The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-30 00:00:00

help thinking that the identity of franchise in counties and
boroughs, of which so much had been said, ought to be
looked upon as an accidental result of the operation of the
bill rather than otherwise. But there were other conside-
..

rations altogether ind,pendent of the particular merits of
the proposal of the Government by which, in his opinion,
hon. members ought to 'ae influenced with respect to the
vote which they should give on the present occasion. He
quite concurred with the hon. and learned member for
Sheffield in thinking that one of the greatest calamities
which could just now befal the country would be a change
of Ministry or a dissolution of Parliament, while he was
perfectly ready to maintain that the Government could not
as men of honour accept the resolution, as had been sug-
gested, and were bound, if it should be carried, to appeal to
the public voice. If they should be driven to take that
course, he, for one, would have no fears for the result ; for
it would be manifest to every disinterested person that a
dissolution of Parliament had been brought about by the
factious conduct of those who sat on the other side of the
house. (" Oh, oh 1" and cheers.) The Conservative
party, in short, would, he believed, be gainers by a dissolu-
tion, while the line of conduct which would have rendered
it necessary would lead to the annihilation of the Whigs.
(Cheers and laughter.) But it must not be supposed that
in making these observations he looked upon the success of
the resolution before the house as by any means so certain
as the noble lord the member for Tiverton seemed to sup-
pose. The noble lord, indeed, appeared to be perfectly sure
of his majority, and to take no small pleasure in the agree-
able anticipation. But he would remind the noble lord—
" That these violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die ; like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume."
For his own part, he believed that the result of the division
would be in favour of the party which now held the reins
of power, and that they were supported by the good opinion
of the great interests of the country. (Hear, hear.) With
respect to the apprehended creation of faggot voters he could
only say that the right hon. baronet the member for Halifax
had been returned to that house by their aid in 1847, when
he had been opposed by Mr. Miall and Mr. Ernest Jones,
and that he had shown his gratitude for the support which
he had received by bringing forward as a candidate for
the suffrages of the electors of Halifax a committeeman of
the last-mentioned gentleman. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. COLLIER said that the right hon. member for
the University of Oxford had made a powerful speech in
favour of the resolution of the noble lord the member for
London, and had concluded it according to his usnal prac-
tice by declaring his intention to vote against it. The right
hon. gentleman seemed to think that Gatton and Old Sarum
ought to be restored, because without Gatton we could not
have had Pitt ; and then the right hon. gentleman would
vote for the bill of the Government because it restored
neither Gatton nor Old Sarum. It appeared to him (Mr.
Collier) that the principle of the noble lord's resolution had
been acknowledged on both sides of the house. The people
had hitherto been not apathetic, but tranquil, because they
believed the promise made that a Reform Bill should be in-
troduced. They believed now that it had not been intro-
' duced ; but, although there had been a good deal of agita-
tion in the country, they had been on the whole calm,
because they believed that the House of Commons would
reject the Government bill and give them a proper measure
of reform. The bill had been called a sham and a delusion,
but if he were inclined to borrow the slang of St. Giles's,
with which the learned Solictor-General seemed to be so
familiar—(oh, oh)—yes, it was the hon. and learned gentle-
man who had introduced the slang when he called the reso-
lution a "dodge." He (Mr. Collier) called the Government
bill a dodge brought forward to support a certain party, and
not to amend the representation of the people. He should
support the resolution because it negatived the bill, and
stated a reason for its negative action, and he had no fear
of an appeal to the country when the overnment and their
bill had already been tried and condemned. (Hear.)
Sir J. WALSH said Lord Palmerston had expressed his
sincere desire to see the question settled ; but the manifest
effect of the resolution being carried would be to force the
Government to abandon the bill. No Ministry with any
spirit could accept such a resolution. Were the resolution
out of the way, and the bill in committee, the Government
would do all they could to conciliate and meet the views of
the gentlemen opposite.
Mr. 0. STANLEY rose along with about twelve other
members on the Opposition side, which occasioned much
merriment. He wished to explain why he had given notice
of a vote of censure and withdrawn it immediately. Lord
Stanley had clearly intimated what the intentions of the
Government were ; but the succeeding speakers on the
Treasury bench had endeavoured to obliterate that impres-
sion. This being so, he anticipated a repetition of the
course pursued on the Tndia Bill ; and for the sake of pre-
venting this, and upholding the character of public men—
(a laugh)—he had given notice of his resolution. It was a
most dangerous state of things when a Government was not
able to carry its own measures. (Hear, hear.) Soon after
he had placed his name on the paper, Mr. Whiteside,
goaded thereto by the speech of Lord Palmerston, had de-
clared that the fate of the Government and of the bill
would depend on the vote of the house on the resolution.
This being so, the vote on the resolution would be one on
the question whether the house had confidence in the Mini-
stry. (Hear, hear.) Under these circumstances, it would
have been absurd for him to continue his notice on the
paper. As representative of Chester, comprising upwards
of 1,500 freemen, and having seen how well they exercised
the franchise, he had no fear of extending the suffrage to
working men, both in the towns and counties. The proposed
system of voting papers would increase the demand for the
ballot, and he hoped that the ballot would form a part of
any measure of reform that might be carried. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. MACAULAY said he approved the policy of the
bill, and condemned that of the resolution on every ground.
It had been said by Mr. Cardwell that they were now in
a position to enter into a calm and scientific examina-
tion of the subject, but how could they do so if the
resolution were carried? He thought it evident from the
course of the debate that there was not much cohesion
amongst hon. gentlemen opposite on any subject, and per-
haps less on this subject than on any other. What right,
then, he should like to know, had hon. gentleman opposite
to taunt the Government in the manner they had done
with being in a minority in that house ? (Hear, hear.)
Motives had been talked about ; and there must, no doubt,
be some motive for the extraordinary demeanour of the hon.
gentleman the member for Birmingham towards the noble
viscount. The hon. gentleman thanked the noble viscount
for his " courtesy ;" but surely it must have been in the
spirit of a well-known passage—
" Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last;
You spurned me such a day ; another time
You called me dog ; and for these courtesies
I'll lend you this much money."
(Laughter, and cries of Oh, oh.) At all events, till ex-
plained, the conduct of the hon. gentleman to thenoble lord
must remain a mystery. (Hear, hear.) He was apparently
in equal accord with the noble lord the member for the City.
Nov, the house knew from the avowals, the conduct, and the
published proposals of the hon. gentleman that neither the
bill shadowed forth by the noble viscount, nor even the more
advanced liberal measure shadowed forth by the noble lord
would be regarded by the hon. gentleman and those around
him as a settlement of the question. Nay, those gentlemen
had plainly declared, not only that they would not regard
either proposition as a settlement, but that they would
reject it as a contumely and an insult on the people of Eng-
land. (Loud cheers.) They had avowed that no six pound
extension of the borough suffrage would be looked on by
them as satisfactory without the ballot and a large re-dis-
tribution of seats. (Hear, hear.) It followed, therefore,
that a largeparty of Liberal members were going to vote for
the resolution on different grounds from those put forward
by the noble lords ; but the house might of course rest satis-
fied that those members would take the step in question be-
cause they thought it would tend to the furtherance of
their own views. He (Mr. Macaulay) should certainly
oppose the resolution, and in doing, so he should have this
advantage over hon. gentlemen opposite. He should know
what he was going to vote against ; whereas those hon.
gentlemen certainly did not know what they were going to
vote for. (Loud cheers.)
Mr. MELLOR said the Government had given them no
definite, positive, absolute pledge that they would be ready
to adopt the views of the house with regard to the different
portions of the bill, and, therefore, he had no other course
than to support the resolution.
Mr. G. HARDY believed there never was an occasion or
opportunity when, if the house had been so disposed, they
could have approached the consideration of this great subject
with a clearer sanction of the country, or with freer minds.
On any measure of reform, however small it might be, there
must of necessity be a difference of opinion, and he had then,
for the first time, learned that a party was not in unison
because they were not agreed on every word of the bill ;
that did not occur even with the most ordinary measure.
When this bill was laid on the table the noble lord the mem-
ber for London, with that skill in party tactics which always
distinguishes him, gave a nickname to a portion of it, and
spoke of the disfranchisement it would effect. The noble lord
might have a vested right and interest in the subject, but
the right attached to him when he sat there, and if
he had offered to give the aid of his wisdom, counsel,
and discretion to prepare the bill, he would have
found no indisposition on the part of the Govern-
ment to listen to any suggestion coming from him.
(Hear, hear.) Instead of doing that, however, he puts
forward a resolution, so as to offer no principle for discus-
sion, and to oblige them to look to his speech for an explana-
tion of his intention. (Hear.) It was always said that
those who came into court should do so with clean hands.
When the noble lord spoke of disfranchisement, he ought
to recollect that those who now brought forward this bill
represent the party which in 1832 had fought for the pre-
servation of such boroughs as Pontefract, and had set their
face against the disfranchisement of the scot and lot voters,
and the same party was still ready to preserve the rights of
the working classes in all their integrity. It was with the
assent of the noble lord that 250,000 freeholders were disfran
chised in Ireland. Again, in 1854, the noble lord proposed to
deprive the voters in all counties containing three members
of one-third of their vested right. He was not going to dis-
cuss the principle of representati on of the minority; but what
would the noble lord have said if his bill had then been met
by a resolution to the effect that his proposal was a trick and
an unworthy artifice ? There was great difficulty in the:way
of any Government bringing forward a Reform Bill, from
the difficulty of getting rid of the party feeling which it
aroused. In 1857 the noble lord said that the line of objec-
tion adopted to his bill of 1854 by the h ea. member for Bir-
mingham would be fatal to any bill ; but he was now him-
self adopting exactly the same course. The resolution set
out certain principles of the bill to which objection was
entertained, but it did not state the basis on which it was
proposed to extend the franchise. The hon gentleman con-
demned the bill as retrograde, whilst the right hon. baronet
the member for Carlisle considered it so democratic that he
would even prefer a rating suffrage to the dangerous re-
duction it proposed. With regard to the question of the
£lO franchise in counties, he approached the subject with
some degree of hesitation, as it had led to the withdrawal
from the Government of the right hon. gentleman the mem-
ber for Cambridge, with whom it had been his privilege to
have been in close official intercourse for the last twelve
months. It was with great regret he felt himself unable to
arrive at the same conclusion as his right hon. friend, but
he could not see how it was possible to preserve the dis-
tinction between the franchises. The reduction of the
county franchise to £2O would admit a totally different
class of voters from the present, and having once aban•
doned the principle, any further reduction was a mere
matter of detail. His right hon. friend took L2O, as it wasrl
st
e;
a good --tainthear
the limit of the house-tax ; but if that was
in counties, why not apply it also to boroughs.? W
gard to the question of uniformity, it seemed impossible t.
him to establish a real uniformity ; although the nominal
limit might be the same everywhere, the circumstances of
places varied so touch, from trade, population, and other
causes, that in practice the same amount of value admitted
very different classes in different The argument was
urged by the noble lord on apr places.
h previous occasion, in the dis-
cussion of the motion of the on. member for West Surrey.
stion was that of electoral districts. The noble
lord member for Tiverton said this bill, in fact, estab-
lished The thenex t q question
electoral districts. If by electoral districts he meant
place which persons were elected, of course it did ; the
country by electoral districts he meant the parcelling out of the
country into equal divisions, the bill did nothing of the kind.
It most sedulously avoided any interference with local in
threats or local associations. It deprived a certain number
of boroughs (amongst them that which he represented) of
the second member, but that was done to obtain means of