because, in
the first place, too opinions of the committee were not ex-
hausted upon the subject, as this very motion shows ;
and, secondly, because we should not be doing our duty
in submitting a plan which was not matured in its details.
It is necessary to-bear in mind, when determining the rela-
tive representation of thecounties and boroughs, that some
81 boroughs indirectly represent various landed interests,
and thus make up for the otherwise inadequate county re-
presentation. But by adopting the proposal of Friday, and
still more if we adopt that now before us, we will diminish
those boroughs. Therefore, if you go in for a large
scheme of redistribution, the committee must consider
the justice of giving a more adequate representation to
the county population. (Hear, hear.) It is matter for
congratulation that we are able to deal with the subject
under very favourable circumstances. We have established
the county franchise upon a broad and popular basis, and
with this advantage I trust shall arrive at an arrangement
which will satisfy the hon. member for Wick. When we
first introduced our bill, the principle we went upon was,
that there should be no total disfranchisement. (Hear, hoar.)
I very much doubt whether any other principle would
have been tolerated at the time ; but after the vote of Fri-
day, I think we shall be able to agree upon such a distri-
bution of seats as will satisfy the country. But as regards
the present motion, it falls under another head. It will be
for the committee to consider whether the constituencies
of those ancient centres of population cannot be increased
by giving them a larger area, or by the system of grouping
recommended by the hon. member for Wick. Bly own
opinion is, that the carrying out of the motion will not be
satisfactory, and it is also opposed to the principle upon
which our scheme was first brought forward. I think it is
unwise that we should destroy any centre of representa-
tion. I cannot assent to any course of this 'kind unless
the opinion of the house is given as unmistakably as in
the case of the motion of the hon. member for Wick (Mr.
Laing.) I myself am of opinion that the House of Com-
mons does not desire entirely to disfranchise any place,
but that its opinion is in accordance with the policy of the
Government, and therefore I shall oppose the motion.
Mr. GLADSTONE—I wish to thank the right hon.
gentleman for having eliminated from this debate so far as
it depends on him—and much depends on him—every ele-
ment of party consideration. (Hear, hear.) We have before
us a plain and simple question, and the right hon. gentle-
man says, on the part of Government, he does not think
it desirable to totally extinguish any centre of representa-
tion. The vote the committee is celled upon to give would
not absolutely rule that question in a sense adverse to the
views of the right hon. gentleman, because it would still
remain open to bim on the part of the Government and to
the committee, after carrying the motion of the hon. and
learned member for Portsmouth, whether boroughs de-
prived by the motion of the right of sole representation
might not be admitted to share the privileges of borough
representation in some other form. (Hear, hear.) I take
it we are going to assert, by this vote, a principle of which
I so strongly feel the force that I am ready to accept it,
though it may entail the extinction of some ancient centres
of representation, that wo have no chance of securing
permanence in the system wo are constructing, if we leave
the right of individual parliamentary representation in the
htpoaonr Ptdi tso ruloi
of
nf ctoehmnetmp
uitbt el
cannotiecsospoibusemi
nfael
llotft httaloite those
stwreynh.to(mauneytahey d
rs.ehn
hear.)
send
to Parliament cannot be felt to represent any sensible
portion of the public opinion of the country. (Hear. hear.)
It is with reference to that principle that we look to give a
solidity to the basis of representation, and we think that
suchprr ionrtcsinimp principle cannotmeasure
re a 8
trustb ethat
o o
satisfied
h n
tthae:
hon
weer
ande tll t
at Ilsee
oaadoption
gmorbfo
tsome
such measure as that of the hon. and learned member for
r
the committee will be disposed to proceed to a vote, which,
after all, I think the right hon. gentleman must feel is no
more than a natural, if not a necessary, supplement to the
vote at which we arrived on Friday night.
Mr. NEWDEGATE announced his intention amid loud
cries of tt Divide," to support the motion ; and after a few
words from Mr. HARVEY, who was inaudible,
Mr. SCHREIBER withdrew his amendment.
The committee then divided.

For the motion
Against it ...
Majority
The amendment was therefore lost.
Captain HAYTER rose to move in clause 9, after Mr.
Laing's amendment, add "And every borough enmue-
rated in Schedule A of this bill shalt be so enlarged, either
by the addition of neighbouring boroughs or towns, or by
an extension of its present boundaries, as to include a,
population of not less than ten thousand persons." The
hon. member contended that such boroughs as ho wished
to enlarge represented, not the people, but each of them
generally one man. Ile desired to take a district-borough
as the centre of the representation, and enlarge it, either by
the aggregation of the neighbouring population, or by
adding the surrounding district, to the extent of, say
19,000 people. These boroughs will nct stand future

... 217
... ' 263

... ----52