The Sun.
London, England, 1859-02-02 00:00:00

let him try. But I understood that the great body
of the thinking people of this country preferred
something built, as it were, upon ancient founda-
tions rather than that we should clear the ground
of stone, and brick, the mortar, and everything
that has existed heretofore, and begin a new build-
ing upon an entirely new theory. (Hear, hear.)
Now, it is essential that the public should be con-
vinced, if they are to support this bill, that I have
dealt fairly with the different classes of the country.
Observe, nobody has found fault with the figures.
You have seen the lists of those schedules. You
know that somebody has spent days and nights,
almost weeks, in arranging those schedules and
figures, but nobody has yet undertaken to show
that there are serious errors of any kind in them,
and from this you may well be assured that great
care has been taken m the arrangement before it
was submitted for public approval. (Cheers.) But
the charge is that we are lifting a great power which
is now on the side of what is called the landed
interest, and we are placing it on the side of the
commercial interest, and that whatever is the pre-
sent disproportion and want of balance, if this bill
passes we shall have an equal want of balance with
that -which now exists, but on the other side of the
house, or upon the other interests of the country.
I showed on a very late occasion that so far as the
great towns are concerned, and the purely agri-
cultural counties, accepting thus all populations
(although bear in mind that all population is neither
enfranchished now nor is it intended wholly to
enfranchise them), the purely agricultural popu-
lation have more members in proportion to their
numbers than the population of the great towns to
which I propose to give three or four, or six repre-
sentatives each. (Hear, hear.) I showed that if
there were any counties not sufficiently represented
they were those which had a great manufacturing
and mining population, and that those which really
and obviously were very insufficiently dealt with
and had much too few members were the counties
of Lancashire, the West Riding of York, Middlesex,
and Surrey; but it is very difficult to get men to
look at a question with anything like fairness.
Some one sent me yesterday an extract from a paper
of large circulation, publishedin the town of Liver-
pool. That paper goes upon this simple statement,
that the population of the counties is so much, and
I propose to, leave it with so many members, that
the population of the boroughs is so much less than
that of the counties, and that I propose to leave it
with so many members, much more than the coun-
ties, and the writer says I am treating the counties
with a gross injustice, but what is the state of things
now ? How grossly unjust, according to his theory,
is the present position of the county representation ;
because, at this moment, the population of the
counties being in excess of the Parliamentary
boroughs the counties now have about 159 members
(I am speakingnow of England and Wales only) and
I propose to give them 177, which is 18 more, while
the boroughs now have 337 ; and I propose to bring
them down to 301, but this learned scribe never com-
plained before. (Laughter.). Why, if by giving the
counties 18 more and the boroughs 36 less (because I
take from English bsrough to give some to Scotland
and some to Ireland) I am guilty of grievous injus-
tice to the counties, I should like to know what is
the way to do this gentleman justice—(cheers)—
but if this gentleman writer, whose criticism I am
now criticising, would have carried his observation
a little further, he would have seen that there is a
portion of the borough representation in England
which is nominally over-represented. As far as
the counties measure -with the great boroughs there
is no great disparity.. It is not of the slightest
consequence to us as inhabitants of boroughs whe•
ther every member represent a thousand more or
less than in the counties, and, taking the two to-
gether, all the rural counties and all the great
boroughs, the difference is altogether unessential,
or, if there be any difference, it is in favour of the
counties ; but if you get lower in the boroughs, to
all those which return or are proposed to return
one member each or two members each, you will
find of course that the representation appears to be
greatly in excess. You will find that whereas if
all the population were divided by all the members
each member would have about 37,500 persons in
the small boroughs, with only one member the
average had not more than 11,000 or 12,000, and in
boroughs with not more than two members the
share of representation is very much greater than
in the counties or in the large boroughs. But then
this is absolutely inevitable if you intend to main-
tain the distinction between boroughs and counties,
and I can show you how the equalisation is
brought about. (Hear, hear.) I can show you, as I
believe in :my conscience to be absolutely true, if
my bill were to pass, it would be utterly impossible
for any man studying the figures and studying the
facts to hold the opinion that the county popula-
tions or the landed interest were not sufficiently
represented in the scheme I have laid before the
public. I shall not occupy more than a moment or
two in explaining how that is. Now, in looking
over the schedule of those boroughs that are to
have one member each, schedule B and schedule D
—that is, all the boroughs between 8,000 and 25,000
population—l believe there are at least 50 seats
which may be set down to be almost certainly
connected with the same influences which direct
the representation of the counties, and therefore
they may be fairly added to the county repre-
sentation of the country ; but there is another
schedule, that of boroughs with two members,
and I should just like to read over the
names of a few of these, to show you
exactly to what my arguments tend. If you ask,
" who is the representative of a county ?" in almost
any part of Great Britain, you will find, with the
exception of half-a-dozen counties or divisions, that
he is a good landed proprietor, or a son or near
relative of some nobleman or great proprietor of
the county. Traders are never admitted into the
agricultural 'counties. You can return William
Brown and John Cheetham for the county ; but if
you go to North and South Cheshire, and the various
other agricultural counties of the Kingdom, you
will find that your merchants and manufacturers
are not admitted there. But how is it with your
boroughs P Take, now, on this very list, in what
I call schedule D, the boroughs that, according to
my proposal, would have two members. There are
19 boroughs out of these which cannot be said to
return or to have chosen manufacturing represen-
tatives for themselves. There is the borough of
Gateshead. Well, Mr. Hutt, who represents
Gateshead, is by marriage connected with an
aristocratic family and a large landed property in
that district. If you come to Carlisle, you find Sir
James Graham, the owner of a magnificent estate
within, I believe, ten miles of that place, represent-
ing the city of Carlisle. If you come to North-
ampton, you find Mr. Vernon Smith, himself a man
of great wealth, and I believe of great landed pro-
perty, representing that town. If you come to the
borough of Aylesbury, you find Aylesbury is a
small county in itself, for it has a very large landeC
district united to the town. If you come to Chester,
you find a son of the Marquis of Westminster is
almost always representing that city. If you come
to Oxford, you find a very excellent gentleman of
landed property, represents that city. If you come
to the borough of Shoreham, in the county of Sussex,
you find it is as much a county as any part of Not-
tinghamshire or Buckinghamshire, becausethere is a
large district added to the borough, and the votes of
the district and the land rule the representation
of the borough. If you :come to Ipswich, you
find a very excellent gentleman, Mr. Adair, the son
of one of the largest landed proprietors in Suffolk,
representing that borough. If you go to Galway,
in Ireland, another town in the schedule, you find.
Lord Dunkellin—a son, I think, of Lord Clanri-
carderepresenting that city. If you come to
Cheltenham, you find Colonel Berkeley, one of the
family of the late Lord Fitzhardinge, representing
the town of Cheltenham, and returned through
the influence of the Berkeley family in that
county. If you come to Coventry, you find that
very excellent friend of mine, Mr. Ellice, represent-
ing that city. He is a large landed proprietor in
Scotland, a man of great wealth, and connected by
marriage very intimately with ore of the most aris-
tocratic families of the country. If you come to
Macclesfield, in our own neighbourhood, you find
Mr. Egerton representing that place, and lie is a
brother, I think, of one of the largest landed pro-
prietors in the county of Chester. If you go to
York, you find Mr. Smyth, who is a very large
landed proprietor in the neighbourhood of Wake-
field, representing the city of York. If you go to
East Retford, in Nottinghamshire, you find it is a
landed district of country, itself 'inside a county,
and having no more to do with what we call com-
mercial interests than the most agricultural county
in the whole kingdom. And so you may go through
all these, and you will find in this very schedule,
with two members to every borough, not less than
19 or 20 seats at this moment occupied by persons
having no connection whatever with commerce or
manufactures, being themselves landed proprietors,
or allied to great landed proprietors, in the neigh-
bepc oouounse
possible
ooleoeni d.
to be shown . Well, I venture to say this affects—if
it were fair, which I believe it is not ; but if it
were fair to take the population exactly of the
counties
consideration
ot
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othatbefore
even us.e if b
Ithtinkis
the commercial classes of this country wibtoilulis quite
passed
be able to speak with fairness against the very
powerful and unbroken phalanx whch the landed
tion tbhee H
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e donut
wouldpret
eonffde r
members for Manchester ever since ofntmohrmeboroughst
w
only. The members for Manchester
Bill, had never been men who pretendeodw,:rlegtis_
late for cotton mills and great warehouses. They
have no Game Laws to fight for. They have never