The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-18 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 18, 1859;

54,000 I take a slap upwards, and proceed with the
list of boroughs that should henceforth return three
members, and they are these :—Bath, Nottingham,
Leicester, Bolton, Sunderland, Norwich, Preston,
Brighton, Portsmouth, Oldham, Stoke upon Trent,
Bradford, Greenwich, and Wolverhampton. There
are 16 boroughs, all of which would under this
scheme return three members to Parliament. We
come next to four boroughs which ought to be
included in that list, but which at present return
only one member—viz., Merthyr Tydvil, in Wales ;
Salford, in Lancashire ; the city of Aberdeen ; and
the town of Dundee, in Scotland. You will observe
--and I ought to explain this first—that in framing
this scheme I have known nothing of the river
Tweed and nothing of St. George's Channel. (Hear.)
I wish to treat Scotland and Ireland precisely on
the same principles in every respect as. I would
treat England and Wales. (Cheers.) These
boroughs which I have just named bring me up from
54,000 to 135,000. All these calculations are based
on the census of 1851. Beginxing at 135,000, and
going up to double that number, which is 270,000,
I propose that nine boroughs shall hereafter return
four members. They are Sheffield, Bristol, Leeds,
Southwark, Birmingham, Westminster, Lambeth,
and the Tower Hamlets, which I propose to divide,
its population being so enormous, into two com-
plete boroughs—to each of which four members
shall be given. Then I come to a very select, but
very large and most important list—a list which
comprises but five cities or boroughs, but of the
very largest in the kingdom, and entitled, as I am
sure you will see, to exercise a very powerful in-,
fluence upon the Government of the country. They
are the boroughs of Manchester, Finsbury, Mary-
lebone, Liverpool, and Glasgow, having a popula-
tion at the last census of more than 316,000, and
now, doubtless, of 400,000. I propose to give to
each of these five boroughs six members of Parlia-
ment. (Cheers.) Well, then there comes the
question of the new boroughs. I ought to say here
that I do not consider this list to be absolutely
complete, because there are some places from which
I have not information sufficient to enable me to
judge ; but if ever this bill or any similar bill—
and you have only to will it and it will be so—
(cheers)—if ever this bill should pass the second
reading in the House of Commons, there will be
Ho difficulty in adding to this list three, or four or
half-a-dozen others, if a good case can be made
out for them. Changes of that nature were made
in the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832. Of
these boroughs five are to have one member each
—Gravesend, Leamington, Staleybridge, Burnley,
and Birkenhead. Now, one of these boroughs puts
in a claim for two members; that is a point to be
considered. I have put it down for one member,
because my information did not lead me to think
that I could, at this stage, take any other course.
Then there are two boroughs which Lord John
Russell in 1854 proposed to unite and make one
—the parishes of Chelsea and Kensington, in West
London. Their population is so large and so rapidly
increasing, that I think they ought to be two
boroughs, and that they ought to have two members
each. These few boroughs, therefore, will absorb
nine members. I have mentioned several of the
Scotch burghs which are to have additional mem-
bers, but there are four others which may be con-
sidered new boroughs. You are probably aware
that in Scotland the plan of grouping boroughs has
always, so far as I know, been practised. Several of
these groups are so large that I should have been
compelled to have given them two members if kept
together : but I thought it was much better that
four or six places joining to return one member,
and having a population enough for two, should be
separatedinto two distinct boroughs or groups, each
having one member, as being better for all persons
concerned in their representation. From the Stir-
lingshire group I select the boroughs of Dunferm-
line and Inverkeithing to return one member ;
Hamilton, Lanark, and Linlithgow are to be taken
from the Falkirk burghs, and given one member ;
Dumbarton, Port Glasgow, Renfrew, and Ruther-
glen are to be taken from the Kilmarnock burghs,
and to have one member ; and the towns of Ar-
broath and Brechin are to be taken from the Mon-
trose burghs, and to return one member. Now there
comes one other point, and that is, what shall be
done, if anything shall be done, with the distri-
bution of members as regards the counties of Eng-
land ? I propose to take a course which was adopted,
or nearly like that adopted, by Lord J. Russell in
his last bill, in which he would divide the West
Riding of Yorkshire, and divide Lancashire into
district divisions. I shall give to the West Riding
of Yorkshire four additional members—l am as-
suming South Lancashire divided—to the North
Riding of Yorkshire one, to North Lancashire
one, to South Devon one, and to the rest
that I shall read over one :—The West
Kent, South Stafford, West Cornwall, North
Essex, South Essex, West Norfolk, East
Somerset, West Somerset, and that portiop.
of Lincolshire which is known by the name of the
Parts of Lindsay. Now, these have been selected
on account of their great population, and because
within them there has grown up not only a large
population, but very large interests that are not
exclusively connected with the land, and therefore
I think they have a right to some extension to the
numbers of members in any re-arrangement of any
representation that may take place. There only
remains one other point, and that is with regard to
Ireland ; and here I feel extreme difficulty, because
I am anxious to extend the same principle as to
England and to Scotland; and yet I am well con-
vinced that there are many men in Ireland, some
well qualified to give an opinion, who will not
coincide with me in the course that I am proposing.
The boroughs in Ireland are much less than the
boroughs of England; they have nine boroughs,
whose average number of electors is only 1,573 ;
they have one whose number of electors, I believe
is only about 84 or 85. Now what am Ito do with
these little boroughs ? Some would say, " Leave
them as they are." Some would say " Disfranchise
them." Some would say " Make them into groups."
I believe, make them into whatsoever groups you
like, and, with little exception, they will still be
boroughs, very small and hardly competent under
an improved system to return members to parliament.
I have concluded to take this course now, but of
course not only I, as a member and an unofficial
member of the House of Commons, but a Minister
even, in proposing such a measure, would feel him-
self at liberty to make such changes as might appear
most satisfactory to the population of Ireland itself.
(Hear.) I have proposed that nine of these boroughs,
beginning with Portarlington and ending with Ban -
don, should be disfranchised, and six of their mem-
bers distributed in this way—two to the city of Dub-
lin, and one each to the town of Belfast and the town
of Kilkenny, and the cities of Limerick and Cork.
Then, looking at the vast population of many of the
Irish counties, I propose to give from the
boroughs of England five new members, which,
added to the three saved from these disfranchised
boroughs, will give one member each to six of the
principal Irish counties, and two members to the
county of Cork, which may be termed the York-
shire of Ireland. (Loud applause.) Now, lam
afraid that the narration of all that list, has been
necessarily somewhat tedious—(" No," and cheers)
—but it was not to be avoided in the course which
I had laid out for myself in addressing you this
evening. Now, it is possible that somebody may
think that I am: unreasonable in proposing four
members for certain boroughs, and six for certain
other boroughs ; but what is to be the basis of your
representation ? Population ? No. Some may
say property. Yes, property has something to do
with it and taxes. Taxes have a great deal to do with
it. I will give you, then, ono or two facts. I pro-
pose to give to Manchester and Liverpool six mem-
bers each, 12 members to the two. What do they
pay annually to the Government in income-tax in
schedules A and B, towards property and house
taxes, the assessed taxes, and land tax ? They paid
in the year 1857, £897,000, and all the boroughs
that I have proposed to disfranchise under £B,OOO.
The constituencies that now have 87 members,
what did they pay in that year ? They paid
£221,000. (Cheers and laughter.) The consti-
tuencies with 87 members paid £221,000 ; the con-
stituencies with four members now and in past
time, but with 12 as I have proposed to arrange it,
paid £897,000, or more than four times as much
again, compared with Manchester and Liverpool,
with the schedule B, as I propose to leave it, being
69 boroughs still returning 69 members, those 69
members' constituents only paid £386,000 in 1857,
and, if I added to the 69 members from 69 boroughs
the 55 members from other 41 boroughs—that is,
taking all the boroughs under 25,000 population—
the whole of it is only £857,000 of taxes, against
£897,000 paid by Liverpool and Manchester. lam
not afraid, then, that any one who looks into these
schedules will charge me with givingundue influence
to the population or to the property of your great
towns and cities ; if any man tellsyou that this willdo
mischief, or that it is wrong or unfair at heart, he
is not for a representative system at all, or he does
not in the least comprehend it. (Hear, hear.) Now
when I proposed, or rather when it was proposed to
me, and I undertook it hazardously—perhaps un-
wisely—(" No !" and loud .cheers)—to prepare a
Reform Bill I did not overlook the difficulties that

lay in my path. I knew then, as I know now, that
in drawing up a scheme of this kind no exact line
could be discovered, no precise line could be found
that a man could have fixed upon and said, "'That
is the exact and the right thing, and none other."
In the Reform Bill of 1832 every point was liable
and open to contest, and was contested; and in the
Reform Bill of 1859—be it mine or be it that of the

Government—every point may be contested in like
manner. But the question I submit to the country
is this, not whether you make some little change on
one aide or the other from;the line I have laid down,

which might not be equally defensible, but whether
this scheme as a whole which I have elaborated,
which I have thought much upon, and on which I
have consulted some of the most judicious friends
of reform in the country, whether in its broad fea-
tures, in its entirety, it recommends itself to the
country, as taking great and free constituencies,
and giving them an approximation to that fair
share of influence to which they are entitled in the
great council of the nation. (Great cheering.) Some
persons will tell you, and you will see it bfore the
week is over in many newspapers—(laughter)—
that I am treating the counties in a manner which
is not fair, considering their population and the
great property which is comprised within their
borders. Now I will give you in a few sentences
my opinion upon that matter. County seats, as
you know, at present are landlord seats, with the
exception of some three or four counties where other
interests have grownup so largely as to overshadow
the territorial power. Lord Derby says the same of
them ; he told you some years ago, that if anybody
would tell him what were the politics of three or
four of the great landowners of any county he would
undertake to tell what were the politics of the mem-
bers for that county—(laughter)—but ask any far-
mer in the United. Kingdom whether they return
the members in their county ? Nobody knows bet-
ter than the farmers, and there is one thing that I
long for almost more than any other in connection
with the question, that the time should come when
the honest, the intelligent, and the constantly im-
proving and advancing cultivators of the farms of
England should be as independent in the exercise
of their political rights as is the corresponding class
in the cities and boroughs of England. (Cheers.)
Now, you have not read the newspapers or seen the
course of Parliament without discovering that the
landowners as a body in the House of Commons are
very much in alliance, in opinion, in course of ac-
tion, in sympathies, and in prejudices with the land-
owners in the House of Peers. You know that they
are generally of the same class, that they have the
same interests, and that they represent the same
description of property. The peers represent the
land. How many peers go up from Yorkshire to re-
present the land of Yorkshire ? I don't know, but I
suppose that my 10 fingers would scarcely be suffi-
cient to count them upon. (Laughter.) Does any-
body tell me that they don't represent the land ? I
have asked this question before, and I want some-
body to answer it. Whom do they represent if not
the land ? Do they represent trade ? Do you know
any traders, in the House of Lords ? (Laughter.)
There are two or three connected with coal mines ;
two or three connected, perhaps, with great iron-
works ; and two or three, I think, are leading part-
ners in great breweries ; but they don't represent
trade, they don't, many of them, know much about
the keeping of accounts, or buying and selling, the
rise of prices, or the fluctuations of the markets.
They once had generally an opinion that
nothing was so good for raising prices and
making trade good, especially in corn and wool, as
an act of Parliament. (Laughter.) They represent
land, and that is, in the eye of the constitution, the
object of their being in that house. I did see one
paper, I forget now which it was, that said they
did not represent land or anything else specially,
but all the interests in the country, and that they
sat there by ancient right, which nobody had any
power to call in question. Well, I don't call it in
question in the least ; they do sit there by law ;
they sit there by the consent of the people of this
country, and I am not proposing to disturb them.
(Cheers.) Well, now, I have here an extract from
a remarkable act, an act I think of two Parliaments,
which will tell us whether the peers represent any-
body or not. I have an extract here from the Act of
Union; the act which united the island of Ireland to
the island of Great Britain and the rest of the
United Kingdom, and I will read you a clause from
it. It says " That it be the fourth article of union
that four fords spiritual of Ireland by rotation of
session, and 28 lords temporal of Ireland elected for
life by the peers of Ireland, shall be the number in-
trusted with votes on the Part of Ireland in the
House of Lords in the Parliament of the United
Kingdom, and 100 commoners shall be the number
to sit and vote on the part of Ireland in the House
of Commons in the Parliament of the United King-
dom." Scotland sends 16 peers to Parliament electe
by the Scottish peers, and elected, as are members
of the House of Commons, for one Parliament only.
The Irish peers are elected for life. Well, but you
have in the House of Lords 30 bishops and archbi-
shops called up by the fiat of the. Queen—of the
Crown. Do the bishops and archbishops represent
anybody? Ask the Independents, the Baptists, the
Methodists—do they represent any of them ? No,
but they represent the members of the clergy and
the interest of -the Established Church, and they
have just about, and no more than the same connec-
tion with representing the interests—l will not say
of Dissenting bodies—let us get rid of that word
—but the interest of the free church of the United
Kingdom—(cheers)—as the peers have when their,
friends pretend for them that they represent the
general interests of the country and trade as much
as land. Well, now, the peers have another great
advantage as repteSenting the land; they don't sit
with us in the. House of Commons. I was almost
going to say I wish they did. (Laughter.) How-
ever, they would not get home every night to
dinner at 7 o'clock, and the course of debate would
not always run so smoothly as it does in their
serene atmosphere. They sit in a house by them-
selves, and what is the result ? Representing one
great interest, and one only, they have infinite
power in the defence of the rights or privileges or
mon3polies of that interest ; they have ten times
more power than if they sat with us in the House
of Commons, for you cannot pass the smallest law
of any kind but it must go through them, and they
have as absolute a vote' upon it by the constttution
as the House of Commons itself. You have seen
what they did lately in a glaring instance that
shows at once their power. I am not sure that it
shows that they were altogether judicious. The
Crown proposed to make a most eminent judge a
life peer; when he came to take his seat they would
not admit him. They passed resolutions, appointed
committees, and, in fact, got up a revolt against the
Crown, and the Crown, advised by Ministers who
I think were too pusillanimous for the occasion,
assented, and made Lord Wensleydale not a life
peer but a hereditary peer, and therefore: damaged
to some extent the right which it is believed the
Crown has to make life peers ; but the Lords were
not content with saying to the Crown, '° You are not
to put any man into t his house except on the principle
of hereditary descent," but they turned to the
House of Commons, and they said,—" You, gen-
tlemen, although it has been wished by a vast
majority of the public, and by a vast majority of
your own votes, for ten sessions in succession, you
have wished to admit Baron Rothschild to sit in
your hduse, we forbid you exercising that right."
(Cheers.) Now, wherever the counties claim—and
they have not yet claimed, for I have seen no great
meeting of farmers or of small freeholders, and I
don't believe the farmers consider it any advantage,
as things have gone hitherto, to have frequent
elections or many members for their counties—but
whenever the counties shall claim and shall obtain
a proportion of members of the House of Commons
in accordance with the population which they show
upon the census, then the time will come, inevitably
it will come, when the towns will ask why the
counties should be the sole constitutents for the
members of the House of Lords, the (constituents,
not by open election, but in fact. You have on
this platform to-night two gentlemen who moved
and seconded the resolutions which you have been
so good as to pass welcoming me to this meeting.
If the House of Lords is to be a representation of
all the great interests of the country, and not of
the land exclusively, where would you find them
but sitting there as the barons, the marquises, the
dukes—nay, the princes, of manufactures and com-
merce ? (Great cheering.) I don't wish to open this
question. lam so far Conservative as to retain the
institutions which I find in my time, so long as they
can be made to work without obvious and serious
detriment to the interest of the empire. Let us go
on with the House of Lords by all means ; but let
us have a real representation in the House of Com-
mons, and when you have a real representation in
the House of Commons, depend upon it you will
find that the House of Lords will wake up, rub their
eyes—(a laugh)—and find out that they have been
mistaken in several important particulars. They
will not exactly turn their back upon themselves,
but they will look upon popular interests and po-
pular sympathies with a different eye, and feel
towards them with a different heart, and you will
have for a long time—l know not how long—as
much harmony between the two houses in legislat-
ing for the country as you have ever had in times
past. (Cheers.) In considering the proposition
which I have submitted we must ask ourselves these
two questions :—ls the representation as it at pre-
sent exists, in fact, very defective ? and, if it be. is
the time come for applying a remedy to its defeats?
I think we are agreed.----the whole country is agreed,
that the representation is defective. We hare the
authority of Lord Aberdeen, one of the most ex-
perienced and most temperate, yet liberal statesmen
we possess. We have the authority of Lord John
Russell, well acquainted as he is with this ti ues
tion. We have the authority of Lord Pahnerston,
whose friends say he does not regard it as so
im-
portant as some of his fellow-,statesmen do. Mfellow-,statesmenhave even the authority of Lord Derby on one side;
and, remember, we never have more than four men
in England at once who are thought fit to be Prime
Ministers. (Laughter.) We have all these hioth
authorities concurring in the opinion that the re-
presentation is defective, and that the time has fully
come for a great improvement in it. Well, if the
time is come, shall we do the work, or shall we
only nibble at it ? If we are not to do it oatizfac-

torily we had better not attempt it at all. There
is an evil in the constant stirring of these ques-
tions, that stability in Government has great ad-
vantages, even when its form is far ;roin being
theoretically perfect ; but any Government may
be shaken down—any constitution frittered away,
if you are continually disturbing it ; even in
the firmest edifice—the strongest tower, if subjected
to constant tremor—frequent shocks, you will have
one stone loosened from another, and you will finally
find it some day a heap of ruins. So it may be with
governments and constitutions ; but still we want
to have a government which has the respect and
confidence of the people. Unless we are to have a
good bill let us have no bill at all. (Cheers.) A bad
bill—l am but repeating what I said the first time
I spoke on this question, three months ago—a bad
bill is a revolutionary bill ; a little bill, though it
may not be revolutionary, is of no good, and is very
perilous ; if either of these is passed you will have
to begin with motions in Parliament and discus-
sions in the country, until at last everybody gets
disgusted with the growing want of sympathy be-
tween the ruling class and themselves, and then an
opportunity may come, some period of great excite-
ment, when the peers and the upper and govz,..rning
class may be treated with a hand far less tender, far
more rude, than that which I would now apply to
them in the measure before us. (Cheers.) Well, is
this a bill worth moving for ? Would this be worth
the country's making a great effort to secure ?
When I was asked to prepare a bill I said I would
be bound by no man's programme, that I would act
upon my own conviction, but take advice where-
ever I could obtain it. I would not try to draw a
bill which shall be theoretically perfect, but a bill
that shall be practicable, shall meet the necessities
of the case, and shall invite the most moderate to
support it, and satisfy the ardour even of the most
earnest. I said I would act precisely as if I were
a Minister of the Crown sitting in the Cabinet,
discussing the question with my colleagues, and
proposing what we should bring forward, in the
hope of passing it through Parliament. Ido not want
any bill with which I am connected to be merely the
subject of a night's debate, and then thrown into
the waste paper basket of the House of Commons. I
bring it forward because I believe such a measure is
necessary and ought to pass, and I trust the people
of England will so support it that Parliament will
not refuse to sanction it. Now, the towns of England
have the question in their own hands. Will they
resolve, will they petition, will they represent to
their members what are their wishes upon this
great question ? It has been decided by several
editors of newspapers that lam not a statesman. I
never pretended to be one. lam a citizen, one of
yourselves. (Cheers.) I am powerless in this
matter, if alone. Lord Grey, with his high rank,
his surpassing abilities, his great reputation, and
his influence in the country, would have been
unable to pass the bill of 1832 if the people had
not with one voice demanded that it should become
the law of the land. Do not suppose that I shall
be alone. If the people will speak out, there are
eminent men whose sympathies are with us, watch-
ing the signs of the times, looking for the reports
of such meetings as the present, which will go far
to decide their course. If there is a great army,
there will be captains and leaders. Do not suppose
that there are not among the aristocracy families
more than one or two which will not betray or
belie the historic reputation which belongs to them.
(Cheers.) Let the nation speak out, and its fiat
will certainly bp obeyed. For myself, I have been
for three months past the object of much misrepre-
sentation and of much slander; but I have gone
through all that before, and in another cause.
(Cheers.) When I last addressed the people of
Bradford I was co-operating with a man of deep
sagacity, of clear judgment, of extensive knowledge,
and persuasive speech. Were we not exposed to
the same charges and the same slanders ? Yet did
we not succeed, and have we not now, as a com-
pensation for all we endured, the priceless
pleasure that there is no hand in this country that
wipes the sweat from the brow of toil
whose labours are not lightened, and whose
rewards are not increased by the sacrifices
we were content to make ? (Cheers.) In those
speeches which I have lately delivered I have ab-
stained from assailing any single individual. I
have been met by several members of the aristo-
cracy in a manner I scarcely expected. One Scotch
lord told a great audience that I was afflicted by a
visitation of Providence, and that I was suffering
from disease of the brain. (Shame.) His friends
can tell whether that is a complaint with which he
is ever likely to be afflicted. (Laughter.) Another
nobleman says that I am a destroyer of property
and a traitor to my class. I stop not to answer
language like this. (Cheers.) There are some great
men and there are many good men in the ranks of
the English aristocracy. There are among them
some who would be nobles though coronets and
privilege were things unknown, but even their vir-
tues cannot long sustain their order against the
perilous defence to which it is now exposed. I
therefore warn them to call back the champions
who in every display of their powers exhibit here-
ditary nobility allied with intellectual poverty, and
members of the Peerage wanting in the manners
and likeness of gentlemen. (Cheers and laughter.)
I cannot consent to arrest the progress of this great
debate to take part in personal conflicts. I brush
aside the miserable detractors whose nature it is to '
bark and bray at the protectors of every great and
good cause. (Cheers.) I address a great nation
upon a great question. I am. in earnest, and I
speak because I believe. I have do eloquence but
that which consists in a hearty love of truth, and
the facts and arguments I use enter the understand-
ing and reach the hearts of my countrymen.
(Cheers.) lam powerless as an individual ; my
countrymen are the nation and omnipotent, and to
them and to you I commit the issue and fate of this
great question. (The hon. gentleman resumed his
seat amid great and protracted cheering.)
The following resolution was then moved by Mr.
E. W. FOSTER, seconded by Mr. JOHN PRIESTMAN,
and carried unanimously :
" That this meeting is assured that the public opinion of
the country is ripe for a large and comprehensive measure
of reform that will include the admission of £lO occupiers
to the county franchise ; the establishment of household
suffrage in boroughs, vote by ballot, and a more equitable
distribution of representatives to population ; and pledges
itself to use all constitutional means to procure the passing
of a measure through Parliament in the ensuing session
that shall embrace these points."
A vote of thanks to the Chairman terminated the
proceedings a few minutes before 10 o'clock.