THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH DILKE, 
 
 BART., M.P., 
 AUTHOR OF ' GREATER BRITAIN." 
 
 March, 1871, to March, 1872. 
 
 4^^ ^ ' n 
 
 LONDON : 
 ROBERT J. BUSH, 32, CHARING CROSS, S.W. 
 
 1872.
 
 St ^^^
 
 DA 
 dhAf 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Black Sea , . . . . .1 
 
 The Ballot ..... 24 
 
 Land . . . . .32 
 
 Free Schools ..... 39 
 
 Redistribution . . . . .48 
 
 Electoral Reform .... 58 
 
 House of Lords . . . . .70 
 
 Civil List ..... 76 
 
 405911
 
 SPEECHES BY SIR CHARLES DILKE, 
 BART, M.P. 
 
 BLACK SEA. 
 
 A Speech delivered in the lloxiae of Commons on the dOth of 
 March, 1871, in moving a Resolution on the suhject of 
 the Black Sea Conference. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, — When, Sir, three Aveeks ago, this Motion 
 stood fixed for debate, it was postponed upon a statement by 
 the Premier that, so far as the Government were concerned, 
 they could not adequately discuss its terms until the publica- 
 tion of the proceedings of the Conference had su'pplied them 
 with their answer. At the same time it was declared that a 
 day would be given to its consideration. After that. Sir, I 
 must be allowed to express my deep regret that the Prime 
 ^linister should have attempted to throw on me the responsi- 
 bility of the postponement of a measure, the success of which 
 I have very much at heart. Sir, we have now before us the 
 proceedings of the Conference, and if I refer to the point at 
 all, it is only because I wish to repeat now, Avhat on the 
 former occasion I said — namely, that the case that I have to 
 lay before the House was not affected by the fact that the 
 Conference was sitting, and is not now affected by its termi- 
 nation. The Motion calls in question the policy, under all the 
 circumstances of the case, of going into the Conference at the 
 outset. What, Sir, were those circumstances ? They were these. 
 A great Power declared her intention of violating her treaty en- 
 gagements. On that declaration, never withdrawn, but, on the 
 contrary, expressly declared to be " irrevocable,"we went into a 
 Conference. We went into that Conference — as I shall attempt 
 to show — without necessity, and with indecent haste. We ac- 
 cepted it on the suggestion of the friend of the violating Power, 
 
 JB
 
 2 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 and at the worst moment of an appalling war, in wliicli the 
 Power proposing the Conference was engaged. We went into it 
 without concert with the Power who was our chief ally in the 
 war closed by the torn-up treaty, and on the suggestion of 
 her enemy. Those, Sir, are the circumstances to which the 
 Motion on the Paper alludes. I shall attempt to show that 
 it was both unwise and unjust to accept the Conference with- 
 out concert with each of our allies, and that it was fatal to 
 the respect in which treaties should be held, that, at such a 
 moment, and in such haste, we should go into a Conference 
 at all. By accepting the proposal of Prussia, I maintain 
 - — and I think that it can be proved — we have weakened 
 the securities of peace. It is, I should hope, hardly neces- 
 sary to discuss at length the character of the Piussian Note. 
 We ^ are, doubtless, all agreed that Earl Granville was 
 right when he said of it, that it was " a declaration of an in- 
 tention to violate " a treaty. The Turks called it a "denun- 
 ciation." Austria called it a "repudiation" — which is better 
 still. Repudiation is a harder name than even violation. 
 Violation may be the act of a Power that is only violent and 
 grasping ; but repudiation is the crime of a Minister who, like 
 the Russian Chancellor on tliis occasion, disi^lays a., cynical 
 contempt for public law. We are agreed, then, as to the Cir- 
 cular. Violent, however, as \yas its language, I admit that 
 our condemnation of it was sufficient. I admit that nothing 
 could have been better than Earl Granville's reply. I have 
 not to-day resorted to warmer words in describing tlie doctrine 
 of the Russian Chancellor than those which, throughout the 
 correspondence, Earl Granville habitually made use of. Well, 
 our allies agreed with us, and we marked our reprobation of 
 the Circular in an answer which every one approves. But, a 
 week or two later, we marred the effect of our answer — we 
 destroyed the utility of our answer — and we compromised the 
 dignity of the country and the security of peace by going into 
 a Conference upon that Circular, and that a Conference sug- 
 gested l)y Prussia, Avhich in this case meant — suggested by 
 Russia herself. Well — but we made a bargain. We extorted, 
 I shall be told, a promise that there was to be " no foregone 
 conclusion as to the result." Well, I know we said so. We 
 said so very often. I asked a gentleman, who is addicted to 
 arithmetical calculations, if he would kindly teU me how
 
 Black Sea. 3 
 
 many times the phrase occurs in the Papers. This eminent 
 authority informs me — 
 
 "That 'no previous assumption' occurs 10 times in 8 
 despatches, 'no foregone conchision' 9 times in 7 despatches, 
 and 'no assumption' once, making a grand total of 20 such 
 phrases in IG despatches, not to mention 3 'foregone con- 
 clusions' in the index, and 2 'foregone conclusions' in the 
 Protocols ; or 25 in all." 
 
 There can be no doubt, then, that at least we said that there 
 should be " no foregone conclusion." Why, not content with 
 saying so ourselves, we made everybody else repeat our shib- 
 boleth. Indeed, Earl Granville, in the character of Jephthah, 
 obtained Biblical results ; for Prince Gortchakoff, for one, could 
 not pronounce his shibboleth at all at the first time of trying. 
 In No. 57 we made Count Bismarck telegraph to Prince 
 Gortchakoff, to make him telegraph back again to say that 
 there was " no foregone conclusion." The first time he said, 
 by telegraph to London — 
 
 "The formula is to be that the Conference shall meet 
 without the previous assumption of any foregone conclusion. 
 That is also our view. Each one will bring to it his own 
 unfettered opinion." 
 
 This was all wrong ; so we applied to him again, Avhen, in 
 order to be quite sure, he dictated the words in English, as 
 the House will find at No. 1 1 G. He did not exactly know 
 what the phrase might mean; but, Avhatever it was, he was 
 ready to swallow it whole and agree to it at once, in order to 
 get into the Conference. Count Bismarck was more frank with 
 us. He told us plainly, that the phrase upon which we 
 plumed ourselves was so unnecessary as to make our anxiety 
 iibout it appear ridiculous. At No. 82 he said — 
 
 " A Conference without a clear understanding that it was 
 subject to no previous assumption as to its results, would 
 defeat its own objects, and be useless." 
 
 For my part, I think that, understanding or no under- 
 standing, it was useless, in face of the Czar's official declara- 
 tion that his decision was " irrevocable." Why, Sir, Russia 
 would not have gone into the Conference unless there had, in 
 fact, been a "foregone conclusion." Why did she indignantly 
 refuse to go into a Conference on the subject in 18G7, upon
 
 4 Speeches of Sir Chakles Dilke. 
 
 the suggestion of Austria, and yet accept at once when 
 Prussia proposed one now? Because, in 1867, there really 
 ■would have been "no forgone conclusion"; whereas on this 
 occasion everybody knew that there was one. Look at 
 Xo. 112. General Ignatieff is a great authority on foreign 
 affairs in Eussia. lie is admired as a skilful diplomatist 
 throughout all Europe. Well, in N"o. 112, General Ignatieff, 
 Eussian Ambassador at Constantinople, is asked by Sir Henry 
 Elliot if he knuws the "basis" fixed for the deliberations of 
 the Conference. I must, in passing, say that General Ignatieff' 
 is as famous for frankness as Count Bismarck, and that in 
 consequence he is the enfant teri'ihle of Eussian diplomacy. 
 Did he know the basis for the Conference ? Of course, he 
 did. He says — 
 
 "The basis must, of course, be the late declaration of my 
 Government that the neutralization of the Black Sea is at an 
 end." 
 
 Of course, it must. But, Avhat every diplomatist knew. General 
 Ignatieff alone Avas found to speak. The form of the Eussian 
 Circular might have prevented any doubt as to the "basis" 
 upon which the Conference would meet. As the Turks said 
 of it, at No. C7 — 
 
 "In it Eussia does not invite the assent of the other 
 l^arties, but merely signifies to them her decision." 
 
 It was on the 30th November that Eussia said that there 
 should be "no forgone conclusion." If the House will allow 
 me to speak for one moment of myself — I only do so because 
 it bears upon the question — two days after that date I was 
 myself in St. Petersburg. What did I find ? I found the 
 whole official press declaring that though Eussia had said 
 that there was to be " no foregone conclusion," yet that she 
 had not the smallest intention, in any event, of withdrawing 
 from the position that she had taken up. The Journal de 
 St. Petei'sbourrj — tlie Eoreign Office paper — a paper the proof- 
 sheets of the political part of which are daily read by one 
 of the chiefs of that office — that paper reprints articles on 
 foreign policy from the semi-official papers, and those rejirints 
 are read in Eussia as official utterances, just as much as 
 though they were signed "Gortchakoff" or "Alexander." 
 
 Now, reprinting an article from The Gazette oj the Academy
 
 Black Sea. B 
 
 — itself <i semi-official paper — the Foreign Office journal said, 
 in announcing the agreement for a Conference — 
 
 " We believe that the Russian public will await with con- 
 fidence the result of its deliberations. There is no ground for 
 believing that the Russian Government yields one iota of its 
 just demands. Let Europe, which admits their justice, clothe 
 them in a legal dress by the decision of the Conference. The 
 stability of Europe will gain thereby, and the dignity of 
 Russia will not be lowered." 
 
 This was early in December, and the article appeared, I 
 believe, on the same day on Avhich Prince Gortchakoff assured 
 us, in our own familiar English, that the "formula" for the 
 meeting of the Conference was " no foregone conclusion." 
 This is not all. Some weeks later, — long after Russia had 
 accepted our so-called "basis" for the Conference, — a paper 
 more official still, if that were possible — the official journal — 
 published a few out of many addresses that had been put into 
 the mouths of the peasants in different parts of the Empire. 
 By so doing, it gave, in the opinion of all Russians, an official 
 recognition to those selected. Well, the one placed in the very 
 first position, and honoured by large type in the " official 
 journal," was one in which England and Austria were coupled 
 together as the " insolent Powers " whom the Czar was 
 thanked for "humbling." This was just before the first 
 meeting of the Conference that met " without a foregone con- 
 clusion." There is only one thing more that must be said upon 
 this point of the "foregone conclusion," and that is this — 
 one of the grounds on which I have often heard the policy of 
 the Circular defended in Russia was, that England could not 
 be expected to resent it, when governed by a Cabinet pre- 
 sided over by a Minister whose opinion was contrary to 
 neutralization. Well, it does seem to bear upon this point of 
 tlie " foregone conclusion" that, in the debate on the Address, 
 that ^Minister should have stated from his official place, and, 
 as it were, almost in his official capacity, the view that he had 
 held as a private member. At all events, we seemed to see 
 from his speech that England went into the Conference with a 
 "foregone conclusion." This was the view taken of the speech 
 in Russia. The most important independent paper in Russia, 
 The Moscow Gazette, of the 7th of !March, says of it — 
 
 " Thus it was once more proved out of the mouth of the
 
 6 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 English Government, that the neutralization of the Black Sea 
 had no importance for England." 
 
 Now, there is another defence that is made for our conduct 
 in going into the Conference. It is said that Earl Granville's 
 answer to the Circular was couched in terms so severe that, 
 seeing that it was followed by a second Note from Russia, 
 more courteous than the first, the whole correspondence 
 amounted to a virtual withdrawal of the Russian claim. As 
 to that statement, I have only this to say — that the Russian 
 second Note contained no mthdrawal from the position 
 taken in the first, and that at the time at which it was 
 written a conversation took place between Prince Gortchakoff 
 and Sir Andrew Buchanan, in which the Russian Chancellor 
 said — you will find it at p. IG — "The decision of the Czar 
 is irrevocable, and I cannot, therefore, discuss the point of 
 form." !More than tliis : — the Russian second Note was ex- 
 plained away by the official papers at St. Petersburg; and 
 in explaiiung it they resorted to terms as offensive as any 
 that had been made use of upon the first occasion. The article 
 on this subject in The Golos was ascribed by rumour — but 
 well-founded rumour, I have reason to believe — to a very high 
 functionary of the Russian Foreign Office. I need not quote 
 these articles to the House ; but will only say that in St. 
 Petersburg no one could be found who ever heard of the 
 Russian second Note being meant for a withdrawal. Now, I 
 assert distinctly that our Government was aware of this. Why^ 
 even now it is afraid to print the communications which its 
 own Ambassador addressed to it, as to what was said and 
 thought in Russia, At p. 16 there is an extract, five lines 
 long, from a despatch. When I turn to the index I find that 
 we are supposed here to be given — " Rumours and opinions at 
 St. Petersburg." Yes ! But there is not one word in the ex- 
 tract about either " opinions" or " rumours." There are several 
 places in the Papers where the Foreign Office index-maker 
 has behaved in this tantalizing way ; but on this occasion 
 one is really tempted to ask seriously what can be the 
 nature of those opinions which were prevalent in St. Peters- 
 burg in November, and which it was "prejudicial to the 
 interests of England" to reveal in February? I am not ex- 
 l)erienced in these matters ; but I really begin to believe that 
 the much-used phrase "prejudicial to the public interests,"'
 
 Black Sea. 7 
 
 means "prejudicial to the interests" of right honourable gen- 
 tlemen who sit on that bench. I can tell the House what 
 was the oj^inion at St. Petersburg, and that was, that England 
 had agreed to a Conference in order that it might attempt to 
 save its honour by a farcical formality." We are now offered, 
 by apologists for the conduct of the Ministry, a fresh defence. 
 We are told the Protocol signed at the first meeting of the 
 Conference is a virtual withdrawal of the Circular. It is 
 a fact, not without interest, that there should be found 
 honourable gentlemen who take that view. I may say, in 
 passing, that we told France in a despatch that "nothing but 
 mere formal matters were discussed" at the first meeting ; so 
 I had thought that this Protocol was "a mere formal matter." 
 It seems, however, that it was more than that, and one news- 
 l^aper has called it " a landmark in the development of inter- 
 national morality," and many fine names besides. Still, after 
 all, when we come to read it, the only remarkable thing about 
 it is that it tells us nothing we did not Icnow before. 
 Russia herself — whatever her acts — has always had for the 
 principle of the efficacy of treaties what may be called a 
 Platonic love. Each time that she has broken treaties the 
 violation has been accompanied by a declaration that nobody 
 was more ready to observe them. Did Russia make any 
 difficulty about signing this declaration 1 None whatever ; no 
 more than she did about the " foregone conclusion." Provided 
 she got all she asked, she Avas very glad, indeed, to set her 
 hand to any number of declarations, which could always be 
 repudiated at a future date. Russia is far too sensible, and 
 far too cynical a power, ever to stick at declarations. There 
 were, I beUeve, two forms proposed — the milder one, of 
 course, by us ; the stronger one by Austria. If we are to 
 trust the semi-official papers of Vienna, we positively put 
 pressure upon Austria to make her consent to a Protocol, 
 which would have been— I was going to say a sham, but the 
 whole Conference is a sham — not merely a sham, but an open 
 and notorious piece of humbug. Austria refused, and insisted 
 on the stronger form — at least, so say the Vienna papers of 
 January 18. But, after all, what does even the stronger form 
 amount to but a declaration that in international morality a 
 principle exists Avhicli nobody has denied? Prince Gort- 
 chakoflf himself Avrote, in his answer to the Austrian reply —
 
 8 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 "It is well understood tbat a transaction concluded by 
 common consent cannot be modified but by common assent :" 
 as the House will observe, almost the very words of the Pro- 
 tocol. But he Avent on to say that the Treaty in question 
 having been violated, had ceased to exist. This refers to the 
 hoUow i^retexts alleged in the Circular 1 But such pretexts can 
 always be found by a Power that wishes to find them. They 
 could hardly be weaker than in this case. Piussia had "slept 
 upon her injury." She had treasured up these pretended 
 breaches of the Treaty, to bring them out at what she herself 
 had the audacity to call "a favourable opportunity." Sir 
 Henry Elliot called the pretexts " extremely futile " ; and I 
 agree with him, for I consider that their futility was only ex- 
 ceeded by the arrogance with which they were expressed. 
 Still, as I say, such pretexts can always be found. What is 
 needed is that the other Powers should refuse to recognize 
 them Avhen they are found. On the very same day on which 
 Prince Gortchakoff wrote that treaties " could not be modified 
 but by common assent," he wrote also to Austria, "the Russian 
 declaration has solved the Black Sea Question by a unilateral 
 act," — a statement which well illustrates the worth of declara- 
 tions such as these. I will say no more about the Protocol, 
 It lays down no new principle ; it is impUed in every treaty ; 
 and may be said to be actually expressed in that Treaty which 
 Piussia — respecting the principle — declared she meant to 
 break. 
 
 I have now shown, as I venture to think, that we went into 
 the Conference on a declaration by Russia that .she intended 
 to violate her treaty obligations, and without that declaration 
 having been in any way withdrawn. This is certainly the 
 Russian view. The Golos — an inspired paper of great au- 
 thority—said on the 21st of this month, eight days ago, that 
 an article in The Times, on the result of the Conference, 
 though clever, is untrue, inasmuch as it asserts that Russia 
 has practically withdrawn the Circular. The Golos goes on — 
 
 "Some think it well that the English should amuse 
 themselves with such a view, but we cannot agree in this 
 o])inion. Our adhesion to any Conference was announced 
 beforehand in the Circular itself; and in going into one we 
 did so, only to allow Europe to make our declaration into a 
 treaty and harmonize it with the Treaty of Paris. From the
 
 Black Sea. 9 
 
 moment of our declaration the restrictive articles ceased for 
 us Russians to exist, but they were not yet abrogated by the 
 other Powers. The Conference converted our unilateral Cir- 
 cular into an act of universal obligation, and made it a jmrt 
 of International Law. It is, then, out of the question to talk 
 of any withdrawal of our Circular." 
 
 iOven the official papers — if one may use such a phrase as to 
 a porti(jn of the press of a country in which all papers are 
 more or less official — even the official Press does not attempt 
 to disguise the completeness of the Ptussian triumph. The 
 Journal de St PHershouhj of the 15th of ]March, for instance, 
 says — 
 
 " Let us hope that the foreign newspapers will end by 
 admitting how much wisdom and moderation there was in the 
 step wliich Paissia took four months ago, and of which the 
 assent of Europe has now admitted the complete justness." 
 
 For my part, I frankly admit the wisdom — the worldly 
 wisdom — but I have my doubts about the moderation. The 
 same paper on the next day — the 1 6th — sets to work to show 
 how the victory was won, and ascribes the result to physical 
 force — 
 
 " However wise the intentions of the Great Powers, it is 
 doubtful whether those intentions would have borne fruit had 
 the language of the Imperial Cabinet been less firm, and had 
 it not been backed by a knowledge of the vast progress made 
 by Russia since 185G, and which would give her, in the event 
 of a struggle, far greater jjower than she possessed at the 
 time of the Crimean War." 
 
 The Golos of the 17th of March was even more jubilant 
 than The Journal — 
 
 " Russia has won a great victory, and her triumph is the 
 close of a struggle of fifteen years ago. Her enemies beat her 
 in arms, but in agreeing to destroy to-day that which they 
 built up then, they themselves pronounce their condemnation. 
 One cannot even conceive a more brilliant triumph than this 
 victory of reason. Every stipulation that restricted our rights 
 in the Black Sea is struck from the Treaty of Paris ; Russia 
 enters once more on her right of ha\'ing in that sea a war 
 fleet, unlimited in size and strength, and of erecting naval 
 •arsenals. This is the grand result obtained by our diplomacy. 
 If some cowards have feared that we should have bought it
 
 10 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 only by concessions on our part, the event shows that their 
 fears were totally ungrounded. Russia could not have hoped 
 for a more glorious solution of the question left unsettled by 
 the Crimean War." 
 
 Well, in spite of all these repeated statements, I suppose that 
 we are to be asked to believe that Russia has repented, having 
 seen the error of her ways. For my part, I do not think so, 
 and I repeat that the Russian declaration — never in any way 
 Avithdra^^^l — was the basis of the Conference. I have now to 
 show that we went into that Conference at a moment when, of 
 all others, our doing so was undesirable : I shall attempt to 
 show that the invitation of Pnissia was really that of Russia, 
 and that there was also no previous concert with our allies. 
 As for the Prussian origin of the Conference, I do not know 
 that any attempt will be made to-day to deny that. It has 
 been denied, and I vdU consider the denial presently ; but for 
 the moment I wish to consider the action of Prussia in detail, 
 and to try and see how far Russia was behind Count Bismarck. 
 According to the latter — at No. 54 — the Conference was to 
 be one " to take into consideration the question raised by the 
 overtures made by the Cabinet of St. Petersburg in the Cir- 
 cular." The word "overtures" is superhuman in its excel- 
 lence. WTiat we called a " violation," what the Turks called 
 a " denunciation," what the Austrians called a " repudiation" 
 and an "abrogation," Count Bismarck called "overtures" — a 
 far prettier word. AVell, we jumped at this proposal, and in 
 No. 184 we warmly thanked Prussia for having "assisted to 
 obtain some of the results Avhich Her Majesty's Governmenthad 
 desired," though what those results were I cannot conceive. 
 We had previously thanked Prussia with effusion, as the 
 French would say. The index precis of No. 37 says — " Her 
 Majesty's Government pleased with friendly conduct of the 
 Prussian Government." Now, what had been Earl Granville's- 
 view of the position of Prussia 1 What I have just quoted is 
 the view of the Cabinet as a whole ; but what was Earl Gran- 
 ville's first impression 1 We find it in No. 35, where he thrice 
 expresses his disappointment. I do not wonder that he should 
 have done so. Count BernstorfF had just informed him that 
 Count Bismarck "advised the avoidance of polemical des- 
 patches circulated in the press" — referring, of course, to Earl 
 Granville's publication of the English answer. I do not know
 
 Black Sea. 11 
 
 that a more insulting piece of advice was ever given to a great 
 Power. Well, as I say, in No. 35, we have only Earl Gran- 
 ville's opinion before he had consulted his Colleagues. In 
 No. 37 we have the opinion of the Cabinet. Earl Granville 
 had expressed " disappointment" at the conduct of Prussia. 
 The Cabinet did not express disappointment. On the con- 
 trary, they expressed "pleasure" — that is to say, that on the 
 very same day on Avhich Earl Granville had expressed his 
 "disappointment" at the conduct of Prussia in the afternoon, 
 on the same day, in the evening, he had, in the name of the 
 Cabinet, to express his "pleasure," and to agree to the idea 
 of a Conference. It appears that Prussia took the Kussian 
 side in this matter from the first. She continued to take it 
 to the last. Those Protocols show us the Prussian Ambas- 
 sador declaring that his instructions were merely to support 
 the Russian view. Perhaps there was no treaty ; but there 
 was at least an understanding. At all events, from the public- 
 newspapers themselves, we know that the Emperor William 
 is the Czar's " devoted friend,'' and that the Czar stands- 
 towards the Emperor William in the relation of being " yours- 
 till death." Not only is there now proof of an undei'standing, 
 but the papers show us that our Government knew it at the 
 time. No. 11 is a singular despatch. Earl Granville relates 
 the first conversation between Count Bernstorff and himself, 
 which took place after the receipt of the Piussian Circular. lie 
 asked — " Whether Count Bernstorff supposed the Czar of 
 Russia had reason to hope for support from Prussia or any 
 other Power ? " That is a question as direct as any of those 
 that are put here at torture time, and, like some of those, it 
 remained without an answer. The despatch contains na 
 answer. The index contains no answer. There was nO' 
 answer. There was no answer — that is, at the time ; but on 
 the 17th of January there was an answer. There was an 
 answer in the Protocol of the first sitting of the Conference, 
 and that answer is contained in the Prussian Plenipotentiary's 
 speech — for his first statement to assembled Europe was — ■ 
 
 "That his Court had instructed him to support and to 
 recommend the desire of the Imperial Government of Russia 
 to see the stipulations of 185C, relative to the navigation of 
 the Black Sea, submitted to a revision, which should eliminate 
 certain clauses."
 
 12 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 That was the answer. I am no enemy to Prussia; but 1 
 maintain that on this particular occasion, thanks to the neces- 
 sities of the war, the invitation of Prussia was that of Prussia 
 itself. Xot only, Sir, did we go into the Conference upon an 
 invitation such as I have described, but we went into it in so 
 great a hurry that we forgot even to consult our allies. I am 
 not speaking of our going into the Conference without the 
 presence of a Plenipotentiary of France. That is, compara- 
 tively speaking, a trifling matter, and one on which I lay less 
 stress. I am speaking of the absence of previous concert. 
 Take, for instance, our preliminary dealings with our chief 
 ally in the war terminated by the Treaty of 185G. France 
 had, with singular disrespect, been left by Prince Gortchakoff 
 to hear of his Circular from the newspapers. It was held 
 back, and only communicated to her — -ten days later — -on the 
 IDth of November. Xo cause is assigned for this insulting 
 and extraordinary delay. The first communication that France 
 received from us was, when she suddenly learnt by telegraph 
 that we invited her to attend a Conference, projiosed by 
 Prussia and accepted by us without inquiry. The facts are 
 startling Avhen stated in this naked way ; still, I think that 
 each clause of the proposition is capable of proof. No, 37 
 shows that we, in reality, agreed to the Conference on the 
 25th November. On the 27th we telegraphed to France for 
 her "concurrence." On the very same day, however, on 
 which this telegram reached Tours — that is, on the 28th, and 
 long before we had heard the views of the French Govern- 
 ment — we instructed our Ambassador at St. Petersburg, and 
 !Mr. Odo Russell, at Versailles, to state that we accepted the 
 Prussian proposition. On the 30th November only was it 
 that Earl Granville received a telegram from France, express- 
 ing her amazement at the Prussian origin of the Conference 
 that we asked her to attend, and by No. .55 we see that Earl 
 Granville did not venture to deny that Prussian origin. Lord 
 Lyons was more bold. In No. 79 he wrote that he had 
 said — 
 
 " What Prussia proposed was a Conference to be held at 
 St. Petersburg, without any special conditions. This proposal 
 Her Majesty's Government rejected, and made a proposal of 
 their own, in which it was expressly stated that the Con- 
 ference was not to be held at St. Petersburg, and in which
 
 Black Sea ' 13 
 
 certain preliminary conditions were laid down as indispensable. 
 It is not to the Prussian proposal, but to this English pro- 
 posal that the French Government is asked to consent." 
 
 These words were afterwards approved by Government in a 
 despatch. We see, then, that having, in writing to St. Peters- 
 burg, and in writing to Versailles (No. 85), distinctly admitted 
 that the proposal we accepted was a Prussian proposal, in our 
 communications at Tours we asserted the very contrary. 
 What did the Cabinet mean when they approved of Lord 
 Lyons saying that Count Bismarck having projjosed a Con- 
 ference at St. Petersburg, we had " rejected " this proposition? 
 I suppose it will be said that we rejected St. Petersburg, and 
 proposed London. But rejecting St. Petersburg would not 
 amount to rejecting the Prussian proposal, and St. Petersburg 
 was not the Prussian proposal at all, nor London ours. At 
 p. 24- we see that St. Petersburg was the suggestion of Piussia, 
 not of Prussia ; and by Xo. 58 we find that London was the 
 proposal of Turkey, I repeat that St. Petersburg was not the 
 Prussian proposal, and I fear that Lord Lyons' statement, that 
 we "rejected" the Prussian proposal, is one of those which 
 the Prime ^linister calls "unauthorized" ; but in this case it 
 was approved by Government. Well, there is another way in 
 which to escape from the dilemma. Lord Lyons said that 
 the Prussian proposal which we rejected was for a Conference 
 "without conditions," and he says that we, in what he is 
 pleased to call "our proposition," made certain " special con- 
 ditions." I am afraid that the plural here must be looked 
 upon as another of these "unauthorized statements." We 
 never laid down but one condition, and that condition was a 
 self-evident proposition, as far as words went, and a mockery 
 as far as facts. It is our old friend "no foregone conclusion." 
 Still, we can hardly have " rejected 'the Pru.ssian proposal on 
 this ground, inasmuch as Count Bismarck very gravely said to 
 Mr. Odo Russell — 
 
 " That, in his opinion, a Conference with a foregone con- 
 clusion would defeat its object, and be useless ;" 
 so that this can scarcely have been his proposition. If we 
 were right when we told M. de Chaudordy that we "rejected" 
 the Prussian proposition, Prussia certainly did not know of 
 the rejectiun, for long afterwards, in No. 82, we find Count 
 Bismarck saying that —
 
 li Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 " As the Powers have accepted his proposition, he leaves 
 the day for the meeting of the Conference to us." 
 
 Russia, too, thought it then, and thinks it still a Prussian 
 proposition, for as late as the IGth of March — last week — 
 the official journal said — " In spite of the English Press, a 
 Conference proposed by North Cxermany was accepted.'' I 
 think that nothing more discreditable was ever revealed in a 
 diplomatic correspondence ; and, for my part, I consider that 
 we were guilty of the meanest equivocation. On discovering 
 the Prussian origin of the Conference, France began to 
 hesitate, and finding cajolery in vain, we, in turn, commenced 
 to buUy her. On the 15th of December we entered upon a 
 course of telegrams, and on the 1 9th Earl Granville sent Lord 
 Lyons that mysterious despatch, of which an extract is given 
 in No. 119. I do not know whether the index to Parlia- 
 mentary papers is intended to contain a 'precis even of passages 
 Avhich have not been printed ; but, at all events, it is so here. I 
 do not know, I repeat, whether this is the customary course ; 
 but it is certainly a convenient course for those who are not in 
 the secrets of the Administration. Possibly in tliis case, and in 
 the others to whicli I have already made allusion, some portions 
 of the despatches which seemed dangerous were struck out 
 only at the last moment, and the index Avas forgotten. The 
 gentleman at the Foreign Office who corrects the proofs must 
 take warning for another time. No. 119 is an extract which 
 has no guile in it at all. Nothing can be more moderate than 
 its tone. It expresses Earl Granville's wish that the Con- 
 ference should no longer be postponed, and that is all. But 
 when we turn to the index Ave find — 
 
 " liussia and Prussia urge the early meeting of the Con- 
 ference, which must take place even without a French Repre- 
 sentative." 
 
 In the extract there is not one word about Russia ; not one 
 word about Prussia ; not one Avord that is imperative ; but 
 from the index it seems that France Avas right, and that the 
 co-operation of the confederates A\\as carried even to the point 
 of insisting that the Conference must take place Avith or 
 Avithout France. "Why Averc these parts of the despatch struck 
 out at the last moment ? Because Ave let them pass Avithout 
 remonstrance— that is the reason Avithout doubt. Probably 
 this imperious missive was hid from France. At all events,
 
 Black Sea. 15 
 
 such was our pressure and such her misery that she consented 
 to send a Plenipotentiary, provided we asked for a safe- 
 conduct. I will not go into the history of this negotiation. 
 The whole narrative is a commentary on the policy of going 
 into a Conference of this character in the middle of the most 
 horrid of modern wars. It was on the 1 7th December that 
 France consented to be represented at the Conference. It was 
 ■not till the 10th January, at night, that M. Favre was per- 
 mitted to receive Earl Granville's letter. On the 14th he 
 sent to Count Bismarck a request for a safe-conduct. No 
 answer was returned, although the safe-conduct had been 
 promised us. On the 18th we wrote a begging-letter, No. 178, 
 repeating our request to the Prussians to let out M. Favre. 
 On the 21st we wrote again. No. 186; but our only answer 
 was that on the 23rd Count Bismarck telegraphed to all the 
 •German paj^ers one of those wondrously vexatious paragraphs 
 which he knows so well how to compose — 
 
 " Count Bismarck has now declined to furnish M. Jules 
 Favre with a safe-conduct." 
 
 I need hardly add that wc did not remonstrate. But we had 
 not waited for M. Favre. Five days before he got our letter, 
 we pressed the Government at Tours to name another Pleni- 
 potentiary. We did not think the Government of Defence 
 sufficiently solid to be recognized as the Government of 
 France ; but wc did think it solid enough to compromise, if 
 need were, French interests, or to help us barter away our 
 honour. When asked to recognize the Government of Defence, 
 we often answered that when France should recognize that 
 Government, then would we. We were not sure, Ave said, 
 that these men could speak in the name of France. Yet aU. 
 the time Ave pressed with humiliating persistency for the 
 attendance of their Representative at a Conference at Avhich 
 the highest interests of Europe Avere at stake. Anybody 
 would do. Anybody might come. If not !M. Favre, then 
 M. Tissot. If not the head of the (Jovernment, then tlie 
 Secretary of an unrecognized Legation. Anybody — provided 
 that the Prime ^linister would be enabled to Avalk down to the 
 House of Commons and to say — " France Avas invited, and 
 France came." 
 
 There is only one more point in the Papers to which 
 I Avill allude. The last of all the Papers, and the last
 
 16 Speeches or Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 words of tliat I This is not a, case of "all's well that ends 
 well." I must say that, looking to the fact that this Paper is 
 far later in date than any of the others in the series, it certainly 
 was tempting fate to keep back the Papers in order that this 
 one might be printed. I have shown already how we 
 tried to cajole France into coming to the Conference, I have 
 shown how we tried to bully her. By this Paper I am 
 enabled to show that not only cajolery and bullying, but 
 even bribery was tried. This was a Conference either upon 
 the Eastern Question or upon the validity of treaties ; it was not 
 a Conference about the war. Prussia would have refused to go 
 into a Conference about the war. "Why Avas France invited to 
 attend ? Because she is, as the Queen's >Speech at the begin- 
 ning of this Session told us, an " indispensable member of the 
 European family" — though in this case she came near being 
 dispensed with altogether. She was asked, because without 
 her consent the acts of the Conference would have had no 
 value. This is why France was asked. She was not asked 
 because of .any private advantage to be gained by her in 
 coming, but for European objects. Yet we see by this PajDer 
 that our Government told France, and wishes it to be known 
 that it told France, that any day after the meeting of the 
 Conference was formally over, but before the members had left 
 the table — at which, 1 believe, by tlie way, they always lunch 
 — the French I'lenipotentiary might raise a discussion on the 
 terms of peace. Can anything be more discreditable than 
 such a bribe ? I have now, Sir, attempted to show total want 
 of concert with one of our allies. AVith the others, the concert 
 was only partial. As to the absence of France, 1 do not lay 
 stress on it — still, it was our fault for going into such a 
 Conference at such a time. Earl Granville himself said "that 
 he would not have consented to enter the Conference unless 
 France had been invited" to attend. But there are invitations 
 and invitations, and if you invite a man to dinner on the day 
 on which he is to be hanged, that can hardly be considered a 
 very serious invitation. You will tell me, no doubt, that 
 France has come in now. Yes. Four months later, under 
 peace ; under a different Government ; under a set of circum- 
 stances, that is, which you cannot have foreseen. Yes; 
 France has come in, and has given an unwilling assent to 
 your proceedings. Yes ; unwilling — as you may see by p. 38
 
 Black Sea. 17 
 
 of the new Papers or Protocols — that is, by the Due de 
 Broglie's sjjecch at the only meeting of the Conference which 
 he attended. 
 
 I believe that 1 have now shown that which I set out to 
 prove— namely, that we went into the Conference on the 
 Russian declaration, without that declaration having been in 
 any way withdrawn, and that we did so in an extraordinary 
 hurry and at the worst of moments. Why 'I Why did we go 
 into the Conference ? Did our allies ask us to do so 1 Not 
 one of them — not one. Was there any need? Did we go 
 into the Conference to avoid an otherwise immediate war ? 
 Not a bit of it. Ptussia Avas not less desirous of peace than 
 we ourselves, although glad, of course, to get without fighting 
 all that she would have gained by a successful war. Why, I 
 repeat, did we go into the Conference 1 The Prime Minister 
 has lately made some statements on this subject, to which, 
 with the permission of the House, I will allude. He said 
 that— 
 
 " To have declined a Conference would have been to have 
 kept open a European quarrel with one ally prostrate — namely, 
 France, and with Austria, our next best ally, in the position 
 of actually having taken the initiative some years ago, in 
 proposing the abrogation of the condition now in question." 
 
 That was one of the Prime Minister's two defences, and one 
 which I will ask the House to consider. This statement, in 
 plain words, can only mean that in refusing a Conference we 
 should have stood alone. Is that so ? I do not dwell upon 
 the fact that, at the moment of the issue of the Circular, 
 France was far from prostrate, but was coping upon alhiost 
 equal terms with Prussia. I do not dwell on this ; but I 
 come at once to our other allies. Now, as for Austria, she 
 answered this attack for herself — Count Beust answered by 
 anticipation our Prime ^Minister when he answered Prince 
 Gortchakotf. Look at No. 28. This was a reply to a confidential 
 despatch from Prince Gortchakoff, in which he reproached 
 Austria with now leading the anti-Russian i)arty among the 
 nations, although in 18G7 she had taken the initiative in the 
 opposite direction. Count Beust, No. 28, answered this 
 statement at great length, and he afterwards said to Lord 
 Bloomfield — 
 
 "That he was glad to have been able to answer Prince
 
 18 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 Gortchakoff 's observations regarding his despatch to Russia, 
 now three years old, on the subject of a revision of the Treaty 
 of 1856." 
 
 This was made as an official communication to Lord Bloom- 
 field, and is contained in No. 43. Austria herself, we see, was 
 indignant at the allegation with regard to her views, which 
 was made confidentially by Prince Gortchakoff, and repeated 
 here publicly long after it had been contradicted — repeated 
 by the Premier. I must go further. This argument about 
 Austria was worth nothing if it did not mean that we should 
 have stood alone. Now, not only was Austria with us, but 
 so were Italy and Turkey too. If those who are going to 
 speak on the other side of this question are willing to confine 
 themselves to what appears in these Papers, I am willing. 
 The Papers show that Austria was more firm than we were, 
 and that Italy and Turkey followed steadily in our steps. If, 
 however, you are going beyond the Papers — if we are to be 
 told that other Powers advised us to accept the Conference — 
 then I must ask leave to go outside the Papers too, and to 
 show how firm was the language of the King of Italy, and 
 that that language must have been brought to the know- 
 ledge of the Government. At the same time, the Papers are 
 strong enough — I want nothing more. All of them teU one 
 way. Nothing can be stronger than the language of Count 
 Beust to M. de Nowikoff. Turkey, as we see at pp. 14 and 
 18, was as firm. At p. 29, Italy formally contradicts a 
 rumour that her policy diff"ers in any way from that of 
 Austria and England, and by No. 50 we, in the most formal 
 way, thanked both Austria and Ifcily for their " prompt and 
 cordial" co-operation. At No. 41, Austria, and at No. 44, Italy, 
 and in numerous places Turkey, told us that " the views of 
 the Governments were identical " ; but none of these said so 
 after we had agreed to the Conference. Indeed, so emphatic 
 is the line taken by all our allies in support of our original 
 position — and, consequently, rather against than for our sub- 
 sequent action — that Government have strained every nerve 
 to try and find something that makes the other way. At 
 p. 50, under the No. 101, we have their only success ; and it 
 is certainly a ridiculous abortion — an extract three and a half 
 lines long, evidently picked out of a parenthesis in the middle 
 of a despatch —
 
 Black Sea. 19 
 
 "Austria," Count Beust said, "is far from desiring to 
 prevent a peaceful settlement of the question in dispute, and 
 has not the slightest wish to encourage the Porte to take an 
 energetic line." 
 
 That is all I Not another word ! One of those gentlemen of 
 the road, known as Queen's messengers, and who live in fear 
 of my honourable friend the ]\Iember for Warrington, was 
 hardly sent all the way from Vienna to Whitehall with those 
 three lines and a half in a large bag. If I thought so, I 
 would gladly vote with my honourable friend for their total 
 and immediate suppression. Certainly that innocent docu- 
 ment might have gone by post, and even on the smallest and 
 most public of postal cards. No, Sir, that is a short bit from 
 a long despatch — a despatch relating a conversation between 
 Lord Bloomfield and Count Beust. What can have been the 
 character of this conversation, of which it was detrimental to 
 the public service — that is, to the right honourable gentle- 
 men on that Bench — that a word should be revealed to an 
 expectant Parliament beyond these three lines and a half? 
 Now, in this case, it is not necessary to call rumour to one's 
 aid. It is plain, from the tone of even these three lines, that 
 we urged Count Beust to lower his tone, and consent to 
 condone the offence of Ptussia ; and he replied, in terms of 
 commonplace conventionality, that his tone was not immoderate, 
 and "that he was far from desiring to prevent a peaceful 
 settlement of the question in dispute." Of course, he was 
 "far from desiring" that which no one desires — war; but he 
 believed — and, as I think, justly — that the course taken by 
 our Government was of all courses the most likely to lead to 
 war, if not immediately, at any rate in the future. So much 
 for the Prime Minister's statement as to our allies. Now, to 
 turn to his other singular defence for his policy in going into 
 the Conference upon the Russian Note. These were, I think, 
 his words — 
 
 " If we had said to Russia that .she must take the con- 
 sequence of her act, we should have placed ourselves in a 
 position of estrangement from that Power at a time when we 
 had a most sacred duty to discharge— namely, to keep 
 together in co-operation the neutral influences of Europe, in 
 the hope that at some happy moment we might be able to
 
 20 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 contract that range of destructiveness wliicli we liad long seen 
 extending." 
 
 "Well, I think, Sir, that the right honourable gentleman 
 had best not have made that statement. It is strange that, 
 with the knowledge he must necessarily possess of both the 
 sets of Papers, Avhicli he has advised the Crown to lay before 
 Parliament, he should have used such an argument as that 
 which I have quoted : that he should have argued that we 
 were bound to co-operate with Russia in respect to the war 
 at that moment of time, when only a few weeks earlier she 
 had, in the most insulting manner, declined co-operation. I 
 must say. Sir, that I think that the right honourable gentle- 
 man forgot the date — I do not know whether he ever forgets 
 dates — I hope he forgot the date. Why, the Piussian Circular 
 was issued on the last day of October ; but on the 1 Gth of 
 October — that is, a fortnight earlier — we had addressed to 
 Russia that extraordinary despatch which is numbered 202 in 
 the Papers relating to the war. That was the despatch of which 
 my honourable friend who sits near me, the honourable 
 Member for Nottingham (Mr. Auberon Herbert), once said, 
 that it was " like a toad in a rock — the wonder was how it 
 came there at aU." That despatch was one in which we 
 invited Russia to come to an understanding with us as to the 
 terms on which peace between France and Germany might be 
 made, and to co-operate with a view to joint action. This 
 despatch was telegraphed, and was communicated to Prince 
 Gortchakoff on the 17th of October. What was the result? 
 Our Ambassador was "snubbed." The Russian Chancellor 
 said — 
 
 " That he could not see that any advantage could be 
 hoped for from England and Russia agreeing as to what 
 niiglit be reasonable terms of peace." 
 
 Our Ambassador insisted, and the Prince finally agreed to 
 submit our telegram to the Czar. What did the Czar say ? 
 The Czar said that he thought " that any agreement between 
 the neutral Powers would prove a barren and impracticable 
 measure." So much for the chance of co-operation with 
 Russia. If the Prime Minister had borne the dates in mind 
 when he was speaking, he would have found that two days 
 after our attempt at "co-operation with Russia," the Czar
 
 Black Sea. 21 
 
 called hi.s ^linisters together at Tsarskoc-Seloe, and declared 
 his intention of denouncing his treaty obligations. Really, 
 Sir, I am at a loss to conceive how a Minister can assert that 
 the chief reason why we ought to have forgotten our dignity 
 and closed our eyes to future danger to European peace, was 
 that a fortnight after this we were bound to use all efforts to 
 try and secure the co-operation of Russia in respect to the 
 war. Why, then, I ask again — why did we go into the Con- 
 ference ? I cannot, for the life of me, imagine why. The 
 pretexts of the Premier are not worth much, as I have shown. 
 Why, then, were we in so terrible a hurry ? Russia hesitated. 
 She promised not to act. At page 26, she called her own 
 Circular "the abrogation of a theoretical principle, without 
 immediate application"; and, in No. G3, we find General 
 Ignatieff — usually bold enough — telling the Grand Vizier 
 that— 
 
 " The Czar's honour being satisfied by the step that he 
 had taken, he had no intention at present of proceeding 
 further by the creation of a fleet in the Black Sea." 
 
 No Avonder that Russia hesitated and took this humble 
 line. She was without allies. Our allies were all Europe 
 except Prussia, and the Prussian arms at that moment were 
 taxed almost beyond their powers. The odds were so over- 
 whelming that Russia could not, for a moment, have ventured 
 to brave a struggle. The country was not aroused. Addresses, 
 it is true, were voted by many of the towns ; but I have it on 
 the authority of many distinguished Russians of all parties, 
 that enormous pressure was put on to secure congratulations 
 that should have been spontaneous. In !Moscow, where alone 
 in Russia a true public opinion exists, there was no enthusiasm. 
 The subscription which was started to pay for the Black Sea 
 fleet collapsed. The Golos — -one of the most popular papers 
 in St. Petersburg — opened a list, arud at the end of two days 
 had collected thirty-eight roubles — that is, not 5/. So dead 
 did the whole thing fall, that the Imperial Cabinet had to 
 trump up a ridiculous story of an American alliance, and to 
 exile to Olonetz, on Lake Ladoga, the St. Petersburg corre- 
 spondent of the Independancc Beige, for revealing this " State 
 secret," which never, in fact, existed. !Men talk of Russia's 
 colossal power. Colossal size ; but not colossal power ! It 
 is as easy to exaggerate the strength of Russia at the moment
 
 22 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 1 
 
 jr 
 a.s it i.s difficult to over-estimate her future might. Eussian 
 statesmen know their weakness. They know that they are faij 
 more v-uhierable in Central Asia than we in India. They knowi 
 that in Poland, which as late as 1 8G3 required 200,000 men, and , 
 a long struggle, Austria has a weapon against them, which, if 
 pressed, .she knows how to wield. The truth is, that Russia was ■ 
 frightened, and that we were frightened too, and that we stepped 
 out of our way and gave her a success which was not merely a 
 diplomatic victory over us, but a conquest of the international! 
 principle, and a triumph over public law. How sad must be! 
 the consequence of our .step. There was an opinion growing 
 fast before the war, and which would have grown again after 
 its cessation, wliich had for direction to extend the .sphere of 
 treaties. "What becomes of that opinion after the startling, 
 success of the Ilussian Chancellor 1 This declaration was an, 
 attempt to carry into public matters that kind of open! 
 c)riucism which shocks in private life. \Miat becomes of all 
 our treaties — not political only, but commercial too — if such 
 a doctrine is to prevail ? I do not suggest that we should 
 have insisted that the Russian Note should be withdrawn. It 
 would not have been necessary that it should have been with- 
 drawn. It would have been enough for us to have shown 
 that we looked upon it as an empty threat. It would have 
 been enough for us to have rested our case upon Earl Gran- 
 ville's Note until the times had changed. AVhat do you think 
 that Ru.ssia would have done? Would she have invaded 
 Austria in the depths of winter ? If so, Austria was prepared 
 to take the consequences. Would she have invaded Turkey I 
 If 80, Austria and Turkey, supported by our fleet, were there. 
 She would not have invaded either. I have no wish to fight 
 for the neutralization of the Black Sea. I am not, indeed, 
 myself a partisan of neutralization, which has,' however, in my 
 opinion, no bearing on the question. It would not have been 
 necessary to fight. I do not wish to fight for Turkey. We 
 should n()t have had to fight for Turkey. These are not the 
 lM)iiit3. The point is, that the Executive Government has, 
 through an exaggerated timidity, permitted the obligations 
 of treaties to be pul^licly released. I know that in these times 
 it has become the fasliion to mock at treaties, and that a 
 cynical view is taken of their obligations. It would be a sad 
 day, however, and one to be deplored, whenever our Govern-
 
 Black Sea. 23 
 
 ment should back that view with the weight of its ap- 
 proval. How are you ever to have peace — except the peace 
 of exhaustion — unless you have an adequate sanction to 
 enforce international agreement, and where are you to 
 find that sanction except in treaties ] Yet treaties will 
 habitually be broken by certain Powers, unless the breaking 
 of them is habitually discountenanced by the moral and 
 peaceful Powers. A great deal has been said of late of the 
 decline of England. For my part, I believe that this country 
 was never more rich in all the elements of power. If, owing to 
 our action in the present case, some discredit may have 
 attached to our name, it is no fault of ours. It is not the 
 fault of England, but comes of the timidity of her statesmen, 
 and the weakness of her rulers. It is said that the policy of 
 the Government has been a peace policy. I do not think 
 that it has been either a peace policy or a safe policy. It may 
 be a policy for a time cheap — although your Estimates do 
 not show it ; but it is not a truly pacific policy, if it is neither 
 calculated to maintain the present dignity of this country, nor 
 the security of any in the future.
 
 •24: 
 
 THE BALLOT. 
 
 A Speech delivered in the House of Commons on the 2dth of 
 June, 1871, in support of the Second Reading of the 
 Ballot Bill. 
 
 Mn. Speaker,^ — The lion. Baronet, Sir, who has just sat down 
 (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) has blown both hot and cold with 
 regard to American examples. He began by admitting that 
 America had not a secret Ballot ; but he then went on to 
 quote the perversions of the American system as specimens of 
 the state of things which would here be created by the Ballot. 
 America has, like France, a form of voting which is secret 
 only if the voter wishes that it should be secret, and therefore 
 American example is worthless, for it has no bearing on our 
 case. The American Ballot is not necessarily secret, and if 
 it is worth adopting the Ballot here, it is worth going further 
 than this, for permissive secrecy gives no sufficient protection 
 against intimidation. I might, Sir, say the same of the 
 remarks of the right hon. gentleman the ]\1 ember for Oxford 
 University (Mr. G. Hardy) in reference to Rome. I speak 
 with all deference ; but I was always taught to believe that 
 ai Borne the voters came to the poll in batches, and when 
 actually in the booth consulted one with the other as to how 
 they should vote, and then cast their votes together. So much 
 for lioman and American examples. Then, Sir, the hon. 
 gentleman attacked the Government for introducing an in- 
 violably secret Ballot, and for going beyond the Eeport of 
 the Committee. The Committee did certainly recommend that 
 Kcrutinies should contiime to be possible, but they so tied up 
 and limited the scrutiny as to make it necessary either to adopt 
 the cheque-book i)lan of the noble Lord the Secretary for 
 Ireland, or the bakehouse plan of my hon. friend the Mem- 
 ber for Huddcrsfield (.Afr. Leatham), or some other intricate 
 contrivance, before a scrutiny could be held at all. But the 
 (iovernmcnt have had a year to reflect, and have naturally
 
 The Ballot. 25 
 
 iisked themselves whetlier a scrutiny is necessary, and now 
 they offer us an inviolably secret Ballot. 
 
 As, Sir, ill conjunction with my hon. friend the Member 
 for Cambridge (Mr. R. Torrens) and my hon. and learned 
 , friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. James), I had the honour 
 last year to propose to move in this direction, I, for one, am 
 prepared to defend their step. If any hon. Member should 
 rise in his place and should say that which no one as yet has 
 said in this debate — namely, that he is for the Ballot, but 
 Against abolishing the scrutiny — then I would ask him, what 
 plan he would propose. The gist of the matter is not the 
 chance that the discovery of votes may take place under such 
 a provision, but the danger that the beneficial results expected 
 from the Ballot may not arise from it if the voters think — 
 however foolishly — that a discovery of votes may take place. 
 When, for instance, you iiiake a man vote with cheques out of 
 a chec[ue-book, numbered on their backs, and having counter- 
 foils numbered on their faces ; when the voter has to show 
 the number on the back ; when he is told that afterwards the 
 deputy returning officer will have to place the papers on their 
 faces and look only at their backs ; but that, on the other 
 hand, the returning officer, when the papers come to him, will 
 have to place them on their backs and look only at their 
 faces, — I doubt whether the voter will feel persuaded that 
 there is no danger of secrecy being invaded under such a plan. 
 Besides, even if the voter were inclined to believe in the 
 Ballot at fir.st, he would not be allowed b) believe in it long. 
 Those whose interest it might be that he should not believe 
 would soon begin to go about and say, with a wink and a 
 shrug of the shoulders — " Oh yes, of course it 's ' secret,' but 
 everybody knows how everybody else votes, all the same." 
 "When the poor voter asked how that could be, the answer — a 
 Quaker's answer — would of course be the question — " Why 
 did they number your ticket then?" I doubt whether an 
 intimidated voter would make much of a reply. "When we 
 inquire if a scrutiny is really needed, we find at once that the 
 fight is over personation. 
 
 Hon. [Members ojjposite get up one after another and say 
 that personation would be increased by the Ballot, and the 
 hon. Baronet the Member for East Gloucester (Sir Michael 
 Hicks-Beach) says so, too. Let any one who thinks so go and
 
 26 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 talk to an old election agent. They all will tell you the same- 
 tiling. They will say — " Personation is an imaginary danger." 
 They say — • " It is a House of Commons danger," not a 
 danger which exists in the constituencies, — a danger conjured 
 up for the purpose of debate. Now, the hon. gentleman 
 opposite — who has conjured it up for the purpose of this par- 
 ticular debate — has quoted American example. I have already 
 said that America has not a secret Ballot, Each State has 
 its own system, and the systems agree only in this — that no 
 one is absolutely secret. Still, he has referred to American 
 example, and has followed the hon. Member for Cambridge 
 University (Mr. B. Hope) in quoting Mr. Hankel. Now, I 
 do not wish to say anything hard of Mr. Hankel ; but those 
 who heard him will bear me out when I say this much — that 
 Mr. Hankel was called to damage the Ballot and succeeded 
 only in damaging himself. He ascribed to the Ballot all the 
 corruption of South Carolina before the war — which is to 
 throw a heavy weight upon its shoulders — and he traced to it 
 in particular the personation that prevailed. He admitted, 
 however, a little later, that the State had no registration 
 system. So much for ISh. Hankel. Now, where can person- 
 ation largely exist 1 In small wards or small boroughs the 
 voters are too well known for personation to be attempted ; 
 but in big boroughs — to have any effect that is worth plotting 
 for, and worth paying for, and worth running serious risks for 
 — it must be done on a very large scale. It never has been 
 so done. You cannot instance an election in England where 
 che cases of personation were proved to have been more than 
 a very few. Ju.st now I asked, where are you to personate ? 
 liut I will go on to ask, who you are to personate ? Look at 
 the danger of personating a man with several qualifications. 
 Such a man, being rich, is well known, and his class is a very 
 small one, which makes it useless to personate them. Per- 
 sonating a man who is going to vote on the same day in the 
 •same ward i.s very dangerous work indeed. Even if the man 
 is not known to the rate-collector— not known to persons- 
 •specially selected on account of their knowledge of the ward 
 as agents for the purpose of detecting personation— still there 
 IS the risk of the other man being present at the same time. 
 The two nsks jointly are enormous. The agents for the 
 detection of personation need not be named till the day
 
 The Ballot. 27 
 
 of polling, so that for aught that the personator can tell he 
 may find his next-door neighbour there to watch him. It is 
 generally well known in the ward who is absent and who is 
 bed-ridden, and the dead men will be few if you pass our 
 much-needed Registration Bills. In all these cases, too, the 
 risk will be no greater under the Ballot than it is now. The 
 only difference is that you will not be quite so certain that on 
 petition you will be able correctly to amend the "tally" or 
 return. Of how little moment is this fact, I would ask ? For 
 years past there have only been two cases — that of Taunton, 
 and that of Bewdley — where the return was altered, and in 
 those cases the same result would have been brought about under 
 this Bill. Remember that you have one most valuable new 
 power given by this Bill — namely, that of striking off as many 
 votes from the "tally" of a candidate as personated votes are 
 found to have been procured for him. You might go even a 
 step further : — you might say that when personated votes — 
 procured or not procured — are proved to have been given — 
 numerous enough to turn the election if all given one way — 
 that in such cases there should be a fresh election. I have 
 one thing more to say upon this score. Those who are 
 opposed to the abolition of scrutinies, on the ground that you 
 would have an increase of personation, must take care lest we 
 be forced soon to go further than they would like, and pro- 
 hibit the most fruitful of all causes of personation — namely, 
 the voting of non resident electors. I dare say that my own 
 case is no unusual one ; but every one knows his own case 
 best. I vote in nine constituencies, returning twenty ^Members- 
 to this House. Many of the elections take place on the same 
 day. See what an opening for personation is thus afforded. 
 I can offer no defence for such a state of things ; but it is one 
 which, if we throw out this Bill, we shall very soon be called 
 on to defend. Now, Sir, those who attack the Government 
 for making scrutinies impossible are bound either to produce 
 a plan for combining scrutiny with Ballot, or else to declare 
 against the Ballot altogether. Well, Sir, they have made- 
 choice of this last alternative. They have — through the 
 voice of the hon. Member for West Norfolk (^Ir. G. Bentinck) 
 — attacked the BaUot upon moral grounds, and attacked it 
 also on the widely different ground that it will not have the 
 good effect that is looked for from its adoption.
 
 2*^ Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 ■With the leave of the House, Sir, I would wish for a very- 
 few moments to examine both these i^oints, and, in the first 
 place, that of the results of the Ballot. The hon. Member for 
 South-West Lancashire, Sir, has done me the honour to quote 
 my evidence as to the insufficiency of the Ballot to cope with 
 ' bribery. Well, Sir, it is true that on this one point of bribery 
 I do hold an opinion at variance vnth that of many of my 
 friends. If hon. ^Members ask in what manner, under the 
 Ballot, bribery can take place, I will beg leave to tell a story. 
 lu the days of George II., a great Court lady — whom I will 
 not name, but who had much influence with the King — betted 
 a certain clergyman .5,000/. that he would be made a Bishop. 
 He lost, and paid his money — yet did not seem altogether 
 displeased at this transaction. Well, Sir, wiU not voters bet 
 with " Men in the Moon " about a particular candidate's 
 return, and will it not then be their interest to vote for the 
 return of that candidate — who will not be sorry to lose his 
 bet, if only he contrives to win his seat 1 Promises of pay- 
 ment conditional on a candidate's return amount to the same 
 thing. The commonplace answer that people are too shrewd 
 to pay money when they do not know how the bribed man 
 will vote, is worthless as applied to this form of bribery, be- 
 cause by a conditional promise you make it the interest of 
 every voter to whom such a promise is made to vote himself 
 for his briber, and even to procure by similar bribery other 
 voters to vote too. There is but one real answer that can be 
 made— namely, that the facility of detection will be consider- 
 able, because conditional bribery must be worked through a 
 man whom the voters can trust. Such a man, no doubt, is 
 hard to find ; but I fear that he can be found, and the voters 
 will trust anybody rather than trust nobody at all. I repeat 
 that there is reason to fear that the Ballot will not put down 
 bribery in those small boroughs which already are corrupt ; 
 but I .shall not have the cheers of hon. gentlemen opposite 
 when I say that the natural remedy is to do away with the 
 small boroughs themselves. 
 
 Now, h^ir, the question is, whether there are not ample 
 grounds for thinking the Ballot necessary even if it would not 
 put down bribery? There is something that it would sup- 
 preas— it would suppress intimidation. It has been said that, 
 compared with intimidation, bribery is a small and a decreas-
 
 The Ballot. 20' 
 
 iiig evil. The evidence taken by the Committee shows that 
 this is true. I need not go into the cases. Blackburn alone 
 would be enough ; Cheshire is enough ; Wales is enough ; 
 Ireland is enough. The great danger of intimidation of the 
 Blackburn type is that it does not admit of absolute proof. 
 Work is slack ; it is impossible to prove that the men dis- 
 charged have been picked for political purposes. Besides, 
 there is intimidation that is no intimidation. You will find, 
 for instance, in the building trade, that in boroughs Avhere 
 there are sharp contests, nine foremen out of ten will vote the 
 same way as the master, though, probably, not a Avord has 
 passed between them. You may say that it is the duty of 
 voters to make sacrifices. But they do make sacrifices. If 
 they did not, a good many of my hun. friends in this part of 
 the House would not be here, and several lion, gentlemen on 
 that side would not be there, for I do not pretend to say that 
 the intimidation is all on one side. They do make sacrifices ; 
 but you have no right to call upon them to make those sacri- 
 fices unless stern necessity compels you so to do, and that 
 necessity is wanting here. 
 
 I think, Sir, that the Ballot will put an end to intimida- 
 tion, and many hon. gentlemen opposite, by quoting Mr. 
 Mill, and by taking the moral objection to the Ballot, seem to 
 think so too. Mr. Mill never denied that the Ballot Avould 
 have this effect ; and if hon. gentlemen tbink that the Ballot 
 would do no good, why should they resort to the moral argu- 
 ment at all? But, Sir, I cannot help thinking that, on the 
 one hand, the moral argument has not been sufficiently 
 answered in this debate ; and that, on the other, it is capable 
 of refutation. The moral objection. Sir, rests upon the notion 
 that the voter is directly responsible to certain other persons, 
 and that this responsibility is a dead letter unless those other 
 persons can test him by his recorded vote. What other 
 persons ? There is a good deal in this objection when used 
 by those who are in favour of a restricted franchise. They say, 
 fairly enough, that if there are persons capable of exercising a 
 sound political judgment and a wise political control, who are 
 excluded from the franchise, the voter should be made by 
 publicity responsible to that opinion and judgment and con- 
 trol. But why exclude these persons from the franchise ? On 
 the other hand, the objection is a weak one when made use of
 
 30 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 iigainst those of us who are in favour of a widely extended 
 franchise. There are many who think that the franchise 
 should be extended to all who are personally capable of form- 
 ing a political opinion. Towards whom, then, from this point 
 of view, is the voter's responsibility to exist 1 There is, how- 
 ■ever. Sir, a further argument of Mr. Mill against the Ballot 
 to which I must refer. At the time that Mr. Mill — from 
 having been a friend — became an opponent of the BaUot, he 
 was for a limited franchise ; and when he became an advocate 
 for an extended franchise, he ought perhaps, logically, to have 
 returned to his former view. But he was unfortunately 
 tempted to go beyond the argument that I just now stated, 
 and to lay down a general proposition, that even under uni- 
 versal suffrage publicity would still be desirable. He said 
 that, in his opinion, men would not cast their votes as honestly 
 in secret as in public. He put the case of a repudiating State. 
 Almost every voter might see his private interest in repudia- 
 tion ; and whereas in public his vote might be an honest one, 
 in private he might go wTong. There are many answers that 
 may be made. One is, that few scoundrels would be deterred 
 by i)ublicity in a country where the majority of voters were 
 as great scoundrels as themselves. Another is, that free insti- 
 tutions could not be maintained at all in a State in which 
 the majority of the voters at the polls were scoundrels such as 
 these. Another is, that against a few cases of dishonest secret 
 votes — which if given publicly would be honest — you have to 
 set off many dishonest votes given under publicity, which if 
 given secretly would be honest. This is clearly true when 
 intimidation prevails; but even putting intimidation out of 
 sight, there are dishonest public votes which might be honest 
 private ones. Take, for instance, that of the man who, be- 
 cause his father was a Tory, or who, because his grandfather 
 was a "Whig, voted with his family party, well knowing that 
 Ilia honest vote would be given the other way. There is, 
 however, a far more complete answer than any of these to the 
 nxiral argument against the Ballot. Mr. Jtlill, when he stated 
 it, admitted that at some times and places the Ballot might 
 be a lesser evil than coercion. I do not know, indeed, how 
 the contrary opinion could be maintained. On any other 
 sui)po.sition you might have an Elective Chamber which 
 would represent the opinion of a small minority of the people.
 
 The Ballot. 31 
 
 You might have laws passed by that Chamber in defiance t)f 
 the wishes of the great majority. Rut if you make this 
 supposition — if you admit that at some times and places the 
 Ballot might be the lesser evil, then, I would ask, is not this 
 country one of those places, and one of those times the pre- 
 sent ? To what, after all, amounts the moral objection? The 
 Committee expressed it thus. They said that those who hold 
 it believe " that the act of voting is a public duty, and should 
 involve a pubUc responsibility." We accept that definition; 
 we admit that it is a public duty ; and we admit that it should 
 involve a public responsibility. But, it is because we admit 
 this responsibility, that we argue that you should above all 
 take care that the public receives the true opinion of each 
 voter, and not a repetition by that voter of the opinion of 
 some one else. There are many of us who, although we sit 
 upon these benches, hardly look upon the Ballot as a measure 
 to protect the poor and dependent voter in the exercise of a 
 right. We look rather at it as a measure to secure the proper 
 fulfilment by the voter of a duty towards the State. It is 
 admitted that at present intimidation often prevents the voter 
 from performing the duty that is thrown upon him by the 
 State. If so, you are bound to see that he is put in a posi- 
 tion which will enable him to perform that duty by giving 
 his suffrage for the man who, in his honest opinion, is the 
 most fit to compass the good of the whole land.
 
 32 
 
 LAND. 
 A Speech delivered at the Inaugural Meeting of the Land 
 Tenure Reform Association, at Freemasons' Hall, m 
 May, 1871. 
 
 '(Sir Charles Dilke, who was introduced as the Chairman of 
 the Commons Preservation Society, said — Your President has 
 introduced me as Chairman of an association between which 
 and that which meets here this evening there might at first 
 sight appear to be some conflict of opinion. There might have 
 seemed to be that conflict, if it had not been for the explana- 
 tion given you in your President's introductory speech ; and I 
 know not how I could better occupy your attention than by 
 pointing out how little conflict there is really between those 
 who would preserve open spaces for the people, and those whO' 
 would act upon the principles of this association. All of us 
 here, however, even those who represent the Land and Labour 
 League, hold that commons in the neighbourhood of large 
 towns should be preserved for the use of the people. We go 
 further still, for we are all agreed that commons and open spaces 
 should rather be preserved than that they should go to swell 
 private estates already over large. Then all of us must see that 
 though there is talk of the "compensation " given to commoners 
 for the loss of common rights, the compensation is given to 
 individual commoners of the moment when the common rights 
 are taken, but the children of the people who have these here- 
 ditary rights thus taken, are reduced too often to be hereditary 
 poor. Surely, too, all associations dealing with land must unite 
 in desiring to prevent the stealing of land. That is the duty of 
 the Commons Preservation Society ; and I may say that, just 
 as there are few countries where the stealing of land is so 
 little punished as it is here, there is no country with which I 
 am acquainted in which land is so often stolen. When re- 
 formens talk of making land " as saleable as a watch," I wish 
 they would add, and " punishing the theft of land in the same 
 way aa the theft of a watch." I may be supposed to hold 

 
 Land. 33 
 
 that nil waste lands slicmld be kept open, and the Land and 
 Labour League to believe as an article of faitli that all waste 
 lands should be enclosed ; but on the one hand I am far from 
 saying that I would keep open all waste lands, if the alterna- 
 tive lay between keeping them open and making other really 
 good use of them ; and as to the Land and Labour League, 
 they are for keeping grounds near towns and beautiful natural 
 scenes for the recreation of the people ; and they too had 
 sooner that, for instance, the New Forest were kept as it is 
 than that it should go to swell half-a-dozen noblemen's parks. 
 Tliis resolution speaks of the principles which should guide 
 Parliament in its practice in dealing with land. Now, let us 
 go to the most recent example we have had of the principle 
 which has hitherto guided legislation. We have had a Bill, 
 as you know, for the enclosure of the New Forest. It might 
 seem that all of us would desire to see the enclosure of a place 
 like this, and the apparent object of the measure was the 
 public good. Yet we opposed the New Forest Bill, and it is 
 withdrawn. Why did we oppose it 1 — what would have been 
 its effect? Its authors expected that it would, out of the 
 63,000 acres, have given 10,000 acres to the commoners, and 
 50,000 acres to the Crown. The odd acres would have been 
 sold to pay expenses, and would have gone to augment the 
 already overgrown estates of the neighbouring landowners. 
 The forestal rights of the Crown would have been extinguished 
 over the commoner's allotment of 10,000 acres, and Ave could 
 not have hoped, permanently, to have kept that open. As 
 to the 50,000 acres, they Avould have become the absolute 
 property of the Crown — free from all common rights. Now, 
 thanks to the speeches of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Lowe, in the 
 cases of the Thames Embankment and of Epping Forest, most 
 dangerous heresies have lately grown up as to the private 
 character of the interest of the Crown in the Crown lands. 
 Mr. Gladstone has laid down doctrines in those cases worthy 
 of the time of Charles II., although the House of Commons has 
 now three times pronounced against liis view — twice as to 
 Epping, and once as to the Embankment. Well, at all events, 
 the Crown allotment in the New Forest would under the Bill 
 have become land which the Crown could sell, or which, at a 
 future time, a king could (if he had the power) resume, and 
 take once more into his own hands as his private in'operty. 
 
 D
 
 34 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 That is, v.'c should not only have had no security that any of 
 the experiments ^vliich we desire to see tried would have 
 been tried on that public land, but, on the contrary, we know 
 thatuiuh r the Bill the Crown would have sold these lands out 
 and out as residential estates, to be held for shooting purposes 
 by rich people. 
 
 Mr. Lowe has said that it is harsh action on the part of 
 the Crown to use its forestal rights in order to prevent enclo- 
 sure, t ecau.se these rights were crigiually granted only to 
 enable kings to hunt their deer, and now the deer are gone. 
 But, en the other hand, they certainly were not gi-anted for 
 kings to make money of them ; and to sell forestal rights 
 for small sums of ready money is assuredly to divert them 
 far more from their original uses than is the holding them as 
 an instrument for the preservation of open spaces. 
 
 Now, as to the New Forest, the representatives of the Crown 
 blew both hot and cold. "When we said to them — " If you must 
 needs enclose, give up a little of the land to the trial of the 
 experiment of nationalization ; let it to persons on long terms 
 at fixed rents, with the condition of residence," then they 
 answered — "The land of the New Forest is too bad. The 
 soil or the sand would break their hearts." " Well," we an- 
 swered them again, " if so, then keep it open as a great 
 national recreation ground, and also in order that the next 
 generation may dispose of it on sounder principles, perhaps, 
 than arc known to us." Then they say — "Oh dear no! — it 
 is worth a million," 
 
 However, the experience of the Continent is worth nothing 
 if it does not show that small cultivation by residents is the 
 mode in which poor land can be made to yield the largest 
 returns. 
 
 Here, then, in the Crown lands, we still possess a chance 
 of tiying the experiment of small proprietorship, or of small 
 tenancy on long terms. The latter plan has all the advantages 
 of the former, and this one of its own besides— that the State 
 will preserve the freehold at no cost. This experiment oi 
 small proprietors is an experiment that should be tried. 
 Their industry, their frugality, their prudence, are well known ; 
 and the true reason of it is that these men set no money pric-.- 
 upon tlie lab(jur of their own strong arms. Each one of us is 
 ever more disposed to count the cost of the labour that he
 
 Land. 35 
 
 pays for, than to count tlie cost of tlic labour that lie gives. 
 For dairy-farming the peasant proprietor is peculiarly littcd, 
 for this lets him give to the land close to his house the labour 
 of his children. In Guernsey, for instance, a large proportion 
 •of the cnorniox:s profits of dairy-farming is secured by the 
 adoption of a system of tethering the cows ; it could not be 
 worked at a profit if the cost of the children's labour were to 
 be reallj'' counted. The only case that can be made against 
 small proprietorship from the }ion-political point of view is 
 this — that it discourages or prevents the employment of 
 machinery. This may be denied, for co-operation in the 
 l^urchase or hire of machines is practicable enough. In 
 England there is a prejudice against small farms that comes 
 from the Irish example, but the case of Ireland is not a case 
 in point. Against it, too, we have to set off the experience of 
 all the rest of Europe. I am willing to admit that, in 
 Guernsey, and also in French Switzerland, there are special 
 causes which go along with small farming to produce very 
 favourable results ; but in Flanders there are no such causes, 
 for the soil of Flanders is proverbially bad ; the people .speak 
 a, tongue which is unknown elsewhere, and which unfits them 
 for acquiring either good German or good French ; and, con- 
 sequently, they are unable to send their brothers and sisters 
 into service abroad, and have no resource besides their agricul- 
 ture. The island of Guernsey is a most extraordinary case of 
 what may be done by small fiirming. The soil and climate 
 are but fairly good. There are in Guernsey 10,000 acres. 
 Those 10,000 acres maintain, I believe, a population of nearly 
 30,000. Jersey is about one-third the size of the Isle of 
 Wight, which we look upon as a favoured portion of our 
 country, yet Jersey maintains the larger population of the 
 two. As to the ridiculous stories of excessive subdivision, I 
 may say that I am myself acquainted with a small proprietor 
 in Guernsey, who holds exactly the same land which his direct 
 ancestors have occupied for 800 years, and that he holds it by 
 the same deed. The Irish example as to subdivision is worth 
 nothing, for it is fatally affected by the insecurity of tenure. 
 The only weighty argument against small farming is the 
 political argument, that the small proprietor, occupied almost 
 exclusively upon his fiirm, and tempted in a high degree to 
 give his whole time to its cultivation, will be narrow and
 
 36 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 bigoted in his views, and -will, witli his neighbours, go to form 
 an unintelligent and obstructive class. Well, no one of course 
 can deny the conservatism of the peasant owners, but, at the 
 same time, the argument is a somewhat hasty one. Un- 
 favourably as the small proprietor may compare vdih the best 
 type of great proprietor, I cannot admit that he compares 
 unfavourably with the person with whom alone he ought to 
 be compared — that is, the labourer who is not a proprietor at 
 alL I have often thought that the best outcome and result 
 of the Irish laud discussion of last year, was not the weak Bill 
 that we passed, but the research caused by its preparation into 
 the land tenure of other countries, and the consequent dis- 
 coveiy that our system stood alone, and that, in all the world, 
 there was none like it. It is of all known systems the only 
 one in which the small proprietor has no place, and the one, 
 too, in which the State has the least place. Our land tenure 
 is not only exceptional, but by far the most exceptional that 
 can be found. There is no country where there is such an 
 absolute divorce between the people and the soil. Tliis is the 
 only country where the land has, besides the labourer, to 
 support two classes more — the farmer and the owner. There 
 are many countries where much land is owned by persons wht 
 do not till that land themselves ; but, then, in those countries, 
 the farmer who takes it of them is himself the cultivator — as, 
 for instance, in northern Italy. There arc many countries 
 where only the one class exists ; that is, where one and the 
 same man is owner and cultivator too. But the existence of 
 three distinct cla^ises is unknown, as the rule, elsewhere. Ti> 
 express the same thing in another way — there is no country 
 where the land .system is so commercial as it is here. Now. 
 many land reformers would merely bring to an end the law of 
 primogeniture and those other restrictions which are known as 
 entails— a course which would only make our land tenure 
 more commercial still, in making land more easily marketable. 
 Cobdcn, for instance, was one of these, and his notion of re- 
 form in the land laws was that land should be sold as easily 
 as a watcL We, too, desire that land should be sold as easily 
 as a watch, but we desire, at the same time, to have securities 
 ^in.st its too great accumulation, and to see also that the 
 State should once more claim that reasonable share in the 
 control of land which it never should have given up. How
 
 Land. 37 
 
 new and nnhistorical is the present tenure of land ! Why, so 
 far as I know, no grants of hand were ever made by English 
 kings, except in reference to the performance of some public 
 duties. The defence of the country, the administration of 
 justice, the maintenance of the sick and of the poor, were 
 always thrown upon the persons to whom land was granted. 
 The service of themselves and of all persons who held under 
 them was ever a condition. But, when the Cro-\\ai fell before 
 the landlords, the duties which had been borne exclusively by 
 that class were shifted by them on to the shoulders of the 
 whole community, and this without any corresponding charge 
 upon their lands. 
 
 There is a further movement in progress now, for again 
 shifting burthens off the land and on to the general popula- 
 tion. Speaking in the House of Commons the other day. Sir 
 Massey Lopes said that the " owners of real property " were 
 subject to " iniquitous extortions." I think Sir Massey Lopes 
 would do well to let the subject of the taxation of real property 
 slumber. I should advise him, were he a friend of mine, to 
 let it rest. The movement is not a new one. As long ago as 
 1849, Cobden made a well-known speech upon it. He pointed 
 out that all the real property in England was often changing 
 hands, and changing hands when known to be subject to those 
 increasing rates, and that, therefore, the present owners of pro- 
 perty had no fair claim to exemption from those burthens, 
 having bought their property well knowing that it was subject 
 to them, and having paid for it the less in consequence. Be- 
 sides this answer, which, as he said, was a sufficient one, he 
 went on and gave another, and that is the one to which I 
 would call attention, as it is the key to our present movement. 
 He said — " Real property is the only property which, not only 
 does not diminish in value, but, in a country growing in 
 population and advancing in prosperity, always increases in 
 value, and that without any help from the owners," That is 
 the text upon which Mr. Mill has preached. The " unearned 
 increase " in the value of land is an increase, of course, which 
 takes place everywhere ; but we must not forget that, in this 
 country, it is peculiarly great. There is no country where 
 fortunes are made so fast as here. The country being very 
 limited in area, and there being peculiar political and social 
 privileges of a semi-feudal nature connected with the owner- 
 
 405911
 
 38 Speeches of Sir Chakles Dilke. 
 
 ship of land, every man who makes a fortune must needs 
 invest it in a great estate. There is, of course, in consequence, 
 a rapid, and increasingly rapid, unearned rise in the value of 
 the land, and one result of this is to drive off the land the 
 few yeomen who still exist, and absolutely to prevent any 
 others from arising in their place. Nothing can harm the 
 land. Even unsuccessful war, in which we should be shut up 
 within our shores, and in which much personal property would 
 be entirely destroyed, would only raise the value of real estate. 
 I repeat, that the landowners had best leave matters where 
 they stand, or the people will discover that in old times the 
 land bore all the taxes. 
 
 Our land system is not only modern, it is strange — so 
 strange as to be looked on by other nations as an eccentricity. 
 Entails exist hardly anywhere but here. Primogeniture ob- 
 tains nowhere else at all. Others of our j)eculiarities are of 
 modern growth. Property in land is absolute, and it is in the 
 hands of a few thousand people. Three centuries ago it was 
 not absolute, and our landed proprietors Avere not few, but 
 many. It is, too, a system which, during the present century, 
 has remained untouched. No other country of Europe is 
 there that has not revised its land tenure within the last 
 eighty years. 
 
 The remedies pointed out to us by this association are 
 drastic ones, but less than these would not avail. Of what 
 good is it merely to promote the easy sale of land 1 Here, in 
 England, to sell land, however freely, means only to sell it to 
 the rich. Still, a remedy must, and must soon be found. The 
 condition of the country fills us with alarm. Those who have 
 seen our race abroad, under fair conditions, know how frank 
 and handsome the Englishman is elsewhere, and might be here. 
 But, when he looks around him at Sheffield, or in Eastern 
 London, he sees none but miserable and stunted forms. The 
 life of tlie English labourer is a steady march down a hill, with 
 a poor-house at the bottom. At the same time, the observer 
 find-s, when he asks for the remedy, that, in these matters, 
 there is not a pin to choose between the two parties in the 
 State, Let thcni beware lest we people of the towns do not 
 form one for ourselves.
 
 30 
 
 FREE SCHOOLS. 
 
 A Speech delivered at Birmingham on ISih Octoher, 1871. 
 
 X Divisiox in favour of Fi-ee Schools, called for in the 
 House of Commons last year, was so small a one, that those 
 ■who paid but little attention to it might have been almost 
 justified in supposing that it revealed a minority hardly worthy 
 of being taken into account. At the same time, if that 
 minority be scrutinised with care, it wall be found that in it 
 were members from almost all the largest towns, and that the 
 average number of voters whom the members for these cities 
 represented was over 14,000 each. No heed was paid to that 
 expression of the opinions of the great towns. The smallness 
 of the numbers of those voting prevented, in a Parliamentary 
 sense, the necessity of paying any heed to that opinion. 
 Nevertheless, we now begin to see how right Mr. Dixon was 
 in taking the sense of the House of Commons upon that 
 occasion, and how great arc the evils which would have been 
 avoided had an opposite ojDinion prevailed. It is a point upon 
 which the feeling of the great towns is at variance not merely 
 with that of the country districts, but also, what is more to be 
 regretted, perhaps, with the opinion of clear-headed men, not 
 without reforming instincts, who have made education their 
 special study. The Endowed Schools' Commissioners, for 
 instance, have laid down in the most stringent way the rule 
 of " no gratuitous education except as the reward of merit " ; 
 and, as I will presently explain, I should agree Avith them if 
 the conflict were one between paid-for education and the 
 principle of free admissions. Eut that is just what it is not ; 
 and I am prepared to contend that the question lies between 
 this latter alternative of remission of fees in some shape or 
 other, and the application to England of the free-school 
 system of the United States. 
 
 Mr. Melly, than whom no one is more competent to speak 
 upon the subject of education, in writing to The Times the 
 other day, made use of the following words : — " I am con- 
 vinced that wherever compulsion is really enforced, free
 
 40 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 admissions ^vill have to be very largely given." He went on 
 to show two things — firstly, the impossibility of doing without 
 free admissions ; and, secondly, the unfortunate danger, which 
 lie could not but deplore, of the heart-burning and ultimate 
 improvidence likely to be caused by giving free admissions to 
 the children of the drunken, and refusing them to those who 
 stint tliemselves of the necessaries of life to pay the pence for 
 their children's schooling, because they can just manage to pay 
 those pence themselves. Yes ; and this heart-burning which 
 !Mr. Melly thought might possibly be avoided by giving a 
 large number of free admissions, will be in no way absolutely 
 avoided by that course, but only transferred a little further — 
 pushed off from one class to another a little higher up. 
 Instead of its being heart-burning between the improvident 
 labourer and the provident, it Anil be heart-burning in that 
 case between the clerk and the artisan. 
 
 Let us proceed step by step. This is too important a 
 matter for us to jump hastily to conclusions. The first point 
 to establish is, that compulsory instruction is impossible, and, 
 consequently, that universal education is impossible without, 
 at least, the remission of fees to a large proportion of the 
 children. If this be so, the question before us ceases to be, 
 "Is it good to found a free-school system?" and becomes, 
 " Is it be.st to found a general free-school system, or to remit 
 fees, or to establish certain separate and special free schools 1 " 
 Inasmuch as the last of these three courses is clearly possible 
 only in great towns, I propose to neglect it altogether in an 
 investigation, the residts of which ought to hold good for the 
 whole land. Now, speaking generally, is it the case that if 
 we have compulsion we must remit fees or have free schools ? 
 \\Tiat do we find from experience 1 Throughout the whole of 
 Germany and Austria, in Sweden and Norway, in Finland, 
 and in most of the Swiss Cantons, the fees of poor children 
 are either remitted or paid out of the Poor-Rate. In parts of 
 the French cantons of Switzerland, that is to say, in Geneva 
 and Vaud, and mo.st of Neuchatel, and in the United States 
 of America, tlic common schools are wholly free. In France 
 there is not compulsion ; but it is admitted in France, as I 
 learn from M. Duruy's report, that if compulsion is introduced, 
 instruction must be free, and compulsory-frce-secular education 
 IS an important branch of the programme of the Liberal
 
 Fki:e Schools, 41 
 
 Party across the water. In England, Mr. Forster, in giving 
 permissive compulsion, found himself also forced, to give along 
 with it permissive free schools and permissive payment of fees. 
 If we look beyond the countries where compulsory education 
 exists, or is being introduced, we find that in all countries 
 where education, without being compulsory, is nevertheless 
 widely spread, remission of fees takes place. In Holland, 1 
 am informed that more than one-half of the children attending 
 the conamon schools receive their instruction free. We shall 
 soon be able to judge to what extent fees will be remitted in 
 this country, but we may temporarily, I think, assume that if 
 we reject a free-school system, we must agree to a large re- 
 mission of fees ; or, otherwise, if we insist upon universal 
 education, without that remission, we shall be subjected to a 
 great direct increase of the pauper class, accompanied by a 
 corresponding rise of rates, and consequent indirect increase 
 of that class. The question of the precise extent to which 
 remission of fees is likely to take place is one as to which avc 
 are at present without sufficient information to give a very 
 positive opinion. The examples of Holland on the one side, 
 or of Germany on the other, are, from the ditference of the 
 conditions, likely to be fallacious. The experiment of the 
 orders of the Birmingham Education Aid Society would seem 
 to show that so great is in this town the number of persons 
 living on less than the cost of a pauper's keep, that if we go 
 no higher than this point the number of free admissions must 
 be enormous ; and the estimate made for the Manchester School 
 Board of the amount required to pay the fees of the poor in 
 Manchester confirms this gloomy view. If, however, it be 
 true, that the real choice is not between universal payment of 
 school fees on the one hand, and free schools on the other, but 
 between this latter system and a wide remission of fees, then 
 it is clear that whatever arguments can be urged against re- 
 mission of fees, are so many arguments in favour of a free- 
 school system ; and those who attack a free-school system 
 should, at least, attempt to defend remission of fees — the 
 alternative plan. 
 
 Now, this consideration really disposes of most of the 
 arguments which have been used against a free-school system. 
 Mrs. Fawcett, who in her well-known letter to The Times, 
 made the strongest attack that has yet been seen upon free
 
 42 Speeches of Sir Chakles Dilke. 
 
 schools, went too far ; and ■while proving that from her point 
 of view, remission of fees has a pauperising eflfect, was not 
 able to dcnj' that if we have compulsion, we must have a very- 
 wide remission of fees — a remission which, I am convinced, 
 must soon extend in the great towns to nearly one-half of the 
 cliildren who attend the public elementary schools. Well,. 
 Mrs. Fawcett thinks that the stigma of pauperism " ought " 
 to attach to the parents of such children ; but the question is 
 really one of utility — whether the attaching of such a stigma 
 is for the benefit of the people at large- — and it is the rechictio 
 ad ahsurdum of some of the coldest principles of science to 
 degrade the people in order successfully to maintain an 
 economic theory. Now, look at remission of fees. Not only 
 are the children whose fees are remitted placed in a miserable 
 position towards the others, and their parents lowered in the 
 moral scale by having to solicit the favour of exemption, but 
 those degrading effects will be permanent, and will cling for 
 ever to the system. On the other hand, if all schools receiving 
 aid from public funds were free, the system would be too wide 
 a one to admit of the possibility of invidious attacks being 
 directed against those who might avail themselves of its 
 advantages ; and even if any temporary stigma did by a 
 miracle attach to them, at least the next generation, born to 
 the sy.stem, would find it as little degrading here as it has 
 been found in America. I go further. I say that not only are 
 those who attack a free-school system bound to defend re- 
 mission of fees, or else to declare that they are prepared tO' 
 enforce compulsion without it, and to lock up in workhouses 
 the parents fnmi wliom the fee cannot be obtained ; but I say 
 that they were also bound, holdiiig these opinions that they 
 do, to protest, at the time, against our allowing remission of 
 fees to become a part of our ncAv English system. From the 
 fact that they raised no outcry, I presume that they prefer the 
 alternative of a wide remission. Yet, they speak of a free- 
 school system as a form of out-door relief, Avhereas it certainly 
 would seem that it is remission of fees and not a free-school 
 •system, which is out-door relief. 
 
 The main attack, however, that has been made in the 
 name of Kconomic Science upon free education by certain 
 Advocates of comi)ulsion rests upon the following grounds : — 
 That compulsion is only defensible if education be as neces-
 
 Fkee Schools. 43- 
 
 sary as clothes and food. "If free education," said Mrs. 
 Fawcett, in her letter to The Times, "why not free clothes and 
 free food 1 " Now, those who use this language are not them- 
 selves prepared to put the two things on the same footing. 
 They let the public pay one-third of the cost of education 
 without a whisper of dissent. They let either the public pro- 
 vide out of rates, or benevolent persons out of subscriptions, 
 another third. They are not prepared to put education on 
 the same footing as clothes and food ; and to lock up in 
 workhouses those who cannot pay the whole cost of their 
 children's schooling. I say the tvhole cost advisedly, because 
 while the present fees are only one-third or one-fourth part of 
 the cost, the argument holds good for the whole cost. Yet, 
 these illogical opponents, who see in this case that the neces- 
 sities of society are the highest law, shrink from locking up, 
 and prefer remission of fees — that is, prefer the very outdoor 
 relief which their argument condemns. I douljt, for my part, 
 whether education can be compared to food and clothes at 
 all. Without food and clothes the child will die. Without 
 education the child will not merely not die, but may live as 
 contentedly, though not perhaps as usefully as with it. This 
 fact alone is enough to prove that it is a mere figure of speech, 
 altogether wanting in scientific accuracy, to say that education 
 is as necessary to the child as food and clothes. Education 
 is necessary for wholly different reasons and in a wholly 
 different degree. When the State interferes to save a child 
 from death by starvation, it interferes to protect the life of a 
 citizen who is incapable of protecting his own. Its interference 
 is justifiable from the point of view of the individual. On 
 the other hand, compulsory education is justifiable from the 
 point of view of the State, The State suffers by crime and 
 outrage, the result of ignorance. It interferes, therefore, to- 
 protect itself Xot, however, only for this reason, but also 
 to prevent the existing waste of intellectual power, and to 
 enhance the i^roductive capacity of the country. Food, on 
 the whole, is rather necessary from the point of view of the 
 individual ; education, on the whole, from the point of view 
 of society. The difference is rooted in the popular mind, 
 which is a point for statesmen to remember. It is possible to 
 convince a labourer that he is rightly to be prevented by the 
 workhouse system from bringing into the world children who
 
 •44 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 must from tlieir birth be supported by the parish. It would 
 be wholly impossible to introduce such a \iew with regard to 
 education, without which the father would tell you that he 
 got on very well, and without which, as he would believe, his 
 son might got through the world with equal success. Com- 
 pulsion in education does not rest upon so narrow a ground 
 as to be only defensible if non-education be a positive injury 
 to the cliild : it is justifiable as a State necessity. Education 
 comes far nearer to drill than it does to clothes. Drill, or 
 -compulsory service of all citizens in times of emergency, may 
 become a State necessity. Suppose that compulsory service 
 in a time of national danger were to become a, State necessity, 
 and that the State should make us all turn out, would you 
 have us forced, not merely to go without our wages, but to 
 equip ourselves and provide our guns and our supplies 1 
 Would you not make the old and the halt pay by taxes their 
 fair share 1 Well, my contention is that education when 
 made compulsory is so made upon State grounds, and that it 
 could not be defended upon grounds applicable only to the 
 individual. Besides, you must not think that there is not a 
 sacrifice in any case. Even under a compulsory free system, 
 the parents are all called upon as parents to make what in 
 some cases is temporarily an enormous sacrifice, by giving up 
 the wages of the children. 
 
 I now come to Mrs. Fawcett's chief objection to the free- 
 school system, namely, that under it the man without 
 children would be forced unjustly to contribute to the educa- 
 tion rate, and that the man with few children, would have to 
 pay as largely as the man with many. Now, I may say in 
 passing, that whatever this hardship may be, it already exists, 
 and the objection which ought to have been raised a long 
 time ago was, so far as I know, heard for the first time when 
 it was proposed to establish an absolutely free system. 
 Putting that aside, I may say that in many towns the man 
 with no children, if a workman, is in general a lodger, who 
 does not pay rates ; and if you answer me that indirectly he 
 does pay them in his rent, I answer you again that he does 
 not feel that he pays them — which in the matter of responsi- 
 bility, which we shall soon be discussing, comes to the same 
 thing. Again, wliile the Imperial taxes contribute a large 
 share of the cost of the schools, this objection is, at all events.
 
 Free Schools. 45 
 
 true only to a limited extent ; for tlie man -with children may 
 be shown to pay more taxes than the man with none, and the 
 man with many more than the man with few. Again, in the 
 case of the unmarried man who will one day marry, which is 
 the commonest case of all, the rate as contrasted with the fee 
 is an insurance — a payment spread over a lifetime, instead of 
 being concentrated in the most difficult financial period. 
 iMrs. Fawcett's contention is really that the substitution of 
 rates for fees would discourage providence ■with regard to 
 marriage, and tend to an undue increase of the population. 
 Now, if this be a fact, it proves too much, for it holds good 
 against all contributions from taxes towards the cost of 
 education and all contributions from subscriptions, as well as 
 against those from rates. Again, are there not increased rates 
 when increased house-room is required for an increased family ? 
 As a fact, too, is not the rate a more real check than the fee^? 
 The rate falls upon the unmarried lodger the moment that he 
 marries. The fee does not begin to touch him for six years, 
 when his first child is five years old. Then, the cost of 
 schooling — a penny a Aveek, if we arc to accept the present 
 contribution of the State — bears so small a proportion to the 
 other branches of the cost of children, that we may doubt 
 whether it can have any influence upon population. It must 
 have all the less influence, too, from the fact that it does not, 
 like the heavier cost of food and clothing, begin when the 
 child is born, biit so much later, that if there be several 
 children the eldest Avill be earning wages for the family before 
 the youngest has begun to go to school. Again, to use a 
 wider argument, may it not fairly be maintained that the 
 prudent unmarried man has, under the existing form of 
 society, a pecuniary interest in the education of the children 
 of the improvident, inasmuch as he will have to pay police 
 rates to keep them quiet and prison rates to lock them up, 
 besides being deprived as a citizen of the State of his share 
 in that general prosperity which, would be caused by their 
 instruction 1 Besides, on the whole argument of this supposed 
 check upon population by the school fee, and its removal by 
 a free-school system, I ask those who support this objection 
 whether they admit the necessity, if a free-school system is 
 not established, of remitting fees as they are being remitted 
 here at this moment ; and I ask, if fees are to be remitted.
 
 46 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 what becomes of the argument of the restraint on popu- 
 lation 1 
 
 One word more. It is said that the free-school system is 
 breaking down in America. I do not believe that as a fact. 
 Fees were tried for a time, I believe, in New York State, and 
 the inhabitants had to go back to free schools. I do not 
 believe that the free-school sj'stera is breaking down in 
 America, and I maintain that it is idle to say that such and 
 such miserable consequences will arise from its adoption here 
 when you have before you the magnificent example of that 
 country, in which no such evils have arisen. Against the 
 hair-splitting arguments made use of in opposition to the 
 system, I believe that I have shown its necessity. But I 
 might go further than to speak of its necessity, and dwell at 
 :ny conceivable length upon its advantage. By the adoption 
 of a free-school system you gain that universality of education 
 which we believe would free you in the country from drunken 
 boors and in your towns from roughs ; although universality 
 might be obtained tlirough remission ; but you gain what is 
 more important still — increased concord and unity between all 
 classes of the population. I make this last statement advisedly, 
 because the case for free schools would not be tenable if they 
 were asked for under the belief that they would be confined 
 to the children of the poor. I contend that there is reason to 
 hope that those not poor would gradually avail themselves of 
 the blessings of the system, and I repeat that the case for 
 free schools would not be tenable if they Avere asked for as 
 a benefit to the wage-earning class alone. They are not thus 
 asked for, but as a benefit to society at large. So far is it 
 from being true that under a fi'ee-school system the artisans 
 would escape from the duty of paying for the schooling of 
 thoir children, that I believe that here, as in America, the 
 fliildrcn of the middle classes would gradually come to attend 
 those schools, while the weight of the rate would be likely to 
 fall chiefly on the class whose children would the most cer- 
 tainly attend them. You have now a population to whom 
 political powers have been given, or in whom political rights 
 have been admitted, very largely uneducated, and to a great 
 extent not even as yet desiring education, and you stand in 
 need of a strong and of a rapid remedy. A free-school 
 .system is offered to you, and you are told that it would be a
 
 Free Schools. 47 
 
 system of out-door relief, as though under a general free- 
 school system any man could look on free schooling as a 
 charity. Would not each man know that he was paying the 
 sum fixed by the State as his fair share, and would not the 
 only persons not reached by the rate or the tax be those from 
 whom payment cannot in any case be screwed? The question 
 is not one of free education to be given by the rich to the 
 poor, but one of the respective convenience or inconvenience 
 of two different modes of payment. "Where a State necessity 
 and an individual necessity are combined, as they are in edu- 
 cation, the public mode of payment, as contrasted with the 
 individual or private mode of payment, is the rule. For 
 instance, you pa}' for your policemen by a police-rate, and not 
 by a fee each time you call him in ; and yet you do not look 
 upon the services of the policeman as alms from the State. 
 The question is merely one then as to the better mode of 
 payment. The public mode of payment has in this matter of 
 education additional advantages of its own. It would of 
 itself tend to produce common education in common schools, 
 which is, for innumerable reasons, a good thing. For instance, 
 education is far cheaper when conducted on a large scale, and, 
 consequently, when conducted in common schools than when 
 conducted in private ; and, after all, if there be any trifling 
 ■abstract advantage in the payment of fees, the impossibility 
 of obtaining universal education without some mode of 
 remission, and, on the other hand, the enormous waste caused 
 by the want of primary education, cause any such advantages 
 from the payment of fees to shrink into insignificance by their 
 side. 
 
 These are the opinions which the divisions, taken by Mr. 
 Dixon and myself, when the Education Bill was in committee, 
 have shown to be the opinions held by the great towns ; but 
 they are not the opinions of persons in society, nor the 
 opinions of leading statesmen; and the voice of the great 
 towns, expressed as plainly as it was on that occasion, is at 
 present powerless by the side of other, and, as I think, less 
 legitimate expressions of a less wise opinion.
 
 48 
 
 REDISTEIBUTIOK 
 
 A Speech delivered at Manchester on Srd November, 1871. 
 
 Sir Charles Dilke, after some preliminary observations, 
 said, — lam here to maintain not only that we have no security 
 that the opinion of the voters is accurately represented in the 
 House of Commons, but that, as a fact, it is on many occa- 
 sions grossly misrepresented, and this not by any failure on 
 the part of members to do their duty towards their con- 
 stituents, but by the conditions themselves imder which the 
 House is elected. I cannot put this better before you than 
 by taking a case which has very lately actually occurred. 
 
 On the 14th August last, a division took place, in which 
 the tellers for the minority were Mr. Fowler and ]\Ir. Jacob 
 Bright, on the question of the Contagious Diseases Acts ; 
 and in the division, forty-six members voted against the Govern- 
 ment, and were beaten by fifty-eight members who voted with 
 them. I might say, in passing, that twenty-five out of the 
 fifty- eight members were paid oflicials ; but that, although an 
 interesting fact of itself, has no practical bearing upon what 
 I am about to state, which is, that the forty-six members were 
 elected by 741,000 voters, and the fifty-eight by 324,000. 
 Of the latter, the twenty-five paid ofiicials represented 
 170,000, leaving only on the Government side thirty-three 
 independent members, representing 154,000 voters, of whom 
 only one represented a big borough, and not one a first-class 
 borough. Among the forty-six members who composed the 
 minority, there were fifteen members representing 20,000 
 voters apiece. 
 
 This is not the only occasion upon which Mr. Jacob Bright 
 has been connected with divisions in which he suffered an 
 apparently overwhelming defeat, but in which he was in 
 reality the spokesman of a majority, or something like a 
 majority, of voters. The amendment, which is well known 
 by liis name, and which he moved in committee on the 
 Education Bill last year, was supported by 132 members, and
 
 Redistribution. 49 
 
 the Government obtained 253 votes; they beat Lim, that 
 is, by nearly two to one. But while their members were 
 elected by 1,7G7,000 voters, his represented 1,435,000 voters, 
 and the majority was one of 330,000 voters only, of Avhom 
 the paid members of the Government stood themselves for 
 220,000, leaving hardly any majority at all, or only one 
 which is easily made np from the votes of mere party hacks. 
 Mr. Jacob Bright's amendment was supported by twenty-two 
 members elected by more than 20,000 voters each, while the 
 Government received the support of only fifteen such members, 
 of whom four were paid servants of their own. 
 
 In this case, then, where a most important decision had to 
 be taken by the House of Commons, and where vast subse- 
 quent dissatisfaction has been caused by the position which 
 the Government then assumed, in spite of all the power at 
 the command of a Liberal Government when supported by 
 the Conservative party — in spite of a coalition, as we call it 
 in the House, between the two front benches — here w-as a 
 case in which an enormous apparent majority is shown to 
 have represented no majority at all of the voters whose 
 opinion was supposed to be consulted on the point ; and the 
 members, you have observed, who voted against the Govern- 
 ment on that occasion, had been elected, each of them, on 
 the average, as the representative of 10,000 voters, while 
 those who voted with the Government were the representatives 
 of about G,000 each. It may indeed be stated, in general 
 terms, but Avith great accuracy, that on all Badical divisions 
 against the Government, these proportions hold good, and 
 that the Radicals are elected, each of them, on the average, by 
 10,000 voters, and the Government supporters, each of them, 
 on the average, by 6,000. Sometimes Government itself 
 suffers by the existing state of things. Not often, for this 
 can only occur on the rare occasions on which Government 
 acts in a Radical ^nse, but it has taken place not long ago. 
 On 31st July, IGO members voted with Government in favour 
 of clause 18 of the Ballot Bill, and were beaten by 256 
 members, who supported i\rr. Henry Jamts, the representative 
 of tiny Taunton, and who voted for excluding poor men from 
 Parliament by throwing upon candidates the necessary costs 
 of the erection of hustings and booths. 
 
 Now, the IGO represented 1,670,000 voters, and the 256, 
 
 E
 
 50 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 a few short of the same number ; or Government, beaten by 
 a hundred, had yet a majority of voters on its side. Not 
 only are divisions often changed as to their results, and 
 minorities represented as majorities, but some apparently 
 infinitesinially small minorities, when examined from this 
 point of view, become large. For instance, in 1870, twenty- 
 six members only, including tellers, voted for payment of 
 members ; but these twenty-six represented 300,000 voters, 
 or 12,000 voters apiece. So, again, the forty-six members 
 who voted against the match tax represented 660,000 voters 
 in the constituencies; and the 110 members who voted with 
 Mr. Pij'lands against paying the illegal over-regulation price 
 for commissions in the army, represented 1,260,000 
 voters. 
 
 I need not multiply instances of this kind. Almost every 
 day of the session supplies them in greater or less degree ; 
 and I maintain that, when examined with care, the division 
 lists give such startling results as to justify any one in declaring 
 that no kind of finality can be said to have been reached in 
 parliamentary reform as long as the existing anomalies in the 
 weight of votes continue. It is almost impossible to realize 
 the extent to which these anomalies go. Mrs. Fawcett once 
 stated about as strong a case in a few words as can well be 
 put, when she said that the "electors of Portarlington had 
 132 times as much representation as the electors of Glasgow"; 
 and the same Avould be true if, for Glasgow, we substituted 
 Manchester or Marylebone. The metropolitan boroughs con- 
 tain three and a Cjuarter million inhabitants; they have 
 300,000 voters, and twenty-two members, or one member to 
 14,000 voters, and 145,000 inhabitants. The four towns of 
 Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Birmingham have 
 together half as many inhabitants, two-thirds as many voters, 
 and one more than half as many members. Adding them to 
 London, we get thirty-four members, representing five millions 
 of people, and 500,000 voters. On the*other hand, I can 
 find you thirty-one small boroughs, with a population of 
 150,000 people, and with less than 16,000 voters, having the 
 same number of members ; or I can find you seventy boroughs 
 returning eighty-five members to the House of Commons, and 
 having altogether a population about equal to that of Man- 
 chester, with about the same number of voters ; they returning
 
 Redistribution. 51 
 
 eighty-five members while you return three. And I can find 
 you eighty-five members representing tlie forty-two large 
 boroughs, with 8,500,000 people, and 890,000 voters — that 
 is to say, each member representing 100,000 people, and far 
 more than 10,000 voters, to set off against a similar number 
 of members representing one-twentieth of that population. 
 The counties are in an almost equally unsatisfactory condition. 
 Yorkshire in all its ridings, Lancashire in all its divisions, and 
 Middlesex, unless a vast number of new boroughs are created 
 in them, ought to have their representation greatly increased ; 
 and there are many cases of counties which return two mem- 
 bers, having a population equal to that, and a number of 
 voters equal to that, of other counties which, added together, 
 return twelve or fourteen. There are sixty boroughs having 
 less than 1,000 voters each. They return sixty members by 
 40,000 voters, and a population of about 300,000. Hackney, 
 with the same number of voters and a Larger population, 
 returns two members instead of sixty ! Besides these sixty 
 boroughs — of which only two are Scotch — there are four 
 Scotch counties under 1,000 voters each — namely, Hadding- 
 tonshire, (Sutherlandshire (with only 358), Ross, and Teel^les ; 
 or altogether, four members to 3,000 voters. These four 
 Scotch counties might be thrown together with others. If to 
 the sixty boroughs we add the four Scotch counties, we obtain 
 sixty-four members returned by 43,000 voters ; and if we 
 compare with these constituencies, London and tlie eleven 
 next largest cities, and the greater divisions of the counties of 
 Middlesex, Lancashire, and Yorkshire, we shall find that 
 43,000 voters in the small and mostly-corrupt constituencies 
 have the same number of members, and therefore the same 
 weight in legislation, as 850,000 voters in the great and 
 pure constituencies. The comparison may be carried even 
 farther, and into larger figures still. The fifty-two largest 
 constituencies have together 110 members for 1,080,000 voters. 
 But, on the other hand, I can find you 110 other members of 
 the House of Commons who represent but 80,000 voters, 
 instead of 1,080,000 ! 
 
 Take then, again, the case of the unrepresented towns, 
 the towns having no borough representation whatever ; most 
 of them, indeed, in Lancashire. Xot to speak of Tredegar 
 and Pontypool, Barnsley, Barrow, Buijtle, Glossop, Southport,
 
 52 Speeches of Sir Chaeles Dilke. 
 
 Luton, and many others, there is Rotherham, with 60,000' 
 people, there is St. Helen's, Avith 45,000 people, there is 
 Croydon, with 85,000 people, and there is Battersea, with 
 100,000 people, altogether without borough representation. 
 There are 250 smaller places than Battersea which at present 
 return members. When we see these things, and remember 
 the elaborate checks against democracy by which the Con- 
 servative Reform Bill at first was guarded, and how little 
 there was in its provisions, we, I think, may be able to- 
 compare that Bill to one of those conjuroi-'s parcels from 
 which children tear oflf cover after cover, and find at last 
 that after all there Avas nothing but covers, and that there is 
 absolutely no inside. When we turn to the consideration of 
 the remedies for this state of things, we find that many courses 
 are offered to us. 
 
 These are the propositions of equal electoral districts, 
 the diAdsion of large constituencies into " single-member 
 wards," and the proposal of giving to members of the House- 
 of Commons, on a division, a varying power, according 
 to the number of voters or of votes they represent, and 
 a fourth plan is, the abolition of local and the substitution 
 of personal representation. As far as I am concerned I do 
 not attempt to pronounce in favour of any one of them. 
 I do not think that that is our duty. We cannot be 
 asked to decide the principles upon which this question 
 should be settled. It is for us to say that we should 
 have greater power or a greater approximation to power 
 in the large constituencies, and it will be for the Govern- 
 ment to take upon themselves the responsibility of deciding 
 in what way it should be decided. But, inasmuch as the 
 plan of personal representation has been a good deal mis- 
 understood, I shall devote some time to explaining the 
 grounds upon which the supporters of the scheme rest 
 their case. Put in its simplest shape, the substitution of 
 personal for local representation is the most straightfor- 
 ward and logical plan of reform that can be devised. Say 
 that you have two millions of electors, and that you want 
 to elect a House of 500 members, it is clear at once that each 
 member ought to represent 4,000 voters. This being so, the 
 plan of personal representation is satisfied, if you allow any 
 4,000 voters, wherever they live, to i-cturn one member to
 
 Redistribution. 53 
 
 the House of Commons. There Avould be many incidental 
 advantages in such a plan. For instance, it is easy to cry 
 down the principle of hereditary legislation, and to show the 
 absurdity of the constitution of the House of Lords. It is 
 not difficult to show that even a better constituted Second 
 Chamber is hardly to be defended upon logical grounds, but 
 in such a demonstration you have to assume that your First 
 Chamber, your House of Commons, or House of Piepresen- 
 tatives, or whatever you choose to call it, is a good one, and 
 that in it are represented all opinions that are held by any 
 large body of persons in the country, and all interests that 
 arc the interests of a sufficient number. Now, that is just 
 Avhat you cannot assume under your present electoral system. 
 Indeed, not only can you not assume it, but I can 
 show in a minute that it is not the case. For an instance, 
 we may take the working people. In almost every English 
 borough there are a certain number of voters who believe 
 that no middle-class man is capable of representing their 
 views. 
 
 Now, this opinion, whether true or false, is held by a very 
 large number of voters ; but they have not hitherto succeeded 
 in proving themselves a majority in any one borough, and, 
 consequently, have not returned even a single member to 
 represent their views ; while, under a system of personal as 
 contrasted with local representation, these men, in whatever 
 part of the country they lived, would unite to return candi- 
 dates of their choice, and would send, even under the existing 
 franchise, twenty or thirty members to the House. I might 
 take another case, which is perhaps a still stronger one, because 
 it is not capable of being remedied in any other way, so far as 
 I can see. The working people might send their men under 
 the present system if they got a wider franchise ; indeed, they 
 will probably succeed in doing so as it is. But the case I am 
 about to name is that of a class who, in this country, would 
 remain unrepresented in any event under the present plan ; it 
 is that of the English Roman ( 'atholics. Any one who knows 
 the Roman Catholic body, is aware that there are considerable 
 differences of opinion between the Irish and the English 
 Catholics upon many most important points. Now, there are 
 plenty of Irish Catholics in the House, but not a single English 
 Catholic, to represent their views, and those views go Avholly
 
 54 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 tmrepresented there. If Ireland should obtain Home Rule> 
 there -would not be a Catholic of any kind in the English 
 House of Commons, which is a state of things, I should 
 imagine, that even Mr. Newdegate himself would regret; 
 because, much as that gentleman dislikes the Eoman Catholics, 
 he is too fair a man to desire to attack their opinions in a 
 body to which they would not return a single member. 
 
 So much for the plan of personal representation and its 
 advantages. The diflBculty lies in carrying it out ; and most 
 of the attempts which have been hitherto made to do so have 
 more or less the character of failure. ^Manchester and Bir- 
 mingham, and some other towns that send three members to 
 the House of Commons, could return three Liberals with ease ; 
 but under the minority scheme, as it is called, which was 
 supposed to be a stej), however small, towards personal repre- 
 sentation, the Liberals of those places either lost one of the 
 members, as at Manchester, or, as at Birmingham, succeeded 
 in retaining their hold upon the town, but with great trouble 
 to themselves. Now, bad as is the present effect of that 
 limited vote, if it only caused the representation of the Con- 
 servatives at Manchester, or of the Liberals at Liverpool, 
 without diminishing the representation of the other party, I 
 suppose that no one would complain ; and it is strange that 
 no one has hitherto seen fit to attack the settlement of Mr. 
 Disraeli's Reform BiU upon the ground on which it could 
 logically be best attacked. What, it seems to me, the Liberals 
 at !NLinchester should have said was this : Give ]\ianchester its 
 fair number of members, and then let them be fairly divided 
 by whatever plan seems best between the various political 
 parties of that tovTi. !^Lanchester, if the House of Commons 
 is to retain its existing numbers, with its 57,000 voters, is 
 entitled to fourteen members. I think the Manchester Liberals 
 had just cause of complaint, being, say 40,000 strong, and 
 entitled to ten members, when they found themselves compelled 
 to put up with only two. But had they possessed their ten 
 out of fourteen, I don't suppose they would have complained 
 of their Conservative neighbours having four. 
 
 The .«ame is the case with the great London boroughs. I 
 have no doubt that there would be an outcry made if an 
 attempt wus to be worked out by Parliament, as has sometimes 
 been proposed, for applying to London any scheme of personal
 
 Kedistribution. 55 
 
 representation, unless at the same time a large increase was 
 made in the number of London members. If we except the 
 City, the London boroughs have but eighteen members for ;i 
 population of three millions ; and London, we must remember, 
 has no municipality, and is governed, in all important matters, 
 by Parliament itself. Now, if the eighteen members were to 
 be elected under a system of personal instead of local repre- 
 sentation, no doubt the result would be that you would have 
 men of greater average fiime returned than is the case at 
 present. You would have great statesmen and great writers 
 anxious for the honour of representing the capital itself; and 
 your list of eighteen members elected in one body by the 
 whole metropolis, would no doubt be an honour to that town, 
 and through it to the whole land. I am by no means sure 
 that London would be content, when it found that the result 
 had been to secure the services of men who perhaps were 
 what we should call, to use a common phrase, "above their 
 work." But that objection would be entirely removed if 
 London had her fair share of members, according to her 
 population, and the list were large enough to admit of the 
 election of men who would look after the local government of 
 the town, as well as attend to matters of imperial concern. 
 
 I have spoken thus at length of the case of London, 
 because it is clear that if we are to attempt a system of 
 personal representation, Ave .shall have to try it experimentally 
 at first. Now, no place can be so fit as London for this ex- 
 periment, from its size, from the variety of opinions that 
 prevail, and from the machinery at command. It is for this 
 reason, then, that I have tried to show how in the first place 
 you must do lis justice in the matter of our representation, 
 before we can aid you in this great experiment. It appears, 
 then, to me, that for us to adopt the minority scheme, or the 
 cumulative vote, or any of these plans for giving to the various 
 parties in every place a share in the representation before we 
 have first laid down the principle of equality of political power 
 among the existing voters, is to put the cart before the horse. 
 I am far from attacking, as some of my friends at Birmingham 
 have done, the effects of the cumulative vote. But the 
 cumulative vote is an imperfect plan, and so much greater are 
 the advantages of the plan of purely personal representation 
 that, when the Ileform League was in existence, and had ex-
 
 66 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 pressed, througli Mr. Beales, opinions somewhat at variance 
 with that reform, a committee of the League, which was 
 appointed to consider it, was converted in a body, and reported 
 in favour of personal representation. The principle establishes 
 absolute equality in the weight of every vote ; it makes every 
 voter equal in political power with every other voter in the 
 country ; and it has this further advantage, that it allows each 
 voter to exercise the freest choice as to the candidate for whom 
 he votes, and in this way gets rid of the dangerous political 
 apathy of those who in the great constituencies do not at 
 l)resent vote at all, either because they know that their votes 
 will not tell with any practical effect, or because they are 
 indifferent to the particular candidates suggested to them for 
 the ir choice. The disadvantage of the present plan is not 
 all upon our side. I am sorry to say that the small and 
 corrupt boroughs are not, by any means, all Conservative. I 
 tliink that a majority of them even please to call themselves 
 Liberal. But they are not Liberal in the sense in which the 
 great towns are Liberal, and although their members may cast 
 a Liberal party vote upon a question of confidence in a 
 Ministrj', they are conveniently absent when questions come 
 up for discussion which are looked upon as vital by the larger 
 towns. Still, as I say, the gain will not be all upon our side. 
 The counties are many of them short of their proper represen- 
 tation, and, if their Conservative members choose to join us in 
 working for this reform, there is no doubt that upon many 
 questions — for instance, upon taxation — they •will be gainers. 
 Those of them who are wise, however, must know that, should 
 they enter upon a prolonged resistance, the result must be, 
 that under the plan of equal single-member wards, the great 
 boroughs will soon monopolise the power which ought to be 
 shared between them and the larger counties. 
 
 Let nie now go in more detail into an examination of the 
 facts wliicli I have already roughly stated with regard to the 
 change which would be produced by giving equal weight to all 
 electors. The loss would not be a Conservative party loss ; 
 the gain not a Liberal party gain. On the contrary, at the 
 ]a.st election the Lil)erals gained a larger majority than the 
 mere numbers, excluding accidents, would have entitled them 
 to receive. ^ Were representation upon the existing franchise 
 l)erfectly fair, the Conservatives, instead of being in a minority
 
 Redistribution. 57 
 
 of more than 100, would be in a minority of only fifty. But 
 the gain we should hope to find would be a gain in the reduc- 
 tion of corruption in the widest sense — not only in the 
 reduction of local or electoral corruption, but in the reduction 
 of parliamentary corruption as well. On the other hand, the 
 gain would be no party gain, but a gain, we should hope, in 
 political intelligence upon both sides. It may be shown that, 
 with one or two rare exceptions, the boroughs with less than 
 1,500 voters are either hopelessly corrupt or else completely 
 under the thumb of some great landlord. There is one 
 difficulty, wliich is not likely to be raised by you, perhap.s, or 
 by any meeting of intelligent persons but one, and that one 
 the House of Commons itself, but which certainly will be 
 brought to the front there when this subject comes on for dis- 
 cussion. I speak of the representation of the Universities. It 
 is true that the Universities send distinguished members to the 
 House — especially in the person of Mr. Gathorne Hardy, an 
 orator and statesman not ranked high enough, perhaps, at 
 present by his own party, and terribly underrated by that to 
 which we belong ; but we should not be without Mr. Lowe, 
 and I\Ir. Hardy, and Dr. Playfair in the House, nor deprived 
 of the quaint humour of ]\Ir. Hope, if they had to sit 
 for boroughs and counties, instead of for Larned schools. 
 Mr. Lowe, however, would hardly, perhaps, be in that case 
 quite the same man who, sitting for the Senate of London 
 University, invented the match tax for less fortunate 
 individuals. 
 
 y The present state of our representative system is a per- 
 petual menace to the peace of the counti y. The absence of a 
 plan enables any party in power with a good majority to pass 
 at any time, by constitutional means, a so-called Reform Bill, 
 giving to themselves, by means of skilful redistribution of 
 seats, secure possession of power for years and years. We 
 need — to prevent that of which we have already once seen 
 something on a small scale, and which we may otherwise come 
 to see repeated on a large — a settlement of a permanent and 
 of an elastic character. It is, then, in this view tliat the sense 
 of the House of Commons will next session be taken upon a 
 motion to the effect that ctpial political rights ought to belong 
 to every voter in whatever place he may reside, or upon one 
 that at least goes a long way in that direction.
 
 58 
 
 ELECTORAL REFORM. 
 
 A Speech ilelivered at Middleshorough, on 27th November ^ 
 
 187L 
 
 In the earliest English Parliament -n^hich contained any 
 representatives of the Commons, the Burgesses and the 
 Knights of the Shire seem to have been summoned only to 
 express the consent of their constituents to taxation. The 
 Kings, who, in earlier times still, had raised taxes from their 
 nobles, Avho were at that time tenants of the Crown, as their 
 needs increased, and as, on the other hand, a large number of 
 the tenants t'n cajnte became poor, searching about to find the 
 best means of raising mone}'-, were struck by the idea that it 
 might be more easily provided for them if drawn from a wider 
 source, and the summoning of the rei^resentatives of the free- 
 holders of the counties, and of the chartered towns, was the 
 result. There was no idea of representing population. The 
 idea was that of obtaining persons who could speak in the 
 name of communities ; and communities worthy of being 
 asked for their consent to a tax, were asked in equal degree 
 with each other. No town sent more members to Parliament 
 than any other. Under Edward I., the same form of writ was 
 directed to every borough, directing it to return two burgesses ;. 
 and the City of London itself did not, until later times, return 
 four. As little by little the idea of representation grew up — 
 representation coupled with taxation — and as the members 
 gradually asserted their right to consider grievances and to- 
 obtain redress before consenting to taxation, the representation 
 wa.s still that of places and not of persons. Gradually, how- 
 ever, a.s we all know, a complete change has come across our 
 idea of representation. 
 
 Long before the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, a large 
 number of politicians, and of writers, had come to regard the 
 IIousu of Comn^ons as a body representing the opinions of the 
 voters rather than of the communities ; but that Act, at all 
 events, recognized the new theory as that upon which the 
 constitution of this country was for the future to be based ;
 
 Electoral Reform. 50 
 
 and since 1832 no single iudiviJiuil, as far as I know, lias ever 
 attempted to contend tliat the old theory of representation has 
 any longer a place among lis. All now, at least theoretically, 
 admit that the majority of the voters are the persons in 
 whose hands power has been placed. But, in accepting the 
 new theory, we have not suited our practice to it ; and we 
 still find clinging to our modern view not isolated remnants 
 only of the old system, but a whole body of what are now 
 become abuses — the over-representation of decayed commu- 
 nities, and the under-representation of vast immbers of the 
 inhabitants of the most prosperous portions of the country. 
 
 Now it is commonly believed, I think, by those who have 
 not examined the subject with much care, that the evil cures 
 itself ; that, parties being more or less nearly equally divided 
 throughout the country, it does not much matter if the voters 
 in the big places are under-represented and the voters in small 
 places over-represented, because, after all, if we were to adopt 
 a logical system, based upon population, the two sides in the 
 House of Commons would not undergo any serious alteration. 
 But this may be true, and is true, without its following as a 
 matter of course that there are not great practical incon- 
 veniences about the present course and })ractical necessities 
 for a change. The optimist view, which I have just stated, 
 assumes that the voters belong to one party or the other party, 
 and nothing more ; that the one party has certain views, and 
 that the other party has opposite views ; and that all tliat is 
 important is, that the party that is in a majority among the 
 voters should be in a majority among the members. But this 
 is a most superficial view. There are the greatest possible 
 differences (upon both sides) between the inhabitants, for 
 instance, of different sized communities, and between the 
 inhabitants of the north and of the south of the country ; 
 differences between the members of the same party in the 
 counties and in the towns, and altogetlier what may be called 
 a political confusion upon the vast majority of subjects, and 
 definite party lines only upon a few. 
 
 Now, to bring home this general observation to ourselves, 
 let us look at the opinions of great towns. I may say, in 
 passing, that I might make as strong a case as to the opinions 
 of the large counties, for instance, on taxation questions ; but, 
 for the moment, let us consider the case of the big towns.
 
 60 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 Now, in these towns the vast majority of the voters on the 
 Liberal side belong to the Kadical section of the party ; and 
 ■even upon the Conservative side we find that the majority of 
 their voters are Conservative only upon a few points, and go 
 Avith the Radicals in most things. For instance, the Conser- 
 vative majority in those Lancashire towns which return 
 Conser\^ative members to the House of Commons, are Con 
 serA'ative upon Church matters, and upon little else. But, to 
 put them out of view for a moment, the majority of the 
 Liberal voters in the large towns differ, perhaps, at this time, 
 from the Liberal Government upon more questions than those 
 upon which they agree with them, and upon questions which 
 they consider of great importance ; and I think you wiU admit 
 that I have made out a strong practical case for a change in 
 the representative system we possess, if I can show that, on 
 many of these questions, the Government can obtain a majority 
 against your views, at this moment, although you, and not 
 they, possess a majority of voters in the country. As examples 
 of what I mean, I will take three subjects. The first shall be 
 Trades L'^nion Legislation. All of you remember that, when 
 the Trades Union Bill of last session was brought in, it was 
 looked upon by the unionists as the least that they could 
 possibly accept. It was even a difficult matter to secure the 
 consent of the chief representatives of the unionists to that 
 Bill. It was looked upon as a compromise, and as a compro- 
 mise of a doubtful character ; but, after a good deal of trouble, 
 the consent of the unionists was obtained. The Bill passed 
 the House without much alteration in committee ; but in the 
 Lords it was so changed, that, when it came down to the 
 House of Commons, the leading unionists were of opinion 
 that it would have been better to have rejected it altogether 
 than to allow it to pass in its then shape. After much private 
 discussion and negotiation, it Avas agreed that the Government 
 should attempt to mitigate the force of the penal provisions 
 that the Lords had put in, and a division was taken upon the 
 proposed mitigation. In that division — owing partly, I am 
 sorry to say, to the desertion of members who usually cast 
 Radical votes,— the Lords' amendments were affirmed by a 
 large majority ; but, in that division, although, as I say, the 
 majority was large, — although the members were in the pro- 
 portion of 3 to 2, the minority who voted against accepting
 
 Electoral Reform. CI 
 
 the Lords' amendments represented a larger number of voters 
 than the majority. This is one case. Another that is still 
 more startling, and from the point of view of many persons 
 as important, is the case of the division that occurred at the 
 end of the session upon the Contagious Diseases Act, in which 
 46 members voted against the Acts, and 58 voted for them, 
 and in which the 46 represented 2^ times as many voters as 
 the 58. 
 
 The third subject upon which such divisions have taken 
 place during the late session — and I name only three subjects 
 out of very many — is that of Parliamentary elections ; and 
 upon this I propose to dwell at length. 
 
 We see it said in all Radical papers that the Bill, when 
 brought in again next year, must contain certain provisions 
 which it did not contain this year, and certciin other provisions 
 which it did contain, but which were struck out in committee. 
 The Bill of last session did not prohibit the employment of 
 paid canvassers, and it did not extend the hours of polling. It 
 is said everywhere that the Bill of next year must do both 
 these things. The Bill of last session, as introduced, did 
 contain what is known as the " Expenses Clause " ; but that 
 clause was struck out in committee. It is said that that 
 clause must be put in again next year. Now, let us take the 
 divisions that occurred upon this branch of the elections 
 subject. On the 4th August my colleague. Sir Henry Hoare, 
 divided the committee of the House as to payments for 
 canvassing. G9 members, including tellers, voted with him, 
 and, the Government opposing him, 90, with tellers, voted in 
 the majority the other way. But his G9, representing all the 
 largest towns, w^ere elected by 680,000 voters, and the 96 
 were elected by 565,000 voters : that is to say, my col- 
 league, apparently beaten by 27, in reality won by 115,000 
 votes. Here, then, is a case in Avhich the opinion of the 
 country, the opinion of the voters — in whom political power 
 in England is supposed to reside — was falsified in the House 
 of Commons, and a majority represented as a minority upon 
 an important question. 
 
 Now for the hours of polling. This, as you know, is a 
 question of little importance in small boroughs, Avhere the 
 voters, as a general rule, work Avithin such distances of the 
 polling places that they can, if so minded, vote during their
 
 G2 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 dinner-time ; but it is a question of considerable importance 
 in the largest boroughs, and of overwhelming importance in 
 London, where the voters work miles from the place where 
 they would have to vote. 62 members, including tellers, 
 voted with me when I raised the question for altering the 
 hour for closing the poll from 4 o'clock to 8. I told you just 
 now, upon the other division, that the 69 who voted against 
 payment for canvassing represented 680,000 voters. Well, 
 the 62 who voted for extending the hours of polling repre- 
 sented even greater numbers. The 62 represented 880,000 
 voters, or considerably over 14,000 voters a piece, an average 
 which, I think, upon hardly any other occasion has been 
 reached. Now, both these points are of less importance than 
 the one to which I 'am about to come, for the reason that, 
 upon the two occasions to which I have referred, the Govern- 
 ment, not, I think, accurately gauging public feeling, voted 
 with the Conservatives against the Radical view ; and before 
 next year they will have had time to reflect and to reconsider 
 their opinion, and possibly they may change their minds. 
 But, upon the 18th clause of their Bill, they did, last session, 
 take the Radical view, and they and we, together, were all 
 beaten ; and when people talk of the necessity of having that 
 clause " in again " next year, and of sending the Bill with 
 that clause to the House of Lords, they talk of the necessity 
 of doing that Avhich, so far as I know, it is not in their power 
 to do. 160 members voted for the clause ; 256 voted against 
 it— a majority of 96. Now, suppose that considerable 
 l)ressure is put on; suppose that some of the so-caUed 
 Liberals who voted against that clause are brought to book, 
 and that strong representations are made to them of the 
 inju-stice and unwisdom of their course ; suppose that a few 
 votes are turned, and suppose that a few other men are made 
 to stop away, do you suppose, for one moment, that we shall 
 be able to break down that majority of 96 ? and is there the 
 faintest hope that, as things stand, we shall have any more 
 clance of carrying the 18th clause of the Ballot Bill next 
 year than we had tliis 1 I cannot see a shadow of foundation 
 for the opinion. It is true that the Government, as a whole, 
 wa.s lukewarm in the support of its own clause; but you 
 cannot prove that there Avas any public sign of that being the 
 case ; and, as far as private opinion goes, that will be the
 
 ElECTOR\L PiKFORM. 63 
 
 •case next year. At all events, the member of the Goverinnent 
 who had charge of the Bill (Mr. Forster) was, I believe, 
 honestly desirous that the clause should pass. I repeat, then, 
 that those who delude themselves into the belief that, because 
 they say this clause must pass, therefore it will pass next year, 
 Are utterly mistaking their power under the present system 
 of representation, — I say under the present system of representa- 
 tion, and I say that, because, when you come to examine the 
 number of voters who were represented on that division upon 
 each side, you will again find, what Ave found before, that the 
 •opinion of the country was falsified, and that the minority 
 represented more voters than the majority. 
 
 Now, what did that division, in which the large commu- 
 nities took one side, and the small communities took the 
 other, what did that division really mean 1 I don't wish to 
 use ugly words, and I am not fond of making imputations 
 upon those with Avhom I happen to diff"er ; but that division 
 was a fight between purity and corruption. Those who voted 
 in the majority, with Mr. Harcourt and Mr. James, voted for 
 throwing the expenses of the ballot upon the candidates. It 
 is of course not enough to condemn such a provision to say 
 that it is one that exists in no other country in the world. 
 We do many things in England that are done in no other 
 ■country in the world. But tliis, it seems to me, is bad both 
 in principle and in example, and would have the practical 
 effect, — and we always look to practice here, — not merely of 
 ■continuing, but of increasing, the existing limitation of the 
 choice of constituencies, and confirming the present plutocratic 
 monopoly of political power. The opponents of the 18th 
 -clause affected to regard the matter as a trifle. They expressed 
 themselves as though it did not much matter, either to them 
 or to anybody else, whether the clause were passed, or 
 whether it were not. But it is my opinion, — and I say it 
 <.leliberately, having had months to think quietly over the 
 matter, and to lose all feeling of temporary aiuioyance at our 
 non-success, — it is my opinion that, if the Bill cannot be passed 
 with that clause in it, it had better not be passed at alL 
 There is one gigantic fallacy which lies at the bottom of the 
 argument of the opponents of that clause. They assume that 
 to drop it would only be to leave matters as they are. Now 
 so far is that from being true, that I believe I can show that
 
 64 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. -l 
 
 matters would be very greatly altered for tlie worse. We ' 
 should not be continuing an existing evil so much as intro- 
 ducing a greater one. My contention is that, if the expenses 
 are to be thrown upon the candidate, they will be vastly 
 increased by the adoption of the Ballot. 
 
 Under the present system you have far greater cost in 
 building election booths in the streets than in using public 
 rooms, or even private rooms, for the purposes of election. 
 There are two Acts of Parliament which direct returning 
 (.tfficers to take rooms, where that is possible ; but there is no 
 penalty thrown upon them for neglect ; and, it being left thus 
 optional with them, they seldom exercise the discretion which 
 Parliament has vested in them, but almost always build the 
 booths in streets. If you pass the Ballot Bill, you will want 
 a much larger booth than you need at present. You will 
 want an outer portion of the booth, and then a barrier, and 
 then an inner portion, divided into compartments, the com- 
 partments in which the marking of the papers takes place ; 
 and we in the House of Commons shall have to prescribe by 
 law the erection of a building which would be, I think, two 
 or three times as costly as the present booth. But, if the 
 charge for its erection is thrown upon the candidate, there 
 will be no more security for the hiring of private rooms than 
 there is at present, or for the obtaining of the free use of 
 l)ublic rooms. On the other hand, if we were to pass the 
 1 8th clause, and suffer the locality to do its duty, you might 
 be perfectly certain that, in all cases, public rooms would be 
 found. We have had an example of the two systems at work 
 in the same places. I speak of the School Board elections as 
 compared with the Parliamentary ; and, as I know the case 
 of London best, I will refer to the election of the London 
 School Board by ballot, and Avith the candidates relieved of 
 the charges, and will compare it with a Parliamentary election 
 under the existing system in the metropolis. Now, at the 
 la.st general election there were in all London about 120 
 polling places; about 105 of them were erected in the streets, 
 and about 15 were placed in public rooms. At the School 
 Pioard election there were about 140 polling places, and, so 
 far as I know, all, without exception, were in rooms. These 
 figures may be slightly wrong; but I will now give you 
 figures which I know to be correct. They concern the
 
 Electoral Eeform. G.") 
 
 "borough which I represent. At the Parliamentary election 
 •we had 1 3 polling places, of Avhich 1 1 were at booths erected 
 in the streets, and two in public rooms. At the School Board 
 election there were the same number of polling places, and 
 the whole 1.3 were in rooms. The School Board elections iu 
 all London, with more than 100 candidates going to the poll, 
 cost GjOOO/. It is almost impossible to say what a general 
 4 election in London costs under the present plan. I spt)kc 
 just now of twice or thrice as much ; but I am convinced that 
 in London you might multiply the sum by five at least. To 
 pass, then, the Ballot Bill without the Expenses clause is not, 
 I repeat, to continue an existing evil, but vastly to increase 
 it. See Avhat the practical effects of such a course must be. 
 You have already a terrible limitation of the choice of con- 
 stituencies : a limitation of candidatures to rich men. Lender 
 the Ballot, without the Expenses clause, you would increa.se 
 the limitation, as I have shown, with the effect, of course, of 
 excluding not only workmen, but writers, and men of the 
 highest distinction of all kinds, and confining the choice of 
 constituencies more than ever to one narrow class. In the 
 interest, then, not only of the constituencies and of the country, 
 but even in the interest of the House of Commons itself, it is 
 of the most vital importance that we should pass an Expenses 
 clause. i\Ir. Harcourt once wrote a letter to The Times, in 
 which he spoke of it as a "crochet," and a " small theory." 
 Why, you might as well say that it was a small theory to 
 object to members prociiring their return to the House of 
 Commons by paying so much a-head to all the voters in their 
 constituencies. One would really almost suppose that !Mr. 
 Harcourt was afraid of a workman, or of what he looks upon 
 as much worse, a philosophical radical, standing against him 
 at Oxford. Indeed, I believe, that the real opposition of the 
 House of Commons to the ISth clause was founded upon the 
 fear of what arc called " fictitious " candidates. Now, in 
 reference to these fictitious or bogus candidates, I want to 
 know Avhere were the fictitious candidates at the London 
 School Board election ] In passing the 18th clause, we were 
 asked to pass it with a limitation in it to check fictitious can- 
 didatures. I will express no opinion at this moment Avith 
 regard to that limitation. If we cannot pass the clause 
 •without it, perhaps it is better to have the clause with the 
 
 p
 
 GG Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 limitation than not to have the clause at all. But, at all 
 events, the question we discussed was whether, even with the 
 limitation, there would not be fictitious candidatures. Well, 
 in the London School Board election, there was no limitation 
 of any kind. Anybody was a candidate who chose to say he 
 was one; there Avas no check whatever; no fee to be paid 
 down ; and yet, in that London School Board election, where 
 were the fictitious candidates? In the whole list of over 100 
 candidates there were not 10 who had in their candidature 
 anything that was not of the most solid and legitimate cha- 
 racter ; and there was not one single case of a man going on 
 up to the time of nomination from any desire to advertise 
 himself, or, to put a case which was put in the House of 
 Commons, to advertise his shop or his trading wares. 
 
 Now, there is one other point which weighed, as well as 
 the fear of fictitious candidates, with some members of the 
 majority in the House of Commons. It was an unworthy, 
 and, as I believe, an unfounded fear of their constituencies 
 on the part of members for small places. !Mr. Harcourt,' 
 indeed, was frank upon the point, frank both in the letter to 
 Tke Times and in the speech which he delivered on the clause 
 in the House of Commons. I forget the word which he used 
 in the House, but in the letter he spoke of " unwilling con- 
 stituencies." Well, for my own part, I do not believe in 
 constituencies being unwilling, as a general rule, at all events, 
 to do that which is in an indirect way their interest and in the 
 l»lainest way their duty. Who complained in the case of the 
 School Board elections, where the expenses proposition was 
 adopted] who complains in the case of the Guardians' elec- 
 tion, and in the case of the election of municipalities, where 
 a similar principle prevails? I may say, indeed, that there is 
 HO little difference between the cases, that if the Expenses 
 clanse should be again rejected, as the Bill applies to muni- 
 cipal as well as to larliamentary elections, I think that the 
 sense of the House of Conmions should be taken upon a clause 
 t<» put both ui)on a similar footing for the future, by throwing 
 the expenses of the municipal elections upon the candidates. 
 Tliat W(juld be a case of the old story of what is sauce for the 
 goose being sauce for the gander ; for Mr. Harcourt backed 
 his opinion that this measure was unpopular with the con- 
 stituencies, or unpopular at least with his, by presenting to
 
 Electoral Reform. G7 
 
 the House of Commons a, petition, not from the town of 
 Oxford, but from the Town Council of that City, against the 
 18th clause of the Ballot Bill. Well, I think that nothing 
 more indecent was ever seen than that gentlemen, who do nut 
 pay the expenses of their own election, should petition the 
 House of Commons against the application to Parliamentary 
 elections of a similar plan. They positively did not shrink 
 from stating in their petition that their constituents at Oxford 
 were overburdened with rates, although I believe that, so great 
 is the property of the corporation, that there never yet has 
 been a borough-rate at all within that city. AVhere would 
 these gentlemen suggest that we should stop ? If the candi- 
 dates are to pay for the erection of the booths in Avliich the 
 Ballot is to be taken, why should they not pay the llevising 
 Barrister for attending at the registration court ? why should 
 they not pay the overseers for the printing of the list ? why 
 should they not pay the salary of the returning officer I 
 Would they like the members of the House of Commons to 
 have paid for the cost of the erection of the Palace at "Westminster 
 in which they meet for their deliberations 1 If men are to be 
 charged with the expenses which are publicly incurred in the 
 sending of them to perform public duties, I do not know where 
 the line is to be jdrawn that will stop short of this astounding 
 proposition. I have dwelt at length and with Avarmth ujjuu 
 this subject, because I think that the tone which prevailed 
 respecting it in the House of Commons was most unworthy 
 of the reputation of the House, and because I beUeve that 
 there is nothing which shocks any public-spirited man more 
 than the retention and the aggravation of this abuse. In the 
 minds of many members who sit for tiny places, which ought 
 not to have special representatives at all, there is something 
 positively horrible in the thought of the possibility of any- 
 thing being done to make access to these boroughs more ea.sy 
 for other candidates. They seem to suppose that they have 
 a sort of vested right to be returned as the representatives of 
 these boroughs, and that the end of the world will come, not 
 wlien they are defeated, but when anybody else ventures to 
 present himself to the electors of this or that borough, par- 
 ticularly if he be a poor man, to contest the representation 
 with them. I heard one member, who sits for a very small 
 borough, exclaim, when the bearing of the clause was carefully
 
 A. 
 
 68 Speechi ^.s-TJiifKE. 
 
 explained to him by a frieWtlp^^kyf^-miglat have my tailor 
 standing against me !" and the right of his constituents in 
 seeking both the best representative for themselves, and the 
 fittest member to represent not them only, but in their belief the 
 entire body of their fellow-citizens in the country, to return 
 the tailor, if they thought fit, to the House of Commons, liad 
 evidently never entered into the man's mind. On the second 
 reading of the Ballot Bill, I remember that an appeal was- 
 made by Dr. Ball, an appeal against the Bill, of course, to 
 antique example, and to the case of Rome. Well, I may 
 appeal to Borne on this subject; for I think that, in all 
 Roman history, in the days of the corruption and the fall of 
 the Republic, when the popular candidates were those who 
 vied one with the other to supply from their own purses the 
 means of filling the bellies of the population and of pandering 
 to their vices, nothing more discreditable ever took place than 
 the attempt Avhich has been made, and which is still being 
 made, again to throw the necessary and legitimate expenses- 
 of election upon the candidates who present themselves to the 
 people's choice. 
 
 I have stated the case of the division upon the Expenses 
 clause as one of the strongest which can be put to show the 
 practical need of a change in our representative system, of 
 which I began by showing the theoretical importance. I 
 might give you any number of examples. Take, for instance, 
 the Education Bill of last year. In all directions, in every 
 big town, and in many small ones, large sections of people, 
 whi) represent, as I beUeve, the majority, are declaring that- 
 the Education Act does not suit them ; that it is productive 
 of every kind of inconvenience and of discontent ; and that it 
 will have to be amended in their sense. They say that it has- 
 .struck a blow at that rehgious independence which they 
 thought had been secured for ever ; and it is a question 
 whether most of the good that ought to have attended tlic 
 pa.s.siiig of that Act has not been sacrificed, owing to the 
 contention and religious feuds that it has already caused. 
 "W ell, hero we have again an instance of the practical necessity 
 for a change in the representative system ; for the mo.st im- 
 portant decision tliat was taken by the House of Commons 
 upon that liill, was on a division in which what was known 
 as Mr. Jacob Bright's amendment was rejected. That deci-
 
 Electoral Reform. C9 
 
 sion, wluch rested upon a considerable majority of the House 
 of Commons, rested upon little if any majority of the voters 
 of the country. 
 
 The machinery by which the change, when decided on, 
 should be carried out is a secondary question, as compared with 
 the necessity for the change itself; and I can promise you 
 this, at all events, that an attempt shall be made next year 
 to obtain a declaration from the Government, that equal 
 weight ought to be given to the vote of every elector, in 
 whatever part of the country he may dwell.
 
 70 
 
 HOUSE OF LOEDS. 
 
 A Speech delivered at Birmingham^ 7 th December, 1871. 
 
 Sir Charles Dilke said he did not oppose the House of 
 Lords because of any shortcomings of its members, or because 
 of its conduct as a body, for its political conduct had been 
 very much that which might be expected of any body of men 
 exposed to the greatest temptation to which men could be 
 exposed — namely, the possession of unlimited and irrespon- 
 sible power. He blamed the system under which the House 
 of Lords, as a hereditary body, continued to exist. The 
 people elected with infinite trouljle a number of representa- 
 tives to the House of Commons, public and private money 
 ■was spent, and much time given up for this purpose, and then 
 their opinions, which were the people's opinions, on vital 
 questions, were neutralised by a body of irresponsible legis- 
 lators, not chosen on account of any merit they possessed, not 
 chosen indeed at all, but only legislators because certain 
 of their ancestors attracted the notice of some king. It was 
 not the members of the House of Lords who attended steadily 
 to their duties who generally did these things, but the pigeon- 
 shooting legislators from Hurlingham, who rushed down to 
 the House three or four times in the session, and by their 
 votes defeated measures on which the people had set their 
 hearts. It was not only on great occasions that harm was 
 done by the hereditary House. There were many small occa- 
 sions, of wjiich tlie constituencies heard little, when Bills of 
 secondary, but still of considerable importance, were ^\Tecked 
 and ruined in the House of Lords, although they had passed 
 the House (jf Commons. 
 
 There had not now for some time past been any very 
 serious collision between the Lords and Commons, but a 
 collision of a far more serious kind than any which had been 
 seen of late was inevitable very soon. The House of Lords 
 received a most fatal accession to the ranks of what mitrht be
 
 House of Lords. 71 
 
 called its dangerous members ^Yllcll Lord Craiibonrnc became 
 Lord Salisbury ; for if any one could provoke a collision between 
 the two Houses, Lord Salisbury was tliat man. The House of 
 Commons was growing day by day in power ; the House 
 of Lords was not growing in Liberalism at all. The House of 
 Commons was gaining force by becoming more and more in 
 harmony with the constituencies. Now, the constituencies 
 were anxious about ecclesiastical matters ; they were chieHy 
 Nonconformists, or at all events opposed to the existence of a 
 State Church. The constituencies were chieHy Kadical on 
 the education question. But the House of Lords was a House 
 which, upon ecclesiastical questions, was practically a House 
 of Bishops. On questions connected with the tenure of land, 
 even the landowners in the House of Commons, from the fact 
 that they represented constituencies, were coming into harmony 
 with the popular view ; but on the land question and game 
 question, and all questions connected, however indirectly, with 
 the land, the House of Lords was a House of Landowners. 
 
 The hereditary character of the House of Lords was daily 
 likely to bear more and more evil fruit, and the question was, 
 what remedy should be proposed. The creation of a large 
 number of life peers would put into the hands of Ministers a 
 corrupting power over the deliberations of the Lower House, 
 with which he, for one, should not be inclined to trust them. 
 On the other hand, to create a small number of life peers 
 would be, practicall}-, to leave matters where they were. If, 
 as Lord Bussell proposed, a few names of great distinction 
 were to be pickecl out for life peerages, such as the name of 
 Mr. 31111, no doubt a case might be made out to show that the 
 creation of such peerages would improve the deliberations of 
 the Upper House. But these men would be hoj^elessly 
 swamped, and it was doubtful whether many of the best of 
 them would accept the position. Mr. Mill, sitting as Lord 
 Blackheath, or with some title derived from land — the thing 
 Avas too ridiculous. Of course, it might be replied, he 
 could sit there as ]\Ir. Mill. Although that might be pos- 
 sible in the case of two or three men of great intellectual 
 calibre, it would not be possible h>ng to keep up the 
 standard. They would have the second-rate clerks oi 
 second-rate offices thrust into the House by the act of the 
 Minister of the day, and they would have these men very
 
 72 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 speedily looked down upon hy their hereditary colleagues as 
 a sort of inferior class, and designated very likely by the title 
 which convicts on short time gave to those men who were 
 there for the term of their natural existence, viz., the name of 
 "lifers." He for one was not disposed to look with pleasure 
 upon the remedy afforded by life peers. But there was another 
 remedy, if they were not strong enough to abolish the Second 
 Chamber, or didn't wish to do so. They might go in the 
 historical direction marked out to them by the action of the 
 Commons in earlier times, and instead of abolishing the 
 Upper House, they might draw a limitation to its powers. 
 
 Now, many had suggested a limitation of the power of 
 veto possessed by the Upper House ; but there were other 
 limitations of its j)Ower which might also be proposed. For 
 instance, in old times, the Commons asserted aggressively 
 against the Lords the exclusive right of the people to tax 
 themselves. They knew that the Lords had no power of 
 interfering with a Money Bill. Well, just in the same Avay 
 as the representatives of their ancestors won that principle 
 from the Lords, so, he thought, if they were not prepared to 
 abolish an Hereditary House, they might at all events con- 
 siderably limit the questions on which they could allow any 
 interference. Let them take, for instance, the two great 
 questions of the last session. One of those measures was the 
 Army Bill and the other the Ballot Bill. They might contend, 
 with some .show of argument upon their side, that both those 
 Bills were more or less outside the discretion of the House of 
 Lords. The Army Bill, being really a Bill for the abolition of 
 purchase, practically dealt with a great money question ; for 
 it involved the principle at the bottom of raising large sums 
 of money by fresh taxation ; and that came, he thought, 
 within the class of Bills which they ought to deny the 
 right of an Hereditary House to tamper with. If that was 
 the case with regard to the Bill for the Abolition of I'urchase 
 in the Army, it was more clearly the case with regard to the 
 Ballot liill, which concerned only the machinery of election by 
 the people of the representatives of the people to the people's 
 House of Parliament. He for one was prepared to deny even 
 the constitutional right of the Hereditary House to regulate 
 the m.uiiier and to manage the machinery by which they re- 
 turned their representatives to the House of Commons.
 
 House of Lords. 73 
 
 There was another phan which might be devised for dealing 
 with the House of Lords, and in saying so he spoke only for 
 himself, because he went somewhat beyond the resolution he 
 was there that night to support. He went with his friend 
 Mr. Herbert in doubting whether it was necessary to have a 
 Second House at all. He knew that many had said that if 
 they were to abolish the Upper House they would have 
 the Conservative Peers returned in great numbers to the 
 Lower House, and that would be a dangerous power for theni 
 to have to deal with there. Well, for his part, he had suffi- 
 cient faith in representative institutions not to be afraid of 
 trusting the people to elect those whoni they would like to 
 go to the House of Commons. He did think it likely that 
 many Conservative Peers would be returned in that case to 
 the one Chamber which would exist, but he believed that 
 those'raen would probably by their talents improve rather than 
 lower the character of the House. He believed also that they 
 would no longer be the same individuals when returned as the 
 representatives of great constituencies as they were when they 
 sat for no constituency at all. They would be far more in 
 sympathy with the people, whether their views were Conser- 
 vative or Liberal ; at all events, they would not speak and 
 act with that reckless disregard of public opinion which now 
 too often characterized the proceedings of the Upper House, 
 
 But the chief argument which was relied upon by the 
 supporters of two Houses was, that it was necessary to have 
 some check to democracy and some safeguard by which to 
 prevent them rushing too rapidly to great decisions in this 
 country. Now, he thought the House of Lords was a check 
 only when they wanted no check, and that it was no check 
 when they did want one. On occasions when no one cared, 
 the Bill which passed the single House was likely to be a 
 measure which was needed by the country, because as there 
 was no great outcry in its favour, a small opposition to it in 
 any portion of the country would probably suffice to prevent it 
 passing ; but on great occasions, when there was a great wave 
 of public enthusiasm, and some fear lest they should be 
 liurried into acting too fast in the single House, the Upper 
 House, whether hereditary or a nominated senate, was totally 
 useless as a check, because it was swept away by the breath of 
 popular enthusiasm.
 
 71 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 Now, some said that tliey needed an Upper House because 
 sometimes the Lower House was out of harmony with the public 
 mind. He had seen that position stated in two separate ways. 
 He had seen it stated, and he was sorry to say he had seen it 
 stated with truth, that sometimes the majority of the repre- 
 sentatives of the people in the Lower House represented only 
 the minority of the constituencies ; and it was said that on 
 this ground they justified the existence of a Second House to- 
 correct that wrong. But he said that it pointed rather to 
 representative reform, and that, instead of electing an Upper 
 Hoixse to undo what the Lower House had done, they should 
 elect a proper Lower House, and thus prevent the doing of it 
 at the first. 
 
 Again, he remembered that two years ago The Standard 
 newspaper recommended the Lords to throw out the Land 
 Bill, on the ground that the opinion of the country had 
 changed • since the general election. But this did not 
 prove the right of the Lords to throw out that measure. 
 If it were true that the opinion of the country was so 
 fickle, it would only be a strong argument in favour of 
 Animal I'arliaments. Well, he would say that if they 
 wished for it, as far as he was concerned, he was prepared 
 to go with Mr. Herbert for the abolition of the Upper House. 
 He would say, at all events, he would sooner have a limitation 
 of their poAver than any attempt to patch the House up by the 
 creation of life peers. He believed that any reform of a very 
 sweeping character, any reform such as that contemplated by 
 the resolution, great and good as it might be, would be as 
 difficult to carry as the abolition of the House itself, and any 
 smaller reform would not be worth the carrying. On the 
 other hand, he thought that gradual abolition was possible, 
 taking the form, as it would naturally do, of the admission of 
 peers as members of the Lower House. He wondered that no 
 young Radical peer — if there were such a person — of ambition, 
 and free from the prejudices of his order, had not presented 
 himself to some constituency for election to the Lower House. 
 He belii-ved that if such a man did so, raising distinctly the 
 question of the gradual abolition of the Upper House, a reso- 
 lution would be carried, after a struggle more or less long, 
 whi.-li would enable him to take his seat; and he believed that 
 more than one great stride towards abolition would have been
 
 House of Loed.s. 75 
 
 made by the act of a single man. But, however that might 
 be, whether it was time to work for the abolition of the 
 Upper House, or whether it was not, at all events he was 
 heartily with the promoters of that meeting in desii'ing to see 
 the resolution carried against the hereditary principle as applied 
 to the Upper House. He was heartily with the first resolu- 
 tion, which they had already carried, and also heartily with tlie 
 second resolution, which declared, in other though perhaps 
 not better words, the old principle of government by the 
 people, for the people, in the people's House.
 
 76 
 
 CIVIL LIST. 
 
 A Speech delivered in the Hotcse of Commons Idth Marchj 
 
 1872. 
 
 Mr. SrEAKEK, — I rise to ask of the House that consideration 
 which, to judge from my short experience of its moods, it 
 never fails to extend to those who, in the name of English 
 tax-payers, beg the House to aid them to obtain investigation 
 into an obscure branch of national expenditure. 
 
 The first point that has to be established is the right of 
 the House of Commons to inquire, whether by means of a 
 Committee or by presenting an address for papers, into the 
 expenditure and savings on the Civil List account. Now, in 
 April, 1780, Mr. Dunning, afterwards Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, moved the following resolution, which was agreed 
 to by the House of Commons : " That in the opinion of this 
 Committee it is competent to this House to examine into and 
 to correct abuses in the expenditure of the Civil List revenues, 
 whenever it shall seem expedient to the wisdom of the House 
 so to do." It may of course be contended that inasmuch as 
 the .salaries of the judges and ambassadors were at that time 
 laid upon the Civil List, the House of Commons may fairly 
 have claimed then over the Civil List a control which does 
 not belong to it now. On the other hand, it must be remem- 
 bered that Mr. Dunning's first resolution had been, "That 
 the influence of the Crown ought to be diminished" ; and it 
 is plain that the point at issue was not what might be called 
 the public charges so much as that of the Crown charges 
 proper. This view is confirmed by the fact that among the 
 items upon which !Mr. Burke, who was acting along with 
 Mr. Dunning, divided the House, were those for the salaries 
 of the masters of the buckhounds and of the foxliounds, while 
 another was the charge for the yeoman of the guard. 
 
 Now, in the debate which occurred about the same time, 
 on Mr. Burke's measure of economical reform, the main 
 argument of those who spoke against him was one which has
 
 Civil List. 77 
 
 been heard often since that time — viz., that unless you first 
 bring forward proof of some abuse, the House has no right — 
 that is, no constitutional power — to meddle with the Civil 
 List except at the begiiniing of a reign. But on the other 
 hand, whether I succeed or do not succeed in establishing 
 precedents showing a general right to inquire into the Civil 
 List expenditure during a reign, I at all events may assume, 
 judging from what was said on both sides by both parties, 
 during the debates on Mr. Burke's Bill, that we are justified in 
 inquiring, if we can show that actual abuses do exist. 
 
 Now I know that the term "abuses" may mean many 
 things, and it would not be hard to .show that in the argu- 
 ments which I have quoted, the word may fairly be used as 
 popularly it w'ould be v;sed for those long-continued absur- 
 dities of extravagance in connection with the Civil List which 
 have come down to us from all time, I shall, however, before 
 I sit down, bring forward I believe cases of abuse connected 
 with the Civil List accounts which should suffice, when taken 
 along with the discontent that prevails at the existence of 
 costly sinecures, to cause any patriotic government to concur 
 ■willingly and almost joyfully in that inquiry wldch we pro- 
 pose. I might quote some of the mo-st illustrious men that 
 have ever sat in this House in defence of the general right to 
 inquire — for instance, Mr. Fox, who said that " the pretence 
 that the House was bound not to interfere in the expenditure 
 of the King's Civil List was a new and damnable doctrine, 
 and infamous to a degree." "Although," he added on another 
 occasion, " the money was given for the use of the Crown, 
 the House was competent to see if it was properly expended." 
 Also, Lord Chatham, who, on the 14th of March, 1770, said, 
 " The minute and particular expenses of the Civil List are a.s 
 open to parliamentary examination and inquiry as any other 
 grant of the people to any other purpose. The preamble of 
 the Civil List Acts proves this, and none but children, 
 novices, or ignorants, will ever act without proper regard 
 to it." 
 
 Besides, however, the right of the House to inquire if 
 abuse be proved, and besides the general right to inquire, as 
 to which many precedents are to be .shown, there is also the 
 view, which I for one ani prepared to maintain, that looking 
 to the steady progress which has been made by the principle
 
 78 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 of parliamentary control over the various branches of the 
 national expenditure, there would be no harm in creating a 
 precedent upon this point. On the contrary, I believe that 
 we can no longer afford, in face of the hostility of a large 
 minority of the voters in all the boroughs in the country to 
 fresh grants for those purposes, to ask for those grants, with- 
 out at the same time stating the facts as to the disposition of 
 the sums already granted in the clearest way to the country 
 and the House. 
 
 To show, however, the need that exists for our not resting 
 content with Ministerial explanations of the precedents as 
 they appear to Ministerial eyes, I must point out that even 
 the inquiry which takes place at the beginning of each reign, 
 and which is now relied upon as giving security for economy 
 to the nation — that even this small measure of prudence was 
 not yielded without a fight. The Duke of Wellington was 
 beaten on tliis question, and resigned on it. It was a con- 
 cession extorted by the Whigs from the Tories, at the begin- 
 ning only of the last reign, but now both sides speak of it as 
 a sort of heaven-sent arrangement, sufficient for all time, and 
 in the highest degree satisfactory to every individual in the 
 land. For my part, I should be prepared to contend, that 
 even had this inquiry been graciously yielded at the first — had 
 it been conceded by the Crown on the advice of Ministers, 
 acting by their own wish, and without pressure, yet had it 
 not even in that case been so perfect a method of securing 
 economy in the public service, as other modes of inquiry that 
 easily might be devised. The beginning of a reign ! Why, of 
 all bad times for inquiry, it is the worst ! One good reason 
 for not holding inquiry at the beginning of a reign was that 
 once pointed out by Lord Ellenborough, who rightly said, 
 that there was no authority to compel the servants of a 
 deceased king to produce accounts. Another reason for in- 
 quiring at any time except the beginning of a reign is, that 
 the pensions cease at the beginning of a reign. Now the 
 pensions are of doubtful expediency, and form a most fit object 
 for incjuiry. liut, tf you wait till the beginning of a reign you 
 cannot toucli them, because men very properly cry out, that it 
 would be ci-uel to rob the existing holders. The need for 
 such inquiry is shown at once, by the fact, that in 1845 Sir 
 Robert Peel granted 1,000 a-year to Mademoiselle D'Este,
 
 Civil List, 79 
 
 afterwards wife of .a Lord Cliaucellor, although the immcy 
 is given to be granted in small sums f(jr distinguished services 
 to the country, or personal service to the Crown. There is, 
 as to pensions, a general agreement that they are of question- 
 able expediency. The committee, at the beginning of the 
 reign, were almost equally divided as to their retention. 
 There is reason for us to decide beforehand, and we need 
 inquiry before deciding. I said that the beginning of a reign 
 is of all bad times for inquiry, the worst. When all the 
 country is agog with the interest which always manifests itself 
 iit such a time, and which is a form of the delight with which 
 people always count upon the goodness of great personages, 
 whose true dispositions are yet unknown ; this is the moment 
 which the Minister selects to come down to the House, and 
 with the inevitable praise of those inevitable virtues, which at 
 the moment he ascends the throne every monarch is reputed 
 to possess — to obtain a committee of party-men, with one or 
 two economical Hadicals of the most loyal type ; a committee, 
 which sits for a few days, abolishes a Lord of the Bedchamber, 
 in order to show its zeal for economy ; inquires the price of 
 oats, makes a note of the rise in hay, and ultimately fixes the 
 total sum, very much where it had stood before, and at very 
 much the sanie amount at which it would have stood had the 
 Court been left to fix it for itself, and had the committee 
 never sat at all. The coronation takes place, the cannons 
 fire, the hats fly up, but in a few months voices are heard, 
 once more asking why it is that the administration of the 
 household should be exempt from the working of those 
 modern principles of scientific administration, which have 
 remorselessly been applied to all other branches of the public 
 service. As for the inquiry at the beginning of a reign, I 
 cannot better show what it is worth, than by quoting the 
 words of a member of the committee of 1837 : — "He was 
 bound to say that in the Select Committee he was perfectly 
 lielpless. He had no means of ascertaining what were the 
 proper sums required for the maintenance of the dignity of 
 the Crown." 
 
 " Thus much for the desirability of a parliamentary inquiry 
 into this subject at times other than the beginning of a reign. 
 But apart from the desirability of such inquiry, I spoke just 
 now of precedents. There are precedents without number for
 
 80 Spefxhes of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 parliamentary inquiry into the royal household. They date 
 from the earliest times; but, not to weary the House by 
 quoting early precedents, which are in this matter of no real 
 importance, I will come at once to modern times. 
 
 In 1780, during the debate on ]\Ir. Burke's Bill, Field- 
 Marshal Conway, a man of great authority in the country at 
 that time, said : — " Even the propriety of interfering, not 
 only in the selling of the private property of the Crown, but 
 in the appropriation of the money arising from the sales of that 
 property, is a principle admitted in this House, and approved 
 by Lord North." I believe that there is no doubt that this 
 statement expresses the constitutional view ; but see how 
 much it involves. It means, inquiry by the House of 
 Commons, and more than inquiry, extending into the general 
 savings, and the expenditure of the savings accumulated by 
 the royal family out of public grants, and it rests upon that 
 which is also, I think, a constitutional axiom, that in a limited 
 monarchy, for the reigning family to become possessed of a 
 large private fortune, is a constitutional danger of the first 
 magnitude. This view has been acted upon in late times by 
 the House of Commons ; and the Pavilion, at Brighton, 
 although bought with his private money by George IV., when 
 Picgent, was sold as roTjal or crown property, and was dealt 
 with by an Act of Parliament. The fact that even the savings 
 invested by the King in the funds are exempt from taxation, 
 would seem to show that they are subject to be dealt with 
 by Parliament, as being the property of the Crown, and not 
 the private property of the individual Avho happens to wear it. 
 If these savings in the funds are wholly beyond our ken, if 
 they are thoroughly and absolutely private in their nature, I 
 fail to see upon what constitutional grounds they are to be 
 exempted from taxation. 
 
 I know that as to one tax, the income tax, we are in- 
 formed that the Queen pays it ; and in speaking some time 
 ago at Chelsea, I expressed the deep regret T felt that I 
 should have used, during the recess, words which implied that 
 she did not. But at the same time, for the purposes of this 
 argument, the matter would not even be covered by the fact 
 of a payment being made, because the exemption exists — it is 
 in an Act of Parliament ; it is sweeping in its terms. Lord 
 Monteagle, when Comptroller, refused in the plaiiiest terms
 
 Civil List. 81 
 
 to pay the tax for the Queen. Any king could avail himself 
 of it at any moment without coming to this House, and with- 
 out any public statement of the fact. I repeat, that if Par- 
 liament hold these funds to be private in their nature, and 
 beyond the reach of inquiry by us, there never would have 
 been introduced into the Income Tax Act this clause, — " Are 
 exempted the stock or dividends belonging to Her Majesty, 
 in whatever name the same may stand in the books of the 
 Bank of England." 
 
 I repeat that there are, at all events, good precedents for 
 inquiry. To quote only one out of the ancient ones, in the 
 fifth of Henry IV., the House of Commons requested the 
 concurrence of the Lords in articles which were carried, and 
 at once put in force by the officers of the household, by which 
 " all strangers who were Catholics, particularly those of 
 Dutchland, and all French persons, Bretons, Lombards, 
 Italians, and Bavarians whatsoever, be removed out of the 
 house of the King and Queen, and that no Welchman be 
 about the King's person." To come to modern times, on 
 14th April, 1815, Mr. Tierney obtained a committee to 
 inquire into the causes of excesses on the Civil List. But I 
 prefer to rely upon the precedent of the motion of Mr. Burke. 
 Now, in the debate upon that motion, the objection that those 
 matters ought not to be meddled with except at the beginning 
 of a reign, was repeatedly urged upon the House. It was 
 said that Mr. Burke proposed "a resumption on the Crown."' 
 Mr. Townsend, answering that objection, used these words. 
 He said, "resumptions on the Crown are strictlj^ conformable, 
 not only to the inherent right and authority of the House, 
 but also to the example of precedent and custom." Mr. Pitt 
 in the same debate also took up this point, and said, " It had 
 been attempted to show that it was improper to resume a 
 Parliamentary grant, and it had often been said that they had 
 not a right to do so. It would be needless to attempt an 
 answer to such a doctrine — it contained its refutation in its 
 weakness." 
 
 That was what Mr. Pitt said of " resumptions on the 
 Crown ;■' but what Ave propose in the present case is, not 
 resumption, but inquiry. Did we, however, propose a re- 
 sumption, it would not be a resumi)tion like that proposed in 
 1780— a resumption which would have, as that had, by the 
 
 G
 
 82 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 admission of its authors, the effect of pinching the Crown in 
 its expenditure ; but a resumption, which, while it would 
 benefit the people, would hurt neither the king nor any 
 single suliject of the realm. We can show there are sinecures 
 connected with the Court — that there are unnecessary offices, 
 not being sinecures — that a committee has recommended 
 their abolition — that some of them have been abolished, but 
 that no information has been given as to which these are, and 
 that some are, in spite of the recommendation, notoriously 
 retained. From these sinecures, and from these burdensome 
 and useless offices, the tenant of the Crown derives no 
 advantage. Were the sinecures to be abolished, the Crown 
 would not sutler, but would rather gain, and even the holders 
 of the sinecures would not be harmed, for with the usual 
 generosity of rarliaraent we should protect existing interests. 
 On the other hand, in such a case there can be no reason 
 for waiting for the beginning of a reign ; and there is for 
 immediate action this good reason, and we need no other, 
 that in the interval between any given date and the beginning 
 of another reign fresh interests will year by year be created. 
 To abolish sinecure offices about the Court is to harm no man. 
 It is not proposed to touch offices which affect the comfort of 
 the king, and it is proposed, in abolishing those which are 
 even from a monarchical point of view unnecessary, to protect 
 the interests of the present holders. All that would be done 
 by inquiry would be to make it certain that no fresh interests 
 in sinecures should be created. The real test as to the value 
 to the country of an office is — would it be created if it did 
 not exist? Now, no one can maintain that in the present 
 age we sliould create a Governor and Constable of Windsor 
 Castle, 'i'he foreign nobleman who holds this appointment 
 receives, I am informed, a salary of 1,200/. a year, and holds 
 also another appointment, besides being a captain in the navJ^ 
 The appointment was retained by a majority of one vote on 
 the Conunittee of 1<S38, 'Mr. Grote and Mr. Hume being in 
 the minority. If it has been abolished, which I believe is not 
 the c;use, its abolition will be shown by the return for which I 
 move. 1 say that these sinecures should be abolished, because 
 I hold with Mr. IJurke, "that all offices which bring more 
 charge than proportional advantage to the State ought to be 
 taken away." With a view then to future inquiry as to
 
 Civil List. 83 
 
 •wlietlier sinecure offices about the Court do not exist which 
 might advisably be abolislied, one of the papers for which I 
 propose to move is a list of all offices of this kind which have 
 been abolished since the report of the Committee which sat at 
 the beginning of the reign. By comparing this list with the 
 report of the Committee and the evidence which they took, we 
 shoidd be able to discover what are the sinecures and what 
 the needless offices that are still continued. It is proposed 
 that in the present instance preliminary inquiries should take 
 the form of an address for those papers which are needed in 
 order to bring out the existence of those alleged abuses which 
 would justify further inquiry by a Committee of this House. 
 If the Ministry should raise objections to the form of inquiry 
 that I suggest, let them hold their own inquiry ; let them 
 follow the precedent of 1782, when a ^Ministry which had 
 come into office sternly pledged to economy in all branches of 
 the public service, and especially to a reform in the sinecure 
 offices, put the suggestion into the mouth of the king himself, 
 and made the king urge upon the House of Commons that 
 the expenditure upon his household should be reduced. Now, 
 Ministers sometimes take exception to the form of an inquiry 
 at its earliest and apparently at a harmless stage, for fear that 
 possibly it should be drawn into a precedent, and the House 
 must have observed last year that the Prime Minister seems 
 to have acted upon this principle in an answer which he gave 
 to my honourable friend who sits for Birmingham. My 
 honourable friend referred in his question to this recom- 
 mendation of the Select Committee of LS37-38 : "The Com- 
 mittee hope, that with the permission of Her ]\rajesty, such 
 inquiries may be instituted by the Treasury and the Household 
 as that sinecures should be abolished on the termination of 
 existing interests," and he asked, " whether the Government 
 Avould institute inquiries into the present appropriation of 
 the charges on the Civil List, with a view of ascertaining if it 
 be possible to efiect more economical arrangements by the aboli- 
 tion or consolidation of superfluous ceremonial offices." Now, 
 the Prime Minister, in answering that question, said that 
 offices had been abolished, but that the saving by their aboli- 
 tion did not come to the country during the reign ; and he 
 raised, in other words in a fashion very indirect, the old cry 
 that we w^ere proposing a " resumption on the Crown " ! He
 
 84 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 urged, ill liis answer, that if we were to make a resumption 
 upon the Crown we should expose ourselves to resumptions 
 by the Crown, if I may be permitted a convenient though 
 inaccurate phrase. He said that " Parliament would expose 
 itself to a most dangerous counter claim on the part of the 
 Sovereign in case tlie Civil List should be found at any time 
 to be less than sufficient." Now, this statement of the 
 Premier forces me to go for a moment into the question of 
 resumptions by the Crown and on the Crown. 
 
 Now, on the 9th December, 1831, and on the 17th 
 January, 1832 — the Civil List having been voted in the 
 p^e^'ious session — it was resolved that 78,000/., arising from 
 the sale of part of the land revenues of the Crown should be- 
 applied to the repair of Buckingham Palace. Mr. Hume and 
 Mr. Hunt pointed out that this was a resumption, and Mr. 
 Goulburn, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer, agreed 
 with them, and violently but unsuccessfully opposed the 
 resolution. 
 
 Again, on the 5th June, 1839, a sum of 79,000/., taken 
 from the accumulated funds derived from the sale of Crown 
 lands, but which stood waiting to be re-invested, was applied 
 to the building of stables at Windsor. This again was a most 
 important precedent of a resumption, inasmuch as the Crown 
 benefited temporarily at the expense of the public, while, if 
 the Crown view of the Crown lands tenure be correct, the 
 interest of the reversioner was wholly sacrificed. In any case,. 
 the so-called bargain was interfered with in the middle of a 
 reign. The same may be said of the more notorious case of 
 Claremont. 
 
 During the present reign there have been frequent cases 
 in which payments have been charged upon the ordinary 
 estimates, which in former reigns would have been met by the 
 Civil List itself, or by the hereditary revenues. Sometimes 
 the form of a resumption has been avoided by a dodge — for 
 instance, on 9th August, 18G7, a charge of 25,000/. for the 
 entertainment of the Sultan was laid upon the country, and it 
 was shown by the right honourable gentleman who is now 
 First Commissioner of Works, that this was a resumption on 
 an enormous scale in everything but the mere point of form. 
 
 Tlif funeral expenses of the last King were paid, I believe, 
 according to directions left by himself, out of his own property.
 
 Civil List. 85 
 
 But on the otlier Land, very Large sums Lave been cLarged 
 ■during tLe present reign for the funerals of members of the 
 family, wLo Lave left considerable private fortunes ; and tLese 
 cLarges again seem to be in tLe nature of resumptions by the 
 Crown. Considering the surrender that has taken place of 
 the Crown lands at the beginning of the reign — a surrender 
 which was "absolute and without reserve" — I hold that the 
 occupation by nominees of the Crown, without rent an 
 without rates, of lodges, and of rights of pasture in the parks, 
 is in the nature of a resumption. I confess, indeed. Sir, that 
 after the surrender, the unreserved surrender, of the Crown 
 lands made by the Civil List Act, I am at a loss to under- 
 .stand the nature of the tenure by which the lodges and 
 residences in the parks are occupied by great personages, 
 holding " by grace and favour of the King." A return, not 
 printed, but now on the table of the House, shows that the 
 Due de Nemours occupies Bushy, that Prince Arthur occupies 
 Greenwich, that Prince Teck occupies the White Lodge, and 
 that there are a dozen similar occupations of lodges for which 
 rent ought to be paid to the public — occupations for which 
 no rent is paid — by persons some of whom pay no rates, and 
 who are stated to occupy " by grace and favour." Now, I 
 am aware that on the 7th July, 1851, it was stated in this 
 House on behalf of tLe Crown tLat tLe rigLt to bestow these 
 lodges " as gifts for distinguished services was retained and 
 vested in the Crown." I am at loss to know where and when 
 this right was retained, and if retained as to distinguished 
 services, I ask whether Prince Teck, Prince Arthur, the 
 Due de Nemours, and the unknown ladies, who hold the 
 other lodges, can be said to have performed " distinguished 
 services" towards the Crown? Of smaller instances of re- 
 sumptions by the Crown there is no lack. Some of the costs 
 of installations of menibers of the Boyal Family, as Knights 
 of various orders, were borne by the Civil List in the last 
 reign. The whole of them now seem to be borne by the 
 public at large. The costs of the passages of members of the 
 family at sea were borne by the Civil List in the last reign^ ; 
 they are borne by the public now, although I am aware it is 
 contended that this comes of the recommendation of the 
 Committee, that the Privy Purse should be reserved for 
 •'■'■ merely personal expenses," Avhatever those may be, just as
 
 86 Speeches of Sir Chaeles Dilke. 
 
 if these were not expenses merely personal. The royal yachts- 
 were formerly made more use of than they are at present, and 
 although I am aware that it is cheaper to pay the sums we pay 
 for passages than to use royal yachts or men-of-war, still, on 
 the other hand, I fail to see, if this be so, why four royal 
 yachts should be kept afloat, at vast expense, though 
 Sir James Graham could defend three many years ago when 
 there was no regular packet service, only on the ground that 
 William IV. was a Sailor King. I propose accordingly to- 
 move for a return of the services of the royal yachts during 
 the last ten years. 
 
 Royal presents, again, have, without the recommendation 
 of a committee, been more persistently charged upon the 
 estimates during the present reign than has hitherto been the 
 case. The cost of the repair of palaces was charged on* 
 estimates by the advice of a committee, and is no resumption, 
 but inasmuch as the committee advised that St. James's- 
 Palace should be given up, the arrangements made have not 
 been carried out, and I include the cost of the palaces in the 
 return for which I move. 
 
 On June 19th, 1857, the right honourable gentleman who 
 is now Chief Commissioner of Works, asked, " What ought 
 to become of the old palaces which the Sovereign had vacated ? 
 He contended that they ought to be surrendered to the country, 
 that they might be made available for national purposes ; the 
 proper mode of carrying out this principle would be by dis- 
 allowing all the money proposed to be voted for St. James's 
 Palace, and thus declaring that the House would not recognize 
 the keeping up of St. James's Palace for the Sovereign. 
 . .... lie therefore gave the Government tv;elve months' 
 notice to quit St. James's Palace." One reason for including 
 the palaces in the return is the magnitude of the sums spent 
 upon them. It was stated in this House in 1856 that 
 1 G5,()00/. had been expended on Hampton Court Palace since 
 the accession of Her ^lajesty. A large portion of this expen- 
 diture has been upon the stud-houses, although the produce 
 of the studs is sold, and the proceeds go to the department of 
 the Master of the Horse, or to the Privy Purse, and not to the 
 public This was admitted by Sir AVilliam Molcsworth in 
 the debate of 10th April, 1855. Lord Monteagle, indeed, on 
 December lo, 1837, had to confess that on the death of the
 
 Civil List. 87 
 
 late King, the stud at Hampton Court was sold by bis 
 executors as being private property. I notice in a return now 
 upon tlie table of the House, that in reference to the taking 
 of the grass of Hampton Court Park by C(jlonel ]\laude, tlie 
 deputy of the Master of the Horse, " the Treasury are con- 
 sidering the •' terms of tliis occupation." Well, I can only 
 say that they have been considering it for a whole reign. As 
 for Buckingham Palace, it was stated in the House on the 
 PTth of January, 1832, that GOO,UOO/. had been spent upon 
 it up to 1831. On 1st June, 1849, an honourable member 
 said that up to that date Buckingham Palace had cost the 
 country 7G3,00U/. 
 
 Year after year we vote sums in supply for the marshal of 
 the ceremonies ; for attendances of the chamberlain upon 
 mysterious duties ; for preparations for royal marriages ; for 
 robes, collars, and badges ; for visits of foreign Sovereigns to 
 England ; for presents ; for missions to foreign Sovereigns ; 
 for clothing for the royal trumpeters, and so forth. I may 
 say, that the allowances to the trumpeters are triennial, and 
 are supposed to be " in lieu of clothing " ; but 1 find, on the 
 one hand, that while the allowances are charged, the clothing 
 is charged too ; and on the other, that the triennial periods 
 appear, for the purposes of these trumpeters, to consist of one 
 year only. The "trumpeters," and the "robes, collars, 
 and badges," I admit are not resumptions, because they 
 were charged in former reigns, but most, if not all, of these 
 other charges, are in the nature of resumptions by the Crown. 
 
 There is a singular meanness to be noticed in some of the 
 charges upon the estimates that are connected with the Court. 
 It is a meanness for which not members of the family, but 
 indiscreet officials are responsible — men who care not whether 
 they risk the popularity of the ruling family provided they can 
 make their accounts look well. For instance, in 1843, 5')f. 
 was charged in estimates for altering the arms of the Prince 
 of Wales, although savings from the Duchy of Cornwall, which 
 afterwards reached the amount of 743,000/., were being 
 hoarded at that time in the young prince's name. Now these 
 fees for alteration of arms and for installations arc not legal, 
 as it would appear from the case of Admiral Codrington, who 
 successfully resisted payment, and stated the fact in the 
 House on 18th April, 1834. If this be so, the nation is made
 
 88 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 to pay charges whicli cannot be enforced against individuals 
 if they resist them. 
 
 Having thus begun by justifying our right to inquire, the 
 next point which presents itself for discussion is the con- 
 sideration of the subjects into which we propose that inquiry / 
 should be made. First in importance stand returns which 
 have reference to the general expenditure upon, and the 
 savings on account of, the Civil List. I propose to move for 
 a statement of the duties of the Auditor (or Deputy-Auditor) 
 of the Civil List, showing the office to wliich he makes his 
 report, and for copies of his report for each year since the 
 accession of Her Majesty. It is most important that we 
 should have this Auditor's report, for, as was stated by a 
 member of the Committee in 1837, at the beginning of a 
 reign matters are so hurried as to make a real inquiry im- 
 possible. This officer is clearly a public official, existing for 
 public purposes, and his report should be as public as his 
 office. I shall ask also for another return, of all directions or 
 warrants issued by the Treasury under section 9. of the Civil i 
 List Act, specifying the classes from wliich the savings arose, \ 
 and the classes to which they were transferred ; and for another 
 return, in the nature of an account of the income and expen- 
 diture of the Civil List, from the accession of Her Majesty to 
 the present time ; and I will proceed to give my reasons for 
 asking that those returns should be laid before the House. 
 Briefly stated, those reasons are two : first, the great com- 
 plexity of the returns we have, and the apparent existence of 
 blnnders, and of breaches of Acts of Parliament in connexion 
 with the Civil List ; secondly, the desirability of our knowing, 
 v.-ith a view to considering such further applications as may 
 be made by the Crown to Parliament, whether a great amount 
 in the shape of savings has not gone to swell the privy purse 
 during the present reign. 
 
 Tlie Civil List Act directs that the issues shall be quarterly, 
 that they shall be on Treasury warrants sent within thirty days 
 of the ccimmencement of the quarter, for a sum not exceeding 
 one fourth of the estimated annual amount of each class, 
 together with the savings of the preceding quarter. 
 
 ^^ ith respect to savings in any class left beyond a quarter, 
 after tlie 31st December in each year "it is lawful" for the 
 Treasury to direct the savings to be applied in aid of the
 
 Civil List. S9 
 
 ■charges or expenses of any other chiss except the fifth, or of 
 any other charge upon the Civil List. 
 
 In practice, it appears that the quarterly warrants which 
 ought to have been made, in conformity with section 8. of the 
 Civil List Act, have never included the savings of the pre- 
 ceding quarter, but have regularly authorized the appropriation 
 of 9G,250/., that is one-fourth of 385,000/. ; plus the amount 
 of charge for pensions under clause 5. "We find, however, 
 that up to March, 1851, warrants were issued in every year 
 against unappropriated moneys, or against the savings fund ; 
 and those appear to have been the directions mider section 9. 
 of the Civil List Act. I find, by a letter from Lord Monteagle, 
 the Comptroller-General, to Sir Alexander Spearman, of the 
 Treasury, that he took my view, and suggested a change in 
 the existing system, to bring it " more into accordance with 
 the 9th section of the Civil List Act." The Comptroller of 
 the Exchequer suggesting to the Treasury, not that it shall 
 observe the Act, but that it shall bring itself a little more into 
 accordance with it ! So far, then, as we can judge from the 
 imperfect accounts which are laid before us, it would seem 
 that the Treasury has steadily offended against section 8. of 
 the Act, by not stating the savings of each quarter, and that 
 the Treasury have also neglected their duty, under the 9th 
 section, inasmuch as, when the section says that " it shall be 
 lawful " for them, after the .31st December, to direct the 
 application of the savings, it means to a lawyer that it is their 
 duty to do so. Now this they seem not to have done. 
 " Direct," in the case of the Treasury, used to l.^e taken to 
 mean, direct by warrant, and Lord jMonteagle, when Comp- 
 troller-General, proposed to the Treasury the following definition 
 of a savings warrant : — " A savings warrant is that by which 
 the Treasury, at the close of the year, declares certain sums to 
 be savings, under the 9th section, and applicable in aid of 
 deficiencies of other classes, or applicable to any charge on 
 the Civil List." Now warrants for savings do appear in the 
 Exchequer return, but instead of those warrants appearing 
 annually, they often did not appear for several years. 
 
 I now come, with a view to show the irregularities that 
 have occurred in connection with the Civil List, to the system 
 ■pursued in issuing money on this account. The total of four 
 'Treasury warrants represents the limit of what may be charged
 
 90 Speeches of Sir Chakles Dilke. 
 
 in any one year. On this authority the Comptroller of the , 
 Exchequer used to authorize the Bank to set apart an Ex- 
 chequer credit in favour of the Paymaster. When set apart 
 the credit was drawn upon so far as was requisite by the 
 Paymaster, who transferred it in lumpsums to his " Drawing 
 and Bill Account." From this account it passed by the 
 Paymaster's cheques to the Lord Chamberlain, the Lord 
 Steward, and others. Under this system it is difficult to see 
 how the amount of credits could exceed the amount of 
 warrants, but in the year ending the 31st of March, 1843, the 
 credits did exceed the warrants — an excess which would seem 
 to have been illegal. The Act, by directing that the quarterly 
 warrant should be for one quarter's allowance, plus the savings 
 of the preceding quarter, evidently meant that a quarterly 
 warrant lost its virtue at the end of the quarter for which it 
 was draAvn, otherwise it would have been unnecessary to 
 add over again a sum which could already have been drawn 
 upon an existing authority. Not only, however, was there an 
 excess in 1843, but also in the years between 1851 and 1856, 
 and until further returns and explanations are given to Parlia- 
 ment, I cannot but believe that 103,000/^. were, in the years 
 that I have named, illegally issued on the Civil List account. 
 Up to 1843 the accounts showed the amounts of unap- 
 propriated moneys. After that year those moneys were 
 merged in the savings fund, which, however, has long since 
 ceased to appear. It would seem that the imappropriated 
 moneys were moneys the issue of which had been authorized 
 by quarterly warrants, but which it had not been found 
 necessary to issue from the Exchequer within the quarter 
 covered by the warrant, and which, consequently, accumulated 
 as a debt to the Civil List. Strictly speaking, unappropriated 
 moneys only went into the savings fund by a direction under 
 section 9. of the Civil List Act, but in practice there used to 
 be a laxity in distinguishing between unappropriated moneys 
 and the savings fund. 
 
 We possess a return which shows the balance of Exchequer 
 credits at the beginning of the year. We cannot trust to this 
 as any indication of the savings in the year, for it is possible 
 tliat the amounts appearing in it are moneys due to tradesmen 
 and others in the last quarter, but not immediately applied 
 for, and left lying at the Bank. When, however, we find that
 
 Civil List. 91 
 
 on the last clay of the quarter they amounted to a larger sum 
 than the whole allowance for the quarter in classes 2. and 3, 
 and when we know that a great deal of the expenditure in 
 those classes is of a daily, weekly, or monthly character, it 
 becomes clear that so enormous a reserve could only exist by 
 virtue of accumulations or savings. 
 
 Another remarkable irregularity occurs in the year 1838-9,, 
 when the warrants reached the sum of 482,000/., and 
 exceeded the net expenditure of the Civil List by the sum 
 of 9G,249/. 15.9. 10^/., which differs by only 4.s\ '2d. from the 
 sum of 9G,250/., that is, exactly a quarter's allowance ! This 
 would appear to have formed the precedent upon which the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer must have acted when he obtained 
 from us five quarters of Income Tax in a single year. 
 
 I have already stated that up to 1850-1, warrants were 
 given for each payment out of the accumulated savings ; but 
 in that year Lord Brougham brought forward the subject in 
 the House of Lords, and from that moment the returns have 
 disappeared. In 1854, 1855, and 185G, we find every warrant 
 wrong, in spite of Lord Monteagle. The Lords of the 
 Treasury commenced then quietly to pay out the accumulated 
 savings instead of paying them openly by warrant. They 
 seem to have lost their heads over this operation, for in 1S55-G 
 they made a return of the Civil List 5,000/. short of the 
 proper amount. The Civil List in that year ought to 
 have been 401,457/. 10s., but it was returned as 
 39G,457/. 10.9., the error being in the return of 11,000/. 
 and odd pounds, instead of 1G,000/. and odd pounds on class 
 5. This error was carried through the accounts, and the 
 balance struck without it having been detected. The only 
 other irregularity that I have to name in connexion Avitli this 
 branch of the subject is that in 1841-2 the Civil List accounts, 
 for anything that can be found in the indexes, would appear 
 to be Avholly missing, and not to have been laid upon the 
 table of this House, although I have succeeded, after much 
 trouble, in finding them in another place. 
 
 With a view to an argument to which I shall presently 
 resort, I Avish for a few moments to examine into the light 
 thrown by the Exchequer returns upon the subject of the 
 Civil List savings. The credits given under savings warrants, 
 or warrants against unappropriated moneys, are .shown in a
 
 02 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 return. A glance at their amounts shows that they arc not 
 documents declaring the sum added to the savings fund each 
 year, but are warrants used in the drawing out of a portion of 
 the fund. 
 
 Now, the moneys, or part of the moneys drawn out by 
 them may have been applied in aid of other classes of the 
 Civil List. But what other classes wanted aid? None. 
 Moreover, in spite of the drawings under those warrants, the 
 savings fund, year by year, as long as it was shown, continued 
 steadily to grow. If other classes had wanted aid in any year 
 we should have found in that year that the yearly warrant 
 had been first exhausted. But, excepting in 1843, it never 
 was exhausted ; and in the year in which the largest draught 
 was made upon the savings fund, viz., 1847, when 71,000^. 
 was drawn, we find that in the ordinary allowance there was 
 a saving of more than 20,000^. Under these circumstances I 
 cannot conceive that the 71,000^. would have been required 
 in aid of any class except the privy purse. 
 
 Now, between March, 1837, and March, 1851, 370,000^, 
 had remained as surpluses in the Exchequer, as sums which it 
 had not been found necessary to draw in the ordinary course. 
 Against this fund 274,000^. had been drawn out by special 
 Avarrants, called unappropriated or savings fund warrants, and 
 in one case without any warrant at all, so that in March, 1851, 
 there ought to have remained over 9G,000/. The growth of 
 the fund was noticeable. For the first few years of the reign 
 the savings were small. In 1 844 very considerable reductions 
 of salaries in the household were begun upon a regular plan, 
 by pensioning off servants at small pejisions, and appointing 
 others at lower salaries. In 1845 the savings were abnormally 
 large, but in 184G they stood at about 20,000^., and then 
 increa.sed steadily to 33,000/., 34,000/., 35,000/., and 42,000;. 
 Here, however, we come to a sudden stop. Lord Brougham 
 called attention to the saA-ings by a motion in the House of 
 Lord.s, and Ministers, desiring to avoid attracting further 
 attention, ceased to allow accumulations in the Exchequer. 
 
 Instead of issuing only enough money to meet the require- 
 ments, from that time they always issued enough to cover the 
 whole warrant, so that the accumulation of the savings fund, 
 if any, would be in the hands of the Paymaster, and would 
 not appear in the Exchequer return. Not only did the
 
 Civil List. 9a 
 
 Treasury from tliat time cover the Avarrant in full, but it 
 issued extra credits, to enable the Crown to withdraw 91,000/. 
 out of the 96,000/. which was in the Exchequer whuu 
 Lord Brougham made his speech, and to avoid this with- 
 drawal being noticed, they issued no more savings warrants — 
 a proceeding which, to judge by the terms of section 9. of the 
 Civil List Act, would seem to have been one of doubtful 
 legality. Matters fast grew worse. The balances, which had 
 all but disappeared, innnediately upon the withdrawal from 
 publication of the amount of the savings fund, became 
 enormous, rising from I'll, and a few shillings, to 43,000/., in 
 a jump, and then to 7G,000/. Moreover, the proportion 
 between the Treasury warrants received by the bank, the 
 Exchequer credits at the bank, and the payments by the bank, 
 was at the same time lost, and all of them began to fluctuate, 
 by jumps of 50,000/. at a time. For instance, in 1854-5, the 
 amount of the Treasury Avarrants Avas 392,000/., while the 
 amount of the Exchequer credits was 450,000/. In 1855-0, 
 the amount of Treasury warrants was 411,000/., and the 
 amount of payiuents by the bank was 453,000/. In 1805-00, 
 the amount of Exchequer credits and of Treasury warrants 
 was the same, viz., 405,000/., while the amount of payments 
 by the Bank was 480,000/. Now I can find hardly any other 
 accounts which present the same phenomena. These irregu- 
 larities, and the absolute cessation of returns giving accurate 
 information on this point, must be, on the one hand, my 
 excuse for having pointed out irregularities in the early years, 
 rather than in the later years of the reign, and on the other, 
 my ground for asking for returns which will again place us in 
 the same advantageous position as regards knowledge, in 
 which Parliament stood before the singidar withdrawal of 
 information, which took place in consequence of Lord 
 Brougham's motion. 
 
 I wish for a more accurate return of the net savings 
 upon the Civil List account than any we possess at present. 
 I do not think that such a return can be refused to xi^y 
 because when, in 1803, Mr. Augustus Smith opposed a 
 vote for travelling expenses of the lloyal Family, and asked 
 ■whether there had not been savings under two heads of the 
 Civil List during the year, which might be applied to defray- 
 ing those charges, the present Prime Minister, then Chancellor
 
 94 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke, 
 
 of the Exchequer, said it was quite practicable, upon inquiry, 
 to state to the House the exact position of the different 
 departments of the Civil List. I need hardly add, however, 
 that, upon that occasion no such inquiry was held, and no 
 such statement made, lleturns of this kind have been moved 
 for and have often been obtained on former occasions. Lord 
 Brougham was not permitted to have his account in detail 
 for which he moved in 1850. But in 1780 a resolution was 
 adopted by the House of Commons, that there be laid before 
 that House, within seven days after the first day of every 
 session, exact accounts of every sum paid in the course of 
 the preceding year, out of the Civil List, to any member of 
 either House of Parliament, by way of pension, salary, (fee. 
 Now, if the House could justly require such a return as this, 
 it is pretty clear that a more general right of inquiry cannot 
 be denied to exist even during the continuance of the present 
 reign. I have shown, moreover, that section 9. of the Civil 
 List Act directs the issue of certain warrants, which, if issued, 
 are now concealed, but if an Act of Parliament directs a 
 certain course to be followed by officials in matters connected 
 with public finance, how is the House to know whether the 
 Act has been complied with if the Government refuse to pro- 
 duce the return ? For my part, I think that inquiry is also 
 justified by the extraordinarily obscure character of the Civil 
 List accounts to which I have already referred. Who can 
 state at the present moment the exact expenditure upon the 
 Civil List account itself '? Yet it is not only generally desir- 
 able that we should know what the expenditure is, but there 
 are special reasons existing in this case. The Civil List Act 
 itself provides that whenever a total charge upon the Civil List 
 on account of five out of six classes, excluding pensions, shall 
 amount to more than the sum of 400,000^., an account, stating 
 the particulars of the exceed! ngs and the cause thereof, shall be 
 submitted to Parliament within thirty days after the same' 
 shall have been ascertained. Now, what human being is 
 there who can tell as a certainty Avhether there have not, in 
 fact, been such excesses? In 1855-5G, the payments by the 
 Bank of England upon the Civil List accounts are shown to 
 have been 153,000/. In 18G5-GG they amounted to 481,000/., 
 and if this item of payments by the Bank of England does 
 not mean charges, but means something else, — then, even in
 
 Civil List. [)5 
 
 that case, it i.s of high importance that the exact meaning of 
 those figures should be explained to the country through this 
 House. It will be seen in what I have said that by the 
 words of my return, I propose to ask to what purposes the 
 savings that have been etfected upon the Civil List account — 
 savings which we know, fi-om the experience of those earlier 
 years in which they were stated to the House, to be consider- 
 able and to be increasing — have been applied ? ISTow, I have 
 been attacked of late for having said that there was reason 
 to believe that the savings upon the Civil List had been added 
 to the privy purse, and that such a use of them was an 
 improper diversion of public funds. I have been attacked 
 for having made this statement in the country instead of in 
 the House, and I have been attacked for making it at all. 
 Now, with reference to my having made it in the country, I 
 have this alone to say — that it is a statement which has been 
 made already in the House itself, not in great detail, not with 
 reasons, but still a statement that has been made. On the 
 other hand, it is a statement that was made with ample 
 reasons, with the greatest possible detail, with the utmost 
 care, by Lord Brougham in the House of Lords in 1850. 
 Lord Brougham obtained little or no support, and the reason 
 was, that the country was not then interested in the subject. 
 But there can be no subject in which the country is more 
 easily, more naturally, and more justifiably to be interested 
 than in tjbe disposition of that portion of the taxes which goes 
 towards ceremonial objects. Last year, when the honourable 
 member for Bradford brought forward his motion for the 
 disestablishment of the Church, the answer with which he 
 was met by the Prime Minister was, that the House of 
 Commons was against him, and that " before he sought to 
 convince a majority in the House, he would do well to con- 
 vince a majority of his countrymen." If that be true of such 
 A matter as the position of religious communities towards the 
 State, surely it is ten times more true, if that be possible, 
 with regard to points which arise in connexion with the 
 expenditure of the public taxes. This is not a charge against 
 the present Ministers, because we all of us know that these 
 matters are matters of custom and precedent, and that it 
 would be a most ungracious task, or next door to the impos- 
 'sible, for a Minister to propose to take the Civil List savings
 
 90 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 to tbe nation, when previously they had gone to swell the 
 privy purse. The way in which the present unfortunate 
 custom has arisen, is one which makes it difficult for a Minister 
 to act in the matter unless he is well backed up by the 
 country and the House of Commons. 
 
 The savings even at the beginning of the present reign 
 were insignificant, and there w'as little danger and little 
 impropriety in allowing them to be taken in this way. It is 
 only now, when they have swollen to a large amount, that 
 political danger in the future may be discerned, as our 
 predecessors would have discerned it in the past. I say that 
 our predecessors would have discerned it, and I may venture 
 to remind the House that the reason why Pitt objected in 
 1759 to undertaking the conquest of Bengal in the name of 
 the Crown was that the King might thus obtain a source of 
 income independent of Parliament. Sir George Lewis, on 
 22nd May, 1857, said — "It has been deemed a matter of 
 policy in this country wholly to strip and denude the Sove- 
 reign of all hereditary property, and to render him during his 
 life wholly dependent upon the bounty of Parliament." Now, 
 as to the charge itself, it is simply this : I ask as to the 
 diversion of the Civil List savings to the privy purse — first, 
 whether it is legal, and secondly whether it is politic 1 I 
 hold that the fact that 8,000^. a year was granted to meet 
 " unforeseen demands," shows that savings were not contem- 
 plated by Lord Melbourne in framing the Act. Now, on 
 IGth December, 1837, Mr. Spring Rice, then Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, admitted that " grants to the Crown must be con- 
 strued in favour of the grantor." I claim, too, the right to 
 use the Title and Preamble of the Civil List Act to explain 
 its ambiguities. It is an Act to provide "a certain and 
 competent revenue for defraying the expenses of your Majesty's 
 Household, and supporting the honour and dignity of the 
 Crown during your Majesty's life " : — rather a singular pre- 
 amble when we find that under the Act it is contended that 
 large savings may be effected and left to the king's relations 
 by a secret will. Upon the point of legality, I want to know 
 why, if the view of Lord Brougham that the practice is con- 
 trary to law, be pronounced a mistaken view — why if you 
 have, as the officials tell us, an absolute power, both in 
 law, in custom, and in equity, to appropriate to the privy
 
 Civil List. 97 
 
 jnirtie all savings — why did the House of Ci)mnions tie up 
 that expenditure under classes by means of tlie most stringent 
 provisions >. Why did not the House vote the money in a 
 lump, as it does in the case of other members of tlie Royal 
 Family? When you have answered me this question, then, 
 and then only, will I go on and ask, if legal, is it politic ? 
 Or, in other words, why should Ave allow for the future, even 
 if legally we have allowed for the past, money voted for 
 expenditure but not expended, to go to swell a privy purse 
 already fixed, after full inquiry, at a due and fitting amount ? 
 
 The Civil List, as was shown by INIr. Goulburn in this 
 House, greatly exceeds that voted during the last reign, 
 although multitudes of charges were then borne by the Civil 
 List which now are charged upon the ordinary estimates, 
 while the privy purse is supplemented by the Duchy of Lan- 
 caster — a j)roperty rising daily in value, and swelling year by 
 year into the production of a most important revenue. If 
 legal, is it politic, thus to run the risk of a great accumulation 
 of wealth in the hands of the King ? For reasons Avhich I 
 wiU proceed to give, I believe this disposition of the savings 
 to be contrary to the spirit of the Act of Parliament. That 
 it is most impolitic and unwise I am convinced, and I main- 
 tain that when the Civil List Act was passed no large surplus 
 was expected to arise. Had any been expected, the Whigs 
 of that day Avould have taken good care that it should not 
 have gone to swell the privy purse. My contention, then, is, 
 that money granted by the House of Commons for one pur- 
 pose and with one view, has been applied to other purposes 
 — and I will give my reasons for so thinking. But if there 
 should prove to be, I do not say a clear case, but even such 
 a one as would leave room for doubt, then I argue that no 
 subject can more justly become a matter of debate in the House 
 of the elected representatives of the tax-payers of the nation. 
 
 That in fixing the expenditure at the beginning of the 
 reign, the House of Commons took nothing into consideration 
 except the probable expenditure, is clear from the wording of 
 the Civil List Act itself. As a general rule it is better to 
 give Avords of one's OAvn than to quote those of others ; but 
 upon this subject — on AA'hich I speak only on account of the 
 hesitation of those more learned in finance than I can pretend 
 to be, to bring this matter before the House — I cannot resist 
 
 H
 
 98 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 the temptation that I feel to quote words, most accurate I 
 think in their character, which were used by the Prime 
 Minister hist year. Speaking in the House of Commons at 
 the time uf a debate upon grants which were then proposed, 
 the right honourable gentleman said — " Gentlemen who study 
 the structure of the Civil List Act, will perceive that Parlia- 
 ment studiously lays down the application of the moneys 
 granted to the Sovereign, and confines them to the special 
 services to which they are destined." Again, in the course 
 of last year he said, " I refer to the terms of the Civil List 
 Act. Looking at the mode in which the annual income is 
 bestowed upon the Sovereign ; it is not bestowed upon the 
 Sovereign in the gross, but it is bestowed after a careful 
 investigation of details, and an exact appreciation of Avhat, in 
 the judgment of Parliament, each of the branches to which 
 the attention of Parliament is directed will require, in order 
 to maintain the dignity of the Sovereign." I repeat, then, it 
 is certain, that if the Committee which sat at the beginning 
 of the reign had intended that the Treasury should allow 
 money to accumulate, and the balances to go to swell the 
 privy purse, they would have proposed that the money should 
 be voted in a lump sum. The language of the 8th clause of 
 the Act is very stringent in its delimitation of the classes, and 
 after tying the money up in this careful way, it insists that 
 even savings shall not be withdrawn at the end of each 
 quarter, but only once a year, and the language seems to con- 
 template no savings except savings of a most trifling kind. 
 At the end of the year there is power given to the Com- 
 mi.ssioners of the Treasury to direct the savings to be applied 
 in aid of the charges upon the Civil List revenues, but there 
 is not one word in regard to allowing income to accumulate, 
 I submit to the House, that it is contrary to the spirit of the 
 Civil List Act, even if it be not contrary to its letter, that 
 the savings should be allowed to accumulate or should be 
 handed over without inquiry, to those persons, through whom 
 tike place the disbursements of the privy purse. I should 
 feci grave doubt of the wisdom of my attempting to set my 
 humble opinion upon such a point against that of the skilled 
 authorities. I .should hesitate Ijefore I did so. But this is 
 the opinion of other skilled authorities. It was the opinion of 
 Lord iJruugliam. It seeius to have been the opinion of Lord
 
 Civil List. 99 
 
 "Russell, for in the debate on the provision f(jr Prince Albert, 
 •which took place in 1840, Sir Robert Peel stated that Lord 
 John Russell had, on a former occasion, said, " that the 
 Crown could not apply the surplus on one head of the Civil 
 List to the privy purse " ; and Lord Russell, who uas present, 
 took no objection to the words thus attributed to him. As 
 to the opinion of Lord Brougham, it is, I think, of such 
 importance, that I -will venture to read a few passages of it 
 to the House. His protest against the negativing of his 
 motion for an inquiry into the subject is a document of the 
 greatest value, and the House will find that if I am wrong 
 upon the point of legality, I at least can claim to have erred 
 in Lord Brougham's company. I quote from the Lords' 
 journals of the 5th of August, 1850. Lord Brougham dissents 
 from the judgment of the majority of the House of Lords 
 upon ten separate grounds. I had not, when I spoke at 
 Newcastle, seen this protest ; indeed, I read it for the first 
 time about a month ago, but his argument is precisely the 
 argument which I had used, and I own that it seems to me 
 unanswerable. Lord Brougham dissents : — 
 
 " 1st. Because the Civil List arrangement is framed upon 
 statements laid before Parliament in the nature of estimates 
 upon which the grant of income is to be made." 
 
 " 2nd. Because those statements contain a minute detail 
 of the expenses for which provision is made, including the 
 salaries of officers, and even the wages of servants ; and the 
 grant is made on the supposition by all parties to the arrange- 
 ment, that such salaries are to be always paid." 
 
 " 4tli. Because no supposition ever entered the mind of 
 Parliament in making the grant, that large savings v/ere to be 
 effected out of the income granted ; and on the contrary, tliat 
 accumulation of wealth into the hands of the Sovereign is 
 wholly alien to the spirit of our Constitution, which requires 
 the monarch to be wholly dependent upon Parliament, for 
 the revenue by which his dignity shall be supported." 
 
 " Gth. Because, for those reasons, it is the undoubted right 
 of Parliament to obtain information, from time to time, 
 touching the amount of the savings, under the several heads 
 of the Civil List expenditure." 
 
 7th. And this is the most important of all for our 
 present circumstance, and to it I call the attention of all
 
 100 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 those viho voted for reducing the grant to Prince Arthur, Last 
 year. " Because the amount of such savings must form an 
 important matter in considering the applications from time 
 to time made for parliamentary aid in the establishment of 
 the younger branches of the lloyal Family." So much, by 
 way of justification, upon this large and grave side of the 
 subject which I have brought before the consideration of the 
 House. 
 
 It now becomes my duty to go back to certain more 
 general considerations than those with which I have been 
 dealing within the last few minutes, and to inquire into the 
 soundness of certain arguments which are adduced against 
 the production to the House of information. We are often 
 told that the Civil List income is smaller in the present reign 
 than it ever has been in the past, which makes it an 
 ungracious act to inquire into its expenditure ; and again, that 
 the Crown lands are producing far more than they ever have 
 produced before, which makes it still more ungracious to 
 question the expediency of charges Avhich are borne by the 
 public as part of the arrangement under which these lands have 
 been surrendered by the Crown. Now, in the debate which 
 took place on the 27th January, 1840, in this House, 
 Mr. Gf)ulburn showed that the income of the Civil List during 
 the present reign was in reality 20,000^. a year more than it 
 was during the last. The Civil List under William IV. was 
 375,000/. a year. The Civil List now is 385,000/. a year, 
 excluding on the one hand the allowance to the Queen-Consort 
 in the late reign, and on the other the allowance to the Prince- 
 Consort in the present. But then 10,000/. a year, as was 
 shown by Lord Monteagle, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 was saved at the commencement of the present reign by the 
 reducti(jn of the salaries of certain of the great officers of the 
 Household, making an excess of 20,000/. a year in what may 
 be called the available sums. Moreover, in consequence of 
 the report of the Civil List committee, and the advice given 
 by that committee that public charges should, as far as 
 po8.sible, be borne on the estimates, and only those royal 
 expenses which may be called personal, should be borne by 
 the Civil List, large sums have been saved. For instance, 
 the King's Plates cost 2,000/. a year and more from the Civil 
 List of ^V illiam IV., and now are charged on estimates. Stud
 
 Civil List. 101 
 
 bills and hunt bills cost William IV. 5,000/. a year, and arc 
 now all but extinct, and the travelling expenses of the Court 
 have been greatly reduced since the introduction of railways. 
 I have already mentioned other large charges now Ijorne on 
 estimates, but formerly charged in part upon the Civil List. 
 As for the much talked of surrender of the hereditary 
 revenues, — the droits of Admiralty, were Avorth nothing in 
 time of peace, and, as was shown by Air. Harvey, in a debate 
 which occurred on 19th April, 183G, the 4^ per centum dues, 
 of which a great deal was said, although worth 25,000/. a year, 
 were saddled with pensions which, had they all been paid, 
 would have amounted to 30,000/. a year ! But I find also 
 that these duties were described by Lord Shelburne in this 
 House as unjustly raised, as merely laid on by virtue of the 
 prerogative, as " utterly illegal and unconsitutional ! " So 
 much for two important branches of these hereditary revenues ! 
 But with regard to the whole of them, Lord Shelburne said : 
 — " The hereditary duties at no time belonged to the Crowii ; 
 they were at the disposition of Parliament; 4,000/. a week 
 out of them was taken by the Parliament of William IIL The 
 grants of forfeited estates were resumed under Anne, and 
 applied to the exigencies of State. It was preposterous and 
 fallacious to suppose that the agreement made by his present 
 Majesty was any act of concession in him." ^Moreover, if 
 Mr. Fox may be quoted as an authority, and for certain it is 
 not easy to refute his arguments, he said" on the 2Uth ^larch, 
 1802, — " From the time that Parliament exonerated the Crown 
 from the expenses of levying fleets and armies, from that 
 moment the hereditary revenues became the projicrty of the 
 public. William III. was not even heir to the Crown when 
 he succeeded." So much for the " hereditary revenues ' ! To 
 call attention to their character, 1 will ask the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer to tell us how much the hereditary revenues, 
 except Crown lands, produce at the present time. On the 
 other hand, if it be true that there was a distinct arrange- 
 ment with regard to the Crown lands, which can oidy be 
 reconsidered at the close of the reign, then, no doubt, it would 
 be difficult to cause inquiry to be made into the whole subject, 
 unless we were able to do that which I believe I also have 
 •done, viz., prove abuse. But is it the case that there is any 
 fiuch arrangement as to the Crown lands at all? iMy view of
 
 102 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 the position of the Crown lands is one which I can produce 
 great authorities to support. It is the fact that for many 
 reigns no king has enjoyed the Crown lands beneficially, and 
 even the Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted last year that 
 " there was no chance that any Sovereign would ever again 
 manage for his own benefit the estate of the Crown." The 
 Crown claim to those lands is one which may be said, with 
 fairness, to be like many others in this country — tolerated 
 only so long as it is not enforced ; and if these lands were to 
 be surrendered, they would be liable to charges far greater 
 than their value in amount. At the accession of each king, 
 the amount of the Civil List for the future is determined, not 
 upon considerations of what the Crown lands may be expected 
 to produce, but wholly and solely upon consideration of what 
 is necessary for the dignity of the Crown. There is, I know, 
 a reference to the Crown lands in the preamble of the Civil 
 List Act, but I contend that this is a reference purely con- 
 venti<«ml in its nature, and made by way of form. In the 
 really valuable collections of authority, viz., the proceedings 
 of the Committee, and the debates in this House, the granting 
 of the Civil List was never rested on the surrender of the 
 C^o^^^l lands. My contention is, that these lands have long 
 since become, in fact, a purely national estate. Only last 
 session a committee which sat upon the question of the Thames 
 Embankmentj seems to have taken, by a large majority, this 
 view. Even were my opinion a modern one, I should be pre- 
 pared to contend that it would be none the less defensible for 
 being comparatively new. But so far back even as the reign 
 of Anne, I find in the preamble of a statute, 1st Anne, cap. 7, 
 these words : — " Whereas, the necessary expenses of sup- 
 porting the Crown were formerly defrayed by a land revenue,, 
 which hath from time to time been impaired by the grants of 
 former kings, so that Her Majesty's land revenues at present 
 can afford very little towards the support of her government, 
 nevertheless the land revenues of the Crown may hereafter be 
 increased, and consequently the burden upon the estates of 
 the sulyects of this realm may be lessened, in all future pro- 
 vi.sions to be made for the expenses of the civil government. 
 To the end, therefore, that the land revenues of the Crown 
 may be preserved and increased, be it enacted, that every 
 grant or lea.se which shall be made by Her Majesty, her heirs 
 
 J
 
 Civil List. 103 
 
 or successors, kings or queens of this realm, shall be utterly 
 void and of none eflfect." And then follow the exceptions of 
 short leases where full rent is taken. I ask, then, who are the 
 heretics — Mr. Howard and Mr. Gore, or, on the other hand, 
 Mr. Hallam, Lord Brougham, and ^Ir. Allen, the author of 
 the great work on the royal prerogative, who take what may 
 be called the modern view ? I confess that, for my i)art, I 
 prefer the opinion of the latter, when I find it backed by the 
 practice of Parliament for years past. I deal only with this 
 subject at this moment, because I am forced to do so. There 
 is no necessity for moving for any returns upon the point, 
 because we have already in our possession ample information 
 in respect to the Crown lands, but in any future inquiry 
 Avhich may be held on the whole subject, it would be neces- 
 sary to ask whether waste and inconvenience are not caused 
 by the present plan for the management of them, and whether 
 it be not time that we should put an end to the inconvenient 
 fiction of their being now in any special sense the property of 
 the Crown. The disputes which have arisen in reference to 
 the New Forest and to the Thames Embankment, and the 
 enormous per-centage of the revenues which is spent in 
 management, are by themselves sufficient justification for 
 urging that inquiry should be directed to this point. Another 
 case for inquiry might well be founded on the fact that 
 Windsor Forest is under the Commissioners of Woods, and 
 that they appeal to us in their reports not to look at it as a 
 property which can be dealt with upon commercial principles 
 at all. If tJiis be so, why not treat it as a great park or 
 garden, and place it under the Commissioner of Works ? At 
 this moment the expenditure at Windsor Forest is 22,000^. 
 and odd pounds a year, and the receipts are 4,000/. only, and 
 yet this is part of the " hereditary land revenues" of the 
 Crown "surrendered" by the Crown to the public in con- 
 sideration of the granting of the Civil List ! Another com- 
 plication upon which we may found a demand for inquiry is that 
 on the 7th July, 1851, it was stated by Lord Seymour in this 
 House, that the expenses of keeping up the lodges in the parks 
 held by great personages, "bygrace and favour of Her Majesty," 
 were defrayed out of the land revenues of the Crown. 
 Defrayed, that is, out of revenues supposed to be surrendered 
 wholly to the public in consideration of the granting of a 
 Ci\il List.
 
 104 Speeches of Sik Charles Dilke. 
 
 We are often told that during the present reign we have 
 never been applied to for payments in respect of debts, and 
 that this fact again makes inquiry ungraceful. Now, what 
 were these debts? The payment of them began in 1713. 
 This case was one which, although it is the precedent, may be 
 described, and has been described in this House, as a precedent 
 of trickery and fraud. In the reign of George I, provision 
 was twice made for payment of the debts, but they were paid 
 by deductions from the salaries, and without any charge upon 
 the public. In George II. 's reign no payment of debts took 
 place. In 17G9 the debt on the Civil List was paid, but the 
 expenses of the king's marriage had been charged upon the 
 Civil List, and were put forward as the cause of debt. Now, 
 this 17G9 payment was made on a distinct pledge given that 
 no such demand should be made in future. In spite of this 
 promise; an application was made in 1777, and led to riots. 
 Ultimately, in consequence of this application, the whole Civil 
 List was remodelled in 1781. In 1784 a few debts were paid, 
 but only in consequence of the loss of certain hereditary 
 revenues though the American AVar. The precedents of 
 George IV. are not worth much to us, happily, now, and in 
 the reign of "William IV. there was a saving on the Civil List. 
 There are no precedents which would apply in the case of any 
 debts which might now be incurred. The House of Com- 
 mons paid Civil List debts — when they did pay them — not 
 because they recognized their obligation to meet the ex- 
 travagance of the Court, but because if the money had not 
 been voted, many public servants would have been deprived 
 of their incomes. As was said in Parliament in 1804, "the 
 judges of the land and the foreign ministers were in arrear." 
 At that time, as the House will remember, the Civil List was 
 charged with a great number of salaries and public expenses, 
 which is now no longer the case. The House of Commons 
 never paid debts by votes until it had exhausted every other 
 expedient. In 1782, when George III. applied for aid to 
 extricate the Civil List from debt, he desired, by message, 
 " the advice of the Commons as to the mode of discharging 
 the debt, without laying any new burden on his people," and 
 for this purpose he proposed a plan of reform and reduction in 
 his establishment. Even in 178G a promise was made as to 
 the future, and Fox vehemently opposed the payment. In
 
 Civil List. 105 
 
 1795, the Prince of Wales being in debt, the Commons refused 
 to vote a sum to pay tlic debt. What they did was to increase 
 Iiis income, and to appropriate a portion of it to the payment of 
 his past debts, declaring future debts to be irrecoverable, and 
 in tills case there was this special reason for payment, that 
 the Prince had not been permitted to receive the accumulations 
 of the income of the Duchy of Cornwall. In 1802, a debt 
 was paid, after violent opposition from Fox, but even this was 
 A debt wholly incurred under the head of occasional payments, 
 which may be said not now to exist, and there had been a 
 large saving on the other classes of the Civil List. As to the 
 debt of 1814, it was explained by the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer that it arose not in the household, on which there was 
 a saving, but on political expenses. In the case of 181G, on 
 the 3rd of May, Lord Castlereagh explained " that the accu- 
 mulation of debt was occasioned, not by the excesses of the 
 Household Department, but by the increased charges on those 
 branches of the Civil List which were connected with the 
 public expenditure." Without going into every case, I may 
 say, that Parliament has never admitted its liability to bear 
 debts on the Civil List, and has never paid such debts, 
 without special grounds for so doing, and that they were in 
 general no more than Civil Service Supplementary Estimates. 
 Now, it is true, that no application for the payment of 
 debts has been made during the present reign, but repeated 
 ap2>lications have been made for dowries to princesses, and for 
 annuities, under circumstances wholly diftcrent from those 
 under which such applications were made in former times. 
 When I find that these annuities have often been voted una- 
 nimously by the House, I cannot but regret the •'xtinction of 
 the old Whig traditions, which, while they were kept alive, 
 would have prevented the creation of such evil precedents for 
 the future. In all the older royal messages asking for 
 annuities, the King used to be made to say that his applica- 
 tion was based upon the consideration, " that he was restrained 
 by the laws now in being, from making provision for his 
 younger children, and hoped that Parliament will grant an 
 annuity to take effect after his demise." These were the 
 words made use of throughout the reign of George 11. — for 
 instance, on Gth July, 1727, on the 8th April, 1734, and on 
 the 3rd May, 1739. I find the very same Avords made use of
 
 lOG Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 by George III. For instance, in liis message of 8th April^ 
 177{>, he says: — "His Majesty being restrained by the laws 
 now in being, from making provision for his younger children 
 out of the hereditary revenues of the Crown." Now this 
 refers to the Restraining Act, 1st Anne, cap. 7, which is put 
 an end to by the 39th and 40th of George III., cap. 88, and 
 the 25th and 2Gth of Victoria, cap. 37, and Avhich prevented 
 the making of any permanent provision by the king. It is a 
 remarkable confirmation of this view, that the annuities under 
 the Bills passed in consequence of the messages which I have 
 quoted, wore to take effect only on the King's death. Even 
 the Princess Royal — daughter of George III.— obtained no 
 English annuity upon her marriage, and the case of the 
 marriage of the daughter of George II. to the Prince of 
 Orange, the settlement made by the king was a purely 
 political payment to a Protestant Prince, as was stated by 
 Ministers, and was never made use of as a precedent. The 
 annuity that was granted to the Princess Royal, daughter of 
 George III., by the Irish Parliament is not a case in point, 
 because the Restraining Act did not apply to Ireland. The 
 Princesses Mary and Louisa, daughters of George II., obtained 
 no annuities at all, and the younger daughters of George III., 
 80 far from having annuities granted them in consideration 
 of their marriage, were bound by Act of Parliament to accept 
 a portion of 40,000^. in lieu of annuities, which, if they had 
 remained unmarried, they would have received on their father's 
 demise. Now, as late as the 12th June, 1843, this sound 
 doctrme had not been forgotten by the Ministers of the 
 Crown. Sir Robert Feel on that day spoke as follows :— " I 
 find that the rule adopted by the House of Commons in 
 respect to provisions made for princesses of the Royal 
 Family h:us been to assume that the parent of the princess, 
 whether the reigning Sovereign or any member of the family, 
 would undertake during the lifetime of that parent, out of the 
 provision made for him, either from the Civil List granted to 
 the Sovereign or from the Consolidated Fund granted to any 
 member of the Royal Family by Parliament, to make provision 
 for the daughters." He went on to say, that " the principle 
 was to assume that the parent, during his lifetime, would make 
 provision for his daughter, and that Parliament would make 
 an allowance, its payment being contingent upon the death of
 
 Civil List. 107 
 
 such parent." The hate annuities have sinned agaiu.st this 
 principle, and entitle us to re-open the ^vllole subject of the 
 arrangement between Parliament and the Crown. Indeed, I 
 should be justified, I think, in saying that there is no pre- 
 cedent whatever for the provisions which have been made for 
 the daughters of the present Queen. The Crown now 
 possesses the power to hold private properties from which 
 pro\'isions for daughters can be made. The secrecy of the 
 Royal will, most unwisely granted by the 25 and 2G Vict. c. 37, 
 will, however, prevent our knowing whether the properties so 
 held are sufficient for the charges Avhich might thus be thrown 
 upon them. 
 
 Quoting ^Mr. Goulburn, a few minutes back, I showed 
 that the disposable income of the Civil List was larger in the 
 present than it had been in the last reign. But I did not 
 add, as I might have done, that the receipts from the Duchy 
 of Lancaster, which go straight to the privy purse, have 
 enormously increased. The net payment now, after great 
 deductions for management, is never less than 30,000/. a year, 
 and comes sometimes nearly to 35,000/. a year. At the be- 
 ginning of the reign it yielded only 8,000/. One of the 
 returns for which I propose to move Avill show the gro.ss 
 income of the Duchy of Lancaster for each year since her 
 ^Majesty's accession, and also for each year the amount paid 
 over to the keeper of the privy purse. In the debates which 
 occurred on the subject of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1847 
 and 1850, and again on the 11th June, 1857, it was admitted 
 by the Ministers that Parliament has an absolute right to 
 inquire into this subject. I think that, considering that Sir 
 Ptobcrt Peel admitted in this case the right to inquire, I may 
 assume that the separate character of the Crown interest in 
 this Duchy is as absolute a fiction as is the theory of the 
 private interest of the Crown in the Crown lands. The late 
 Lord Derby took a similar view ; he said, in the debate of 
 the 2Gth February, 1847, that there was an annual account 
 presented to Parliament of the management of the Duchy, 
 and that the presentation of this account " did imply that 
 Parliament exercised some control over the matter — nay more, 
 that the administration of the affairs of the Duchy was 
 vested in one of the responsible advisers of the Crown, who 
 was generally a Cabinet Minister, and in that capacity respon-
 
 108 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 sible to Parliament for tlie management of the duties confided 
 to him ; if there had been any extravagant expenditure in the 
 establishment — if there had been any waste — if there had 
 been improvidence — that Avas a subject into which Parliament 
 had a right to inquire, and ought to inquire." Now, with 
 regard to mismanagement and waste, the accounts themselves 
 presented this year to Parliament show 15,000^. a year to 
 have been spent upon the management of an estate the net 
 revenue of which is 31,000/. — figures which of themselves 
 seem to justify the general charge, and certainly to justify 
 inquiry. But last year the honourable member for Tamworth, 
 speaking in this House in opposition to the dowry of the 
 Princess Louise, used words so strong as to make me marvel 
 that the officers themselves who are responsible for the 
 management of the Duchy of Lancaster should not of their 
 own motion have proposed an inquiry. The right honourable 
 baronet said — "I do not suppose that there is in this country 
 such gross mismanagement as is to be found in the case of 
 the Duchy of Lancaster. Will the House believe that while 
 the revenues of the Duchy amount to 50,000/. a year, only 
 about 25,000/. is paid to Her Majesty, while the other 25,000/. 
 is expended in the grossest mismanagement f — adding a still 
 harder word, which word, but not the statement, he after- 
 wards withdrew. Now, Sir, I speak that which all honourable 
 members who are connected with Staffordshire well know, 
 when I say that by the imperfect management of the Duchy 
 estates vast fortunes are being made by individuals at the 
 cost of the Crown, and indirectly, as I contend, at the cost of 
 the country. In a debate which took place in 1849 it was 
 .shown that there were many sinecure officers connected with 
 the Duchy — for instance, one gentleman who received 1,G00/. 
 a year for duties Avholly performed by deputy, — and many of 
 these offices still remain. I may add, that at the time when 
 the Civil List Act for the last reign was introduced, it was 
 generally supposed in the House of Commons that the 
 revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster would be given up by 
 the Crown to the State, in the same way as the revenues of 
 the other Crown lands, but at the last moment a difi'erent 
 course seems to have been resolved upon. I frankly admit 
 that inquiry in this case ought, in my opinion, to be a pre- 
 liminary step towards the merging of this estate in the other
 
 Civil List. 109- 
 
 property of the CroAvn, and the House will remember that 
 even in the last century a 15ill was brouglit in by !Mr. J'.urke 
 and jNIr. Fox for this purpose. j\Ir. Burke then said that 
 which is still true, viz. — that the accounts of the JJuchy of 
 Lancaster " exhibited the apparatus of a kingdom in the 
 management of a mere private estate." It has often been 
 said in this House, by great sticklers for the rights of the 
 Crown, that the interest of the Crown in the Duchy of 
 Lancaster is as private as the interest in their properties of 
 the Dukes of Portland or of Bedford, But there is this one 
 great difference, that the Duke of Portland, if he wastes hi.s 
 property, cannot come to this House to make good the defi- 
 ciency, but the Duke of Lancaster can, and Parliament is 
 therefore directly interested in seeing that his revenues are 
 economically administered. But a better answer is this : if 
 the Duchy of Lancaster be a private estate, why should the 
 Crown retain Crown privileges in dealing with it? The 
 Crown ought not to claim royal privileges wlicn it proceeds 
 against an individual, and then when Parliament asks for a 
 control over the estates, turn round and say that they are 
 private property. The 1st Anne, c. 7, section 1, enacts 
 that grants of lands from the Crown are void, even grants 
 under the seals of the Duchy and County Palatine of Lan- 
 caster; thus putting the Duchy in exactly the same posi- 
 tion as the rest of the Crown lands. ^Moreover, the very fact 
 that Acts had to be passed to enable the Crown to hold 
 private property shows that Lancaster is not the private 
 property of the Crown. ]My last point is, that by the Civil 
 List Act of Geo. III., the Duchy of Lancaster seems to have 
 been classed with the rest of the land revenues of the Crown. 
 The Duchy of Cornwall is more immediately and directly 
 under the control of this House than is the Duchy of Lan- 
 caster. I propose, with regard to it, to move for a similar 
 return to that which I move for in the case of the Duchy of 
 Lancaster, viz., a return of the gross amount of its income 
 for each year since the beginning of the reigu, and also of the 
 amount paid over in each year for the use of the Prince of 
 Wales. If it needed argument, I might point out that the 
 honourable member for Kilmarnock showed, in a debate which 
 took place on the 25th ISlarch, 1850, that the original title 
 to the Duchy was Parliamentary ; that returns of its manage-
 
 110 Speeches of Sik Charles Dilke. 
 
 luent were aiinually laid before Parliament ; and that the 
 ■office of the Duchy was a public office, for which at that time 
 no rent was paid. I may add, that the present office was 
 built at a cost of 17,000^., charged not upon the revenues of 
 the Duchy, but upon the taxes. 
 
 I said just now that Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke introduced 
 a Bill for the merger of the Duchies of Lancaster and Corn- 
 wall in the Crown ; but Mr. Fox returned to the subject 
 fifteen years later, and on the 27th April, 1795, in advocating 
 the immediate sale of the Crown interest in the Duchy of 
 Cornwall, he said, " it had ever been his opinion that a landed 
 estate was the least proper of any for the Crown." And I 
 repeat with regard to it, that Avhich I said of the Duchy of 
 Lancaster, viz., that if inquiry be held, it ought to be held, 
 I think, with a view at least to merger in the Crown or public 
 lands. I again repeat that the separation is but a mere 
 fiction, for the 1st and 2nd William IV., continued in this 
 respect by an Act of the present reign, restrains the King and 
 the Prince of Wales from granting leases, other than such as 
 are grantable in the case of the Crown lands. Still more 
 startling, and still more important, is the fact that the Duchy 
 was surrendered along with the Crown lands, by William III. 
 The first claim of the Crown to its peculiar rights in Corn- 
 wall seems to have arisen thus : Cornwall is full of tin, — 
 silver and gold are royal metals, tin-mines contain silver, and 
 therefore are royal too. But the extreme antiquity of the 
 rights of the Crown in Cornwall of itself makes them singu- 
 larly burdensome in their character, and an enormous waste 
 of money may be said to occur in mere contention. The 
 Crown is continually bringing lawsuits against itself, owing 
 to the twofold, or I might say tenfold, nature of the shapes 
 in which it appears. The Crown and the Duchy of Cornwall, 
 for instance, have had frequent disputes, and inasmuch as 
 when there is no Prince of Wales the King himself is Duke 
 of Cornwall, he then has his disputes with himself. There 
 have been lawsuits brought by the King as King, against the 
 King as Duke of Cornwall, and vice versd, and large sums of 
 money have been expended in these disputes : even now it 
 has never Ijeen finally settled whether the gold found in 
 Cornwall belongs to the King or to the Duke ; and whenever 
 gold-mines are opened there, as they have been in Wales, we
 
 Civil List. Ill 
 
 may expect fresh litigation between these royal personages. 
 The most amusing reminder of the double character of the 
 Crown interests with which I have met, is in a Parliamentary 
 return of 18GG, in which it says of some treasure-trove, that 
 "the treasure being the property of Her Majesty in right of 
 Her Duchy of Lancaster, has been h;/ Her Jfajesfi/'s comraand 
 Joriuarded to the Queen, hy whom it has been retained " ! 
 
 There is not likely to be made to-day any attemjit to 
 contend that the Duchy of Cornwall is the private property 
 of the Prince of Wales ; but as it may possibly be even now 
 contended that the Duchy of Lancaster is in some sense the 
 private property of the Crown, I will venture to quote 
 Lord Brougham's words upon the subject, used by him in 
 1837 — words in which even Lord Althorp expressed his 
 concurrence. He said, " I should like to see the man, whether 
 on the ministerial or opposition lienches, gifted with the 
 confidence which must be exhibited by him who would affirm 
 that Cornwall and Lancaster are private and personal property, 
 and not public funds, vested in the Sovereign only as such ; 
 enjoyed by him as Sovereign, and in right of the Crown alone ; 
 held as public property for the benefit of the State, and as a 
 parcel of the national possessions." 
 
 Having said this much of the Crown lands and of the 
 Duchies, I may go on to state, that I forbear, from feelings 
 of delicacy, to touch the subject of tlie private estates of the 
 Crown. I do so, because I am unwilling, following, as I am, 
 precedent on this occasion, to go beyond my precedents, and 
 to move for the first time for returns of a character which have 
 never been moved for in earlier years. I shall not, therefore, 
 touch this branch of the subject further than to say, that I 
 contend that we have a right to inquire, both into the manage- 
 ment and tenure of the private landed estates of the Crown, 
 and also into the investments of the Crown in the funds; 
 and for two reasons : the one is, that their amount ought to 
 be taken into account by Parliament, on each occasion when 
 it is called upon to vote money for the support of the dignity 
 of the Crown, in order that we may avoid those constitutional 
 dangers which would be caused were a large private fortune 
 to be accumulated by the tenants of the Crown. This is a 
 reason of expediency, but the other is a reason of law. I 
 contend that with regard to the property in the funds, whether
 
 112 Speeches of Sir Chaeles Dilke. 
 
 the clause in the Income Tax Act exempting it from taxation 
 be acted niion, or whether it be not, the insertion of that 
 clause in the Act concedes with regard to these properties the 
 principle that they are quasi public. I may add, that according 
 to Mr. Allen, in his valuable book upon the Royal Prerogative, 
 " it has become a maxim of English law, that all lands and 
 tenements possessed by the King belong to him in right of 
 the Crown, and descend with it to his successors, though he 
 had been seized of them in his private capacity, before he was 
 King, or had inherited them from ancestors, who were never 
 invested with the attributes of royalty." Those principles 
 thus laid down by Mr. Allen, and also, I may add, in " Coke 
 upon Lyttleton," were acted upon by Parliament, in the case 
 of the Pavilion at Brighton. Again, the public interest in 
 the so-called private property of the Crown Avas admitted by 
 39 and 40 George III., cap. 88, section 10, Avhich made the 
 King's personal property, so far as it came from the privy 
 purse or unappropriated moneys, liable for Civil List debts. 
 The same view was acted upon when George II. compelled 
 Sir Ptobert Walpole to refund 20,000/., which had been 
 entrusted to him by George I. for the benefit of the Covintess 
 of Kendal. 
 
 Before I sit down, I Avish to go for a few minutes into the 
 reasons which exist, in addition to those which I have already 
 given, for raising those subjects both in the country and the 
 House. No honourable gentleman who reads the papers most 
 read by the least wealthy members of our community — no 
 gentleman who ever attends a public meeting — can fail to 
 know that there is a wide-spread belief that under cover of the 
 Crown much waste of public moneys still goes on. If 
 honourable gentlemen go further and inquire for themselves 
 into the truth of these beliefs, they cannot but discover that 
 there is ground for the popular opinion. They will find that 
 during those long years in which Her Majesty, from feeUngs 
 which all respect, did not visit London, an enormous staff was 
 maintained in absolute idleness in connexion with Buckingham 
 Palace. Tliey will find the Civil List Pensions generally, and 
 the Civil List Bounties almost ahvays, jobbed away. They 
 will find that great political officials obtain the benefit of the 
 sums appropriated for the maintenance of the Crown. They 
 will learn, fur instance — and I quote but one case out of many
 
 Civil List. 1 1 .'J 
 
 — that one official, whose duties are performed by deput}', has 
 four royal carriages, fourteen royal horses, four royal footmen, 
 five grooms, and some messengers, maintained for his exclusive 
 use, from the Civil List, which the public has sui)plied. Now, 
 this money, thus absorbed by certain great personages, the 
 country has hitherto paid willingly, supposing it to go to the 
 Queen ; but when the public discovers, as it has now begun to 
 discover, that the money voted is thus misspent, I doubt 
 whether we shall not have to cope with an almost unanswer- 
 able demand for a revision of the expenditure of the Civil 
 List. 
 
 I have shown, then, that an inquiry of the kind whicli I 
 propose is consistent with precedent and with the former 
 practice of this House. I have shown that in asking for it 
 we have the justification of a quiet and orderly popular wish, 
 and of increasing estimates, though we are in a time of peace. 
 I am aware that the sums in question may be looked upon as 
 insignificant beside the amounts which our army and navy 
 claim. For my part, I object to sinecures less on account of 
 their cost than on account of their tone. 8till, if you answer 
 that the amounts are small, I must remind you of the words 
 of Pitt upon this point, during the debate of 1781, upon the 
 Bill of j\lr. Burke. Pitt said—" We have been told that the 
 saving is immaterial ; that it is a matter of trifling considera- 
 tion Avhen measured by the necessities or the expenses of the 
 time. It proposes to bring no more than 200,000/. a year 
 into the public cofi"ers, and that sum is insignificant in the 
 public account when compared with the millions we spend. 
 This is surely the most singular and unaccountable species of 
 reasoning that was ever attempted in any assembly. . . . 
 We have spent so many millions that thousands are beneath 
 our consideration ! We are obliged to spend so much that it 
 is foolish to think of saving any ! Yet it is by arguments 
 such as these that the principle of the Bill has been disputed." 
 
 It now becomes my duty to apologize to the House for the 
 length to which my observations have almost unavoidably ex- 
 tended. The heads of my case are these. That the House of 
 Commons possesses a right to inquire into the Civil List, even 
 during the continuance of the reign. That inquiry at the 
 beginning of a reign cannot but be imsatisfactory. That 
 public advantage would arise from inquiry now. That abuses 
 
 I
 
 114 Speeches of Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 exist in connexion with the Civil List accounts. That 
 the savings published until 1850, and concealed after 
 Lord Brougham's motion, should be made known now with 
 greater reason, inasmuch as the secrecy of Eoyal testaments 
 has unwisely been conferred by an Act passed since that date. 
 That it is impolitic to allow large savings to go to swell the 
 privy purse. That while there is reason to believe that a 
 private fortune is being built up about the Crown, on the 
 other hand unprecedented applications to parliamentary 
 bounty have been made during the present reign, through 
 Ministers who seem to have misapprehended the altered state 
 of the law. That for these reasons inquiry is specially 
 desirable. That returns for which I am about to move are a 
 necessary first step in this inquiry. 
 
 I have but one thing left to say, and that is this^^ — that I 
 regret deeply that the subject has not been brought before the 
 House both by a member more competent to deal with it 
 completely, and also by a member favourable to the monarchical 
 form of government. I know that the motion cannot but 
 suffer prejudice on account of my opinions, and I should not 
 have ventured to have submitted it to the House had the 
 engagements of my hon. friend, the member for Birmingham, 
 who gave notice of it last session, allowed him to persevere 
 in the course he then intended to have taken. I can only beg 
 the House not to allow the motion to sufi"er by any unworthi- 
 ness in the individual who proposes it for their consideration. 
 
 Sir Charles Dilke concluded his speech by moving for the 
 following returns : — 
 
 1. — A return showing the duties of the Auditor (or Deputy- 
 Auditor) of the Civil List; to whom he makes his 
 reports ; and for a copy of such reports for each year 
 since the accession of Her Majesty. 
 
 2. — A return of the directions or warrants issued by the 
 Treasury under section 9. of the Civil List Act, specifj'- 
 ing the classes from which the savings arose, and the 
 classes to which they were transferred, for each year 
 since the accession of Her Majesty. 
 
 3. — A return showing the income and expenditure of the 
 Civil List from the accession of Her Majesty to the pre- 
 sent time.
 
 Civil List. 115 
 
 4. — A return of all offices held in connexion with the Court 
 which have been abolished since the date of the report 
 of the Committee of 1837-8. 
 
 5. — A list of all charges formerly borne by the Civil List or 
 hereditary revenues which have been transferred to the 
 Consolidated Fund or yearly estimates since the accession 
 of Her Majesty. 
 
 G. — A return showing the amounts charged on estimates since 
 the commencement of the present reign for fees upon 
 installation ; robes, collars, and badges ; royal presents ; 
 passages or conveyance of " distinguished personages " ; 
 funerals of the members of the royal family ; marriages 
 of members of the royal family ; the coronation ; journeys 
 
 ^of Her Majesty ; building, draining, repairing, furnishing 
 and fitting-up of palaces ; ceremonials connected with the 
 Court ; allowances and clothing for trumpeters ; fees to 
 royal watermen ; payments to the Marshal of the Cere- 
 monies and to the Lord Chamberlain. 
 
 7. — A return showing for each year since the accession of Her 
 Majesty the gross amount of the income arising from the 
 Duchy of Lancaster, and also the amount in each year 
 paid over to the Keeper of Her Majesty's Privy Purse. 
 
 8. — A return showing for each year since the accession of Her 
 Majesty the gross amount of the income arising from the 
 Duchy of Cornwall, and also the amount in each year 
 paid over for the use of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. 
 
 9. — A return of the services of the royal yachts during the 
 last ten years. 
 
 PRINTED BY F. C. MATHIKSON, BARTHOLOMEW HOUSE, E.C.
 
 SPEECHES 
 I 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR CHARLES WENTWORTH_mKE, 
 
 BART., M.r. 
 AUTHOR OF 'GREATER BRITAIN.' 
 
 1872-1873. 
 
 I 
 
 I LONDON : 
 
 ROBERT J. BUSH, 32, CHARING CROSS, S.W. 
 
 1873.
 
 ifiiifi
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I'AiiE 
 
 Class Legislation . . . , 1 
 
 28 
 33 
 
 Free Schools ..... 
 Free Land ..... 
 Free Trade • .... 45 
 
 Electoral Reform . . . . . G3
 
 SPEECHES BY SIR CHARLES DILKE, 
 BART., M.P. 
 
 CLASS LEGISLATION. 
 Glasgoio, 30th of Se2)temher, 181 
 
 To teach by example, we are often told, is to adopt the best 
 of all methods to enforce our views. If, on your invitation, 
 I am to venture upon the singular task of teaching anything 
 to those from whom, in the larger part of politics, I should the 
 rather learn, I will first bring before you some examples of 
 Class Legislation drawn from our doings in Parliament this 
 year. 
 
 Speaking as I am to the inhabitants of a mighty city, I 
 shall have your sympathies when I say that no example could 
 be more forcible, as one of what I call Class Legislation, than 
 that of the Birmingham Sewage Bill of 1872. That Bill was 
 rejected in the interest of individuals, and against the interest 
 of the State. I do not mean to say that private interests 
 directly weighed with the majority on that occasion, but 
 while a few may have voted out of party feeling, and not a 
 few by following friends, undoubtedly the larger portion of 
 those who formed the majority voted out of a landowner's 
 feeling of sympathy with landowners whose land it was 
 proposed to take for public purposes. Now, if ever compul- 
 sory purchase of land is to be permitted, this would seem to 
 have been an occasion which would justify that purchase. 
 Here was a city which had more than doubled its population 
 within thirty years, and which is increasing at the present 
 moment at a still more rapid rate. It is a very poor city, 
 and a city which hitherto has from natural circumstances 
 been prevented from disposing of its sewage in a scientific 
 way. It was proposed, under an Act of Parliament, to 
 
 B
 
 2 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 purchase land. The Bill cost altogether some 20,000Z. It 
 had been carefully examined by a committee, and the com- 
 mittee was unanimously favourable to it. On the division, 
 the minority represented vastly more voters than the majority; 
 and among the minority were two of the members for 
 Glasgow, elected by a constituency of 50,000 voters, whose 
 votes, in the division, were tied by those given by Cap- 
 tain Stacpoole, who represents 235 electors, and The 
 O'Donoghue, who represents .301 ; or by Colonel Knox, who 
 represents 257, and Mr. Keowm, w-ho represents 263. These 
 happen to be Irish members that I name. Irish members 
 voting upon the disposal of the sewage of an English town. 
 I am often tempted to think that parliamentary government 
 here is conducted on the principles of Austrian military rule, 
 in which Magyars are played off against Croats, and Germans 
 against Magyars : — so here — Irish members against Scotch, 
 and English against both. What confidence, after this Bir- 
 mingham decision, can we feel in the working in the interest 
 of the people, as contrasted wdth that of the landowners, of 
 the Sanitary Act of this session, or of the County Government 
 Act of next ? 
 
 Another startling instance of the abuses of our Parlia- 
 mentary system is to be found in the vote of 4,000/. for the 
 law costs of Governor Eyre. It may of course be said that 
 in voting for the grant, no member voted approval of the 
 conduct of Governor Eyre, and it may even be shown that 
 several members distinctly stated that that conduct was dis- 
 approved by them, and yet voted for the grant. At the same 
 time, one has to look, not only to the strict legal bearing of a 
 proposition, but to the way in which it will be taken in the 
 country, and to the consequent effect produced on public 
 morals. Now, perhaps a hundred people in Parliament, but 
 certainly not ten, I should think, outside of Parliament, looked 
 at the vote as implying anything but approval of the conduct 
 of Governor Eyre. The defence fund which had been raised 
 had more than covered the expenses to which Governor Eyre 
 had been put ; and there is no absolute understanding that 
 the expenses incurred by a colonial governor in defending 
 himself against a suit should be borne by others than himself 
 and his own friends. The only defence that could be really 
 made was, that the present Government, a Liberal Ministry,
 
 Class Legislation. 3 
 
 •chiefly composed of members wbo, as individuals, disapprove 
 the coiidnct of Governor Eyre, considered themselves bound 
 by the promises given by their Conservative predecessors. 
 Now, it is a most astounding proposition, that a ministry of 
 one party, and of one set of principles, who ousted their pre- 
 decessors on the understanding that they considered the 
 policy of those predecessors wholly wrong, should, as soon as 
 they come into office, feel themselves under a compulsiim to 
 adopt and make their own the promises of those predecessors. 
 If such a principle is to prevail, it seems clear to me that it 
 is far less by party than by class that we are governed. A 
 majority of men on both sides, perhaps — certainly a majority 
 of the other side and a large minority upon ours — are men 
 who, while they admit that Governor Eyre acted injudiciousl}-, 
 and that his proceedings are to be regretted, nevertheless 
 refuse to see a man of their own set himiiliated at the bidding 
 •of a body of Baptist missionaries. 
 
 Illustrations come thickly to us from last session. If 
 there be any one subject upon which men of all shades of 
 politics, outside of the House of Commons, are agreed, it is 
 the need of law reform. But one of my friends was defeated, 
 not without ridicule, when he showed that the legal adviser.s 
 of the Government are well enough paid for us to expect that 
 they should cease to give most of their time to private prac- 
 tice ; and Sir George Jessel, Solicitor-General to a Liberal 
 administration, was applauded, when, in answer to another, 
 he told us that law reform was impossible, because the people 
 ■did not want it, and that the Court of Chancery was perfect. 
 As we have been long since told, 
 
 " Nothing's consistent in the human race, 
 Except the Whigs in getting into place." 
 
 Sir George Jessel is, I believe, a Chancery lawyer, while the 
 discussion bore rather upon the common law. In his defence 
 of the Court of Chancery, he went somewhat out of his way 
 to be one-sided, and reminded me of a constable upon his 
 beat in a narrow road, of whom I once askod where in that 
 road was the nearest post-office. His answer was — there is 
 •one on this side of the road five hundred paces to the west 
 of this, but I can't say anything whatever about the other 
 side. Mr. Harcourt's motion asserted that the administratiou
 
 4 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 of the law is costly, dilatory, and inefficient — an opinion in« 
 which those of us who have had anything to do with it would 
 agree. "When Sir George Jessel denied that the Government 
 shared this view, Mr. Henley said in his homely style that it- 
 was "rather a poor look out," and on this occasion, as on- 
 many others, the Eadical members of the House felt inclined 
 to think that Mr. Henley was not far wrong. 
 
 It is not only in connexion with law that Parliament — a 
 Parliament in which the poor are never heard — shows itself' 
 indifferent to extravagance and waste. With an income-tax 
 pressing heavily upon the industry of the middle class, and 
 with the mass of the people unable to provide themselves- 
 with the necessaries of healthy existence, and who pay by 
 taxes on their food for the maintenance of the administration, 
 one might have thought that those do good service to the- 
 country who call public attention to the necessity of a more 
 stringent examination of the Avay in which public money is- 
 expended. Well, I can name to you offices which are pure- 
 sinecures, and to which fresh appointments have been made 
 within a year, with a public statement to Parliament that 
 there are duties to perform, and a private admission that 
 such is not the case. None but a Government too fine for its 
 work would retain a pension system under which former 
 public servants, still well able to perforiii their duties, retire- 
 at an early age, and for a quarter of a century or for half a- 
 century continue to draw large annual payments, for which no 
 work is done or due. A more popular Government would 
 well pay its servants, but require them to make provision for 
 themselves as others do. Pensions at least, however, are 
 better than sinecures — sinecures, which, if defended much 
 longer by Constitutionalists, may come to jjlay to the consti- 
 tution much the part which the parasitic plant called Spanish^ 
 moss plays in California to the giant trees on which it grows- 
 — namely, first kill the tree and then likewise perish. 
 
 Let me come, now, nearer home with my examples of Class 
 Legislation. We passed this year an Education Bill for 
 iScotland. In the discussions in Committee on that Bill, a 
 division might have been taken in favour of the principle of 
 free schools. That division was not taken. Why 1 Simply 
 because we found upon inquiry that not more than twenty 
 members at the outside would have voted in favour of such a
 
 Class Legislation. 5 
 
 proposition, altliougli almost on the very clay on wliich that 
 amendment, had it been made, would have been discussed, the 
 London papers were full of reports of the proceedings of the 
 London School Board, to which I will refer, and which show 
 the, as I think, insuperable difficulties in dealing in any other 
 way with the education of the pour. The London School 
 OBoard, numbering among its members some of the most dis- 
 tinguished persons of our time, was occupied for a whole 
 afternoon with the consideration of the following questions : 
 Whether a widow earning her livelihood as a charwoman, and 
 having two children, of whom one was an infant, and the 
 •other a daughter nine years old, and whose income was Gs. a 
 week, should be made to pay out of it for the schooling of 
 her eldest daughter 1 A second case upon which they h.ad to 
 ■decide was, Whether a charwoman earning 95. a week, and 
 having three children, of whom two were to be sent to school, 
 should be made to pay for the schooling of each of those two { 
 The third was the case of a shirt-maker, earning Gs. a week, 
 with one child. The fourth was the case of a woman deserted 
 by her husband, but earning 8s. a week, having three children, 
 •of whom one was at school. The fifth was the case C)f a man 
 who had been master of a coasting vessel, but who had been 
 out of work for six months, and was looking for work in vain, 
 ^nd who had four children within the school age. Now, the 
 difficulties of the question as to whether these five persons 
 were to pay school fees for their children, or to have them 
 paid, are difficulties which may be fairly said to be all Ijut 
 insuperable. You may pauperize these people by driving 
 them directly on to the rates. If you do so, you increase 
 these rates, and therefore bring other people again within the 
 Tiet ; and you will find, unfortunately, that by the very 
 smallest apparent extension of sucli a principle, such is the 
 poverty of the mass of the people, that you will have increa.scd 
 your number of paupers by a vast proportion. If you are 
 tender to these persons, you are hard upon others, who have 
 to pay for them. If you are hard upon them, you cana 
 misery in a vast number of individual cases, without any 
 -apparent benefit to the country as a whole. I doubt whether 
 it is possible to maintain against public sentiment the enforced 
 payment of school fees by a deserted womaji, earning G*. a 
 week; but, on the other hand, if you once allow such an
 
 6 Speeches by Sir Chakles Dilke. 
 
 exemption in a single case, you will have hundreds of thou- 
 sands of families claiming the benefit of a similar remission. 
 The only cure lies in an education of all classes purely gra- 
 tuitous in its character — that is, paid for by a rate instead of 
 a school fee. But, although many who have given much time 
 and thought to this subject are in favour of such a scheme, 
 such is the wealth of the individuals comprising public bodies 
 of all kinds in this country, that it is difficult to obtain, I do 
 not say a majority in favour of these views, but even their 
 bare consideration. Owing to the non-adoption of a free 
 school system, compulsion is all but a dead letter, and there 
 being no registration of the children, and no accurate weekly 
 returns from the schools, compulsion will soon, as at present" 
 worked, be seen to be arbitrary to a degree, and the sym- 
 pathy of the people will be lost. A free school system need' 
 not be wholly paid for out of rates. I am not without hope 
 that if ever I\Ir. Miall succeeds in disestablishing the church, 
 an extension of the cy-pres doctrine may give us its enormous 
 surplus funds for the establishment of universal free schools, 
 both primary and secondary, and connected with free university- 
 education and free technical universities, as the reward of merit 
 I have not done with the examples of class legislation 
 which I can draw from the proceedings of the last ses- 
 sion. The discussion on the Parks Bill afforded another 
 example of the same kind. The majority of the members of 
 both Houses frequent the London parks, and are tempted to 
 deal with them not purely in the public interest, but in the 
 interest of that section of the public to which they themselves 
 belong — a temptation against which no class of men are ever 
 proof — a fact which only enforces the necessity of never 
 putting absolute power into the hands of any one class by 
 itself. The Bill was a Bill which introduced regulations for 
 the parks extremely pleasant and convenient to persons with 
 carriages and horses, but extremely inconvenient and irksome 
 to those having none. I will not go through the almost idle 
 restrictions which the Bill contained upon the enjoyment of 
 the parks by the true public, which a Conservative journal 
 burlesqued not much when it said that one was " no one 
 shall drive a tandem of tigers in a park," nor will I dwell 
 upon the refusal of Parliament to admit within the parks 
 public vehicles of any kind ; but I would refer for a moment
 
 Class Legislation. 7 
 
 to the rules with regard to public meetings which were con- 
 tained in the Bill, and to the reasons which seem to me to have 
 led to the adoption of those rules. Hyde Park is a very largo 
 tract of ground. It is, with Kensington Gardens, a single 
 park nearly three miles long and more than one mile broad. 
 Public meetings have been held there from time to time as 
 long as anyone can remember. They are held in the middle 
 of the park, and in a place where they are inconvenient to no 
 one. No one visiting the park in any ordinary way would 
 ever come near the spot where they are held, which is far 
 removed from any path or road, unless he went there for 
 purposes of curiosity. Well, merely because the meetings 
 there held are generally of a democratic character, and con- 
 sequently obnoxious to people in society, it was proposed to 
 take powers in this Bill to forbid them altogether. That 
 provision, with much regret, its authors dropped ; but the 
 compromise arrived at was that instead of the words standing 
 thus in the Bill, " No address shall be delivered," they should 
 stand thus, " No address shall be delivered except in accord- 
 ance with the rules of the park"; and we had a further 
 promise that meetings should be only regulated, and not 
 forbidden, by these rules. With that promise we were fain 
 to be content, although our contentment was not perhaps of a 
 very patient kind, and although we certainly did not accept 
 the compromise until Ave had exhausted every means of pre- 
 venting its becoming law. But what occurred 1 Within a 
 week of the time when Parliament was to be prorogued, the 
 rules under the Bill came forth, and to our Avonder we found 
 that one of the rules, all of which Avere vexatious, was the 
 following : — " That the names and addresses of all speakers at 
 any meeting to be held should be sent to some authority," — 
 AA'ho, as far as Ave can make out, Avould be a tribunal con- 
 stituted of Mr. Ayrton and the Duke of Cambridge, that is to 
 say, of the Pianger and the Commissioner of \Vorks. Now, is 
 it possible to imagine that in a case like this, Avhere no 
 necessity for any dealing with the question had been shoAvn, 
 it should be seriously proposed that a rule should be adopted 
 which, if it were to be obeyed, Avould absolutely prevent the 
 moving of any amendment at any meeting that might be held, 
 would prevent anything but a mere cut and dried discussion, 
 and would turn the right of public meeting in the parks into
 
 8 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 a furcel It is clear that the object aimed at was indirectly 
 to prohibit public meetings altogether; and on the mere 
 chance of attaining such an object persons could be found who 
 were prepared to sanction rules so wanton, so ridiculous, and, 
 I may say, so criminal as these. I say " criminal," because, 
 looking to the almost impossibility of enforcing them, and to 
 the certainty that, unless stringently enforced, they will per- 
 sistently be broken, there is every chance that such rules, 
 made without the smallest proved necessity, would lead to riot. 
 
 No one can wonder at the continual pressure exercised by 
 the agricultural interest in both Houses to increase and to 
 retain the restrictions on the importation of foreign cattle, 
 with the protective etfect of keeping up the jirice of meat, and 
 benefiting the agricultural interest of England at the expense 
 of the consumer. There is nothing more strange in modern 
 political history than the fact that the Government, which is 
 more distinctly composed of free traders than any Govern- 
 ment which has ever before existed, should carefully have 
 abstained from making any attempt to complete a free trade 
 policy, and should also, after having in the last Parliament 
 resisted violently, and with an undue use even of the forms 
 of the House of Commons, a measure for the erection of 
 markets at the ports of entry, which would, they said, have 
 had the effect of artificially protecting English cattle and raising 
 the price of food, have been themselves the strongest up- 
 holders of similar restrictions. At the same time, it is not 
 only the restrictions on importation that cause the high price 
 of meat. English game preservation and Highland deer 
 forests are responsible for some portion of the evil. 
 
 It is often said there would be far less class legislation 
 than there is at the present time if only all classes were repre- 
 sented in the House of Commons — that is, represented at all, 
 ■without regard to the number of representatives or the propor- 
 tion of representatives which they might have. Now, I doubt 
 whether the mere presence of one or of ten miners, for instance, 
 in the House would have prevented the mangling of the 
 Mines Bill on Mr. Staveley Hill's amendment, or whether the 
 presence of one or of ten town workmen would have prevented 
 the acceptance of the Lords' amendments to the Trades Union 
 Bill. What is needed is, not merely that all men should be 
 heard, but that they should be heard in proportion to their
 
 Class Legislation. 9 
 
 numbers, and to tlie amount of happiness or misery which 
 will be caused by any decision that may be taken in reference 
 to their affairs. Now look, for instance, as a justification of 
 -ivhat I say, and as an example of what I mean, to that 
 which has occurred in reference to the hours of polling. In 
 Committee on the Elections Bill, the views of the inhabitants 
 of the large towns, and especially of those of them who work 
 iiU day long at places far distant from those where they have 
 to vote, were fairly and fully stated in both Houses ; still, 
 this fact did not prevent those views being wholly disregarded 
 from mere carelessness, in spite of the absence of any strong 
 interest in the opposite direction on anybody's part, and merely 
 because they were not views supported by a sufficient body. 
 Nothing can have been more grotesque than the treatment 
 •which the subject received from both Houses of the Legis- 
 lature and from the Government itself In 1870, although 
 no division occurred, the Government were known to be 
 opposed to any change. In 1871, they voted against the 
 extension of the polling hour to eight o'clock. In the present 
 year they did the same thing, but they promised to propose 
 a compromise at a later stage of the Bill. They did propose 
 that compromise ; but finding some opposition to it in the 
 House, they not only withdrew it, but when we objected to 
 the withdrawal, they voted against their own proposal. The 
 Bill then went up to the Lords, leaving the hours as they 
 stood, and in the Lords, Lord Shaftesbury, after s[)eaking with 
 great courage, carried a proposal for extension. The Govern- 
 ment then, at a later stage of the Bill in the Lords, proposed, 
 instead of Lord Shaftesbury's accepted proposition, their own 
 compromise, against which they had previously voted in the 
 other House. They carried that compromise in the Lords, and 
 then proposed in the House of Commons that we should agree 
 to it; but finding again some opposition to it in that House, 
 they refused to challenge the decision of the House upon that 
 proposition, and when we challenged the decision for them, 
 they showed such irresolution that we were beaten ; so that 
 matters remain as they were. I venture to say that such 
 treatment of a subject which excites the greatest attention in 
 the largest towns could never be continued, and would nevi-r 
 Lave been dreamt of at all, had the great towns that share of 
 the representation to which they are entitled.
 
 10 Speeches ey Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 Hitherto we have been considering the proceedings of the- 
 Commons. Let us now turn to those of the Lords. The 
 (Jovernment are often invited to introduce their measures in 
 the first place into the House of Lords, in order to utilize the 
 services of that body, and to prevent alike the waste of its 
 time at the beginning of a session, and the pressure on it at 
 the close. A Bill was introduced there this year to regulate 
 enclosures for the future, and to prevent that absolute ex- 
 clusion of the poor from any advantage by enclosures which 
 has hitherto occurred. It was a Bill far from complete, but 
 one which made, although with the greatest tenderness to- 
 wards the lords of manors, a certain improvement in the 
 existing law. To show you the need for some such Bill, I 
 may state the fact, well known to those who take any interest 
 in the commons question, that out of 600,000 acres that have 
 been enclosed since the Commission was appointed, only 
 2,000 acres have been allotted under the provisions of the 
 original Act to the labouring poor. When this Bill came 
 before the House of Lords, the Duke of Richmond, the 
 leader of the Conservative party in that House, stated that 
 the public had no right whatever in the commons, and that 
 he objected to the making of any allotment to them ; and he 
 ultimately succeeded in throwing out the Bill. When he says, 
 however, that the public have no right in the commons, and 
 that the whole right is in the lords of manors, I should 
 be prepared to take the opposite view. In every case that 
 lias been tried before the courts in modern times, the rights of 
 the public as against those of the lords have been supported 
 in the decisions. The lords have to enclose, either by a 
 process which, when we have succeeded in raising sufficient 
 funds we have never failed to prevent, or under the Enclosure 
 Commissioners— that is, by the aid of Parliament, which of itself 
 is enough to show what is the value of their so-called right. 
 
 Another remarkable piece of absence of public spirit seems 
 to me to have been exhibited by the House of Lords in their 
 rejection of the measure for applying the ballot to the School 
 Board elections, which was a natural and proper supplement 
 to the Ballot Bill, and one which, for the sake of consistency, 
 as well as for any good which it might have in itself, ought 
 clearly to have been passed in the same session. Far worse 
 was Lord Abinger's resolution of the 18th of June, by which
 
 Class Legislation, IT 
 
 a House containing in its ranks between fifty and sixty officers, 
 or former officers of guards, pronounced a vote of sympathy 
 ■with guardsmen and jeak)usy of the scientific corps. 
 
 You will understand that I am not attacking the Lords, as 
 a body, any more than the Commons, as a body. At tlie 
 same time, I cannot but take notice, in passing, of the fact 
 that Lord Salisbury's words on the second reading of the 
 Ballot Bill this year go to the very root of the constitution. 
 He tells us that the House of Commons cannot be taken to 
 represent the nation except on the special subject on wliich it 
 •was chosen. There are some of us who will not gainsay it. 
 But if it be true, to what does the assertion point ? — to animal 
 I'arliaments, of course ; and some day Lord Salisbury will 
 learn that, to show that the House of Commons docs not 
 represent the country, is not, therefore, at once to demon- 
 strate that it is any better represented in the Lords. 
 
 Both Houses habitually show a small regard for public- 
 convenience in the short duration of their session. There 
 "was something careless and idle in the rejection last year by 
 the Lords of the Ballot Bill, without consideration, upon the 
 score of time ; but there was more than carelessness in the- 
 dropping by us of the Mines Bill for a similar reason. I do 
 not mean to say that the Lords are any worse than the- 
 Commons on this score. It is a matter of course with us 
 that the session should end when the shooting begins. But 
 I do mean to say that in both Houses it is a public scandal 
 that any such reasons for the ending of the session should 
 have w^eight, when year by year l^arliament is collecting into- 
 its hands more and more completely the whole government 
 of the country, in matters both great and small. In no 
 country is so much power committed to one assembly. Other 
 countries have the State Legislature, the Cantonal Council, 
 the Departmental General Council, or the Provincial Zemstvoe, 
 to deal with local matters. Here there is nothing of the kind. 
 Parliament does all that is done, if not all there is to do. We 
 pass Bills by the hundred about piers and roads, and turnpikes 
 and tolls and bridges, and go through a mass of business of 
 this kind, which we do badly, but which at least we prevent 
 other people doing ; and it is infamous, if this work is to be 
 1 done by us at all, that the doing of it should be crowded into 
 , a corner of the year. Then, again, day by day Parliament is
 
 12 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 assuming more and more interference power in foreign 
 affairs and in criminal jurisdiction. I do not mean to say 
 that, in home matters, it is advisable that this power should 
 be exercised, but if it is to be exercised at all it is of the 
 greatest importance that it should be exercised steadily, and 
 throughout the entire year. In this matter of time, we of 
 the House of Commons do not come before you with clean 
 hands, and we have no right to complain of the House of 
 Lords, but you have a right to complain of both. Not only 
 ■of the too long vacation, but of such a sacrifice of public 
 business to private pleasure — not of the purest kind — as is 
 meant by an adjournment for the Derby, with all the effect 
 of giving national sanction to the sport of horse-racing that 
 such an adjournment involves. 
 
 It is hardly possible to take up a paper any morning 
 ■without finding case after case of disregard of the opinions 
 -and feelings either of the minority or of the unknown and 
 unheard dumb majority, constituting what I should call 
 class government. For instance, on the last day but one of 
 the session, the newspapers contained several cases of this 
 kind, which were treated very much as a matter of course. 
 One Minister defended, as a perfectly harmless joke, the 
 speech of the Bishop of Gloucester, Dr. Ellicott, made at an 
 agricultural dinner, in answer to the toast, " The Bishop and 
 Clergy of the diocese." One would have thought that a pre- 
 late, speaking with the authority of his position, in answer 
 to a toast expressing the feeling entertained by the laity of 
 his own part of the country towards those who in that part 
 of the country were the official expounders of Christianity, 
 •would have avoided a bitter and uncharitable attack upon a 
 man like Canon Girdlestone, than \vhom no man deserves 
 better of those who have truly Christian feelings at heart, and 
 that he would have avoided, too, an invitation to his neigh- 
 bours to duck in a horse-pond any one who told labourers 
 getting 10s. a week that they were underpaid. I have 
 heard it said that primitive Christianity was more or less 
 communistic in its character, but that is clearly not the 
 case with Christianity in its modern development, because, 
 if I mistake not, the Bishop who stated that a labourer with 
 lO.y. a week was by no means underpaid, receives from the 
 coujitry 100/. a week himself, and has the patronage of
 
 Class Legislation. 13 
 
 eighty-six benefices, worth over 20,000^. a year. The Bishop 
 of Gloucester said that he " could not condemn in too strong 
 terms, or denounce too severely, those who came from afar, 
 men who never owned an acre, men who never did a day's 
 work, into their peaceful villages, making iniquitous combina- 
 tions." Now, I dare say it is true that the gentleman to 
 whom he was alluding (Mr. Mitchell) never owned an acre, 
 but the statement that he never did a day's work is a gratui- 
 tous invention. Mr. Mitchell, by his own labour, raised 
 himself from the condition of a ploughman to that of a 
 prosperous master stone-mason in London, and he voluntarily 
 devoted a year of his time and many hundreds of his property 
 to the movement which in these extraordinary terms the 
 Bishop condemned. But I confess that it does seem strange 
 that a man who, in his devotion to the happiness of his fellow 
 men, is a model even to a ]]ishop, should be reconnnended by 
 the Bishop to the people of his diocese as a fitting subject for 
 immersion in a horse-pond, and that for forming unions among 
 the labourers with a view, by peaceable and legal means, to 
 raise their condition, he should be accused of devising an 
 iniquitous combination. And this is a Bishop and a scholar ! 
 Verily we shall have to impose upon scholars as towards 
 peasants the prohibition Browning addressed to peasants on 
 behalf of scholars : — 
 
 "Hans must not burn Kant's house above l)is head 
 Because he cannot understand Kant's book." 
 
 "Increased Avages mean only increased drunkenness," said 
 this follower of one who was the comforter of the poor ; and 
 he wound up his harangue with some dogmatical enuncia- 
 tions of half truths which he seemed to dare his auditors to- 
 dispute or to improve. "This is my doctrine," as said 
 Mahomet, " and all other doctrine is either the same, in which 
 case it is superfluous, or the opposite, in which case it is 
 heretical." Now, this prelate is not only a prelate, l.)ut a 
 legislator too, and Avith power by his vote and voice in 
 the House of Lords to give effect to his opinions. The 
 answer of a Minister who made light of this case was one 
 subject treated of in the paper of the morning of which 1 
 speak. In another part of the same paper we fnid anotlior 
 Minister telling Mr. Anderson, when he asks him if he
 
 14 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 approves of a volunteer being dismissed from his corps by 
 his commanding officer and the Duke of Cambridge for 
 attending a political meeting as a mere citizen, and not as a 
 volunteer or in uniform, not that he approves and not that 
 he disapproves, but that it is a matter Avithin the discretion 
 of the commanding officer. The same Minister, again on the 
 same day, when Sir Wilfrid Lawson asked him whether a 
 corporal at Gosport had been sentenced by court martial to 
 three months' imprisonment with hard labour, and to be 
 degraded to the rank of a private, for taking part in a reli- 
 gious service against his Colonel's wishes, said that the man 
 was sentenced for disobedience to orders, and when he was 
 asked what orders, he said that he didn't know ; and there 
 he wished, -without any further expression of opinion, to 
 leave the subject. Well, day after day, matters of importance 
 not only to the individual, but to the public at large, to the 
 unknown portion of the public, are thus shelved in Parlia- 
 ment. Again, in the same paper, another Bishop approves 
 of the punishment of a poor parson by a clergyman of more 
 power for obedience to the law. AVe need not wonder at this 
 bigotry in high places. In all, people not bigots are as rare 
 as black swans. 
 
 With such evidence of class power in Parliament and out, 
 how can we wonder that taxation questions, local and im- 
 perial, are solved in a class sense? How little has been 
 done in the direction of the free breakfast-table, considering 
 the unexampled prosperity of the country, since it was pro- 
 mised by Mr. Bright, and voted for, be it remembered, by 
 the electors in sending the present Government to power ! 
 How surely — if we turn from imperial to local taxation — do 
 the Conservative magnates count on victory next session — 
 victory for the land ! How, indeed, with such views pre- 
 vailing, can local taxation and county government be fairly 
 •dealt with next year ? What hope can we have that such 
 will be the case, when we remember that, although a Radical 
 Government has been in office for four years, it has not 
 touched the rooted feudalism of English county government, 
 cumbrous and inefficient as it is ? Still we suffer nominated 
 lords - lieutenant, nominated magistrates, and nominated 
 sheriffs, to rule the unheard peasants, and to tax them too. 
 I have the fullest confidence in Mr, Gladstone's desire to
 
 Class Legislation. ITt 
 
 settle county government on the most modern and tlie most 
 popular, which are also the most scientiiic, principles ; but I 
 ■doubt his power to beat the squirearchy, Lilx'ral as well as Tory ; 
 .and unless the squirearchy be beaten, the reform will be marred. 
 
 In face, then, of the refusal of Parliament to extend the 
 hours of polling, of the refusal of both Houses to relieve can- 
 didates of the necessary expenses of elections, in face of the 
 refus.al of the House of Commons to abolish sinecures, I ask 
 how can you expect to obtain any of the points which are 
 included in every democratic programme 1 Mr. Morley lately 
 called a conference of the leaders of the London democracy, 
 and after much deliberation a programme was proposed of a 
 most Radical kind, and was adopted by tlie bodies represented 
 at the Cannon Street Hotel There was to bea wider suffrage, 
 :shorter rarliaments, redistribution of political power, payment 
 of members, abolition of all remaining property qualifications, 
 abolition of the game laws, abolition of indirect taxation, 
 reduction of expenditure, free and compulsory education, 
 repeal of the Criminal Laws Amendment Act, and so forth ; 
 and the great majority of those present benig of llepublican 
 opinions, a clause was inserted setting forth that, while con- 
 tent to work for these objects, the committee reserved their 
 larger views. But how is the committee going to obtain for 
 us all these good things'? Where are the means? Mr. Morley 
 is not dictator ; how, then, are those who have met together 
 under Mr. ^Morley's presidency going to get their way ? 
 Without going into details, I would sum up the generally 
 accepted portions of the democratic programme luider the 
 following heads : — free schools, free church, free land, free 
 trade, cheap law ; and I want to know how and from whom 
 you are going to obtain these things? Are you going to get 
 free schools from rich men — free church from two houses of 
 .state churchmen — free land from landowners — cheap law from 
 lawyers — free trade, which means less taxes, from officers and 
 place-men ? Why such is the strength of caste, — of caste 
 theological — of caste ofBcial — of caste social, — that even with 
 the Liberals in power, you have had fresh increase of esti- 
 mates — fresh imposition of religious disabilities. 
 
 I am not one of those who Hatter the populace by talking 
 of the demoralization of the rich or great. I think that there 
 is profound political demoralization — that is, terrible lack of
 
 16 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 public spirit— in all classes, and in all countries, I would add. 
 All I say is, that in an elective or parliamentary system, if 
 improvement is to come, it must needs come by pressure from 
 below, and that for the present, until improvement comes, all 
 of us must be content to take our share of blame. What 
 have we, of the present Parliament, done since the last elec- 
 tions ? We have had four long years. How have we used 
 them ] We gave one year to the passing of an Irish Church. 
 Bill, that came thirty years too late, and that laid down prin- 
 ciples of compensation that will be disastrous when they 
 come to be applied to the Church of England. One year we 
 gave to an Irish Land Bill, which violated economic principle 
 without contenting the Irish peasantry ; and to an English 
 Education Act, which — valuable only for its compulsory 
 powers — has not caused the real application of compulsion 
 anywhere at jjresent. One year we gave to abolishing an 
 illegal system with compensation to those who had broken 
 the law; and this year, with much triumph, we have suc- 
 ceeded in passing three imperfect measures : — an imperfect 
 Ballot Bill — how imperfect we have seen at Preston, an 
 imperfect Mines Bill, and an imperfect measure of Scotch 
 Education. 
 
 Sometimes, indeed, a reform on which the country has set 
 its mind has been carried by us, but carried in a different 
 sense to that intended. The abolition of i^urchase was car- 
 ried, but the country meant " la carriere ouverte aux talents," 
 and it has got instead, advancement open to merit, provided 
 only that merit be rich enough to afford band subscriptions, 
 and mess subscriptions, and to live on nothing at all except 
 the private wealth of its possessor. 
 
 What I mean, then, by class legislation, is the legislation 
 of a ruling class which is partly a land-owning class, and 
 partly a mill-owning class, and very generally a dilettanti 
 class, or a class " too fine for its work" ; and I say that I am 
 persuaded that had our Government been loss exclusive, and 
 more popular, we should neither have had the Alabama three- 
 and a-quartcr millions to pay, nor Ireland made impossible to 
 hold without armed force. 
 
 What, then, is the cure 1 To find it we must first discover 
 where lies the root of the most pressing evils. Some say it is 
 with the peerage, some find it in the monarchy. Let us look
 
 Class LEcasLATiox. 17 
 
 twice before we leap. In Great Britain we are at this monjent, 
 politically speaking, in a transition state. We have a Hdusu 
 of Commons possessed of all the realities of power, but inile- 
 finitely obstructed as to time by a land-holding Upper House, 
 and itself connected with land as to the majority of its 
 members, although in part democratically elected. The ( Jovern- 
 ment is a cumbersome republic, administered by landowners, 
 through inconvenient and obsolete fictions : a republic of 
 which the Premier is the head, not for any fixed period, but 
 so long only as he in turn is content to be the humble slave 
 of a fluctuating majority of millowners or landowners in the 
 House of Commons. The Monarchy, although cumbersome, 
 and likely to become, as all fictions at some time in their 
 existence will become, dangerous, is for political purposes 
 administered by a commission, which we call the Cabinet, and 
 represents only the majority of the House of Commons. The 
 House of Commons is elected under democratic forms, and 
 by a tolerably wide suff'rage. How, then, is it that we suffer 
 all the evils of class government? The Peers being neither 
 democratically elected like the Commons, nor powerless like 
 the Monarchy, some people at once assume that it must be 
 the Peers who are the authors of all evil. Abolish the House 
 of Lords, they say, and the cry has often been raised within 
 this city. The cry has been raised, indeed, at times by those 
 who, with the conservative solemnity of age, now reprove 
 others for raising the standard of Padical Pieform. Mr. Roe- 
 buck has lately begged at Sheffield that his former constituents 
 would forget the errors of his youth ; yet I know not why 
 they should refuse to remember when he stands up for the 
 Lords, that once upon a time he wrote — "The Lords have a 
 direct interest in fleecing the people ; all persons who have 
 a similar interest rally round the Lords, and, for this reason, 
 the House of Peers is the most powerful of tlic sinister 
 interests now existing in this country." Reform the Peers 
 or put them away, is the cry that now each year sees raised. 
 To begin with, the thing is much more easily said than done. 
 I have never seen a reform of the Lords suggested which 
 would not either strengthen them or corrupt the Commons, 
 or do both these things. Besides, we need an immediate 
 remedy applicable to the existing state of things. Suppose 
 that you expel the Bishops from the Lords ; suppose that you
 
 18 Speeches by Sir Chakles Dilke. 
 
 elect life peers ; the House of Lords will still continue to be a 
 house of great landowners and of State churchmen so far as 
 the majority of its members are concerned. You never can 
 work election, which means selection for merit, by the side 
 of hereditary right ; you never can work nomination, which 
 means jobbery, by the side of either. It seems, then, to me, 
 that reserving our future action, and declaring boldly our 
 personal views as to the ultimate form which the federal 
 government of Great Britain and Ireland, in our opinion, 
 should assume, those of us who are dissatisfied with the exist- 
 ing constitution of Parliament should, for immediate reforms, 
 turn our attention rather to the Lower House than to the 
 L^'pper House or to the Crown. I have made no secret of my 
 opinions, and I know that they are those of many here. I 
 believe, with Lord Brougham, that, " When a people become 
 wise enough to avoid splitting into parties and fighting for 
 who shall be king, they are wise enough to govern them- 
 selves, and the great use of monarchy is at an end." But I 
 have, on the other hand, never ceased to say that the majority 
 of the people of Great Britain believe that the reforms which 
 they desire are compatible with the monarchic form of govern- 
 ment. Whether they are right, or whether the pure Bepub- 
 licans are right, time and the peaceful development of our 
 united countries alone can show ; but while political education 
 is progressing as rapidly as at present, I think that the 
 staunchest of Republicans need not fume or fret " because," 
 to use the words of Bobert Buchanan, a Glasgow poet, — 
 
 " . . the tinsel order stands 
 A little longer yet." 
 
 ** Parliamentary reform," I seem to hear some say — why 
 we have had it five years ago. Give the country rest. Why 
 can't you^let us alone a little ? We know things can't always 
 go on as they are, but give us a few years. Whose fault is it 
 that we cannot. We answer,— Yours ! You who so tied the 
 reforming hands, who so cramped them in their work, that 
 they produced a miserable piece of political patchwork instead 
 of a lasting reform. 
 
 Compare the electoral laws of any other country with oura. 
 It matters not whether you take that of France, of the United 
 States, of Italy, of Prussia, of Spain. Take our nearest
 
 Class Legislation. 19 
 
 ■neighbour — France. A new Bill is now pending, proposed by 
 Government, and likely to be adopted during the next session 
 of the Assembly. I take its provisions, Ijut those of the old 
 law are as simple. " Every Frenchman, aged 21, is an elector, 
 and to vote at any particular spot must have lived at it for 
 one year, which fact he may prove at any time before the day 
 of the election, and have his name placed on the register 
 by the local authority." Nothing more! that is all! On 
 the other hand, our electoral law is contained in a book full 
 of Acts of Parliament, all alike unintelligible except to lawyers, 
 and in heaven knows how many reported cases tried 
 before the Judges, and which no one but a lawyer will even 
 pretend to understand. We have for School Boards one 
 franchise, with ballot voting in London and opeii voting 
 in the country. For Town Councils another franchise. For 
 London Vestries a third franchise For Boards of Guardians a 
 fourth franchise. For county parliamentary elections five more 
 franchises, and for borough elections five more difterent fran- 
 chises ; for coroners another franchise ; which makes about 
 fifteen, with about as many various necessary periods of resi- 
 dence and different modes of registration ; the whole with the 
 effect of throwing our elections into the hands of wire pullers, 
 and of virtually disfranchising the democracy. Try and 
 explain the English electoral system to a foreigner, and sec at 
 the end of the explanation what you think of it yourself. 
 Look at the anomalous condition of things in London, whore 
 you have a mass of boroughs that have no more to do with 
 one another in electoral law than if they were in different 
 countries, so that a man is disfranchised for years by moving 
 across his street. Look at your registration law, by which a voter 
 is disfranchised for moving from one room to a better room 
 in the same house and on the same floor. Look at the neces- 
 sary costs of conducting an election thrown on candidates. 
 Look at your law of election petitions, made by the rich for 
 the rich, in which, however plain the proof of wholesale 
 bribery, the election cannot be upset unless at least 2,000/. 
 can be procured ; that is, unless the beaten candidate be also 
 a wealthy man. Look even at your new Ballot Bill, which, 
 as worked at Preston, has proved but a new engine for putting 
 political power into the hands of the rich. 
 
 Parliamentary representation commenced, or was revived
 
 20 Speeches bv Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 in England in the thirteenth century, but it was not until th& 
 fifteenth that any qualification for the voter Avas required. At' 
 that time the election Avas made by show of hands at a single 
 spot, and the restriction in the franchise was only intended ta 
 prevent the bringing together of too great a crowd upon those 
 occasions. As regarded towns, for a great number of years 
 new towns were represented, on their reaching a sufficient 
 population, by the mere act of the Crown, so that there 
 existed, in the earliest days in which anything resembling the- 
 present constitution was in force, on the one hand universal' 
 suffrage, on the other a periodical re-adjustment of the distri- 
 bution of political power. Moreover, in those days Parliaments- 
 were elected every year ; and it may be said with truth, that 
 the history of modern Parliamentary Reform is only the history 
 of a series of attempts, more or less successful, to return to 
 the most ancient practices of the constitution. The first of 
 these measures of reform, the Act of 1832, contained no firm 
 ground of principle, either in the matter of the franchise, or 
 in that of distribution of political power ; and the result was- 
 that it made no essential change in the character of Parliament. 
 The second reform, that of 1867 and 1868, went upon 
 prhiciple as far as the suffrage was concerned in boroughs,, 
 and by so doing conceded the advisability of similarly basing: 
 ourselves upon principle in the future as regards county 
 franchise and distribution of seats. As to county franchise, 
 there is a general agreement that it should be lowered to the- 
 same point as that in boroughs, and a general belief that such 
 a change would not be opposed by either party, or by any 
 leading statesman. It is a matter of time and of convenience, 
 and nothing more. But there is a widely different outlook 
 :is regards the distribution of political power. Here we have- 
 never touched principle at all, and hitherto we have hardly 
 seen it upon the political horizon. No one likes to be a 
 party to a measure of disfranchisement. No one who knowa- 
 the inconveniences of the present size of the House of Com- 
 mons would be a party to increasing the number of members- 
 of that House ; and most men are afraid of those schemes by 
 which it has been proposed to adjust representation to- 
 population witliout disfranchisement. 
 
 I stated that in 1867 and 1868, when redistribution 
 measures passed, they were founded upon no principle. For
 
 Class Leoislatiox. 21 
 
 Ireland, where sucli a measure was most needed, there was 
 •none at all. There was a slight enfrancliisemciit of new 
 boroughs, but such towns as Battersea and Croydon remained 
 unheard, although some 200 smaller places return eacli a 
 member to the House of Commons, and some fifty smaller 
 places return two a-piece. In Ireland, before the last Kcfonii 
 Bill, borough electors were only .'KljOOO men : they are not 
 50,000 now — a number ridiculously small, and a number, 
 too, which shows that in ascertaining the wishes of the Irish 
 people we must rely rather upon county than upon borough 
 representation. There are nine Irish boroughs returning nine 
 .members to the House with only 2,000 electors among the 
 nine — Portarlington, which has 13G, Kinsale, which has 173, 
 Mallow, Ennis, New Ross, Dungannon, Downpatrick. Youghal, 
 •and Tralee. Now, we are very fond in this country of talking 
 ■of the sovereignty of the people, but I confess that I cannot 
 •see why an elector in Portarlington should be 120 times as 
 much sovereign as an elector of Glasgow. !Many of the small 
 "boroughs have been proved corrupt ; moreover, those who are 
 acquainted with them know that there should be counted as 
 •corrupt not only those of which positive corruption has been 
 proved, but many also as to which — while there is no proof 
 — there is for any fair man a certainty that the mass of the 
 voters take bribes. The result must be the gradual exclusion 
 from our political life of all except men of an unscrupulous 
 ambition and men who have private interests to serve. 
 Above all, it is grossly unfair to the inhabitants of the 
 large towns when their interests come into conflict 
 with the interests of those who live in the small 
 boroughs. In these cases the small boroughs obtain their 
 •ends, on account of the disproportionate power that is given 
 to them in Parliament. The Conservatives, who maintain 
 these boroughs, say that political power should be given, not 
 to numbers, but to property and to intelligence ; but liy up- 
 holding pocket boroughs and corrujit boroughs they, in j)rac- 
 tice, place the representation in the hands of the majority of 
 ■the corrupt and uneducated and unenlightened iidiabitant.s 
 -of those decaying towns. The result is, that ^yhile the House 
 •of Commons is ever assumed to be representative of the whole 
 people, it is, in fact, representative only of a portion of the 
 ipeople— representative of that portion in irregular degree;
 
 23 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 and its majority is as often a mere class majority as is the 
 majority of the non-elected House of Lords. The Conser- 
 vatives often cry out that the counties should have more 
 members, and that, perhaps, is true, taking the counties as a, 
 whole ; but, on the other hand, you have special representa- 
 tion given to counties such as Sutherland, where the whole- 
 county, except one small estate, belongs to a single duke, and 
 where the number of electors is but something above three 
 hundred. Half the members of the House of Commons are 
 elected by much over two millions of electors, Avhile the other 
 half are elected by much under half a million. Not only — as 
 [Mr. Mill, I think, once put it — has a fraction of the com- 
 munity alone the right to vote, but a majority of the House is- 
 returned by a small fraction of that fraction ; and the result 
 is this, that the ojDinion of the country is often falsified upon 
 great divisions, and that made into law which, if the unbiassed 
 opinion of voters had its way, woiild never have become law 
 at all. For instance, take only two divisions, to which I have 
 already to-night alluded as having occurred this year — that 
 upon the Birmingham Sewage Bill, and that upon Mr. Stave- 
 ley Hill's amendment to limit the penalties of masters in the 
 case of the employment of children in mines. In the latter 
 of these, the 185 who voted with Mr. Staveley Hill in favour 
 of the mine-owners, represented far fewer voters than did the 
 170 who voted upon the other side; and in the former, those 
 who voted with Sir C. Adderley and Sir E. Peel in favour of 
 the extremest assertion of the rights of property, and against 
 the principle of taking property, with compensation, for publie 
 purposes, represented almost half a million fewer voters than 
 did those who voted in favour of public considerations. Last 
 year, on two occasions of much importance, a majority alsa 
 was converted into a minority in the House of Commons. In 
 the division against the most insidious form of electoral cor- 
 ruption, viz., the large employment of paid canvassers, this was 
 the case ; and so again in the division upon the Contagious 
 Diseases Act. It is clear, I think, that we have no security 
 that the opinion of the country will not, on any given occasion, 
 be falsified in the House. No one who looks into the figures 
 contained in our electoral statistics can come to any conclusion 
 but that they form an outrage upon common sense. So small is 
 the inliuence of the single voter in the largest of large boroughs..
 
 Class Leuislatiux. 23 
 
 as compared -with that of the voter in the smallest of the small, 
 that it is hard to see why the former should trouble himself 
 to vote at all, except he find some local or temporary pleasure 
 in the act of voting, apart altogether from its bearing upon 
 the political position. Not only inconvenience but danger lie 
 under such a system. Inconvenience -withiii the last year or 
 two in the loss of measures of much importance, I have .shown; 
 and I might show it spread over a whole course of years, and 
 lying in the way of the adoption of a whole line of policy; 
 for instance, in the delaying for many years the adoption of 
 Free Trade, to which a majority of the people were favourable 
 long before a majority of representatives were secured. It 
 is clear that danger would be found to underlie the system, 
 whenever — and for aught we know it may soon hapjien — a 
 i:)arty unpopular in the large cities but having, nevertheless, a 
 majority in the small towns and smaller counties, may attempt 
 to^ carry on the government, and even to undo some of the 
 progress of the last few years. The floods which at Niagara 
 take the tremendous plunge, descend to unknown depths 
 beneath the other waters into which they fall, but though 
 they flow unseen for miles, at length for sure they re- appear 
 once more upon the surface, — so, for certain, you may count 
 upon the re-appearance of the Conservatives in power after 
 their long plunge of 1SG7 and 18G8. "When I see Mr. 
 Disraeli sitting in a mysterious and majestic solemnity watch- 
 ing Mr. Cardw-ell's diflicult army reorganization, or 'Mr. Stans- 
 feld's masterly attempts to improve our local administration, 
 and think that soon he in power will know how to profit by 
 reforms which he has neither aided nor opposed, I am tempted 
 to think of the carp of Fontainebleau, who are fed by the 
 throwing in of hard meat balls, which tliey have to break by 
 driving them against the stone. The great king fish holds 
 himself aloof, and allows the smaller fry to do the breaking 
 work, then in he sails, and driving them away with a blow of 
 his tail, proceeds to devour that for which he has not toiled. 
 What, however, when in oftice, is he going to "conserve," 
 unless it be the reforms of his predecessors I " If a man is 
 right," says Josh Billings, "he can't be too Radical, but if he 
 is wrong, he can't be too Conservative," — so Conser^-atism is 
 safe, and so is silence. Of ^Mr. Disraeli's silence, however, 
 we should remember that the albatross, which of all birda is
 
 24 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 the one that has the most powerful wings, is also of all the 
 one which flaps and beats them the least, and Mr. Disraeli's 
 policy may stUl astonish us once more. To be serious : we 
 show great political and social danger : we show the rejection 
 of important Bills and the mangling of others desired by the 
 people : we show a vastly too great influence of landowners 
 and millowners, of whom the former already rule absolute in 
 another co-ordinate House of the Legislature : we show that 
 there is no other country in the world where representatives 
 are not assigned in equal proportion to population in each 
 district : we show that in England the over-represented por- 
 tions of the country, if you take population as your test, are 
 also the poorest and the least intelligent. 
 
 Many seem to think that they have said enough against 
 any proposition for a wide redistribution of political power, 
 if they merely state that they object, in the matter of such 
 distribution, to the considering of nothing except mere 
 numbers. Now what, when Ave think it over, can such a 
 statement really mean ? One Avould imagine, from the way 
 in which they put the case, that it is intelligence or property 
 which they Avould wish to represent, instead of numbers ; but 
 without going into the question of the desirability of such a 
 basis for representation, it is clear at once that, if they are 
 supporters of the existing state of things, which by resisting 
 change they seem to be, they certainly are not maintaining 
 that which provides for a clearer representation of intelligence 
 or pro2»erty than an equal system based on numbers. "With- 
 out going into details in a hostile sense, it may be taken as 
 admitted, that there is not more intelligence or more projierty, 
 voter for voter, in Portarlington or Kinsale than in the city of 
 Glasgow. But putting such considerations out of sight, I 
 want to know what right you have to consider anything ex- 
 cept mere numbers 1 By the whole theory of the constitution, 
 it is the people, and not any particular portion of them, who 
 are supposed to be represented in the Commons House : 
 privilege is sufliciently represented in the other House. The 
 jicople, who have each one his life and his limb, and each 
 (me his occupation and his family, and his trade interests, 
 within the control of the law, and each of whom is taxed for 
 the support of Government — they are those w^hom you are 
 supposed to consult, and whom I think you are bound to
 
 Class Legislation. 25 
 
 consult, botli in fairness and with a view to the protection of 
 the best interests of the State. A great deal was heard, a few- 
 years ago, of virtual representation ; but that doctrine is now 
 dead, except as applied to women. The franchise in tlic 
 towns is wide enough to admit the great majority of grown 
 men, and that is likely soon to be the law in the counties ; but 
 of what avail to equalize the franchise as long as such 
 differences in the weight of votes continue 1 
 
 I do not undervalue the admission of the peasants to a 
 share in the government of the State. The marked separa- 
 tion caused by the difference of franchise between borongh 
 and county representatives, may one of these days prove 
 hurtful. There is great social danger in excluding from the 
 franchise in the counties a class of persons whom you include 
 in the boroughs. I maintain that it is neither just nor exjie- 
 dient to exclude them. Unjust, for it is injustice to withhold 
 from a man the privilege of having his vote counted in tlie 
 government of his State, and it is an injustice which you 
 have no right to commit except to prevent some greater evil. 
 You prolong the degradation of a portion of the community 
 when you exclude them from the franchise as unworthy to 
 possess it ; — when you refuse to confer upon them full rights 
 of citizenship, because you maintain that it would be dan- 
 gerous to bestow them. There was something tangible in 
 the position of those who used to say that in counties and 
 boroughs alike you must have a money test. That is a view 
 which I do not share, but it is a view which I can compre- 
 hend. But I fail to grasp the standpoint of those who, while 
 they exclude a numerous class of their fellow-countrymen 
 from the franchise, admit, however, the corresp'Miding cla.ss 
 in other and indistinguishable portions of the land. I say 
 "indistinguishable portions," because the distribution of 
 your franchise is capricious — although one would naturally 
 expect; that if it be necessary to have a qualification, the 
 qualification should be the same in one place as in another. 
 There was in 1867 a general agreement upon lioth sides as 
 to the desirability of admitting to the House the represen- 
 tatives of the Avorking classes in the towns. "Why not in the 
 counties too? What argument that was used then as t<. 
 towns, is not as applicable to counties now? There are other 
 and fresh ones that might be used. How are you going to
 
 26 Speecues by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 ■work educational compulsion in the counties unless you give^ 
 the labourers votes ? How are you going to work your new 
 schemes of local government and of sanitary legislation? 
 How are you going even to discuss those Bills when you have 
 not in the House a single member Avho understands the 
 position of the agricultural labourer, and whose interests ara 
 not opposed to his ? So long as you retain a money franchise 
 in the counties, you are exposed to the unpreventible danger of 
 the manufacture of sham votes. Again, with one franchise in 
 your towns and another in your counties, you find people 
 building mills and manufactories outside the limits of the 
 towns, in order to escape municipal rates ; you find theii- 
 worlauen living outside the boundaries: and you find that 
 men who diff"er in no way from their comrades within the 
 towns are thus accidentally excluded. 
 
 Now I venture to say that the most miserable country 
 house and the most wretched country occupier, are palaces 
 and aristocrats as compared with the worst town dwellings 
 and most wretched town occupiers whom you have enfran- 
 chised by your law. If your town workman, living in a 20L 
 house, goes outside of the borough in order to live in a 10^. 
 house — w-hicli is more airy, better built, and better drained — 
 you disfranchise him for that act of providence and foresight,, 
 and you do so upon no principle. You disfranchise him upon 
 a money test. Now, these money tests are not of a character- 
 which makes it possible that in modern times they should be 
 permanently maintained. There is no monopoly of intelli- 
 gence reducible to a money test. Why, then, a monopoly of 
 electoral rights 1 You are afraid, doubtless, that however 
 indefensible your tests, if you give them up you will destroy 
 what you consider the legitimate influence of property. I 
 doubt it. Look at Lancashire ! Property has not only a 
 corrupt and artificial influence, but it has, too, a wider influ- 
 ence, that will not be destroyed or shaken, but which nyiy be 
 even strengthened, by the admission to the franchise of a more 
 dependent class. But their dependence is no reason for their 
 exclusion. To exclude them on account of their dependence, 
 is to place yourselves within the vicious circle, for you may 
 be certain that the dependence will continue as long as you 
 continue the exclusion. Wliile the franchise in borough or 
 county remains the possession, not of the whole peoj^le, but.
 
 Class Legislation. i»7 
 
 of a class, so long Ave fail to call out that which it is our 
 duty to exalt, but upon which at least it ought to be our 
 strength and our satisfaction to rely — the whole power of the 
 State springing from the entire people. The greater the 
 number of those you admit to the franchise, the wiser, as I 
 contend, will be our deliberations, but for certain the more 
 powerful and respected our voice, the more powerful, not 
 only at home, but, for good, as I hope and believe, abroad. 
 Now, when you counsel, now, Avhen you mediate, it is not 
 the advice nor the inteqjosition of your people, but of a portion 
 of your people only. For my part, I lun persuaded that the 
 day Avill come when it will seem to our successors to have 
 been inexplicable how any Legislature wt)uld deny to grown-up 
 inhabitants, and still more to householders and tax-payers, the 
 right to vote. 
 
 These milder reforms, which we are united to propose, 
 are consistent with the Constitution : would tend only to 
 make our Parliament a more accurate reflection of the nation's 
 will. If they are long opposed by those who prate of their 
 belief that the mass of the people are ready to range them- 
 selves on the side of leaving matters as they are, we, on our 
 part, shall have reason to suspect that, after all, the people 
 must have already come to see the desirability of sweeping 
 changes, inasmuch as those who are interested in Class Legis- 
 lation strive to make the constitution of Parliament as little 
 representative as they can.
 
 28 
 
 FEEE SCHOOLS. 
 
 Birmingham, 5th of November, 1872. 
 
 Mr. Dixox, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — I need hardly tell 
 jou that I endorse all that the earUer speakers have said as 
 to the folly of leaving our education policy to be decided at 
 •corrupt elections, — fought in the name of religion to the cry of 
 " The Beer in our Bellies and the Bible in our Schools." It 
 is, however, of another side of the controversy that I am 
 called to speak. Action must be taken in Parliament next 
 jear, not only on those branches of the subject to which allu- 
 sion has this night been made, but on others too. When, for 
 instance, Mr. Smith brings in his Bill to give to the guardians 
 the power of remitting or of paying fees, why should not we 
 then move a resolution in favour of free schools ? 
 
 How pressing this question is ! In July last the London 
 School Board was occupied for a whole long summer's after- 
 noon in the consideration of five cases of supposed inability 
 to pay school fees. One of them, which may be taken as 
 typical of the whole, was that of a widow earning 6s. a week 
 and having two children of school age. The London School 
 Board found itself wholly unable to decide on principle the 
 ■question which this case involved, and the subject was post- 
 l»oned till October, when it again came up. Mr. Charles 
 Beed, on that occasion, said, it was admitted that direct and 
 universal compulsion was essential ; that hitherto the visitors 
 had worked on parents who were able to pay school fees ; 
 that there was behind a vast mass of sheer inability to pay 
 the fees; tliat it was undesirable that education should be 
 I>ro\aded through the channels of the Poor Law. True 
 enough all this ! What was the answer made ? Dr. Bigg 
 gravely assured the Board that the American free-school 
 .system had "had the worst results." Well, that is a startling 
 statement, and one which, if believed, would "have the
 
 Free Schools. 29- 
 
 •worst results." Four years ago there -were three States of the 
 Amerieaii Union which had a system of partial i)ayment of 
 school fees. There is now not one. Connecticut abolished 
 jjayment in 18G8, Michigan in 18G9, and New Jersey in 
 1872. The universal oi)inion of Americans who love their 
 country is, that the very foundation of its greatness is in the 
 free common school. I said just now that the question was a 
 pressing one : more pressing now than ever at any time before. 
 !My friend here, ]\Ir. Chamberlain, in moving a resolution on 
 your -School Board, pointed out that which must never be for- 
 gotten, namely, that the birth of School Boards was the death 
 of those old free schools which formerly existed throughout 
 the land. 
 
 Is it not, after all, the fact that the opposition on prin- 
 ciple to free schools falls to the ground when once you concede 
 the necessity of jjublic aid to education 1 That necessity has 
 been admitted in this country for forty years. The school fee 
 is but a small fraction of the whole cost of the child's schooling. 
 When the public pays three-fourths or four-fifths of the cost,, 
 what principle is involved in the direct payment of one-fourth 
 or of one-fifth by the parent, that payment not being in any 
 way regulated by his income ? What is this but to substitute 
 an exploded poll-tax for naore scientific and modern methods 
 of raising funds ? 
 
 It has been pointed out, with perfect wisdom as it seems to 
 me, that the parents Avell know that the penny a week does- 
 not suffice, and that the public bears by far the greater portion 
 of the cost. Now, there are only two ways of looking at this 
 fact ; either that the payment by the public is a concession 
 to the poverty of the parent, or that it is an admission that 
 education is rather a public than a private concern. If the 
 State payment is a concession to the parent's poverty, why 
 should a widow with C-s-, a week pay the same school fee for 
 her child as a prosperous master blacksmith or thriving beer- 
 shop-kecpcr making 3/. a Aveck clear profits? If, on the 
 other hand, the payment by the public is to be taken as an 
 admission of the principle that schooling is a public duty, 
 then what becomes of the other so-called " principle " involved 
 in the direct payment by tlie parent of any sum at all ? When 
 Dr. Rigg's friends say that the parent who cannot pay the 1'/. 
 a week school fee is already a pauper, and had better be made
 
 ^0 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 one formally, why should not they the rather say that the 
 parent who cannot pay the 6d. total cost of his child's school- 
 ing, or the 3s. a week total cost of the schooling of his 
 six children within the school age, is a pauper, and should be 
 driven into the house at once? From this Dr. Rigg and his 
 jmrty shrink. '\Miat nonsense, then, this pauperism argument 
 becomes ! The School Board schools give, in many cases, 
 education to the children of professional men, and their parents 
 jeceive a direct benefit from the rates, but no one calls them 
 paupers, and I cannot see why the case of parents whose 
 children are wholly educated out of rates should be any 
 different from theirs. I reject, too, the argument of cost, 
 for, if the compulsory powers are to be really applied, and 
 payment insisted on in all cases, parents will be driven to the 
 workhouse or to prison, from which ratepayers are not likely 
 to find relief, while the children are certainly less likely to 
 become self-supporting members of the community. 
 
 The question before us must not be discussed as though 
 it were one between paid-for education and free schools. The 
 thousands of children in every town with whom the School 
 Boards find themselves incompetent to deal, prove that the 
 question lies, not between the parents paying and the complete 
 freedom of the schools, but between the remission of fees in 
 some shape or other and universal freedom. I say that the 
 alternative lies between free schools and the remission of fees. 
 Some may reply that there is a third course open, namely, to 
 establish free schools for the very poor. But this establish- 
 ment of special free schools is jjossible only in large towns. 
 Looking, then, at the country as a whole, I repeat that Ave 
 have to choose between a remission of fees and universal free 
 schools ; and I base that statement not only on what has fallen 
 from the leading members of the chief School Boards, but also 
 on the experience of foreign lands. In America, in one- 
 third of Switzerland, in the great French town of Lyons, in 
 the great German town of Berlin, the schools are free. In 
 the rest of Switzerland, in the rest of Germany, in the three 
 Scandinavian kingdoms, and in Finland, school fees are 
 remitted in a great number of cases. In the remainder of the 
 civilized world attendance at school is not enforced, and the 
 <luestion docs not arise. In France, as shown by the late 
 votes, the majority of the people are in favour of compulsory,
 
 I 
 
 Free Schools. 31 
 
 ■but free, education."'' "We are justified, then, by tlie experience 
 of foreign countries, and by the statements of the most ex- 
 perienced members of our School l^.oards, in saying tliat ify<iu 
 do not have free scliools, you must carry very far indeed the 
 ])rinciple of the remission of fees. Now, gentlemen who, 
 like Mr, Llewellyn Davies, push the doctrines of Economic 
 Science to the point at which they become mere fanaticism, 
 fail to show that it is possible to avoid remission of foes, and 
 fail, on the other hand, to defend remission by a single word. 
 What is meant by " remission of fees " ? The children arc 
 set apart to be stared at by the others, and are degraded by 
 the sjjeciality of their exemption. The parents are equally 
 lowered in the moral scale by having to solicit the favour of 
 exemption. You admit, too, the children of drunken and 
 improvident men, and refuse free admissions to those self- 
 <lenying persons who stint themselves of the very necessaries 
 of life in order to pay for the schooling of their children. 
 You thus cause both justifiable discontent and avoidable 
 •degradation. On the other hand, if all schools receiving 
 public aid were free, the system would be too widely spread 
 to admit of the possibility of any degradation attaching either 
 to parent or to cliild. 
 
 Why not take higher ground] Why not assert that 
 schooling is in the broadest sense a public duty? The com- 
 munity suffers by ignorance in the individual. It interferes, 
 therefore, partly to protect itself, and partly in a desire to 
 .secure the future welfare of the country. You conceded the 
 public principle on the first day when you gave State help to 
 •education. You repeated your concession when you intro- 
 duced compulsion. You will needs go further and complete 
 your work. The country has decided for universal education. 
 Universality cannot be secured except by means either fif free 
 schools or of the remission of fees. If it be secured by remission 
 of fees, you will do more to demoralize your people by the 
 remission than even universal education will do to raise them. 
 On the other hand, if it be obtained by means of universal 
 
 * The principle of free schools is making rapid strides. In his new 
 work on Education, M. t:mile de Laveleye says that it has been adojtted 
 by Spain (in 1S6S). Portugal, Italy, Chili, Norway, Denmark, Zurich, 
 Queen.sland (in 1 S70), Prussia, by Article 24 of her new constitution, 
 and the Sandwich Islands.
 
 32 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke, 
 
 free schools, you will not only reap the direct gain of univer- 
 sality without deduction, but you will glean an after harvest 
 of a moral fusion of classes and extinction of class hostility, 
 AVhen some of our friends talk of nationalizing the land of 
 England, let us ask them first to nationalize the people that 
 are to dwell in it. No such easy task, but one that must be 
 undertaken if the ancient glories of England are to be models 
 and not dreams. 
 
 We have nothing to hope for in this matter from the 
 existing School Boards — nothing from the present Parliament ;^ 
 but I cannot but believe that the next time that the people 
 are asked their voice it wiU be given for free common 
 schools.* 
 
 * The following words by Martin Luther are worth appending to a- 
 speech upon Free Schools : — " Magistrates of the German towns, God 
 bade us teach the children. Parents, whether by indifference, by 
 ignorance, by overwork, neglect this Holy Command. It is your business- 
 to see to it. Does want of money stop you ? You spend each year 
 much on cross-bows and musquetoons, why not spend as much on giving 
 schoolmasters to our youth ?"
 
 33 
 
 FREE LAND. 
 
 Derby, 7th of January, 1873. 
 
 Ox the 9th of ^Vpril of last year, [Mr. William Fowler 
 moved in the House of Commons the following resolution : — 
 *' That in the opinion of this House the present state of the 
 law as to entail and strict settlement of land discourages 
 the investment of capital in the development of a-^^iculture, 
 to the great injury of all classes of the people." Eighty-one 
 members voted in favour of the resolution, 103 members 
 voted the other "way. The motion was consecjuently lost by 
 a majority of 22. But those who voted in favour of it re- 
 presented more voters in the constituencies than were repre- 
 sented by the majority. 
 
 It is hard to see what there is that can be said in favour 
 of the present land law. No one denies that there is much 
 difficulty in transferring land, and that the cost of transfer 
 gives great advantage to the rich in the purchase of land a-s 
 against the poor. A Hoyal Commission has admitted that our 
 law of entail throws terrible impediments in the way of 
 transfer, not to mention the objections to it on its own 
 account, which I will presently explain. The burden of proof 
 lies on those Avho defend our system, for nothing like it exists 
 elsewhere. If that is one reason why the burden of proof 
 should be thrown on them, there is another and a still 
 stronger reason why that should be the ca.se, namely, that 
 it is an interference Avith the free and natural course of 
 things, and requires to be defended upon the ground of its 
 necessity. 
 
 Capital is not applied to land to that extent to which it is 
 desirable that it should be applied, because the land is tied 
 up by settlement in such a way that it is often in the hands 
 of poor men — men Avho would do far better to sell their land 
 to those who would have capital to apply to it. A large 
 
 D
 
 34 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 portion of the area of the country is held by persons who 
 have only a life interest, and they have not a sufficient 
 motive to spend their money upon the land ; and even if 
 they had a motive they have not the money. 
 
 It will indeed, perhaps, be time to enter on a serious 
 attack in detail upon the law of settlement, when somebody 
 has attempted its defence. Mr. Beresford Hope is almost 
 the only person of any note who defends entails. His view 
 is this — that in the interest of the poor it is better that the 
 old families should continue to possess the land, than that 
 men who have made money by manufacture should buy it 
 from them. If these were the only two alternatives, I aia 
 not sure he would be wxong. On the other hand, there can 
 be no doubt that it is a bad thing for the country that great 
 tracts of land should be occupied by men who cannot properly 
 cultivate them, and who are unable by law to sell. One-half at 
 least of the land of England is tied up in this way, and no one 
 can doubt but that such a state of things is an artificial restric- 
 tion upon the very life of the country. The real struggle is not 
 over the evils of the existing state of things — it is over the 
 remedy ; and if we were agreed as to what that remedy should 
 be, it would not be long before we should obtain it. But the 
 differences between land reformers of the more moderate and 
 of the more revolutionary school, have got to such a point, 
 that each of those sections, if we are to believe their spokes- 
 men, would sooner leave matters alone than adopt the 
 remedies of the other. 
 
 It is not possible to occupy time more be'ieficially than 
 by considering the opinions held by various sections of land 
 reformers, and attempting to devise some safe and experi- 
 mental middle course. 
 
 We have a powerful party, to which all middle class 
 Liberals and many Conservatives belong — a party which 
 would do away with the law of primogeniture, which would 
 abolish long entails, and which would cheapen and simplify 
 the transfer of land. At the other end of the scale we have 
 the Land and Labour League, who advocate the nationalization 
 of the land. These men have been unjustly attacked as 
 having proposed dishonesty. I have rcvor read any speech 
 In which they have not coupled their idea of the national- 
 ization of the land with declarations of their desire fully to
 
 Fkee Land. 35 
 
 indemnify the proprietors who may be dispossessed ; and it 
 is a pity that writers who combat their views shouUl increase 
 the bitterness with which they view the existing institutions 
 of society, by accusing those men of a wish for spoliation. 
 The view that they hold is, that all land should be owned by 
 the State, and let out by the State to tenants for long terms, 
 the State receiving the rents. They differ among themselves 
 as to the means by which the lands of the country shoiild 
 first be acquired by the State. Some of them would have the 
 State as rapidly as possible expropriate and compensate the 
 proprietors, and take all land to itself. Others wouhl com- 
 mence by limiting the power of bequest; but all alike would 
 recognize existing interests, however acquired, in the same 
 way in Avhich those interests are recognized where land is 
 already taken by Act of Parliament. 
 
 We saw just now that there is such antagonism between 
 the two classes of reformers, that each of them would sooner 
 leave matters as they are than adopt the remedies of their 
 opponents. The ground taken by the Land and Labour 
 League when they oppose the middle class reformers is, that 
 if you cut up land into small patches owned by peasant jn'o- 
 prietors, you will be creating a new class of persons, possessing 
 (new rights, who will require greater compensation than would 
 be needed for the existing proprietors of the soil, and that 
 you will indefinitely postpone that nationalization of the land 
 which they have in view. The Association, under the presi- 
 dency of Mr. ]Mill, to which Mr. Cox and myself both of us 
 belong, advocates views which lie between the two extremes, 
 .and its programme seems to me to contain that whicli is most 
 valuable in both plans. What is the view of the Land and 
 Labour League in their desire to abolish private property in 
 land ? The chief of their objects is to take for the State the 
 ■benefit of what may be called the accidental increase in the 
 value of land, and to plant a considerable number of their 
 fellow-countrymen as tenants of the State upon the soil. The 
 Land Tenure Reform Association proposes, with its nioru 
 moderate programme, to do both those things. It clearly in 
 not necessary, in order to obtain for the State the natural 
 increase in the value of land, that the State itself should be 
 the actual owner of the land. A large part of the princii)lc at 
 stake would be conceded, and a large measure of the gain
 
 36 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 reaped, if the State, by means of taxation, should take to 
 itself the whole or part of the unearned increase of the value 
 of the soil, leaving the soil itself in the hands of the pro- 
 prietors, unless where they preferred to sell it at its market 
 value to the State. It may be said that the proprietors 
 would retain their land, and that the experiment of planting^ 
 the people upon land as tenants of the State could not be- 
 tried. But another clause in the programme proposes to try 
 this experiment upon lands which are already public. There- 
 are in this country enormous tracts of land in the hands of 
 Colleges and Corporations, and if this experiment is to be 
 tried at all, it should be tried at first on such lands as 
 these. 
 
 In the bitter attack which Mr. Newmarch made at Leeds 
 upon the principles of the Land Tenure Association, he said 
 nothing about that one of them which had hitherto been the 
 most opposed — namely, the interception for the benefit of the 
 State of the future unearned increase of the rent of land, 
 arising from the mere progress of the country in wealth and 
 population, and springing into existence independently of any 
 expenditure and of any act on the part of the proprietor of the 
 soil. Now, as Mr. Newmarch, one of the greatest masters of 
 the old political economy, has not specially attacked this por- 
 tion of the scheme, it cannot require much defence. Those 
 ■who have cried out " confiscation " are very much the same 
 persons who opposed railways when Parliament first began to 
 " confiscate" land for public purposes — that is to say, to take 
 land without the consent of the proprietors, but compensating 
 them for their loss. No political economist can venture to 
 say that there is not an essential difi'erence between land and 
 any other kind of property — a diff"erence the character of 
 wliich at once is seen when we remember that land is the 
 only kind of property which steadily and at all times con- 
 tinues to rise in value without any act done on the part of the 
 proprietor. 
 
 Upon the other point — that of a public management of 
 lands already public — I have nothing to add to that which I 
 liavc said before. We are told always that State management 
 would be corrupt ; but the very same party tell us that Cor- 
 poration management is corrupt ; and as it is only Corporation 
 land upon which, according to our scheme, the experiment is
 
 Free Land, 37 
 
 to be tried at first, we could not be making matters any 
 worse than they now are. 
 
 On the lands which are already public might be tried the 
 experiment of small forms, not sold in absolute owncrshi}) of 
 •course, but let by the State iipon long terms. It is strange 
 that small farnaing, which is the rule in many countries under 
 much less favourable conditions than those which here exist, 
 is still but an experiment here, and one that is looked upon 
 by many bigots as certain to fail when tried. Nearly all the 
 old stock arguments against small farms have been given up. 
 Those who attack them now assume that before the invention 
 of agricultural steam machinery they would have been su[)- 
 porters of small farming, but that they have abandoned the 
 cause only on account of the necessity of costly implenu-uts. 
 But those who are for small farming believe that co-operation 
 among the peasant-farmers would allow of the purchase and 
 use of those machines, and that, too, is one of the experinienta 
 that must be tried. 
 
 The need for public management of public interests in land, 
 as well as of public lands themselves, is shown by the impunity 
 with which the interests of the public in common lands and in 
 paths and ways may be stolen at the present time. Two hun- 
 dred years ago one-half of England was common or commonable 
 land. A vast proportion of this land was enclosed, Avithout com- 
 pensation, during the last century. !Much of it has been enclosed, 
 with partial compensation, during the present century, and a 
 .great quantity has been stolen. Many landowners, to usf the 
 words of an American, would seem to have been employed 
 
 " .... in preying till they busts 
 On what the Government chooses, 
 And in converting public lands 
 To vcrij ' private uses.' " 
 
 Public opinion has, however, been aroused, and we have 
 succeeded for three years in stopping the passing of what is 
 -styled the Annual Enclosure Act. 
 
 I am one of those who hope that enclosures may be almost 
 ,put an end to. We have had Parliamentary inquiry, and we 
 have shown that the compensation obtained on the extinctum 
 of common rights is compensation which the man who takes it 
 <may drink away, and that it is no compensation to his children ;
 
 38 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 and those of us who have investigated the question, have come- 
 to the conclusion that there is no more pregnant cause of the 
 degradation of the labourer than the loss of his common rights. 
 There are some wild parts of England where enclosures cannot 
 be resisted in the interest of the great towns ; but as to those 
 another set of considerations comes into play — namely, that in 
 such places there is seldom any real increase in the production 
 of the country to be gained by the enclosure. Such lands- 
 are already depastured by the cattle of the commoners, and 
 being mostly poor lands would not be much improved by the 
 enclosure. In such cases it will commonly be found that the 
 enclosure is made with the view to the preservation of game. 
 At least we should provide that no enclosure should be made 
 otherwise than by Act of Parliament. We should then know 
 exactly how we stand from year to year. Why not go further, 
 and propose that the State should resume the commons, 
 compensating, where need is, the lords of the manor for their 
 rights? At all events, we should resist enclosures on the 
 present plan. The land so enclosed will only go to swell the 
 great estates, and it would be far better to hold these tracts 
 over as a vast heritage for those who may come after us, who 
 may be competent to deal with them on juster principles than 
 are known to us. 
 
 The lords of the manor who have appropriated an enormous 
 portion of English land were not the owners of that land, but 
 only the possessors of certain rights over it. Had those men 
 been compensated for the rights which they possessed, the 
 land might have been kept in the hands of the public, with 
 advantages which we can hardly estimate. Although we are 
 not now able so easily to acquire public lands, nevertheless 
 we should pause before we allow the process to be continued 
 which converts the few public lands which still exist into the 
 demesnes of individuals ; and I entirely concur with the recent 
 letter of Professor Fawcett to the Times, against the unreserved 
 sale of Corporation lands ; although he was not consistent with 
 his jirinciples when he failed to support some scheme for their 
 public management. 
 
 It has been proved over and over again that there is much 
 inefficient management on the part of Corporations, and one 
 would have thought that those bodies would have been inclined 
 to thank those who would give them public management, and
 
 Free Land. 39 
 
 not only diminish the charges of many of the institution.s, but 
 leave the time and energies of tlieir managers to be cmiiluyed 
 upon their proper work. They labour also under many di.s- 
 abilities. Though so-called " public bodies," it is shown by 
 a recent correspondence between the Commons' Preservation 
 Society and the Governors of Duhvich College, that they are 
 wholly without power to grant any part of the " public" lands 
 within their charge for public purposes. 
 
 I trust that I have succeeded in defending those articles of 
 the programme of the Land Tenure Reform Association which 
 require that lands needing an Act of Parliament to authorize 
 their enclosure shall be retained for national uses, and that 
 lands belonging to public bodies shall be made available for 
 promoting small cultivation and co-operative agriculture, on 
 the understanding that no such lands be suffered to 
 come under private control. When we have succeeded 
 in carrying such a reform as this, it will be time to begin to 
 work for the larger portion of our programme, which claims 
 for the State the benefit of the future unearned increase in the 
 value of land. 
 
 To return to the point from which I started, I repeat that 
 all must at least agree that our present land system stands in 
 need of great reform. What is the real position of those who 
 occupy and Avho are supposed to own a great portion of the 
 land ] The life tenant, in most of those cases, is actually 
 unable by law to make those dispositions of that which we 
 call his property which would be most advantageous to the pro- 
 perty, and therefore to the country at large. Where he is not 
 unable by law, he is probably unable in fact to make them. He 
 has the expense of keeping up the family name and the family 
 house, perhaps also a house in London. He has several 
 charges upon the property made before his time, and if he 
 himself is to leave anything to his younger children, he mu.st 
 save it out of the income, which in the opinion of all his 
 neighbours he is bound to spend in keeping up the family 
 place. When we attack him for neglecting his labourers' 
 cottages, we must remember that the benefit of any improve- 
 ments that he makes will perhaps go to an eldest son (perhaps 
 to a distant cousin), who will also have the property itself; 
 but the expenditure Avill come out of the i)ockcts i.f his 
 younger children, and rather than attack him, I think wo
 
 40 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 should do better to attack the law. Under this system, the 
 land does not produce one-half of what it should. But even in 
 the face of so terrible a fact, I do not hesitate to say that the 
 more serious side is the social one, to which we all of us are 
 witnesses. We are witnesses, whether we have lived in the 
 country ourselves, or whether we have but in passing caught 
 a sight of the wretchedness of the labourers' homes. When I 
 see such a state of things, I am tempted to remember the 
 words of Helvetius, contained in a letter from him to Mon- 
 tesquieu — that he heard much talk of various forms of 
 society, but that he knew only two, viz., the good and the 
 bad — the bad existing on every side, and the good yet to 
 be founded. But I think it clear that the law at least of 
 entail must stand condemned ; and until some answer has 
 been made to our demonstrations that a large portion of the 
 soil is occupied by men who are unable to dispossess them- 
 selves of it, and who are, on the other hand, unable to 
 improve it, it is idle to accuse us of empty declamation. 
 
 We are at present in a vicious circle, out of which there 
 seems no way. Suppose that you succeed in placing to some 
 small extent the labourers upon the land — from the existing 
 land laws flow naturally the existing game laws, but these 
 react again, and your small peasant farmer, when he had got 
 his plot of land, would have got it only to find himself eaten 
 out of it by hares and rabbits. 
 
 The whole tone of thought with regard to land, as prompted 
 by the law, is radically vicious in its exalting of the private 
 as contrasted with the public interest. Look at the words of 
 Sir Charles Adderley, in his letter to the Daily News about 
 the Birmingham Sewage Bill, in which he speaks of it as 
 " the Bill which Sir Robert Peel and I got thrown out as a 
 nuisance to ourselves." Now this was a Bill concerning 
 public interests — the interests of the whole town of Birming- 
 ham — and one approved by the representatives of the majority 
 of the electors of England. Yet these two country gentlemen 
 are able to speak of its rejection as that of an individual 
 grievance to themselves. I look with more hope to elective 
 county government than to any other single source of remedy. 
 I believe that it is likely to be opposed as fiercely by the 
 magnates here as was the like by the like in Prussia — with the 
 Bame result. There is no measure which is likely to have more
 
 Free Land. 41 
 
 wide effect. We should do better to resist the clmnge at 
 present, so certain are we to get it soon, unless the County 
 Boards be really elective in the broadest sense. We don't 
 ■want a fresh creation of new boards of nominees. All other 
 free countries have the county or the township as the unit, 
 <ind I have seen the district Parliaments, described by writers 
 on Russia and on Denmark, on Sweden and on Norway, as 
 republics under a monarchy, so closely do they represent the 
 institutions of the United States. But monarchists would do 
 well to admit with Bishop Berkeley, " that it might be no ill 
 policy in a kingdom to form itself upon the manners f)f a 
 republic." 
 
 For elective county government to be worth anything in 
 this country, the labourers must have in it their share. A few 
 years ago, when they were docile and easily led, they might 
 have had it for the asking, but it will be more difficult now 
 to give it to them. At that time they were the best of follows, 
 in the opinion of the country gentlemen and of the county 
 members. In order to live at peace with all the world, it is 
 not only necessary to abstain from meddling in the affairs of 
 anybody else, but to let everybody meddle in your own. But 
 now we are told they are dangerous men. How sudden is 
 the change of base ! It reminds me of a story of the fisher- 
 men of CJrays, in Essex, a fishing village upon the Thames. 
 A whale got stranded there, whereupon the fishermen straight- 
 way made a show of it at Gd. a head. The Corporation of 
 London, under some old charter, claimed the whale ; but the 
 fishermen stuck to their capture till it stank, and then, sud- 
 denly turning round upon the Corporation, threatened them 
 with an action for nuisance if the whale were not at once 
 removed ! 
 
 The labourers are told they are dangerous men ! Told so 
 by whom 1 By dukes and bishops. The Bishop of Gloucester, 
 indeed, who had better have let the matter drop, tries 
 continually, by all means in his power, to escape from the 
 effect of his own words. Vainly, for no bird in a net was 
 ever more enmeshed than he. After all, he had better have 
 quietly admitted that he made a mistake, or, if you will, a 
 blunder. There is, as I once heard it explained, the greatest 
 difference between a blunder and a mistake, and this is the 
 explanation. If I leave my umbrella and take a better, it is
 
 42 Speeches by Sik Charles Dilke. 
 
 a mistake ; but if I take a ivorse, it is a blunder. When, 
 however, the Bishop of Gloucester first denies it, and then 
 pleads his previous good conduct in the shape of interest ia 
 the labourers' state, I am reminded of the law stationer, who, 
 ■ -when sentenced to penal servitude for forging a name, urged 
 that it was harji to transport him for writing two words, 
 when he had written during his working life millions that 
 were free from all objection. Bishops, I suppose, are not 
 meant by nature for statesmen. Lord Bolingbroke wrote : — 
 " A bishop is a man with a mitre on his head, a crozier in his- 
 hand, and lawn sleeves, and sits in a purple elbow-chair to- 
 denote that he is a bishop, and to excite the devotion of the 
 multitude." That opinion is, perhaps, as true now as it was. 
 when it was written. An American negro, when his master 
 asked him what he thought of the leaders of the opposite 
 political party to that to which he belonged, said : — " Wal, 
 massa, if a war a chicken an dose men war around, a guess a 
 shoul roost high ;" and I fear that agricultural labourers may 
 take the same view of some of their new friends. 
 
 For the evils which are caused by the gross defects of our 
 land system, and for which we suggest remedies which are 
 economically defensible, there are others who propose reme- 
 dies which would be mischievous. Two years ago, there was 
 a great talk of emigration, and when some of us expressed 
 grave doubts as to the wisdom of taxing those who stay at 
 home for the aid of those who go, we were accused of leading- 
 an interested opposition of capitalists, who were supposed to 
 want cheap labour. I dare say that capitalists want cheap 
 labour, but I certainly am not "a capitalist," nor did I speak 
 in the capitalists' name ; but the idea that at once occurred 
 to us, by way of answer, was, that it was, at least, as fair for 
 us to say that the agitation for taxes in aid of emigration was 
 got up by landowners, who were afraid that if they did not 
 sliip the people out of England, their political and social pri- 
 vileges might suffer hurt. The Duke of Manchester, Lord 
 George Hamilton, and others of that class, took a leading- 
 part in the agitation, and the latter claimed to speak as the 
 workman's friend. But dukes' sons, who are officers in the 
 Guards, and who are returned to the House of Commons as- 
 Conservative county members to maintain the establishment 
 of the Irish Church, are not to be universally accepted as the
 
 Free Land. 4$ 
 
 chosen representatives of the working class ; and I think that 
 the Neiv York !rn'&?<?«f was not far wrung wlien, writing on this 
 subject, it said — "For every ship-load that quits England, 
 there are so many the less claimants to English land," 
 
 In discussing this subject, I am prepared to do so without 
 asperity. I believe that in spite of great temptations, the 
 landlord class have been not a bit worse than any other class, 
 and that it is only right that we should show the justice of our 
 demands and their expediency in the abstract, apart from any- 
 special necessity caused by the abuse of existing laws. But, 
 although that may be the case with us, it is not the case with 
 all who discuss this subject ; and the demand for change has 
 been based by some upon cases of injustice and tyranny on 
 the part of landowners. Wliat harm is done to the landowners 
 as a class by those of their number who stretch their privileges 
 and abuse their power ! There are, even now, landowners who 
 put clauses into their leases forbidding premises on their 
 estates to be used for Nonconformist worship. There are 
 many who forbid the erection of Nonconformist chapels and 
 Nonconformist schools. We had thought, till lately, that 
 causeless and fanciful evictions were almost confined to Ireland 
 and the Scotch Highlands, but, if we have been rightly in- 
 formed, some landlords have lately been repeating in England 
 the worst precedents of the worst part of Ireland. Again, the 
 evils of the excessive preservation of game are in the minds of 
 all of us. I repeat, then, that not only is the scheme of Mr. 
 Mill economically defensible, but that when the spokesmen of 
 the workmen of the towns are content to jmt forth their views 
 in so calm and dispassionate a manner as that in which they 
 were advanced by ^Ir. Odger in his article in the t'o7iiemporary 
 Review, it is both idle and dangerous for landowners to refuse 
 to meet their arguments, and to raise the cry of " confisca- 
 tion." 
 
 At the present moment, a small and decreasing number 
 of persons have an interest in the soil. Half of those are 
 prevented by the law froni making the use which otherwise 
 they could of the soil they occupy. It is proposed in the 
 Times, and by many influential persons, to sell the few public 
 lands that now exist, and to let even those go to swell the 
 estates of the great proprietors. The rights of the public 
 over common lands are day by day being stolen from them.
 
 44 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 and no accurate information lias, as yet, been collected as to 
 the lands over which such rights exist. The careful labourer, 
 who, by some extraordinary chance, may succeed in saving 
 money, is prevented by the cost of transfer from acquiring 
 any interest in the soil except at an expense disproportionate 
 to that at which land can be obtained by men of wealth. Not 
 only is it proposed to sell the existing public lands, but there 
 is a law still in existence by which men are forbidden to 
 leave, at their deaths, property in land to any public bodies. 
 These are the deplorable incidents of the present law which 
 it is our object to remedy or to correct.
 
 45 
 
 FREE TRADE. 
 
 Being a Speech delivered at Chelsea, on \Zth of January, 1873, 
 
 Last year, at our annual meeting, it was my duty to clear 
 my character and my motives from unjust imputation, and in 
 this task I had the aid of the unanimous vote of a densely- 
 thronged assembly of my constituents. This year, no such 
 need arises, and I have only to ask you to consider, in our 
 usual manner, our programme for the immediate future. The- 
 most pressing political needs of the comnuinity, in my opinion, 
 are — free land, free church, free schools, free trade, free law : 
 — and, as the only means of obtaining them, parliamentary 
 reform. On free schools and free land I have often spoken : 
 — on free church and free law I can point to the far wiser 
 utterances of others. To-night I crave your leave to speak 
 upon Free Trade. 
 
 We have lately seen the institution of elaborate com- 
 parisons between the Income-Tax and our remaining Custom* 
 duties. Some turn their energies against the former, some 
 against the latter ; many who, like myself, are di.ssatisfied 
 with both, are checked only in their demmciations by the 
 difficulties which stand in the way of arruueur linanciers, when 
 they suggest new taxes in the place of old. 
 
 As for the Income-Tax, speaking of it as an advocate of 
 direct taxation, I protest against being thought to support 
 an impost which involves the injustice of taxing temporary 
 incomes on the same footing with those that are permanent, 
 and the worse injustice of registering suspicion of the honesty 
 of every man who will not allow his books to be inspected by 
 his neighbours who are his rivals in trade. I agree with' 
 ]\Ir. Mill, that " direct taxation on income should be reserved 
 as an extraordinary resource for great national emergencies, 
 in which the necessity of a large additional revenue overrules
 
 46 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 all objections." The injustice of the tax has been artificially 
 augmented by the harshness of the manner in which it has 
 been collected ; and indeed with regard to all taxes at this 
 time, by second applications for taxes already paid, and by a 
 straining of the law upon every point, of which I have in my 
 possession proofs, we have been led to look upon Government 
 as a sort of firm of petty-fogging attorneys. 
 
 On the other hand, if we turn to Customs duties, we find 
 mucli reason to think that they are even more objectionable. 
 The policy of Free Trade has, after making a certain way, 
 been checked in its development ; and to those who have 
 •examined with care the hindrance to trade produced by even 
 our existing Customs duties, it would seem that we are living 
 in a fool's paradise of content. 
 
 Many think that the time has come for united action by 
 all nations in the direction of the international regulation of 
 taxation afi'ecting trade ; but if those who object with cause to 
 the Income-Tax are abandoned by free-traders, and left to 
 fight alone, we shall find the efforts of free-traders checked by 
 the action of Income-Tax Reformers, with the efiect of leaving 
 matters as they are. Protective duties in this country are 
 now dead, but the question that we have to consider is, 
 whether it is not in the highest degree desirable that even 
 fiscal import duties should be removed, or that where retained, 
 so long as they are retained, they should be made the subject 
 ■of international regulation. All the arguments that were 
 iLsed at the time of the great struggle against Protection, are 
 as good if used in favour of carrying Free Trade principles to 
 their utmost logical development, with this further argument, 
 that the articles upon which duties are now mainly levied, are 
 consumed by those who, owing to their poverty, buy them in 
 small quantities, when a much larger sum is extracted from 
 their pockets on account of the duty than would otherwise 
 be the case. 
 
 It has been said, and said with the most perfect truth, that 
 Teal freedom of trade " consists not merely in the repeal of 
 protective duties, but in the right to buy, to grow, to manu- 
 facture, to import, to export, to use, to exchange, to sell, 
 unrestrained by any fiscal or arbitra-y law." 
 
 In the eloquent words of "a disciple of Richard Cobden," 
 the writer of the celebrated articles which appeared two years
 
 Free Trade. 47 
 
 ago in the Manchester Examiner, "a slave has chains on both 
 his hands and both ]iis feet, — you remove tliem from one 
 hand and one foot, and he has a freer use of his limbs than 
 he liad before, but he is as ninch a slave as formerly — liis 
 freedom has as yet no existence." The main principles laid 
 down by Adam Smith, that taxation should be levied from 
 tivcy j.aca\ in ])roportion to his means, and so contrived as to 
 take out of the pockets of the people as little as possible 
 beyond what finds its way into the Treasury, are both of them, 
 as it has been said, "grossly violated by a system which 
 raises nearly two-thirds of the revenue by taxes greatly 
 aggravated in the price of commodities, to say nothing of the 
 losses occasioned by it in restricting trade, and so narrowing 
 the field for the profitable employment of capital and labour." 
 Moreover, it may be contended, that the income which is at 
 the most sufficient to provide the mere necessaries of life, 
 should, as far as possible, escape taxation, and if this be so, 
 by our present taxes this condition also is greatly violated. 
 The argument that indirect taxation is ojjtional, and can be 
 escaped, is one which tells both ways. In the first place, the 
 statement of fact which it contains is hardly accurate, because 
 the duties upon tea and cofi'ee, and sugar and tobacco, are 
 virtually taxes upon necessaries ; at all events, some of them 
 are necessaries in every case. But, not to dwell upon this 
 point, if taxation is a duty towards the State, and one 
 which should accompany the privileges of citizenship, it is not 
 desirable that it should be optional, but rather that it should 
 be borne without exception by every citizen. To ixjint out 
 the manner in which those duties press upon the smallest 
 incomes, I would refer to the duty upon tobacco, which varies 
 from 8 per cent, upon the choicest and the dearest kind.s, to 
 between 400 and SOO per cent., and in some cases IjtiUU per 
 cent, upon the cheapest. 
 
 But these considerations are not new. So far from that, 
 the present Government may be said to have gained a large 
 portion of its majority by the acceptance of these princii)lcs 
 in the country — that is, by their popularity amongst the 
 people. I do not accuse the Government of having brokt-n 
 faith as yet in the nature of their remissions of taxation, 
 although I think them blameable upon the score of economy, 
 at least. But it is well to be beforehand, and in dealing with
 
 48 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 this question now, we should be looking less to the past than 
 to the future. 
 
 Mr. Bright, a short time before he accepted office, spoke 
 repeatedly in favour of the free breakfast-table, and it is hard 
 to see what answer can be given to the arguments that he 
 then used. But although the Government was helped into 
 office by those speeches, little has been done. Tea has not- 
 been touched, and tea is by far the most heavily taxed of the 
 articles which are indicated by the words of Mr. Bright. Tea. 
 has become a necessary of life, enormously consumed by all 
 classes, but as much by the poor as by the rich. Looking to 
 the variety of uses to which sugar is applied, it, too, may be 
 called a necessary of life, second in value only to wheat. The 
 tax not only increases its price, but causes imperfect manu- 
 facture. These taxes are costly to collect, they hinder all 
 trade— not the trade taxed alone — and raise all prices of 
 foreign goods ; they grow before they are ultimately paid by 
 the consumer, and at least as much is lost in passing through 
 many hands as comes to the State. The tax-payer does not 
 know what he pays, which is provocative of waste. The food 
 taxes press far more heavily upon the poor than on the rich ;: 
 and the compensation given by the exemption of the poor 
 from Income-Tax is rough and unequal, and raises up a host 
 of mistaken beliefs. They cause fraud and adulteration, and 
 the tobacco duties still produce an enormous amount of 
 smuggling ; the whole of these duties, therefore, injure public 
 morals and public health : and, lastly, the abolition of them 
 is the only way to bring about absolute freedom of inter- 
 change, and, therefore, the most available of all methods for 
 spreading civilization and checking war. The peace of the 
 world depends on free trade, because the guarantees for peace 
 are strengthened as that freedom becomes more and more 
 complete, and will be at their strongest when it is absolute. 
 
 We have not free trade as yet. You cannot have free 
 trade in anything so long as you have not free trade in alL 
 Trade is hindered in every direction by Customs regulations. 
 Absolute freedom of trade would lead to many advancements- 
 in civilization tending to form Europe into a single state ;. 
 for instance, to an international penny post with a common 
 postage stamp, to an international money. But, at least let 
 us hope that we shall live to see this country one great freer
 
 Free Tuade. 49 
 
 port. There is, however, special reason for nioving at tlie 
 present time. Looking to the position of the free trade 
 movement in France and in America, a marked declaration 
 on the part of England would have at this moment immense 
 international value. 
 
 Our opponents resort to figures by the score to prove that 
 consumption and trade are not much hindered by Customs 
 duties. Figures are not always worth very much. I re- 
 member once a vast increase in the imports into England 
 from the colonies. I found it all, on going into detail, to be 
 under two heads — the Bermudas, risen from 100,0(10/. a year 
 to three millions, and Turk's Island from nothing to a million 
 and a half. Future statisticians may fail to discover that 
 American blockade-running was the cause. 
 
 What is the argument used against the abolition of the 
 duties on food and trade ? That it is necessary to retain a 
 suflScient number of sources of revenue in time of ptace to 
 admit of sudden expansion in time of war ; that it is 
 politically dangerous to relieve poor electors from taxation, and 
 leave it to be chiefly borne by a rich minority. As for the first 
 of these objections, I do not believe in this custom of keeping 
 up in time of peace a taxation ready for war. Gather your 
 taxes on the principles that will tend the least to limit trade, 
 grow rich, husband your resources, and then if war comes, 
 you will be better able to bear it. Eather than help the next 
 generation, too, to fight, I would prefer to so leave taxation 
 as to make it hard for them to do so. As for the second 
 objection, the fear is that we shall become spendthrift, because 
 the poor, it is said, not paying taxes, if the sugar and tea 
 duties were removed, would wish for public money to be 
 spent in all directions that they might get the lienefit. Xow, in 
 the case of the removal of these duties only, the vast majority 
 of the voters would still pay taxes, in the tax on tobacco and on 
 beer and spirits. A great many teetotallers smoke, and the 
 vast majority, I repeat, of the voters would still pay. Besides, 
 I take it that the workmen are shrewd enough to know that 
 you limit the employment of labour if you tax heavily the 
 business income of the employer, and that in this way, lavi.sh ex- 
 penditure still harms even the teetotaller who does not smoke. 
 We may safely defy the ingenious Mr. Lowe himself to devise 
 a system of taxation in which the tax will not ultimately fall 
 
 £
 
 50 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 upon all the inhabitants of the country. The best system is 
 only the one in which this end is accomplished with the least 
 possible waste. It seems to me that this political danger argu- 
 ment has been pushed too far. We must take a broader view — 
 liberate trade, simplify burdens as well as lighten them, and 
 study less the duties of this or that class than the happiness of 
 the country as a whole. Moreover, at present the inequality is 
 the other way. According to the Financial Reform Associa- 
 tion, the workmen pay nearly twice as much per cent, on 
 their incomes as do the rich ; according to Mr. Dudley Baxter, 
 they pay a little less, namely, as 7 per cent, is to 9^ per cent. 
 But then they pay almost entirely upon necessaries, and 
 7 per cent, on the necessaries of life is a very different thing 
 from 9-^ per cent, on superfluities. I hope that now that the 
 over-taxed people of small incomes have more power in the 
 State than has heretofore been the case, they mil not remain 
 dumb upon this question. It is Bentham, I think, who shows 
 that "equality of taxation" ought to mean equality of 
 sacrifice. A certain minimum of income sufficient to provide 
 the necessaries of life to a moderately numerous family, should 
 not be heavily taxed, but only the surplus beyond this. 
 Suppose this minimum to be 5QI. a year for each family, 
 supposing the workmen to be five million families (which is 
 not much above the mark), this would give 250 millions for 
 necessaries. But their whole income is computed at 325 
 millions by Mr. Dudley Baxter, leaving only 75 millions 
 of superfluities, which, on this principle, would be taxed ; on 
 this, 30 millions of taxes are raised. The rich are two 
 millions of families, which gives 100 millions for necessaries, 
 but they have 500 millions, leaving 400 millions to be taxed, 
 which bears little more than 50 millions of taxes. I repeat, 
 that the small incomes are over-taxed ; almost as much over- 
 taxed as when Hone wrote — 
 
 " These are the people all tattered and torn, 
 Who curse the day wherein they were born, 
 On account of taxation too great to be borne ; 
 Who in vain petition in every form. 
 And pray for relief from night to morn." 
 
 Almost as much over-taxed, but far more powerful now to 
 right themselves.
 
 Free Trade. 51 
 
 There is one reason, not hard to find, -why we move no 
 faster. The great revenue departments are opposed to move- 
 ment. Indirect taxes take a great deal of collection. That 
 is our objection to them. The departments don't mind our 
 nibbling at the bread, or pecking at the plums and currants, 
 but touch tea, and they foresee a reduction of staff. Still, 
 
 ■ even this obstraction must come to an end, and it is your 
 fault if it does not end soon. 
 
 Having thus begun by condemning large branches of the 
 
 ■ existing revenue as raised by oppressive means, we have to 
 •consider how it would be possible to do without them. Two 
 sets of questions at once are involved — the first, that of how 
 much could be saved from our expenditure ; the second, 
 that of what other and less hurtful taxes could be imposed. 
 I will treat the latter question first. I say that both with 
 'regard to the Income-Ta.x as at present raised, and some at 
 least of the Customs duties, upon what are virtually neces- 
 saries of life, I agree with Bentham's answer to those who 
 .said to him that he Avho reprobates a tax ought to have a 
 better in his hand. His answer was, " A juster condition 
 never was imposed ; I fulfil it at the first word ; my better 
 tax is — any other that can be named." We have lately seen 
 a proposition for increased taxation upon land. Now, in 
 principle, there is nothing that can be offered in opposition to 
 that proposal. There are few of us who would regret to 
 see the State discourage the accumulation of land in a few 
 hands. I say that there is nothing more scandalous than the 
 partial exemption of landed property from the equal incidence 
 of taxes levied on successions from the dead. The so-called 
 " land-tax " is no tax at all, but a far too mild form of the 
 ancient rent or service paid to the Crown, and now made 
 ridiculous by its being paid upon an assessment, not increasing 
 with the value, but fixed at a stationary amount. I will not, 
 however, go into the history of the juggling job by which 
 the land was freed from taxes, but will only point out that 
 the vast increase in the value of land arising from the 
 -opening of mines, the growth of towns, and the prosperity of 
 the country, has altogether escaped taxation. Had the land 
 been properly taxed, we should never have had that frightfid 
 accumulation of war-debt which makes the food and trade 
 taxes partly necessary, and the fixing of the land-tax on the
 
 62 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 value as it stood at tlie time of William III. was as tliougb 
 the Income-Tax to be paid by any self-made man should' 
 stand, when he has made his 10,000?. a year, as it did when 
 he was a clerk at 100/. 
 
 ]\Ir. Cobden it was who first pointed out the fact, that 
 while land constantly increases in value, we have "no cor- 
 responding contributions from that increase in aiding to^ 
 defray our public expenditure." Again, he said, " The land- 
 owner need not expend a shilling on improvements. He 
 may neglect his property, he may be an absentee, still its 
 value goes on increasing Avith the increase of population." 
 On another occasion Cobden said, " Real property is the only 
 property which not only does not diminish in value, but, in- 
 a country growing in population and advancing in prosperity, 
 always increases in value, and that without any help from 
 the owner." All this is true, and it points to the wisdom of 
 a gradual increase of the taxation npon land. But I do not 
 think that it would be fair suddenly to throw any large 
 increase of taxation upon land. To what other source, then, 
 of national income can we turn ? I venture to suggest that 
 the truth of Bentham's statement has never been shaken, 
 that the best of all financial resources is that " which gives to- 
 the ])ublic a share in jjroperty become vacant by death, and 
 failure of near relations. The formation of counter-expecta- 
 tions being prevented by pre-established law, receipts from 
 this source need not be attended Avith that vexatious sense of 
 privation which is the inseparable accompaniment of every 
 other tax." 
 
 We are already led to look at this resource by the tempta- 
 tion of a special exemption now existing in favour of certain 
 kinds of property. While personalty is subject to legacy 
 and probate duty, and has to pay the full amount at once, 
 real property is exempt from those, and only pays succession' 
 duty on its value estimated as a life annuity, and this, too^ 
 by easy instalments. 
 
 Now, I admit that under the present strict law of entail 
 and settlement, it Avould be unjust to call upon the nominal 
 owner of the land, who is but, in fact, a lodger on the property 
 that he calls his own, for a greater sacrifice than he has ta 
 make at present. But such a demand could well be made^ 
 and made with fairness, in connexion with the proposed aboli-
 
 Free Trade. 3.*? 
 
 tion of the law, and substitution of a more rational state of 
 things, and in connexion, too, with that cheai»oncd transfer 
 which will be a great boon to the landowner. 
 
 It is clear, however, that an increase of legacy and suc- 
 cession duty in the case of successions by strangers, or by 
 distant relatives, is the least onerous, and is likely to bu the 
 most productive of all new taxes. It would in such cases, as 
 a general rule, defeat no legitimate expectation, and wlien 
 once the law was made, no man would feel himself robbed 
 by its operation. It is already law up to a certain point, 
 and no one ever complains of it as a grievance. If it is 
 possible to conceive such a thing as a popular tax, an 
 increased tax on distant successions would be popular. It 
 would not be unpopular after a time even with those to wlumi 
 the legacies were left. There would be no expectation, and, 
 therefore, no disappointment. They would know that the 
 testator, being cognizant of the law, they would have received 
 from him the amount which he really intended for them. 
 Much would depend upon the manner of the collection, and 
 it is clear that it should be immediate ; that the property 
 should not be allowed to pass into the hands of legatees, who 
 would afterwards be made to surrender a large portion. This 
 for instant wants; but I believe firmly in the wisdom of 
 gradually raising the taxation upon land until ultimately it 
 bears here that large proportion of the burdens of the country 
 which in former times it did bear here, and which it still 
 bears in many foreign countries. Having said this, I turn to 
 the other side of the question, and to the consideration of 
 measures of economy. 
 
 We spend each year some seventy millions sterling ! 1 )id 
 we spend but sixty, Ave should be rid of the tea, coffee, and 
 sugar duties, or from the same saving the Income-Tax could 
 be spared. Seventy millions ! What do we do with it ? Into 
 what gulf do we drop these terrible sums 1 Much we spend 
 on those 
 
 "... who lord it o'er their fellow-men 
 With most prevailing tinsel : who unpen 
 Their baaing vanities, to browse away 
 The comfortable green and juicy hay 
 From human pastures !" 
 
 Much on the sinecurists I But cannot we save upon the
 
 54 Speeches by Sie Charles Dilke. 
 
 effective branches of the public service — upon the army, the- 
 navy, the colonies, and the cost of collection of the revenue 
 itself? We are following neither the one course nor the 
 other. We maintain an army which is unnecessarily costly 
 for defence, and which is useless for the purpose of continental 
 ■war. If we are not prepared to be a military power, why not 
 provide for India by a separate army, and for home defence 
 by national enrolment and home drill, backed by permanent 
 .scientific and mounted corps, and rely for foreign war, if ever • 
 such need should unfortunately again arise, on volunteers 
 from the home foot ? 
 
 As for the navy — some saving has been effected by the 
 reduction of foreign squadrons, but we still waste prodigious 
 sums upon our Mediterranean fleet. Its last performance 
 merits notice when we are discussing the need for its reten- 
 tion. The British fleet of ironclads has been escorting the 
 Italian King of Spain upon an electioneering tour. Admiral 
 Yelverton assured the King that the British fleet was at his 
 service, and the King took the Admiral at his word. What 
 were these elections, and who is this King, to help whom 
 the whole weight of British prestige was thrown ? They were 
 elections in which the party in power, two months before, 
 with a majority of two to one, carried in all but thirteen seats, 
 while the republican party carried twelve of the largest towns 
 without a contest, and against the whole weight of illegal 
 influence returned eighty of their men. I say "illegal in- 
 fluence." Illegal influence upon elections, by the party in 
 power, not wholly unknown in England, and so common in 
 Spain that it is said there that a cabinet council is generally 
 held beforehand, at which the ministry decide how many of 
 the opposition it will be advisable to return. The King to 
 ■whom our fleet w\as offered is a stranger King — amiable and 
 clever, but disliked in^ the south as a king by the Eepub- 
 licans, and detested in the north as a stranger by the Monar- 
 chists, and likely before long to return to a happier life in his 
 own land. This is a specimen of the manner in which is 
 exercised the political influence of our fleet in the Mediter- 
 ranean Sea. Why, then, the present expenditure on our 
 navy ? The next strongest in fine ships is the navy of our 
 ally — the Turkish. The Americans and French are going 
 backwards with their fleets. The Prussian is still small ; th&
 
 Free Trade. 65 
 
 Eussian, owing to the configuration of the coasts, formidaljlo 
 only upon paper. Why, then, sucli expenditure u2)on the 
 navy ; why, at all events, a Mediterranean fleet, now that 
 political power has passed from Mediterranean shores ? 
 
 The colonies again — our prides, indeed, but C(.)stly prides, 
 Avliich involve the tea duties and many more ! Why should 
 a country like the Canadian Dominion, Avith plenty of virgin 
 soil, — with four millions of j'eople, — with four millions and a 
 half of revenue, — with a trifling debt, ofi'ering us no advantages 
 in trade, and levying heavy duties upon our goods, — why 
 should such a country take from us a large sum in direct 
 taxation, and pay besides none of the general costs of the 
 government of the empire 1 Why should Australia do the 
 like, and only India, a ftir poorer country, bear her own costs 
 of every kind, merely because she has no Parliament, and is 
 dumb and weak 1 
 
 The official returns show that our colonists consume from 
 twice to three times as much sugar and meat as our people, 
 man for man, woman for woman, child for child, yet we (and 
 India) still pay the whole cost of the general management of 
 the empire, of its commercial and political diplomacy, and all 
 but the whole of its expenditure for war. 
 
 A month or two ago, Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen delivered 
 a lecture to his constituents at Deal, in Avhich he proclaimed 
 those principles in respect to our colonial affairs Avhich used 
 to be considered heretical by the Liberal party, but which 
 now are popular. I may say, however, that when the present 
 Government had to deal with the colonies, it dealt with them 
 through Lord CJranville and Mr. Cardwell, who held the older 
 and less fashionable view. But now that it has to talk to 
 them, it speaks through the lips of Mr. Hugessen, who holds 
 the less rigid view, so that the Government gets the credit of 
 both policies. !Mr. Hugessen spoke very largely of the ad- 
 vantage to this country of the colonial connexion, and lie 
 set up an antagonist who does not exist in order to knock 
 down his imaginary foe, when he demolished in a trium])hant 
 passage the statesmen who wished to drive the colonies into 
 independence. I say an imaginary foe, because those of us 
 who have taken the older and less fashionable view have 
 never proposed anything of the kind, but only that the 
 colonists, if they desire to maintain the connexion, sliould
 
 56 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 bear some portion of its burdens. Mr. Hugessen forgot tliat 
 it was the ceaseless storm of argument directed against the 
 very position -which he now occupies, by those whom he 
 attempts to ridicule, which has caused within the last four 
 years alone a saving, accompanied by a positive increase, not a 
 decrease, of strength to the empire, of a million and a quarter 
 or of a million and a half a year. I said just now that the 
 colonists do not bear their fair share of the burdens of the 
 empire. They bear no such share as is borne by India. 
 Why not 1 They come to us for aid of a kind w^iicli is most 
 objectionable — the aid of guarantees. Canada is to have one 
 this year. The military expenditure has decreased, but it is 
 still enormous, and I may say unknown. The charges which 
 are returned to us exclude charges for barracks, hospitals, and 
 stores, for arms and accoutrements, and for all those tre- 
 mendous sources of expenditure, recruiting, administration, 
 head-quarter expenses, staff and other non-effective charges. 
 Now a share of those is paid by India, but no share whatever 
 is paid by the other colonies and dependencies of England. 
 
 In the colonies and dependencies proper, taking no 
 account of Gibraltar, ]\falta, St. Helena, and China, and even 
 omitting Bermuda, which is retained for imperial purposes, 
 we keep up still between eleven and twelve thousand men. 
 We spend in direct military charges, outside of Great Britain 
 and India, one and a half million more than they repay, — two 
 hundred thousand a year on the West India Islands and Hon- 
 duras, — two hundred thousand a j^ear on the African stations 
 and the ^lauritius. ^luch of the money might far better be 
 thrown into the sea at once. For instance, the cost of 200 
 men at St. Helena, for whom we pay 25,0001. a year in direct 
 expenditure ahnie. The total direct cost of our colonies and 
 dependencies, excluding India, is still three and a half millions 
 a year,* almost the whole of which, with the exception of the 
 
 • The astounding ignorance displayed by a leader-writer of the ^iawdarrf 
 newHpaper in an article on this passage of Sir Charles Dilke'a speech, 
 which appeared on January 14th, merits exposure. The Standard v&s 
 insulo to say ;_" Three millions and a half. Does Sir Charles Dilke 
 believe that this or anything like this sum is paid by the British tax- 
 Jiityer for the luxury of possessing colonies? If he does, he must here- 
 after be reckoned as a most worthless authority on all colonial subjects." 
 'I'he fact is, that three and a half millione, as the expenditure on the 
 colonieo, U a figure taken directly from the official return, and that the
 
 Free Tuade. Sf 
 
 cost of ]\ralta, might easily be saved. Tlie Falkland Islands 
 have been in the possession at one time or another of 
 almost all the powers under the sun, and have been abandoned 
 by each in turn. We spend there about G,000/. more than we 
 raise, and it is absolutely impossible to give any adecjuatc 
 reason for that expenditure, the place being wholly useless. 
 When I mentioned the cost of the troops in St. Helena, I for- 
 got the civil charges, which amount to about 1 1,000/. a year 
 more. If it is necessary to incur this expenditure upon rocky 
 barren islands in the Atlantic, it must needs be just as neces- 
 sary to occupy all the rocky stations on the coast of the 1 led 
 Sea, for a stronger case might be made for the retention of 
 any one of them than for that of St. Helena or the Falkland 
 Islands. In saying all these things, I only state that wliich 
 has been the opinion of men Avho made colonial i)olicy more 
 their study than any w-ho now take part in Colonial Govern- 
 ment. Even the Quarterly Review not many years ago said, 
 that " there must be some reciprocity in our colonial relations, 
 and the colonists, if they wish to retain the privileges, nuist bear 
 their share of the burdens of British citizenship." Lord CIrey, 
 who had more experience of the subject than any other man, 
 said, that " the expenditure on the colonies ought to be very 
 largely reduced. They are relieved from all that is onerous to 
 them in connexion with the mother country, and they should 
 be required to contribute much more than they have hitherto 
 done to their own protection." But I go further, and .say, in 
 the words of Adam Smith, '* If any of the provinces of the 
 British empire cannot be made to contribute towards the sup- 
 port of the whole empire, it is surely time that Britain should 
 -free herself from the expense of defending those provinces in 
 time of war, and of supporting any part of their civil and 
 military establishments in time of peace." I contend that the 
 ■colonies should not only provide for their own defence, but 
 that if they set store upon the privilege of citizenship of the 
 empire, that they should bear, as India bears, a portion of our 
 expenditure upon the navy, which protects their trade, and 
 upon the diplomatic and consular service which throughout 
 the world is supposed to aid its interests. 
 
 writer ia the Standard has fallen head over heels into the pitfall of » 
 belief that "colonial military expenditure" and "colonial expenditure "* 
 are one and the same thing.
 
 58 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 I mention the naval force because I believe that from 
 one-third to one-half of our active navy is maintained for the 
 benefit of the colonies, and you must remember that all the 
 charwes appear in the general naval estimates, and are not 
 set down in that account -which I named of three and a 
 half millions against the colonies. I have said before, and 
 I think that it could be proved, that the tea and sugar 
 duties do not produce us more than our colonies and de- 
 pendencies cost. 
 
 Hitherto I have .spoken chiefly of the duty of the greater 
 colonies to bear a .share of the expenses of the empire at large, 
 but I had to except some stations, of which Gibraltar is a type, 
 and from which it is hopeless to expect a contribution. It is- 
 treading, I know, upon dangerous ground, but is it as neces- 
 sary as Ave believe that these great military stations should, 
 at all hazards, be maintained as such 1 The Duke of Cam- 
 bridge, in his evidence before the Committee on the army in 
 India and in the colonies, made a very singular admission. 
 He said, " If I were certain that I could mass troops at home 
 and retain them, there might be some advantage, no doubt, in 
 having them massed ; but I feel such a doubt upon the subject, 
 I confess I think it is much better as it is, and that I have- 
 more security of keeping the army up to an efiicient state by 
 having them scattered. Therefore, I contend that it is better 
 tliat they should be scattered as they are now than that we 
 should have too large bodies in central positions, because the 
 ar'-angement could not be long maintained." Suppose that 
 the Duke were right, and that the troops brought home from 
 (libraltar — if that .spot, for instance, were neutralized by inter- 
 national agreemejit — were disbanded instead of being kept up 
 there, I believe that the saving to this country might be esti- 
 mated pretty fairly at one million a year. Now, the question is, 
 whether, considering its position, it is worth the million that 
 we arc paying for it every year. There is no trade at Gibraltar, 
 except the smuggling trade, which so justly incenses every 
 Spaniard. The rock does not command the entrance to the 
 Mediterranean. We command it only if we command the seas, 
 and if we command the seas, we command the entrance to the 
 Mediterranean independently of Gibraltar. The only argument 
 JUS to its value, which is often used, is that it is wanted as a 
 coaling station. As a coaling station in time of peace it would
 
 Free Trade. 59' 
 
 contiimo to flourish, whether wc spent a million on it each 
 year, or whether we did not ; and as to a coaling station in 
 time of war, it would be, as I said just now, useless if we had 
 not the command of the seas, and useless also if we had it. 
 In a jSIediterrancan war, Spain would not be likely to be 
 neutral. If Spain were friendly, Gibraltar would not be needed ; 
 and if Spain were hostile, the long range guns which she pos- 
 sesses would, as I saw for myself in 18G9, render Gibraltar 
 useless to us as a coaling station in time of war. 
 
 It must be remembered, too, that Spain is more likely to 
 be friendly if there are no English troops at Gibraltar than if 
 our flag continues to fly over the possession. The Spanish, 
 although a distracted nation, has never ceased to be a warlike 
 one ; and if there be any question which could unite Garlists, 
 Alphonsists, Constitutional Monarchists, and IJepublicans, it 
 Avould be the hope of regaining Gibraltar by the help of other 
 powers. 
 
 I have not said one word, it will be seen, of the more 
 serious moral aspect of the question, because it did not come 
 within the scope of my present subject so to do. The holding 
 of Gibraltar by the English is, however, to the Spaniards, as 
 great an insult as would be to England the holding of the Isle 
 of Wight by Spain. The original capture* of Gibraltar was a 
 theft, and its restoration was often promised. Wc have never 
 had undisputed possession of the place. The Spaniards have 
 begged for it often, and fought for it whenever they have had 
 the power. Our i:)ossession of it is an insult, and something 
 more, for the rock is a nest of plotters, and a smuggling post 
 of the first magnitude. 
 
 It is often said that Spain would be too weak to hold the 
 rock, and that it would go to France, or to some other power, 
 just as it is said that we must not cease to spend tmr half 
 million a year, or whatever it i.s, on Bermuda, for fear the 
 Americans should seize it. That need be no obstacle to its 
 surrender, even if it be true. The rock could ea.sily bo 
 neutralized by a general agreement, and its neutralization 
 would point to a similar means of gradually reducing our 
 naval expenditure, by obtaining the co-operation of other 
 countries in the exercise of that maritime police for which 
 over half the waters of the globe we at present make ourselves 
 alone responsible.
 
 CO Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke, 
 
 For my part, I should be willing to give the rock to Spain, 
 and to trust to Spanish pride and Spanish bravery for its 
 retention ; to trust, too, to the feeling of international re- 
 sponsibility, which is strong enough now, I think, to prevent 
 nations from stealing other people's property, though not 
 strong enough, it would appear, to make them restore property 
 already stolen. 
 
 Gibraltar is, I maintain, useless to us, and a drain upon 
 the resources of the country. But speaking for myself only, 
 and not for others, I would sooner see England give it up, if 
 it were ten times as valuable, as the strongest advocate for its 
 retention would contend, on account of the moral grandeur of 
 the example which we should set. 
 
 It is not as an advocate of "peace at any price" that I 
 say this. The foolish annexation of French territory, inhabited 
 "by a hostile population, forces Germany to maintain her 
 armaments, and so long as Germany is armed to the teeth, a 
 truly pacific foreign policy — that is, one which involves dis- 
 armament — cannot with honour to the country be pursued. 
 In annexing Alsace and half Lorraine, on the ground of natural 
 frontier and common race, Germany forgot that ideas, unlike 
 language, have no frontier, and are of no race. How great a 
 share has this violation by Germany of sound principle in the 
 present political miseries of France. After the fall of the 
 Empire, we hoped that, freed from its corruption, France 
 would be freed, too, of her factions. But just as in the 
 Canadian forests, after a great fire, when the ground is cleared 
 and all seems open for a fresh start of wholesome vegetation, 
 no sooner does the light of heaven pierce the smoke and reach 
 the soil, than new weeds, hitherto unknown, spring up and 
 cumber the earth on every side, so it is in France. France, 
 .however, will not be always disunited — not always fallen; 
 and no European system founded in the belief that France 
 has been degraded to the rank of a second-rate power can be 
 pennanent. 
 
 The examples of possible economies that I have given are 
 examples only, and not the chief Every branch of the public 
 expenditure forms a similar field. On all sides there is 
 routine and waste. Take, for instance, an amusing case of the 
 administration of a miUtary department in this parish, which 
 came before me last year. The services of several distinguished
 
 Free Tkade. 61 
 
 and highly-paid oflBcials— inchuling, I believe, a Lord of the 
 Treasury and the Comptroller-General — wore required at a 
 meeting held at Chelsea Hospital to decide whether one of 
 the pensioners who was to be chapel clerk — there being no 
 difference of opinion as to who he should be — was to be 
 appointed by the Governor or the Chaplain, or the Governor 
 on the recommendation of the Chaplain, or the Secretary 
 after consulting with the Chaplain. 
 
 We are told by many that although we shall soon have a 
 great reduction upon certain estimates where waste takes 
 place, we shall have, nevertheless, to look for a corresponding 
 increase upon others, and notably upon education. I wish 
 to see a large expenditure upon education ; but there are vast 
 endowments and enormous properties under the direction of 
 the Church, which were left by pious persons in the Middle 
 Ages for no other jiurpose than that of education, given to 
 the Church, not as the Church in its present light, but as 
 being then the representative of the nation for purposes of 
 charity and of the education of the people. Is it not possible 
 that some cure for increasing estimates may be found in that 
 direction 1 Archbisho2) Manning cainiot, I suppose, be looked 
 upon as a revolutionist, but I noticed the other day, in a 
 lecture which he gave at Tower Hill, that he used these 
 words, " The patrimony of the Church is the patrimony of the 
 poor, and not intended for the enrichment of bishops and 
 priests." 
 
 There is happily a growing impatience of taxation — I say 
 happily, because I think that there can be nothing more 
 deplorable than the tacit agreement of the people in a system 
 which upon all hands cramps the devek)i)ment of the country. 
 It was thouglit last year enough to tell me, when I named 
 sinecures still existing, that no fresh ones had been created 
 durins the present reign, although it was not denied that 
 fresh "appointments had been made to old ones. I doubt 
 whether such answers as this will long be deemed sufficient. 
 It will be necessary soon for Government to go to the root of 
 the evil and try a real economy, instead of attempting flint- 
 skinning in the shape of under-payment of their writers, 
 under-payment of their postmen, and underpayment of their 
 police. 
 
 I repeat, then, that our programme should be definite, and
 
 ■<J2 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 I repeat tlie words in wliich I suggested tliat that programme 
 should be couched. ^Mien a writer iu a local paper says that 
 I want that the workmen should monopolize power, I answer 
 you have classes; you have more — you have political as 
 well as social castes. By free land and free trade, by free 
 law, and free church, and free schools, we might hope that 
 we should break them down, and have a united people in the 
 future.
 
 63 
 
 REFORM CONFERENCE. 
 
 St. Jameses Hall, l'2th of November, 1872. 
 
 Havino been asked to state the reasons for the assembling 
 of this Conference on Parliamentary Reform, I find it im- 
 possible to answer without going into a brief history of the 
 attempts which have been hitherto made to reach firm ground. 
 AVe have met chiefiy with a view to advocate the introduction 
 for the first time of principle into the settlement both of the 
 franchise and of the distribution of political power. There is 
 a certain measure of principle introduced already into the 
 borough franchise. Our desire, then, is to extend principle 
 to the county franchise, and to decide that for the future, 
 ■whatever the franchise may be, it should, at least, be the 
 same in the counties and the towns. We wish also to propose 
 the first introduction of principle into the distribution of 
 seats for Parliament. We undertake this movement not 
 without a special reason, but because while the Radical party 
 in England are always, and very properly, asked what they 
 want, they cannot but see that there is no chance of their 
 obtaining any of their demands, not even those to which 
 they think that a majority of the people are favourable, 
 without a new parliamentary reform. It was, therefore, 
 ■decided to place before the Conference, as the first basis of 
 its meeting, two resolutions ; the one declaring that there 
 should be an equality of franchise throughout the country, 
 and the other declaring that there should be an approximate 
 equality of political power. These were the principles which 
 the Committee believe are ripe for immediate action, and they 
 iire approved by the delegates present at the Conference held 
 this day. The other decisions of the Conference represent 
 the opinions of those attending it, — opinions which may be
 
 Gi Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 modified by circumstances, and which are not equally binding- 
 on the bodies represented. 
 
 "We have often been reproached that we do not sufiSciently 
 .concentrate our energies upon any one subject at a time, and 
 that we weaken ourselves by over-diffusion of our energy. 
 Now, a reform which upon careful inquiry aj)pears to be, as- 
 this does, a necessary basis to all others, is undoubtedly that 
 one which, while upon the one side it is the more urgent, on 
 the other is the most useful, on which we can concentrate our 
 power. Our request is surely moderate enough, for it con- 
 sists only in a demand that the nation should be truly and 
 fairly represented, and that those future errors wliich may be 
 made by Parliament, — for Parliament will be ever fallible, — 
 should be errors for which at least the whole people are 
 responsible. It was with the greatest wisdom that in 1859, 
 Mr. Bright, speaking at Bradford, said : — " Watch this point 
 with the keenest eye possible — repudiate without mercy any 
 BiU of any Government, whatever its franchise, whatever its 
 seeming concessions may be, if it does not distribute seats, 
 obtained from the extinction of small boroughs, among 
 the great city populations of the kingdom." Speaking at 
 Eochdale in 1860, again he said: — "To give a man a vote 
 may be to please his sentiment of independence and equality, 
 and he may like to go up and poll with his richer neigh- 
 bour ; yet as regards the legislation and composition of 
 Parliament and action upon Government, the giving a man 
 a vote, or a million of men votes, may be made of no 
 effect — of no value whatsoever, unless that which I call the 
 soul of your representative system be equitably adjusted." 
 Since that time, Mr. Bright has been a member of the 
 Government, and yet the matter remains very much as it 
 stood before. There are others here who will speak with 
 authority as to the state of things which exists in the North 
 of England. I will speak chiefly of that which exists in the 
 neighbourhood of this spot. Take Llarylebone for an instance. 
 AVhat reason can there be why an elector of Marylebone should 
 have only the one two-hundred-and-twentieth part as much 
 electoral power as an elector of Portarlington ? Now that is 
 one of the strongest cases that we can put. But taking them 
 hap-hazard, just as they come, the following places stand con- 
 Kecutively on the list of English and Scotch borousrhs— leaving
 
 Reform. G.") 
 
 out the Irish, which arc worse still, but which may be viu\\ ed 
 as standing by themselves — Eye, Falkirk, Finsbury, Flint, and 
 Frome. Xow Eye, Falkirk, Flint, and Frome have, together, 
 about G,000 voters, but they return twice as many members 
 as Finsbury with its 30,000 electors. A little further on in 
 the list we have the following towns coming together : — Liver- 
 pool, London, Ludlow, and Lymington. Ludlow and Lyming- 
 ton have, together, 1,400 voters ; Liverpool has 50,000, and 
 London 20,000 — that is, 70,000 between those two lattur, or an 
 average of 10,000 voters to one member ; while in Ludlow and 
 Lymington there are 700 voters to a member. Taking London 
 all through the city and metropolitan districts together, there 
 are about 300,000 voters, that is without counting the people 
 who live in Croydon, and Battersea, and the extreme north-east 
 of London, who go unheard. While those 300,000 voters, 
 representing between three and four millions of people, have 
 but twenty-two members amongst them, the whole of the 
 Irish boroughs have but .'50,000 voters, but they have thirty- 
 seven members, altliough they have only one-sixth as many 
 voters as there are in London, which returns only twenty-two. 
 Birmingham, ^Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow have each 
 of them more voters than there are in the whole of the Irish 
 boroughs put together, and each of them has but three 
 members instead of thirty-seven. Tliere are 100 members of 
 the House who sit for about 1,080,000 votens. There are 
 another 100 members who sit for about the odd 80,000 
 voters ! Now, not only are those disproportions ridiculous, 
 but they are also unfair. Tliey are unfair to the inhabitants 
 of the large towns when their interests come into conflict 
 with those of the inha])itants of the small towns. Any 
 number of cases of this kind may be .<^hown. I have shown 
 them over and over again myself ; but I may briefly state 
 that in the present year there has been a notable instance of 
 what I say, viz., the defeat of a measure concerning a large 
 town — the Birmingham Sewage Bill, which was lost on a 
 division by a majority composed of representatives of tlie 
 small boroughs — by members representing vastly fewer voters 
 than those that composed the minority. Indeed, the difl'erencc 
 between the supporters of the motion of Sir Charles Adderley 
 on that occasion, and the supporters of the just rights of the 
 people of Birmingham, was no less than half a million of 
 
 F
 
 66 Speeches by Sik Charles Dilke. 
 
 voters against Sir Cliarles Adderley, although he was vic- 
 torious on the division. 
 
 The result of the continuance of the existing state of 
 things is to give us a practical unfairness in dealing with 
 many questions not inferior to that which existed before the 
 passing of the great Eeform Bill. There are no boroughs now 
 with a dozen or even with a single hundred of electors ; but 
 looking to the enormous gro'O'th of wealth and population in 
 the northern portion of the country, the practical disparities 
 and differences in the weight of votes may safely be said to 
 be as great at the present time as they were before 1832. If 
 there has been something gained in figures, there has, perhaps, 
 on the other hand, been something lost in fact ; for many of 
 the nominees sitting for pure nomination boroughs took, from 
 the very nature of the tenure of their seats, a more inde- 
 pendent view of political affairs than is taken by some among 
 the more fairly elected members of the present House. In- 
 fluence, too, is hardly less rife at the present time than it was 
 before the great Reform Act. "Whole pages of any j^arlia- 
 mentary guide are filled with lists of boroughs, and even of 
 counties, too, in which the politics of the people are shown 
 to be of no account beside the opinions of the chief proprietor. 
 There are boroughs which, as a matter of course, have 
 returned members of the same family from the days of 
 Charles II. to the present time. There are still more boroughs 
 and counties, the representation of which is divided between 
 the two or three chief families of their neighbourhood ; and, 
 in defiance of the principle that it is the highest possible 
 breach of the privileges of the Commons for Peers to interfere 
 in the election of its members, it is notorious that at least a 
 hundred members of the House of Commons are the nominees 
 of ]'eers of Parliament. "Why do not our statesmen help us ? 
 What says Bacon, in his " Essay on Innovations " 1 — " If time 
 alters things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not 
 alter them to the better, what shall be the end ?" 
 
 The Conservatives often by their leaders say, " It is true 
 that the large boroughs are under-represented as contrasted 
 with the small boroughs, but then the counties are ill treated 
 as compared with both." Now, how far is this the fact ? 
 Taking population as the basis of our estimate, there is un- 
 doubtedly almost double the population to a member in the
 
 Kefoem. G7 
 
 counties that there is population to a member in the boroughs. 
 But what boroughs'? Why the vast majority of them are 
 those village boroughs, the separate existence of whicli we 
 continually deplore. The county people choose to call them 
 towns. I think we should be as justified when speaking of 
 them if we consider them as purely agricultural places, and 
 I hope that ultimately the discussions may lead to this 
 result, that towns-people and county-people alike may 
 concur in their disfranchisement. But I will go further, and 
 ask upon what ground population is to be taken as the test. 
 Population might be a convenient or an inconvenient test 
 when the franchise comes to be equal in the counties and in 
 the towns ; but so long as it is different, I would ask what 
 right have you to take population as your test, and to count on 
 behalf of Mr. ISTewdegate in Warwickshire the unrepresented 
 followers of Mr. Joseph Arch? The only test which, Avith a 
 different franchise, we can allow, is that of the number of 
 electors. The text upon which we should never cease to 
 preach is that of the equality of every elector with every other. 
 Middlesex, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and East Kent are under- 
 represented even on this test, and the representatives of these 
 counties attend our Conference and unite Avith us in action. 
 The North Riding and the East Riding have between them 
 eight members to 80,000 electors, that is, one member to 
 every 10,000 voters, while the county of Sutherland has one 
 member for 343 electors. 
 
 Hitherto I have spoken only of the most flagrant and 
 striking of our electoral anomalies, viz., the difference in the 
 weight of votes between one part of the country and another ; 
 but the system is full of anomalies from end to end. I 
 referred to the position of the franchise as being compara- 
 tively speaking satisfactory ; but even here, when after some 
 years we shall have got a single franchise for all portions of 
 the country, from which we still are a long way off, even 
 then how anomalous will be the position of affairs! You 
 will have a 10^. franchise and an occupation franchise co-ex- 
 isting side by side, and a lodger franchise which is intended 
 to confer great benefits upon a class very numerous in London, 
 but which has found the difficulties in the way so great as to 
 be insuperable — difficulties Avhicli we in the House of Com- 
 kinons find it impossible to prevail upon the House to remove.
 
 68 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 You still will disfranchise a man for moving from one side of 
 a street to the other, and you still will disfranchise him for 
 moving from one qualifying set of rooms to another better 
 sot in the same house, upon the same floor. Even were you 
 to correct these anomalies, it is questionable whether your 
 ratepaying franchise is advisable in itself. It rests upon the 
 principle contained in the old maxim that taxation without 
 representation is tyranny. Now, in this country, every one 
 contributes to the revenue through indirect taxation. To 
 connect the franchise with the holding of property, as long as 
 property is so unequally distributed as it is, is to give to the 
 few increased power to rule the many. If taxation were the 
 sole business of Parliament, and if only propetry were taxed, 
 the principle would be a logical one. But inasmuch as aU. 
 contribute to the taxes, all would seem to be entitled to some 
 share in the representation, whereas many are left unheard, 
 while the over-represented property-holders have strong ten- 
 dencies to tax anything rather than their own accumulated 
 wealth. But Parliament does more than levy taxes. It legis- 
 lates for all classes, often passing measures specially affecting, and 
 even solely affecting, the poorest, that is, the unrepresented class. 
 For these reasons we have felt it necessary to unite the 
 question of the county franchise with that of the redistribu- 
 tion of seats in our programme. Not for these reasons only ! 
 The settlement of the redistribution question is impossible in 
 itself, unless it be undertaken at the same time with the 
 reduction of the county franchise. But, also, the labourers' 
 agitation, as Mr. Arch will tell us, has convinced those of 
 the labourers who have hitherto taken no interest in politics 
 at all, that they will never be fairly treated as other men are 
 treated by those with whom they have to deal, until the 
 franchise is extended to their class. There is no danger that 
 they will not get such of their rights as law can give them 
 when once they are entitled to vote for county members. If 
 there be a danger in their enfranchisement, it lies upon the 
 other side — in the possibility of competitors for their favour 
 flattering them too much. 
 
 We go further, however, than this in the principle of our 
 demands. Mr. Lowe once said in the House of Commons, 
 during the progress of his fierce opposition to that Reform 
 ]jill to which he owes his present place, that "the fran-
 
 Reform. 69 
 
 •chise, like every other political expedient, is a means to 
 au end — the end being the preservation of order in the 
 ■country, and the preventing of any tyranny of one class 
 over another." We partly agree and partly disagree with 
 those words. They are words that show that his ability to 
 secure election for a University gives a man that inde- 
 pendence which the advocates of fancy franchises desire — 
 an independence which I should not value, because it is 
 .an independence of the opinion of one's countrymen. We 
 believe, on the contrary, that the Commons House of Parlia- 
 ment — between the majority in which and the majority of the 
 people there should be perfect harmony — should be elected on 
 the widest franchise. Since Sir Fi-ancis Burdctt moved 
 Jeremy Bentham's resolution on Reform in 1818, the opinion 
 has been growing that Bentham and his followers were right 
 in their belief, that it is difficult for a country to go far wrong 
 when the opinion of every citizen has equal weight, and the 
 •oi^inion of the greatest number in every case prevails. We 
 believe in so swelling the number of electors, that the riches 
 of individuals cannot bribe them, nor the knaveries of indi- 
 viduals manage them. We are met by the statement that in 
 the existing House of Commons we have got an efficient 
 legislative machine. We answer that we do not believe, 
 even voting upon this narrow ground, chosen by our enemies, 
 that the existing House of Commons is so good that there is 
 nothing to be done but to leave it alone. 
 
 Not only is the distribution of political power capricious 
 in the extreme — not only is there a different franchise in dif- 
 ferent parts of the country without any principle as a base, 
 but there are other and even more vexatious restrictions, by 
 which, also upon no principle, political power is limited to a 
 •class. A volume might any year be written on the monstrous 
 decisions of revising courts — monstrous, that is, in the sense 
 of being based upon no principle, and having the effect of 
 defeating the intended operation of the laws, but often 
 inevitable as far as the revising barristers are concerned, and the 
 inevitable result of the complications of our property franchise. 
 
 I have put together a few of those which have struck me 
 in the present year — all of them having occurred in London. 
 If you take the country round, I have no doubt that an equal 
 proportion, and a far greater number, therefore, could be found.
 
 70 Speeches by Sir Charles Dilke, 
 
 ]Iere is one from Kensington. Mr. Young claimed as a 
 bouseholder, whose name had been omitted from the register. 
 His landlord pays the rates by agreement. Before the proper 
 day for entering his claim, he asked his landlord if the rates 
 were paid. His landlord said they were. Mr. Young knew 
 that by law, if the rates were not paid by the landlord, the 
 overseers were bound, before a certain date, to send notice to 
 the occupier. He got no such notice, and he naturally believed 
 that his landlord had been right. But the rates had never 
 been paid. The overseers admitted in court that they had 
 failed to notify this fact, and !Mr. Young was, consequently, 
 disfranchised. 
 
 The next case I take from Westminster. Mr. Cunningham 
 claimed to vote as a lodger, on account of having occupied some 
 rooms, for which he paid 14^. a week, since 1870. His vote 
 was allowed, but he returned into court and said that when he 
 had been asked whether he had occupied the same lodgings 
 during the whole time, he had forgotten to mention that 
 during the greater portion of the time he had paid 12*. a week 
 for the same lodgings without a kitchen, but that during the 
 last ten weeks he had had the kitchen, and paid lis. a 
 week. He was, consequently, struck off the register, although 
 the amount under the Act is less than 5s. a week. He 
 was, therefore, in fact, struck off the register only because he 
 had added a kitchen to his rooms. 
 
 The next case I take from Middlesex, Mr. Ashton, who 
 was on the list of voters for a piece of land as a freeholder, 
 was objected to by the Conservatives, on the ground that he 
 occupied the land as part of his house. He, however, proved 
 that there were two deeds, and consequently a severance of 
 title ; but it ultimately came out that there was a dust-bin 
 upon the land in question, whereupon this dust-bin deprived 
 him of his vote. 
 
 Other anomalies, which can hardly be long maintained, 
 are — the length of the Parliaments, the throwing upon can- 
 didates the necessary costs of holding an election, and, I am 
 even prepared to say, the non-payment of members for their 
 service. With regard to the length of Parliaments, they, in 
 the earliest times, were annual, afterwards biennial, irregular 
 under the Stuarts, and triennial under the Revolution. But 
 in days when the popular control exercised by the people over
 
 Reform. 71 
 
 Parliament Avas less even than it is at present, a Parliament 
 that had been chosen for three years gave itself four more 
 years' lease of life, and brought septennial Parliaments upon 
 the nation, with the effect of greatly weakening, as I believe, 
 the accuracy with which the national opinion is stated and 
 acted upon in reference to any particular point. In short, 
 our electoral anomalies are endless, and would never havo 
 lasted so long as they have, but for the existence in our free 
 press of a safety-valve of no ordinary dimensions. 
 
 Have we not reason, then, in our movement, which we 
 this day inaugurate 1 A previous organization, of which I 
 would speak with all respect, gave up its work when it had, 
 in reality, gained nothing — Mr. !Morley's friends, who pro- 
 mised much : they make no sign. Mr. Morley, instead of 
 leading, as he seemed to intend, a new movement in favour 
 of Pveform, seems terrified at the scolding of a portion of the 
 press, and confines himself to defending the education com- 
 promise at a meeting of school children near liis house. 
 Shakespeare, in " V^nus and Adonis," tells us of — 
 
 " . . . . the snail, whose tender horns being hit, 
 Shrinks back into his shelly cave with pain, 
 
 And there, all smothered up, in shade doth sit 
 Long after, fearing to put forth again." 
 
 Let us, then, take up the task before which the Reform League 
 and ]\Ir. Morley's committee have both quailed, but let us do 
 so with the knowledge that we undertake a 1 lorculcan work. 
 
 Unless great pressure be exerted from outside, the progress 
 towards uniformity in the weight of votes will probably be slow. 
 From the very fact that the great boroughs are terribly under- 
 represented, their power in the House of Commons, as compared 
 with the small boroughs, is trifling indeed. There are only 
 about ninety members, many of them Conservatives, who sit 
 for the great under-represented towns ; and they have to face, 
 even if they are united, a great majority, largely composed 
 of those who sit for the towns, from which it would be neces- 
 sary to take their special representation. There is little 
 inclination in Parliament voluntarily to reform itself without 
 pressure from outside. Pressure from outside has not yet 
 been brought to bear, and progress towards uniformity is 
 likely, in any event, to be but slow. .Still, as old AVilliam 
 Cobbett said of his " Cottage Economy," " It must be a
 
 72 Spkeches by Sir Charles Dilke. 
 
 real devil in human shape who does not applaud the man 
 who could sit down to write this book," so say we of those- 
 who do not applaud our work. I know not whether we are 
 going to embarrass the Liberal party, and I only share th& 
 views expressed this morning if I say that I don't much 
 care. If our leaders are embarrassed, it is their fault, not 
 ours. Let them read Bishop Berkeley's words, who says, " It 
 is very possible for either i^arty to get the better of the 
 other if they could first get the better of themselves, and, 
 instead of indulging the Avomanish passion of obstinacy, 
 steadily promote the interest of their country." 
 
 If there be any cause that can justify agitation, surely it is that 
 on which we are met to-night to take counsel together. I hope 
 we run no risk of a five pound fine a-piece for saying so, 
 but is it not monstrous that the people of London should be 
 denied the opportunity of saying so unless they spend their 
 money upon halls like this 1 I often don't agree in what is 
 said by the orators in Hyde Park, but I agree in its being said, 
 and freely said. If nonsense is sometimes talked there along 
 with sense, it is nonsense which is far better spoken out than 
 kept in to turn to bitterness. But if the occasional talking of 
 nonsense is a sufficient cause for the suppressing of an habitual 
 gathering, other and more august assemblies might suff'er. 
 
 In entering upon this movement, I conceive that we are 
 only doing our duty to the State. It is the bounden duty of 
 every representative of a constituency whose voice is not fully 
 heard, and of every man possessing any political power at all, 
 not to rest satisfied, and not to allow the question of Reform 
 to be dropped, so long as our electoral system continues to be 
 the mockery that it is at the present time. How can men 
 venture to talk of a settlement of the c^uestion, when you 
 have one-half of the House of Commons representing more 
 than four times as many voters as the other half, who may 
 tie them on a division ? and when, as a fact, you often have 
 laws passed or laws rejected upon votes in which the ma- 
 jority of the electors are represented by the members who form 
 the minority in the division ? So long as this continues to be 
 the case, it is idle to talk of having reached even a temporary 
 settlement of Pariiamcntary Reform. 
 
 PniNTlD BY W. CATE, CUKSITOB STEEET, CHA^CE^T LANE, E.C 
 
 i 
 
 / • ^
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 *^i^t'"^" 
 
 MAR8 ngsg 
 
 ffrg') 
 
 n- 
 
 Form L9-25m-9,'47(A5618)444 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 AT 
 
 LOS ANGELfiS 
 
 UBRARY
 
 AA 000 390 569 2 
 
 \uiui|\|y 
 
 WsS 00905