The Sun.
London, England, 1835-06-24 00:00:00

Member of Lord Grey's Government, consented to that
change in their original measure of the Reform Bill which
extended the right of voting to freemen beyond the lives of
those who then enjoyed it • but he differed altogether from
the view which had been taken! by the Member of Lord Mel-
bourne's Administration who had just sat down—that the ar-
rangement being once made, it was now to be lightly regar-
ded.—( Hear.) He did not mean to say that the arrangement
was to be held permanently binding upon the Legislature ; but
when he heard the Hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Har-
vey) frankly exclaiming, as he had done that evening, " Re-
formers, be comforted—in this clause I see the seeds of further
change in the representation of the people,"—he (Sir James
Graham) would say to those who had been colleagues of his
in the Government of Earl Grey, " Beware 1 If you are de-
sirous of resisting further change, adhere to the compact which
as Members of Earl Grey's Administration, you readily ac-
quiesced in"—acquiesced in, he should ever consider, ho-
nestly, because it smoothed the passage of a great measure
which it would otherwise have been difficult, if not impossible,
to carry. He called upon them to beware not to set the ex-
ample of a premature or hasty departure from the provisions
of the Reform Bill. He held this clause of the Bill then be-

fore them to contain an unnecessary departure from the provi-
sions of the Reform Act. He had a still stronger objection to
it--he considered it not only an unnecessary departure, but
there was this which was a damning vice in it, it was an indi-
rect departure from it.—.( Loud cheers.) If the question
were raised at all, let it be raised directly—let it be raised
manfully—let it be raised openly and avowedly in the shape
of a Bill to amend and correct the measure passed two years
since for reforming the representation of the people.—
( Cheering.) If the thing were to be done at all, let it be
done openly—let it be done in a manner which should
afford to those whose franchise they proposed to destroy, or,
as the Hon. and Learned Solicitor-General had said, " to an-

- _
nihilate," an opportunity to be heard. He ( Sir J. Graham)
denied that since the passing of the Reform Bill any material
new facts had arisen which could now warrant the introduction

of a change which was then resisted. If such facts had arisen,
if they were notorious, let them be brought to light • if any
convincing reasons existed; let them be brought forward in an
avowed shape—let them be introduced in the form of a direct
and positive measure. But he ( Sir J. Graham) said, especi-
ally after the warning which had been held out by the Hon.
Member for Southwark, that there were in this clause the seeds
of further change in the representation of the people, that he
should pause before he consented to the adoption of such a
provision as that contained in the clause then under the con-
sideration of the Committee. If his Hon. and Learned
Friend the Member for Exeter would adopt the suggestion
which he ( Sir J. Graham) had ventured to throw out, he should
have great pleasure in supporting 'll, amendment.—( Cheers. )

Lord J. RUSSELL thought it necessary at that time, after
the warning which his Right Hon. Friend (Sir J. Graham)
had had the goodness to direct to him, and to those who bad
had the good fortune of being members of Lord Grey's Ad-
ministration—he thought it necessary, after that warning, in
the first place, to say that he thanked his Right Hon. Friend
for his advice ; and, in the second place, to tell him the reason
and the motive upon which he was not disposed to act upon
that advice.—( Cheers.) He owned he was not the less in-
disposed to follow that advice because it was not the first time
on which he had observed that his Right Hon. Friend, who
with him (Lord J. Russell) and with others encountered so
boldly the dangers and obstacles which were placed in the way
of the Reform Bill—dangers and obstacles as great perhaps
as any Government ever encountered—did seem, since that
period, he ( Lord J. Russell) knew not why or wherefore, to
allow to enter into his mind certain fears and apprehen-
sions—(great cheering)—which did seem to him (Lord John
Russell) rather to betoken that his Right Hon. Friend in con-
curring with his celleagues in bringing forward the Reform
Bill, had not duly, and soberly, and manfully, weighed those
consequences which must necessarily and unavoidably result
from it.—( Cheers.) He (Lord John Russell) had observed,
rather with some degree ot amusement than otherwise, that it
was quite sufficient for the Hon. Member for Southwark, or
the Hon. Member for Middlesex, or any other Gentleman
who carried his opinions much further than he (Lord John
Russell) was prepared or disposed to go—it was quite suffi-
cient, he observed, for any one of those Gentlemen to speak of
further and greater reforms—reforms which they considered
to be wise in themselves, and which hereafter must irecesa-
rily be carried into effect—it was sufficient for those Gentle-
men to mention any one of those subjects at once to fill his
Right Honourable Friend's mind with dismay ttrui terro,-, lest
everything that was valuable in the Constitution should sud-
denly and for ever be swept away—(laughter and cheers)—
lest they should arrive at that state of perpetual and rapid
change against which there would be no security whatever.
(Cheers from the Opposition.) He knew not the meaning of
that cheer ; his opinions were directly the reverse of the opinions
which that cheer was intended to mark ; his opinion was, that
the people of this country were indeed bent upon reforms—
het there never was a country in which the opinions in favour
of Reform were weighed more carefully, in which every step
towards Reform was taken with greater care, or in which there
was a greater indisposition to precipitate any measure tendi.ig
to endanger the institutions of the country, or to impair the
security of property. If a measure of that description were
introduced, a rebound of public feeling instantly took place
against it ; and whilst an opinion prevailed in favour of whole-
some and even great reforms, he did not believe there was in
this country anything like a violent or mad enthusiasm in
favour of measures which could in any respect be dangerous to
the peace or the ancient institutions of the country.—( Hear,
hear.) Then, his Right Hon. Friend said, "If you are dis-
posed to change, do it not indirectly."— (Hear, hear, from
the Opposition.) Now, really, when his Right Hon. Friend
spoke in that tone, he (Lord John Russell) might ask him
whether he meant to say that his Majesty's Government were
not bringing forward their Bill for Municipal Reform honestly
and fairly to the purpose.—( Hear, hear.) He might ask his
Right Hon. Friend whether he meant to say that all
this machinery with respect to Corporations was only
mail( to conceal some greater change in the Reform Bill ?
( Hear, hear, hear.) If his Right Hon. Friend did not mean
that, he would ask him why he talked of their doing that in
directly which ought to be done directly ?—( Cheers.) The
clause then under consideration, and to which his Right Hon.
Friend had taken so strong an objection, was, as he (Lord J.
Russell) would show, a necessary consequence of their adopt-
ing the new franchise. If that w ere so, then he said that nei-
ther his Right Hon. Friend, nor any other Member in the
House, had a right to say that they were introducing it
for the sake of altering the Reform Bill. It was not introduced
for such a purpose, but simply for the sake of amending and
reforming the different Corporations throughout the kingdom ;
in the effort to do which, it certainly did make an alteration,
and, he did not deny, a great alteration, in the provisions of
the Reform Bill. That, however, was a consequence which
it was difficult, if not altogether impossible, to avoid, when
they came to consider the right of voting as applied to muni-
cipal reform. For let the House consider what was the na-
ture of the proposition submitted by the Hon. and Learned
Member for Exeter. If the Hon. and Learned Gentleman
had thought that the Government were bringing forward a
measure which they had not sufficiently considered—if he
thought they were bringing forward a Bill the consequences
of which they had not sufficiently weighed—he (Lord J.
Russell) must say that the Hon. and Learned Gentleman had
submitted a proposition, by way of amendment, the conse-
quences of which, as a lawyer and a statesman, he could not
have sufficiently regarded. What was the Hon. and Learned
Gentleman's proposition? He (Lord J. Russell) was inclined
to put to the Hon. and Learned Gentleman the difficulty
which the Hon. and Learned Gentleman had put to
him ; for it certainly applied much more to the Hon. and
Learned Gentleman's proposition than it did to his: The
Hon. and Learned Gentleman said, "If you propose to
do away with the freemen—if you think them worthy of
punishment—if they have not conducted themselves in a
manner to be entitled to the elective franchise, deprive them
of it at once; but if you do not mean to do that, preserve
to them their privileges." Such was the argument, such the
dilemma in which the Hon. and Learned Gentleman at-
tempted to place the Government. But he (Lord J. Russell)
said, with respect to this question, " If these freemen are worthy
to exercise the right of freemen, if they are what they pretend
to be, burgesses and members of the body corporate, keep
them as the body corporate."—(Cheers.) If the freemen
were fit to exercise all the privileges attaching to the cha-
racter of a freeman, why did the Hon. and Learned Gentleman
admit the first part of the clause, which deprived them altoge-
ther of the possibility of being members of the body corporate—
which deprived them of any voice in the election of the mayor
or town council, and created them into a body for a separate
purpose, exercising their rights for separate ends, but with
this mark of degradation upon them, that having exercised for
many hundred years the rights of freemen for Corporation
purposes, they were now to continue the name of freemen,
under Corporations from the structure of which, and the ma-
nagement and controul of which, they were to be wholly ex-
cluded ?—( Hear, hear.) Then, on the other hand, he said, if
in the place of these freemen, they had, by the 6th clause of
the Bill, obtained a better body of constituents, to whom should
be intrusted the power of electing the governing bodies in all
Corporate towns ? For what purpose was it, for what end was
it, that they were to preserve a body of men who exist solely
by Corporate rights, and who yet exist for purposes totally
separate from Corporate rights ?—( Hear, hear.) With that
view let the Committee look at the amendment moved by the
Hon. and Learned Member for Exeter. It provided that no-
thing contained in the Act should extend to prevent admission
to the freedom of the town of all such persons as, under the
laws now in force, were entitled to be admitted, or in any way
to affect the rights, privileges, &c. of such persons. Now he
( Lord J. Russell) imagined that there were two separate ends,
for which it was proposed that this right of freedom should be
preserved, and for neither of which, he confessed, he thought
it ought to be continued.—( Laughter and cheers.) First, the
general right which they had long enjoyed, and which was
still preserved to them by the Reform Bill, of electing mem-
bers to serve in Parliament. He (Lord John Russell) was
far from saying that the House ought to introduce a special
provision, or to pass a special Act for the disfranchisement of
the freemen ; but, on the other hand, he said that if the
House preserved the franchise of the freemen only for the
purpose of electing Members to serve in Parliament, it would
be doing a thing calculated to have a very prejudicial effect
upon the Parliamentary right, as well as upon the interests of
the Municipal Corporations.—( Hear, hear.) He thought it
had been well put by his Hon. and Learned Friend the Soli-
citor-General, that the effect of preserving to the freemen
their Parliamentary rights alone, must in a great degree tend
to prevent the good government of the corporate towns. The
Hon. and Learned Gentleman the Member for Exeter had
quoted the case of Coventry, and although he (Lord John
Russell), in consequence of that quotation, felt it necessary
for a moment to allude to the case, still, after all that had been
said upon it in the course of the debate, he should not think of
detaining the House, and giving his opinion at length upon
it. It appeared to him that the case of Coventry was one of