The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-28 00:00:00

Bill, and afterwards, in the Government of Lord '
Aberdeen, Lord J. ThassLli intruduced another Re-
form Bill, and the least said of these two bills,
especially the latter, the better. (Laughter.) The
Government which has recently been overthrown
pledged itself to the country and the House of
Commons to bring in a Reform Bill, but at the time
when it came to an unexpected bat a not unde-
served end—(loud cheers)—no bill had been pre-
pared,
so that we know nothing of the particulars of
what it was to be composed. We have now a Govern-
ment under the chieftainship of Lord Derby, who,
during his short term of office in 1852, stated, if I
remember right, that one of the chief objects of
his Government would be to stem the tide of demo-
cracy. (Laughter.) Now, it maybe that Lord Derby
has entirely changed his mind, that he is as much
converted to Parliamentary reform as Sir R. Peel
in 1846 was converted to Corn-law repeal. If he is,
then our question may be in good hands, but if he
is not—and he has never yet acknowledged his eon-
version—then I think it is but reasonable of us to
view his course with some suspicion, and to look on
the position of the question in his hands with some
alarm. (Hear, hear.) They all pretend now to be
very fond of the question of Reform, but still they
don't tell us much about it. They remind me, in
the few speeches which they have made upon the
question, of the condition of that deplorable Ameri-
can cable, of which I read the other day in the
papers that " the currents were visible, but the sig-
nals wholly indistinct." (Loud laughter.) But having
admitted that Parliamentary reform is necessary,
they thereby admit that the present House of Com-
mons does not satisfactorily represent the nation—
and it is one step in advance to receive the admis-
sion from all those persons from among whom it
has hitherto been supposed that Governments could
alone be formed in this country. (Hear.) Now, I do
not believe that the Parliament, as at present con-
stituted, does fairly represent the nation, and I ,
think it is capable of most distinct proof that it does
not. Before I proceed to figures I will mention one
or two general proofs of that assertion. (Hear.)
In the year 1846, when the great question of the
repeal of the corn-laws was under discussion, it re-
quired an earthquake to allow the people to buy
their bread in the earth's markets ; it required a
famine in Ireland—which from 1845 to 1851 less-
ened the population of that country by 3,000,000—
it required the conversion of a great Minister, the
break up of a great party, the "endangering of the
constitution," and all those mysteriousevils which
official statesmen discovered when the poor artisan
of Birmingham or Manchester, or the half-starved
labourer, asked this only—that Where bread could
be had best and cheapest in return for his labour he
might be permitted to buy it. But coming down
to 1852, when Lord Derby was in office, he went to
a dissolution, and the great question proposed to the
. constituencies was protection. Parliament re-assem-
bled, and protection and Lord Derby were defeated
by a majority of 19 ; but when you had only a
majority of 19 in the House of Commons against
the re establishment of protection, 19-20ths of
the people of England were determined that they
never would have anything of the sort again.
(Cheers.) Take again the questions which affect
the Established Church. Probably many persons in
this meeting are not aware that according to the
return of the Registrar-General only 1-3 d of the
people of this country have any connection with
the Established Church. In Scotland 1-3 d only of
the population are connected :with the establish-
ment ; in Ireland five out of six, in Wales eight out
of ten, have no connection at all with it. And yet
the Established Church is paramoumt in both
houses. If the House of Commons fairly represented
all the people of the United Kingdom, the Estab-
lished Church—it is as a political institution that
I speak of it, I say nothing of it as a religious insti-
tution—would be much more modest, and we should
probably get some changes much more readily than
we have ever got any before. Again, you are aware,
probably, that up to 1853 if a man received landed
property as an inheritance, if it were left to him
by will or came to him as heir-at-law, it paid no
legacy duty—l speak of freehold property. In 1853
Mr. Gladstone, by an effort which was considered
superhuman, prevailed upon the House of Commons
to pass a law to impose a succession tax, as it was
called, or a legacy duty on real property. I will
tell you how they did it. You know that if a man
in Birmingham comes into possession of lease-
hold houses, or machinery, or shares in the North-
Western ailway, or shipping, or any other
property not called real property—though, by the
way, when a man gets hold of it it is surprising
how real he finds it—(laughter)—if he be no rela-
tion to the person who left it to him, he has to pay
a legacy duty of ten per cent., and a different
degree of percentage according to the degree of
relationship in which he may stand to the tes-
tator. In the case of land—the best:. of all property,
with regard to its durability and certainty, for a
man to have left to him or to possess—the law is of
a different kind. A friend of mine, a member of the
House of Commons, was fortunate enough to have
left to him, by-a person who was in no way related
to him, a landed estate of about £7OO a-year. This
was worth in the market 30 years' purchase, or
£21,000. There was timber on the estate to the
value of £ll,OOO, which, added to £21,000, made
the whole bequest £32,000. If it had been leasehold
houses, or stock in trade, or machinery, or shares,
or shipping, or in the funds, my friend would have
had to pay £lO per cent. on it, that!is to say,
£3,200. But what did he pay ? that is the ques-
tion, for if we had all estates left us alike it would
not so much matter. The calculation was this :—My
friend is of a certain age—l don't know what, and
it's not material; the tax-gatherer or the people at
Somerset-house look into a table, which shows the
probable length of life of a man of that particular
age, and instead of paying £lO per cent. on £32,000,
he is taxed upon the annual income of the estate
multiplied .by the number of years which according
to the tables he may be expected to live. It ended
in this way, that instead of paying £3,000 to the
State, to bear your burdens and to pay for your
wars, he paid £7OO, or rather less than one quarter.
Do you think that if the House of Commons fairly
represented the lawyers, merchants, manufacturers,
shopkeepers, artisans, and all the rest of the popu-
lation, such an act as that could have passed that
house, or that if it had existed it could continue to
exist for a single session ? I could show you ine-
qualities as great and scandalous in the manner in
which the income tax, so grievously felt by owners
of certain property in Birmingham, presses and is
imposed upon the owners of the soil and those en-
gaged in professions and trades chiefly carried on in
towns, but I will not enter into that matter. Your
own experience must have shown you how unequal
that tax is. You know how every Government has
swept aside all proposals to make it more equal and
just. And now we come to the question of
figures. I think it is very easy to show that if
the present House of Commons equitably or at all
honestly represents the population of the country
figures are of no avail in this discussion, for the
figures prove conclusively that such is not the case.
I will not trouble you with a heap of statistics which
you cannot remember, bat V, ill nice you as a proof
one or two cases. Take the greatest county in Eng-
land. Yorkshire shows you an existing inequality
which is absolutely fatal to all fair representation.
There are in Yorkshire 10 small boroughs which
return to Parliament 16 members—there are other
eight boroughs in Yorkshire whose members alto-
gether are 14. Now, the 10 boroughs returning the
16 members have not more than 80,000 of a popu-
lation, while the eight boroughs with the 14 mem-
bers have a population 'of 620,000. Now, whether
you take the amount of population, the number of
houses; the sum at which they are rated to the in-
come-tax, or the number of electors, the proportion
is in the same way, the large boroughs with the
smaller number of members have seven times the
population, seven times the number of houses, seven
times the amount of income-tax to pay, and seven
times the number of electors. I must ask your at-
tention to one other comparison, and it relates to
your own town. The present Chancellor of the
Exchequer, you know, represents the county of
Bucks. That county has a population of 164,000,
which is not much more than half the population of
Birmingham, and yet Bucks with its boroughs has
not less than 11 members in the house of Commons.
164,000 persons in Bucks return 11 members, while
Birmingham; of not less than 250,000, and probably
much more, only returns two members. I will
give you another illustration which refers to your
own town. In the counties of Dorsetshire, Devon-
shire, and Wiltshire there are 22 boroughs, which
return 34 members to Parliament. Compare the
population and political power of those 22 boroughs
returning 34 members to Parliament, with the
population and political power of Birmingham.
You have nearly twice the population, but
you have only two members to represent you
in Parliament. (Cries of " Shame.") I could
furnish you with pages of illustrations of this
kind to show you that our whole system of repre-
sentation is unequal and dishonest, But one more
proof only, and then I will quit the figures, for I
think the case will be sufficiently clear. There There are
in the House of Commons at present 330. members
(more than half) whosew
hole number of consti-
tuents do not amount to more than 180,000, and
there are at the same time in Parliament 24 mem-
bers whose constituents are upwards of 200,000 in
number, and, while coo n
ts
ht u eatoespe or,, fit
yt-ht
ae
xb33aot
members are assessed t
£15,000,000, the constituents of
are assessed to the same tax at more than £24moeolllo OtelrOs
(A Voice in the crowd—" We'll have it altered.")
There is besides this great significant fact, that
wherever you go in Great Britain and Ireland five
out of every six men you meet have vo vote. The
Reform Bill, which lam not about to depreciate,
since I know what it cost to get, and I know some-