The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-02 00:00:00

during that time the office of Secretary of State, once for 10
months, once for upwards of a year. I have had, no doubt,
to nix in party strifes and party conflicts, but I hope I have
not—l am sure I have not—intentionally wounded the
feelings of any one. In returning to comparative obscurity,
which is much more congenial to my character and
disposition, I only hope I 'shall be able to say here-
after, as I think I may say now, that I have endea-
voured, both as a minister and as a private member,
to do my duty to my Queen, to my country, and to
Parliament. (Cheers.) Having explained all that I wished
to do, I have now to thank the house very sincerely for lis-
tening to these explanations. I regret most deeply that I
could not agree with my colleagues in the particular mea-
sure which they have proposed—but not agreeing with
them, I am sure the house will concur with me in thinking
that I had no other alternative than that of tendering my
resignation. (Loud cheers.)
Mr. HENLEY—I have no doubt, sir, that the house will
be kind enough to extend to me that indulgence which they
have just extended to my right hon. friend. (Hear.) Under
ordinary circumstances I could have been well content to
have let my position rest upon what he has said, because in
almost every particular I agree in his observations. There
are, however, one or two points in which my position some-
what differs from that of my right hon. friend. The only
condition that I made in joining the Government when the
proposition was made to me more than a year ago was this—
that I would not join it unless the Government would endea-
vour to undertake what was called the reform question.
(Hear.) I had no means of knowing whether that was to
be undertaken or not. I thought, as my right hon. friend
says, that considering the state in which the question has
been for some years, there was a necessity for any Govern-
ment to deal with it, and I would not have been a member
of any Government if I had not understood that it was to
deal with the question. This statement will show that I
did not come to the consideration of this question with
any indisposition to deal with it. (Hear, hear.) It has
been said that it is very surprising 'I could not accept this
bill—(laughter)—and the remark has been made in some-
what stronger language. As a guide I had before me the
principles to which my right hon. friend has adverted. I
thought that at all events that was safe ground to stand
upon ; and the only point on which I have differed from my
colleagues, and the only ground on which I have left the
Government, is the ground which he has pointed out. I be-
lieve that the identity of suffrage, which in my mind is the
principle of this bill, is fatal to the constitution of this coun-
try. I care not whether the franchise be £lO, £l5, or £5. I
care not at what sum you fix it; but if you draw aline across
the country and say that all the people on one side of the
line shall have the franchise, and all the people on the other
side shall not have it, you may have no trouble for a few
years ; but as sure as the sun is in heaven you will have all
those people who are outside that line, at some time or
other, making a;very ugly rush to come over it—(hear, hear)
—and when they do come over ;it in that way, it will
not be in a manner likely to retain the constitution
of the county. You have no precedent for such a course of
proceeding in our time. You could not equal it. You could
not get at identity without a large measure of disfranchise-
ment. To get at it you were obliged to disfranchise that
large number of persons whose freehold is within boroughs—
(hear, hear)—who, so far as I know, value their franchise,
and who, so far as I know, have not abused it. I for one
could never consent to attain that identity of franchise upon
this condition. (Hear, hear.) We must look at this mea-
sure as if it is to succeed, and also as if it is to fail. Now,
I will take the question of success in the first instance. I will
ask my right hon. friend near me to consider this. Ever
since the passing of the Reform Bill the working people in
this country have had a less and less share in the represen-
tation. (Hear, hear.) Before the Reform Bill they had
representation by scot and lot voting, and by freedom. I
am not going to say anything either for or against the free-
dom. But through the freemen the working classes had
their voices, and then there was representation. (Hear,
hear.) They are gradually dying out. And I ask my hon.
friend just to consider, if they draw this hard line, and al-
low no working man to pass it, how long it will stand—
(hear)—because if one thing can be more destructive to the
constitution of this country than another, it will be to have
a reform bill every few years ; and that will be the case if
you cannot settle it upon such terms as to give you a reason-
able hope that it will stand some small number of years.
(Hear.) Ido not talk of finality now. That is out of the
question. But if you cannot make the measure last a reason-
able number of years you are laying the sure foundation for a
revolution in this country. (Hear, hear.) It is on that
ground that I cannot agree to any identity of franchise.
By an identity of franchise you would throw the whole elec-
toral power of the country into the hands of one class, and
whether it is a £lO or a £l5, or a £2O franchise, it would
be equally disastrous. Our safety, the permanence of the
constitution, in my judgment, is dependent on the great va-
riety of the constituencies. You never had them all at one
time for one thing. If anything is proposed, it gets well
ventilated, well considered, and then when the truth is found
out the country accepts it. I come now to the question of
my own resignation. In the month of December, as my
right hon. Mend has told the house, we got a pretty clear
inkling of the question we should have to decide, and I then
proposed to the noble lord at the head of the government
that, as I found there would be an irreconcileable difference
between me and my colleagues, I should wish to be allowed
to retire then, before Christmas. I was pressed to remain,
as my right hon. friend says, till I could see the whole
measure. I consented, expecting fully to have it decided
in the early part of January. From causes which my
right honourable friend has explained, we had not an op.
portunity of knowing the decision of our colleagues till the
end of January. Without any concert with my right hon.
friend, I placed my resignation in the hands of the first
Minister, requesting that he would lay it before her Ma-
jesty, and in a way that would be most convenient for the
public service. What a sacrifice it was to myself no one
but who has been in the situation that my right hon. friend
and myself have been in for the last month can know. But
however great was the sacrifice of feeling, we made it for the
convenience, as we were told, of our former colleagues. I
hope with my right hon. friend that I have not failed—if I
have, I am sure it was not for want of exertion—in doing
my duty during that time to my colleagues, to the Queen,
and to the country. But every one must feel it was a most
painful position. If I may use the phrase, it was almost
like walking about with a mask on one's face. But I was
pressed, and, whether rightly or wrongly, I gave way to it.
Now, with regard to the lowering of the franchise, I have
to complain. I do not care about it, because lam not a
person who, what they call, keeps his light under a bushel.
Many of my friends on this side of the house knew that
thought the borough franchise ought to be lowered ; I
thought that the resting places, as my right hon. friend
calls them, were good resting places. They are close on the
analogy of the old rating suffrage. It has been said that I
do not care about boroughs, if I can only take care of the
counties. Well, that is one way of putting the question.
(Laughter.) But there is another way of putting the ques-
tion, and when I know that the working men of this coun-
try within the last thirty years have loudly complained, but
that their conduct has been that of good subjects, I do not
think it would be degrading to a borough, or to any other
constituency, that a portion of my fellow countrymen should
have a voice in the elections. That was my view, and I
think I was bound, holding those opinions think every
man in this house, whether he sits on this side of the house
or the other, every man will feel that, holding those
opinions, it was absolutely impossible that I should take a
share in bringing forward the measure which my colleagues
had determined on. I have always acted with frankness
with those with whom I come across. I could not sit on
that bench, letting it be supposed that I approved of this
bill. I never could agree to that great change which is to
establish one uniform franchise for all constituencies,
whether county or borough. Sir, I heartily thank the house
for the indulgence they have shown to me, not only on
this occasion but on every other, and I beg leave to make
that expression of my feelings which my right hon. friend
has done in so much better words, that if in or out of office
I have said or done anything which another may take amiss
it has not been my intention to do so, and I hope I shall
always retain the good opinion of this house. (Cheers.)
THE STATE OF THE SHIPPING INTEREST.
Mr. LINDSAY then rose pursuant to notice, to call the
attention of the house to the present condition of the
shipping interest, and to move for a select committee
to inquire into the operation of certain burthens and
restrictions especially affecting merchant shipping. He
said there were more than 70 millions of money invested in
British shipping and the trades connected with it. That
interest at present was in a state of great depression, and
petitions had been presented asking for relief from certain
burdens to which the shipping was subject; and the noble
lord the member for the city of London had presented a
petition attributing the depression under which the trade
now suffered to foreign competition, and alleging that
British shipping had enjoyed unparalleled prosperity dur-
ing two centuries of protection. Now let them see how the
case stood. In 1803 we owned 2,160,000 tons of shipping;
in 1804, 2,220,000 ; in 1805, 2,258,000 ; in 1806, 2,226,000 ;
in 1807, 2,228,000; and in 1808, 2,324,000. This was a
period of close protection. In those years there were built
and registered—in 1803, 149,000 tons ;in 1804, 96,000 ;in
1805, 89,000 ; in 1806, 69,000 ; in 1807, 68,000 ; and in 1808,
57,000. Surely, instead of this period being a period of
unparalleled prosperity, it was a period of adversity, and,
instead of progress in shipping, the number of ships year
by year decreased. He would now direct the attention of
the house to the period when Mr. Huskisson proposed the
treaties of reciprocity. In 1824 British shipping had in-
creased to 2,5b9,000 tons, only about 220,000 more than it
was in 1808, and the number of ships built in that year was
86,000 tons only. Mr. Huskisson's treaties only came into
operation in 1825, and mark the rapid strides in shipping. In
1825 the number of ships built rose to 143,000 tons, and in
1826 to 204,000 tons. He would now pass to 1843, when
Sir Robert Peel introduced his free trade measures. In
1843 we owned 3,100,000 tons of shipping ; in 1850 it rose to
4,232,000 tons, and in 1857 to 5,519,000 tons. But to
examine the question still further, he would take the seven
years previous to the repeal of the navigation laws, and the
seven years following. From 1842 to 1849, a period of
to
reciprocity and partial protection, we built 1,800,000 tons of
shipping ; but from 1849 to 1857, a period of free trade, we
built no less than 2,776,000 tons of shipping. Again, take
the
sf
slopping,
fourteenyears previous to 1843 and the fourteen years
round after. In 1829 we owned, in numbers, 2,518,000
on
and in 1843 we owned 3,588,000,
but in 1857 we owned 5,519,000 tons; showing that while
British shipping increased one million tons between, 1829
and 1843, from 1843 to 1857 it increased no less than two
millions. But it was said that the progress of shipping had
not kept pace with other branches of commerce. In 1807
our exports were £37,000,000 ; in 1832 there was little or no
increase, but in 1857 they had reached the enormous sum of
£122,000,000. Our exports from 1837 to 1857 had increased
about three times and a half, and the tonnage from 1832 to