The Sun.
London, England, 1867-07-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TlMES.—Whatever may be the demerits of the
Reform Bill, it has the crowning merit of success.
Lord Derby may bemoan the tender mercies of
_ _

friends, when Lod Carnarvon justifies his defection
from the Ministry and protests against being sup-
posed an accomplice in the " organised hypocrisy"
which believed in Household Suffrage, but opposed
a .£7 rental qualification ' • or he may chafe when
the Duke of Argyll, while supporting the bill,
throws all his power into a denunciation of the Con-

servative Ministry which has fathered it ; but at the
end he may congratulate himself that the bill is safe.
At half-past one o'clock this morning, after a debate
of remarkable power, sustained through two long
nights, Lord Grey's Amendment was negatived
without a division, and the bill was read a second
time. Lord Grey would not withdraw his amend-
ment, but, disappointed by Lord Russell of the sup-
port he had expected, he did not divide the house.
The result, which was from the first inevitable,
compensated the Ministry for some incidents of the
debate. In the " Life of Lord George Ben-
tinck," which Mr. Disraeli published when recon-
structing the Conservative party, he pictured the
distress of Sir Robert Peel at seeing the county
members he loved troop into the lobby to
punish him by an adverse vote on an Irish
Coercion Bill. Lord Derby must have felt
a similar pang yesterday when two such men as
Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Harrowby—whose
names are towers of strength, and whose Conser-
vatism has ever been tempered by the liveliest sym-
pathy with the people, and an active zeal for the
improvement of their condition—were foremost to
denounce the measure he had submitted to the
House of Lords. The most weighty speech of last
night was delivered by Lord Cairns. It contained
the best defence that could be offered for the con-
duct of the Ministry, and, it must be added, that it
did not come too soon. Up to the time when Lord
Cairns rose, Lord Derby had not met with much
efficient support. The middle-aged officials who
are kept, according to Lord Granville, in the back-
ground, naturally found themselves in a false posi-
tion when called to the front, and they were quite
unable to cope with such antagonists as Lord Grey
and Lord Carnarvon, Lord Granville and Lord
Shaftesbury, the Duke of Argyll and Lord Har-
rowby. Lord Cairns, however, said everything that
could be said on his side. lie excited, as he has
often before excited, the highest admiration of his
skill as an advocate, though at the same time he im-
pressed us with an equally strong sense of an ad-
vocate's deficiencies. Lord Cairns first adverted to
an argument advanced by Lord Harrowby, who
had declared that under the proposed franchise
the working classes would govern the boroughs,
and the boroughs would govern the House of
Commons which even now governs England.
Lord Cairns replied by quoting the old proof,
that the child of Themistocles—Eparainondas,
he strangely said—governed the world ; and
under cover of the laughter excited by the
parallel, escaped the task of refuting the argu-
ment. The gist of Lord Cairns's speech, how-
ever, consisted in his apology for the enfran-
chising and redistributing clauses of the bill. He
asked triumphantly at what stage short of household
suffrage the Government could have stopped ? The
£lO householders were a privileged class, selected
out of the householders of the kingdom, and it was
inevitable that the limit should be enlarged. The
value of the qualifying tenement must be reduced to
£6, and he gave reasons for believing that it would
he vain to think of stopping there. Party would out-
bid party until all householders were enfranchised,
and it was wiser to proceed to that end at once. We
have always supported this result, but we must
guard ourselves against being supposed to accept all
Lord Cairns's arguments. We cannot be blind—
we cannot but marvel that he should be blind—to
the consequences of his reasoning. It is a striking
instance of the effect of concentrating attention, as an
advocate must, on a single issue. Lord Cairns spoke
of the £lO householders as a privileged class, se-
lected out of the householders -of the kingdom, and
he justified the Ministry in abandoning the defence
of privileges which were indefensible. 'But to what
does this lead ? The £lO householders were not
selected out of the householders of the kingdom, but
out of the householders within a certain number of
limited areas, called boroughs, marked out on the
map of the kingdom ; and Lord Cairns's argument
thus goes the length of enfranchisine, every house-
holder in county or town throughout the land. We
are not quite sure that Lord Cairns may not have
some suspicion of the conclusions to which he must
arrive, as we find him apologising for the main-
tenance of a " hard and fast" line in counties, on the
simple ground that it was impossible to adopt house-
hold suffrage there because there were so many oc-
cupiers in counties who were not householders. We
may infer that had all county occupiers been house-
holders Lord Cairns would have defended house-
hold suffrage in counties. The same narrowness of
view which led Lord Cairns to the adoption of
arguments in favour of the borough franchise,
from the consequences of which we believe he would
shrink, betrayed him into some mistakes as to the
meaning of his opponents when advocating the
lodger franchise. Lord Carnarvon had protested
against the lodger franchise in the present bill as
leading to universal suffrage ; Mr. Lowe, comment-
ing on the absence of the lodger franchise from the
" ten minutes' bill," declared that it would lead to
universal suffrage. " See," said Lord Cairns, " what
inconsistency in men whose opinions are in the main
the same !" As we agree neither with Lord Car-
narvon nor with Mr. Lowe, we may say that, on
better consideration, it would be seen that there
is no inconsistency whatever. Lord Carnarvon,
speaking of the present bill, declared that it must
be impossible to maintain a lodger franchise of £lO
value side by side with a household suffrage without
any criterion of value ; and that we must therefore
end in universal suffrage. Mr. Lowe in the same
spirit, but speaking of the " ten minutes' bill," de-
clared that it was impossible to reduce the value of
the household qualification without precipitating the
lodger franchise, which must—and the history of
the session has, in this respect, confirmed his view
—come into existence by its side, and, in the com-
petition among parties beating down the household
qualification, the lodger franchise must fall with it
until the criterion of value was eliminated from both.
The apparent discrepancy between Lord Carnarvon
and Mr. Lowe is in itself of no consequence, but it
has shown the fallacy of Lord Cairns's method of
considering the question. His practical conclusions
on the lodger franchise are no less remarkable.
While approving it strongly "in the abstract,"
whatever that may mean, he seriously suggests that
the qualifying value should vary in different consti-
tuencies, and should be £2O in the metropolis, £l5
in other constituencies exceeding 100,000, and lowest
in the smallest boroughs. It is. however, on the
question of redistribution that 'Lord Cairns's de-
ticiencies become most conspicuous. The problem of
redistribution is, indeed, the most difficult branch
of Reform, and the statesmanlike qualities of a poli-
tician may be measured by his skill in treating it.
Lord Cairns objects to " three-cornered" consti-
tuencies. They are novelties in the Constitution,
which contemplates the equal representation of
every constituency. It is true that London has
always had four members, and that for three cen-
turies Welsh boroughs have had single members—
but it was not till 1832 that the portentous " uni-
corns" were invented. Lord Cairns has another ob-
jection besides that of novelty. These variations in
the numbers of members occasion variations of elec-
toral power. A voter in London has four represen-
tatives ; in Liverpool he will have three ; in Salford
two ; and in Birkenhead one. " How unjust !" says
Lord Cairns. Astonishing as it must seem, it has
apparently never occurred to him that the number
of electors vary in different towns, and that a voter
in London has his part in four members with a
crowd of other voters ; a voter in Liverpool shares
his three with another crowd; and, again, in Sal-
ford and Birkenhead the number of electors differs.
But Lord Cairns has other views with which to asto-
nish us. lie is an advocate of the representation of
minorities. He believes that no better members
would he returned than the representatives of the
minorities in three-cornered boroughs, and he urged
on the attention of the House the propriety of se-
curing their return by only allowing each voter in
such constituencies to give two votes. To the appli-
cation of the cumulative vote to the same consti-
tuencies he expressed himself opposed, because it
would unseat some existing members. If Lord
Cairns will only look into the question a little more
closely he will find the effect of the two methods on
the seats of existing representatives would be pre-
cisely the same. The House of Lords has assented
to the second reading of the bill, but the debate has
brought out very clearly the real opinion of the
majority on the measure. Itwasn
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