The Sun.
London, England, 1845-05-23 00:00:00

METROPOLITAN COMPLETE
SUFFRAGE SOIREE.

On Wednesday evening a tea party and soiree
of the members and friends of the Metropolitan
Complete Suffrage Association took place in the
great room of the Crown and Anchor Tavern,
Strand. The hour fixed for the company to
assemble was half-past five o'clock, by which time
the room was completely filled by a respectable
assemblage, a considerable proportion of whom were
lads. Among the gentlemen present, in addition to
the chairman, Sharman Crawford, Esq., M.P., we noticed
Lawrence leyworth, Esq., of Liverpool ; Dr. Price,
editor of the Eclectic Review ; Mr. Miall, editor of the
Nonconformist ; Dr. Epps, the Rev. Mr. Spencer, the
Rev. Mr. Dawson, of Birmingham; Colonel P. Thomp-
son, the Rev. T. Thomas, of Pontypool ; the Rev. P.
Murcell, of Leicester; Mr. W. H. Ashurst, Mr. H. Vin-
cent, Mr. W. IL Wilson, of Birmingham; the Rev. C.
Stovell, and the Rev. R. S. Bayley, of Sheffield.
On the removal of the cloth,
The CHAIRMAN rose to address the assembly amidst
lotid and continued cheers. He said he had been called
upon to preside over the present assembly, which was a
meeting of the Complete Suffrage Association of London,
and the nucleus of a body which he hoped would ere
long extend its influence into a larger sphere, and
which relied upon the truth and justice of its
principles for ultimate success. It was not his intention
to enter into any lengthened observations on the subject
which had called them together. It was to take an ex-
pression of their opinion on the course he had proposed
to take on the resolutions of Lord John Russell, about
to be submitted to Parliament in a few days. On these
resolutions he proposed to move an amendment, and he
had given notice of that intention. That Noble Lord
had intimated that his resolutions were for the improving
of the present circumstances of the working classes ;
but they contained one important omission—they left out
altogether the recognition of the great question on which
public liberty could alone rest, the extension of the suf-
frage to the working classes.—(Loud cheers.) He had
seen that it was omitted, and he thought it was his duty
not to suffer the House of Commons to entertain any
such aesolutions without forcing the great subject of
Parliamentary suffrage upon its notice.—(Hear, hear,
and cheers.) He could hardly think how any
man, entertaining a sincere desire of benefiting
the working classes, could refuse them the only efficient
means of protecting themselves—the power of selecting
parties to represent their interest in the Commons
House of Parliament. On that account he had, there-
fore, considered it his duty to test the House on the
subject, by giving notice of his amendment. He did not
enter into any lqpgthy arguments of the justice and ne-
cessity of the steT he intended to take, as that in such
a meeting would be unnecessary, but he would call
their attention to a few facts, well calculated to
strengthen the position they had taken, and to illustrate
the present defeetive state of the representation of the
country. According to the population returns, the inha-
bitants of Great Britain were 27,000,000, and the elec-
tosal body 1,012,000, while the male adult population
was 7,00,000. Thus the number of electors was but
1-27th of the population, and only 1-7th of the male
adults. The whole enactments of the laws of the coun-
try and the imposition of taxes were thus placed in the
hands of 1-7th of the male adults and but 1-27th of the
people. Ought such a system, therefore, to con-
tinue ?s--(llear, hoar.) The viciousness of the system
was further shown in the " distribution of the
electoral franchise. He found that 330 Members of the
House Of Commons, or more than one-half of its number,
were returned by 300,000, or one twenty-third of the
adult male population; and 27 boroughs, with a popula-
tion of 172,297, and 6,943 electors, returned a greater
number of Members than all the important towns in the
empire, having a population of 3,129,000 and 149,889
electors. These facts spoke for themselves. This wasa
most vicious state of the representation and one that ought
not to be allowed to continue. After further pointing out
the anomalies and evils that resulted from this restricted
mode of representation, and the justice and utility of en-
larging it, so as to include the whole people, the
}kn. Gentleman sat down amidst loud and continued
creering.
The Rev. T. SPENCER, of Bath, proposed the first
sentiment :—" The complete suffrage movement, which
is based on the principles of truth and justice, and is
thoroughly christian in its character ; may its principles
soon become the political creed of every earnest and up-
right man." He saw no reason whatever in the present
system of representation. They found in one corner of
the country that certain parties, called freemen, without
property had votes ; in another, a man who had a small
property worth 403. a year; in a third, one who paid
501. a year rent for land; and in a fourth, one who paid 101.
per annum for the use of a house. Yet no reason whatever
could be liven for this distinction. The system was so
anomalous, that a man who paid 101. a year in a town
had a vote, whOle the man who rented a house in a vil-
lage worth 401. had none ; in one place he who was said
to be a freeman, but without property, was enfranchised,
',while the man of property in London, if he only happened
to occupy lodgings, was completely disqualified. He would
say, give votes to all who pay taxes. They would find
many a rogue in a 10/. house, while many an honest
man occupied houses of a lower rental ; yet the former
had a voice in making the laws of the country, the latter
had none. All men who paid taxes, he contended,
should have a vote. It was said that man was made in
the image of God, aid God never intended that his
image should be trampled upon and oppressed.—(Loud
Cheers.) He supported complete suffrage, because the
Scriptures said they should be no respecters of persons,
and that they should do to others as they would that
others should do unto them. At the present day there
was a.great amount of false religion current in society,
and its professors were continually telling them that
Christianity had nothing to do with politics ; but
if such was the fact—if religion had nothing to
do with the common affairs of life, then he for one
thought it had better walk off the face of the earth at
once.—(Loud cheers.) But this was not the truth.
They had before them the example of Christ himself,
who stood up against the rulers and oppressors of his
time, and laid down the great principles of human
equality and political freedom ; and they had also the
example of his disciples and apostles, to show that
politics was essentially a religious question.—(Cheers.)
'The Hon. Gentleman then proceeded to point out the ad-
vantages of an extended suffrage. At town and parish
meetings, at Exeter-hall, at county meetings, they saw
the principle of universal suffrage in operation. In fact,
the ancient state of things at their county and borough
elections was election by this means. Among Dissenters
they beheld the ministers elected by members of congre-
gations by the general suffrage of all those who were to
receive spiritual instruction • and, surely, if a man was
qualified to elect those who should watch over his
eternal interests, he was equally qualified and entitled
to elect the maker of the temporal laws by which he was
governed. With respect to education a great deal had
been said, as if a knowledge of geography, of astronomy,
of Latin, of Greek, or of the sciences generally—as if a
knowledge of the nature of the moon, or any of the other
questions involved in those branches of study, were neces-
sary to make a man understand a political question. In his
opinion, the education necessary for the exercise of the
suffrage was not initiation in grammar, and logic, and
literature, and science, but into the operation of the
taxes, into the laws
sit affected industry, into the
influence of monopoly, and into the general bearing of
the government on the condition of the people. If they
wanted to teach a person to swim, the way was to throw
him into the water ; if to skate, to put him on the ice.
And so should it be with the exercise of the suffrage ;
tnee rive it to the people, and then they would soon learn
to exercise it ; they would soon inquire how the ques-
tions of the day operated upon the welfare of the masses,
and upon that knowledge so acquired, they would decide
upon the merits ' of all men who might seek to represent
them in Parliament. Further, in addition to the general
and equal extension of the suffrage to the body of the
adult population, they (the complete suffragists) sought
to equalise districts according to population, so that
Yorkshire might be placed on the same footing as
Dorsetshitre, according to the ratio of population. They
sought annual Parliaments, because they would secure
faithful representatives, and operate in making Members
watch over and respect the interests and opinions of their
constituents. After glancing at the other six points
advocated by the complete suffragists, and reviewing
the history of those principles since the time of the
French Revolution until now, in the progress of which he
strongly ittrked his condemnation of the proceedings
of the Chartists, he coneiuded a very eloquent address,
amidst laid cheers, by moving the sentiment already
given.

Dr. Ergs responded to the sentiment, and said the
reason why the principles which the Reverend Gentle-
man who had just sat down so eloquently advocated had
not progressed more than they had done, was attributa-
ble to the apathy of the people to their true interests.
That apathy, however, he was glad to say, was gra-
dually disappearing under the teachings of the Complete
Suffrage Association, and by the labours of such elo-
quent advocates as Mr. Vincent.—(Cheers.) The prin-
ciples of complete suffrage, as Mr. Spencer had well re-
preiented, were those of justice, of truth, and honesty,
and had their foundation in that book of books—that
book which he was sure they all respected—the Bible.
Mr. LAWRENCE lIEYWORTH proposed the next senti-
ment, which was as follows:—'• The representation of the
people. May the present electoral system, which is de-
structive of all mental honesty and self-respect, clothes
vice the garb of virtue and equally opposed to
true wisdom and genuine liberty, be speedily replaced
by one of equal justice to all." He supported the
principles of the sentiment, because he believed that
they would be the means of advancing truth, moral
goodness, and introducing better feelings and practices
in the intercourse between man and man. He
wished representation to be co-equal 7ith. taxa-
tion. He desired that the applied
to the freeman of former times should be
ap-
plied
to the people of the present day. Then l
those who were subject to the burden of taxation werea
cntisled to meet in popular assembly, and elect their re-
presentatives to Parliament. Now taxation, instead of
beim?, restricted to a portion of the people, was extended
en all, and so he held should be electoral rights.—
(Cheers.) To tax the poor to the extent of 30 per cent.,
a rate far higher than that imposed on the rich, and yet
deny the poor having a vote, was nothing but an act of
wholesale robbery.—(Loud cheer 4.) Their movement
was one based on Christian truth, on the Scriptures,
unlike similar political movements of a former day, and
on that account alone, if on no other, he was sure
would suoce.A. By courage, perseverance, and temper-
dnee the great object they all sought to obtain would
surely be real'sei.
The Rev. Mr. DAwsoN, of Birmingham, responded to
the sentiment.
Colonel P. THOMPSON next addresssd the meeting. He
looked upon the present meeting as a wreck of the former
great, energetic, and powerful party—the part that
i
once passed under the name of Reform. H e would ad-
dress himself to the principle causes that, n his estima-
tion, had brought about the breaking-up of that
.once
powerful party. The first cause of evil was the letting
in the 561 tenants-at-will. The next great slip was