The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-04 00:00:00

out, having no votes, can have no great interest in
the ballot ; and being themselves a class, as it
were, excluded and violently shut out, they are not
likely to take any strong interest whether Rochdale
returns one member or two, or whetherßirmingham
has no more members than Clitheroe. (Cheers.)
These are not questions that can seriously interest
and affect men who have no votes at all, and who
are therefore shut out for the most part from the
consideration of public questions. I hold, therefore,
that although the ballot is needed, and although
small boroughs are a great evil, they are not class
grievances; they are general grievances. The class
grievance is the exclusion of a great and whole class
from political rights by legislation which shuts the
door at £lO a year, when the great body of the
people live in houses of £5, or £6, or £7. (Cheers.)
But another reason why we should proceed first with
the question of the suffrage is this, that public opi-
nion is much more made up and more ripe on that
question than on either of the other questions ; and
we must recollect, too, that the exclusion of the
working classes from the franchise has formed the
sole ground for the introduction of the various mea-
sures which have been brought into Parliament
within the last 15 years with a view to the amend-
ment of the Reforth Act. If you turn back to the
Parliamentary proceedings of 1859, you will find
that Lord Derby, when he brought in a bill which he
called a Reform Bill, found his bill rejected—and his
Government rejected with it—(laughter)—on the
express ground that his bill made no provision for
the introduction of the working classes to the elec-
tive franchise. (Cheers.) Then, again, we have the
special pledge of Earl Russell in 1859, and on the
introduction of the last bill. We have also the
special pledge of Mr. Gladstone, in that very re-
markable speech which he made in the House of
Commons on the second reading of the bill intro-
duced by Mr. Baines. (Cheers.) We have also what
I may call the special demand of that great portion
of the nation which is thus, in my opinion, wrongly
excluded. The working men do not now ask for
the ballot, because they have no votes to
shelter. They do not ask for an alteration in
the distribution of seats, for they have nothing to
do with the election of members. But what they
do ask is, that they shall be put upon the
same platform, under the same law, received with
the same favour, trusted with the same great na-
tional trust as the richer classes of the community.
(Loud cheers.) And then another reason for pro-
ceeding by steps is this—that a suffrage bill pure
and simple is much more easy to carry through
Parliament than a more extensive measure. And I
will tell you very soon why that is the case. To
introduce clauses and schedules for disfranchising a
number of small boroughs treads very painfully on
the toes of the representatives of those small
boroughs. (Laughter and cheers.) Now, if I were
a member for a borough of 240 electors, and re-
turned chiefly by a sharp attorney in that little
town, perhaps with my strong opinion on this ques-
tion I might be induced to vote for the suppression
of that constituency. But still, even then, acting
as their representative, I should feel it a question of
some doubt whether I could honourably remain
their representative and give a vote, if it were
wholly contrary to their wishes. (Cheers.) Well
then, I will say at once, that if the Government
proposed to disfranchise twenty or thirty small
boroughs, and transfer their members to large
boroughs and populous counties, they would soon
find on their own side of the House a large num-
ber of members who for various reasons—some
commendable and some very much the contrary—
would find it difficult to support the bill. I argue,
therefore, that it would be an encumbrance to a
suffrage bill at this moment to interfere with the
distribution of scats. It would make it more diffi-
cult to carry a bill ; and whatsoever distribution of
seats you could now make must necessarily be
trifling and unsatisfactory, and would leave that
question still unsettled even for the shortest pos-
sible period. (Cheers.) Now that is not a new
opinion of mine, for before the last bill was intro-
duced in 1859 I took the trouble- to converse at
length with some of the members of the then
Ministry, and with some of the members of the
present Government, urging them not to touch
the question of the distribution of seats at all at
that time, but to bring in a bill which should esta-
blish a sensible and rational suffrage throughout the
country. I said you will carry such a bill much
more easily. Public opinion hereafter will be more
ripe to deal with the question of the distribution,
and when there are a larger number of electors re-

,urning your members to Parliament—l mean a

[argei number in the different boroughs—you will

lave what a mechanic would call a larger lever and

a better Parliament, which would deal more satisfac-
torily with all questions which may come before it.

Cheers.) There are some Liberals in this country

who do not hold this opinion, and Ihad a letter from
one the other day complaining very much of the

rumour that Government do not intend to disfran-

chise the small boroughs in their bill. In reply I told
him that I had considded and discussed this ques-
tion as much as any man in England, and I had
come to the conclusion that Government would do
right to treat the question of the suffrage separately,
and that I thought I could give my reasons for that
course to the reformers of the kingdom, and that
none of them would complain of the proceedings of
the Government in this matter except those who do

not really understand their business as reformers.
(Laughter.) We now come to the question what

sort of suffrage should be given—having discussed
every other question—what sort of suffrage should
I advise—if I were asked to advise--the present Go-

vernment to offer in their bill? Bear in mind that
we here are not the Parliament; we are merely a
portion of public opinion. It would be easy to fill
this room with men connected with the country who
would probably object to any extension of the suf-
frage. Therefore, in discussing this matter, Minis-
ters must take into consideration what is right in
itself—what the state of public opinion would enable
them to
carry—what they can see conclusively that
Parliament will not hesitate to assent to ; and there-
there-
fore in discussing this question we must leave out of

view a little all our own personal wishes, and see

what is the right thing for a Cabinet considering
this question to propose and to endeavour to carry.
(Hear, hear.) I said that the suffrage must be so
extended that there shall be no class exclusion. The
£lO clause in the Reform Act does exclude, and was

intended to exclude, and has permanently excluded,
until this hour, the great body of the workingpeople.
I told them in the House of Commons in 1860 that

out of 32 men who in this town formed committees

of the co-operative classes—who managed the stores,
the corn-mill, the factory--that out of these 32 there
were only two had a vote, one for both the county
and the borough and the other for the borough only
—and that the other 30 were absolutely excluded.
Will anybody gay
that men who could manage these
°Teat oconcerns with so much success for so many
years, who were so much trusted by their fellow-
workmen—will anybody tell me that they are not
competent to say
he Brett was a suitable man to be returned from Roch-
dale to Parliamentw
?othferl
every
Potter
y.
manor Mr. Baliol
who by manual
labour of any kind receives weekly wages—deduct-
ing clerks and agents and foremen and managers of
factories, and even law clerks and men receiving in-
comes and salaries to the amount of £2OO, £3OO,
or £4oo—there are only about 150 electors, or about
10 per cent. of the entire number. If you look at
another fact you will And that one single class of
tradesmen, the publicans, amount to the same num-
ber within one, for there are 149 in this borough.
Will you tell me that this is a fair system of repre-
sentation? (No, no.) I dare say that the same is
the case with respect to many other boroughs.
(Hear.) If we do away with the £lO reform rate
exclusion, what, in the present state of public
opinion, ought we to substitute for it? When Lord
Aberdeen's Government brought forward a bill in
1854, just before the commencement of the unhappy
Crimean war, they proposed that every man should
have a vote in every borough whose house or pre-
mises of any kind were rated to the poor rates to

the amount of £5 a year. The bill of 1860 proposed

not a rating franchise, but a purely rental franchise

—that every man occupying premises of the net

value of £6 a-year should be entitled to vote. Now,

I have ascertained what is the operation of the pre-

sent system. I find that a£s rating is as nearly