The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-27 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, APRIL 27, 1866.

ence of the democracies of France and America, which may
be said to have run their course ; so that it is inexcusable
if we do not draw from them conclusions far more trust-
worthy than that from our own isolated experience. (Hear,
hear.) The Under Secretary for the Colonies (Mr. For-
ster) told us that if the working men had a fault it was in
their too great reverence for authority, and he ended by
saying that if we did not concede what they wanted it
would not be a question of how much we should give,
but how much they would take. (Hear.) As to the ques-
tion of peace or war, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in
Liverpool said he was struck by the magnificent spectacle
presented by the democracy in the recent American war.
I would rather the right hon. gentleman had commended it
for something it had done in peace. (Cheers.) I never
doubted that democracy was a terrible power in war. No
people are so apt to be influenced by ideas as the half-edu-
cated and unreflective ; and if you show to them wrong,
injustice, and wickedness, their generous instincts rise to
redress, and nothing is easier than to get up a cry amongst
them against injustice. (Hear, hear.) We also feel in-
justice, but we look before and after—we consider what
will hinder our trade and position in the world—to the
very consequences that may fall upon poor people them-
selves, before we commit ourselves. (Cheers.) People
who have something to lose are not fond of putting that
something in jeopardy. (Hear, hear.) Every one remem-
bers the Crimean war. We got up an enthusiasm for that
decrepit and abominable despotism the Turkish empire. A
similar enthusiasm was aroused in favour of Poland and
Hungary. Wherever there is oppression and cruelty the
minds of the lower classes revolt against them. (Hear,
hear.) And it is their impulse to rush forward at once to
redress those wrongs. I honour them for this feeling,
though I cannot commend their discretion. (Hear, hear.)
Therefore to hope that we are to have any improvement
with regard to war by making our institutions more demo-
cratic seems to me ridiculous. (Hear, hear.) Why, in Vic-
toria and New South Wales it is all we can do to prevent
them going to war with eaeh other. (Hear, hear.) In
America the people revolted in order to break up the Union,
and now they are almost ready to take up arms again to
pr event that for which the war was undertaken. (Hear,
hear.) If we have a precious jewel in the world it is our free-
trade policy. It has been everything to this country. With
what eyes did democracy look upon free trade? Canada has
raised her duties to an enormous amount, and justifies them
upon Protectionist principles. The Prime Minister of New
South Wales is a strong Protectionist. The Ministers of
Victoria, who were originally Freetraders, have become Pro-
tectionists, and are now engaged in a deadly feud with the
council, and we are threatened with revolution and destruc-
tion of the second branch of the legislature in order to carry
out the policy of protection. (Hear.) As for America it
out protects protection. There never existed anything like
the zeal for protection that now exists in America. With a
revenue that wants increasing by every means in their
power, with an intolerable load of taxation, they insist on
sacrificing the customs revenues to the deity. of protection.
They suffer smuggling to be carried on to the extremest
extent rather than reduce their customs a single penny.
(Hear.) They denounced the treaty with Canada as a step
in the direction of free trade, and they are now about to
seek to establish by violence the very rights that treaty
guaranteed. (Hear, hear.) I will not speak of communism,
but the hon. member for Lambeth (Hr. Hughes) has
drawn such a picture of the working men that I cannot
pass it over in silence. The hon. gentleman tells us,
in the first place, that they are unable to understand
that wages must depend upon the markets of supply and
demand. Then they have no idea of any difference in the
remuneration of labour between the strong and the weak.

(Hear, hear.) The hon. member further informs us that the
working men have a horror of paternal or interfering Go-
vernments ; and yet they want us to prevent their going
into public-houses by law, calling that fraternity and
equality. (Laughter.) Not only so, but they insist that the
money of their fellow tax-payers ought to be spent in
building them houses to live in, because, forsooth, it is not
fitting for them to pay sufficient out of their own earnings
for the purpose. (Cheers.) Well, sir, this is a specimen of
the legislation which my hon. friend brings forward. And
then we come to the question of the representation of the
working classes. It is the old observation that every de-
mocracy is in every respect very similar to despotism ; and
it is well known that those who flatter the people are
generally inferior to those they flatter and fawn. And we
see that in America the people have undisputed power.
They do not send hardworking people to represent them,
but political traffickers—men who have lost their charac-
ters, bankrupts, traders in politics—men who have lost
position, and have been driven out of every respectable
position. (Hear, hear.) These men take up politics
as a last resource. (Opposition cheers.) This house is
on the whole a faithful reflex of those who send them to it,
and you may trace in the members the qualities of those who
send them. I ask you, then, what this house will be when
it is elected by working men ? (Hear, hear.) One subject
of great importance under the change will be the expenses of
the elections, and these expenses might be classed into two
kinds, viz., legitimate and illegitimate. The legitimate
expenses will be increased by the enlargement of the dis-
tricts, which will affect the cost of agents and various other
items. Then, as to the illegitimate expenses. I know lam
now touching on very delicate ground ; but it cannot be
denied that by admitting the .C 7 householders intothe con-
stituency the illegitimate expenses of the election will be
increased. I shall quota tho right hon. gentleman the Ple-
sident of the Board of Trade, because I dare not say so my-
self, but that right hon. gentleman says that in a great
ninny boroughs the people are corrupt indeed. (Cheers.)
Mr. M. GIBSON—Some of them. (Cheers and laughter.)
Mr. LOWE—I beg pardon. Some voters in some
boroughs—(laughter)—and I must be cautious. Some

gentlemen havo political opinions, but their minds aro so
sluggish that they cannot be influenced without a certain
lene tornzentunt as a reminder in the shape of a five-pound

note. (Cheers and laughter.) Others are so procrastinating
that they cannot make up their minds until half-past 3 in
the afternoon, when, by some inscrutable method, their

views become fixed. Others, again, avoid the dilemma of
the ass between the two bottles of hay, who was starved
through not knowing which to turn to, by taking up a
judicial position and deciding amongst themselves, and then
giving effect to their opinion. My hon.friend says there is
a constituency which has become corrupt ; let us turn on
the pure water of a £7 franchise. (Laughter.) That doctrine
might be sound if my right hon. friend could establish that
doctrine. (Laughter.) If I have half a dozen cattle ill of
the cattle plague, and I turn in amongst them a hundred
other cattle who are unhealthy I infect the new ones, and
do not much good to the old ones. (Laughter.) I could
press this subject farther, but I dare not ; but I hope the
proofs I have given will enable the house to understand
tho argument. I have never yet been answered as to the
effect which the lowering of the franchise is likely to have
on this house. I will not recapitulate, for I have trespassed
too long already; but this I will say that one great mistake
and oversight has been to look at this house as a merely
legislative body. That is a mistake, for the members of this
house have a position such as none other ever had in this
world. (Hear.) They do not hold it in virtue of any pecu-
liar skill in legislation —(laughter) —but because, in addi-
tion to legislation, they exercise other functions of a most
important character. They control directly the public
finances, but in addition they are part and parcel of the
Executive Government. They can go a long way in making
or unmaking a Ministry, and they control indirectly all the
acts.of that Ministry. In fact, until this question came up
I thought we could compel the Executive Ministry to re •
veal all we thought it was necessary that we should know.
(Loud cheers and laughter.) It is well to consider when
advocating democratic changes that we are dealing with
an assembly which is certainly different from the legisla-
tive assemblies of either France or America. (Hear, hear.)
You are not dealing merely with a legislature, but touch-
ing their more delicate functions of government, in which
this house has influence. Whilst legislation has been
better since the Reform Bill, the Executive Go-
vernment has gradually shown uneasiness. Carry the
change a little further, and you will have to separate the
Executive function from the House of Commons, altogether
break up the salutary union that now subsists, and have a
Government which shall in no way dependupon this house
for its existence. (Cheers). That is a consideration the
importance of which it is scarcely possible for me to ex-
aggerate—it is the one point on which our constitution
differs from the other constitutions of the world—(cheers)
—and the one thing in which we have been permanently
successful. (Cheers from the Opposition). And I believe
we have been successful because we have not legitimately
followed out democratic institutions, but have always
united the executive functions with the legislature. If you
consider how much in a democratic assembly the member
is bound to obey his constituents you will see how impossible
it would be for such a man to hold office under the execu-
tive government. The fact is every day we see members of
this house, of great ability, who might find their way into
the executive government but for the amount of trust
which their constituents repose in them. (Cheers).
This is a consideration which should have groat weight with
us, but we have actual experience to guide us. We have
given democratic institutions to our colonies, and the re-
sult shows their evils. They have become an actual curse to
those countries. (Cheers.) I speak what I know to my cost
—(hear, hear)—when I tell you that in A ustralia there is
no greater evil to the stability of society, to the prosperity
or well-being of that country, than the constant changes of
government. And I believe the greatest boon you can con-
fer on our colonies, as you cannot take away universal suf-
frage, would be to remove what it has made a great curse,
viz., responsible government. This is wonderfully °sem-
plified in Victoria, where they have a government under
the influence of universal suffrage. The Government there
is at war at once with the judicial authorities and with the
Upper Chamber, because neither will yield to its exactions.
When the court decides against it the Upper Chamber,
when appealed to, resists the levy of money on a mere re-
solution, and the Government dissolves the Parliament and
appeals to universal suffrage against both the Upper Cham-
ber and the judicial power. (Cheers.) This tends to anarchy
—a danger from which this colony must be delivered, and
it can only be remedied by depriving it of the boon of repre-
sentative government, coupled with the present which it
made itself of universal suffrage, and by placing the Go-
vernment in some permanent hands. Look at what has
happened in France, where there was a limited constitu-
ency in the time of Louis Philipp., awl parliamentary go-
vernment until the revolution of 1818. Then came the

Assembly, elected byuniversal suffrage, but with a respon-
sible government. The government became weaker every
day until the coop d'etat came, and proved that the whole
previous system had been a sham. The great men who
established the constitution in America foresaw this, and
took means to obviate the difficulty. They knew that de-
mocracy required checks—(cheers)—and sought to check
it by various means. They, in fact, checked democracy
with democracy, and elected a President. Then they estab-
lished the federalism to check democracy by lateral
pressure much on the same principle—to use a familiar
expression—that a person holds up a piece of coal in a pair of
tongs. What has come of it ? They have fought out the
civil war, and gained a great victory. Men's opinions were
divided. One side wanted to prevent the South from regain-
ing the power it possessed before the civil war; the other to
reconstruct the Union on the principle of national division.
In this country the question would be decided, whether cer-
tain gentlemen should continue to occupy their seats, and
those who were displaced would carry into the wilderness
their offences just as the scapegoat carried off the offences
of the people. But mark what happens in America. You
cannot get rid of the President, who sits for four years, nor of
the Congress, who sits for two years. Therefore you have
an internecine duel, and those who ought to combine and
coalesce for the good of the country are in factious opposition.
(Hear.) The whole forces of the constitution are strained
until they crack, to trynot who shall hold the supreme power
but who shall gain the victory. You see what has happened;
senators expelled in order to obtain the two-thirds majority,
and things have arrived at such a pitch that no man need be
surprised at seeing a second civil war succeed the first, viz.,
from the inability of the constitution to solve the difficulty in
which the first civil war had placed the country. Let us
apply this to our own case. We have in our Government
this invaluable institution. Let us not rashly or foolishly
put it in peril. I do not know whether any gentleman has
read the reply of M. Rouher to M. Thiers, but it appears to
me that the answer of M. Rouher was incontrovertible. He
says: " The hon. gentleman asks me for responsible go-
vernment, but can it exist with universal suffrage ? With a
narrow' constituency you might have it, but without you
cannot." (Cheers.) But democracy has another tendency
which is well worth studying for a moment. It is singu-
larly prone to concentrating power in the individual men.
It makes a strong Government because the effect of such a
Government is to trample down and equalise everything.
Another Peculiarity of democracy is that it looks with hos-
tility on everything that intervenes between the Sovereign
and the people. (Hear, hear.) It seeks, to use the words
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, "to have everything
on the representative principle, and to have what is not
swept away " That is the aim of democracy, and look
what it hasproduced in France. It has left nothing between
the Emperor and the people but a bureaucracy. Look what
it has done in America. There is nothing to break the
shock that is ever going on between the two powers in the
state. The wise men who framed the constitution sought
to avoid this by dividing factions as much as possible ; but
all their efforts turn out to have been vain, and we find
the legislature and the executive engaged in a terrible duel
of which no man can tell the end. Now, apply such a
state of things to England, and England is of all coun-
tries in the world the country of intermediate steps of
power between the people and the Throne. There are
a vast number of institutions which our ancestors created,
their principle seeming to have been to look a great
deal to liberty and very little to equality. (Hear, hear.)
They said that existing institutions smoothed away incom-
patibility, and were content to go on with as little change as
possible. (Loud cheers.) This country is pre-eminently the
country of privilege, not such privileges as existed in
France before the revolution, but such as our ancestors
believed in their wisdom to be the best to ensure order and
good government. It may be difficult to prove on authority
how all this should be so, because, as Mr. Burke observes,
"Ancient Governments are not often founded on abstract
principles ; they are rather the materials out of which ab-
stract principles are made." (Hear.) I think we should ap-
ply our minds more wisely to draw the lessons of wisdom
from our success than by trying to borrow from ancient
people their notions which have led to such results as I
have described. (Cheers.) But how have we succeeded ? I
shall call an unexceptional. witness—" It has been our pri-
vilege to see a process going forward, in which the
throne has acquired broader and deeper foundations in the
affections of the country—in which the laws have more and
and more commended themselves to the respect and attach-
ment of the people; in which the various classes of the
community have come into closer connection one with
another ; in which the wants of the great masses of our
labouring fellow-countrymen are better supplied than in
the times of our forefathers, and in which, on the whole,
any man desirous of the welfare of his kind may look out
in the bright surface of society, and may thank his God
and say, Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is for
brethren to dwell together in unity." (Cheers.) These elo-
quent words are the words of the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer—(renewed cheers from the Opposition)--delivered
on the 14th Sept. last, just two months before he began
the concoction of the bill which has been so successfully
illustrating the manner in which "brethren may dwell to-
gether in unity." (Cheers and laughter.) But let us suppose
democracy established more or less in this country, with what
eyes would it look upon institutions such as I have de-
scribed—what would be the relation of this house to the
House of Peers ? I shall call a witness who will tell you .
Eight yearn age the hon. gentleman the member for Bir -
mingham inverted the cause he is now taking. He now
seeks to secure the means—he then proclaimed the end.
Then he said " See what I'll do for you if you give me
reform." Now he says, "Give me reform and I shall do
nothing." (Loud cheers.) What the hon. member then
said has never been retracted, and I have no reason to
suppose that he wishes to retract anything ho has said.
His words were, "As to the House of Peers, I do not be-
lieve they themselves could believe they were a perma-
nent institution" (Loud cheers) What do you sup-
pose would become of the House of Peers with democratic
franchises? What became of them in Franco ? What
remains of the brilliant circle that once surrounded the
Louises ? (Hear, hear.) What shall we say fdr the
Church—(hear, hear)—which is not looked on with parti-
cular affection by large masses of the people ? What
does the hon. member say respecting the Church ? "The
portion of the public estates which for a time are permitted
to remain in the hands of the Church of England ?"
(Cheers.) What shall we say of the order of judges ?
Look at the difference which exists between this country
and America in the case of the judges. We have fenced
round the judges with every safeguard, until we have
made them, practically, the only irresponsible persons in
the country, until we are obliged to submit to the shocking
and melancholy sight of a man actually blind administer-
ing justice, and another of upwards of 00 still sitting on
the bench. (Hear, hear.) We submit to this simply be-
cause we do not wish to do anything likely to influence the
judgment of the judges. In most parts of America the
judges are elected for six years, and in the West Mississippi
for example only for two years, and that expressly in order
that they may administer the law, not in accordance with
the law, but in accordance with popular sentiment. Lot
us next come down to ourselves. Our position is the most
honourable of that of any assembly in the world. Will de-
mocracy look favourably on our position? Must we not be
kept down? (Hear.) Must we not approach the level of
our constituents? We are now returned by a privileged
class of electors—the £lO householders—a class which has
discharged its duties in a manner that defies criticism, but
now wo are about to swamp that class. But without enlarg-
ing on this topic, let me ask what must happen if you de-
mocratise this House of Commons. It will not rest until
it has swept away all those institutions that stand between
the people and the throne, and supplied their places by in-
stitutions which derive their authority from the people.
And when that is done democracy will, as in France and
America, be approaching its triumph. You will have face
to face, without anything to break the shock, the people,
the monarch of the time, and the great democratic assem-
bly. Do you think they will go on harmoniously ? The
event may be what no man can predict. (Hear, hear.) We
saw something of it in 1857 in France when the President
and Chamber were each grasping the sword and each
seeking to destroy the other. Despotism succeeded, and
if it had not you would have had a Convention, the worst
possible form of government. In it the Chamber seeks by
its committees to control the executive power, until at
last responsible Government breaks down. Cmsarism is
established by some Napoleon of the period. (Hear, hear.)
In America you have got the President, then you have an
imposing power in Congress, and it again works by its com-
mittees, for every office under Government there is a cor-
responding committee, and as fast as the Executive Go-
vernment decides anything these committees neutralise and
overcome it, so that the Executive Government is entirely
neutralised—but I will follow this subject no further. But
I do not base myself on mere conjecture, but I base myself
on what history has taught, and I cannot believe that we
are any exception to the rest of the world. The Chancel-
lor of the Duchy of Lancaster says that England is a totally
different country from America and Australia, and that the
arguments that apply to one aro not applicable to the other.
I own there is a great difference, but the difference is en-
tirely in favour of America and Australia and against En-
gland and democracy. (Hear, hear.) The great difference
is the possession of boundless tracts of fertile land in those
countries. In those countries the land is a sedative of po-
litical passions ; here it is an irritant. In England it is a
thing to be desired and seized upon ; in America and Aus-
tralia it is to be had for next to nothing ; but every one
knows and says that if America were left to the govern-
ment of the great towns they would ruin it instantly, and
it is the cultivators of the land who by their Conservative
tendencies keep it from ruin and destruction. And on that
subject I beg to read to the house a few passages from a
letter by Lord Macaulay, who, be it remembered, was one
of the foremost advocates of the Reform Bill of 1832, and
who never drew back from the opinions which he expressed
at that time during the whofe of his long and valuable life.
The letter was sent on receiving a copy of Jefferson's works,
and in it he says—" In this country the supremo power is in
the hands of a class, numerous indeed, but educated, select,
and deeply interested in the security of property and the
maintenance of order. It is quite plain that your Govern-
ment would never be able to retain a discontented majority;
for with you the majority is the Government; and have
the rich —always in a minority—absolutely at their mercy.
The day will come when in the State of New York a multi-
tude of the people, no one of whom had had more than half a

breakfast or expected more than half a dinner,will choose a
legislature. Is it possible to doubt what kind of a legislature
will be chosen ? On the one side you have statesmen
who are desirous of urging moderation, patience, and a
strict observance of good faith, and on the other hand de-
magogues ranting about the tyranny of capitalists and the
greed of usurers, and asking why one mau should be per-
mitted to drink champagne and ride in a carriage, while
thousands of honest men aro in want of bread—which is
likely to be chosen by the working man? Seriously, I ap-
prehend that you will in some time of adversity such as I
have described—you will do such things as will be fatal to
your prosperity. Either some Cresar or Napoleon willarise
and seize the reins of power with a strong hand, or your
republic will be as surely plundered and ravaged in the 20th
century as the Roman Empire was in the sth—with this
difference that in Rome the Huns and Vandals came from,
without, whereas Huns and Vandals will have been en-
gendered in your own country, by your own institutions.'
(Cheers.) Now, sir, that is the argument of Lord Macaulay.
You have a democracy in America, but there they have at
present plentyof elbowroom and subsistence for everybody
—but when you have grown to such a point that you have
not enough room and enough sustenance for everybody,
then your institutions will fail and the crash will come.
(Hear.) Apply that to England. You have not a demo-
cracy, bat you have the state of society described by Lord
Macaulay. When in periods of pressure there is distress
and misery, if we add that by our own hands which he says
the course of time will add to America— then by adding
population to demncracy,we are here adding democracy to
population - it will bring about exactly that state of things
from which we may expect something like the conse-
quences which he foreshadows. (Cheers.) Well, it seems to
me that we have morereason everyday we live to regret the
loss of Lord Palmerston. By way of a mortuary contribution
it seems to me that the remaining members of his Cabinet
buried in his grave all their moderation, all their prudence
and all their statesmanship. (Hear.) He was scarcely in-
terred before they set to work to contravene and counteract
all his policy. Why? Because it had been his policy—the
policy of a man who understood the people of England and
had achieved unexampled success. They thought that the
way to continue that success was entirely to reverse his
policy, and so before he was hardly cold in his grave they
set to work to do the very thing of all others which, if he
had been living, be would have disapproved of. (Cheers.)
Well, they have done a great feat. The noble lord and the
right hon. gentleman at the head of the Government have
performed an immense exploit—they have carried the
great mass of their party, who are men, I believe, of mode-
rato opinions and views—they have carried these men
from those moderate opinions and views and laid them at
the feet of the hon. member for Birmingham. (Loud and
continued cheering.) They are brought into contact now
with men and principles from which six months ago they
would have recoiled. (Cheers.) That is what has hap-
pened to part of them; the rest of us are left like sheep in
the wilderness ; and after the success of this extraordinary
combination—for I can give it no other name—we who
remain where we are are charged with being conspirators
and traitors. (Cheers.) The bonds of party allegiance are
strained until they are ready to crack in order to keep the
party together, and we are told we are bound by every tie
to act according to the policy of Lord Russell. I dispute
that. (Hear, hear.) I never served under him. I have
served, unfortunately, under two Ministers for little less
than two years ; ono was Lord Aberdeen, and the other
Lord Palmerston. Both those Governments Lord Russell
joined, both he abandoned—(cheers) both those Govern-
ments he assisted to destroy. (Loud cheers.) I owe him
no allegiance. I am not afraid of the people of this
country ; they have shown remarkable good sense—re-
markable, indeed, as compared with the harangues that
have been addressed to them. (Cheers.) Nor am I afraid
of those who lead them, in which I beg to differ from my
right hon. and gallant friend the member for Huntingdon
(General Peel). Demagogues are the common-places of
history—they are found wherever there is public com-
motion—they have all a family likeness—(cheers and
laughter)—and their names float lightly on the stream
of time. They generally contrive to be handed down
somehow ; but they are as little to be regarded
as the foam which rides on the top of the stormy wave and
bespatters the rock which it cannot shake. (Loud cheers.)
But what I do fear, what fills me with the gloomiest mis-
givings, is when I see a number of gentlemen of rank, of
property, and of intelligence, carried away without being
convinced or even over-persuaded—(hear, hear)—to sup-
port a policy which many of them, in their innermost
hearts, detest and abhor. (Cheers.) Monarchies exist by
loyalty, aristocracies by honour, and popular assemblies
by political virtue; when these things begin to fail it is
in their loss, and not in comets, eclipses, or earthquakes,
we are to look for the portents that herald the fall of states.
(Cheers.) I have said that lam utterly unable to reason
with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I am happy to
find that there is ono common ground left to us, which is
the Second Book of the Eneid. My right hon. friend re-
turned again to the poor old Trojan horse. I will add one
more excerpt to the story of that noble animal, after which
I will promise to turn him out to grass for the remainder
of his life. (Cheers and laughter.) The passage which I
wish to call his attention to presents at the same time a
sketch not only of the army but of•the general also—

Arduus armatos mediis in mcenibus astans
Fundit equus, vietorque Sinon incendia miscet
Insultans : portis alii bipaptentibus adsunt.
Millia quot maguis nunquam venere Myceuis.
The fatal horse pours forth its human tide,.
Insulting Sinon flings his firebrand wide,
The gates are burst, the ancient rampart falls,
And swarming myriads climb its crumbling walls.
(Cheers.) I have now, shr, traced as well as I can what I
believe will be the natural results of a measure that seems
to my poor imagination destined to absord and destroy
one after the other those institutions which have made
England what she has hitherto been, and what I firmly
believe no other country ever was or ever will be. (Cheers.)
Surely the heroic works of so many centuries, the matchless
achievements of so many wise heads and so many strong
bands, deserves a nobler consummation than to be sacrificed
to revolutionary passions or to maudlin enthusiasm of
humanity. (Cheers.) But, sir, if we do fall we shall fall
deservedly, uncoerced by any external pressure, not beaten
down by any intestine calamity in the plethora of wealth,
and in the surfeit of our too exuberant prosperity, we are
about,with our own rash and unconstrained hands, to pluck
down over our heads the venerable temple of our liberties
and our law. History may record other catastrophes as
signal and as disastrous, but none more wanton or disgrace-
ful. (The hon. gentleman resumed his seat amidst the
most tremendous cheering, which lasted several minutes.)
Mr. HODGKINSON supported the measure as ex-
tremely moderate, and was thankful for the recognition
which the working classes now received of their fitness to
exercise the franchise.
Mr. YORKE thought the pressing evil was not the ne-
cessity of extending the franchise, but of dealing with cor-
rupt practices at elections. He denied that the party with
whom he acted mistrusted the working classes, or desired
to resist a safe and well-considered measure for amending
the representation of the people.
Mr. LEEMAN supported the bill, and gave his personal
testimony to the good qualities of the artisan class in cir-
cumstances alike of adversity and prosperity.
Lord ROYSTON stigmatised the measure as a mere at-
tempt to prop up a tottering Government which had lost
its head and adopted Reform as a cry with which to rally
its scattered followers. If the Whig party was now driven
from office, the penalty would be but retributive justice for
their treason to the cause of Reform when Lord Derby was
in power.
_ .

Air. ALLEN was of opinion that the true way to prevent
universal suffrage was to admit from time to time the most
intelligent and industrious of the working classes. He
condemned the distrust which had been exhibited of the
people iu the course of the debate, and the manner in which
the ignorant and the intelligent, the idle and the indus-
trious, had been confounded together.
_ _

Mr. D. BROMLEY admitted that Parliament was
pledged to Reform, and that the time had arrived when
it was desirable to adopt a sound and comprehensive
measure for the settlement of the question ; but the bill
now under consideration was incomplete, unsatisfactory,
and dishonest, and was not, therefore, deserving of
support.
Mr. OTWAY intimated his intention to vote in favour,
of the second reading; but unless the clause was struck
out disfranchising dockyard voters he should reserve to
himself the right to oppose the third reading. Commenting
on the speech of Mr. Lowe, the hon. member taunted him
with a change of opinions since when addressing the de-
mocrats of Kidderminster in 1859, he stated that " all pro-
perty rested only on antiquated charters and musty parch-
ments." He believed that the bill, although not perfect,
did substantial justice to the working classes, and warned
the house that the country was in earnest in desiring that
a substantial measure of reform should be passed without
delay. The measure was the least that could be offered to
an expectant people; but he believed the Government was
honest and sincere, and he should therefore support it.
Mr. R. DUFF could not vote for the second reading,
believing that the measure was not only incomplete, but
that it did not deal satisfactorily with even a part of the
question.
Mr. JAMES having declared that the bill was unsatis-
factory, because he could not tell to what extent the ad-
mission of the working classes would control the represen-
tation, and stated several other objections to the measure,
announced, amidst ironical cheers and laughter, that he
should nevertheless support the second reading. This
determination, however, he qualified by stipulating for the
right to oppose the bill at any future stage if the supple-
mental schemes did not provide for an honest redistribu-
tion of seats.
Mr. SCHREIBER opposed the bill, on the ground that
it unsettled everything, was fragmentary in form, and
would be inequitable in its effects. It was also, he con-
tended, an injustice to the counties, and a dangerous addi-
tion to the taxing power of those who did not pay direct
imposts, and whose watchword would be, if the bill passed
—"Down with the excise, and up with the income tax."
Mr. CHILDERS alluded to the Australian colonies, and
the charge which was brought against them of being en-
tirely under the control of purely Democratic tendencies.
from long personal experience in those parts, he awarded
them the praise of loyalty and patriotism, and declared
that such of their representatives in the Legislature as

were Protectionists were returned by the county districts•
In order to bear out a charge of inconsistency against Mr.
Lowe, Mr. Childers read extracts from speeches delivered
by the right hon. member for Caine, containing sentiments
the utterance of which he condemned in Mr. Bright, and
in which ha lauded the example of America, and described
the British Parliament as "blind, ignorant, and besottedly
stupid."
Lord CRANBOURNE moved the adjournment of the

debate till this 4i/ening.
After some discussion the proposition was agreed to.
On the consideration of the Lords' amendments to the
Parliamentary Oaths Bill,
Mr. WHALLEY proposed to add to the oath, after the
sentence ending "her heirs and successors," the.words
"being Protestant." He explained that he did this with
a view to guarantee the Protestant succession to the Dig'
lish crown.
The motion fell to the ground for want of a seconder,
and the Lords' amendments were agreed to.
The orders of the day were disposed of, and the Souse
adjourned.