The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-28 00:00:00

tice. I have now the additional pleasure of doing justice
to the mildness and temper of his language ; but he cannot
blind tho Government to the severity of his acts. That
motion came from a friend—an old and attached friend
and follower, as he says—of Earl Russell ; but was the
motion concerted with the party opposite ? (An lion.
Member, believed to be Mr. John Hardy, said—" I don't
believe it at all.") Ido not recognise thelon. member as
leader of the party opposite. I recognise only the right
hon. gentleman the member for Bucks. (Cheers.) lam
not aware of any case in which any Goverment has con-
sented to accept such a motion so prepared and so pro-
duced. I frankly own, if we are to be dragged at the
chariot wheels of any man, I should be as willing to be
dragged at my noble friend's chariot wheels as any one I
know. My noble friend said he looked back at his conduct
in 1859. He was then so zealous for a reduction of the
borough franchise that he would not hear of allowing the
bill to be read a second time, because it did not do that.
But he has repented of the vote he then gave. He sees that
it was an unwise thing to do. He had got a Govern-
ment which had introduced a Reform Bill, and
who were pledged to stand or fall, and the noble
lord said to stop that Government was not the
way to promote Reform, so he repented. But,
strange inconsistency of human nature, at the very moment
he repented of the sin the temptation again presents itself,
and again he falls. (Laughter.) In the very act of making
confession he repeats and renews the offence. The noble
lord is now going to do that very thing. Is our request an
unfair one ? Ido not found it alone on what is necessary
for the Government. An hon. gentleman the other night
'quoted Hallam to the effect that " advisers of the Crown
owe a double allegiance—an allegiance to the Crown and
an allegiance to this house. It is their business to consider
as far as in their power, what their honour requires, and
to consider what is expedient for the public interest, and
what is required for the character and efficiency of this
house." We did think, after all that has happened, after
all the miscarriages which have happened to previous re-
form bills, after all the equivocal and questionable proceed-
ings that have produced those miscarriages, after all the
misfortunes, jealousies, and reproaches which the people
do not understand but of which they see the effect, after the
total stoppage for the time of the movement of reform, we
did feel it was essential in our judgment for the position
and honour of this house, in the eyes of tie country, forits
retaining the full confidence of the country, that when it
had been asked of Ministers of the Crown its opinion on the
plain and simple question of the reduction of the franchise
in counties and boroughs—a question which in these gene-
ral terms cannot possibly be affected by any shadow or
substance of the redistribution of seats—we did feel that in
our judgment it was necessary to ask the house foran answer
to that question before proceeding to any other. (Cheers.)
That is what we thought, but I think we may ask some-
thing of my noble friend. He aims a blow at the Govern.
ment. He is perfectly entitled to do it; but there was a
wish of ono of the old heroes of that country to which my
right hon. friend and myself so often refer, a very simple
wish, which, when translated into English, says, "Let us
die in the daylight." (Cheers.) I ask my noble friend that
we may die in the daylight. (Loud cheers, and some laugh-
ter, caused probably by the near approach of dawn.) My
noble friend's real hostility to this bill is not founded on
the circumstance that it contains no clause for the redis-
tribution of seats—(hear, hear)—but on the fact of its being
a bill for the reduction of the franchise in towns. (Cheers.)
That is beyond all question. He differs vitally from the
Government on that subject. Ido not complain, but it is
not too much to ask that he should state it in plain words.
But when he asks for a seats bill to be given along with
the franchise bill, I ask him, supposing the seats bill is fair
and unobjectionable, will he then support the franchise
bill? (Cheers.) I think that if a fair challenge, and in
the answer to that challenge, or upon the no answer to
that challenge the judgment of the country may very well
depend. (Cheers.) Then I come to my right lion. friend
(Mr. Lowe). He states, as the last head of his indict-
ment, that we have no good reasons for our bill. Com-
menting on the statement of the hon. member for Caine
with reference to his fierce denunciations of any admis-
sions below the £lO franchise, and his description of the
classesbelow that limit being more and more drunken
—that is as the Chancellor of the Exchequer put it—
the more and more unfit, he went on to say that
the honourable member for Caine asked if the franchise
was good in itself, and returned a House of Commons which
worked well, what need was there for alteration ? I ad-
mit, said the right hon. gentleman, that the performance of
the House of Commons place it far ahead of all other legis-
lative assemblies in the world, but it does not follow that
it cannot be improved. I will tell you the points in which
I think it can be improved. An eminent man still alive
fetid, after the passing of the Reform Act of 1832, " The
unreformed Parliament used to job for individuals, the
reformed Parliament jobs for classes." (Hear, hear.) Now
I think the influence of class is too strong in this house,
and that public influence is too weak. I speak thus from
my own experience as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Secondly, I believe that a freer representation of the work-
ing classes would supply us with that description of mem-
bers whom wo want, viz., those who would look not to the
interests of class, but to the public interest. I mean this
as no reproach to parties or rlasqoa, hnt merely as an an-
swer to the challenge of the right hon. gentleman (Mr.
Lowe) to show what reason there was for the introduction
of this bill. Meeting next the charge of a want of public
interest in the success of the measure, the right hon. gentle-
man, in confirmation of what Mr. Bright had said, stated
that an examination of the public returns showed that
between the 11th and 17th of April 187 petitions, signed
by the chairmen of public meetings had been presented,
to which were appended 50,000 signatures. Grappling
next with the argument of the bill destroying the Eng-
lish constitution and Americanising our institutions, he
said, lowering the franchise, so far from doing either one
or the other, was only a return to old English principles,
which had succeeded before and would succeed now. He
showed that since the passing of the Reform Act of 1852
the power of the working people had become less and less
in the constituencies, and that diminution had not been
in any way counteracted, and went on to say : I will now
prove this diminution of electors in boroughs, not since
1832, but since 1851-52. Now, I pray the house to ob-
serve these few particulars. In 1851-52 the total electors
were 410,000 ; in 1865 they were 509,000. The increase
is 99,000—that is 24 per cent., 1-7 per annum. That is the
increase of electors in boroughs. Now we will look at the
population of the boroughs. In the year 1851 there were
7,186,00 ; in 1866, as computed in the regular manner,
there were 9,266,000, an increase of 2,079,000, 28.9 per
cent. in population, or 1.9 per cont. increase in the popu-
lation of boroughs against 1-7 in the electors. I ask
those hon. gentlemen who have supposed that the fran-
chise is within the reach of all intelligent working men to
consider this ; and you have that in conjunction with the
enormous increase of wealth which has taken place
While the population has increased ibnutthine
givingrati this I
olhave
described, wealth has moved thus;
income
allowance
tax
to for
b e
charges, was £850,000 per penny. wish it to be understood that it is only the best estimate.
The income tax for 1851,
making
T Theue
proposed this year is £1,400,000 per penny. This is al-
most entirely in the middle and upper classes. But even
with the vast increase of wealth the number of
electors did not keep pace with the population. I
hope we shall hear no more about what was said I
won't say dishonestly, but erroneously, to serve the pur-
poses of debate that the franchise was absorbing the popu-
lation. (Hear, hear.) The working men are not represented
according to their number. They are not represented ac-
cording to their income ; they are not represented, I think,
in proportion to their intelligence and their virtue. If the
reasons which have been advanced from this extension of
the suffrage are not sufficient reasons, where are reasons ?
(Cheers.) Well, sir, the right hon. gentleman delivered a
most beautiful prophecy, as far as language was concerned,
but we have heard many such before. Out of Mr. Burke
might be found noble passages that now form admirable
declamations for school-boys—(a laugh)—pieces to be
translated into Greek. And some thirty years hence, when
the prophecies of the right hon. gentleman have vanished
into thin air and left not a trace behind, his prophecies for
beauty and force of language will be selected by teachers
of schools to give to boys to translate and to declaim, and
the right hon. gentleman will receive his reward :
" Etonare aliquis nostris etossibus ultor."
(Loud laughter.) He says we know nothing of the work-
ing classes. Do we know nothing of them ? Is there not
one single word that is a sufficient reply to him, and that
is " Lancashire ?" (Cheers.) Lancashire associated with
the history of the last four years—that history so painful,
so bitter, so noble, so glorious. They showed forth the
noble qualities of the mass. Amongst them, as amongst
others, not but scattered individuals are unworthy. I la-
ment that strong denunciations of the labouring classes
have been made, because it loads to strong panegyrics.
The people of Lancashire were only a sample, I believe,
of what the rest of the people of England—(loud cheers)
—would have been under similar circumstances. I cannot
conceive what ground of argument there can be against
the fitness, as to the discharge of civil duties, of those
whom it is proposed to admit, or that such a wise, limited,
and temperate extension of civil privileges amongst a por-
tion of such men should not be made. (Cheers.) Let us
consider the enormous though silent changes that are
going forward amongst the labouring population. Let us
try to raise our views above the fears, the suspicions, the
jealousies, the attacks, and the recriminations of the hour.
(Hear, hear.) Lot us look onwards to the time of our chil-
dren and our children's children. Let us ask whether there
shall or shall not be a steady movement on the part of the
labouring classes —a movement onwards and upwards. The
progress of the working classes is like all great moral pro-
cesses. It is unobservable in its details, but it is solid and
unassailable. It is like those movements in the earth which
scienca tells us are even now going forward in certain por-
tions of the globe. The sailor sails over them, or the tra-
veller treads the ground if they be on land. lie does not
see them. He is not conscious of them, but science tells us
that these changes are taking place with silent and resist-
less force. Science tells us in these spots things are not as
they were, and this is precisely what is going on with re-
spect to the labouring classes. We know the self-denial
exhibited by those men in respect of the American war.
Could any one believe that a reflection so still, so firm,
and so energetic could have planted itself in