The Sun.
London, England, 1867-03-19 00:00:00

safety of the empire. (Loud cheers.) There are certain
questions still in reserve, and we must wait to see what
those propositions are with regard to the sacred principle

of rating, and whether it is really to be applied in a limited
manner, or whether the whole 700,000 are to be enfran-
chised. But I must observe one very extraordinary omis-
sion in the bill. The right hon. gentleman, in an admir-
able passage which I promise to look up and quote at some
future day, laid down far better than I could do it the

principle of the lodger franchise. lam ashamed to tread
the ground he has trodden, and to spoil, by an imperfect
and unscientific characterisation, his account of that prin-

ciple ; but the substance of what he said was, that the
existence of a class of lodgers is a necessity of modern
civilisation. You have in every groat town, and especially
in London, owing to the extremely high cost of space, and

consequently the high rent of rate, a vast multitude of
men living as lodgers. They have the same claims as
householders in the country, the same character, the same

capacity, the same willingness to pay the rates—the fourth
of the cardinal virtues—(laughter)--and you have
them in numbers of 10.000, 20,000, and 50,000.
But the right hon. gentleman has completely passed by

them, and there is no provision for them except the

provision with regard to the savings banks.

I never

heard that lodgers were particularly given to putting
money into savings banks. If they are, it seems to
show that they are all men fit to be enfranchised, and I
should like to enfranchise them ; but the franchise re-
lating to savings banks would do no more for them than

other men. But unfortunately it is perfectly well known

that a very small proportion of those skilled artisans are

to be found amongst savings bank depositors. Therefore
what I find in this bill is this : I find that the safeguard of
long residence—l use the term conventionally—is prac-

tically of small account; and I find that the safeguard of
liability to pay rates cannot possibly be accepted by this
house after it has become aware of the nature and particu-

[ars of the operation of the law respecting rating in this

country. I presume, therefore, that these limitations must
go -that the dual voting must go. (Hear, hoar, and
cheers.) The right hon. gentleman knows as well as Ido
that dual voting is dead already. (Renewed cheers.) The
right hon. gentleman required to muster and pluck up
his courage in order to speak out—(laughter)-but it
was a great effort—(Ministerial cheers)—for a man to
propose to the House of Commons that which ha must
know in his own mind was as completely gone as if it had
been a proposal of Lord Strafford in the timo of Charles
I. (Hear, hear.) Well, the dual vote is gone ; the lodger
franchise is coming ; and behind the lodger franchise come
the broad consequences which must follow from enfran-
ehisement of the peasantry in what you choose to call bo-

roughs, but which aro little to wns. Sir, that is a very exten-
sive change. It may be that the bill does not contain provi-
sions for such a change ; but, so far as we can see, it looks
as if it would assume that form. I am convinced that these
safeguards must go, and I am confident that the lodger
franchise must come in. Ido not hesitate to say that it is
generous on the part of the right hon. gentleman to offer
such a bill to hon. gentlemei on this side of the house. It
has been said that it will bo highly favourable to them ;
and if it be his object to confer upon them a large boon,
. _ _

and to increase the borough representation, I do not mean
to say that he will not accomplish that end. But there are
other questions than those of the interests of party.
(Cheers.) I have not said a word since we quitted office in
defence of the course which we pursued last year. The
right hon. gentleman said wo proceeded last year avowedly
upon an expedient. Avowedly we did nothing of the kind.
(Cheers.) He is at perfect liberty to call it expedient if he
likes, but I don't call it expedient. I call it principle, and
our principle was this—to enfranchise the skilled labour
of the country. We have been told again from the
opposite side of the value of the principle of selection.
The last testimony to the principle which I have seen
was the remarkable letter from the noble lord the
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the Con-
servative working men of Huddersfield, in which he
said that the best of the working classes ought to be ad-
mitted to the franchise. Certainly, sir, I shall not be a
little curious to hoar the noble lord when he comes down
here and officially recommends a bill drawn in contempt
of the principle which he himself so recently approved—
(cheers)--a bill which utterly ignores all selection of the
working classes, which excludes a vast number of the most
instructed and skilled of the working classes —(cheers)—
and which, when it admits any of them, admits along with
them the poorest, the least instructed, the least skilled,
and the most dependent members of the community.
(Hear, hoar.) Sir, 1 have thought it fair to speak of the
bill as I have done. The gravity of the question is much
too great for me to presume to decide upon it at once. So
large a proposition as this bill would be, if the pretended
safeguards—l do not mean to say that the Government do
not believe in their sufficiency—but if they fall away, the
propositions will certainly require some consideration be-
fore I, for one, can make up my mind upon them. With
regard to the proposition in its limited form—in its dis-
tinction between rating and non-rating, and the shutting
out of men because their houses aro compounded for, and
because of their living in communities which have availed
themselves of the great social improvement promoted- by
Parliament for the last fifty years—to that proposition lam
inflexibly and utterly opposed. With regard to the general
plans and proposals of the right hon. gentleman, he will
acknowledge that they require time for consideration, and
that it is impossiWfor us now to judge in what measure
to deal with them as a whole. But to that ono which, if
the right hon. gentleman means to make rating a distinct
reality, is next most important, namely, dual voting, to that
proposal lam inflexibly opposed. (Hear, hear.) I confess I
think that it is quite impossible under any circumstances
that any proposal like that, or any proposal conceived in
such a spirit, can by any possibility obtain the sanction of
the House of Commons. (The right hon. gentleman re-
sumed his soot amid loud cheers.)
Sir W. HEATHCOTE reserved to himself the liberty
of forming a judgment on the bill at a future stage, but at
present his impression was unfavourable.
Sir G. BOWYER animadverted on the captious and
bitter tone of Mr. Gladstone's speech, which led him to
believe there was no chance of passing a bill this session,
and deprecated any further attempt to make the question a
party stalking-horse. He defended rating its the constitu-
tional foundation of every franchise, condemned the dual
voting, and was of opinion that the proper solution of re-
distribution was to increase the number of members.
Mr. LOWE warned the supporters of the bill that, so
far from having touched sound ground in household suf-
frage, they had lighted on a quicksand which would be no
safeguard against further downward progress. In fact, the
present suffrage was household, with the limit or safe-
guard of X LO rental, and a personal payment of rates would
not be found so stable oven as £lO rental, for it would be
attended with more personal annoyances to the voters,
and they would be the more anxious to sweep it
away. If the compound householders were in-
tended to have votes, all this machinery ought to bo
swept away ; if not, the change would differ little
from a .£G rental. Mr. Gladstone's proposal, that
the franchise should bo brought down to moot the point
where personal payment of rates ceased,Mr. Lowe thought
worth the consideration of the house ; but expressed the
strongest repugnance for the dual vote, which was founded
on the fallacy that the taxing power was the chief function
of the House of Commons, was insulting to those who were
to be admitted to the franchise, and would create such gla-
ring inequalities that a fresh agitation must immediately
follow. Whatever was done ought to be done freely and
frankly, and the house ought to be told by the Government
whether they considered this a vital part of the bill.
Mr. HENLEY felt rather disheartened by the tone the
discussion was taking. He decidedly approved the pro-
posal of the bill to connect the vote with payment of rates,
and had no doubt that the difficulties as to the compound
householders might be easily settled in committee if both
sides would set their shoulders to the wheel with a firm
determination to settle the question. The figure of .£l5 for
the counties, approaching closely to the house-tax, met his
views, but the dual vote he regarded as a piece of unmiti-
gated mischief, which was unnecessary, because the people
who were to come in would be as much divided as any
other class in o pinions.
Mr. ROEBUCK saw no difficulty in arranging all the
objections taken by Mr. Gladstone on the ratepaying part
of the scheme in committee, and, animadverting on Mr.
Gladstone's speech, hinted that the main motive for those
objections was a mere party feeling. The dual vote, of
course, was impossible, but evidently not a vital point.
He urged the house to bear in mind that if this bill were
rejected, and the Government thrown out (for he did not
boliieve in a dissolution), a dead lock would follow, and he
advised it to read the bill a second time and deal with it in

committee.
Mr. B. HOPE made some sarcastic observations on the
spectacle of a Conservative Government outbidding Libe-
rals in a Liberal market, and denounced the bill as a two-
faced business, which might prove so restrictive that it
would take away with one hand what it seemed to give with
the other, or else would entail household suffrage in a
most dangerous form.
Mr. B. JOHNSTONE supported the main features of
bill, excepting the dual vote, and spoke in a sanguine tone
of the prospects of a speedy settlement, which he greatly
desired, ns until it came to pass we never could again be a
united people.
Mr. C. BUXTON intimated that he should take an op-
portunity of asking the opinion of the house on cumulative

voting.
Mr. SANDFORD, having expressed an opinion that the
bill was inconsistent with the Resolutions, and that the.
dual voting was illusory, sharply attacked Sir J. Pakington
for his recent speech at Droitwich, and asserted that the
Cabinet had not considered a Reform Bill a week before
Parliament met.
Mr. B. OSBORNE exhorted thohouse not to give way to
party spirit, which would strangle the last chance of pass-
ing a Reform Bill this session, nor to be too precipitate is
condemning a measure which it had never seen. He hoped
there would be no repetition of the mistakes of 1859, but
that the bill would be read a second time and dealt with in
committee. On the merits of the bill he expressed himself
decidedly opposed to the dual vote and the redistribution
scheme.
Lord CRANBORNE, alluding to a remark of Mr.
Osborne, asserted that the house had a right to know what
wore held to be vital points, particularly as this was a bill
of checks and compausatious, and 14a die not Whey° that