Star.
London, England, 1831-04-19 00:00:00

TUE REFORM BILL:

Lord RUSSELL rose to move the order of the day on the Re-
form 1311 for England.
Mr. DUNCOMBE rose to present a petition, but there was hn.
wens° contusion to resist the presentation of further petitions.
The SPEAKER said lie had called on hold J. Russell to move
the order of the day, and therefore the Hon. Member was out of order,
except the House chose to give special permission to meet an urgent or
peculiar case.
Mr. DUNCOMBE again rose, but the house would not hear him;
every time be attempted there were renewed interruptions; so that
eventually the Hon. Member resumed his seat.

Lord JOHN RUSSELL again rose. He said at that advanced hour
of the evening he must press his motion, other wise he should gladly have
given way to the hen. member. He considered that it was incumbent
on him to proceed with the motion. He doubted not that the house were
quite rraely to hear the proposition, and to give him the opportunity of
making those explanations of the alterations in the bill, of which he had
before given notice. As the announcement of his bill had led to some
observations and misrepresentations, he trusted he should be indulged
with some preliminary remarks; and hemust premise,that in the alterations
which he was now about to state were made in the bill,the ministers,instead
of thinking that they abandoned the principle of the bill, considered that
they more decidedly and fully carried into effect the principle of the bill.
Bur, (continued the noble Lord, earnestly addressing the Speaker and
the House) before I enter on this matter, I cannot help contrasting the
situation in which I stand now, with that In which I stood when I
brought forward the measure upon the Ist of March. Whatever anxiety
I may feel now, it is an anxiety mixed with feelings of pride and satis-
faction that the measure which the Ministers of the King thought it
their duty to propose, as one which they considered the best calculated
for the promotion of the future welfare of England, has been stamped

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imi sealed by the approbation of that people for whose benefit and ad.
liatioge ft was solely intended. (Loud cheering.) This very right, since
I have been in the House, I have beard the hon. member for Prestos,
who is no very partial friend of this bill, alledge that it has been impose.
Ale for the press of England not to stand forward as the feat less advocate
tit the measure, for if they were not to take such part It would be impos-
sible for them to find reader?. (Hear.) Another sign, and a gratifying
one, of the opinions of the people, is the number of addresses and pods
dons which have flown from all parts of this united empire, both to the
throne and to this house. I have looked a good deal into these petition;
but as I may have overlooked some, I will not venture to State the
numbers presented on one side or on the other. But one thing strikes
me as true, and can, I imagine, be proved 11106 t satisfactorily on exami-
nation, namely, that from the Corporations a hoar rights it was said we
were about to rob—that from the boroughs we were 'About to spoliate,
the petitions in favour of this measure have been more numerous than
the petitions on the other side. I will not mention all the petitions.
I may mention, however, the petitions of corporations, a noble ca-
talogue—at the head of which stands the corporation of London—
then of Canterbury—then that of Portsmouth—of Gloucester—of
Lircoln.—of Deity—and of Bedford. (Hear) This is one gratifying
sign, as they feel that, however the privileges which they enjoy ate held
by law, and cannot be taken from them except by Act of Parliament,
yet that they would not be acting with that degree of consideration fax
the interests of their country, which became them, if they were not to
profess their readiness to give their willing assent to a measure which,
if it did deprive them of power, tended to give their fellow-citizens psi.
vileges, which ought long ago to have been diffused more generally,
instead of being confined to those very select and small bodies.—(Hear )
But with regard to the feeling, and approbation, and sentiment.,
of the people of England, I have another test, which I borrow
from the Right Hon. Gentleman opposite, (Sir R. Peel,) who, as
he is in the habit of frequently quoting past speeches, cannot
surely find fault with me, if, on this occasion, I adopt the same course.
(Hear.) In bringing forward the Roman Catholic question, and in
defending himself against the charge that bad been made against that
honourable member, because he had not kept up his resistance to the
Catholic claims with sufficient pertinacity, he declared that he had asked
a friend of his to look into the votes of past years, with respect to the opi-
nions of their constituents upon the Catholic question. He said he had
taken fifteen counties and twenty towns, in fact, he had taken seven.
teen counties and twenty-two towns, but that difference alters not the
principle upon which he proceeded, as a test of the opinions of
the people of England. In his speech, which had been published under
his sanction and approbation, he had said that in considering there votes
so given, he was furnished with " a practical and constitutional method
of determining the sense of the people." Now I sin going to adopt
that same " practical and constitutional method" to ascertain legitie
mately the sense of the people in reference to this measure. I will go
over the very counties and places which he mentioned on the Catholic
Question, and I will refer to the votes which they gave in reference to
that measure. Among the several members who had voted for the
second reading of the Reform Bill, there were for Essex, one in favour
of, one against; Hampshire, both against; Lincolnshire, one in favour
of, one against; Warwickshire, two in favour of, &c.; making in all
seventeen counties, in which 27 Members voted in favour of the
second reading of this important measure, and only nine against it.—
I come next to the towns which the right hon. baronet took as a sample
of the country's feelings on the Catholic Bill. London, tlnee for and
one against ; Westminster, all in favour of ; Southwark, one for and
one against; Liverpool, one for and one against ; Leicester, divided;
Exeter, two in favour of; Coventry, two in favour of; York, two in
favour of; Great Yarmouth, two in favour of .making in the whole
thirty-nine members from those great towns who voted in favour ofs
and only six against the Reform Bill (hear, hear.) Upon the whole
eighty-one member., to whom the right hon. batonet opposite, with
somewhat of a reforming eye, looking to them practically and accu-
rately to determine the sense of the people on this great question. Of
these eighty-one members, sixty.aix voted in favour of the measure, and
only fifteen against it. I take up these very places referred to by the
tight hon. baronet, and from the feelings I have seen displayed in them
I cannot but cowider diet these are signal proofs that the voice of the
country is decidedly, not in favour merely of reform. not inertly its
favour of the vague word Reform, which all gentlemen, i, app:ars,
are now in favour of (Hear), so long es they arc not called upon to
determine in what sense they undeestend it. (A laugh.) Bur it is
a signal proof that the people arc in favour of a thorough Retorm ;
in short, that they are in favour of this bill ; that they Oda the
nomination of seats ought to be put an end to, and the franchise
extended to large, commercial, and manufacturing towns, which
at the present time arc wholly unrepresented. (Hear, hear.) I derive
(continued the noble lord) my information not merely from this,
but I infer it likewise from the division which now appears ammv
those who represent the various boroughs, which it is the object of
this bill to deprive of their members. (Hear.) It is no wonder they
should say, we will not vote for thin bill ; it deprives us of the rights
which we at present enjoy; but when we find that persons whose in-
terests are against the question, having no external force applied to
them, are exceedingly divided, and that perhaps one-third of them are
in favour of relinquishing the power and privilege which they enjoy,
from a sense that such power and privilege ought not to continue, I say it
is a very strong proof of what the opinion of the people is, and the impreo-
sion that is made on men of cultivated understandings by the arguments
and reasons which have been adduced to their minds during the course
of the past years on the great question of Reform. I shall now refer
to the manner in which this bill has been considered by his Majesty's
ministers during the recess, and io doing so, I lipid myself obliged,
from the misunderstanding that has prevailed, to refer to the way in
Iwhich the measure was originally brought forward. It was difficult
properly to estimate a standard on which we should pmcced with rehe.
ence to persons who should have the right to vote. There were various
Imans by which this might have been aecertal led, pointed out. It win
said that those paying the smallest taxes were those rated at 101. bats
looking at the case in that view, it was found that those taxes were
extremely irregular, and that in many places they took them at the va.
lite of the houses nted. Therefore, if we had taken that test, we should
have taken a test liable to error, if we had taken the test of the 101.
householders. It was also said we might take an examination into the
boroughs, their limits, end so on • but that enquiry would have led to
great doubts and difficulties. There would have been great partialities
shown by the persons sent out to make the enquiry, and we should
have got such a mass of details as would have rendered it impossible
for us to bring forward any effective measure fur • year or more,
and yet after all we should not have arrived at a proper criterion of
the places which ought to be disfranchised. If we bad confined our.
selves to the limits of a particular borough, we should not have doee
justice for in Bridgewater, for instance, it is stated that the parish
is divided into three parts, its jurisdiction extending over the
I whole, but there is only one part that sends members to pasha-
ment. It was thought, therefore, better at once to take that well-known
I parliamentary document, the population register, which certainly was
not drawn up with a view to favour any interest, with a view to befriend
any party, but was made out for the purpose of ascertaining the 'virus
Ration of the country. (Hear, hear.) We obtained, therefore, the
returns as they were drawn up in the office of the Secretary of State
fur the Home Department. lf, in doing this, we were taking not
i only what seems to me to be a fair line, but we were taking the
only practical line that oould be adopted, because with regard to
I many of those boroughs, the only statement to be found in the book
of the return of population is the borough and parish; and when,
by our desire, letters were written, by the Secretary of State, to the
Returning Officers for their returns, the answer of many of them
t was, that it was impossible to know what the population was in 1021.
Therefore, if we had taken those letters as our guide in framing, this
manure, we should have taken that line which would not only not have
been fair, but a line from which it would have been absolutely imputed-
cable at least from any known or precise data, to have distinguished the
boroughs in all cases from parishes. For instance, with respect to the first
borough, Amersham, the return made of it was, that the houses of the in-
habitants covered the whole parish.Well,then in speaking of Caine (which
I shall have occasion to advert to shortly) a right hon. gent. accused us
the other night improperly, by saying that this was • corrected return. He
ought himself, undoubtedly, to have taken good care to have been correct
before he had made that statement. So far from this being • corrected
return, it is, in reality, only a return in part from the letters sent
to the Secretary of State's office by the returning officers in the course
of last week, and which was laid before the house as collateral to going
into a Committee. Wherever there is a borough to which there is a
parish attached, we have endeavoured to do that which I think is most
equitable. With respect to the borough of Aldborough, Yorkshire,
it is stated that the borough and township contain 735 inhabitants;
but on examining the memorials that have been sent to the Secretary of
State's office, it appears that it and Boroughbridge and several other
places, make altogether 2,000 inhabitants (hear, hear, from Sir C.
Wetherell). What they proposed was, that Buckingham, alalmesbury,
Oakhampton, and Reigate' should be removed from schedule A. to
schedule B ; and that with respect to schedule B, that Leominster,
Northallerton, Morpeth, Tam worth, Truro, Westbury, and Chipping-
Wycombe, should be removed from it and permitted to return members
as the other boroughs. There must be a line of some sort drawn;
and the line we have taken is, as In some instances, that a house may
be placed in such a situation that a portion of it may be on a
and a portion of it not within the liberties, to ascertain where it
said with any fairness, that the townships or parishes are d
upon the boroughs,or belonging to the boroughs or chief places=t
they ought to be considered as part of the boroughs, and taken in gmes
of the population ; but we have determined not to give the parishes the
right of being included in the borough populations which are at a ales
tans fioin and have no connection with the boroughs. With tespalt
to Beeralston, which was alluded to the other night, we do net
think it falls within the exemption, and that it ought to undergo
the sentence of disfranchisement. (Hear, hear.) A right honour.
able gentleman had compared this to the case of the borough of
Caine ; but I imagine it will not be a presumption to say that
there is not the most remote resemblance between the two.—The borough
of Caine, as °as of those plasm (of which there are many) in which the

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