1867.] THE BILL IN COMMITTEE. 817 and having done all the mischief which they could, they begin to write silly letters to their constituents. What can be done in parliamentary parties if every man is to pursue his own little game? A costermonger and donkey would take a week to travel from here to London; and yet, by running athwart the London and North-Western line, they might bring to total destruction a great express train; and so, very small men, who during their whole political lives have not advanced the question of reform by one hair's-breadth or by one moment of time, can in a critical hour like this throw themselves athwart the objects of a great party, and mar, it may be, a great measure that sought to affect the interests of the country beneficially for all time.' Few speeches that have ever been made have told with greater effect than this address. The downright truth and justice of Mr. Bright's censures carried with them a weight that made them to be felt by men who, professing to desire a real extension of the franchise, were yet adopting a course which was nullifying that object, and were placing at the disposal of the minority of the house a power which ought to be exercised by the majority. When we consider the manner in which this question had been dealt with over and over again, we are forced to the conclusion, that many of those who had obtained their seats in the House of Commons by professing zeal for reform were its worst enemies, and were secretly using all their influence to prevent a really efficient measure from being carried. We must now return from this digression to follow the fortunes of the representation bill on its way through committee. The discussion of Mr. Gladstone's first resolution showed that a very great confusion of opinion existed in the ranks both of the ministerialists and of their opponents; for while Sir William Heathcote, Lord Cranbourne, and Mr. Beresford Hope, all stanch conservatives, strongly assailed the government and denounced its measure, that measure was supported by Mr. Roebuck and several advanced radicals, who hoped, and, as the result showed, not without reason, that they would be able to transform it into such a measure as they desired. After the rejection of Mr. Gladstone's first resolution, the house adjourned for the Easter vacation; the supporters of the government being full of exultation on account of their unexpected victory. It now seemed probable that ministers would succeed in carrying their bill, though it was confidently expected that it would be modified in many of its provisions by the liberal majority. Nor was this expectation disappointed. Never was a measure so completely turned inside-out and upside-down. All the ten changes which Mr. Gladstone had pointed out as necessary to make it a good measure-but which no one ever expected that his party would carry, or the government acceptt-were adopted, with the single exception of the second, perhaps the least important of them all; and this too was subsequently effected with scarcely a show of opposition. The conservative surrender,' as it was termed, was as complete as Mr. Bright could have desired. 'A clear majority of votes,' said an able writer in the Quarterly Review, in a clear majority of constituencies, has been made over to those who have no other property than the labour of their hands. The omnipotence of parliament is theirs.' We should exhaust both the space at our disposal and the patience of the reader were we to attempt to follow out the various vicissitudes of the long struggle by which this result was obtained. Some of the changes, however, that were effected-either from their magnitude, or from the circumstances under which they were made-demand a brief notice. On the 17th of May Mr. Hodgkinson, member for Newark, proposed to add to the third clause of the bill the following words, which would have the effect of abolishing the system of compounding for rates in parliamentary boroughs: 'That no person other than the occupier shall be rated to parochial rates in respect of premises occupied by him within the limits of a parliamentary borough, all acts to the contrary notwithstanding.' The system which this motion was designed to destroy had all along been regarded and represented as one of the great conservative safeguards of the bill. The government, as was well known, had secured a majority. Mr. Gladstone, aware of this, came into the house expecting, as a matter of course, that the motion would be rejected; Mr. Disraeli's own colleagues entertained the same expectation; when, to the 1867.] CONCESSIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT. $19 astonishment probably of every one present, Mr. Disraeli, acting entirely on his own responsibility, accepted the amendment which had the effect of nearly quadrupling the number of electors on whom the franchise would be conferred and afterwards persuaded his colleagues that the adoption of this proposition was an improvement of the measure. When the committee again met, Mr. Ayrton moved a resolution reducing the period of residence_required for the franchise from two years to one. The motion was resisted by the government, but on a division was carried by 278 to 197. Mr. Disraeli at once announced that he could not proceed with the bill without consultation with his colleagues; and another ministerial crisis seemed to be impending; but on the following night he announced that the government had decided to bow to the decision of the house, and persevere with their measure. While these discussions were being carried on in the House of Commons, the government had placed itself in a somewhat ridiculous position out of doors. The council of the Reform League determined to hold a meeting in Hydepark. Mr. Walpole, the home secretary, with the concurrence of his colleagues, issued a notice forbidding the intended meeting, and warning all well-disposed persons to keep away from it. It was discovered, however, that the government had no legal right to prevent the meeting from being held, and that all it could do was to prosecute for trespass those who took part in it. The council of the League therefore persisted in their resolution; and the meeting, or rather meetings, for there were several of them, were watched by a large array of soldiers and police, and passed off very quietly. The government, however, brought in a bill intended to give them the power of dealing more effectively with such meetings, to which, in the interest of the public, it was clearly desirable that some limits should be put. Mr. Walpole, broken in health by the labours of his office and the mortifications which these occurrences caused, withdrew from the ministry, to the regret of all parties in the house, with whom his amiable disposition and courteous bearing had made him a favourite. He was succeeded by Mr. Gathorne Hardy, a man of much greater firmness and resolution. Meanwhile the bill went steadily forward, the liberal leaders now hoping to make it all that they had desired; and the government, conceding a ten-pound lodger franchise, abandoning the fancy franchises, reducing the county qualification from 15l. to 10l., raising the standard of semidisfranchisement from 7,000 to 10,000, and consequently the number of boroughs condemned to lose one of their representatives to forty-six. They proposed to distribute the seats thus placed at their disposal in the following manner: two to Hackney; two to Chelsea with Kensington; one each to twelve boroughs which up to this time had not been represented. They also proposed to give an additional member to each of the following counties or county divisions-West Kent, North Lancashire, and East Surrey; to divide South Lancashire into two, and Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Devonshire, Somersetshire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, Cheshire, Norfolk, Staffordshire, and Essex into three electoral districts, each of them to be represented by two members. It was also proposed that the Universities of London and Durham should be combined for the purpose of returning a joint representative, instead of the member being given to London University alone, as had originally been intended. Mr. Disraeli, in announcing this large modification of his original plan, stated that it had been framed for the purpose of counterbalancing some of the more democratic elements that had been introduced into the bill, and that the government would not recede from it. And the house, anxious to complete the work to which so much time had been devoted-anxious, above all, to avoid being sent back to their constituents before they had accomplished itrejected by a majority of eight a motion brought forward by Mr. Laing, and supported by Mr. Gladstone, for giving three members each to the following towns, having a popu lation of upwards of 150,000: Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, and Sheffield. Mr. Disraeli was not, however, equally successful in his attempt to amalga mate the high-church university of Durham with the somewhat liberal and freethinking university of London; but quietly submitted to the decision of the house after two divisions, in one of which the word 'university' was substituted for 'universities,' and in the other the motion to add the word 'Durham' was rejected. The proposal 1867.] THE THIRD READING. 821 made by the minister for extending to the counties the system of voting by papers, which had already been adopted for the universities, was also rejected. Mr. Horsfall, one of the representatives for Liverpool, having brought forward a motion for giving a third member each to Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham, the proposal was opposed in the first instance by the government, but was at length conceded by Mr. Disraeli, who at the same time added Leeds to the list of towns to which a third member was to be given. This concession increased the hostility with which the ministry and their measure were regarded by Lord Cranbourne and those that thought with him, who now sat below the gangway, on the ministerial side of the house, and led General Peel to say, that after this concession he should conclude that there was 'nothing with less vitality than a vital point, nothing so insecure as the securities that the bill offered, and nothing so elastic as the conscience of a cabinet minister.' And well he and his friends might complain when they saw the so-called securities swept away one after another, and the bill introduced by the conservative ministry transformed with their consent into a measure which Mr. Bright himself might have introduced, and which, if it did not altogether satisfy the wishes of the members of the Reform League, certainly surpassed their expectations. The House of Commons, thoroughly weary of their work, and finding themselves now in the month of July, hurried through the later clauses of the bill, tossed overboard without consideration amendments of all kinds, loudly called for the schedules, rapidly passed them; and so at last the bill, after having been thirteen weeks in committee, came before the house for the third reading. Mr. Disraeli was then compelled to listen to taunts and sarcasms as severe as those which he had heaped on Sir Robert Peel, and complaints of betrayal from the conservative party as bitter as those he had himself uttered against the illustrious statesman who led that party when he was an obscure member of it. Lord Cranbourne said, 'I should deeply regret to find that the House of Commons has applauded a policy of legerdemain; and I should above all things regret that this great gift to the people, if gift you think it, should have been purchased at the cost of a political betrayal which has no VOL. III. Y |