f>
 
 THE 
 
 HISTORY OF REFORM
 
 THE HISTORY F 
 
 T-k T" T^ X">. T-k All **iV 
 
 R E F O R Nil w 
 
 
 A RECORD OF THE STRUGGLE 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE 
 IN PARLIAMENT 
 
 BY ALEXANDER PAUL 
 
 AUTHOR OF " SHORT PARLIAMENTS " 
 
 LONDON 
 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS 
 
 BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL 
 
 NEW YORK: 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE 
 
 1884
 
 LONDON: 
 BRADBURY, AONEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY DEMANDS FOR REFORM. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Demands gf Reformers in and before 1745 
 Sale of seats in Parliament The causes of 
 Parliamentary Corruption The First Reform 
 Society The Rotten Boroughs Chatham's 
 Scheme of Reform i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE FIRST REFORM BILLS. 
 
 Universal Suffrage proposed in 1776 by Wilkes 
 Major Cartwright Declaration of the Society 
 for Promoting Constitutional Information The 
 Duke of Richmond's Bill" What Constitutes a 
 State?" . 15 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PITT'S REFORM BILL. 
 
 Pitt as a Reformer His Reform Resolutions His 
 Reform Bill Objections of other Reformers- 
 Views of Fox and Burke 1
 
 vi Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FLOOD'S HOUSEHOLD SUFFRAGE BILL. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Partial Anticipation of Mr. Gladstone's Bill of 
 1884 Flood's Advocacy of Household Suffrage 
 Fox's Approval of Flood's Scheme . -54 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 REFORM SOCIETIES. PERSECUTION OF REFORMERS. 
 
 Influence of the French Revolution on English 
 Reformers The Friends of the People Re- 
 formers and Members of Parliament Lord 
 Grey's early Advocacy of Reform Pitt's Apos- 
 tasyAnomalies of Parliamentary Representa- 
 tion in 1793 Persecution of Reformers The 
 Edinburgh Convention The Dead Constitution 60 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LEADING UP TO 1831. 
 
 Home Tooke's plan of Reform Payment of Mem- 
 bers Bentham's proposals Grey's Household 
 Suffrage Scheme The Irish Representation at 
 the Union Sir Francis Burdett's Scheme Mr. 
 Brand's Plan The Blanketeers Peterloo Dis- 
 franchisement of Grampound Proposals of Mr. 
 Lambton, Lord John Russell, and the Marquis 
 of Blandford The Duke of Wellington's anti- 
 Reform Declaration Earl Grey pledged to 
 Reform 83
 
 Contents. vii 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE REFORM BILL OF 1831. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Increasing urgency of the demand for Reform 
 Earl Grey's conduct of the Reform Bill William 
 the Fourth's objections to the Ballot and Short 
 Parliaments Lord John Russell's Speech The 
 Proposals of the Bill of 1831 The Abuses it pro- 
 posed to Remedy" The Bill, the whole Bill, 
 and nothing but the Bill " 108 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE STRUGGLE OF 1831 2. THE FIRST REFORM ACT. 
 
 Resistance to Reform in the House of Commons 
 Modifications in the Bill Defeat of the Govern- 
 ment The Dissolution The Elections Re- 
 introduction of the Bill The Chandos Clause 
 The Bill passes the Commons The Lords throw 
 out the Bill Popular Excitement The Bristol 
 Riots The Waverers Proposed creation of 
 Peers Hymn of the Unions Defeat of the Bill 
 Threatened Refusal of Supplies The Opposi- 
 tion overcome The Bill passed Summary of 
 Results 137 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FROM ;lO FRANCHISE TO HOUSEHOLD SUFFRAGE. 
 HOW THE WHIGS WERE " DISHED." 
 
 " Finality Jack " Renewed Agitation for Reform 
 The Six Points of the Charter The Newport
 
 viii Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Insurrection Lord John Russell admits the 
 necessity for further Reform Hume's motion 
 Mr. Locke King's proposal Abortive Reform 
 Bills Mr. Baines Mr. Gladstone as a Reformer 
 Mr. John Bright The Bill of 1866 The 
 Adullamites Defeat of the Bill Demands for 
 Manhood Suffrage and the Ballot The Hyde 
 Park Railings The Bill of 1867 The Conser- 
 vative Surrender The Leap in the Dark The 
 Whigs " Dished" Household Suffrage Act . 175 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S REFORM BILL. 
 
 The Ballot Act The Corrupt Practices Act County 
 and Borough Franchise Electoral Statistics 
 Mr. Gladstone's proposals The Capable Citizen 
 The Service Franchise The Majority of 130. 208 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Extracts from Mr. Gladstone's Speeches on the Bill 219 
 The Representation of the People Bill, 1884 . . 230 
 
 INDEX 245
 
 THE 
 
 HISTORY OF REFORM, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY DEMANDS FOR REFORM. 
 
 AT what date does the story of Reform 
 begin ? The period most vividly associated with 
 the word Reform in the mind of the modern 
 politician is little more than half a century past ; 
 but the great struggle which culminated in the 
 Act of 1832 had its real beginnings at a much 
 earlier date. It will soon be a century and a 
 half since the demand for Parliamentary Reform 
 in the sense of an extension of the electo- 
 rate first took shape. We are already within 
 six years of a century since the time when it was 
 proposed by Henry Flood that members of 
 Parliament should be returned by the resident
 
 2 The History of Reform. 
 
 householders in every county. And more than a 
 hundred years ago the schemes of universal 
 suffrage now advocated by our most extreme 
 Reformers were placed before the Parliament 
 and the country. A date is wanted which while 
 offering a suitable starting point on the path of 
 Reform, will not take us so far on the road as 
 to leave us a confused retrospect. Such a con- 
 venient date is 1745. 
 
 The year chosen will be recognized as that of 
 the Scotch rebellion: The events of the time 
 obliged George II. to convene Parliament at an 
 earlier day than was anticipated, and upon the 
 debate on the address, Sir Francis Dashwood 
 brought in an amendment in favour of legisla- 
 tion, "for securing to His Majesty's faithful 
 subjects the perpetual enjoyment of their un- 
 doubted right to be freely and fairly represented 
 in Parliament." The disturbed state of Scot- 
 land was an obvious and a successful plea for 
 dismissing this amendment ; but it was acknow- 
 ledged by some who refused to support Sir F. 
 Dashwood, that as soon as the rising should be
 
 Early Reform Schemes. 3 
 
 put down, it would be well to support the 
 liberties of the people against the fatal effects 
 of corruption, which, said Sir J. Philips, were as 
 much to be dreaded as any effects that could 
 ensue from the success of the rebellion. This 
 allusion by Sir J. Philips to corruption opens 
 up our retrospect. 
 
 The corrupt state of Parliament had been so 
 long notorious as to be the chief thought in 
 the minds of the people whenever the pinch 
 of the shoe of government was felt. Boroughs 
 had been, and could be bought and sold, but 
 Walpole had boasted that he found it easier 
 to buy the members. The question with the 
 Reformers before 1745, therefore, chiefly, was 
 how to get the control of the members out of 
 the hands of ministers, and into the hands of 
 the constituencies. And this is why up to that 
 time we hear, not of franchise extension, but of 
 bills for preventing members being bribed with 
 places and pensions, and of cries for a return to 
 triennial Parliaments, which would give the 
 country a chance of changing their members 
 
 li 2
 
 4 The History of Reform. 
 
 if they ceased to be representative. Short 
 parliaments had been once wrung with great 
 difficulty from William III., as a remedy against 
 Parliamentary corruption, from which the nation 
 had already suffered since the Restoration. 
 Unfortunately, the Parliament that was sitting 
 in 1716, considered it proper -and necessary to 
 extend its own duration to secure the new 
 dynasty, and the Parliaments were thenceforth 
 elected for seven years. In Sir Francis Dash- 
 wood's day, it had begun at last to dawn upon 
 the nation that some more extensive reform 
 was necessary, for in the face of growing scandals 
 as to the nature of some of the constituencies, 
 there was no security that members of Parlia- 
 ment even when frequently elected, would be 
 the representatives of the people rather than the 
 tools of ministers. 
 
 In the next quarter of a century (after 1745), 
 there was nothing done by way of amendment, 
 a bribery Act of 1762 failing to touch the case 
 of the boroughmongers ; and we may judge of 
 the growth of the scandal by the statement in
 
 Sale of Seats in Parliament. 5 
 
 one of Chesterfield's letters, that he offered 
 2,500 for a secure seat in Parliament, and was 
 laughed at. The borough-jobber said there was 
 no such thing as a borough to be had then. 
 The rich East and West Indians had secured 
 them at the rate of 3,000 at least, but many at 
 4,000, and two or three that he knew at 
 5,ooo. Chesterfield expressed surprise that in 
 1768 the Northampton election had cost the 
 contending parties at least 30,000 a side, and 
 that a borough had been sold to two members 
 for 9,000. Burke complained of public money 
 shamefully squandered, of millions misapplied 
 to the purposes of venality and corruption. 
 Chatham described corruption as the great 
 original cause of the discontents of the people 
 themselves, of the enterprise of the Crown, and 
 the injurious decay of the internal vigour of the 
 constitution. The borough of Gatton was sold 
 for the enormous sum of 75,000. While, by 
 the development of such scandals, the public 
 mind was being fully prepared for reform, the 
 dispute with America arose, arid Parliament re-
 
 6 The History of Refoi*m. 
 
 fused to let Wilkes take his seat for Middlesex. 
 The stirring events of the day led to inquiry 
 into ancient popular rights, and gave birth to 
 projects of reform far in advance of those which 
 had occurred to the previous generation. 
 
 The retrospect was now extended. The far- 
 off times, when sturdy freemen refused to be 
 taxed without their consent given in Parliament, 
 and when it was an axiom of the constitution 
 that what concerned all should be approved by 
 all, were brought prominently under notice. 
 Inquiry was made into the early state of the 
 representation, and history told this tale. From 
 the time when Parliament had assumed its per- 
 manent structure, sovereigns had recognised that 
 parliaments existed for redress, "not only in 
 matters of law, but in grievances against the 
 king's ministers." It had been conceded that 
 these parliaments should be held frequently, 
 and that they should be elected " openly and 
 indifferently," the members being two knights 
 from every shire, and two citizens from every 
 city, and two burgesses from every borough in
 
 Early Elections. 7 
 
 the sheriff's jurisdiction. There was no doubt 
 that the freemen had then paid wages to 
 Members of Parliament. The duty had, un- 
 fortunately, been deemed a burden at the time. 
 But the electors were less devoted to their 
 duties than they might have been could they 
 have seen what consequences to posterity would 
 have resulted from their neglect. But a Parlia- 
 mentary history, not long published, told how on 
 one occasion, when King Richard II.'s Council 
 sought to influence an election in his Majesty's 
 favour, the sheriffs made reply that " it would be 
 almost impossible to oppose any person against 
 the people's liking, for they would easily guess 
 at the design and stand the more resolutely 
 upon their right." When it was not the king, 
 but the sheriff who abused his position, either 
 to favour constituencies who wished to be 
 saved expense, or to gratify some motive of 
 his own, the parliament made strict laws to 
 provide against such abuses ; and also enacted 
 that both electors and elected should be resi- 
 dent. But the most striking proof of the wide
 
 8 The History of Reform. 
 
 extent of the ancient electorate was found in 
 the Act of Parliament which brought into pro- 
 minence in our constitution the forty-shilling 
 freeholder. This has since been rightly called 
 by the historians a great disfranchising Act. It 
 first declared that, " a very great and excessive 
 number of people, for the most part of small 
 substance and no value, pretended a voice in 
 the elections equivalent with the most worthy 
 knights and esquires dwelling within the same 
 counties." Then these worthy knights and 
 esquires, whose pride was so much shocked by 
 the electoral equality of their humbler brethren, 
 calmly proceeded, in that eighth year of Henry 
 VI.'s reign, to oust from their right of voting 
 all persons who had not free land or tenement 
 to what was then the considerable value of forty 
 shillings per annum. They did this, too, on a 
 rather mean pretence. Alleging no actual in- 
 competence on the part of the humbler voters, 
 but taking upon themselves the role of prophets 
 as well as legislators, they assumed that, unless 
 their act were passed, " manslaughters, riots,
 
 Ancient Electorates. 9 
 
 batteries, and divisions among the gentlemen 
 and people of the same counties," would " very 
 likely arise and be." If in the counties there 
 had thus been a deliberate disfranchisement 
 of householders, the limitation of the popular 
 vote in the boroughs had been effected by a 
 quieter and more insidious process. Sometimes, 
 out of compassion for the poor and insignificant 
 boroughs, to whom the payment of members 
 was burdensome, and sometimes for less dis- 
 interested motives, the sheriff had neglected 
 to comply with the strict summons requiring 
 him to return members from every city and 
 borough. The fatal indifference of our fore- 
 fathers to the electoral privileges which have 
 since been so slowly regained, enabled the 
 sheriffs to assume discretionary powers in re- 
 gard to the return of members, until at length, 
 in the same reign as the Forty-shilling Free- 
 holders statute, they were required, under heavy 
 penalties, to issue their precepts without fraud. 
 This remedial statute had its unfortunate as- 
 pects. It fixed the franchise in boroughs even
 
 io The History of Reform. 
 
 after they had become ruined and decayed ; so 
 that it was in vain that James I. charged the 
 sheriffs " not to send their precepts for the elect- 
 ing or returning of any burgesses to or for any 
 antient borough towns within their counties 
 being so ruined and decayed that there were 
 not sufficient residents to make such choice, and 
 of whom lawful election might be made." The 
 king's command could not prevail over an Act 
 of Parliament. The boroughs were not to be 
 disfranchised by a royal edict. But royal 
 charters had been responsible for obscuring 
 ancient electoral privileges and rights. When 
 the Tudors and the Stuarts wanted money aids, 
 they gave to boroughs charters containing im- 
 portant rights. To the community these rights 
 were of so much consequence that they were 
 blinded to the significance of those political 
 arrangements by which the right of returning a 
 member was in many cases vested in a limited 
 body, instead of the inhabitants paying "scot 
 and lot."* The boroughs had thus become 
 * Canon Stubbs (now Bishop of Chester), in his " Con-
 
 Rotten Boroughs. 1 1 
 
 easily open to manipulation ; and now, even 
 some fifty years before they were finally dealt 
 with in the Reform Bill of 1832, houseless Old 
 Sarum, and Gatton with its half-dozen build- 
 ings, were by-words in Parliament. 
 
 "What a happy fate," said Wilkes, one day, 
 in Parliament, "has attended the boroughs of 
 Gatton and Old Sarum, of which, although ips<z 
 pericre mince, the names are familiar to us, the 
 clerk regularly calls them over and four respect- 
 able gentlemen represent their departed great- 
 ness, as the knights at a coronation represent 
 Aquitaine and Normandy." Recalling the largest 
 division he could recollect, Wilkes showed that, 
 notwithstanding the population of England was 
 some five millions, 254 English members were 
 the representatives of but 5723 persons, mostly 
 the inhabitants of Cornish and other insignificant 
 
 stitutional History," says : " The newer the constitution 
 of the town was, the less liberal the constitution seems to 
 have been, and several places which must in early times 
 have enjoyed fairly free institutions, had, by accepting 
 new charters, lost their liberties, at all events in this 
 particular (the right of voting)."
 
 1 2 The History of Reform, 
 
 boroughs, while there were 56 members in the 
 House elected by only 364 persons. The great 
 towns were unrepresented. There had been no 
 acknowledgment of their growth and importance 
 except for a brief time in the days of the 
 Commonwealth. 
 
 The rotten boroughs served one good purpose. 
 With some of them, where population remained, 
 .there had survived the ancient franchise, and 
 Reformers ever since have seized upon the fact, 
 that, in many of these boroughs, the franchise 
 was vested in the freemen, in the inhabitants 
 paying scot and lot, or in the resident house- 
 holders generally. It was to all these facts that, 
 in the latter half of the last century, men began 
 to direct their attention, and to resolve that a 
 mere reversion to short Parliaments would not 
 cure the disease of the constitution. Parliament 
 they found must not only be re-elected often, 
 but it must be made more representative when 
 it was elected. 
 
 The note, therefore, sounded by Sir. F. Dash- 
 wood in 1745 was taken up as the keynote of a
 
 The First Reform Society. 13 
 
 great agitation with this view. A society called 
 the " Supporters of the Bill of Rights " sprang 
 into existence in 1769, with the view of eliciting 
 pledges from candidates for Parliamentary 
 election. They were the first active body of 
 Reformers. They required every candidate to 
 aim at a full and equal representation of the 
 people in Parliament, at annual Parliaments, at 
 exclusion of place-holders from Parliament, at 
 the impeachment of ministers who had violated 
 the rights of the Middlesex electors, at the 
 acknowledgment of America's right of self- 
 taxation, and at satisfaction'of Irish grievances. 
 Chatham in 1770 saw the agitation that was 
 brewing, and tried to stave off what he regarded 
 as violent expedients. He admitted the corrup- 
 tion of the boroughs. He adopted the descrip- 
 tion of them as the rotten parts of the constitu- 
 tion. He had lived, he said, in Cornwall, and 
 had seen enough to justify the appellation. But 
 in his judgment they were to be treated as a 
 natural infirmity of the constitution, and, instead 
 of lopping off the rotten branches, he proposed
 
 1 4 The History of Reform. 
 
 to " infuse new health into the constitution," by 
 the addition of one extra representative for each 
 of the counties. The proposition was unheeded, 
 as it also was in 1771, when Chatham told the 
 Earl of Buchan that a plan for more equal re- 
 presentation by additional knights of the shire, 
 seemed "highly seasonable." In 1774 it was 
 still possible for Burke, as it was long to con- 
 tinue possible for others, to speak, in the House 
 of Commons, of " these walls of corruption." 
 The neglect of the Reform question in Parlia- 
 ment strengthened the agitation without, and 
 the two Reform Bills first introduced to the 
 notice of the Houses of Parliament were plans 
 of universal suffrage,
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE FIRST REFORM BILLS. 
 
 THERE is little danger, it may be assumed, of 
 wearying a present-day reader with somewhat 
 extended details of the first * propositions for 
 franchise extension put before Parliament, after 
 the time of Cromwell. These proposals were 
 based on the principle of universal suffrage. The 
 arguments in their favour are as interesting to- 
 day as at the time they were first used ; and at 
 a time when the enfranchisement of nearly every 
 " capable citizen," is contemplated by the 
 
 * There was one previous Reform Bill in 1668, but it 
 proceeded on the plan of increasing the knights of the 
 shire as afterwards suggested by Chatham, rather than 
 on an increase of representatives. It, however, proposed 
 that some of the small boroughs, where there were but 
 few electors, might be taken away. The author of the bill 
 was Sir Thomas Meres. His proposal was rejected by 
 65 to 50.
 
 1 6 The History of Reform. 
 
 government, as the object of an extended house- 
 hold and lodger franchise, it can hardly fail to be 
 of special interest to note the reasons urged in 
 Parliament for a still wider franchise in the 
 years 1776 and 1780. 
 
 John Wilkes v/as the author of the scheme of 
 1776. A just and equal representation of the 
 people of England in Parliament was its object, 
 and thenceforward a just and equal representa- 
 tion was long a popular out-door cry. The scope 
 of the proposed measure was wide. It provided 
 for enfranchisement ; it proposed disfranchise- 
 ment. Depopulated towns and boroughs should 
 no longer send members. The scheme was 
 felicitously described in classical phrase, Inutiles 
 ramos amputans ; feliciores inserit. " Every free 
 agent in the kingdom " Was to be represented in 
 Parliament. Electors of the rotten boroughs were 
 to vote in the counties. London, and the more 
 populous counties, were to have an increased 
 representation. The great provincial towns also, 
 such as Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, 
 Leeds and others, were to send representatives
 
 The First Reform Bills. 17 
 
 to the council of the nation. The proposal was 
 a sweeping one to be made in that day, when 
 the London representatives were elected only by 
 liverymen, when leaseholders and copyholders 
 in the country had no vote, and when Scotland's 
 forty-five representatives were regarded as repre- 
 senting only themselves. It was thus justified by 
 Wilkes : 
 
 " I wish, sir, an English Parliament to speak 
 the free unbiassed sense of the body of the 
 English people, of every man among us, of each 
 individual who may justly be supposed to be 
 comprehended in a fair majority. The meanest 
 mechanic, the poorest peasant and day-labourer 
 has important rights respecting his personal 
 liberty, that of his wife and children, his property, 
 however inconsiderable, his wages, his earnings, 
 the very price and value of each day's hard labour 
 which are in many trades and manufactures 
 regulated by the power of Parliament. Every law 
 relative to marriage, to the protection of a wife 
 sister or daughter against violence and brutal 
 lust, to every contract or agreement with a 
 rapacious or unjust master, is of importance to 
 
 c
 
 1 8 7Yic History of Reform, 
 
 the manufacturer, the cottager, the servant as 
 well as to the rich subjects of the State. Some 
 share therefore in the power of making those 
 laws which deeply interest them, and to which 
 they are expected to pay obedience, should be 
 reserved even to this inferior, but most useful set 
 of men in the community. We ought always to 
 remember this important truth, acknowledged by 
 every free state, that all government is instituted 
 for the good of the mass of the people to be 
 governed ; that they are the original fountain of 
 power, and even of revenue, and in all events 
 the last resource." 
 
 Leave was not given to Wilkes to introduce 
 his bill, but the speech from which the above is 
 an extract, stands in Parliamentary history as a 
 mark to indicate the beginning of a movement 
 for what was subsequently known as Radical 
 Reform. 
 
 Out of doors the idea of universal suffrage 
 had already exercised a fascinating influence 
 upon the public mind. Major Cartwright, one 
 of the most celebrated pioneers of Reform, had 
 vigorously advocated annual Parliaments, uni-
 
 Radical Proposals in 1774. 19 
 
 f ' 
 
 versal suffrage, and the ballot in 1774, in a work 
 
 entitled " Take your Choice ; or the Legis- 
 lative Rights of the Commonalty Vindicated ; " 
 and " One man, one vote," a cry which may have 
 had a novel sound to some in 1883 was one of 
 Cartvvright's political principles. There were 
 differences of opinion among his adherents on 
 the question of the ballot, but the proposition 
 for short Parliaments and universal suffrage 
 appealed not only to the populace. Several men 
 of standing and culture declared their concur- 
 rence in his views. The learned Sir William 
 Jones was in accord with these advanced 
 political opinions. So were several noblemen, 
 among whom was conspicuous the Duke of 
 Richmond, the author of the next Universal 
 Suffrage Bill. To explain the state of public 
 feeling which made such proposals in Parlia- 
 " ment even possible at this early date, it should 
 be stated that at the end of 1779 a great 
 meeting of the clergy and freeholders of the 
 county of York had been held to complain of 
 the enormous war expenditure, of the growing 
 
 c 2
 
 2O The History of Reform. 
 
 load of debt and taxes, and of the squandering 
 of public money on sinecure places and on 
 pensions. A Corresponding Committee had 
 been formed to open communications with 
 other counties, and for the next few months 
 meetings to form new Corresponding Com- 
 mittees and to pass resolutions on the subject 
 of a Reform in Parliament were being held all 
 over the country. They did not confine their 
 attention to economical reform, but pitched 
 upon the necessity of an alteration of the 
 Parliamentary system as the only cure of 
 national grievances. The great topics of discus- 
 sion were whether demands should be made 
 upon Parliament for annual elections or for 
 triennial elections, for a system of equal repre- 
 sentation or for the addition to Parliament, as 
 Chatham had proposed, of a hundred knights of 
 the shire. The most prominent public men had 
 to take up sides in the movement. Lord Shel- 
 burne wrote to the Devizes meeting in March, 
 1780, vindicating " the clear inalienable and 
 indefeasible right of the people both to shorten
 
 Reformers of 1780. 21 
 
 the duration of Parliament and to equalise the 
 representation," although at the same time he 
 hinted the desirability of the people being 
 content with moderate measures. The strength 
 of the public feeling enabled Dunning to carry 
 the celebrated motion declaring " that the power 
 of the crown has increased, is increasing, and 
 ought to be diminished." 
 
 In the early part of this year (1780) 
 Cartwright's principles were greatly advanced 
 by a society of his own founding called the 
 Society for promoting Constitutional Informa- 
 tion, which was joined by members of both 
 Houses. By this Society was published the 
 following curious and interesting document 
 which is reproduced with its italics and capitals 
 as found in a collection of their papers : 
 
 DECLARATION 
 
 OF THOSE 
 
 Rights of the Commonalty of Great Britain 
 Without which they cannot be FREE. 
 
 IT IS DECLARED,
 
 22 The History of Reform. 
 
 FIRST. That the government of this realm 
 and the making of laws for the same, ought 
 to be lodged in the hands of King, Lords of 
 Parliament, and Representatives of the whole 
 body of the freemen of this realm. 
 
 2dly. That every man of the commonalty 
 (excepting infants, insane persons, and criminals) 
 is of common right, and by the laws of God, a 
 Freeman, and entitled to the full enjoyment of 
 Liberty. 
 
 3dly. That liberty or freedom consists in 
 having an actual share in the appointing of 
 those who frame the laws and who are to be the 
 guardians of every 'man's life, property and 
 peace : for the ALL of one man is as dear to 
 him as the ALL of another ; and the poor man 
 has an equal right, but more need to have repre- 
 sentatives in the legislature than the rich one. 
 
 4thly. That they who have no voice nor vote 
 in the electing of representatives do not enjoy 
 liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to those who 
 have votes, and to their representatives : for to 
 be enslaved, is to have governors whom other
 
 Reformers' Declaration of Rights. 23 
 
 men have set over us, and to be subject to laws 
 made by tJie representatives of others, without 
 having had representatives of our own to give 
 consent in our behalf. 
 
 5thly. That a very great majority of the com- 
 monalty of this realm are denied the privilege 
 of voting for representatives in Parliament ; and 
 consequently, they are enslaved to a small 
 number, who do now enjoy this privilege exclu- 
 sively to themselves ; but who, it may be pre- 
 sumed, are far from wishing to. continue in the 
 exclusive possession of a privilege, by which 
 their fellow-subjects are deprived of common 
 right, of justice, of liberty, and which, if not 
 communicated to ALL must speedily cause the 
 certain overthrow of our happy constitution and 
 enslave us ALL. And, 
 
 6thly and lastly. We also say and do assert 
 that it is the right of the commonalty of this 
 realm to elect a new House of Commons once 
 in every year, according to ancient and sacred 
 laws of the land : because, whenever a Parlia- 
 ment continues in being for a longer term, very
 
 24 The History of Reform. 
 
 great numbers of the commonalty, who have 
 arrived at the years of manhood since the 
 last election, and therefore have a right to be 
 actually represented in the House of Commons, 
 are then unjustly deprived of that right ; and 
 because it has been found by experience that 
 longer Parliaments are extremely liable to cor- 
 ruption and undue influence, and to become 
 more dependent upon the crown than upon 
 their constituents ; by which means the balance 
 of the constitution is destroyed and the people's 
 interests betrayed by those who are chosen to 
 protect them. 
 
 When the above Declaration is compared with 
 the present long parliaments and unequal repre- 
 sentation of the people, which has brought this 
 kingdom to the brink of ruin, every true friend 
 to his country is solemnly called upon to use his 
 utmost endeavours for the restoration of annual 
 parliaments, and that right of voting, which God 
 and the Constitution have given him. In his 
 hearty labours to obtain these civil and just 
 rights, let everyone practise the Christian rule, to
 
 The Duke of Richmond's Bill. 25 
 
 do unto others as we would they should do unto 
 us. Then will that blessed aera come, when 
 every man shall be free and happy under his 
 vine, on earth peace, and consequently glory 
 to God in the highest. 
 
 A REAL FRIEND TO THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Entirely in accordance with the ideas set forth 
 in the above document was the measure which 
 Charles Lennox, the third Duke of Richmond, 
 presented to the House of Lords on the 3rd of 
 June, 1780. This measure is historically of the 
 more importance because of the position of its 
 framer, who served the Crown in several high 
 capacities, and was a member of subsequent 
 administrations. Fox, who did not subscribe to 
 his scheme of reform, admitted at a later 
 date that he looked upon the Duke as the most 
 able and fitting man in the country to bring 
 about a reform. 
 
 The bill was entitled " An Act for declaring 
 and restoring the natural, inalienable, and equal 
 right of all the Commons of Great Britain
 
 26 The History of Reform. 
 
 (infants, persons of insane mind, and criminals 
 incapacitated by law, alone excepted) to vote 
 in the election of their representatives in Parlia- 
 ment, for regulating the mode and manner of 
 such elections, for restoring annual Parliaments, 
 for giving an hereditary seat to the sixteen peers 
 which shall be elected for Scotland, and for 
 establishing more equitable regulations con- 
 cerning the peerage of Scotland." The whole 
 measure would take up too much space in this 
 small book, but the following is the part referring 
 to suffrage extension in the preamble to the 
 enacting clauses to be presently in brief ex- 
 plained : 
 
 " Whereas the life, liberty, and property of 
 every man is or may be affected by the law of 
 the land in which he lives, and every man is 
 bound to pay obedience to the same; and 
 whereas by the constitution of this kingdom the 
 right of making laws is vested in three estates, 
 of King, Lords, and Commons in parliament 
 assembled, and the consent of all the three said 
 estates, comprehending the whole community, is
 
 The Duke of Richmond's Bill. 2 7 
 
 necessary to make laws which bind the whole 
 community; and whereas the House of Commons 
 represents all the commons of the realm, and 
 the consent of the House of Commons binds 
 the consent of all the commons of the realm in 
 cases in which the legislature is competent to 
 decide ; and whereas no man is or can be 
 actually represented who hath not a vote in the 
 election of his representative ; and whereas it is 
 the right of every commoner in this realm 
 (infants, persons of insane mind, and criminals 
 incapacitated by law, only excepted) to have a 
 vote in the election of the representative who is 
 to give his consent to the making of laws by 
 which he is to be bound ; and whereas the 
 number of persons who are suffered to vote for 
 the election of members of the House of Com- 
 mons do not at this time amount to one-sixth 
 part of the whole commons of this realm, 
 whereby far the greater part of the said 
 commons are deprived of their right to elect 
 their representatives, and the consent of the 
 majority of the whole community is given 
 by persons whom they have not delegated 
 for such purpose, and the majority of the 
 said community are governed by laws made by
 
 28 The History of Reform. 
 
 a very small part of the said community, and to 
 which the said community has not in fact con- 
 sented by themselves or by their representa- 
 tives ; and whereas the state of election of 
 members of the House of Commons hath, in 
 process of time, so grossly deviated from its 
 simple and natural principle of representation 
 and equality that in several places members are 
 returned by the property of one man, that the 
 smallest boroughs send as many members as the 
 largest counties, and that the majority of the 
 representatives of the whole nation are chosen 
 by a number of voters not exceeding 12,000; 
 now for remedy of such partial and unequal 
 representation, and of the many mischiefs which 
 have arisen therefrom, be it declared and 
 enacted," &c. 
 
 Those provisions of the bill with which this 
 narrative is concerned were to this effect : Every 
 man not disqualified in the manner referred to 
 in the preamble was to have a vote. The 
 number of members of the House of Commons 
 (then 558) was to remain unaltered. Means 
 were to be taken to discover the precise number
 
 A Manhood Suffrage Bill. 29 
 
 who were entitled to the new franchise. The 
 total was to be divided by 558, and the quotient 
 to be deemed the proportion of voters entitled 
 to elect one member at the first election under 
 the new system. The country was to be divided 
 into districts containing as nearly as possible 
 the 5 5 8th part of the total number of voters. 
 These districts were to be the future parlia- 
 mentary boroughs of the kingdom. In each of 
 these districts a proclamation was to be made 
 in the middle of May every year inviting can- 
 didates for the next new parliament, to be 
 elected on the ist September following. The 
 names of all candidates who offered them- 
 selves within a month were to be made public 
 before the i/th of June, at which date the in- 
 habitants at an open meeting were to consider 
 the candidature of these persons and to declare 
 in favour of any others. All names submitted 
 in writing that day to the returning officer with 
 the sanction of the signatures of at least one 
 hundred inhabitants, were to be forwarded to 
 the Secretary of State as the list of candidates
 
 3<D The History of Reform. 
 
 for the borough. By him these names were to 
 be published in the Gazette, and thereafter no 
 one else might become a candidate. The poll 
 was to be taken in the borough on the 1st 
 September, and each voter was to be bound to 
 take oath that he was a natural-born subject of 
 Great Britain, that he was 21 years of age, that 
 he had not during the day voted already in that 
 or any other parish, and that he was not an 
 officer, non-commissioned officer, warrant officer, 
 drummer or private man in the embodied 
 militia, navy or army. It must not be inferred 
 from this last requirement that the men 
 engaged in the services were to be deprived of 
 the right of voting. On the contrary, it was 
 declared to be unjust that men who exposed their 
 lives for the defence of their country should be 
 deprived of those "essential rights," which it 
 was proposed to restore to every subject. But 
 the wisdom of making special provision for 
 them had often been demonstrated by incidents 
 at elections under the existing circumstances. 
 Whole regiments were put on the freemen's roll
 
 The Duke of Richmond's Bill. 3 r 
 
 of a particular borough just before the election, 
 in order that they might be marched up to the 
 polling booth when the proper time came to 
 swamp the ordinary votes of the constituency. 
 How much more readily could these tricks be 
 played under a system of manhood suffrage ? 
 The Duke of Richmond's bill therefore pro- 
 posed that those of our forces who were serving 
 at home should certainly vote, provided that 
 they voted only in their own parishes. The 
 publication of the candidates' names in the 
 Gazette so long before the election, made it 
 possible to carry out this plan. If a soldier or 
 sailor wished to vote, he was to go to a justice 
 of the peace in the town where he happened 
 to be, and give the place of his last settlement, 
 so that his residence might be always certified 
 to the proper officers in his own parish. On 
 observing the names of his candidates in the 
 Gazette, he could go at any time up to a certain 
 date in August and give his vote as he chose 
 for transmission by the justice of the peace, 
 through the post, to the proper returning officer.
 
 32 The History of Reform. 
 
 A more able advocacy of this plan than that 
 which has been preserved to us in the record of 
 the parliamentary proceedings of that time was 
 given by the Duke in a celebrated letter which 
 he wrote sometime afterwards to the commander 
 of the Irish Volunteers. The following passages 
 from the letter, considering the date on which 
 they were written, cannot fail to be regarded as 
 remarkable. 
 
 " The subject of Parliamentary Reform is that 
 which, of all others, in my opinion, most deserves 
 the attention of the public, as I conceive it 
 would include every other advantage which the 
 nation could wish. And I have no hesitation in 
 saying that from every consideration which I 
 have been able to give to this great question, 
 that for many years has occupied my mind, and 
 from every day's experience to the present hour, 
 I am more and more convinced that the restor- 
 ing the right of voting universally to every man 
 not incapacitated by nature for want of reason 
 or by law for the commission of crimes together 
 with annual elections is the only Reform that 
 can be effectual and permanent. I am further
 
 Objections to Partial Reform. 33 
 
 convinced that it is the only Reform that is 
 practicable. * * * The second address of the 
 Yorkshire committee to the people, confesses 
 that our claims are founded on the true prin- 
 ciples of the constitution, and only objects to 
 them on the ground of impracticability. But 
 their plan has now had a fair trial, and (if it is 
 from the inclination of Parliament that practi- 
 cability is to be expected) has been found as 
 impracticable as ours, The more extensive 
 plan, at the same time that its operation is 
 more complete, depends on a more effectual 
 support, that of the people. I am also per- 
 suaded that if the scheme for additional county 
 members had proceeded any further, infinite 
 difficulties would have arisen in adjusting it. 
 * .* A few great families might divide a 
 county between them, and choose the members 
 by a house list like East-India directors. * * * 
 But the greatest objection in my opinion to this 
 and every other narrow and contracted plan of 
 Reform, is that it proceeds upon the same bad 
 principle as the abuse it pretends to rectify. It 
 is still partial and unequal. The vast majority 
 of the community is left unrepresented, and its 
 most essential concerns, life, liberty, and pro
 
 34 The History of Reform. 
 
 perty, continue in the absolute disposal of those 
 whom they do not choose and over whom they 
 have no control. In the arrangement of plans 
 of this kind, there is no leading principle to 
 determine that the addition ought to be 100, 
 150, or 200, that the allotment should be accord- 
 ing to population, property, or taxes paid in 
 each county, that any supposed proportion 
 between landed and trading interest is the 
 just one, and that the division of county 
 and city members will correspond with, this 
 proportion when found. All is at sea with- 
 out any compass to enable us to distinguish 
 the safe from the dangerous course : but in 
 the more liberal and great plan of imiversal 
 representation a clear and distinct principle at 
 once appears that cannot lead ns wrong: not 
 conveniency but right. If it is not a maxim 
 of our constitution that a British subject is 
 to be governed only by laws to which he has 
 consented by himself or his representative, we 
 should instantly abandon the error, but if it is 
 the essential of freedom founded upon the 
 eternal principles of justice and wisdom, and our 
 unalienable birthright, we should not hesitate in 
 asserting it. Let us then but determine to act
 
 Arguments for Manhood Suffrage. 35 
 
 upon this broad principle of giving TO EVERY 
 MAN HIS OWN, and we shall immediately get 
 rid of all the perplexities to which the narrow 
 notions of partiality and exclusion must ever be 
 subject. * * * It is true that the poorest man 
 in the kingdom will have an equal vote with 
 the first for the choice of the person to whom he 
 trusts his all, and I think he ought to have that 
 equal degree of security against oppression. It 
 is also true that men of superior fortunes will 
 have a superior degree of weight and influence, 
 and I think that as education and knowledge 
 generally attend property, those who possess 
 them ought to have weight and influence with 
 the more ignorant. But the essential difference 
 will be, that although the people may be led 
 they cannot be driven ; property will have its 
 weight as it ever must have in all Govern- 
 ments, and I can see that in this plan it will 
 precisely find its just proportion combined 
 with talents and character. A man of great 
 property that is beloved and esteemed, will, as 
 he ought, have the greatest sway, but tyranny 
 and oppression though attended with riches 
 may be resisted and will no longer be attended 
 with a burgage tenure at command." 
 
 L> 2
 
 36 The History of Reform. 
 
 The Duke of Richmond did not omit to 
 notice the argument with which even the more 
 moderate reformers of the present day had to 
 contend the argument founded upon fear lest 
 the admission of the lowest classes to the fran- 
 chise should tend to the destruction of property. 
 He maintained that the tendency would be the 
 other way. He said : 
 
 " The equal rights of men to security from 
 oppression, and to the enjoyment of love of 
 liberty, strike me as perfectly compatible with 
 their unequal shares of industry, labour, and 
 genius, which are the origin of inequality of 
 fortunes. The equality and inequality of 
 men are both founded in nature ; and whilst 
 we do not confound the two, we cannot err. 
 The protection of property appears to me one 
 of the most essential ends of society ; and 
 so far from injuring it by this plan, I con- 
 ceive it to -be the only means of preserving 
 it, for the present system is hastening with 
 great strides to a perfect equality in universal 
 poverty."
 
 The First Reform Bills. 37 
 
 No more brilliant exposition of the case of 
 advocates of manhood suffrage could well be 
 found than this ; and did space allow further 
 quotation, it would be seen that this advanced 
 Radical duke had more arguments to offer, even 
 from a Conservative point of view ; for he was 
 of opinion that Parliament, even in these days, 
 was too much given to interfere with the execu- 
 tive, and' he held that the executive power 
 of governments might and would be left much 
 more completely in their hands, provided that a 
 broad suffrage and annual elections gave the 
 people the power of speedily removing a govern- 
 ment which was obviously using that power to 
 the injury of the nation. 
 
 When Richmond introduced his Bill into Par- 
 liament, he described the boroughs as the very 
 sink of corruption dangerous to liberty, and a 
 great engine in the hands of ministers to enforce 
 measures contrary to the interests of the people. 
 He mentioned, that in Lord Montague's park 
 wall, he had seen several stones marked with 
 numbers. These, on inquiry, he discovered to
 
 38 The History of Reform. 
 
 represent votes for members of Parliament. He 
 stated that the clear majority of the House of 
 Commons was returned by not more than 6,000 
 men, while the right of voting for the whole of 
 England and Wales was confined to 210,000. 
 These anomalies, however, failed to help the 
 Duke of Richmond's legislative project ; and 
 any chance, indeed, that he might have had of 
 carrying his bill forward by a single stage was 
 lost, owing to the disturbed state of the metro- 
 polis at that moment by reason of the Gordon 
 riots. 
 
 It may not be unpleasing to the reader, while 
 it will certainly be appropriate to this stage of 
 the narrative if, by way of variety, this chapter 
 is concluded with the celebrated ode of Sir 
 William Jones, reflecting the spirit of the Re- 
 formers of that day. This ode, in which law, 
 based on popular will, is exalted in powerful 
 contrast with the government which depends 
 on the discretion of the few, was circulated 
 broadcast in 1781, by the Society for Constitu- 
 tional Information, and its eloquent lines have
 
 " What Const fait es a Stale ?" 39 
 
 often done good service since, in the oratory 
 of Reformers. 
 
 What constitutes a state ? 
 Not high-raised battlement or labour'd mound, 
 
 Thick wall or moated gate ; 
 Not cities proud with spires and turrets crown'd ; 
 
 Not bays and broad-arm'd ports, 
 Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; 
 
 Not starr'd and spangled courts, 
 Where low-brow'd baseness wafts perfume to pride ; 
 
 NO ! Men high-minded men, 
 With powers as far above dull brutes endued 
 
 In forest, brake, or den, 
 As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude ; 
 
 Men, who their duties know, 
 But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain, 
 
 Prevent the long-aim'd blow, 
 And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain : 
 
 These constitute a state, 
 And sovereign Law, that state's collected will, 
 
 O'er thrones and globes elate 
 Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill ; 
 
 Smit by her sacred frown 
 The fiend, Discretion, like a vapour, sinks, 
 
 And e'en th' all-dazzling Crown 
 Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks. 
 
 Such was this heaven-lov'd isle, 
 Than Lesbos fairer and the Cretan shore ! 
 
 No more shall freedom smile ? 
 Shall Britons languish, and be men no more?
 
 4o The History oj Reform. 
 
 Since all must life resign, 
 Those sweet rewards, which decorate the brave, 
 
 'Tis folly to decline, 
 And steal inglorious to the silent grave.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PITT'S REFORM BILL. 
 
 PITT brought forward, in Parliament, on 
 several occasions, the subject of Reform, but had 
 the misfortune, in the end, to incur the odium of 
 all reformers, excepting perhaps, the Duke of 
 Richmond, who, like himself, slackened in his 
 zeal when he had been for some time a minister, 
 so that, by the Radicals of their day, they were 
 both together branded as apostates. The first 
 effort made by Pitt to improve the representa- 
 tion was in 1782, when the hated ministry of 
 Lord North had just been overthrown, and the 
 Marquis of Rockingham became the head of a 
 government in which places were held by the 
 ducal author of the radical Reform Bill just des- 
 cribed in the last chapter, and by Lord Ash-
 
 42 The History of Reform. 
 
 burton, who as Mr. Dunning, had carried the 
 famous motion in favour of diminishing the 
 influence of the Crown. Pitt declaring himself 
 confident in the new ministers, moved on the 
 7th of May for a committee to enquire into and 
 report on the best means of carrying into 
 execution " a moderate and substantial reform 
 of the representation." He, like previous re- 
 formers, dwelt on the scandals of the boroughs. 
 Some of these were governed, and others 
 possessed by the Treasury ; some returned 
 members to the House without having any 
 actual existence in property, population, trade 
 or weight ; others were so corrupt that they 
 belonged, he said, more to the Nabob of Arcot 
 than to the people of Great Britain. 
 
 Fox, in the course of this debate, complained 
 that while Middlesex had an eighth part of the 
 whole number of electors, paid a sixth part of 
 the land-tax and a third of all other taxes, it 
 had not more than a fifty-fifth part of the repre- 
 sentation. He and several other distinguished 
 men, such as Sir George Savile and the Earl of
 
 Pitfs Reform Resolutions, 43 
 
 Surrey, supported Pitt's motion, but on a division 
 it was negatived by 161 votes to 141. 
 
 Pitt took office under Shelburne later in the 
 same year, and when on the 6th May, 1783, 
 he again made a proposition with regard to 
 Reform it was disappointingly inadequate in 
 the view of the more ardent reformers. He pro- 
 ceeded by way of a series of resolutions by which 
 the House was to assent to the principle of dis- 
 franchising boroughs when the voters were con- 
 victed of gross corruption, and of giving new 
 members to the counties and the metropolis. 
 One of the most striking anomalies brought out 
 on the discussion of these resolutions, was the 
 fact that the Tower Hamlets, paying ,34,000 a 
 year land-tax, was unrepresented, while the 
 County of Cornwall, paying 20,000 less, had 
 actually only forty-two members. Lord North 
 opposed these resolutions, and with charac- 
 teristic coolness referred to his own down- 
 fall as the strongest proof that could be given 
 of the potent efficacy of the public voice. Fox, 
 and other supporters of Pitt's propositions,
 
 44 The History of Reform. 
 
 only regretted that he had not taken more 
 efficient action, and a long debate resulted in 
 the defeat of the resolutions by 243 to 149. 
 
 Attention having been directed to the pro- 
 posals with regard to universal suffrage, it is 
 desirable to note also that Pitt on this occasion 
 discussed the expedient of giving " an indis- 
 criminate franchise to all inhabitants as a right 
 without which they could not be free," only to 
 " condemn and utterly reject it." He used this 
 ingenious argument : 
 
 " If this doctrine should obtain, nearly one half 
 of the people must in fact be slaves, for it is 
 absolutely impossible that this idea of giving to 
 every man a right of voting, however finely it 
 may appear in theory, can ever be reduced to 
 practice : but though it were even practicable, 
 still one half of the nation would be slaves, for 
 all those who voted for the unsuccessful candi- 
 dates cannot in the strictness of this doctrine be 
 said to be represented in Parliament, and there- 
 fore they are governed by laws to which they 
 give not their assent, either in person or by 
 representatives, consequently according to the
 
 Pitt on Universal Suffrage. - 45 
 
 ideas of the friends of this expedient, all those 
 who vote for unsuccessful candidates must be 
 slaves, nay it is often-times still harder, that 
 those who are members of Parliament, are 
 made slaves also, and are governed bylaws to 
 which they have not only not given their consent 
 but against which they have actually voted. 
 For my part, my idea of representation is this, 
 that the members once chosen and returned 
 to Parliament, are in fact the representatives 
 of the people at large, as well of those who 
 do not vote at all, or who, having voted, gave 
 their votes against them, as of those by whose 
 suffrages they were actually seated in the 
 House. This being therefore my principle I 
 cannot consent to an innovation founded on 
 doctrines subversive of liberty, which in reality 
 go so far as to say that this House of Commons 
 is not, and that no House of Commons ever 
 has been, a true and constitutional represen- 
 tation of the people, for no House of Commons 
 has yet been elected by all the men in the 
 kingdom." 
 
 On Pitt being made Prime Minister in the 
 new ministry of December, 1783, great expecta-
 
 46 The History of Reform. 
 
 tions were rife amorg the reformers as to what 
 would now be done for them, and some dis- 
 appointment was expressed that when an 
 important reform petition came up from York, 
 he took no more active measure in favour of 
 a change in the law than that of expressing 
 friendly sentiments in regard to the receipt of 
 this document. Fox taunted Pitt on the sub- 
 ject of his selection of Ministers, of whom 
 scarcely one was likely to support a Reform 
 Bill. Pitt was afterwards stung to the quick 
 by the reproaches of Alderman Sawbridge, who, 
 in moving for a committee, in March, 1784, 
 to enquire into the representation, gave voice 
 to an apprehension that the Minister had 
 abandoned all idea of Reform in his heart. 
 The City, Westminster, Southwark, and the 
 Counties of Middlesex and Surrey were now 
 banded in a quintuple alliance for the purpose 
 of securing Parliamentary Reform. It was not 
 desirable in the Minister's interest that the feel- 
 i-ng out of doors as to his lukewarmness should 
 be encouraged. He hotly denounced the charges
 
 Pitt's Reform Bill. 47 
 
 of the alderman as "the most invidious, the 
 most false, the most malicious, and the most 
 slanderous." The violence of his language 
 in fact, brought upon him, the reproof of the 
 Speaker. Though Pitt returned to power 
 after a dissolution in May of this year, he found 
 it necessary to give a distinct pledge to bring 
 forward the subject of Parliamentary Reform, 
 upon which, on the testimony of Fox, the 
 people of the country were now " deeply, seri- 
 ously, and universally interested." Burke as an 
 anti-reformer had such a clamour raised against 
 him in the House on the occasion of this pledge 
 being given, that he had to sit down without 
 being heard. 
 
 At length, on the i8th of April, 1785, Pitt's 
 historical scheme was brought forward. It was a 
 scheme intended to be "complete and final.'' 
 It was based nominally advanced reformers 
 would not admit that it was based actually 
 on the principle now laid down on minis- 
 terial authority that the House of Commons 
 ought to be "an assembly freely elected, be-
 
 48 The History of Reform. 
 
 tween whom and the mass of the people, there 
 was the closest union and most perfect sym- 
 pathy." 
 
 The features of this Reform Bill may be thus 
 set out : 
 
 1. The electoral privileges of thirty-six rotten 
 boroughs to be bought off. 
 
 2. The seventy-two members thus obtained to 
 be distributed between the metropolis and the 
 counties. 
 
 3. Copyholders in the counties to participate 
 in the electoral rights hitherto confined to free- 
 holders. 
 
 4. Borough corporations possessing right of 
 election to be at liberty to make application to 
 Parliament to surrender their exclusive privileges 
 into the hands of the inhabitant householders 
 occupying houses assessed to a certain small 
 amount. 
 
 5. Other boroughs in addition to the thirty- 
 six explicitly pointed out to be at liberty, as they 
 fell into decay, to surrender their voting 
 power, with a view to its transference to such
 
 Pitt's Reform Bill. 49 
 
 populous and flourishing towns, as might petition 
 for representation in Parliament. 
 
 To the above scheme the main objections were 
 to its purchase proposals, and to its gradual 
 operation. A million of money was to be set 
 apart in thirty-six shares, which were to accumu- 
 late interest until the sum became altogether irre- 
 sistible to the borough each was destined to buy. 
 It was only when all these thirty-six boroughs 
 were bought up in this gradual manner, that 
 operations were to be extended so as to bring 
 the large cities into the representation, and then 
 this could only be done by laying out another 
 large sum of money for the purpose. A warm 
 protest was lodged against this intended traffic 
 in electoral privileges. Fox, as an ardent re- 
 former, could not consent to purchase from a 
 minority of electors, what he contended was the 
 property of the whole people. Indeed, he would 
 not allow that there was any property in the 
 vote at all. A trust had been given the 
 boroughs for constitutional purposes, and the 
 nation had a right to resume possession of it. 
 
 E
 
 5O The History of Reform. 
 
 Even Burke, who had little real sympathy with 
 Reformers, and came by-and-by to show down- 
 right hostility towards them, sarcastically asked 
 whether the proprietors of the boroughs had not 
 already been sufficiently well paid in the pro- 
 fusion of honours which had been always at their 
 command in return for their political influence. 
 It will be seen, however, that the Reformers had 
 gained much by these propositions. The plan 
 of the minister recognised the desirability of 
 enfranchising copyholders in counties, and house- 
 holders in towns, and it gave partial approval to 
 the principle of representation of numbers. 
 " It was the clear and determined opinion of 
 every speculatist," said Pitt, " that there should 
 be an alteration of the present proportion be- 
 tween the counties and boroughs, and that in 
 that change a larger proportion of members 
 should be given for the populous places than for 
 places that had neither property nor people. * * 
 He would take the criterion from which he 
 should judge what boroughs were decayed from 
 the number of houses, and this was a mode of
 
 Pitts Reform Bill. 51 
 
 judgment which was not liable to error and 
 which he conceived to be perfectly consistent with 
 the original principle of representation." The 
 following passage from this speech has a per- 
 manent interest, and may be quoted also as an 
 example of the great Statesman's elegant 
 diction : 
 
 " In times of calamity and distress how truly 
 important is it to the people of this country that 
 the House of Commons should sympathize with 
 themselves, and that their interests should be 
 indissoluble. It is most material that the people 
 should have confidence in their own branch of 
 the legislature. The force of the constitution 
 as well as its beauty depends on that confidence 
 and on the union and sympathy which exists 
 between the constituent, and the representative. 
 The source of our glory and the muscles of 
 our strength are the pure character of freedom 
 which our constitution bears. To lessen that 
 character, to taint it is to take from our vitals a 
 part of our vigour and to lessen not only our 
 importance but our energy with our neighbours.
 
 5 2 77ie History of Reform. 
 
 If we look back to our history, we shall find that 
 the brightest periods of its glory and its triumph 
 are those in which the country had the most 
 complete confidence in the House of Com- 
 mons. The purity of the representation is the 
 only true and permanent source of such confi- 
 dence, for though occasionally bright characters 
 have arisen who, in spite of the general corrup- 
 tion and depravity of the day in which they 
 lived manifested the superior influence of 
 integrity and virtue and forced both Parliament 
 and people to countenance their administration' 
 yet it would be unwise for the people of England 
 to leave their fate to the chance of such charac- 
 ters often arising, when prudence must dictate 
 that the certain way of securing their properties 
 and freedom is to purify the source of represen- 
 tation and to establish that strict relation 
 between themselves and the House of Com- 
 mons, which it is the original idea of the consti- 
 tution to create." 
 
 Pitt's plan of reform was intended to work 
 automatically, and to keep the representation
 
 Pitts Reform Bill. 53 
 
 always distributed in such a manner that property 
 and people would be together represented. Its 
 ultimate extension of the electorate could not be 
 foreseen, but it was calculated at the moment 
 that it could be no long time before at least forty 
 boroughs would submit to disfranchisement, 
 while it was anticipated that ten corporations 
 would forthwith surrender their exclusive right 
 of representation. It was thus computed that 
 the bill would speedily add to the electorate 
 99,000 new voters. But the motion for leave to 
 bring in the bill, "after much extraneous debate 
 and much personal allusion and animosities 
 from both sides of the House," was negatived by 
 248 votes to 174.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FLOOD'S HOUSEHOLD SUFFRAGE BILL. 
 
 A MODIFIED household suffrage as appears 
 from the last chapter, entered to a limited extent 
 into the plan of Pitt. The first purely House- 
 hold Suffrage Bill introduced to Parliament was 
 brought forward by Henry Flood in the year 
 1790. He proposed simply that there should be 
 100 members elected by the resident house- 
 holders in the counties. He estimated that the 
 effect of his proposal would be to add 400,000 
 responsible citizens to the electorate. The 
 sheriff of each county was, by himself and his 
 deputies, to take the poll of the resident house- 
 holders of his county in each parish on the 
 same day. It appears from Flood's speech on 
 that occasion that he also contemplated, as 
 most of the old Reformers did contemplate, the
 
 Flood's Household Suffrage Bill. 55 
 
 shortening of the duration of Parliament. 
 Probably with the view of diminishing opposition, 
 he refrained from actually proposing any dis- 
 franchisement of the existing boroughs, but he 
 suggested that, if any opposition were offered to 
 his scheme on the ground of the enlargement of 
 the Parliamentary body, this difficulty could be 
 met by taking one member from a hundred of 
 the smaller boroughs. 
 
 Thus we have the interesting fact that Mr. 
 Gladstone's measure of 1884 was anticipated by 
 Flood's Reform Bill brought before the House 
 of Commons ninety-four years ago. If some 
 plagiarist were to commit Flood's speech to 
 memory and recite it in the House of Commons 
 as an argument in favour of the Representation 
 of the People Bill, there is so little that is archaic 
 in the speech, and so much directly relevant to 
 Mr. Gladstone's proposals, that, were it not for 
 the knowledge that some members of Parlia- 
 ment at least must be assumed to possess of 
 the ancient debates in their House, he might, 
 with very little trouble, guard himself against
 
 56 The History of Reform. 
 
 detection. In the following passages the altera- 
 tions he would have to make would be few 
 indeed : 
 
 " The members should be elected by a 
 numerous and a new body of responsible electors, 
 namely, the resident householders in every 
 county resident, I say, because the represen- 
 tation of the constitution is so strongly in favour 
 of residence that it ordained that no non- 
 resident could be an elector, and with reason ; 
 first, because residents must be best acquainted 
 with every local circumstance ; and next because 
 they can attend at every place of election with 
 the least inconvenience and expense to them- 
 selves or candidate. Householders, I say, be- 
 cause being masters or fathers of families they 
 must be sufficiently responsible to be entitled 
 to franchise. There is no country in the world 
 in which the householders of it are considered 
 as the rabble no country can be said to be 
 free where they are not allowed to be efficient 
 citizens. They are exclusive of the rabble, the 
 great mass of the people. They are the natural 
 guards of popular liberty in the first stages of 
 it. Without them it cannot be retained ; as
 
 Flood's Household Suffrage Bill. 57 
 
 long as they have this constitutional influence, 
 and till they become generally corrupt, popular 
 liberty cannot be taken away. Whenever they 
 do become generally corrupt, it cannot be 
 retained. Neither will it be long possessed if 
 they have not this constitutional influence, for 
 the liberty of a nation, like the honour of indi- 
 viduals, can never be safe but in their own 
 custody. The householders of this country have 
 a better right to consideration and franchise than 
 those of any other country, because they pay 
 more for it. It is admitted that every individual 
 of this country, one with another, pays fifty 
 shillings a year to the revenue in tax. The 
 master or father of a family must contribute in 
 proportion for himself and for each individual 
 of his family, even to the child that is hanging 
 to the breast. Who shall say that this class of 
 men ought to be confounded with the rabble ? 
 Who shall dare to say that they ought to be 
 proscribed from franchise ? They maintain the 
 affluence of the rich, the dignity of the noble, 
 the majesty of the crown ; they support your 
 fleets and your armies. And who shall say that 
 they have not this right to protect their liberty. 
 * * * Every individual pays fifty shillings a
 
 58 The History of Reform. 
 
 year ; how many enjoyments must every inferior 
 individual relinquish and how much labour must 
 he undergo to enable him to make this contri- 
 bution. No people ever deserved better of 
 Government than the people of this country at 
 this moment ; they have not only submitted 
 with alacrity to this enormous mass of taxation, 
 but when the health or the rights of their sove- 
 reign were at stake they gathered around the 
 throne with unexampled zeal. Can such a 
 people be denied their privileges ? Can their 
 privileges be a subject of indifference or remiss- 
 ness to this House ? I cannot believe it, and 
 therefore I move ' That leave be given to bring 
 in a Bill to amend the representation of the 
 people in Parliament.' " 
 
 The opposition to Flood's Bill was strength- 
 ened by apprehensions which had already 
 begun to prevail among the aristocracy with 
 regard to the popular movement in France. 
 Wyndham especially objected to repairing a 
 house in a hurricane. Fox, however, who 
 declared the measure to be the best he had yet 
 heard suggested, retorted that no season was
 
 Flood's Household Suffrage Bill. 59 
 
 more suited for repair of a house, than when a 
 hurricane was near and might possibly burst 
 forth. Burke was an opponent of the Bill, and 
 Pitt, though still professing a desire for reform, 
 irritated the reformers by siding both with those 
 who thought this scheme inopportune, and with 
 those who deemed it in itself objectionable. So 
 the Bill met with no success and was not even 
 pushed to a division.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 REFORM SOCIETIES. PERSECUTION OF 
 REFORMERS. 
 
 WE have now reached a most stirring epoch in 
 the history of Reform, when new societies were 
 formed with the view of obtaining redress from 
 Parliament and when the failure of the Legis- 
 lature to satisfy the reasonable demands of the 
 people led to a struggle of the most serious 
 description. 
 
 In the few years succeeding Mr. Flood's 
 motion, numerous popular societies sprang into 
 existence, the aim of which was always Parlia- 
 mentary Reform. The revolutionary proceedings 
 in France heightened the prevailing excitement, 
 and seems to have divided the nation into three 
 parties. There were the two extreme parties 
 one driven by events on the continent into an 
 attitude of absolute discouragement of any
 
 Reform Societies. Friends of the People. 61 
 
 popular movement in this country, the other 
 led by their own sense of injustice into the 
 strongest sympathy with the rising of the 
 French people, and inspired by the popular 
 successes in France to fresh and almost frantic 
 exertions for reform at home. A middle party 
 saw in the gravity of passing events on the 
 Continent, fresh reason for urging on our Parlia- 
 ment wise and moderate legislation. 
 
 The state of feeling is indicated by the corre- 
 spondence which took place between the Society 
 of Friends of the People, associated for the pur- 
 pose of obtaining a Parliamentary Reform, and 
 the Society of Constitutional Information. The 
 first named society issued in April, 1792, a decla- 
 ration in these terms : 
 
 "A number of persons having seriously 
 reviewed and considered the actual situation of 
 public affairs and state of the kingdom, and 
 having communicated to each their opinions on 
 these subjects, have agreed and determined to 
 institute a society for the purpose of proposing 
 to Parliament and to the country, and of pro-
 
 62 The History of Refonn. 
 
 moting to the utmost of their power the follow- 
 ing constitutional objects, making the preserva- 
 tion of the constitution on its true principles the 
 foundation of all their proceedings : first, to 
 r estore the freedom of election and a more equal 
 representation of the people in Parliament. 
 Secondly, to secure to the people a more frequent 
 exercise of their right of electing their represen- 
 tatives. The persons who have signed their 
 names to this agreement think that these two 
 fundamental measures will furnish the power 
 and the means of correcting the abuses which 
 appear to them to have arisen from a neglect of 
 the acknowledged principles of the constitution, 
 and of accomplishing those subordinate objects 
 of reform which they deem to be essential to the 
 liberties of the people and to the good govern- 
 ment of the kingdom." 
 
 This document was signed by Charles Grey, 
 M.P., and 148 others, of whom twenty-two were 
 members of the House of Commons. The 
 society met at the Freemasons' Tavern on the 
 first Saturday of every month during the sitting 
 of Parliament, and a committee to which all the
 
 Members of Parliament Suspected. 63 
 
 members belonged in rotation, conducted corre- 
 spondence with similar societies and friends of 
 Parliamentary Reform generally in all parts of 
 the Kingdom. In an address to the people of 
 Great Britain, any parallel between the cases of 
 England and France was disputed and all idea 
 of resorting to similar remedies disclaimed. 
 The Lord John Russell of that day associated 
 himself with this movement ; but by this time 
 reformers had become extremely distrustful of 
 the aid of members of parliament, and one day 
 when Lord John Russell was in the chair and 
 Mr. Byng, M.P., in the vice-chair, there came 
 before this society a letter signed by John 
 Cartwright, as chairman of the Society for 
 Constitutional Information, containing, after 
 congratulations on the establishment of this 
 Reform movement, the following significant 
 passage : 
 
 " That the House of Commons itself, which is 
 the very subject to be reformed, should have 
 furnished a part of the strength of this new 
 institution, may ultimately afford important
 
 64 The History of Reform, 
 
 advantages to the public. But it must not be 
 disguised that at first this circumstance will 
 necessarily be accompanied with doubts, with 
 suspicions, with apprehensions. It is not, sir, 
 the first time that members of that House have 
 professed themselves Reformers. It is not the 
 first time that they have entered into popular 
 associations, but should they on this occasion 
 prove faithfully instrumental in effecting a sub- 
 stantial reform in the representation of the people 
 and the duration of Parliaments it will be the 
 first time that the nation hath not found itself 
 in error when it placed confidence in associated 
 members of Parliament for the recovery of the 
 constitutional and inestimable rights of the 
 people." 
 
 The letter proceeded, evidently with the view 
 of delicately pointing out the new society's want 
 of any specific plan, to commend the precise 
 declarations of the society to which the writer 
 belonged. That society, he said, had not 
 assumed the office of Reformer without knowing 
 with precision what wanted reform. Then he 
 added :
 
 Cartwright and the Members. 65 
 
 " It left to such Reformers as Mr. Burke to talk 
 of the people's liberties, and at the same time to 
 deny or explain away their rights. This society 
 sir, trusts that the purity of principle which 
 actuated individual members of Parliament, who 
 joined the associations that have been spoken of, 
 will in no degree be affected by the observations 
 which have been made upon the efficiency of 
 these associations, but convinced that a strong 
 impression still remains upon the minds of the 
 people, that in general, persons who have long 
 been accustomed to hold seats in the House of 
 Commons under the present abuses in the repre- 
 sentation, and whose connections are all aristo- 
 cratic, must be almost more than men at once 
 and completely to sacrifice both prejudice and 
 unwarranted power at the altar of freedom 
 this society, convinced, I say, sir, of the 
 existence of this impression, would not suffer 
 its delicacy to stand in the way of its duty on 
 this important occasion, but determined, with 
 the frankness belonging to sincere affection, to 
 warn its new brethren against a danger to which 
 they might otherwise become exposed through 
 mere inadvertency. That the distinguished 
 persons who have adorned the Senate, and
 
 66 The History of Reform. 
 
 now adorn your society, may be found equal 
 to the sublime effort of virtue which their situa- 
 tion now demands, and may on that account 
 receive the blessings of their country and of 
 mankind to the latest posterity, is the sincere, 
 the ardent wish of the Society for Constitutional 
 Information, in whose name I have the honour 
 to subscribe myself with great regard, sir, your 
 most obedient, humble servant, John Cartwright, 
 chairman." 
 
 To this letter, at a subsequent meeting of the 
 Friends of the People, the following sharp reply 
 was sent: 
 
 " Sir, Fully sensible that the Society for Con- 
 stitutional Information have made no sacrifice to 
 delicacy in their address to us, we on our part shall 
 affect no disguise. Voluntary associations, not 
 being armed with public authority, have no 
 force but that of truth, no hope of success but in 
 the strength of reason and the concurrence of 
 the people. 
 
 " We profess not to entertain a wish ' that the 
 great plans of public benefit, which Mr. Paine 
 has so powerfully recommended, will speedily
 
 The Friends of the People. 67 
 
 be carried into effect,' nor to amuse our fellow 
 citizens with the magnificent promise of obtain- 
 ing for them ' the rights of the people in their 
 full extent : ' the indefinite language of delusion, 
 which, by opening unbounded prospects of 
 political adventure, tends to destroy that public 
 opinion which is the support of all free govern- 
 ments and to excite a spirit of innovation, of 
 which no wisdom can foresee the effect, and no 
 skill direct the course. We view man as he is, 
 the creature of habit as well as of reason. We 
 think it, therefore, our bounden duty to propose 
 no extreme changes, which, however specious in 
 theory, can never be accomplished without 
 violence to the settled opinions of mankind, nor 
 attempted without endangering some of the 
 most estimable advantages which we confessedly 
 enjoy. We are convinced that the people bear 
 a fixed attachment to the happy form of our 
 government, and the genuine principles of our 
 constitution. These we cherish as objects of 
 just affection, not from any implicit reverence or 
 habitual superstition, but as institutions best 
 calculated to produce the happiness of man in 
 civil society ; and it is because we are convinced 
 that abuses are undermining and corrupting 
 
 K 2
 
 68 The History of Reform. 
 
 them that we have associated for the pre- 
 servation of those principles. We wish to 
 reform the constitution because we wish to 
 preserve it. 
 
 " Associations formed in the face of power, in 
 opposition to the interests of our present legis- 
 lators, convince us that individual security and 
 personal independence are already established by 
 our laws. The immense accumulation of debt, 
 the enormous taxation of seventeen millions of 
 annual revenue, demonstrate that the collective 
 interests of the commuity have been neglected or 
 betrayed. We believe the defective constitution 
 of the assembly entrusted with the public purse 
 to be the real source of this evil. With this 
 view we have pledged ourselves to attempt a 
 timely and conciliatory reform, adhering in every 
 measure we may take to the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of the constitution. According to these 
 acknowledged principles the people have a per- 
 fect right to possess an organ by which the 
 public mind may speak in legislation, and to 
 bind their representatives to the interests of the 
 whole community by a frequent renovation of the 
 trust. These objects accomplished, we believe 
 abuses will find no protection in a genuine
 
 The Friends of the People. 69 
 
 representation of the people, that regulations 
 best adapted to the public happiness will be 
 gradually infused into our laws through the 
 known channels of legislation, and that the 
 agitated minds of men, resuming their confi- 
 dence in parliament, will subside into a calm 
 expectation of redress without forgetting the 
 principles, or violating the forms of the con- 
 stitution. 
 
 " These, as we think, are the views of the men 
 detesting anarchy, yet sincere friends of the 
 people. Your letter appears to us to be written 
 with the view of creating distrust of our designs, 
 to insinuate doubts of our sincerity, and to excite 
 an early suspicion of our principles in the minds 
 of the people. We have not, however, refused in 
 answer to disclaim what we condemn, and to 
 avow our real objects from the pursuit of which 
 we will not suffer ourselves to be diverted by 
 any controversy. We must take leave at the 
 same time to decline all future intercourse with 
 a Society whose views and objects, as far as we 
 can collect them from the various resolutions 
 and proceedings which have been published, we 
 cannot help regarding as irreconcilable with 
 those real interests in which you profess to
 
 70 The History of Reform. 
 
 inform and enlighten the people. Signed, in the 
 
 name of, and by order of the society, John 
 
 Russell, chairman, Freemasons' Tavern, May 
 1 2th, 1792." 
 
 The event proved that Major Cartwright and 
 his friends were not so far in the wrong in their 
 distrust of members of Parliament. Barely a 
 month had elapsed before Lord John Russell 
 with four others Baker, Curwen, Dudley North 
 and Courtenay took umbrage at some action of 
 the society, and made an excuse for retiring 
 from its counsels. 
 
 Among the members of Parliament who 
 remained faithful to the Friends of the People 
 and advocated their cause through good and ill 
 report, was Mr. Grey, to whose participation in 
 these early movements a special interest must 
 attach in the eyes of those who have cause to 
 venerate his memory as that of the great 
 statesman who ultimately, as Lord Grey, carried 
 through Parliament the Great Reform Bill of 
 1832.
 
 Pitts Apostasy. 71 
 
 The long postponement of that great measure 
 was primarily due to the measures now taken by 
 Pitt's government in spite of the remonstrances 
 of Grey, Fox, Sheridan, Erskine, and other de- 
 fenders of popular rights. The alarm was first 
 given to the Reformers by a royal proclamation 
 for preventing tumultuous meetings and seditious 
 writings. This proclamation was strenuously 
 defended on the ground that the numerous 
 political societies now in existence, were circula- 
 ting alarming doctrines, and that some of them 
 were actually in correspondence with the 
 Jacobins. In these alleged seditious documents 
 there is little which to the nineteenth century 
 reader appears so very alarming. But the 
 vagueness of the proclamation left it entirely un- 
 certain whether the Society of Friends of the 
 People and kindred institutions would not be 
 ranked on the same level as the Revolution 
 Society and other active and ostentatious 
 partisans of the French revolutionary movement. 
 Paine's " Rights of Man " and those letters of 
 political societies which recommended the perusal
 
 72 The History of Reform. 
 
 of this work, were supposed to be principally 
 aimed at. But the words of the proclamation 
 described the seditious writings as those which 
 endeavoured to raise groundless jealousies and 
 discontents respecting the laws and "happy 
 constitution of government, civil and religious, 
 established in this kingdom." The Reformers 
 therefore felt themselves justified in regarding 
 the proclamation as a measure unfairly aiming a 
 blow at the associations established for procuring 
 a Parliamentary Reform. The ministry were 
 asked why they did not meet the alleged 
 seditious libels by prosecutions under the law, 
 and Mr. Grey, in the frenzy of his indignation, 
 delivered an attack on the Prime Minister which 
 must ever be memorable for the bitterness of its 
 invective. The political life of Pitt, he said, was 
 a tissue of constant inconsistency. He never 
 proposed a measure without intending to delude 
 his hearers. He promised everything, performed 
 nothing, studied all the arts of captivating 
 popularity without ever intending to deserve it, 
 and had proved himself from the first step of his
 
 Anomalies #1793. 73 
 
 political life a complete public apostate. Pitt 
 took his punishment quietly, well content, no 
 doubt, to regard it as a testimony that he had 
 entirely succeeded in dividing the opposition, 
 and indeed Grey's protests, though backed by 
 the eloquence of Fox, could not even be carried 
 to a division. 
 
 The check of the royal proclamation was only 
 temporary, and, by the close of the year (1792), 
 the country was in a great ferment. Political 
 clubs abounded, and petitions flowed into Parlia- 
 ment for Reform. The excesses of the French 
 Revolution, however, created a reaction against 
 Reformers. Burke threw the ever-famous dagger 
 on the floor of the House of Commons, and, 
 exclaiming that such weapons were the means 
 by which France would propagate freedom and 
 fraternity, prayed that Heaven might avert her 
 principles from English minds and her daggers 
 from English hearts. The Reformers in vain 
 appealed for an extension of the franchise in times 
 so exciting. But the appeal was not, for a time, 
 given up. In 1793 Grey called attention to an
 
 74 The History of Reform. 
 
 important petition from the Society of Friends, 
 and moved fora committee to take its subject 
 Reform of Parliament into consideration. We 
 are indebted to this petition of the Friends 
 of the People for a full exposition of the 
 anomalies of Parliamentary representation at 
 that date. The most striking facts may be 
 thus grouped : 
 
 70 members returned by 35 burgage tenures (nomina- 
 tion boroughs). 
 90 members returned by 46 places with not more than 
 
 50 voters. 
 37 members returned by 19 places with not more than 
 
 100 voters. 
 52 members returned by 26 places with not more than 
 
 200 voters. 
 20 members returned by Scotch counties with not more 
 
 than 100 voters. 
 10 members returned by Scotch counties with not more 
 
 than 250 voters. 
 15 members returned by 15 Scotch burghs with not 
 
 more than 125 voters. 
 
 The above formed a majority of the House, 
 and could thus decide all questions in the name 
 of the people. It was complained that dissenters 
 v\ - ere necessarily deprived of the vote in about
 
 Election Abuses, 75 
 
 thirty boroughs where the right of voting was 
 confined to members of the corporation. In 
 most Scotch burghs the election of members 
 was monopolised by the corporations, who 
 were not even elected by the inhabitants. In 
 the Scotch counties votes were made by. 
 parcelling out estates into lots of ^"400 per 
 annum, and securing for these lots new charters 
 in return for the original Crown charter for 
 the estate. The holders of these charters re- 
 conveyed every right to the original granter, 
 and only entered into the transaction for the 
 purpose of obtaining the vote which belonged 
 to what was called the superiority. 1 50 members 
 of the House owed their elections entirely to 
 peers. Complaint was made generally that 
 property, whether well or ill employed, had 
 equal power ; and of the necessity for some 
 further popular control upon the legislature 
 proof was given in the shape of appalling facts 
 as to the rapid growth of the public expendi- 
 ture and corruption. These facts are here for 
 convenience put in tabular form :
 
 The History of Reform. 
 
 
 PUBLIC 
 
 PEACE ESTA- 
 
 ill 
 
 
 REVENUE. 
 
 BLISHMENT. 
 
 Number of i 
 necessary t 
 freedom of 
 regulate elc 
 prevent frau 
 
 At the Revolution 
 
 2,100,000 
 
 
 1,900,000 
 
 14 
 
 AtWm. 1 1 I.'s death . 
 
 3,950,000 
 
 i,95o,oco 
 
 26 
 
 At Queen Anne's death 
 
 6,000,000 
 
 2,000,000 
 
 35 
 
 At George I.'s death . 
 
 6,800,000 
 
 2,600,000 
 
 37 
 
 At George I I.'s death. 
 
 8,600,000 
 
 2,800,000 
 
 49 
 
 In 3 istyearofGeo.il I. 
 
 16,000,000 
 
 5,000,000 
 
 65 
 
 Grey's motion was urged upon the House in 
 vain. Though supported by men whose names 
 shine out with brilliancy in the records of our 
 Parliamentary history, he was defeated by a 
 great majority. 
 
 Ere this, however, a spirit had arisen among 
 the populace that was not to be quelled by 
 Parliamentary defeat, and ministers having 
 declined to give way to moderate demands, had
 
 Persecution of Reformers. 77 
 
 to face popular passion with the severest 
 measures of repression. Fortunately for them 
 unfortunately for the cause of Reform the fears 
 excited by the French excesses strengthened 
 the hands of the ministry, and shielded them 
 from censure for conduct which cannot now be 
 regarded as otherwise than cruel in the extreme. 
 In Scotland crushing sentences of banishment 
 were passed on men (Muir and Palmer) whose 
 spirited exertions in the cause of Reform were 
 declared to be sedition, and the severity of 
 whose punishment was in vain challenged in the 
 Parliament of so powerful a minister as Pitt, 
 even though it was pointed out that their crimes 
 were but the repetition of sentiments with which 
 Pitt and Richmond had themselves been asso- 
 ciated a dozen years or so before. A similar 
 punishment overtook Skirving, Margarot and 
 Gerald, who had carried their enthusiasm to the 
 extent of actively participating in the promotion 
 of a great popular Convention at Edinburgh, 
 which upon very indirect and indeed altogether 
 inferential evidence was deemed to be a
 
 78 The History of Rcjorm. 
 
 seditious assembly. The names of these 
 martyrs of Reform are hardly recognised now- 
 a-days. In the pages of history they have not 
 as yet had a sufficiently prominent part. 
 But now that the principles they avowed, with 
 only that warmth and impetuosity which the 
 exciting circumstances of the day and their 
 deep sense of injustice should be sufficient 
 to excuse now that these principles are 
 held almost in their full extent by at least one 
 minister of the Crown, now that the people have 
 at length almost won those rights for which 
 these men struggled, their names and their 
 sufferings ought not to be forgotten. When the 
 tale of their misfortunes shall some day be fully 
 told, their memories may be perpetuated with 
 such pride and reverence as shall make fitting 
 reparation for a previous wrong. The Conven- 
 tion which these Scottish martyrs promoted, had 
 become a favourite project with all the Re- 
 formers who had wearied of vain petitioning to 
 the House of Commons. The warning of Pitt, 
 in his own Reform days, declaring that nothing
 
 Persecution of Reformers. 79 
 
 was to be expected from Parliament, but that 
 the people themselves must force the question 
 forward, was now remembered against him. 
 But the idea of a Convention was greatly fostered 
 by one of Paine's publications, which the govern- 
 ment, in spite of numerous prosecutions, had the 
 greatest difficulty in suppressing. This was his 
 " Letter to the addressers of the late proclama- 
 tion." A reference to this publication does not 
 at all prove the theory of the state prosecutions 
 of those days that this Convention was proposed 
 as a substitute for Parliament. It was merely to 
 be an instrument to ascertain the sense of the 
 nation and to convey it with no uncertain 
 sound to Parliament. The argument was that 
 neither elections in the manner in which they 
 were then conducted, nor addresses from rotten 
 boroughs, nor county meetings promoted by 
 placemen and pensioners could convey to the 
 Parliament the sense of the people. By a 
 national Convention Paine intended that the 
 general will, whether to reform or not, what " the 
 reform should be or how far it should extend,
 
 So The History of Reform. 
 
 should be known." It could not, he said, be 
 known by any other means. The London Cor- 
 responding Society and its numerous divisions 
 in the country favoured this project. That it 
 was partially carried out was of course due to 
 the failure of government to meet the popular 
 demand in any way. That the Convention was 
 characterised by extravagances, and that it 
 should have copied the forms of the French Con- 
 vention need not be surprising, considering the 
 excitement of the times, but that it had any aims 
 beyond that of obtaining a Parliamentary Reform 
 and of taking steps to resist attacks upon popular 
 liberty was never proved. It was only after this 
 Convention was forcibly suppressed that any 
 whisper was heard of schemes of violence ; and 
 the treasonable scheme for the seizure of Edin- 
 burgh castle, for which a man named Watt was 
 tried and executed, was never brought home to 
 the political societies who were said to be privy 
 to it. In England the government failed to 
 obtain convictions against Home Tooke, Hardy, 
 and Thelwall, leaders in the Crusade of the
 
 The Dead Constitution. 81 
 
 Reformers. The Ministry, in their contest with 
 the popular fervour, had procured against the 
 strongest protests, the repeal of the Habeas 
 Corpus Act. Notwithstanding the powerful 
 weapon thus placed in the hands of the executive, 
 public meetings increased, and new societies were 
 formed to procure " Peace, Reform, and Cheap 
 Bread." A monster meeting of these Reformers 
 in Copenhagen Fields was somehow or other 
 connected with an outrage on the king at the 
 opening of Parliament, and the Government 
 obtained in consequence fresh powers for dealing 
 with so-called seditious meetings and treasonable 
 practices. These for the moment practically put 
 an end to the struggle for Reform. Fox, Grey 
 and Sheridan declared that if these bills were 
 passed, the propriety of resistance, instead of re- 
 maining any longer a question of morality, would 
 become merely a question of prudence. But 
 prudence seems to have dictated a sullen 
 acquiescence in the inevitable, and the only 
 gratification left to the Reformers was their 
 hearty execration of Pitt and his ministers. For
 
 82 The History of Reform. 
 
 years the country was governed only with the 
 aid of coercive measures. When Lord Holland 
 was reproached for reviling the Constitution, he 
 repudiated the charge, on the ground that he 
 would never speak ill of the dead !
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LEADING UP TO 1831. 
 
 IN the preceding Chapters there have been 
 presented to the reader past schemes of Reform, 
 embracing not only all the principles of modern 
 legislation, but nearly all the proposals which 
 have been speculatively advanced by modern 
 writers and speakers on the subject of represen- 
 tation. Minority Representation has not, of 
 course, come to the front. Our forefathers 
 suffered too much and too long from the repre- 
 sentation of nothing but a minority, to think 
 much about that in their plans of reform. Pay- 
 ment of members too is still in the background. 
 The old Reformers, looking back as they did to 
 the ancient Constitution, must all have known 
 that payment of members was formerly the rule 
 of the Constitution, but up to the time we have
 
 84 The History of Reform. 
 
 now reached few had the boldness to propose a 
 reversion to that system in times when the chief 
 complaint against the existing House of 
 Commons was the expense in which its policy 
 involved the people. But there actually had 
 been a curious scheme published by Home 
 Tooke, in which both payment of members and 
 favourable treatment of the wealthy minority by 
 a system of plurality of votes were provided for. 
 The proposal indeed embodied many other 
 curious ideas. It was mooted in a letter to 
 Lord Ashburton just after Pitt's celebrated 
 motion when men were comparing his plan of 
 moderate reform as it was called, with the 
 radical reform insisted upon by Major Cartwright 
 and others. Tooke accepted Cartwright's 
 principle, that every man had an equal right to a 
 share in representation, but he disputed every 
 man's right to an equal share. 
 
 Starting from this position, Tooke's plan seems 
 to have combined the principles of equal electoral 
 districts, manhood rating suffrage, annual elec- 
 tions, plurality of votes, payment of members, and
 
 Home Tookes Plan of Reform. 85 
 
 payment for the privilege of voting. Of course the 
 stipulation of a payment by the voter must have 
 been at the very outset an insuperable obstacle to 
 the consideration of the scheme by those ardent 
 Reformers who claimed the vote for every man, 
 rich or poor, as a right. Tooke suggested the divi- 
 sion of the country into as many districts as there 
 were members. The number was then 513. Every 
 male native of the age of 21, who had been rated 
 for the space of the preceding year to the land- 
 tax or parish rates at 2 per annum, was to be 
 entitled to vote in his own district on his paying 
 to the presiding officer the sum of two guineas. 
 Four thousand votes, yielding at this rate 8,400, 
 had nominally to be polled in every constituency. 
 If the four thousand votes were not polled in the 
 first instance a second chance of voting at the 
 same price was given to all that portion of the 
 constituency which was rated at 20. If the 
 votes still fell short of the required number, 
 persons rated at 50 and upwards had the 
 privilege of voting a third time on payment of 
 their two guineas, and so on till a class was
 
 86 The History of Reform. 
 
 reached who might actually vote six times. 
 Thus the wealthy minority could in any con- 
 stituency take advantage of the lack of public 
 spirit on the part of the voters below them in 
 social position, and secure the return of their own 
 man. When all this complicated voting was at 
 an end, and the sheriff still found that he had not 
 got 4,000 votes and the accompanying 8,400, the 
 balance was to be made up by a rate levied on all 
 people rated at 20 and upwards who had ne- 
 glected to vote. The member was to be allowed 
 to take his seat when he could produce a receipt 
 from the Exchequer for 8,000. The odd 400 
 was to be given to him as his annual payment. 
 Tooke's idea \vas that the 8,coo paid into the 
 Exchequer for every elected member would be 
 available in cases of national emergency such as 
 war, and so relieve the burdens of the people. 
 We have thus before the end of last century the 
 whole ground of Reform thoroughly broken, so 
 that the remainder of the story prior to 1831 
 need not take up long time. But before re- 
 suming the narrative of action in the Legislature
 
 Bentham. Woman Suffrage. 87 
 
 it may be interesting first here to follow up the 
 account of Home Tooke's eccentric plan of 
 Reform by some description of another scheme 
 elaborated by Jeremy Bentham, which was 
 published early in the present century. He re- 
 vived the demand for a Radical Reform, and 
 gave prominence to the important proposal of 
 vote by ballot. He frankly owned democratic 
 ascendency as the object he had in view. He 
 pointed out that the democratic interest really 
 meant the universal interest, and that when 
 this was subordinated to the monarchical and 
 aristocratic interest the result would be a 
 tendency to a monarchy virtually absolute. 
 He ridiculed the notion of a balance of power 
 in the Constitution. When forces balanced each 
 other, he said, the machine came to a stand. 
 He traced what he called the mischief of mis- 
 rule to the fact that members of Parliament were 
 at one and the same time unduly independent 
 of the people, and unduly dependent on the 
 Ministers. To provide against the evil, he pro- 
 posed that they should be annually elected by
 
 88 The History of Reform. 
 
 universal suffrage, or virtually universal suffrage, 
 the votes being secret, and taken on the same 
 day. Bentham thought he was the first to 
 introduce the question of the ballot. He forgot 
 Major Cartwright's advocacy of this scheme ; 
 but he seems to have been the the first to open 
 the question of Woman Suffrage. This hitherto 
 has not been included in the term Universal 
 Suffrage. Fox declared in one of his speeches, 
 that it had never been in the contemplation 
 of the most absurd theorists to extend the 
 elective franchise to the female sex. Ben- 
 tham, when he first stated his plan, did not 
 express a decided opinion in regard to this 
 question, but he discussed it in such a manner 
 as to have elevated it from that time onwards 
 into the rank of at least debateable questions. 
 A curious feature in Bentham's plan was a pro- 
 position that the members of Parliament should 
 be required to be in constant attendance. This 
 proposal, if one could conceive it possible 
 to put it in force at the present day, might at 
 least have the merit of giving members a
 
 Greys Household Suffrage Scheme. 89 
 
 strong interest in curtailing each other's speeches 
 within reasonable limits. 
 
 Returning now to the House of Commons, it 
 is noteworthy that in 1797 the subject of house- 
 hold suffrage was once again introduced, this 
 time on the motion of Mr. Grey. According to 
 his plan, no fewer than 400 members were to be 
 elected by the householders of the kingdom. 
 He proposed to divide the country into districts, 
 to adopt what we in the present day would call 
 the one-man-one-vote principle, and to limit the 
 duration of Parliament to three years. There 
 were to be 113 county members, and the right 
 of election, which was then confined to free- 
 holders, was to be extended to copyholders and 
 leaseholders for a certain number of years. He 
 laid down the principle that " great towns such 
 as the metropolis, should require a greater 
 number of electors to return a representative 
 than places where the population was more 
 scattered, otherwise the populous towns would 
 obtain a too great local ascendency." This 
 scheme received very high praise from Fox, who
 
 9O The History of Reform. 
 
 it will be remembered had also given his appro- 
 bation to Flood's scheme. He said, " I think 
 that to extend the right of election to house- 
 keepers is the best and most advisable plan of 
 reform. I think also that it is the most perfect 
 recurrence to first principles. I do not mean to 
 the first principles of society, nor the abstract 
 principles of representation, but to the first 
 known and recorded principles of our Consti- 
 tution. According to the early history of Eng- 
 land and the highest authorities on our parlia- 
 mentary constitution, I find this to be the case. 
 It is the opinion of the celebrated Glanville 
 that in all cases where no particular right 
 intervenes, the common law right of paying scot 
 and lot, was the right of election in the land 
 
 and this in my opinion is the safest line 
 
 of conduct you can adopt." Mr. Grey obtained 
 ninety-three votes in favour of his motion, 
 but it was opposed by 258 and was conse- 
 quently lost. 
 
 On the union with Ireland, Grey took objec- 
 tion to the introduction of one hundred Irish
 
 Irish Representation. 91 
 
 representatives, but not on the ground upon which 
 some members are to-day disposed to object 
 to the proportion of Irish members. He did 
 not fear the popular party. He apprehended, 
 from the nature of Irish elections, that the influ- 
 ence of the Crown in the Parliament would be 
 unduly increased. But being unwilling to alter 
 the proposed ratio between British and Irish 
 representatives, he suggested that forty of our 
 most decayed boroughs should be disfranchised, 
 so as to cut off eighty-eight English members. 
 The proportion to which Ireland would then be 
 entitled would be eighty-five, of whom sixty- 
 nine would come from the Irish counties, and 
 the remaining sixteen be chosen by popular 
 election in the principal towns. This proposal 
 also was defeated, and we hear little more of 
 Grey in the capacity of Reformer until the great 
 measure of 1831. 
 
 In the meantime the sale of seats was be- 
 coming a greater scandal than ever, and by 
 1809 this state of affairs had revived the out- 
 door agitation for Reform. It was in this year
 
 92 The History of Reform. 
 
 that Sir Francis Burdett first brought forward 
 his scheme of Reform, which was, that free- 
 holders, householders, and others, subject to 
 direct taxation in support of the poor, the 
 Church, and the State, should be the electors ; 
 that counties should be divided into districts, 
 each returning one representative ; that all the 
 elections should be taken in one day, and that 
 Parliaments should be brought back to their 
 constitutional duration. 
 
 Mr. Brand in 1810 outlined a plan by which, 
 in the counties, copyholders were to be enfran- 
 chised, and the vote in the metropolis and other 
 populous places was to be given to all house- 
 holders paying parochial and other taxes. The 
 nomination boroughs were to be disfranchised. 
 It was pointed out by the same member in 1812, 
 that in the House of Commons, as it then 
 existed, 326 members were returned by 182 
 individuals. 
 
 The stirring events of war kept the Reform 
 agitation for a little while in the background, but 
 in 1817, at a time when there was much distress
 
 The Blankcteers. 93 
 
 among the people, the cause of Reform received 
 a great stimulus from the writings of Cobbett, 
 whose " Weekly Register," reduced in price, 
 was now circulated widely among the working 
 classes. Again the political clubs became active 
 all over the country, and again they were assailed 
 by Government declaring that under the pretence 
 of Parliamentary Reform, they aimed at nothing 
 short of revolution. The Habeas Corpus Act 
 was once more suspended, and bills for pre- 
 venting seditious meetings were passed. These 
 clubs, some of them known as Hampden, others 
 as Spencean clubs, were entered by spies and 
 informers, who actually incited their members 
 to treasonable acts. 
 
 The story of this period, as found in some 
 recent histories of the present century, and 
 especially in the personal narratives of Bamford 
 and Prentice, arouses at once the pity and the 
 indignation of the reader. With compassion we 
 picture the procession of the Blanketeers simple 
 men, imagining themselves with their blankets 
 and their petitions efficiently equipped for a
 
 94 The History of Reform. 
 
 march from Manchester to London, to make 
 known their distress to the Prince Regent, and 
 obtain relief from a Parliamentary Reform. 
 With indignation we burn at the brutal manner 
 of their dispersion miles from their homes, 
 at their wounds, and at their imprisonment. 
 That despair should have driven some of 
 the poverty-stricken working-men in the north 
 to mad projects of force only deepens the im- 
 pression of their misery, for it is not to be 
 forgotten that, at this time, the evils of mis- 
 government had continued for a quarter of a 
 century after the time when Fox and Grey were 
 declaring that prudence alone could supply the 
 motive for refraining from resistance. The 
 marvel is that prudence so generally prevailed, 
 in spite of the instigation of government spies, 
 in spite of the distress caused by the corn laws, 
 in spite of the repressive measures of the Tory 
 Ministry. Parliament continued deaf to all con- 
 stitutional appeals. Romilly and Brougham 
 tried for the repeal of the Septennial Act in 
 vain. When Burdett brought forward resolu-
 
 Legislatorial Attorneys. 95 
 
 tions in favour of annual Parliaments, universal 
 suffrage, and nearly equal electoral districts, he 
 was not even met with any offer of compromise. 
 He and his co-teller, Lord Cochrane, had no 
 votes to tell, while their resolutions were nega- 
 tived by 124. There was not now the same 
 excuse for refusing to deal with the demands for 
 Reform. It could not be urged now that the 
 agitation was that of the lowest classes, and had 
 not the sympathy of responsible citizens. The 
 corporation of London had, more than a year 
 before Sir F. Burdett's resolutions, petitioned the 
 Prince Regent to " restore the people to their 
 just weight in the Legislature," and other 
 petitions were sent to Parliament in great 
 numbers. It being impossible to move Parlia- 
 ment by ordinary means, the Reformers in the 
 great towns began to take a striking means of 
 indicating their determination to have some kind 
 of representative. A meeting of 50,000 persons 
 at Birmingham elected Sir Charles Wolseley the 
 " legislatorial attorney and representative " for 
 that borough, and required him to go and claim
 
 96 The History of Reform. 
 
 his seat in the House of Commons. The closing 
 of the Parliament on the following day, and the 
 arrest of Birmingham's nominee, prevented Sir 
 Charles's obedience to these instructions. In the 
 meantime, Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary 
 of that day, instructed the Lords Lieutenants of 
 counties to watch the Reform meetings, and to 
 have yeomanry in readiness to preserve the 
 peace. As great Reform meetings were now 
 being held all over the country, the responsibility 
 of the authorities who had to carry out these 
 instructions was serious. The Manchester 
 authorities attained an odious distinction in 
 their discharge of this duty. 
 
 The Manchester Reformers had desired to 
 appoint Mr. Henry Hunt as their legislatorial 
 attorney. Orator Hunt, as he was called, shared 
 with Cobbett and Burdett the honours of popu- 
 larity as a leader of the Reform movement. 
 The magistrates forbade the meeting at which 
 Hunt was to be nominated the people's repre- 
 sentative, and the Reformers proposed to substi- 
 tute a town's meeting in favour of Reform.
 
 The " Peter loo Massacre" 97 
 
 The authorities declining to call this meeting, it 
 was resolved .to hold a great open-air demonstra- 
 tion at St. Peter's Fields, Manchester, a site now 
 partially covered by that scene of many 
 hundreds of great popular meetings since the 
 Free Trade Hall. To the meeting came the 
 members of many political clubs of the town and 
 surrounding country, carrying flags and banners 
 with such mottoes as "Annual Parliaments," 
 " Universal Suffrage," and " Vote by Ballot." 
 Two clubs of female Reformers joined the 
 processions, and wives, sweethearts, and sisters 
 accompanying the men were guarantees of 
 peaceable intentions. The crowd, consisting 
 of some 50,000 persons, had gathered round 
 the waggon which formed the hustings, to hear 
 the address of Orator Hunt, the chairman of 
 the day, when the Yeomanry came up, flourish- 
 ing their swords, and demanded that Hunt 
 should surrender. Hunt quietly complied 
 with the summons. A cry was then heard 
 " Have at the flags." This came from the Yeo- 
 manry, described as hot-headed young men who 
 
 H
 
 98 The History of Reform. 
 
 had volunteered from their intense hatred of 
 Radicalism. " Instantly " says one writer,* "the 
 yeomen drew their swords, waved them in the 
 air, and dashed into the dense crowd. The 
 astonished and defenceless crowd gave way so 
 far as it could ; but necessarily swaying to and 
 fro the horsemen's ranks were broken, and 
 themselves swamped in that living sea. The 
 commander of the Hussars says that it was at 
 this juncture he was called upon ; and that he 
 saw at a glance the yeomen were ' in the power 
 of those whom they were designed to overawe.' 
 His troop were ordered to the rescue, and 
 though careful to use the backs of their sabres, 
 appalling were the wounds they inflicted. 
 * People, yeomen, and constables,' says the 
 officer, * in their confused attempts to escape ran 
 one over the other, so that by the time we had 
 arrived at the end of the field, the fugitives were 
 literally piled up to a considerable elevation 
 above the level of the field.' Even then the 
 havoc was scarcely begun. The brutal yeomen, 
 
 * Washington Wilks, in " The Half Century."
 
 The " Petcrloo Massacre" 99 
 
 infuriated at being indebted for rescue to the 
 regular soldiery, wheeled, dashed in at every 
 opening, and struck right and left. . . . Eight 
 men, two women, and a child, were taken up 
 before night, dead or mortally injured. The 
 wounded had fled or been carried by hundreds 
 to their homes ... A committee was formed at 
 Manchester, and attended by a deputation from 
 London, to release the wounded .and defend the 
 imprisoned. Five hundred and sixty cases of 
 serious injury were reported by the committee. 
 And this was only an approximation to the 
 whole truth, for of the numbers of poor creatures 
 who had refused to apply for parish or surgical 
 aid lest their wounds should be made witnesses 
 against them, many kept back even from the 
 relief committee. One hundred and forty, 
 fourteen of whom were women, had received 
 sabre cuts, and a hundred and thirteen other 
 women had been severely bruised by sabre or 
 hoof. The gentle forbearance of the cruelly 
 outraged people, whose numerical might was 
 after all overwhelming, and whose vengeance no 
 
 H 2
 
 TOO The History of Reform. 
 
 amount of physical force could have suppressed, 
 was a keen reproach on those who vilified and 
 oppressed them even unto blood. It is infinitely 
 to the honour of the working classes of that day, 
 that their six hundred killed and wounded were 
 smitten down unarmed, and were not avenged 
 by midnight burnings nor private assassina- 
 tions." This stirring episode in the history of 
 Reform was long popularly known by the name 
 of The Massacre of Peterloo. 
 
 The immediate result of Peterloo was only 
 the further persistence in repressive measures. 
 The popular leaders, including Orator Hunt, were 
 imprisoned. The famous six acts measures for 
 prevention of so-called sedition were passed. 
 Even the moderate reform resolutions of Lord 
 John Russell were not accepted. But Lord John 
 had the satisfaction of soon afterwards dealing 
 the first blow at the rotten boroughs, and thus 
 procuring the first instalment of reform. He 
 obtained the disfranchisement of the borough of 
 Grampound. In this Cornish borough, the right 
 of returning two members to Parliament, was
 
 Grampound Disfranchised. 101 
 
 nominally vested in forty-two electors the cor- 
 poration and freemen. The freemen of this 
 borough had boasted of receiving 300 guineas a 
 man for their votes ; and one of the aldermen 
 had confessed to a committee of the House of 
 Commons that there were not more than three 
 or four uncorrupt electors in the whole place. 
 The demand for the disfranchisement of this 
 borough was too overpowering to be successfully 
 resisted, but the endeavour to bestow its two 
 members upon Leeds, and thus to give one large 
 town a representation in Parliament, was frus- 
 trated. The members were added to those 
 representing the county of York. 
 . In the same year in which Grampound was 
 disfranchised, Mr Lanibton (afterwards Lord 
 Durham) took courage once again to draw 
 attention to the utter effacemenl of the popular 
 representation in the House of Commons, to 
 emphasise the fact that 350 members of that 
 House were returned by 180 individuals, and to 
 propose to Parliament that a committee should 
 consider the state of representation with a view
 
 IO2 The History of Reform. 
 
 to the passing of a Household Suffrage bill. He 
 proposed to give the right of election to all 
 inhabitant householders, bond fide rated, paying 
 rates and taxes, for six months before the 
 election, and never having received parochial 
 relief. To the county electorate he desired to 
 add copyholders and leaseholders. The duration 
 of Parliament he proposed to make triennial. 
 
 For years after this Lord John Russell was the 
 champion of reform of a comparatively moderate 
 type, and was supported by a vast number of 
 petitions, but the corrupt Parliament naturally 
 enough refused persistently to decree its own re- 
 form. At length, the hands of the reformers were 
 strengthened, ludicrously enough, by a Tory cry. 
 The upholders of the rotten borough system were 
 bitten by it. It had long before been pointed 
 out, that the system of corruption was a two- 
 edged weapon, and that, for example, the dissen- 
 ters who were excluded from office, could if they 
 chose by an organised attempt to secure 
 sufficient influence in the rotten boroughs, obtain 
 a majority in the House of Commons. Now, the
 
 A Tory Reformer. 103 
 
 Tories, who were maddened by the concessions 
 of Wellington and Peel to the demand for 
 Catholic emancipation, began to rail against the 
 influence the ministry possessed in the rotten 
 boroughs. One of their number the Marquis 
 of Blandford actually associated himself with 
 O'Connell in bringing forward a motion of 
 Reform. He contemplated the disfranchise- 
 ment of the decayed boroughs, the adoption of 
 household suffrage, and the payment of members 
 at 2 a day for borough representatives, and 4. 
 for knights of the shire. The motion met with 
 the fate of all its predecessors. 
 
 Ireland, it should be particularly noted here, 
 was the victim of a disfranchising act in the 
 year of the Catholic Relief Bill. Upon the plea 
 that by the creation of small freeholders a great 
 many votes had been placed at the command of 
 the landlords and priests, the freehold qualifica- 
 tion was raised from forty shillings to 10. 
 
 Lord John Russell failed in 1830 to enfranchise 
 Leeds, Birmingham, and Manchester, but he was 
 only defeated by 188 votes to 140; and now
 
 IO4 The History of Reform, 
 
 the day of reform began to dawn. Brougham 
 had prophetically said, " The schoolmaster is 
 abroad, and I trust more to the schoolmaster 
 armed with his primer than I do to the soldier 
 in full military array, for upholding and extending 
 the liberties of my country." The people were 
 rapidly learning the exact measure of their 
 servitude. Hume's persistent attacks on financial 
 abuses aroused popular sympathy and freshened 
 their interest in political reform. Then O'Connell 
 lost a motion in favour of universal suffrage, 
 triennial parliaments, and vote by ballot ; but a 
 watchword was given to the reformers of the 
 Kingdom by the Duke of Newcastle, which be- 
 came a powerful weapon of ridicule against the 
 pretensions of the borough-mongers, and greatly 
 forwarded the popular cause. The more indepen- 
 dent electors of Newark had complained of his 
 Grace's dictation. The Duke was astounded at 
 any proposal to interfere with what he regarded as 
 his rights, and exclaimed in the House of Lords, 
 " May I not do what I will with mine own ? " 
 The phrase became an educative bye-word, and
 
 Notes of Challenge* 105 
 
 for many a day the popular orator drew a ready 
 laugh with the mock inquiry " May I not do 
 what I will with mine own ? " 
 
 A great stimulus was given to the English 
 reform movement by the French revolution of 
 1830. At the general election ministers could 
 not get seats in the more popular constituencies. 
 Brougham was returned, pledged to Parlia- 
 mentary Reform, by the freeholders of Yorkshire. 
 Hume was returned by Middlesex. Forty-seven 
 out of eighty-two county members were 
 reformers, and only three out of twenty-eight 
 city members were ministerialists. 
 
 On the first night of the new session 2nd 
 November, 1830, an important interchange of 
 opinion passed between the Prime Minister the 
 Duke of Wellington and the leader of the oppo- 
 sition Earl Grey which sounded the first notes 
 of challenge in the great political conflict of the 
 century. Lord Grey, noticing that in the distressed 
 state of the country, the people, having no 
 legitimate means of appeal for redress, were 
 resorting to brick throwing and other violent
 
 io6 The History of Reform. 
 
 measures, asked what remedies the ministry had 
 in view. " We see," he said, " the hurricane 
 approaching. We may trace presages of the 
 storm on the verge of the horizon. What course 
 ought we to adopt ? We should put our house 
 in order ; we should secure our door against the 
 tempest. How ? By securing ourselves of the 
 affection of our subjects, by removing grievances, 
 by affording redress, by may I venture to use 
 the word ? the adoption of the measures of 
 temperate reform. I know not whether we can 
 expect the ministers will undertake such 
 measures, but of this I am satisfied, that if they 
 do not make up their minds to the course 
 indicated in time, it will be ultimately forced 
 upon them and reform will be carried under 
 circumstances much less safe and advantageous 
 than 'now present themselves. I have been a 
 reformer all my life, and I will add that never 
 in my younger days, when I might be supposed 
 to have entertained projects wilder or more 
 extensive than mature years and increased 
 experience would sanction, never would I have
 
 Wellingtons Resignation. 107 
 
 pressed reform further than I would do now 
 were the opportunity offered." 
 
 The reply of the Duke of Wellington was un- 
 compromising. " I am fully convinced," he 
 said, " that the country possesses at the present 
 moment a Legislature which answers all the good 
 purposes of legislation, and this to a greater 
 degree than any Legislature ever has answered 
 in any country whatever. I am not only not 
 prepared to bring forward any measure of the 
 description alluded to by the noble lord, but I 
 will at once declare that so far as I am concerned, 
 and as long as I hold my station in the govern- 
 ment of the country, I shall always feel it my duty 
 to resist such measures when proposed by others." 
 The ministry was more discredited than ever 
 by this declaration and did not long survive it. 
 Not many days afterwards the Duke of Welling- 
 ton resigned and Earl Grey took office, pledged 
 to introduce to Parliament a scheme of Parlia- 
 mentary Reform.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE REFORM BILL OF 1831. 
 
 WHEN Earl Grey took office it was every day 
 becoming more evident that no half measure of 
 retorm would satisfy the country. The lower 
 and middle classes had begun to unite in their 
 demands for an improved representation. Their 
 political unions were obtaining a power and 
 influence which could not but be significant in 
 the eyes of ministers ; and, most alarming 
 feature of all, the idea of withholding taxes until 
 the popular demand received due attention, was 
 beginning to be discussed with favour. The 
 newspapers were vigorously advocating reform, 
 and exposing the abuses of the representation 
 with great effect. The enormous cost of elec- 
 tions was disgusting even some of those who 
 before might have fancied themselves interested
 
 Earl Grey. 109 
 
 in objecting to reform. This feeling, combined 
 with the extraordinary pressure of public opinion, 
 secured the return of a larger number of mem- 
 bers in favour of reform than was expected ; and, 
 though a momentous struggle had to be under- 
 gone before the final triumph of the reformers, 
 the old system of election was now doomed. 
 
 How much the country owed to Earl Grey for 
 conducting it safely through the terrible crisis 
 could not be fully realized by his contemporaries. 
 Some of the Reformers had ceased to trust him 
 because of what they conceived to have been his 
 extremely doubtful and lukewarm attitude on this 
 subject ever since 1810. As for Lord John Russell 
 they never associated with his name any idea of 
 a reform so extensive as that he was about to 
 propose, and the only Reformers in the new and 
 mixed ministry whom they were disposed to trust 
 were Lord Durham and Lord Brougham. Even 
 the latter they would have regarded with some 
 uncertainty now he had taken office, had he not 
 been so deeply committed by his pledges to the 
 Yorkshire electors, and his public assurances to
 
 i io The History of Rcjorm. 
 
 the House of Commons in giving notice of a 
 Reform Bill just before the dissolution. To show 
 that there was some justification for the distrust 
 of Earl Grey, the Reformers afterwards pointed 
 to his own declaration in the House of Lords, 
 that the scheme of Reform he originally con- 
 templated was comprised within much narrower 
 limits. However that may be, Earl Grey did 
 make himself responsible for a far-reaching 
 measure, and to-day there are proofs which the 
 Reformers of 1831 did not possess of Lord Grey's 
 thorough loyalty to the cause of the people. 
 They are proofs of a kind which could not well 
 be produced in the reigning King's lifetime ; and 
 their production since teaches how important it 
 is not to assume that, in criticising the conduct of 
 popular ministers of the Crown, all the material 
 for an impartial judgment is to be found 
 in their public acts. The fuller knowledge 
 enjoyed by the present generation of Earl Grey's 
 services to the people in connection with the 
 Reform question is due to the publication, some 
 years ago, of the letters which passed between
 
 William IV. and Reform. 1 1 1 
 
 him and the King.* The "Sailor King," who was 
 for a while so popular, and whom the people at 
 one time called their Reform Bill, was a more 
 reluctant supporter of the Reform policy of 
 his ministry than was generally supposed, or 
 even than he himself would have cared to 
 admit. He yielded much. At the same time 
 every page of his letters tells of his reluctance to 
 move, or his misgivings for moving. On the 
 other hand, every letter of Earl Grey's is a testi- 
 mony to that stateman's tact in the trying task 
 of arguing with his King, and a monument of his 
 masterly ability in the advocacy of the popular 
 cause. Lord Grey had to approach the subject 
 in the most gingerly fashion. Writing to the 
 King's secretary letters which it was understood 
 .would be brought under His Majesty's notice, he 
 spoke of Parliamentary Reform as " the perilous 
 question " of the day. " Public opinion," he 
 wrote, " is so strongly directed to this question, 
 and so generally, that it cannot be resisted with- 
 
 * " The Correspondence of the late Earl Grey with His 
 Majesty King William the Fourth," &c. : John Murray.
 
 112 The History of Reform. 
 
 out the greatest danger of leaving the govern- 
 ment in a position in which it would be deprived 
 of all authority and strength. Under this 
 impression I must naturally feel the greatest 
 anxiety on a subject which it is plain that His 
 Majesty contemplates with so much apprehen- 
 sion and uneasiness." The fact was, the Cabinet * 
 had remitted the consideration of this great 
 question to a Committee, consisting of Lord 
 Durham, Sir J. R. Graham, Lord John Russell, 
 and Lord Duncannon all holding offices under 
 Lord Grey ; and the measure which they had 
 recommended as necessary to satisfy the reason- 
 
 * The Cabinet was thus made up : Earl Grey, First 
 Lord of the Treasury; Lord Brougham, Lord Chancellor ; 
 Viscount Althorp, Chancellor of the Exchequer ; Marquis 
 of Lansdowne, President of the Council ; Lord Durham, 
 Lord Privy Seal ; Viscount Melbourne, Home Secretary ; 
 Viscount Palmerston, Foreign Secretary ; Viscount 
 Goderich, Colonial Secretary ; Sir J. R. Graham, First 
 Lord of the Admiralty ; Lord Auckland, Master of the 
 Mint j Mr. C. Grant, President of the Board of Trade ; 
 Duke of Richmond, Postmaster-General ; Lord Holland, 
 Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster ; and the Earl of 
 Carlisle.
 
 A Reform Committee. 113 
 
 able demands of the public was a more exten- 
 sive scheme than probably the King had ever 
 dreamt of. The nomination boroughs were 
 ruthlessly condemned. The Committee could 
 consider no measure otherwise than trifling or 
 nugatory which did not include their abolition 
 or purification. They proposed to disfranchise 
 all boroughs with a population under 2000 ; to 
 deprive of one member every borough having 
 a population under 4000 ; to lessen the chances 
 of corruption by the extension of the franchise 
 in boroughs where it was at the time enjoyed by 
 the corporation, or by a limited number of voters ; 
 to give representatives to all large and populous 
 towns of more than ten thousand inhabitants ; 
 to give additional members to the more popul- 
 ous counties ; to extend the right of voting in 
 counties to leaseholders of 50 holdings and 
 copyholders at _io per annum; to enforce 
 residence ; to register all voters ; to adopt the 
 ballot, to increase the number of polling sta- 
 tions, to shorten the period of election, and to 
 limit the duration of Parliament to five years.
 
 ii4 The History oj Reform. 
 
 The King was greatly averse both to the ballot 
 and the curtailment of the period for which mem- 
 bers of Parliament were elected. He afterwards 
 avowed that he would never have consented to 
 the bill had the Cabinet included a provision for 
 the ballot in it. The Cabinet omitted any such 
 provision ; but they included in the proposals 
 first submitted to the King a clause shortening 
 the duration of Parliaments in accordance with 
 their Committee's recommendation. The King, 
 while professing to waive his objections to this 
 proposal, strongly hinted his desire for its with- 
 drawal, and in the end it found no place in the 
 Ministerial Bill. While these measures were in 
 this manner opposed by the King, it was 
 obvious that he dreaded even those to which he 
 assented. He feared an increased popularity of 
 the Lower House by "the substitution of a 
 representation of numbers for one of property." 
 It was his wish that the forty-shilling freeholder 
 qualification should be altered into a 10 quali- 
 fication ; and he showed 3. strong anxiety lest 
 the Cabinet should fix the town qualification too
 
 Bill of 1831. 115 
 
 low to be consistent with his views regarding the 
 maintenance of an equilibrium between the 
 representation of property and numbers. Earl 
 Grey skilfully soothed the feelings of the King, 
 and His Majesty, pleased for the moment that 
 greater concessions to a growing clamour in the 
 country had been averted, promised Lord Grey at 
 the outset his utmost support in what he acknow- 
 ledged to be a period of unexampled difficulty. 
 But ever and anon his anxieties revealed them- 
 selves afresh, and Lord Grey had to deal most 
 diplomatically with his tendencies towards 
 repentance for concessions made. 
 
 The Reform Bill was introduced by Lord 
 John Russell on the ist March, 1831. Lord 
 John was not a Cabinet Minister his office was 
 that of Paymaster of the Forces but Lord 
 Althorp, the leader of the House of Commons, 
 had ceded the honour to him in accordance with 
 an announcement, which he had gracefully made 
 to the House a month previously, that Lord 
 John had been selected, in consequence of 
 the deep sense the Government entertained of 
 
 I 2
 
 1 1 6 The History of Reform. 
 
 the ability and perseverance with which he had 
 advocated the improvement of the representative 
 system through the whole course of his public life. 
 So Lord John had the honour of expounding 
 the provisions of a measure of unexampled 
 public importance to a specially crowded and 
 anxious House, and to galleries, the places in 
 which had been so eagerly fought for, that the 
 Speaker had only obtained order on a threat to 
 clear the Chamber of strangers. The principle 
 on which he rested in explaining the measure, 
 was that the House of Commons should 
 represent the people of England. He asked his 
 hearers to imagine the surprise of the stranger, 
 who, hearing of our representative institutions, 
 should come to see the places of election and 
 find that a green mound returned two mem- 
 bers to Parliament, that a similar right of 
 election attached to a stone wall with three 
 niches in it, and that from another place with a 
 green park and no habitation, two members 
 were sent to the House of Commons. He 
 pictured the increased surprise of the stranger,
 
 Bill 0/1831. 117 
 
 when he was taken to the flourishing and 
 populous manufacturing towns of the country, 
 and informed that they had no representatives. 
 He maintained that it would be easier to transfer 
 the manufactures of Leeds and Manchester to 
 Gatton and Old Sarum, than to re-establish 
 confidence and sympathy between the existing 
 House of Commons and the country. Three 
 grievances he urged must be redressed. The 
 nomination of members by individuals must be 
 stopped. Elections by close corporations must 
 cease. The expense of election must be 
 diminished. These being the evils to be met, his 
 cure was drastic. First it was proposed that 
 60 boroughs, returning two members each, 
 should be disfranchised. These were all small 
 boroughs with a population for the most part 
 far below 2000, and in which elections were 
 either completely under the control of the 
 proprietor of the borough, or were regularly 
 manipulated by bribery. Forty-seven more 
 boroughs with fewer than 4000 inhabitants were 
 to be dispossessed of one of their two members.
 
 1 1 8 The History of Reform. 
 
 Weymouth, which had sent four members since 
 its union with Melcombe Regis in the reign of 
 (Jueen Elizabeth, although it had only some 
 seven or eight hundred voters, was condemned 
 to give up two of its representatives. These 
 were all the nominal proposals of disfranchise- 
 ment, but the provisions of the bill, which dealt 
 with the qualifications of electors, necessarily 
 implied disfranchisement of many electors in 
 those towns where the election was open. The 
 fact was, that the intention of the Ministry to ex- 
 tend the franchise to several large towns which up 
 to this time had no member, would have neces- 
 sitated that excessive representation of numbers 
 of which the King, and no doubt a number of 
 ministers, were equally afraid, unless some 
 franchise was fixed which should be different 
 from that now existing in the open boroughs. 
 Hitherto the franchise, in whatever way limited, 
 had not in any borough been associated with 
 any fixed payment. The burgage holder in the 
 towns was the equivalent of the freeholder in the 
 counties. When householders as such were
 
 Ancient Rights of Voting. 119 
 
 entitled to vote, the only qualification was that 
 implied in the term " scot and lot householders," 
 or inhabitants contributing to the parish rates. 
 In some places all the inhabitants had the right 
 of voting. In others, what was practically the 
 same thing, the right belonged to those who were 
 called " potwallopers," or " pot-wallers," or " pot- 
 boilers " that is, all who made the pot boil, 
 whether lodgers or householders, all in fact who 
 maintained themselves without relief from the 
 parish rates.* The Ministry felt bound to 
 
 * The qualifications for voting prior to 1832, were so 
 various in the different boroughs as almost to defy 
 classification. Some idea of the variety of voting rights 
 may be gained from the following list, in which each item 
 is a description of the voters in a different town : 
 
 Freemen burgesses and resident and non-resident 
 householders not receiving alms. 
 
 Scot and lot householders not receiving alms. 
 
 Scot and lot householders. 
 
 Mayor, aldermen, bailiffs, and eighteen burgesses and 
 inhabitants paying scot and lot, not receiving alms. 
 
 Householders not receiving alms. 
 
 Corporation. 
 
 Mayor, bailiffs and burgesses not receiving alms. 
 
 Mayor, bailiffs, and freemen.
 
 1 20 The History of Reform. 
 
 demolish the worst boroughs, and to open up 
 others, in which the right of election was confined 
 to corporations, or to a very few citizens who had 
 proved themselves open to corruption, but they 
 were not prepared to allow a franchise so liberal 
 as they found in these potwalloping consti- 
 tuencies. Indeed, if they had been so inclined, 
 
 Resident freemen. 
 
 Mayor and burgesses resident or non-resident. 
 
 Freeholders and leaseholders for 99 years resident 
 40 days within the borough and paying rates, also house- 
 holders, after a residence of six months. 
 
 Burgage tenants. 
 
 Corporation, freemen and sworn burgesses. 
 
 Inhabitant householders. 
 
 Rated inhabitants and non-residents rated on real 
 estates. 
 
 Citizens and freemen resident. 
 
 Freemen and inhabitants. 
 
 Inhabitants at large (Preston). 
 
 The livery (London city). 
 
 Scot and lot payers (as Westminster and Southwark). 
 
 Freemen and householders (Bristol). 
 
 Potwallers not receiving alms (Taunton). 
 
 Freemen by birth, servitude or redemption. 
 
 Persons paying to church or poor. 
 
 Freemen by servitude not receiving alms.
 
 Bill oj 1831. 121 
 
 they would probably have found the task 
 altogether beyond their strength. The fact was 
 that in the potwalloping constituencies there was 
 too much of that bribery and corruption to 
 which it was the professed object of the bill to 
 put an end ; and though present-day Radicals 
 may urge that it was the limited size of these 
 free constituencies that made them so open to 
 bribery, and point to the fact that in such large 
 constituencies as Preston and Westminster, the 
 voters had returned members upon purer 
 principles, we can easily understand how greatly 
 the difficulties of ministers would have been 
 increased in those days, if they had attempted 
 to confer the franchise upon the multitude in the 
 towns. In the ministerial bill, therefore, it was 
 proposed that all existing rights of voting should 
 die out with the voters of that day, and cease at 
 once to be exercised, if the voters did not reside 
 in the borough ; and that a new set of voters 
 should be immediately created, viz., those paying 
 rates for or occupying a house of the yearly 
 value of 10. A less liberal franchise would
 
 122 The History of Rcjorm. 
 
 have been proposed (so Lord John candidly 
 confessed) had it not been discovered that by 
 fixing the limit at 20, as was originally 
 contemplated, the franchise would be so much 
 restricted in some of the smaller boroughs, as 
 practically to create afresh a number of those 
 close boroughs which it was the primary object 
 of the bill to destroy. So here we have the first 
 appearance on the Reform platform of the 10 
 householder. 
 
 At this time, with the "exception of the City, 
 Southwark, and Westminster, the populous 
 metropolitan districts were without any repre- 
 sentation except such as was enjoyed by those 
 qualified to vote for the counties. It was now 
 proposed to create four new metropolitan 
 boroughs with two members each : 
 
 Tower Hamlets. Finsbury. 
 
 Holborn. Lambeth. 
 
 Up to this time also, the following large towns 
 had been unrepresented, though their population 
 in 1821 was as here stated :
 
 Bill of 1831. 
 
 12 
 
 Manchester and Salford , >' . 133,?88 
 
 Birmingham and Aston . . . . 104,605 
 
 Leeds 86,746 
 
 Greenwich, Deptford, and Woolwich . 56,582 
 
 Wolverhampton, Bilston, and Sedgeley 66,036 
 
 Sheffield .,.. 62,105 
 
 Sunderland and the Wearmouths . . 33,91 1 
 
 To each of these seven great urban com- 
 munities, the bill proposed to give two members. 
 To the following towns, whose population ranged 
 from ten to thirty thousand and was rapidly 
 increasing, the bill proposed to give one 
 member : 
 
 Brighton. 
 Blackburn. 
 Macclesfield. j 
 South Shields and Westoc. 
 Warrington. 
 Huddersfield. 
 Halifax. 
 Gateshead. 
 
 Whitehaven, Working- 
 ton, and Harrington. 
 Kendal. 
 
 Bolton. 
 
 Stockport. 
 
 Dudley. 
 
 Tynemouth and North 
 
 Shields. 
 Cheltenham. . 
 Bradford. 
 Frome. 
 Wakefield. 
 Kidderminster. 
 Walsall. 
 
 In all these towns the ,10 householder was 
 to have a vote.
 
 124 The History of Reform. 
 
 In the counties the representation had been a 
 representation of freeholders only. The vote 
 was to be continued to these freeholders ; but 
 copyholders to the value of 10, liable to serve 
 on juries were also to be permitted to vote ; 
 and leaseholders, whose lease was for at least 
 twenty-one years and had not been renewed 
 within two years, were also to have the right of 
 voting. The Isle of Wight was to have a county 
 member. Yorkshire, the only county with four 
 members, was now to have six, and twenty-six 
 other counties which had previously had two 
 members were now to be divided into districts 
 and to have four. 
 
 In Scotland, as in England, the borough 
 franchise was to be in the occupiers of houses 
 rented or rated at not less than 10 a year. In 
 the counties a beneficial interest in land or 
 houses to the amount of .10 a year, in the 
 nature of freehold or copyhold, or a lease by an 
 occupier for at least nineteen years at $o per 
 annum, would confer the right of voting. The 
 Scotch members had hitherto numbered forty-
 
 Bill of 1831. 125 
 
 five. The seats were now to be redistributed so 
 as to give the great towns, Edinburgh and 
 Glasgow, two members instead of one, while 
 five new members were distributed between the 
 hitherto unrepresented towns, Aberdeen, Paisley, 
 Dundee, Greenock, and Leith. In Ireland, 
 although the intentions of the Ministry were 
 originally as generous as they were in regard to 
 the rest of the Kingdom, the county representa- 
 tion was left practically unaltered ; but a member 
 was given to Belfast, Limerick, and Waterford. 
 In Wales, one new district of boroughs (the 
 Swansea district) was added, and to the old 
 districts new towns were added. Proposals 
 were added for the registration of votes, and for 
 lessening the expense of elections by shortening 
 the duration of the poll and increasing the 
 number of polling places. 
 
 The result of these proposals was to abolish 
 168 seats and to create 106 new ones, and thus 
 to diminish the total number of seats by sixty- 
 two, the normal number being 658. It was 
 anticipated that there would be added to the
 
 126 7 he History of Reform. 
 
 old borough constituencies 110,000 new votes, 
 that there would be enfranchised in the new 
 English boroughs 50,000, that 60,000 would be 
 added to the Scotch electorate, that there would 
 be 40,000 new borough voters, and that in the 
 English counties there would be an increase of 
 100,000 electors, making a total estimated 
 increase of half-a-million voters. 
 
 The Reformers, many of whom had given up 
 all hope of getting any satisfactory measure from 
 Government without a revolution, which, indeed, 
 some of them were quite prepared to see very 
 soon, were taken by surprise at the extent of 
 the measure. The news of the bill spread like 
 wild-fire through all the coffee-houses before 
 Lord John Russell had long finished his speech, 
 and when next day the newspapers confirmed 
 the tidings there was general rejoicing. Though 
 some of the Reformers got up a meeting to 
 demand shorter parliaments and the ballot, this 
 was not meant, according to the confession of 
 Francis Place, one of its promoters, to be a serious 
 demonstration. Their shrewd intention was to
 
 Unanimity. 127 
 
 make surer of the unexpected concessions 
 already made by demanding more. The idea 
 was that this would strengthen the hands of the 
 ministers if they were loyal to the people, while 
 it would perhaps warn them against retrogression 
 if they had any intention of allowing the Oppo- 
 sition to fritter away the provisions of so valuable 
 a measure. But no matter what the intention 
 of the promoters was, the meeting frustrated it. 
 The people, whatever measure they might have 
 preferred, were disposed to thank ministers for 
 what had been offered, and they knew well 
 the difficulty there would be in carrying such 
 a proposal. They were persuaded that the best 
 way to insure the success of the measure was to 
 oppose a unanimous front to the Tories, whose 
 ranks had been disorganised since the Duke of 
 Wellington's downfall, but were now again closing 
 in the face of this strong measure of reform. 
 Accordingly "unanimity" was adopted as the 
 popular watchword, and the petition for the 
 ballot and short parliaments was for the moment 
 thrown to the winds.
 
 128 The History of Reform. 
 
 Adequately to appreciate the enormous im- 
 portance of this proposed addition of half a 
 million votes to the electorate, we must have 
 clearly in mind the utter rottenness of the exist- 
 ing plan of representation. The Spectator ana- 
 lysed the House of Commons in that year, and 
 showed that 175 members were actually returned 
 on the nomination or under the patronage of 89 
 peers, while 100 more obtained their seats through 
 the influence of 66 of their fellow members. The 
 Government had direct possession of at least 9 
 seats. The Scotch borough members were re- 
 turned by corporations which were described by 
 Lord John Russell as self-elected. In the Scotch 
 counties, the Dukes of Argyll and Buccleuch, the 
 Earl of Hopetown and Mr. Maule had some in- 
 fluence, but, said the Spectator, " Bating the local 
 and limited influence of a few such men, nearly 
 all the boroughs, and, with a few exceptions, the 
 whole of the counties of Scotland belong to the 
 minister, or we should say to the ministry, rather 
 than to any individual or set of individuals. No 
 Government that has remained long in power has
 
 Corrupt Constituencies. 129 
 
 ever found the electors its opponents, and no 
 party that has long remained out of power has 
 ever found them its supporters. The system is 
 one of open and undisguised bribery ; but it is 
 bribery not of money solely or even chiefly. 
 The return for a vote is made, not in a few 
 pounds, which an uncalculating and spendthrift 
 elector proceeds to dissipate in a fortnight's 
 rioting it comes in the shape of an ensigncy 
 for my son Tom, a situation in the customs for 
 my brother Alexander, or a kirk it may be for 
 my nephew James. The payment is one which 
 only 'the powers that be' can make, and for 
 that reason the powers that be, whether for good 
 or for evil, have always commanded the elections. 
 So steadily and universally has this influence been 
 acted on that up to the period when Sir Robert 
 Peel took to himself the patronage of Scotland 
 (since which time it has been managed with the 
 externals of decency), there was not an officer in 
 that Kingdom, from the Lord President of the 
 Court of Session, down to the tide-waiter of 
 30 a year, that did not derive his honours from
 
 1 30 The History of Reform, 
 
 his own or his friends' influence in some town 
 council or county." 
 
 To illustrate the vices of the nomination 
 system, one proprietor of Old Sarum had 
 threatened to send his footman to represent 
 that place in Parliament. At Beeralston, which, 
 like Old Sarum, was one of the boroughs the 
 bill proposed to disfranchise, only the returning 
 officer and his clerk attended the election, which 
 was a mere matter of form. Weobly, another 
 doomed borough, belonged to the Marquis of 
 Bath. Some of his servants were sent down a 
 few days before the election, taking their beds 
 with them. The right of returning members 
 belonged in this borough to " the inhabitants of 
 the ancient vote-houses." The servants of the 
 Marquis having taken up their habitation in 
 these houses for a day or two, duly returned his 
 lordship's nominees on the day of election. 
 Ludgershall was another borough returning its 
 two members. Most of the houses there were 
 ruins, but a doorway gave the right of voting. 
 Gatton had once been sold to satisfy the
 
 The Rotten Boroughs. 131 
 
 demands of the proprietor's creditors. Sir 
 Mark Wood, who bought it, had returned 
 himself as one of the members, and till his 
 death had regularly sold the other seat at 
 prices varying from 3,500 to 5,000. Sum- 
 ming up the whole matter almost in the words 
 of the contemporary authority already quoted, 
 it may be said generally, that where the suffrage 
 was confined to burgage holds, the real property 
 of the place was acquired by wealthy individuals 
 who conferred on friends, relations, or depend- 
 ents, the right of property during the period 
 of election. If the corporation had the right 
 of election, the influence of the neighbour- 
 ing landed proprietor was often sufficient to 
 secure that its members, whose trade perhaps 
 depended on his goodwill, should yield him 
 practically the patronage of the borough. 
 Where the freemen shared in the vote, the 
 freedom of a borough was seldom conferred on 
 any individual on whose support the influential 
 landowner could not depend, and if any ventured 
 upon a course of independence, the pliant
 
 132 The History of Reform. 
 
 majority were ready to create new freemen 
 for the express purpose of turning the election. 
 In many places, where the right of election had 
 extended to the inhabitants paying scot and lot, 
 the right of persons unfavourable to the man of 
 influence was successfully defeated by omitting 
 to rate them to pay the parish taxes. In the 
 open boroughs money was expended in every 
 kind of bribery. In some places juntos of in- 
 dividuals possessing great influence sold the 
 borough for the highest sum they could get, and 
 secured the votes by judiciously distributing 
 among the people a small portion of the price 
 thus obtained. 
 
 Such was the state of the representation 
 against which the people, driven by the 
 increasing pressure of taxation and other evils 
 which they attributed to misgovernment, were 
 at last protesting with irresistible earnestness. 
 The bill of 1831 went far to abolish the defects 
 of which they complained, and being determined 
 to give no excuse for the withdrawal of such an 
 unexpected boon, they impressed upon each
 
 "Nothing but the Bill:' 133 
 
 other the necessity for the subordination of all 
 more extreme demands. Their champion, 
 Orator Hunt, attempted to talk to them of the 
 ballot. This had hitherto been a pet scheme 
 with them. But now they impatiently cried 
 " Keep that for another time," and their watch- 
 word went forth, " The Bill, the whole Bill, and 
 nothing but the Bill ! " 
 
 The sixty boroughs returning two members, which it 
 was originally proposed to disfranchise by the bill of 1831, 
 are given below, with the number of nominal electors as 
 supplied for a Parliamentary return during the Reform 
 Debates. The list should be read in connection with 
 explanations given in the text, as to the manner in which 
 these votes were subjected in nearly every case to the 
 influence of the so-called proprietors of the borough, or of 
 the bribery of borough-mongers. The boroughs which 
 were afterwards saved from total extinction by the first 
 Reform Act, are distinguished by an asterisk : 
 
 Aldborough (York), about 80 electors, inhabitants paying 
 
 scot and lot. 
 
 Aldeburgh (Suffolk), about 65 electors, freemen at large. 
 Appleby (Westmoreland), about 100 electors, burgage 
 
 holders.
 
 134 The History of Rcjorm. 
 
 Bedwin (Wilts.), about 140 electors, freeholders and bur- 
 gage holders. 
 
 Beeralston (Devon), about 30 electors, burgage holders. 
 
 Bishopscastle (Shropshire), about 190 electors, residents 
 for twelve months. 
 
 Bletchingley (Surrey), about 70 electors, burgage holders. 
 
 Bossiney( Cornwall), about 25 electors, burgess freeholders 
 resident. 
 
 Brackley (Northamptonshire), 33 electors, members of 
 corporation. 
 
 Bramber (Sussex), 17 electors, inhabitants of ancient 
 houses, or houses on ancient foundations. 
 
 * Buckingham, 13 electors, bailiff and burgesses. 
 Callington (Cornwall), 225 electors, freeholders and resi- 
 dent life leaseholders. 
 
 Camelford (Cornwall), 27 electors, free inhabitant bur- 
 gesses paying scot and lot. 
 
 Castlerising, 50 electors, burgage tenement owners. 
 Corfe Castle (Dorsetshire), 278 electors, freeholders. 
 Dunwich (Suffolk), 33 electors, freemen. 
 
 * Eye, 125 electors, freemen. 
 
 Fowey (Cornwall), 320 electors, burgage tenement holders, 
 and scot and lot. 
 
 Gatton (Surrey), 7 electors, freeholders, and scot and lot 
 payers. 
 
 Haslemere (Surrey), 130 electors, resident freeholders. 
 
 Heyden (York), 410 electors, burgesses. 
 
 Heytesbury(Wilts),?6 electors, burgage tenement holders. 
 
 Higham Ferrers (Northampton), 33 electors, mayor, alder- 
 men, burgesses and freemen.
 
 Boroughs of Sched^ile A. 135 
 
 Hindon (Wilts), 170 electors, inhabitant householders, 
 being parishioners. 
 
 Ilchester (Somerset), 200 electors,' inhabitant householders. 
 
 Looe, East (Cornwall), 38 electors, capital and free bur- 
 gesses. 
 
 Looe, West (Cornwall), 19 electors, capital and free bur- 
 gesses, being residents. 
 
 Lostwithiel (Cornwall), 24 electors, corporation. 
 
 Ludgershall (Wilts), 1 50 electors, estates of inheritance, 
 freehold or life lease. 
 
 * Malmesbury (Wilts), 1 3 electors, capital burgesses. 
 
 * Midhurst (Sussex), 41 electors, burgage tenants. 
 Milborne Port (Somerset), 311 electors, scot and lot 
 
 payers. 
 
 Minehead (Somerset), 215 electors, housekeepers. 
 
 Newport (Cornwall), 70 electors, freeholders of ancient 
 tenements, or sites thereof, and their rated occupiers. 
 
 Newton (Lancashire), 52 electors, freeholders or life- 
 holders. 
 
 Newton, or Frankville (Isle of Wight), 31 electors, mayor, 
 and burgesses. 
 
 Okehampton (Devon), 230 electors, freemen and free- 
 holders. 
 
 Orford (Suffolk), 22 electors, mayor, portmen, capital 
 burgesses, and freemen. 
 
 * Petersfield (Hampshire 1 *, 36 electors, freeholders. 
 Plympton (Devon), 54 electors, freemen. 
 Oueenborough (Kent). 315 electors, eldest sons of freemen 
 
 born, or apprentices to a resident freeman for seven 
 years.
 
 1 36 The History of Reform. 
 
 * Reigate (Surrey), 59 electors, burgage tenants and free 
 holders. 
 
 Romney (Kent), 21 electors, freemen. 
 
 St. Mawes (Cornwall), 87 electors, householders and free- 
 holders. 
 
 St. Michael's (Cornwall), 7 electors, portreeve and in- 
 habitants. 
 
 Saltash (Cornwall), 154 electors, burgage tenants. 
 
 Sarum, Old (Wilts.), 13 electors, burgage tenure. 
 
 Seaford (Sussex), 96 electors, housekeepers paying scot 
 and lot. 
 
 Steyning (Sussex,) 118 electors, scot and lot payers. 
 
 Stockbridge (Hampshire), 150 electors, housekeepers pay- 
 ing scot and lot. 
 
 Tregony (Cornwall), 265 electors, all persons boiling a 
 pot except paupers. 
 
 *Wareham (Dorsetshire), 218 electors, scot and lot 
 payers. 
 
 Wendover (Bucks), about 140 electors, inhabitant house- 
 holders. 
 
 Weobly (Herefordshire), 93 electors, inhabitants of ancient 
 vote-houses. 
 
 Whitchurch (Hampshire), 37 electors, freeholders. 
 
 Winchelsea (Sussex), 10 electors, those elected by the 
 body corporate. 
 
 * Woodstock (Oxford), about 164 electors, mayor, alder- 
 men and freemen. 
 
 Wootton Bassett (Wilts), 198 electors, householders pay- 
 ing scot and lot. 
 Yarmouth (I. W.), 1 1 electors, mayor and burgesses
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE STRUGGLE OF 18312. THE FIRST 
 REFORM ACT. 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING the enthusiasm of the 
 people, the Bill of 1831 encountered obstinate 
 resistance from the House of Commons. The 
 debate on its introduction lasted for seven nights, 
 and consisted of no fewer than seventy-one 
 speeches. The opposition was founded chiefly 
 on a denial of the right to disfranchise the 
 boroughs, on the fear of Republicanism, and on 
 the alleged tendency of the Bill to set class 
 against class. The abolition of the close 
 boroughs was denounced as Corporation robbery, 
 and Sir Robert Peel defended the boroughs as 
 having been the means of gaining admission to 
 the House of many of its most famous members' 
 and of retaining their abilities for the benefit
 
 1 38 The His lory of Rejorm. 
 
 of the House and the country, when election 
 accidents had deprived them of seats elsewhere. 
 Sir Robert was not slow to avail himself of the 
 argument that the 10 franchise would actually 
 deprive some voters of the suffrage, and he cen- 
 sured the Government for agitating this question 
 at such a crisis. Hunt and O'Connell maintained 
 the right of the people to a still larger mea- 
 sure of Reform, but their voices had little weight, 
 for the same reason as that which induced the 
 people out of doors to support the Bill as it 
 stood. When the Bill was at length introduced, 
 there was great rejoicing in the country, and 
 addresses of thanks were sent to the King. The 
 debate on the second reading was most exciting 
 in its result, the majority being one vote in a 
 House of 603 members, and that one vote was 
 only obtained by the defection of a member of the 
 Opposition, who had held office under the Duke 
 of Wellington. The Opposition regarded this 
 as tantamount to victory. In the country it was 
 talked of as a great success for the Government, 
 considering that they had the whole force of the
 
 77/6' Majority of One. 139 
 
 borough-mongers to fight. The majority of one 
 was therefore signalized in the great towns by illu- 
 minations and other indications of popular joy. 
 Lord Grey wrote : " The activity, the intrigue, 
 the falsehood that was used to influence votes is 
 not to be described. 'What hurt us most was the 
 report so industriously propagated that the King 
 had put a positive veto on a proposal to dissolve 
 the Parliament." This report, it seems, accurately 
 represented what had happened. For two days 
 before this division on the i8th of March, Lord 
 Grey had been greatly annoyed by the defeat of 
 a proposal for the reduction of the timber duties. 
 He attributed this defeat to a combination of 
 those whose interests were concerned with the 
 enemies of Parliamentary Reform, and foreseeing 
 the injury which this division would cause his 
 Government, he had thought it well to get the 
 King's opinion in advance on the subject of a 
 dissolution. When His Majesty was approached 
 on this question he was under the influence of 
 annoyance at some recent free criticisms in the 
 House of Commons on the civil list expenditure,
 
 140 The History of Reform. 
 
 and was evidently beginning to rue his assent to 
 the Reform Bill, which he described to his Prime 
 Minister as a measure " which must have the 
 effect of giving a more popular character to the 
 House of Commons, and therefore the effect also 
 of increasing the disposition of its members to 
 oppose the influence of the people to that of 
 the Crown and the aristocracy." With these 
 feelings he point blank declined to agree to a 
 dissolution. 
 
 Between the second reading and the Com- 
 mittee stage Lord John Russell announced some 
 modifications in the Bill. The boroughs that 
 were to be abolished had been named in 
 schedule A of the Bill, while the boroughs to 
 be limited to one member were included in a 
 schedule marked B. Five out of the sixty 
 boroughs mentioned at the end of last chapter 
 were now taken out of schedule A and 
 transferred to schedule B. These were Aid- 
 borough, Buckingham, Reigate, Malmesbury, 
 Okehampton. 
 
 Eight were to be taken out of schedule B, and
 
 The Claims of Ireland. 141 
 
 eight additional counties were to have an extra 
 member. To the newly enfranchised towns were 
 to be added Oldham, Bury, Rochdale, Whitby 
 Wakefield, Salford, Stoke-on-Trent, each re- 
 turning one member. The number of members 
 was thus reduced by only 34, instead of 64 as 
 originally contemplated. With regard to the 
 right of voting the sons of freemen born before 
 the introduction of the Bill, and apprentices in- 
 dentured before the same date, were to enjoy the 
 electoral privilege on coming of age or taking 
 out their freedom. The modifications failed to 
 satisfy the opponents of the Bill, and a great fight 
 took place upon the motion of General Gascoyne 
 against the diminution of members for England. 
 Exception was taken then as it is taken to-day 
 to the aggrandisement of the Irish and Scotch 
 at the expense of the English representation. 
 Mr. Stanley met this argument with the following 
 warning : " I caution hon. members who stickle 
 so pertinaciously for the maintenance of the pro- 
 portion of members between the three countries, 
 and who grudge to Ireland any increase of
 
 142 The History of Reform. 
 
 representatives beyond the number given to her 
 at the period of the Union, to consider well the 
 arguments which they are thus putting into the 
 hands of those who are contending for a measure 
 which I conceive would be most mischievous 
 both to England and Ireland I mean the repeal 
 of the Union and who put forward the doctrine 
 that Ireland is not adequately represented in 
 this House, and is therefore entitled to have a 
 
 domestic legislature of her own If we 
 
 are to have a United Parliament, we ought not 
 to adhere too strictly to the existing scale of 
 proportion between the representatives of the 
 three Kingdoms." O'Connell pointed out the 
 great number of new town representatives given 
 to England as compared with Ireland ; and 
 maintained that there were 14 towns in his 
 country which would have been enfranchised 
 had they been in England. 
 
 All interest in the argument of this debate 
 was eclipsed by the excitement involved in its 
 result, which was the defeat of the Government 
 by 8 votes, the numbers being 299 to 291.
 
 Costly Elections. 143 
 
 The Cabinet, notwithstanding the King's 
 previous expression of opinion, insisted upon 
 advising dissolution ; and the King not only 
 gave way, but in order to assist the Ministry in 
 thwarting the tactics of the Opposition in the 
 Lords, who were about to adopt an address to 
 His Majesty, praying him not to dissolve, agreed 
 to go down suddenly, and threatened to go in a 
 hackney coach if the ordinary retinue were not 
 at once available. The delight of the populace, 
 when it became known that the King had pro- 
 rogued Parliament, found expression in fresh 
 illuminationSj in feasting, and in meetings in- 
 numerable. The elections that followed were 
 fierce. " Report," said the Morning Chronicle, 
 " makes the sums subscribed by the Tories 
 enormous. We have heard of 400,000 to 
 500,000, and of the Duke of Northumber- 
 land alone subscribing 100,000. We should 
 think there was exaggeration in this ; but the 
 borough-mongers are fighting for their free- 
 holds." They fought in vain, however, against 
 the efforts of an excited and enthusiastic people.
 
 j 44 The History of Reform. 
 
 A Parliamentary Candidate Society was started 
 to provide members for reforming constituencies ; 
 a " Loyal and Patriotic Fund for Reform " was 
 subscribed, and the people won the day. At 
 Dover, a nomination borough under the influence 
 of the Duke of Wellington, a Tory was turned 
 out. General Gascoyne, the author of the 
 Government defeat, was thrust out of Liverpool ; 
 Sir Richard Vyvyan, who had moved the rejec- 
 tion of the Bill on the second reading, lost his 
 seat in Cornwall. A reformer who had com- 
 mitted the indiscretion of voting with General 
 Gascoyne, was turned out of Southwark. Nearly 
 all the counties and open boroughs returned 
 members pledged to support the Bill. 
 
 In the meantime, the King referred to the 
 Bill as a fearful experiment, and kept urging 
 Earl Grey to alter the measure so as to avoid 
 conflict with the Lords ; but Lord Grey firmly 
 replied that no concession was possible in the 
 face of the strong current of public opinion. 
 Upon the re-assembling of Parliament, therefore, 
 the Bill was reintroduced. Lord John Russell
 
 The Chandos Clause. 145 
 
 paid a high tribute to the conduct of the people, 
 stating that in the sacrifices made, and the 
 devotedness shown by the humbler classes of the 
 community in the pursuit of what they thought 
 was their duty to their country, they had set an 
 example of which England might well be proud 
 to the latest generations. The Bill as re- 
 introduced added the two boroughs of Down- 
 ton and St. Germains to the boroughs to 
 be disfranchised. On the 7th of July, after three 
 nights' discussion, it was read a second time by 
 367 to 231, a majority of 136. After this, the 
 Anti-Reformers could only oppose to the Bill 
 the tactics of delay ; and the measure was ob- 
 structed by prolonged fights, varied by motions 
 for adjournment upon the question of the dis- 
 franchisement of each rotten borough separately. 
 The Chandos clause was first heard of and 
 carried in these debates in committee. The 
 Marquis of Chandos was of opinion that the 
 clause extending the county franchise to 50 
 leaseholders should also be granted to tenants 
 at will of holdings having the same value. It
 
 146 The. History of Reform. 
 
 was objected to the proposition that the tenants 
 would not be sufficiently independent and would 
 vote as they were told by their landlords, but 
 in the end the Marquis of Chandos carried the 
 day by 84 votes. 
 
 The bill was in committee from the I2th 
 July to 1 5th September. Its third reading was 
 carried by 113 to 58, and finally the motion that 
 the bill do pass was adopted by 345 to 236, a 
 majority of 109. 
 
 The long delay in the House of Commons 
 had irritated the people, who suspected Ministers 
 for want of loyalty to the measure, owing to 
 their failure to push it through more rapidly, 
 and they awaited somewhat swllenly, or at all 
 events with damped spirits, the progress of 
 events. But when the bill was approaching the 
 close of its House of Commons career, the people 
 determined to show the House that their desire 
 to have the Bill had by no means abated. In 
 answer to the insinuation that the public feeling 
 had subsided, meetings were held afresh and the 
 political unions, whose influence increased as the
 
 What will the Lords do? 147 
 
 struggle grew fiercer, became most active, with a 
 view to convincing the House of Lords of their 
 continued desire for the Bill. At a meeting in the 
 City, Col. Torrens, M.P., wound up a speech in 
 which, discussing the wide-spread question, What 
 will the Lords do ? he concluded with the follow- 
 ing passage to illustrate what would be done with 
 them if they thwarted the will of the nation : 
 
 " The story of the Sybil will be remembered. 
 She brought her mystic leaves to the high 
 authorities of Rome and demanded a high price. 
 She was refused. She took half the leaves away, 
 and returning, again demanded her price, and was 
 again refused. The leaves were again reduced 
 one half, and she came again and demanded her 
 price, when the authorities became alarmed and 
 they gave her her price. Now, gentlemen, we 
 will a little reverse the story. We come to them 
 with this bill, and nothing but this bill. If they 
 reject it we will come to them again and demand 
 something more. If they again reject it, we will 
 come again with a bill in which the House of 
 Lords shall be inserted in Schedule A." 
 
 L 2
 
 148 The History of Reform. 
 
 The Bill was recommended to the Peers in a 
 touching speech by Earl Grey, who towards the 
 close of his oration administered a solemn 
 warning to the Bishops, to reflect what their 
 situation would be if by their votes the Bill 
 should be thrown out. The debate on the 
 second reading lasted five days, and towards its 
 close the Lord Chancellor adopted Col. Torrens' 
 reference to the Sybil, and clothing it in more 
 eloquent language, heightened the effect of the 
 warning to his fellow Peers. The warning, 
 however, was unheeded. At 6 o'clock on the 
 morning of the 8th Oct, the Bill was thrown out 
 by 199 votes against 158, the majority against 
 the Bill thus being forty-one. 
 
 When this news reached Birmingham, funeral 
 bells were tolled from the churches and chapels. 
 Meetings were held all over the metropolis. 
 The merchants and the bankers met at the 
 Mansion House to approve the Bill, and to ask 
 the King to continue his Ministers, and create 
 new Peers. The House of Commons passed a 
 vote of confidence in the Ministers. A remark-
 
 Faith in the King. 149 
 
 able demonstration was made at Birmingham, 
 where an open-air meeting was called, which was 
 attended by over 100,000 people. And now, 
 while the correspondence was actually going on 
 between the King and Earl Grey, relative to the 
 King's regret that no concession had beea^nadc 
 to the Peers, the multitude assembled at 
 Birmingham were applauding the statement of 
 Atwood, their chairman, that to the King person- 
 ally they owed more in this great work of Re- 
 form than to any other human being in existence. 
 " All of you take off your hats," he said, " look 
 up to the heavens, where the just God rules both 
 heavens and earth, and cry out, with one heart 
 and with one voice, God bless the King." 
 " Every head," says a contemporary report, 
 " was bared, every face was turned up to heaven, 
 and at one moment, 100,000 voices answered 
 to the exhortation ' God bless the King ! ' ' 
 
 At a great meeting at Regent's Park, in 
 London, much exasperation was exhibited 
 against the Bishops, and a resolution was 
 passed which was afterwards published in a
 
 1 50 The History of Reform. 
 
 mourning border, declaring that while the 
 meeting would wait with patience, and there- 
 fore pay the public taxes, until the Ministers 
 should have time to adopt the necessary 
 measures to secure the passing of the Reform 
 Bill, it was their unalterable resolution, if an 
 anti-Reform and Tory Administration should 
 take the place of Earl Grey and his colleagues, 
 to withold the payment of tithes and taxes. 
 An imposing procession of the working classes 
 of London was arranged about this time, in 
 which it was said that 300,000 men took part 
 Francis Place, from whose manuscript records 
 many of these details are obtained, says that in 
 all the shops of Marylebone there were placards 
 with the words " The King, Liberty, and 
 Reform," and he tells ho\v the members of the 
 procession punished persons who by riotous 
 conduct were likely to bring discredit upon their 
 demonstration. Though these precautions did 
 not save some distinguished peers from rough 
 usage at die hands of the people, the Reformers 
 took credit to themselves for preserving the
 
 The Riots of 1831. 151 
 
 peace generally by the agency of these organized 
 Political Unions, upon whose members patience 
 was strongly urged at this crisis, and it was 
 pointed out that at Derby and Nottingham, 
 where serioys riots took place, no Unions had 
 at that time been formed. Upon the news of 
 the rejection of the 'Reform Bill arriving at 
 these places, the people became so tumultuous 
 and so angry in their demonstrations against 
 anti-Reformers, that soldiers had to be brought 
 into the towns to subdue them. In Derby, 
 the mob attacked the gaol in which some of 
 their number had been placed, and set the 
 prisoners free. At Nottingham, more tragical 
 scenes were enacted. Several properties were 
 destroyed, and the burning of Nottingham 
 Castle marked in tragic manner the popular 
 hate of the Duke of Newcastle, one of the 
 most thorough-going opponents of the Bill. 
 There was a Political Union at Bristol, where 
 a few weeks later riots of a still more alarm- 
 ing character, involving the loss of many 
 lives, took place. But the Reformers resented
 
 152 The History of Reform. 
 
 the notion that they had any responsibility for 
 the dreadful scenes which have given that city 
 an evil distinction in our history. They even 
 accused members of the corporation of desiring 
 to see a good Bristol riot, which might prejudice 
 the cause of Reform. The corporation there 
 did not represent the citizens, and could not 
 always maintain the public peace. They were 
 justly apprehensive that when Sir Charles 
 Wetherill, their Recorder, came to the city to 
 discharge his judical duties, he would meet 
 with a warm reception from the multitude on 
 account of the activity ^of his hostility to the 
 Reform Bill. The Recorder was detested by 
 the Reformers, who regarded him as their 
 " bitter and unrelenting enemy." Accordingly, 
 efforts were made to get Sir C. Wetherill to 
 postpone his visit ; these failing, the magistrates 
 had arranged to have troops in readiness. The 
 Political Union of that city was too much 
 irritated at this proceeding to promise their 
 active aid in maintaining public peace. They 
 expressed the opinion, that if the magistrates
 
 The Bristol Riots. 153 
 
 were incompetent to preserve the peace without 
 the military, they should resign their offices. 
 At the same time members of the Union and 
 Reformers generally were " recommended at all 
 times of popular excitement to use their most 
 strenuous endeavours for the preservation of 
 the public peace, as it is only by such a course 
 they will obtain the reforms they seek." How 
 Sir Charles Wetherill was received at Bristol, 
 how a violent Bristol mob attacked the public 
 buildings he entered, how he had to make 
 his escape in disguise after an ignominious 
 scramble across the roofs of houses, how, by the 
 mismanagement of the municipal authorities and 
 the indecisive conduct of the troops, the rioting 
 grew fiercer till building after building was 
 demolished and fired, the palace of the Bishop 
 of Bath and Wells (an opponent of the Bill) 
 sacrificed to the flames, and the rioters eventu- 
 ally only dispersed after terrible bloodshed 
 all this is matter of general history, needing 
 to be recalled only to exemplify the excitement 
 prevailing m the country, after the refusal of the
 
 154 The History of Reform. 
 
 Lords to pass the Reform Bill. The hostility 
 to the Bishops was manifested in many other 
 towns besides Bristol. Prelates were burned in 
 effigy, the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. 
 Howley) was publicly spat upon, and a 
 suggestion that Canterbury Cathedral should 
 be turned into a cavalry stable was actually 
 greeted at a public meeting with applause. 
 
 Before these occurrences at Bristol, the Parlia- 
 ment had been prorogued, with those assurances 
 of future intentions with regard to the Bill 
 without which the whole country would pro- 
 bably have been in a blaze. For between the 
 rejection of the Bill and the prorogation there 
 had been a rapid growth of impatience with 
 Ministers. Why did they not get the King to 
 prorogue Parliament at once, to create new peers, 
 and assemble the Houses again in a few days 
 to pass the bill ? One deputation bearded Earl 
 Grey in his house at nearly midnight to urge 
 him to get all this done within seven days. 
 His reply, or rather the rumours of its purport, 
 excited further impatience. It was feared that
 
 The King and the Unions, 155 
 
 Parliament would not be again convened till after 
 Christmas, and that the Bill would be altered 
 to suit the dissenting Peers. All the while, 
 however, Earl Grey had been pressing on the 
 King, in spite of his alarms at the outrages in 
 the country, the indispensable necessity of 
 giving the Royal sanction to the submission of 
 a new measure, founded on the same principles 
 as the rejected Bill, and of equal efficacy for the 
 correction of the defects in the representation. 
 After the prorogation he continued to soothe 
 the King's fear of the popular agitation, and 
 while His Majesty expressed hopes that those 
 whom he called the promoters of mischief and 
 violence would " eventually so commit them- 
 selves as to justify their arrest," the Prime 
 Minister did not fail to point out that the 
 organizations so suspected by the King had 
 received a great impulse and extension from the 
 rejection of the Reform Bill, and to tell him 
 plainly that if the Bill were again to fail he 
 could not be answerable for the public peace. 
 By and by the effect of the circulation of
 
 156 The History of Reform. 
 
 rumours that the King might dismiss his 
 Ministers, and call the Tories back to power, 
 justified Lord Grey's predictions. The people 
 began to talk of their rights, under Magna 
 Charta, to possess arms for their self defence. 
 The Duke of Wellington alarmed the King with 
 an intimation that a contract had been entered 
 into for the supply of arms to the Political 
 Union of Birmingham, and Earl Grey was 
 again involved in a difficult correspondence 
 with the King. In his letters, however, he 
 pointed out the absence of proof of any pro- 
 posed organization of an armed force, and 
 boldly reminded his sovereign that the privilege 
 of having and using arms was reserved to 
 Englishmen by the constitution, and that if 
 members of Unions merely resolved to have 
 arms individually, without being formed or 
 organised as armed bodies, he knew of no 
 authority under the existing law, by which they 
 could be prevented. Lord Grey, however, could 
 not deny that a proposition which soon after- 
 wards emanated from Birmingham, to con-
 
 The Waver ers. 157 
 
 stitute a body which practically usurped the 
 functions of local government, was illegal ; and a 
 proclamation was issued, warning the public 
 against connecting themselves with such associa- 
 tions. The Union at Birmingham, however, 
 had been warned before the proclamation was 
 issued of the illegal character of the proposed 
 organization, and had abandoned it. The 
 Political Unions on the ordinary basis main- 
 tained that the proclamation did not affect them, 
 and continued their proceedings undisturbed. 
 
 The King now devoted himself to preparation 
 for the coming crisis in the Lords, and, warned 
 by his Ministers of the danger of another check 
 to the Reform Bill, lent active assistance in the 
 endeavour to bring matters to a peaceable issue. 
 With this view he encouraged communications 
 between a number of Tory peers, afterwards 
 known as the waverers, and himself, endeavoured 
 by means of attentions shown to the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury to secure a more conciliatory 
 attitude on the part of the Bishops. The 
 waverers, of whom Lord Wharncliffe was the
 
 158 77/6' History of Reform. 
 
 chief, had at last come to the conclusion that 
 the rotten boroughs must go, but did not make 
 their reluctant admission until they had forced 
 from the Ministry certain concessions which led 
 to the reopening of the Reform question much 
 sooner in after years than might have been 
 expected. Lord Grey would give way neither to 
 the Opposition nor to the King in regard to the 
 proposed new metropolitan boroughs which they 
 desired him to throw into the county divisions. 
 But to soothe their fears, the Prime Minister 
 agreed to insert a provision limiting the right of 
 voting under the 10 franchise to those who 
 were actually rated on their own account. The 
 express object of this was to limit the numbers 
 voting in large constituencies. Lord Grey also 
 conceded a reduction of the number of towns to 
 be limited to one member and agreed to transfer 
 certain towns to Schedule B (towns with one 
 member) which had previously been put in 
 Schedule A as boroughs to be disfranchised. In 
 this way, Midhurst, Petersfield, Eye, Wareham, 
 and Woodstock were saved from disfranchise-
 
 Treatment of Ireland. 159 
 
 ment. The number of members he agreed 
 should remain at 658, as originally contended 
 for when the Bill met with its first check in the 
 Commons. This altered the proportions of 
 members given to Ireland, for the spare repre- 
 sentatives were given to English towns and to 
 Monmouth, but none to the sister country. In 
 fact the King commended this redistribution on 
 the express ground that it would shut out the 
 claim of Ireland to more members. The 
 boroughs to be disfranchised were to be selected 
 according to the number of houses rather than 
 to population, and certain ancient rights of 
 franchise were preserved to residents. 
 
 The meeting of parliament on the 6th 
 December was reassuring to the excited public. 
 Though the Irish members were furious at their 
 treatment and the more ardent Radicals regarded 
 the alterations in the Bill as blemishes, the fiery 
 opposition of Sir R. Peel and his friends and the 
 anxiety to pass the Bill through the House of 
 Lords secured the Government the continued sup- 
 port of the country. The Bill got into committee
 
 160 The History of Reform. 
 
 after the Christmas recess by 152 votes to 99, 
 and, soon after, the decayed boroughs'were swept 
 away by 198 votes to 123. The Chandos clause 
 had been incorporated in the new Bill and it 
 was now re-debated. The opponents of the 
 clause reiterated the objection that the yearly 
 tenants would not be independent but would 
 vote at the bidding of their landlords, and 
 maintained that the effect of passing the clause 
 would simply be to create certain nomination 
 counties. The Chandos qualification, however, 
 was maintained by 272 votes against 32. A 
 strong protest was made by some members, 
 without .avail, against making payment of rent 
 or rate any condition of the franchise. One of 
 the stiffest fights was on the subject of the 
 metropolitan representation. The Marquis of 
 Chandos, maintaining that the new members to 
 the London boroughs would give the capital a 
 predominating influence, proposed an amend- 
 ment with the object of merging them in South- 
 wark and Westminster, instead of giving them 
 special representation. The Ministers triumphed
 
 Resistance of the Peers. 161 
 
 over this amendment by a majority of 80 316 
 to 236. The Bill passed its third reading by a 
 majority of 116, and on March 26th, 1832, was 
 carried to the Lords. Here the Government 
 had ample warning of the difficulties in store for 
 them. The waverers in intimating their intention 
 to vote for the second reading demanded as 
 the condition of their further support that 
 extensive alterations should be conceded in 
 committee. Thus, although the second reading 
 was obtained by a majority of nine (184 175) 
 there was no confidence either on the part of 
 the Government or of the people that the Bill 
 would be passed. The only hope the people 
 had was in an extensive creation of Peers. For 
 this there had been a general demand for some 
 time, and indeed it had been a subject of com- 
 munications between the King and the Cabinet 
 more than once during the previous three or 
 four months. In fact, but for the threat of an 
 addition to the House of Lords the Bill would 
 not have proceeded so far as it had done, Only 
 the strong objections of William IV. to any ex-
 
 1 62 The History of Reform. 
 
 tensive creation of Peers had induced the Cabinet 
 to refrain from insisting upon this measure being 
 taken, even before the second reading. But the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer had threatened to 
 resign if Peers were not created, other members 
 of the Cabinet sympathised with his views, and 
 it was intimated to His Majesty that in the 
 event of the Bill being rejected on the second 
 reading they would propose the alternative of 
 their resignation or the immediate prorogation 
 of Parliament and such addition to the House 
 of Lords as would afford a certainty of success. 
 When the King in an interview at Windsor, 
 hinted to Lord Grey, that it might be possible 
 to effect some compromise and embody it in a 
 new Bill, this elicited from Lord Grey a strong 
 representation to the effect, as stated by the 
 Prime Minister in his own memorandum of 
 the conversation, " That the public impatience 
 would neither wait for such a negotiation nor 
 accept from the present Ministers, and probably 
 not from any others, what would bear the 
 character of a mutilated measure ; that I could
 
 Approach of a Crisis. 163 
 
 not, without entirely disqualifying myself from 
 acting usefully for His Majesty's service propose 
 anything which would be so entirely at variance 
 with all the declarations which I have made on 
 this subject ; that I was afraid the evil would 
 not stop here and that if there should be any 
 delay in taking the measures which appeared to 
 be necessary to obviate the effects of the general 
 disappointment, the consequence would be that 
 instead of waiting with a disposition to accept a 
 modified plan of Reform there would be a 
 renewed cry for universal suffrage and the vote 
 by ballot which had ceased since the present 
 measure was proposed." The King was induced 
 to contemplate the creation of a reasonable 
 number of Peers, but evidently did so with the 
 extremest reluctance, and with reservations 
 which were not calculated to increase the 
 confidence of the Cabinet. 
 
 In the country of course it was not known 
 what was taking place in the Cabinet, and as 
 the rumour was circulated that the King would 
 not create Peers, there was no little excitement
 
 164 The History of Reform. 
 
 during the Easter recess. The meetings pro- 
 moted by the Unions were resumed, and from 
 the great towns addresses were sent to the King, 
 imploring him to have recourse to a fearless and 
 liberal exercise of his royal prerogative in the 
 creation of Peers. A gigantic demonstration 
 was made at Birmingham, where some 200,000 
 persons members of the Birmingham Union, 
 and the Unions of adjacent towns assembled at 
 Newhall Hill, to convince the Lords that they 
 had not ceased to care for the Bill, and to 
 petition them in its favour. The earnestness of 
 this vast assembly found expression in this 
 solemn vow which, with heads uncovered, the 
 people repeated after one of the speakers 
 
 " WITH UNBROKEN FAITH, THROUGH EVERY 
 PERIL AND PRIVATION, WE HERE DEVOTE 
 OURSELVES AND OUR CHILDREN TO OUR 
 COUNTRY'S CAUSE." 
 
 The Hymn of the Unions, sung on the same 
 occasion, testified to the fervour of the popu- 
 lace :
 
 Hymn of the Unions. 165 
 
 God is our guide ! from field, from wave, 
 From plough, from anvil, and from loom, 
 
 We come our country's rights to save, 
 And speak a tyrant faction's doom ; 
 
 And hark ! we raise from sea to sea, 
 The sacred watchword, Liberty. 
 
 God is our guide ! no swords we draw, 
 
 We kindle not war's battle fires ; 
 By union, justice, reason, law, 
 
 We claim the birthright of our sires ; 
 We raise the watchword, Liberty, 
 
 We will, we will, we will be free ! 
 
 On the reassembling of the House of Lords, 
 the tactics of the Opposition were indicated by 
 Lord Lyndhurst's motion (May 7th), that the 
 consideration of the disfranchisement clauses 
 should be postponed till after the enfranchising 
 clauses had been gone over. Lord Grey resisted 
 this indirect attack, and was defeated by 151 
 1 16. The next day the Cabinet called upon 
 His Majesty to create new Peers, or accept their 
 resignation, and His Majesty, alarmed at the 
 number of Peers demanded, accepted the 
 resignation.
 
 1 66 The History of Reform. 
 
 The announcement that Ministers had .re- 
 signed, came like a thunderbolt on the country. 
 An appalling, crisis ensued. The membership 
 of the Unions increased by thousands every day, 
 and their meetings were marked by the greatest 
 excitement. 
 
 The Common Council of London passed 
 resolutions declaring those who advised His 
 Majesty's resistance to be the enemies of their 
 Sovereign, and urging the people to petition 
 Parliament to withhold the supplies. The Livery 
 lifted their voice in the same strain ; the name 
 of the Queen, whose influence was supposed to 
 have been at work, was received with groans 
 and hisses by the electors of Westminster. Im- 
 mense cheering greeted a reference of O'Connell's 
 to the fate which overtook Charles I. who 
 dared to listen to the advice of his foreign 
 wife. The " Sailor King " was no longer the 
 hero of the crowd, but was actually insulted in 
 the streets, while Colonel Jones could say of him 
 with impunity, and even with approbation, that 
 " if William IV. pursued with lamentable obsti-
 
 Taxes Refused. 167 
 
 nacy an evil course, whether at the instance of 
 the woman of his bosom, or of the creatures of 
 his Court, or if he placed himself in the hands of 
 his unpopular Duke of Cumberland ; in a word, 
 if he forgot the people, the people should forget 
 him." At Birmingham, placards were placed in 
 the shop windows, bearing the following inscrip- 
 tion : 
 
 NOTICE. 
 No TAXES PAID HERE 
 
 UNTIL 
 
 THE REFORM BILL is PASSED. 
 
 Another great meeting was held at Newhall 
 Hill, and a petition was adopted to Parliament, 
 in which occurred an ominous reference to the 
 right of the people to arm in their own defence. 
 On the ioth,the House of Commons immediately 
 voted an address to the King imploring him to 
 call to his counsels only such as would carry 
 into effect the Reform Bill, unimpaired in all its 
 essential provisions. It was evident that no 
 Ministry could exist that did not take up the
 
 1 68 The History of Reform. 
 
 question of Reform ; and the Duke of Wel- 
 lington actually undertook to form a Ministry 
 on this understanding. Naturally, the announce- 
 ment created intense indignation. It was 
 declared that the people would not have their 
 rights from such a polluted source ; and in the 
 House of Commons the indignation expressed 
 was so strong and so general as to render it im- 
 possible for the Duke to persevere in the attempt 
 to form a Ministry. There was nothing for it 
 but to recall Earl Grey, and to face the dreaded 
 prospect of a creation of Peers. To avoid this 
 painful necessity, however, the King resolved on 
 an extraordinary step. He allowed intimations 
 to be given to certain Peers that this measure 
 would have to be resorted to unless they stayed 
 away. The knowledge that Lord Grey had the 
 King's authority to create Peers in his pocket 
 had the desired effect on the stubborn peers. 
 The course taken by His Majesty removed 
 all obstacles to the procedure of the Bill, which, 
 with the Irish and Scotch measures, was speedily 
 passed, not without some expressions of dis-
 
 Changes made zw 1832. 169 
 
 appointment and surprise from the King himself 
 that the measures were passing so rapidly and 
 with so little alteration. The Bills soon became 
 law ; but the royal assent was given by commis- 
 sion. Nothing could induce His Majesty to 
 crown the success of such measures by per- 
 forming this ceremony in person. 
 
 A summary of the principal changes made by 
 the Reform Acts of 1832 is appended : 
 
 ENGLAND AND WALES 500 MEMBERS. 
 Fifty-six Boroughs totally disfranchised. 
 
 Old Sarum, Newtown (I.W.), St. Michael's or Midshall, 
 Gatton, Bramber, Bossiney, Dunwich, Ludgershall, St. 
 Mawe's, Beeralston, West Looe, St. Germain's, Newport, 
 Blechingley, Aldborough, Camelford, Heyden, East Looe, 
 Corfe Castle, Great Bedwin, Yarmouth (Isle of Wight), 
 Quaenborough, Castle Rising, East Grinstead, Highani 
 Ferrers, Wendover, Weobly, Winchilsea, Tregony, Hasle- 
 mere, Saltash, Orford, Callington, Newton, Ilchester, 
 Boroughbridge, Stockbridge, New Romney, Hindon, 
 Plympton, Seaford, Heytcsbury, Steyning, Whitchurch, 
 Wootton Bassett, Downton, Fowey, Milborne Port, 
 Aldeburgh, Minehead, Bishop's Castle, Okehampton, 
 Appleby, Lostwithiel, Brackley, and Amersham.
 
 1 70 The History of Reform. 
 
 One Borough left with two instead of four Members. 
 Weymouth. 
 
 Thirty Boroughs left with one Member. 
 
 Petersfield, Ashburton, Eye, Westbury, Wareham, 
 Midhurst, Woodstock, Wilton, IMalmesbury, Liskeard, 
 Reigate, Hythe, Droitwich, Lyme Regis, Launceston, 
 Shaftesbury, Thirsk, Christchurch, Horsham, Great 
 Grimsby, Calne, Arundel, St. Ives, Rye, Clitheroe, Mor- 
 peth, Helston, Northallerton, Wallingford, and Dart- 
 mouth. 
 
 The New Parliamentary Boroughs. 
 
 Twenty-two sending two Members. Manchester, Bir- 
 mingham, Leeds, Greenwich, Sheffield, Sunderland, 
 Uevonport, Wolverhampton, Tower Hamlets, Finsbury, 
 Marylebone, Lambeth, Bolton, Bradford, Blackburn, 
 Brighton, Halifax, Macclesfield, Oldham, Stockport, 
 Stoke-upon-Trent, and Stroud. 
 
 Twenty sending one Member. Ashton-under-Lyne, 
 Bury, Chatham, Cheltenham, Dudley, Frome, Gateshead, 
 Huddersfield, Kidderminster, Kendal, Rochdale, Salford, 
 South Shields, Tynemouth, Wakefield, Walsall, Warring- 
 ton, Whitby, Whitehaven, and Merthyr Tydvil. 
 
 Seven Counties entitled to send a third Member. 
 
 Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Dorset- 
 shire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, and Oxfordshire.
 
 Changes made in 1832. 171 
 
 Twenty-six Counties divided each division sending livo 
 Members. 
 
 Cheshire, Cornwall, Cumberland, Derbyshire, Devon- 
 shire, Durham, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Kent, 
 Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, North- 
 umberland, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Shrop- 
 shire, Somersetshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, 
 Warwickshire, Wiltshire, Worcestershire. 
 
 New County (one Member). 
 Isle of Wight. 
 
 A ilditional Representation for Yorkshire . 
 
 Yorkshire entitled to send six members instead of four 
 two for each of the three Ridings. 
 
 Welsh Counties and Districts. 
 
 Caermarthen, Denbigh, and Glamorgan entitled to send 
 two members instead of one. About 40 places entitled to 
 share in the elections of the principal boroughs. Swansea 
 district formed. 
 
 SCOTLAND 53 MEMBERS. 
 Changes in the Burghs. 
 
 Edinburgh and Glasgow entitled to send second 
 members ; Aberdeen, Paisley, Dundee, Greenock, and 
 Perth to have one member ; Rothesay, Peebles, and 
 Selkirk thrown into the counties. Sixty-nine towns 
 formed into 14 districts of burghs, each sending one 
 member. Total Burgh members, 23.
 
 172 The History of Reform. 
 
 Changes in the Counties. 
 
 Elgin, combined with Nairn, Ross with Cromarty, and 
 Clackmannan with Kinross, and portions of Perthshire 
 and Stirlingshire. These combinations to return one 
 member, making, with a member for each of 27 other 
 counties, 30 county members. 
 
 IRELAND 105 MEMBERS. 
 
 Second members given to the town of Galway, to the 
 cities of Limerick and Waterford, to the borough of 
 Belfast, and the university of Dublin. 
 
 PERSONS ENTITLED TO VOTE UNDER THE REFORM 
 ACTS OF 1832. 
 
 In English Counties. i. Forty shilling freeholders, 
 being seised or possessed of inheritance ; or being life- 
 holders who came into possession before June, 1832, 
 whether in actual possession or only in receipt of rents, 
 or who, coming subsequently into possession, were in 
 bonA fide occupation, or had acquired their holdings by 
 marriage, marriage settlement, devise, or promotion to 
 any benefice or office. 2. 10 freeholders. 3. ^10 copy- 
 holders. 4. Tenants at a yearly rent of ,50. 5. Lease- 
 holders for 60 years at clear yearly value of ^10. 
 6. Leaseholders for 20 years paying ^50 clear yearly 
 value. 7. Mortgagees in possession of freeholds, if after 
 payment of interest there remained a clear yearly value 
 of^io ; or in actual possession and receipt of rents of 
 the yearly k value of 40^. 8. Leasehold mortgagees in
 
 Franchises 0/1832. 173 
 
 possession of yearly values of ^10. 9. Trustees in 
 receipt of requisite rents. 10. Beneficed clergymen, 
 it. Annuitants from freehold or copyhold, the latter 
 claim being registered 12 months prior to election. 
 12. Holders of life-offices with emoluments (not less than 
 40.?.) arising out of lands. 13. Purchasers of redeemed 
 land tax (4ox). 14. Irremovable schoolmasters, parish 
 clerks and sextons. 15. Proprietors of tithes and rent- 
 charges (40*.). 1 6. Joint tenants whose separate interests 
 amounted to 40^. freehold or ^10 leasehold. 17. Owners 
 of shares in mines, rivers, canals, fairs, markets, &c., if 
 amounting to an interest in the soil of sufficient annual 
 value. Note. No person could vote in a county in respect 
 of property that would confer on him a qualification to 
 vote for a borough ; but a freehold in a borough of the 
 annual value of 40^., under ,10, entitled the owner to a 
 vote for the county, and above ^10 if in the occupation of 
 the tenant. If he occupied it himself he had no county 
 vote. 
 
 In English Boroughs. i. The ancient franchise 
 holders in boroughs not disfranchised if their qualifica- 
 tions existed on the last day of July in the year for which 
 they claimed, and if they had resided for six months in 
 the borough or within 7 miles, and their names were on 
 the register. 2. Occupiers either as owners or tenants of 
 any house, warehouse, or counting-house, shop, or other 
 building, either "with or without land, of the clear yearly 
 value of .10 within the borough, provided they had been 
 in possession 12 calendar months prior to the last day of 
 July in the year of the claim and had paid before 2oth July
 
 1 74 The History of Reform. 
 
 all the poor-rates and assessed taxes payable from 
 them in respect of the premises previous to the April 
 preceding. 3. Lodgers if sharing with other lodgers and 
 the value divided by number of lodgers came to^io a 
 year for each. If the landlord occupied any part of the 
 house he, and not his lodgers, was in occupation. 
 
 In Scotch Counties. The persons possessed of the 
 suffrage before March, 1831, or who would have been 
 entitled to it, that is to say, tenants in chief of the Crown 
 with lands of 40 shillings (old extent), or of 400 Scotch 
 valued rent, together with owners of land of ^10 annual 
 value ; 57 years leaseholders and life-holders with a clear 
 10 yearly interest, 19 years leaseholders with do., yearly 
 tenants at a ,50 rent, and all tenants whose interest had 
 cost them ,300. 
 
 In Scotch Cities, Burghs, and Contributory Districts. 
 The occupiers of houses of 10 clear yearly value, 
 whether as proprietor, tenant, life-renter, or joint-occupier, 
 with the non-resident true owners of similar premises, 
 and husbands jure uxoris after the death of their wives 
 holding by the courtesy of Scotland. 
 
 In Irish Counties. 10 freeholders ; leaseholders for 
 lives and copyholders of estates of ,10 ; 60 years lease- 
 holders and their assignees of estates of the same value ; 
 14 years leaseholders of 20 estates. 
 
 In Irish Cities and Boroughs. 10 occupiers and 
 resident freemen if by birth or servitude, or admitted 
 before March, 1831.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FROM lO FRANCHISE TO HOUSEHOLD 
 SUFFRAGE. 
 
 HOW THE WHIGS WERE "DISHED." 
 
 LORD JOHN RUSSELL for some time bore 
 the nick-name of " Finality Jack " because of 
 his declarations that the 1832 Reform Act was 
 intended to be a settlement of the Reform 
 question. But the country never did accept 
 this Act as final. The limitations put on the 
 10 franchise to satisfy the Tory peers and 
 quieten the fears of William IV., had the effect 
 in a very few years of raising fresh agitation. 
 The franchise in the counties was complained 
 of as having simply handed over the county 
 constituencies to the Tory party. A cry arose 
 for the Ballot. Both on that Reform and on 
 the abolition of Septennial Parliaments the 
 opinion of the legislature was repeatedly taken,
 
 1 76 The History of Reform. 
 
 but without any favourable verdict. The bogey 
 always invoked by Ministers to frighten Parlia- 
 ment when these demands were made, was 
 Universal Suffrage. A stand must be made, 
 it was said, or this frightful evil would be upon 
 them. The cry long served the ministerial 
 purpose in Parliament; but outside St. Stephen's 
 the demand for further Reform gathered strength, 
 and took shape in the Chartist movement, which 
 but for the mistakes of its leaders, must have 
 proved irresistible, and which, as it was, un- 
 doubtedly convinced an unwilling legislature 
 that the "finality" of the Act of 1832 was a 
 dream. 
 
 The "six points" of the People's Charter 
 were : 
 
 1. Manhood Suffrage. 
 
 2. Annual Parliaments. 
 
 3. Vote by Ballot. 
 
 4. Abolition of the Property Qualification for 
 
 Members of the House of Commons. 
 
 5. Payment of Members. 
 
 6. Equal Electoral Districts.
 
 The People's Charter. 177 
 
 It was to O'Connell that the Charter owed its 
 name. On Mr. Buncombe's failure to impress 
 Parliament with the need for Reform in 1838, 
 the minority who had voted with him co- 
 operated with a committee of the London 
 Working Men's Association, and drew up a 
 bill embodying the above proposals. " There," 
 said O'Connell to one of the working men 
 representatives, when the labour was finished, 
 "There is your Charter; agitate for it, and 
 never be content with anything less." The 
 working classes throughout the kingdom hailed 
 the movement with enthusiasm, joined its ranks, 
 supported its newspapers, and shouted for the 
 six points at great torchlight meetings. Un- 
 fortunately for their own cause, the more 
 desperate of the Chartists men maddened by 
 the miseries of their fellows at a time of social 
 distress, such as was endured before the repeal 
 of the Corn Laws met the apathy of Parliament 
 by threatening an appeal to force. A Methodist 
 minister at Ashton- under -Lyne elicited a 
 startling demonstration. Asking at a Chartist
 
 1 78 The History of Reform. 
 
 meeting if the men had come armed, he was 
 answered by the discharge of pistols into the 
 air. Not satisfied with the first report he put 
 a further question. The volley fired in response 
 was a convincing answer to his question. 
 The speaker coolly said : " I see it's all right ; 
 good night!" Such proceedings rendered the 
 Chartists liable to Government interference, 
 and prosecutions were unhesitatingly under- 
 taken. The great earnestness of the move- 
 ment, however, was demonstrated by the 
 nature of its errors, by the formation of a 
 physical force party, and by the fact that the 
 Chartist convention gravely considered the mad 
 proposal for holding " a sacred month " that 
 is to say, a month in which the people should 
 abstain from labour in order to force Parliament 
 to yield to the demands made in the Charter. 
 The movement excited compassion in the minds 
 of many men, but its excesses strengthened 
 the hands of the Government, who imprisoned 
 many of its prominent members. The popular 
 Attachment to one of the imprisoned Chartists
 
 The Newport Insurrection. 179 
 
 Henry Vincent was so strong as to lead to a 
 movement on Newport, where he was im- 
 prisoned, by a body of armed men with a view 
 to his release, and to the incitement thereafter 
 to a general rising. The march on Newport was 
 well planned. Three divisions were to unite at 
 Risca, and march to Newport under command 
 to Frost, a Newport magistrate who had iden- 
 tified himself with the Chartist movement, and 
 who had refused to resign his commission at the 
 suggestion of Lord John Russell during the 
 meetings of the Chartist convention. The plan 
 of the attack was, however, not successfully 
 carried out. The divisions failed to join at the 
 rendezvous at the appointed hour, and Frost's 
 own division, marching on alone, at an hour 
 much later than originally intended, found the 
 town authorities prepared for them, and were 
 routed with a loss of 10 killed and 50 wounded. 
 The leaders of all three divisions were arrested, 
 tried, and sentenced to death, but had their 
 sentences commuted to transportation. The 
 development of these serious episodes in our 
 
 N 2
 
 1 80 The History of Reform. 
 
 history is traceable to the deaf ear turned by 
 Parliament to the petitions of the people for a 
 reconsideration of the subject of Reform. The 
 chequered history of the Chartists could only 
 be adequately traced in a volume specially 
 devoted to this branch of the Reform movement. 
 Suffice it to say, that ever and anon between 
 the intervals of Government prosecution and 
 dissensions in their own ranks, the Chartists 
 were able to show to Parliament that no topic 
 so readily united the people and awakened their 
 enthusiasm as Parliamentary Reform, and that 
 no treatment so exasperated them as the refusal 
 of Parliament to recognise the justice of the 
 demand for an extension of the representation 
 of the people. To such refusal was due the 
 revival and partial adoption of "the sacred 
 month " scheme, and the renewal of riots. To 
 such refusal was owing the fresh outbreak 
 of Chartist sympathies in 1848, and the 
 Kennington Common meeting, in view of which 
 the Duke of Wellington made military pre- 
 parations extensive enough to put down an
 
 The Six Points. 181 
 
 armed insurrection. And though the failings 
 and mistakes of the Chartist leader Feargus 
 O'Connor and the discovery of an enormous 
 number of fictitious signatures to the last 
 monster Chartist petition, led to the ignominious 
 extinction of the movement, the succeeding 
 generation has paid no mean tribute to the 
 principles which gave it strength. The third 
 and fourth points of the Charter are the law 
 of the land to-day ; the fifth and the sixth are 
 avowed articles in the political creed of at least 
 one of our Cabinet Ministers. The franchise 
 has been and is being lowered, not so far as in- 
 dicated in the first point of the Charter, but to 
 an extent which the Chartists would probably 
 have been delighted to accept as a compromise. 
 For annual parliaments there is at present no 
 demand, but for the shortening of the duration 
 of the parliament to some extent it will probably 
 be found that public opinion will be ready as 
 soon as more urgent questions are decided. 
 
 From this time forward Reform was a con- 
 stantly recurring parliamentary question. Mr
 
 1 82 The History of Reform. 
 
 Hume proposed a resolution in favour of house- 
 hold suffrage, triennial parliaments, electoral 
 districts, and the ballot, and did the great service 
 of eliciting from Lord John Russell a repudiation 
 of the opinion which had given him the name 
 of Finality Jack. Lord John denied the people 
 household suffrage, but uttered those significant 
 words in the mouth of a statesman : "The 
 time is at hand, if it has not already come, when 
 some reform must be made in our representative 
 system." The time was at hand, too, when 
 Lord John Russell was to be compelled himself 
 to propose the reform. Hume's motion for a 
 Radical bill was refused year after year ; but in 
 1851, Mr. Locke King's proposal to bring in a 
 bill to assimilate the county to the borough 
 franchise was carried against the Government, 
 and was only defeated on a second reading 
 because the Minister pledged himself to deal 
 with the subject in the following session. 
 
 The Irish parliamentary franchise, it should 
 be here noted, had in 1850 been reduced to 12 
 in the counties and 8 in the boroughs.
 
 Abortive Reform Bills. 183 
 
 With the year 1852 commenced a series of 
 abortive Government Reform Bills. To the last 
 one before the Household Suffrage Act of 1867 
 the main interest attaches, and it will suffice to 
 exhibit the others in the following list : 
 
 1852. Lord John Russell's Bill Proposals: 
 A 20 rating franchise for counties ; 5 rating 
 franchise for boroughs ; a vote to be given to 
 payers of income-tax or assessed taxes to the 
 amount of 40^. a year ; sixty-seven small borough 
 constituencies to be increased by the addition 
 of neighbouring places ; property qualification 
 of members to be abolished ; omission from the 
 oath of the words " on the true faith of a 
 Christian " ; Ministers merely changing one office 
 for another not to be required to vacate their 
 seats. Bill withdrawn on account of ministerial 
 resignation. 
 
 1854. Lord John Russell's Bill Proposals: 
 Votes to be given to 10 householders in 
 counties if rated not lower than ^"5 ; to persons 
 in boroughs rated at 6 ; to persons receiving a 
 salary of 100 annually, otherwise than as
 
 184 The History of Reform, 
 
 weekly wages; to receivers of ^"10 per annum 
 dividend from Funds, Bank stock, or East India 
 Company's stock; to payers of direct taxes to the 
 amount of 40^. Boroughs with fewer than 300 
 electors to be disfranchised, boroughs with fewer 
 than 500 electors to be limited to one represen- 
 tative. Redistribution proposals included the 
 creation of towns with 100,000 inhabitants into 
 three-cornered constituencies, i.e., boroughs with 
 three members, electors having but two votes ; 
 and the enfranchisement of rising towns and 
 London University. Bill withdrawn on account 
 of the Crimean war. 
 
 1859. Mr. Disraeli's Bill Proposals: To 
 extend the county franchise to 10 householders ; 
 to maintain the existing franchise in boroughs, 
 but give votes to fundholders and holders of 
 Bank or East India stock yielding 10 per 
 annum ; to possessors of 60 in the savings 
 bank, to recipients of 20 pensions from the 
 naval, military, or civil services, to occupants of 
 portions of houses rented at 20 ; to graduates, 
 ministers of religion, members of the legal and
 
 Abortive Reform Bills. 185 
 
 medical professions, and certain schoolmasters ; 
 fifteen small boroughs to be deprived of one 
 member each to provide eight additional county 
 members and members to large towns having 
 no representative. Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley 
 retired from the Ministry on account of the 
 proposed assimilation of county and borough 
 franchise. Bill rejected on second reading, an 
 amendment by Lord John Russell condemning 
 the county proposals and demanding an 
 extended suffrage in the boroughs being adopted 
 by 330 to 291. 
 
 1860. Lord John Russell's Bill. Proposals : 
 10 county franchise; 6 borough rental 
 franchise ; twenty-five towns to lose one 
 member ; spare seats to be distributed in large 
 counties, and to Chelsea, Kensington, Birken- 
 head, Stalybridge, Burnley, and London Univer- 
 sity, and as third seats to Liverpool, Manchester, 
 Birmingham, and Leeds. Bill abandoned, the 
 opposition being strong, and Lord Palmerston 
 not anxious to carry it. 
 
 No more Government Reform Bills were heard
 
 1 86 The History of Reform. 
 
 of until 1866, but in the meantime, Mr. Locke 
 King and Mr. Baines kept the topic alive, and 
 it was impossible for any Ministry to allow the 
 question to remain much longer unsettled. 
 Mr. Locke King had the distinction of being the 
 first to accomplish one of the objects of the 
 People's Charter the abolition of the property 
 qualification of members. Mr. King kept 
 bringing forward a bill to reduce the county 
 franchise to the level of that in the towns. 
 Mr. Baines persevered with his Borough Fran- 
 chise Bill, proposing a 6 occupation franchise 
 in boroughs. The only measure of representa- 
 tion Parliament would pass, however, was one 
 assigning four seats which had for some time 
 been at the disposition of the House by reason 
 of the disfranchisement of Sudbury in 1844, and 
 of St. Albans in 1852, for bribery. Two seats 
 were given to the West Riding of Yorkshire, one 
 to South Lancashire, and one to Birkenhead. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone may be said to have made his 
 debut as a Reformer in 1864, when he made in 
 Parliament, on the motion of Mr. Baines, a
 
 Mr. Gladstone. 187 
 
 speech which caused the working classes to look 
 to him for their future enfranchisement. Capable 
 citizenship was even then his view of the title to 
 the franchise. " I venture to say," he said, " that 
 every man who is not presumably incapacitated 
 by some consideration of personal unfitness, or 
 of political danger, is morally entitled to come 
 within the pale of the constitution." It rested 
 with the opponents of Reform, Mr. Gladstone 
 said, to show the necessity for excluding some 
 forty-nine fiftieths of the working classes from 
 the vote. It was not difficult for him to show, 
 what has been made clear in previous chapters 
 of this work, that the working classes had been 
 excluded from the franchise by the operation of 
 the Act of 1832, and he remarked upon the 
 curious anomaly, that while the social condition 
 the education, and the fitness generally of the 
 working classes to exercise the duties of citizen- 
 ship had advanced, their share in the suffrage 
 had, by the gradual dying out of the ancient 
 franchises, declined since the passing of the Act of 
 1832. The splendid behaviour of the Lancashire
 
 1 88 The History of Reform. 
 
 operatives during the time of the cotton famine 
 had greatly impressed the mind of Mr. Gladstone, 
 and he was further predisposed in their favour 
 by the great success of the co-operative move- 
 ment among working men in the north of 
 England. From this date, therefore, when Mr. 
 Gladstone, notwithstanding the anti- Reform 
 tendencies of his chief, Lord Palmerston, and 
 the fact that he was then holding the post of 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, declared in favour 
 of Reform, the working classes felt that they 
 had a friend in the ranks of the Government. 
 They had already a very staunch friend outside 
 the Government. This was Mr. John Bright. 
 
 Mr. Bright had no hesitation about Reform, 
 or the shape it should take. He had no fear of 
 manhood suffrage, and was the idol of its advo- 
 cates. But manhood suffrage was not the 
 scheme he preferred. He took up the original 
 position of Mr. Grey and the opinion of Mr. 
 Fox, and he argued for household suffrage as 
 the project of Reform which it was the most 
 reasonable to adopt. He advocated this mode
 
 Reform Bill of 1866. 189 
 
 of Reform as the most reasonable that could 
 be adopted. He was also a persistent advocate 
 of the ballot, and had a bill prepared, though it 
 never came before Parliament, for carrying into 
 effect both those objects. Both measures he has 
 had the happiness of seeing adopted, but the way 
 in which his plan of household suffrage suddenly 
 became the law of the land was to him and to all 
 others an almost bewildering surprise. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone being leader of the House of 
 Commons in the Ministry of Earl Russell (as 
 Lord John Russell had now become) introduced 
 a Reform Bill on the I2th March, 1866. It was 
 preceded by a curious measure brought in by 
 Mr. Clay, the member for Hull, who proposed 
 to base the claim to the franchise on an educa- 
 tional qualification. Any man who passed an 
 examination in reading, writing, spelling, and the 
 four rules of arithmetic by the Civil Service Com- 
 missioners, was to receive a certificate entitling 
 him to vote. It need hardly be said that this 
 bill was withdrawn. Mr. Gladstone's Reform 
 Bill was a moderate one, designed apparently to
 
 1 90 The History of Reform. 
 
 conciliate opposition. Mr. Bright, though his 
 opinions were in favour of a measure more 
 advanced, afterwards characterised it as a mea- 
 sure of " a singular and most honest simplicity." 
 The county franchise proposed was a 14. 
 occupation franchise, the occupation being an 
 occupation of house and land. The bill con- 
 templated a 7 borough franchise. The com- 
 pound householder in the boroughs was to be 
 put on the ratebook and so be entitled to the vote, 
 and tenants of portions of a house, or lodgers 
 paying 10 clear yearly value, were to be en- 
 franchised. Mr. Gladstone's calculation was 
 that the bill would admit to the franchise 
 400,000 new voters. The Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer (that was then Mr. Gladstone's office) 
 excused the Government for not proposing a 
 lower franchise by the plea that it was not well 
 on general grounds of political prudence to 
 make changes of too sudden and extensive a 
 character in the depositaries of power. The 
 strongest opposition to the introduction of this 
 measure came from Mr. Lowe and Mr. Hors-
 
 The Adnllamites. 191 
 
 man, both on the Liberal side, whom Mr. Bright 
 humorously described as forming a party of 
 two, but a party comparable to a Scotch terrier, 
 whose head could not be distinguished from the 
 tail. The party, however, was destined to grow 
 larger, and the name by which its adherents 
 were distinguished was derived from another 
 sally of Mr, Bright's humour. Mr. Horsman 
 was described as the first of the new party, who 
 had expressed his great grief, who had retired 
 into his political Cave of Adullam, and who had 
 called about him every one that was in distress, 
 and every one that was discontented. Hencefor- 
 ward the Whig opponents of the bill were known 
 as Adullamites, and there was an unexpected 
 rush of members to the " Cave." Earl Gros- 
 venor specially embarrassed the Government by 
 bringing forward an amendment to the second 
 reading, designed to force the Government to 
 bring forward their whole Reform scheme 
 namely, their Scotch and Irish bills, and their 
 plan of redistribution before proceeding with 
 the franchise bill. The debates were marked by
 
 1 92 The History of Reform. 
 
 much brilliant speaking, and by a great dread 
 on the part both of Whigs and Tories of the en- 
 franchisement of great numbers of the people, 
 and Mr. Gladstone was strongly advised, notwith- 
 standing a declaration made by him in the coun- 
 try, that he had crossed the Rubicon, burnt his 
 boats, and broken down his bridges, to rebuild his 
 boats and bridges and recross the river. From the 
 adoption of the Government measure, Mr. Disraeli 
 predicted successive extensions of the franchise, 
 and a cessation of all command over the execu- 
 tive. He said, that though he was convinced that 
 it was the opinion of the thoughtful portion of 
 the community that the choicest members of the 
 working classes should form a part, and no unim- 
 portant part, of the estate of the Commons, they 
 recoiled from attaining that result by an undis- 
 tinguishing reduction of the franchise. He wished 
 to avert the calamities which must ensue from the 
 establishment of our institutions upon American 
 institutions. Mr. Gladstone, in his reply, ridiculed 
 the notion that a proposal to add to the con- 
 stituencies 200,000 of the lower middle classes,
 
 Redistribution. 193 
 
 and about the same number of the working 
 classes, was a reconstruction of the Constitution 
 upon American principles ; but he only carried 
 the second reading of his bill by five votes in a 
 remarkably full House of 63 1 members. Such 
 a small majority left no chance of carrying 
 the measure, unless by concession to the Oppo- 
 sition. Mr. Gladstone had already agreed to 
 show the Government intentions, by placing the 
 other bills on the table after the second reading. 
 He had now to agree to commit the franchise 
 and redistribution * bills to one Committee, with 
 
 * The redistribution proposals were as follow : I. To 
 withdraw one member from every borough having a popu- 
 lation under 8,000. 2. To group boroughs so as to give 
 them one or two members according as their population 
 was under or over 15,000. The groups were to be 
 
 Woodstock, Abingdon, and Wallingford. 
 
 Liskeard, Bodmin, and Launceston. 
 
 Totnes, Ashburton, and Dartmouth. 
 
 Bridport, Honiton, and Lyme. 
 
 Wareham and Dorchester. 
 
 Harwich and Maldon. 
 
 Evesham, Tewkesbury, and Cirencestef, 
 
 Leamington and Andover. 
 
 Leominster and Ludlow. 
 
 o
 
 1 94 The History of Reform. 
 
 a view to their amalgamation, and he had to 
 accept defeat on a motion by Sir R. Knightley, 
 
 Eye and Thetford. 
 
 Arundel, Horsham, Midhurst, and Petersfield. 
 
 Calne, Chippenham, and Malmesbury. 
 
 Wells and Westbury. 
 
 Marlborough and Devizes. 
 
 Thirsk, Ripon, and Knaresborough. 
 
 Northallerton and Richmond. 
 
 3. Twenty-six seats were to be given to English counties. 
 
 A third member was allotted to Liverpool, Manchester, 
 Birmingham, and Leeds, as towns with a population of 
 over 200,000 ; and a second member to Salford. Tower 
 Hamlets was to be divided into two sections, each re- 
 turning two members. Chelsea and Kensington were 
 to be united and to return two members j and one member 
 was to be given to each unrepresented borough having a 
 population exceeding 18,000. London University was to 
 have one member. Seven seats were to be given to Scot- 
 land, so as to give an additional member to Ayr, Lanark, 
 and Aberdeen. A third member was offered to Glasgow, 
 a third to Edinburgh, a second to Dundee, and one to the 
 Scotch Universities. In Scotland the voting qualifica- 
 tion was to be the same as in England, excepting as 
 regarded the property qualification, which, however, was 
 reduced to ,5. In Ireland it was proposed to join 
 Bandon with Kinsale, Portarlington with Athlone, and 
 Dungarvan with Enniskillen ; to provide a member for
 
 Defeat of the Government. 195 
 
 instructing the Committee to combine with the 
 bill provision for the better prevention of bribery 
 and corruption. The Government successfully 
 resisted a proposal by Lord Stanley to postpone 
 the consideration of their franchise clauses until 
 after their redistribution bill, and also defeated 
 by 297 to 283 a motion by Mr. Walpole to sub- 
 stitute a 20 occupation franchise for a 14 
 franchise in counties, and another by Mr. Ward 
 Hunt proposing to substitute rating for rental. 
 A concession was exacted from Mr. Gladstone 
 in regard to the county occupation, which he 
 agreed need not comprise a house if some 
 security were devised against the multiplication 
 of joint tenancies. This concession greatly 
 dissatisfied his own supporters. 
 
 At last after weary righting the bill was finally 
 upset by one of the " Cave " men, Lord 
 Dunkellin, who on the i8th of June, proposed to 
 substitute a 6 rating franchise for a 7 rental. 
 
 Dublin city, for Cork county, and for Queen's Univer- 
 sity. Other constituencies were to be enlarged by union 
 with other places. 
 
 o 2
 
 196 The History of Reform. 
 
 The argument adduced in favour of this 
 alteration was that a rating clause would prevent 
 a descent to universal suffrage. Its effect how- 
 ever was regarded as practically raising the 
 borough franchise to g, and aiming at the ex- 
 clusion of working classes. The numbers, for 
 the amendment 315, as against 304 in its favour, 
 decided the fate of the Ministry. The bill was 
 killed by the combination of Tory and Whig 
 against it. Lord John Russell resigned, and 
 Lord Derby was called to office. 
 
 What happened under the next administra- 
 tion has given a special interest to the speeches 
 made by the new Ministers to their con- 
 stituents. Mr. Disraeli intimated that the new 
 Ministry would not, when they dealt with the 
 subject of Reform, attempt to remodel the 
 institutions of this country upon any foreign 
 type whatever American or French. He com- 
 plained that it was impossible to understand 
 whether the measure of the last Ministry was 
 founded on the rights of man, or the rights of 
 numbers. His views did not recognise that the
 
 Lord Derby and Reform* 197 
 
 rights of man should prevail in our legislature, 
 or that a numerical majority should dictate to 
 an ancient nation of various political orders and 
 classes. What his Government wished to see 
 was that the electoral power should be deposited 
 with the best men of all classes, and that was 
 the principle on which, if called upon, they 
 would propose to legislate. Lord Stanley 
 described Mr. Gladstone's measure as having 
 gone further, as regarded the franchise, than the 
 majority of the House of Commons was prepared 
 to follow. In Parliament, Lord Derby professed 
 a willingness to see a large increase in the 
 number of electors, but feared that the portion 
 of the community who were most clamorous for 
 a Reform Bill, were not those who would be 
 satisfied with any measure that was likely to be 
 concurred in by the two great political parties. 
 There was certainly nothing reassuring to the 
 Reformers in these declarations. 
 
 Now arose a great public agitation, recalling, 
 in regard to the numbers that took part in it, the 
 great demonstrations in 18312. The answer
 
 198 The History of Reform. 
 
 of the populace to the ministerial declarations 
 was a flat demand for "residential and registered 
 manhood suffrage and the ballot." Much 
 dissatisfaction was felt at the course taken by 
 Earl Russell's Cabinet in resigning instead of 
 appealing to the country, but a great crowd, 
 which at Trafalgar Square had censured the late 
 Ministers for this action, indicated their belief in 
 Mr. Gladstone's friendship for Reform by pro- 
 ceeding to his house and cheering him lustily. 
 The excitement of the Reformers was increased 
 by the attempt of the police, under instructions 
 from the Government, to prevent the Reform 
 League using Hyde Park for the purpose of 
 political demonstrations. A great procession, 
 Mr. Beales at its head, was nevertheless 
 organised, and the demand for admission to the 
 park was made. The promoters of the demon- 
 stration, in accordance with a previously arranged 
 plan, led the procession away towards Trafalgar 
 Square, but the enormous crowd which had 
 gathered at the park threw down the railings, 
 both in Bayswater Road, and in Park Lane.
 
 Demand for Manhood Suffrage. 199 
 
 Nearly every great town had its monster Reform 
 demonstration in this recess, and at all these 
 great meetings the cry from the working classes 
 was for manhood suffrage and the ballot. Mr. 
 Lowe, who had animadverted strongly on the 
 vices of the working classes, was the object of 
 special odium, while Mr. Bright was feted in 
 every town to which he cared to accept an 
 invitation. 
 
 In this state of affairs, the Government could 
 not afford to let Reform alone, but much amuse- 
 ment was created in Parliament when Mr. 
 Disraeli announced that this question, on which 
 their predecessors had been turned out, ought no 
 longer to be a question which should determine 
 the fate of Cabinets. He insisted on first pro- 
 ceeding by way of resolutions, and these resolu- 
 lutions, while in favour of an increased electorate, 
 and more direct representation to the labouring 
 class, declared it contrary to the Constitution to 
 give any one class or interest a predominating 
 power over the rest of the community. The 
 resolutions further pointed to a settlement of
 
 2OO The History of Reform. 
 
 the franchise on the principle of rating, to dual 
 voting, the use of voting papers, and the 
 enlargement of borough boundaries. The 
 opinion of Parliament being strongly urged in 
 favour of procedure by bill, a measure was 
 promised, but the Houses and the country were 
 soon greatly surprised to learn that the attempt 
 of the Conservative Government to formulate 
 their proposals in legislative shape had resulted 
 in the secession from the Cabinet of three of its 
 prominent members, the Earl of Carnavon, Colo- 
 nial Secretary, Viscount Cranbourne (the pre- 
 sent Marquis of Salisbury), Indian Secretary, and 
 General Peel, Secretary for War. The majority 
 of the Government had in fact determined on 
 household suffrage in boroughs, hoping to guard 
 against its effects by the provisions for plurality 
 of voting. The three members of the Cabinet 
 who had retired had no faith in the safeguards 
 or compensations. Their want of faith was 
 amply justified by the result. Not one of the 
 safeguards was retained. To every important 
 attack the Ministry yielded, and what was called
 
 Conservative Surrender. 201 
 
 the Conservative surrender on the question of 
 Reform was complete, while those who, like Mr. 
 Lowe, had helped to throw out the late Govern- 
 ment were astounded at the acts of those whom 
 they had admitted to power. The changes made 
 in the bill were described by Mr. Gladstone as 
 necessary on the second reading, but no one ever 
 dreamt that every demand thus formulated by 
 the leader of an Opposition, would be complied 
 with. The original provisions of the bill and its 
 provisions as it received the Royal assent are 
 shown below : 
 
 ORIGINAL BILL. BILL AS PASSED. 
 
 Household franchise in Household franchise, con- 
 boroughs, conditional on ditional as one year's resi- 
 tivo years' residence and dence, compound house- 
 personal payment of rates, holder abolished, the occu- 
 pier alone being rated. 
 
 ^15 franchise in coun- ^12 franchise in counties, 
 ties. 
 
 Educational franchise for No educational franchise, 
 graduates or associates in 
 arts of any university of the 
 United Kingdom, for those 
 who passed senior middle
 
 2O2 The History of Reform. 
 
 ORIGINAL BILL. 
 
 class examinations, for 
 clergymen, professional 
 men, and schoolmasters. 
 
 A pecuniary franchise for 
 savings bank depositors with 
 balance of ^50, fund-holders 
 of like amount, and direct 
 tax-payers to the amount 
 of 1 per annum. 
 
 Dual voting a provision 
 entitling the holder of the 
 pecuniary franchise to vote 
 for the same borough, in 
 respect of any franchise 
 involving occupation of pre- 
 mises and payment of rates. 
 
 Voting papers. 
 
 No lodger franchise. 
 
 No cumulative vote or 
 three - cornered constituen- 
 cies, these being declared 
 by Mr. Disraeli as erroneous 
 in principle and pernicious 
 in practice. 
 
 Twenty - three towns 
 under 7,000 in population 
 to be deprived of one 
 member, and Totness, 
 Reigate, Great Yarmouth, 
 
 BILL AS PASSED. 
 
 No pecuniary franchise. 
 
 No dual voting. 
 
 No voting papers. 
 A;io lodger franchise. 
 Four three-cornered con- 
 stituencies. 
 
 Thirty-five towns below 
 10,000 in population de- 
 prived of one member. 
 Eleven boroughs ultimately 
 disfranchised.
 
 The Tea Room Party. 203 
 
 ORIGINAL BILL. BILL AS PASSED. 
 
 and Lancaster, convicted 
 of corrupt practices, to be 
 disfranchised. 
 
 Fourteen of the new seats Eighteen of the new 
 to be given to boroughs, sea ts to boroughs, 25 to 
 15 to counties, and one to counties, and I to London 
 London University. University, i seat being 
 
 afterwards given to Wales, 
 and 7 to Scotland. 
 
 No third members to Third members given to 
 Manchester, Liverpool, Bir- Manchester, Liverpool, Bir- 
 mingham, and Leeds. mingham, and Leeds. 
 
 Among these alterations those creating the 
 three-cornered constituencies are due to the 
 House of Lords. In the House of Commons the 
 fiercest battle raged over the compound house- 
 holder, and by the aid of a defection in the 
 Liberal ranks of a number of gentlemen who 
 became known as the Tea Room party Mr. 
 Gladstone's opposition to the bill was for a time 
 hampered. The acceptance by Mr. Disraeli 
 later in the session of Mr. Hodgkinson's amend- 
 ment abolishing the compound householder 
 greatly astounded everybody. The fancy fran-
 
 204 The History of Reform, 
 
 chises, as Mr. Bright and Mr. Lowe called them, 
 were abandoned in the face of the firm opposition 
 offered them. The change of the period of 
 residence from two years to one was effected on 
 a motion by Mr. Ayrton. A crisis was supposed 
 to have occurred at this stage, as Mr. Disraeli 
 refused to proceed with the bill, until he had con- 
 sulted his colleagues, but the next night the de- 
 cision of the House was accepted, and. the bill 
 went rapidly forward, Liberals joining heartily 
 in the work of amending the measure -to suit their 
 views. Mr. Disraeli conceded to a Liverpool 
 member, Mr. Horsfall, what he had refused to 
 Mr. Laing and Mr. Gladstone a third member 
 to Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham ; he 
 voluntarily added Leeds. It was this last 
 concession that provoked from General Peel the 
 caustic remark that he should now conclude that 
 there was " nothing with less vitality than a vital 
 point, nothing so insecure as the securities that 
 the bill offered, and nothing so elastic as the 
 conscience of a Cabinet Minister." The feelings 
 with which Tories like Lord Cranbourne re-
 
 "A Leap in the Dark" 205 
 
 garded this remarkable work of a Conservative 
 Government was indicated in his bitter speech on 
 the third reading, in which he complained of a 
 policy of legerdemain and a political betrayal 
 which had no parallel in our parliamentary 
 annals, and struck at the root of that mutual con- 
 fidence which was the soul of our party govern- 
 ment, and on which only the strength and free- 
 dom of our representative institutions could be 
 sustained. In the House of Lords the Earl of 
 Derby confessed that he had taken " a leap in the 
 dark," and Earl Granville told how in the town 
 the story was current that the Ministry had 
 " dished the Whigs." But the country had 
 gained a Household Suffrage Act. 
 
 In Scotland, by an Act passed in 1868, the 
 franchise in boroughs was fixed on the same 
 terms as in England, and in counties the 
 occupation tenure was fixed at 14 or upwards 
 as appearing on the valuation rolls of the 
 county. It was by the total disfranchisement 
 of certain English boroughs that the seven new 
 members were given to Scotland.
 
 206 The History of Reform. 
 
 By the Irish Act passed in the same year, no 
 new seats were given to Ireland and the 
 franchise was reduced to 4 only in boroughs. 
 
 RESULTS OF REFORM ACTS OF 1867-8. 
 
 Eleven English Boroughs disfranchised. Arundel, Ash- 
 burton, Dartmouth, Honiton, Lancaster, Lyme Regis, 
 Reigate, Thetford, Totness, Yarmouth, and Wells. 
 
 Tliirty-five English Boroughs deprived of one Member. 
 Evesham, Maryborough, Harwich, Richmond, Lyming- 
 ton, Chippenham, Bridport, Stamford, Wycombe, Poole^, 
 Knaresborough, Andover, Leominster, Tewkesbury, Lud- 
 lowj Ripon, Huntingdon, Maldon, Buckingham, Newport, 
 Malton, Tavistock, Lewes, Cirencester, Bodmin, Great 
 Marlow, Devizes, Hertford, Dorchester, Lichfield, Cocker- 
 mouth, Bridgnorth, Guildford, Chichester, and Windsor. 
 
 One new Borough with two Members. Chelsea, in- 
 cluding Fulham, Hammersmith, and Kensington. 
 
 One old Borough divided, each division to be a new 
 Borough 'with two Members. Tower Hamlets, divided 
 into Tower Hamlets and Hackney. 
 
 Nine new Boroughs with one Member. Darlington, 
 The Hartlepools, Stockton, Barnsley, Staleybridge, Wed- 
 nesbury, Middlesborough, Devvsbury, and Gravesend.
 
 Results of the Acts. 207 
 
 Thirteen new Divisions of Counties returning two 
 Members. Mid Cheshire, East Derbyshire, East Devon- 
 shire, North East Essex, Mid Kent, North East Lanca- 
 shire, South East Lancashire, Mid Lincolnshire, South 
 East Norfolk, Mid Somerset, East Stafford, Mid Surrey, 
 and South West Riding. 
 
 Two Scotch Boroughs gaining an extra Member. 
 Glasgow (a third), Dundee (a second). 
 
 Scotch Counties united losing one Member. Selkirk 
 and Peebles. 
 
 New Scotch Borough District. The Border Burghs. 
 
 Three Scotch Counties gaining extra Members. 
 Lanark, Ayr, and Aberdeen. 
 
 Enfranchised Universities. London, Edinburgh with 
 St. Andrews, Glasgow with Aberdeen.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S REFORM BILL. 
 
 THE passing of the Household Suffrage Bills 
 of 1867-8 was followed, after the lapse of a few 
 years, by the realisation of one more point of the 
 Charter. The Ballot Bill, after being rejected 
 by the Lords in 1871, was passed in 1872, with a 
 clause requiring its renewal after a trial of eight 
 years. This measure has not yet been made 
 perpetual, but its renewal from year to year has 
 not been seriously resisted. 
 
 The passing of a drastic Corrupt Practices Act 
 contributes one most essential Reform the 
 guarding of the vote for a member of Parliament 
 from undue influence. At the present moment 
 two Reforms are called for the assimilation of 
 the county and borough franchise, and the redis- 
 tribution of seats. The anomalies appealed to
 
 Electoral Anomalies. 209 
 
 by those who demand these reforms are very 
 striking and have naturally been made more pro- 
 minent by the lowering of the borough franchise. 
 It has been pointed out* that 151 towns 
 and places, having over ten thousand inhabitants 
 are virtually disfranchised, while Portarlington 
 with 147 registered voters and not more than 
 2,000 inhabitants, can send a representative to St. 
 Stephens ; that the twenty-three smallest boroughs 
 return forty-five members with 28,000 votes, a 
 number which in Edinburgh can return but two 
 members, while it takes three quarters of a 
 million votes in nineteen constituencies to return 
 a similar number of members : and that 33,000 
 electors in the counties return nineteen members, 
 while Middlesex with the same number of 
 electors returns only two. Ample materials for 
 comparisons of this kind have lately been 
 furnished in a parliamentary return moved for 
 by Mr. Arthur Arnold, giving complete electoral 
 
 * In " The Assimilation of the Borough and County 
 Franchises," a lecture delivered to the Haslemere Liberal 
 Association, by Edmund Routledge.
 
 2 1 o The History of Reform. 
 
 statistics for the counties and boroughs of the 
 United Kingdom. It appears from these 
 statistics that the following is the present state 
 of the electorate : 
 
 
 England 
 and Wales. 
 
 Scotland. 
 
 | 
 Ireland. f| Total. 
 
 |l 
 
 Borough voters ... 
 County voters . . . 
 
 1,651,732 
 966,721 
 
 210,789 
 99,652 
 
 58,021 
 165,997 
 
 ,1,920,542 
 I>232,370 
 
 Total 
 
 2,6l8,453 
 
 310,441 224,018 
 
 3,152,912 
 
 
 Four boroughs Beverley, Bridgewater, Sligo, 
 and Cashel have been disfranchised since the 
 last Reform Act, and the total number of 
 members is now 651, though at the present 
 moment the membership is temporarily reduced 
 by the suspension of the writ in the case of a 
 number of boroughs in which corrupt practices 
 prevailed at the last election. Deducting from 
 651 eight university, members, the remaining 
 643 are distributed thus : 
 
 484 to England and Wales, representing an
 
 Redistribution. 211 
 
 area of 58,260 square miles, a population of 
 25,974,439, and 4,831,519 inhabited houses. 
 
 58 to Scotland, representing an area of 29,820 
 square miles, a population of 3,728,124, and 
 739,005 inhabited houses. 
 
 101 to Ireland, representing an area of 32,541 
 square miles, a population of 5,174,836, and 
 914,108 inhabited houses. 
 
 Upon the above figures calculations are 
 already being made with reference to the coming 
 redistribution of seats ; but it may be remarked 
 that these are not exactly the bases upon which 
 such calculations have previously been made. 
 Lord Castlereagh calculated the number of 
 members to which he thought Ireland entitled, 
 upon a comparison into which there entered the 
 relative population, imports, exports and revenue 
 of the two countries. Having calculated the 
 proportion of members to which Ireland would 
 be entitled upon each basis separately, he added 
 the totals, and, dividing the amount by the 
 number of his bases, arrived at his average. 
 It was afterwards pointed out that there had 
 
 p 2
 
 212 The History of Reform, 
 
 been errors in his calculations to the disadvan- 
 tage of Ireland, and in 1832 the Irish members 
 maintained that upon Lord Castlereagh's data 
 they would be entitled to 178 members. The 
 Irish members in 1832 also protested against any 
 comparison with Scotland and England sepa- 
 rately, maintaining that in any redistribution 
 their claims should be considered, as they were 
 at the Union, in relation to the total number of 
 members for Great Britain. 
 
 The need for assimiliation of the county and 
 borough franchise and redistribution has been 
 admitted by Liberals at all events in the dis- 
 cussion of motions periodically raised by Mr. 
 Trevelyan ; and the government of which he 
 is now a member, came into power pledged to 
 deal with these questions. To this task the 
 Government has now set its hand. 
 
 The Representation of the People Bill, ex- 
 plained by Mr. Gladstone on the 28th of February, 
 proposes to add to the number of electors in the 
 United Kingdom nearly two million voters the 
 largest admission to the franchise ever made in
 
 Jtie Service Franchise. 213 
 
 this kingdom. " The enfranchisement of capable 
 citizens," Mr. Gladstone has said, " be they few 
 or be they many and if they be many so much 
 the better is an addition to the strength of the 
 state." * A novelty In Mr. Gladstone's proposals 
 is the service franchise, by which he proposes to 
 include in the extended household franchise all 
 those responsible householders who are neither 
 owners nor tenants, but who hold their houses as 
 one of the conditions of their service. " The 
 service franchise," Mr. Gladstone says, " is a far- 
 reaching one : ft goes to men of high class, who 
 inhabit valuable houses as the officers of great 
 institutions, and it descends to the humble 
 classes, who are the servants of the gentry, the 
 servants of the farmer, or the servants of some 
 other employers of labour, who are neither 
 owners nor tenants, and who in many cases 
 cannot be held as tenants in consequence of the 
 essential condition intended to be realised 
 through their labour, and who fully fulfil the posi- 
 
 * See extracts from Mr. Gladstone's speeches In 
 Appendix.
 
 214 The History of Reform. 
 
 tion of responsible inhabitant householders." Mr. 
 Gladstone has stated his other proposals thus : 
 " In the future borough franchise, if our pro- 
 posals be adopted, there will be a fourfold occu- 
 pation or householding franchise, namely, there 
 will be the old clear yearly value franchise of the 
 Act of 1832,* there will be the lodger franchise 
 of the Act of 1867, there will be the service 
 franchise of the Act, as I trust, of 1884, and there 
 will be, what will be the most important of all, 
 the household franchise proposed in 1867, and 
 developed from its original narrow and stunted 
 proportions, partly by the votes of this House 
 and partly by subsequent Acts of Parliaments, 
 into what it is namely, the principal franchise 
 of the cities and towns of the country. . . . With 
 the county franchise we propose to proceed as 
 
 * Of this franchise, Mr. Gladstone said : " For reasons 
 which are partly of principle and partly with a view 
 to unity, we extend the ^10 clear yearly value franchise 
 to cases where the occupation is of land without houses or 
 buildings. At present it may be for houses or buildings 
 alone, or houses or buildings with land. We extend it 
 to land alone without buildings,"
 
 Union of the Kingdoms. 215 
 
 follows we propose to abolish the 50 franchise 
 which I shall call for convenience sake the 50 
 rental franchise. We propose to abolish it, be- 
 cause two categories of franchise where only 
 one is necessary are highly inconvenient in 
 the rate-books and registration, and because 
 we believe it is hardly possible that there will be 
 any men entitled to this 50 rental franchise 
 who will not come within the county franchise as 
 we propose it in this bill. We propose to reduce 
 the figure of the rated franchise of 1867 from 
 12 rateable value to^io clear annual value. 
 The household, the lodger, and the service fran- 
 chise we propose to import into the counties 
 precisely as they are now. We maintain the 
 property franchise in principle, but we propose 
 provisions which are brought forward in order to 
 secure it against the abuses which are known in 
 many parts of the country, and which, in some 
 portions of the country, are grievous and 
 menacing. The purpose of this bill, and I may 
 say that the fundamental part of the struc- 
 ture of this bill, is in the direction and with the
 
 2 1 6 The History of Reform. 
 
 intention of bringing about a union of the three 
 kingdoms in one nation, and essentially, so far 
 as we can without undue complexity achieve 
 it, not only in one measure, but irj one and the 
 same measure." 
 
 Genuine property franchises are thus left un- 
 touched by Mr. Gladstone's bill, but precautions 
 are taken against the manufacture of fictitious 
 qualifications hitherto known as faggot votes. 
 Warned by the experience of 1866, Mr. Gladstone 
 has declined, with the sanction of all his suppor- 
 ters, to burden his bill with redistribution clauses.* 
 The question of rearrangement of seats is left for 
 the subsequent consideration of Parliament. In 
 the meantime, that question has, however, 
 attracted more attention from opponents than 
 even the provisions of the Franchise Bill itself, 
 which indeed has not yet encountered direct 
 opposition. The questions of the enfranchise- 
 ment of women and proportional representa- 
 tion promise to take an important place in the 
 
 * See Mr. Gladstone's remarks on Redistribution and 
 on the Irish Representation in Appendix.
 
 A Fair Chance for Minorities. 217 
 
 new discussions of Reform. The advocates of 
 proportional representation have to struggle 
 against a difficulty in convincing people that any 
 satisfactory plan has been, or can be, devised for 
 securing that the Parliament shall be an abso- 
 lutely true mirror of the various currents of 
 opinion in the country, or that if such a plan could 
 be produced, it would be desirable to adopt it in 
 days when minorities have no difficulty in getting 
 a fair hearing for their views out of Parliament, 
 among the electors, and when they are somewhat 
 apt to prove obstructive when in. Sooner or later 
 the conclusion is likely to be arrived at, that the 
 best guarantee for securing an adequate repre- 
 sentation of popular opinion in Parliament, and 
 yet giving a fair chance to minorities, is to be 
 found in the maintenance of the old-fashioned 
 system of election, combined with a reversion to 
 the constitutional plan of frequent Parliaments. 
 With shorter Parliaments the need of minority 
 representation would cease to be felt. Contro- 
 versy on the Irish representation is threatened, 
 owing to the resolve of the Cabinet to mete out
 
 2 1 8 The History of Reform. 
 
 to that country a full measure of justice, with per- 
 haps some compensation for past ungenerous 
 treatment ; but the sketch of the History of 
 Reform attempted in these pages does not reveal 
 any ground of encouragement for those who in- 
 cline to snatch away a once-proffered concession 
 in the direction of an amended representation of 
 the people. Neither does it, nor could any his- 
 torical narrative of wider scope, afford reason for 
 gloom at the prospect of a Reform freely, granted. 
 Whatever may have in the future to be written 
 of the Reform Bill of 1884, its initial successes 
 have never been excelled by any of its pre- 
 decessors ; and no measure could show better 
 promise than one which has carried with it 
 through its second reading the sanction of a 
 united Liberal party, and which must bear 
 throughout its progress the prestige conferred 
 upon it by the magnificent majority of 130.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Extracts from the Speech of Mr. Gladstone in 
 introducing tJie Representation of tlie People 
 Bill, 1884. 
 
 THE "CAPABLE CITIZEN." 
 
 I am not prepared to discuss an admission to the 
 franchise as it was discussed fifty years ago, when Lord 
 Russell had to state with almost bated breath that he 
 expected to add in the three kingdoms half a million to 
 the constituencies. It is not now a question of nicely 
 calculated less or more. I take my stand on the broad 
 principle that the enfranchisement of capable citizens, be 
 they few or be they many and if they be many so much 
 the better gives an addition of strength to the State. 
 The strength of the modern State lies in the represen- 
 tative system. I rejoice to think that in this happy 
 country and under this happy Constitution we have other 
 sources of strength in the respect paid to various orders 
 of the State, and in the authority they enjoy, and in the 
 unbroken course which has been allowed to most of our 
 national traditions ; but still in the main it is the repre- 
 sentative system which is the strength of the modern 
 State in general, and of the State in this country in par- 
 ticular. Sir, I may say it is an illustration which won't 
 occupy more than a moment that never has this great 
 truth been so vividly illustrated as in the war of the 
 American Republic. The convulsion of that country
 
 22O Appendix. 
 
 between 1861 and 1865 was perhaps the most frightful 
 which ever assailed a national existence. The efforts 
 which were made on both sides were marked. The 
 exertions by which alone the movement was put down 
 were not only extraordinary ; they were what would ante- 
 cedently have been called impossible, and they were only 
 rendered possible by the fact that they proceeded from 
 a nation where every capable citizen was enfranchised 
 and had a direct and an energetic interest in the well- 
 being and the unity of the State. Sir, the only question 
 that remains in the general argument is, who are the 
 capable citizens ? and, fortunately, that is a question 
 which, on the present occasion, need not be argued at 
 length, for it has been already settled in the first place 
 by a solemn legislative judgment acquiesced in by both 
 parties in the State, and in the second place by the 
 experience of the last more than fifteen years. Who, 
 Sir, are the capable citizens of the State? Whom 
 it is proposed to enfranchise? It is proposed in 
 the main to enfranchise the county population on 
 the footing, and according to the measure, that has 
 already been administered to the population of the 
 towns. What are the main constituents of the county 
 population ? First of all, they are the minor trades- 
 men of the country, and the skilled labourers and 
 artisans in all the common arts of life, and especially in 
 connection with our great mining industry. Is there any 
 doubt that these are capable citizens ? You (the Opposi- 
 tion) have yourselves asserted it by enfranchising them in 
 the towns, and we can only say that we heartily subscribe 
 to the assertion. But besides the artisans and the small 
 tradesmen scattered throughout our rural towns we have 
 also to deal with the peasantry of this country. Is there 
 any doubt that the peasantry of the country are capable
 
 Appendix. 2 2 1 
 
 citizens, qualified for enfranchisement, qualified to make 
 good use of their power as voters ? Again, this is a 
 question which has been solved for us by the first and 
 second Reform Bills, because many of the constituencies 
 which under the name of towns are now represented in 
 this House are really rural communities, based upon a 
 peasant constituency, and for my part I should be quite 
 ready to fight the battle of the peasant upon general and 
 argumentative grounds. I believe the peasant generally 
 to be, not in the highest sense, but in a very real sense a 
 skilled labourer. He is not a man tied down to one 
 mechanical exercise of his physical powers. He is a 
 man who must do many things requiring the exercise 
 of active intelligence. But as I say, it is not necessary 
 to argue on that ground, first of all because we have 
 got his friends here (Ministerial laughter, as Mr. 
 Gladstone indicated the Opposition) from whom we 
 must anticipate great zeal for his enfranchisement ; 
 and secondly, because the question has been settled 
 by legislative authority in the towns, and by a long 
 practical experience. If he has a defect it is that 
 he is too ready, perhaps, to work with and to accept the 
 influence of his superiors superiors, I mean, in worldly 
 station. But that is the last defect that you (the Opposi- 
 tion) will be disposed to plead against him, and it is a de- 
 fect that we do not feel ourselves entitled to plead, and 
 that we are not at all inclined to plead. We are ready to 
 take him as he is, and joyfully bring him within the reach 
 of this last and highest privilege of the Constitution. 
 There is only one other word, Sir, to add on this part of 
 the subject. The present position of the franchise is one 
 of greater and grosser anomaly than any in which it has 
 been heretofore placed, because the exclusion of persons 
 of the same class and the same description is more
 
 222 Appendix, 
 
 palpable and more pervading than before, being, in fact, 
 spread over the whole country, and persons being 
 excluded in one place while the same persons have been 
 admitted in another. I wish just to call the attention of 
 the House to an important fact connected with this part 
 of the question, and it is the frequent occurrence of that 
 which the House detests, and which we in this Bill shall 
 endeavour to avoid namely, the infliction of personal 
 disfranchisement. Observe how the present state of 
 the franchise law brings this about. It is known and 
 well understood that a labourer must follow his labour. 
 Where his labour goes, where the works go in which he 
 is employed, he must follow. He cannot remain at a 
 great distance from them ; and the instance I will give 
 and though I am not personally conversant with it I 
 believe there is no doubt about the fact is an instance 
 publicly mentioned to me, and I think singularly appli- 
 cable. It is that of the ship- building works on the Clyde. 
 Those works were within the precincts of the city of 
 Glasgow, and the persons who laboured in them were able 
 to remain within the city, being near their work, and at 
 the same time to enjoy the franchise. But the marvellous 
 enterprise of Glasgow, which has made that city the 
 centre and crown of the ship-building business of the 
 world, could not be confined within the limits of the city 
 of Glasgow, and by compulsion of necessity moved down 
 the river. As the trade moved down the river the artisans 
 required to move down the river with it. That was a 
 matter of necessity, and the obedience to that necessity 
 under the present franchise involves wholesale dis- 
 franchisement. That is an argument which is sufficient 
 for disposing of the general question. The whole popu- 
 lation, I rejoice to think, have liberty of speech, they have 
 liberty of writing, they have liberty of meeting in public,
 
 Appendix. 223 
 
 they have liberty of private association, they have liberty 
 of petitioning Parliament. And these privileges are not 
 privileges taken away from us, diminishing our power and 
 security. They are all of them privileges on the existence 
 of which our security depends. Without them we could not 
 be secure. I ask you to confer upon the very same classes 
 the crowning privilege of voting for a representative in 
 Parliament, and then I say we who are strong now as a 
 nation and a State shall by virtue of that change be 
 stronger still. 
 
 REDISTRIBUTION. 
 
 WE are determined, as far as depends upon us, not to 
 deck-load our Franchise Bill. (Cheers.) We consider 
 that we have filled the hold with a good and sufficient 
 cargo, but the deck-loading of it would be a preliminary 
 to its foundering ; and were we with that impression 
 nay, not merely impression, but with that conviction 
 and knowledge to encumber our Bill with unnecessary 
 weight, we should be traitors to the cause which we 
 profess to have taken in hand, and we therefore will have 
 nothing to do with giving encouragement to such a policy. 
 ... A fortiori, in our opinion it would be absurd for 
 us to attempt to deal in the same measure with what is 
 termed redistribution ... I admit that legislation on 
 redistribution ought to follow legislation on the franchise 
 at an early date at the earliest date and the earliest 
 date will be next session ; and it is for that reason that we 
 have brought forward the Franchise Bill of 1884, in order 
 that within the natural life of the present Parliament 
 there maybe plenty of time to deal with the question . . . 
 I have not the least objection to make a little sketch of 
 my own views upon redistribution. I think when a 
 measure of redistribution comes, it must be a large
 
 224 Appendix. 
 
 measure of redistribution. I do not know whether it 
 need be so large as the measure of 1831 ; but at any rate 
 it must be nearer the measure of 1831 than the one of 
 1867. At the same time I am not personally at all 
 favourable to what is called the system of electoral 
 districts, or to the adoption of any pure population scale. 
 I cannot pretend to have the fear and horror which some 
 people have with regard to the consequences of electoral 
 districts in many places. My objection is a very simple 
 and practical one. It will be two-fold in the first place, 
 electoral districts would involve a great deal of unnecessary 
 displacement and disturbance of traditions. But my 
 second objection is and that I regard as a very 
 important one that I don't believe that public opinion 
 at all requires it, and I doubt whether it would warrant 
 it. Next I should say that in a sound measure of 
 redistribution the distinction between town and country, 
 known to electoral law as borough and shire, ought to be 
 maintained. Although our franchise is nearly identical, 
 that is not the question. The question is whether there 
 is not in the pursuits and associations of the place, 
 and in its social circumstances, a difference between 
 town and country, between borough and shire, which it is 
 expedient, becoming, and useful to maintain. Next I 
 would say that I would respect within moderate limits 
 the individuality of constituencies, and not attempt 
 to place towns which have had representation for 
 many generations precisely and mathematically upon 
 the footing of towns that have not. I am certainly dis- 
 posed to admit that very large and highly-concentrated 
 populations need not have and perhaps ought not to have 
 quite so high a proportional share in the representation of 
 the country as rural and dispersed populations, because 
 the actual political power in these concentrated masses is
 
 Appendix* 225 
 
 sharper, quicker, and more vehement. That considera- 
 tion, of course, would apply most of all to the metropolis. 
 Another consideration I would lay down is this I would 
 not reduce the proportional share of representation 
 accorded to Ireland. In my opinion some regard ought 
 to be had to relative nearness and distance. Take Scot- 
 land, for example ; the nearest part of it is 350 miles off 
 and some parts of it are 700 miles off. It is impossible 
 to say that numerical representation meets the case, 
 though I grant it is pretty well made up for by the shrewd- 
 ness of the men whom Scotland sends ; but it is her virtue 
 and good fortune which cause her to make so excellent a 
 choice. Undoubtedly representation is exercised under 
 greater difficulties, and it is fair that those parts of the 
 country which like Scotland are separated by great dis- 
 tances, not omitting the element of sea, should be more 
 liberally dealt with in proportion to the representatives 
 they ought to send. There is one other proposition which 
 I am disposed to lay with considerable hesitation and not 
 as giving a final opinion. Speaking roughly what will 
 happen will be this. Smaller boroughs, so many of which 
 are in the south of England, must yield seats for London 
 and other great towns, for the counties, and, thirdly for 
 Scotland and the north of England. Scotland and the 
 North of England have perhaps the largest and most 
 salient of all these claims. That operation certainly leads 
 to a proposition, if under the altered circumstances of 
 Parliament and its increasing business Parliament were 
 disposed to entertain it, but which it has not yet favourably 
 entertained, and I think ought not to entertain, for a 
 limited addition to the number of its members. I ask no 
 assent of the House to that proposition. All I say is, I 
 do not exclude it from the view of the whole circum- 
 stances of the case ; and it may be found materially to 
 
 Q
 
 226 Appendix. 
 
 facilitate the operation, which is not one altogether of 
 slight magnitude or difficulty. Finally, when redis- 
 tribution has come forward, then come all the propositions 
 with regard to minority representation and with regard to 
 modes of voting. These very important subjects will 
 have to be fully considered, but I myself see no cause to 
 change the opinion I have always entertained with regard 
 to them. I admit they have claims which ought to receive 
 the full and impartial consideration of Parliament. 
 
 ESTIMATED RESULTS OF THE BILL. 
 
 In 1832 there was passed what was considered a Magna 
 Charta of British liberties ; but that Magna Charta of 
 British liberties added, according to the previous estimate 
 of Lord John Russell, half a million, while according to 
 the results considerably less than half a million were 
 added to the entire constituency of the three countries. 
 After 1832 we come to 1866. At that time the total con- 
 stituency of the United Kingdom reached 1,364,000. By 
 the Bills which were passed between 1867 and 1869 that 
 number was raised to 2,448,000. And now, Sir, under 
 the action of the present law the constituency has reached 
 in round numbers what I would call 3,000,000. I will 
 not enter into details ; but what is the increase we are 
 going to make ? There is a basis of computation, but it 
 is a basis which affords, I admit, ground for conjecture 
 and opinion. The basis of computation is the present 
 ratio in towns between houses and the number of town 
 electors. Of course we have availed ourselves of that 
 basis for the purpose of computation. I have gone into 
 the matter as carefully as I can, and the best results I 
 can attain are these. The Bill, if it passes as presented, 
 will add to the English constituency over 1,300,000
 
 Appendix. 227 
 
 persons. It will add to the Scotch constituency, Scotland 
 being at present rather better provided than either of the 
 other countries, over 200,00x3, and to the Irish constitu- 
 ency over 400,000. Or in the main to the present aggre- 
 gate constituency of the United Kingdom taken at 
 3,000,000, it will add 2,000,000 more, nearly as much as 
 was added since 1867, and more than four times as 
 much as in 1832. Surely, I say, that is worth not en- 
 dangering. Surely that is worth some sacrifice. This 
 is a measure with results such as I have ventured to 
 sketch them that ought to bring home to the mind of 
 every man favourable to the extension the solemn ques- 
 tion what course he is to pursue in regard to it. I hope 
 the House will look at it as the Liberal party in 1831 
 looked at the Reform Bill of that date, and determined 
 that they would waive criticism of minute details, that 
 they would waive particular preferences and predilections, 
 and would look at the broad scope and general effect of 
 the measure. Do that upon this occasion. It is a Bill 
 worth having, and if it is worth having again, it is a Bill 
 worth your not endangering. Let us enter into no bye- 
 ways which would lead us off the path marked out straight 
 before us ; let us not wander on the hill-tops of specula- 
 tion ; let us not wander among the fogs of doubt, but with 
 a burning faith that enfranchisement is a good, that the 
 people may be trusted, that the voters under the Constitu- 
 tion are the strength of the Constitution. What we want 
 in order to carry this Bill, considering as I fully believe 
 that the very large majority of this House are favourable 
 to its principle what we want in order to carry it is union 
 and union only. What will endanger it is disunion and 
 disunion only. Let us hold firmly together and success 
 will crown our effort. You will as much as any former 
 Parliament that has conferred great legislative benefits on 
 
 (} 2
 
 228 Appendix^ 
 
 the nation have your reward, and read your history in a 
 nation's eyes, for you will have deserved it by the benefits 
 you have conferred. You will have made this strong 
 nation stronger still, stronger in union without ; stronger 
 against its foes, if and when it has any ; stronger within 
 in union between class and class, and in rallying all classes 
 and portions of the community in one solid, compacted 
 mass around the ancient throne which it has loved so 
 well, and round the Constitution now to be more than 
 ever free and more than ever powerful. 
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S VIEWS ON IRISH 
 REPRESENTATION. 
 
 (From his Speech on the Second Reading of the Representation 
 of the People Bill, 1th April, 1884.) 
 
 " With regard to my own outline of redistribution, I am 
 glad to see that so far as I know nearly the whole of the 
 propositions that I laid down have been received in a 
 favourable manner. The adverse criticism has been con- 
 centrated on a single opinion which I expressed that, so 
 far as I was able to judge, it would not be wise to reduce 
 the number of Irish representatives, which stands at 103. 
 ****** 
 
 I fully admit that at the present moment Ireland has 
 but one-seventh of the population, and that, on the basis 
 of one-seventh of the population, instead of 103 members 
 Ireland is entitled only to 93 members. That is not a 
 very great breadth of margin. But, in the first place, in 
 my own mind I am not willing to assume that this con- 
 tinual decline of Irish population is a permanent or a 
 normal factor. It may be that there are cases where a 
 great reduction of population is a necessary road to a
 
 Appendix. 229 
 
 people's well-being. It may be that Ireland has pre- 
 sented one of these cases. But it is a most painful thing, 
 and that depletion is in itself a subject for regretful 
 recollection, while the consequences produced by the 
 dissemination of a population over the globe who carry 
 away with them the idea that they have been driven from 
 their homes are consequences painful enough for us all to 
 bear in mind. I do not abandon the hope that Ireland 
 may recover something of the ground she has lost. Con- 
 sidering that it has been but once in fifty years that a 
 question like this has been entertained I would certainly 
 not assume the permanence of this continual descent in 
 the numbers of the people of' Ireland. And further, sir, 
 I would say this those who have been niggardly in 
 former times, those who have been unjust in former 
 times, must be very cautious when they come to plead on 
 their own behalf for the strictest application of laws of 
 which they might have claimed the strictest application 
 if they had never deviated from them themselves. 
 
 It is not a very large question, take it which way you 
 will But look back to 1832, and see how we dealt with 
 Ireland on that occasion. Ireland had then almost three- 
 tenths of the population of the United Kingdom, and we 
 gave her considerably less than one-sixth of the represen- 
 tation. I don't think we should say now that that was 
 handsome treatment ; and I could not entirely dismiss 
 from my recollection that fact in coming to consider the 
 Irish question, when we deal with the redistribution of seats 
 in prosecution of the plan'contemplated by the present 
 Government. I do not wish to commit anyone. But I 
 say it is not a desirable position for a great country to 
 occupy that it should claim the most rigid application of 
 numerical laws when they tell in her favour, and to apply 
 a very lax rule indeed when they tell against her. If Ire-
 
 230 ' . Appendix. 
 
 land in 1832, had been treated according to her numbers, 
 the number of her members would be such that I am 
 almost afraid to present it to the imagination of honour- 
 able gentlemen opposite. They would have been nearer 
 200 than 100. However, having stated what appears to 
 me right on this subject, I must claim for myself that the 
 view of the proposition that I threw out should be taken, 
 as my noble friend near me (Lord Hartington) most justly 
 said, in conjunction with the other propositions which I 
 was inclined to submit for the favourable consideration of 
 the House. 
 
 THE REPRESENTATION OF THE 
 PEOPLE BILL, 1884. 
 
 [THE FOLLOWING is THE TEXT OF MR. GLADSTONE'S 
 
 BILL, WHICH WAS READ A FIRST TIME ON 
 3RD MARCH.] 
 
 A.D. 1884. A Bill to Amend the Law relating to the Repre- 
 sentation of the People of the United Kingdom? 
 
 BE it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent 
 Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the 
 Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in 
 this present Parliament assembled, and by the 
 authority of the same, as follows : 
 
 Preliminary. 
 
 Short Title ^ This Act may be cited as the Representation 
 of the People Act, 1 884. 
 
 Extension of the Household and Lodger Franchise. 
 Uniform 2. A uniform household and lodger franchise at 
 
 household elections shall be established in all counties and 
 
 and lodger 
 
 franchise.
 
 Appendix. 231 
 
 boroughs throughout the United Kingdom, and 
 after the passing of this Act every man possessed* 
 of a household qualification or a lodger qualification 
 shall, if the qualifying premises be situate in a 
 county in England or Scotland, be entitled to be 
 registered as a voter, and when registered to vote 
 at an election for such county, and if the qualifying 
 premises be situate in a county or borough in 
 Ireland, be entitled to be registered as a voter, and 
 to vote at an election for such county or borough. 
 
 3. Where a man himself inhabits any dwelling- Tenure of 
 house by virtue of any office, service, or employ- Q^ e ^ r y 
 ment, and the dwelling-house is not inhabited by service not 
 
 any person under whom such man serves in such * inva1 '- 
 3 r date vote, 
 
 office, service, or employment, he shall be deemed 
 
 for the purposes of this Act and of the Representa- 
 tion of the People Acts to be an inhabitant occupier 
 of such dwelling-house as a tenant. 
 
 Prohibition of Multiplication of Votes, 
 
 4. Subject to the saving in this Act for existing Restriction 
 voters, the following provisions shall after the otes SSOt 
 passing of this Act have effect with reference to 
 elections : 
 
 (i.) A man shall not be entitled to be registered 
 as a voter in respect of the ownership of 
 any rcntcharge except the owner of the 
 whole of the tithe rentcharge of a rectory 
 or vicarage. 
 
 (2.) Where two or more men are owners cither 
 as joint tenants or as tenants in common 
 of an estate in any land or tenement, one 
 of such men, but not more than one, shall 
 if his interest is sufficient to confer on him
 
 232 Appendix. 
 
 a qualification as a voter in respect of the 
 ownership of such estate, be entitled (in 
 the like cases and subject to the like con- 
 ditions as if he were the sole owner) to be 
 registered as a voter, and when registered 
 to vote at an election. 
 
 Provided that where such owners have 
 derived their interest by descent, succes- 
 sion, marriage, marriage settlement, or 
 will, or where they occupy the land or 
 tenement, and are bond fide engaged as 
 partners carrying on trade or business 
 thereon, each of such owners whose 
 interest is sufficient to confer on him a 
 qualification as a voter shall be entitled 
 (in the like cases and subject to the like 
 conditions as if he were sole owner) to be 
 registered as a voter in respect of such 
 ownership, and when registered to vote at 
 an election, and the value of the interest 
 of each such owner where not otherwise 
 legally defined shall be ascertained by the 
 division of the total value of the land or 
 tenement equally among the whole of such 
 owners. 
 
 Assimilation of Occttpation Qualification. 
 
 Assimila- 5. Every man occupying any land or tenement 
 
 occupation * n a count y or borough in the United Kingdom of 
 
 qua'lifica- a clear yearly value of not less than ten pounds, 
 
 tlon> shall be entitled, after the passing of this Act, to be 
 
 registered as a voter, and when registered to vote at 
 
 an election for such county or borough in respect 
 
 of such occupation, subject to the like conditions
 
 Appendix. 233 
 
 respectively'as a man is, at the passing of this Act, 
 entitled to be registered as a voter and to vote at 
 an election for such county in respect of the county 
 occupation franchise, and at an election for such 
 borough in respect of the borough occupation 
 franchise. 
 
 Supplemental Provisions. 
 
 6. A man shall not by virtue of this Act be Voter not 
 
 entitled to be registered as a voter or to vote at to vo . te . for 
 
 county in 
 
 any election for a county in respect of the occupa- respect of 
 
 tion of any dwelling-house, lodgings, land, or occupation 
 
 of property 
 tenement, situate m a borough. in borough. 
 
 7. In this Act the expression " a household Definition 
 
 qualification" means as respects England and . of hpuse- 
 
 , hold and 
 Ireland, the qualification enacted by the third lodger qua- 
 
 section of the Representation of the People Act, lincation 
 
 ... . and other 
 1867, and the enactments amending or affecting franchises, 
 
 the same, and the said section and enactments, so anc ? ippli- 
 far as they are consistent with this Act, shall extend enactments 
 
 to counties in England and to counties and relating 
 , , . T , , thereto, 
 
 boroughs in Ireland. 30 & 3r 
 
 In the construction of the said enactments, as Viet. c. 102, 
 a.mended and applied to Ireland, the following ^^ 
 dates shall be substituted for the dates therein Viet. c. 26, 
 mentioned, that is to say, the twentieth day of July ^ Jl' 7 t ' 
 for the fifteenth day of July, theirs/ day of July for Viet. c. 102, 
 the twentieth day of July, and the first day f s \\. z 
 January for the fifth day of January. Viet. c. 26, 
 
 The expression " a lodger qualification " means ss- 5- 6 - 7- 
 the qualification enacted, as respects England, by Viet. c. 49, 
 the fourth section of the Representation of the s - 4- 
 People Act, 1867, and the enactments amending or 
 affecting the same, and as respects Ireland, by the
 
 234 Appendix, 
 
 fourth section of the Representation of the People 
 (Ireland) Act, 1868, and the enactments amending 
 or affecting the same, and the said section of the 
 English Act of 1867, and the enactments amending 
 or affecting the same, shall, so far as they are 
 consistent with this Act, extend to counties in 
 England, and the said section of the Irish Act of 
 1868, and the enactments amending or affecting 
 the same, shall, so far as they are consistent with 
 this Act, extend to counties in Ireland, and sections 
 41 & 42 fi ye an d six and twenty-two of the Parliamentary 
 Viet. c. 26, and Municipal Registration Act, 1878, so far as 
 ss. 5, , 22. relate to lodgings, shall apply to Ireland, and 
 
 for the purpose of such application the reference in 
 the said section six to the Representation of the 
 People Act, 1867, shall be deemed to be made to 
 the Representation of the People (Ireland) Act, 
 1868. 
 
 The expression " a household qualification " 
 means, as respects Scotland, the qualification 
 enacted by the third section of the Representation 
 
 31 & 32 of the People (Scotland) Act, 1868, and the enact- 
 
 Vict. c. 48, ments amending or affecting the same, and the 
 said section and enactments shall, so far as they 
 are consistent with this Act, extend to counties in 
 Scotland, and for the purpose of the said section 
 and enactments the expression "dwelling-house" 
 in Scotland means any house or part of a house 
 occupied as a separate dwelling, and this definition 
 of a dwelling-house shall be substituted for the 
 definition contained in section fifty-nine of the 
 
 Viet c 2 48 Representation of the People (Scotland) Act, 1868. 
 
 s. 59. The expression " a lodger qualification " means, 
 
 31 & 32 as respects Scotland, the qualification enacted bv 
 Viet. c. 48, 
 s. 4.
 
 l< ' ' I02> 
 
 Appendix. 255 
 
 the fourth section of the Representation of the 
 People (Scotland) Act, 1868, and the enactments 
 amending or affecting the same and the said section 
 and enactments, so far as they are consistent with 
 this Act. shall extend to counties in Scotland. 
 
 The expression "county occupation franchise" 
 means, as respects England, the franchise enacted 
 by the sixth section of the Representation of the 
 People Act, 1867; and, as respects Scotland, the 
 franchise enacted by the sixth section of the Repre- 
 sentation of the People (Scotland) Act, 1868 ; and, & 
 as respects Ireland, the franchise enacted by the Viet. c. 48, 
 first section of the Act of the session of the thir- s ' ' 
 teenth and fourteenth years of the reign of her vict. c 69, 
 present Majesty, chapter sixty-nine. s - ' 
 
 The expression " borough occupation franchise " 
 means, as respects England, the franchise enacted 
 by the twenty-seventh section of the Act of the 
 session of the second and third years of the reign of 
 King William the Fourth, chapter forty-five ; and, 2^3 
 as respects Scotland, the franchise enacted by the Wil1 - 4. 
 
 C *1 N S 27 
 
 eleventh section of the Act of the session of the 
 second and third years of the reign of King William 
 the Fourth, chapter sixty-five ; and, as respects 2 & 3 
 Ireland, the franchise enacted by section five of the Will. 4, 
 
 Act of the session of the thirteenth and fourteenth 
 
 c. 65, s. ii. 
 
 years of the reign of her present Majesty, chapter J3. * *4 
 sixty-nine, and the third section of the Representa- s . 5.' 
 tion of the People (Ireland) Act, 1868. 3' * 3* 
 
 Any enactments amending or relating to the s 3 / 
 county occupation franchise or borough occupation 
 franchise other than the sections in this Act in that 
 behalf mentioned shall be deemed to be referred to 
 in the definition of the county occupation franchise
 
 236 Appendix. 
 
 and the borough occupation franchise in this Act 
 mentioned. 
 
 Definition 3. In this Act the expression " the Representation 
 of " Repre- .. , , .. , , 
 
 sentation of tne People Acts means the enactments for the 
 
 the People time being in force in England, Scotland, and 
 
 Acts and T , , .... 
 
 "Registra- Ireland respectively relating to the representation 
 
 tionActs." of the people, inclusive of the Registration Acts as 
 defined by this Act. 
 
 The expression ' the Registration Acts " means 
 the enactments for the time being in force in Eng- 
 land, Scotland, and Ireland respectively, relating to 
 the registration of persons entitled to vote at elec- 
 tions for counties and boroughs, inclusive of the 
 Rating Acts as defined by this Act. 
 
 The expressions "the Representation of the 
 People Acts " and "the Registration Acts " respect- 
 ively, where used in this Act, shall be read distri- 
 butively in reference to the three parts of the United 
 Kingdom as meaning in the case of each part 
 the enactments for the time being in force in that 
 part. 
 
 All enactments of the Registration Acts which 
 relate to the registration of persons entitled to vote 
 in boroughs in England and Scotland in respect of 
 a household or a lodger qualification, and in 
 boroughs in Ireland in respect of a lodger qualifica- 
 tion, shall, with the necessary variations and alter- 
 ations of precepts, notices, lists, and other forms, 
 extend to counties as well as to boroughs. 
 
 All enactments of the Registration Acts which 
 relate to the registration in counties and boroughs 
 in Ireland of persons entitled to vote in respect of 
 the county occupation franchise and the borough 
 occupation franchise respectively, shall, with the
 
 Appendix. 237 
 
 necessary variations and alterations of precepts, 
 notices, lists, and other forms, extend respectively 
 to the registration in counties and boroughs in 
 Ireland of persons entitled to vote in respect of 
 the household qualification conferred by this Act. 
 
 9. In this Act the expression "the Rating Acts" Definition 
 
 means the enactments for the time being in force anc f a PP]'" 
 
 cation of 
 in England, Scotland, and Ireland respectively, Rating 
 
 relating to the placing of the names of occupiers Acts> 
 on the rate book, or other enactments relating to 
 rating in so far as they are auxiliary to or deal with 
 the registration of persons entitled to vote at elec- 
 tions ; and the expression "the Rating Acts" where 
 used in this Act shall be read distributively in 
 reference to the three parts of the United Kingdom 
 as meaning in the case of each part the Acts for 
 the time being in force in that part. 
 
 In Scotland section fifteen of the Representation 3 i & 32 
 of the People (Scotland) Act, 1868, shall apply to Vict c 4& 
 counties as well as to burghs, and in the applica- 
 tion thereof the word " tenant " shall include any 
 inhabitant occupier within the meaning of this Act, 
 and it shall be the duty of every person rated in 
 respect of any lands and heritages which comprise 
 any dwelling-house when applied to by the assessor 
 to give an accurate written list of the names and 
 designations of all men other than himself, being 
 inhabitant occupiers of any dwelling-house forming 
 part of such lands and heritages, and if he fail to 
 do so he shall be liable on summary conviction to 
 a penalty not exceeding Jive pounds, and the 
 proviso in section two of the Act for the Valuation 
 of Lands and Heritages in Scotland, passed in the 
 session of the seventeenth and eighteenth years of
 
 238 Appendix. 
 
 the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter ninety- 
 one, shall be repealed. 
 
 In Ireland where the owner of a dwelling-house 
 js rated instead of the occupier, the occupier shall 
 nevertheless be entitled to be registered as a voter, 
 and to vote under the same conditions under which 
 an occupier of a dwelling-house in England is 
 entitled in pursuance of the Poor Rate Assessment 
 32 & 33 and Collection Act, 1869, and the Acts amending 
 Viet. c. 41. ^g same> to b e registered as a voter, and to vote 
 where the owner is rated, and the enactments 
 referred to in the First Schedule to this Act shall 
 apply to Ireland accordingly, with the modification 
 in that schedule mentioned. 
 
 Both in England and Ireland where a man 
 inhabits any dwelling-house by virtue of any 
 office, service, or employment, and is deemed for 
 the purposes of this Act and of the Representation 
 of the People Acts to be an inhabitant occupier of 
 such dwelling-house as a tenant, and another person 
 is rated or liable to be rated for such dwelling-house, 
 the rating of such other person shall for the purposes 
 of this Act and of the Representation of the People 
 Acts be deemed to be that of the inhabitant occupier ; 
 and the several enactments of the Poor Rate Assess- 
 ment and Collection Act, 1869, and other Acts 
 amending the same referred to in the First 
 Schedule to this Act shall for those purposes 
 apply to such inhabitant occupier, and in the con- 
 struction of those enactments the word " owner " 
 shall be deemed to include a person actually rated 
 or liable to be rated as aforesaid. 
 
 Both in England and in Ireland where a house 
 is let out or occupied in separate parts, and any of
 
 Appendix. 239 
 
 such parts constitutes a separate dwelling-house 
 within the meaning of the Representation of the 
 People Acts, the overseers shall within twenty-one 
 days after the first of March in every year give 
 notice in writing to the person rated or rateable in 
 respect of such house requiring him within fourteen 
 days after the service of such notice to furnish in a 
 form to be supplied by the overseers an accurate 
 list containing the name of the occupier of every 
 such part which constitutes a separate dwelling- 
 house, and the person applied to shall furnish such 
 list accordingly ; and if any. overseer makes default 
 in giving such notice as last aforesaid, or any person 
 rated or rateable as aforesaid makes default in fur- 
 nishing the list so required to be furnished by him, 
 such overseer or person shall on summary convic- 
 tion be liable to a penalty not exceeding forty 
 shillings. 
 
 In any part of the United Kingdom where a man 
 inhabits a dwelling-house in respect of which no 
 person is rated by reason of such dwelling-house 
 belonging to or being occupied on behalf of the Crown, 
 or by reason of any other ground of exemption, 
 such person shall not be disentitled to be registered 
 as a voter, and to vote by reason only that no one 
 is rated in respect of such dwelling-house, and that 
 no rates are paid in respect of the same, and it shall 
 be the duty of the persons making out the rate book 
 or valuation roll to enter any such dwelling-house 
 as last aforesaid in the rate book or valuation roll, 
 together with the name of the inhabitant occupier 
 thereof. 
 
 10. Nothing in this Act shall deprive any person- Saving, 
 (who at the date of the passing of this Act is regis-
 
 240 Appendix. 
 
 tered in respect of any qualification to vote for any 
 county or borough,) of his right to be from time to 
 time registered and to vote for such county or 
 borough in respect of such qualification in like 
 manner as if this Act had not passed. 
 
 Provided that where a man is so registered in 
 respect of the county or borough occupation 
 franchise by virtue of a qualification which also 
 qualifies him for the franchise under this Act, he 
 shall be entitled to be registered in respect of such 
 latter franchise only. 
 
 Nothing in this Act shall confer on any man who 
 is subject to any legal incapacity to be registered 
 as a voter or to vote, any right to be registered as a 
 voter or to vote. 
 
 Construe- H. This Act, so far as may beconsistentlywith the 
 " c ' tenor thereof, shall be construed as one with the 
 Representation of the People Acts as defined by 
 this Act ; and the expressions "election," "county," 
 and " borough," and other expressions in this Act 
 and in the enactments applied by this Act, shall 
 have the same meaning as in the said Acts. 
 
 Provided that in this Act and the said enact- 
 ments 
 
 The expression " overseers " includes assessors, 
 guardians, clerks of unions, or other persons by 
 whatever name known, who perform duties in rela- 
 tion to rating or to the registration of voters similar 
 to those performed in relation to such matters by 
 overseers in England. 
 
 The expression "rentcharge" includes a fee 
 farm rent, a feu duty in Scotland, a rent seek, a 
 chief rent, a rent of assize, and any rent or annuity 
 granted out of land.
 
 Appendix. 241 
 
 The expression "land or tenement" includes any 
 part of a house separately occupied for the purpose 
 of any trade, business or profession, and that 
 expression and also the expression " hereditament,' 1 
 when used in this Act, in Scotland includes " lands 
 and heritages." 
 
 The expression " clear yearly value " as applied 
 to any land or tenement means in Scotland the 
 annual value as appearing in the valuation roll, and 
 in Ireland the net annual value at which the 
 occupier of such land or tenement was rated under 
 the last rate for the time being, under the Act of 
 the session of the first and second years of the reign 
 of Her present Majesty, chapter fifty-six, or any 
 Acts amending the same. 
 
 12. Whereas the franchises conferred by this Repeal of 
 
 Act are in substitution for the franchises conferred certa i n 
 
 , superseded 
 by the enactments mentioned in the first and sections. 
 
 second parts of the second schedule hereto, be it 
 enacted that the Acts mentioned in the first part of 
 the said second schedule shall be repealed to the 
 extent in the third column of that part of the said 
 schedule mentioned except in so far as relates to the 
 rights of persons saved by this Act ; and the Acts 
 mentioned in the second part of the said second 
 schedule shall be repealed to the extent in the third 
 column of that part of the said schedule mentioned 
 except in so far as relates to the rights of persons 
 saved by this Act and except in so far as the enact- 
 ments so repealed contain conditions made applic- 
 able by this Act to any franchise enacted by this 
 Act.
 
 242 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 FIRST SCHEDULE. 
 ENACTMENTS APPLIED TO IRELAND. 
 
 Session and Chapter. 
 
 Title. 
 
 Enactments Applied. 
 
 32 & 33 Viet. c. 41 
 
 The Poor Rate As- 
 sessment and Col- 
 lection Act, 1869. 
 
 Section seven ; sec- 
 tion eight ; section 
 nine ; section ten, 
 and the enactment 
 
 
 
 of the Representa- 
 tion of the People 
 Act, 1867, therein 
 referred to ; section 
 
 
 
 nineteen ; section 
 twenty, so far as 
 regards the defini- 
 tion of the word 
 
 
 
 " owner." 
 
 41 & 42 Viet. c. 26 
 
 The Parliamentary 
 and Municipal Re- 
 gistration Act, 1878 
 
 Section fourteen. 
 
 42 & 43 Viet. c. 10 The Assessed Rates 
 Act, 1879. 
 
 The whole Act. 
 
 MODIFICATION. 
 
 Any penalty recoverable on summary conviction may be reco- 
 vered in accordance with the law relating to summary convictions 
 in Ireland.
 
 Appendix. 
 
 243 
 
 SECOND SCHEDULE, 
 PART I. 
 
 Session and Chapter. Title or Short Title. 
 
 Extent of Repeal. 
 
 2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 45 
 
 An Act to amend the 
 
 Section twenty, the 
 
 
 Representation of 
 
 words ' ' or who 
 
 
 the People in 
 
 ' shall occupy as 
 
 
 England and 
 
 ' tenant any lands 
 
 
 Wales. 
 
 ' or tenements for 
 
 
 
 ' which he shall be 
 
 
 
 ' bona fide liable 
 
 
 
 ' to a yearly rent 
 
 
 
 ' of not less than 
 
 
 
 ' fifty pounds. " 
 
 2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 65 An Act to amend the 
 
 Section nine, the 
 
 
 Representation of 
 
 words " or where 
 
 
 the People in 
 
 ' suchtenantshall, 
 
 
 Scotland. 
 
 ' for the foresaid 
 
 
 
 ' period of twelve 
 
 
 
 ' months, have 
 
 
 
 ' been in the actual 
 
 
 
 ' personal occu- 
 
 
 
 ' pancy of any 
 
 
 
 ' such subject, 
 
 
 
 ' where the yearly 
 
 
 
 ' rent is not less 
 
 
 
 ' thanfiftypounds, 
 
 
 
 ' or where the te- 
 
 
 
 ' nant, whatever 
 
 
 
 ' the rent may 
 
 
 
 ' be, has truly 
 
 
 
 ' paid for his in- 
 
 
 
 ' terest in such 
 
 
 
 ' subject a price, 
 
 
 
 ' grassum, or 
 
 
 
 ' consideration of 
 
 
 
 1 not less than 
 
 
 
 ; three hundred 
 
 
 ' pounds."
 
 244 
 
 Appendix, 
 
 PART ir. 
 
 Session and Chapter. Title or Short Title. Extent of Repeal 
 
 2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 45 iAn Act to amend Section twenty- 
 
 2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 65 
 
 13 & 14 Viet. c. 69 
 
 the Representation 
 of the People in 
 England & Wales. 
 
 An Act to amend the Section eleven, from 
 Representation of| the beginning of 
 the People inj the section to the 
 words "sixth day 
 of April then next 
 
 Scotland. 
 
 preceding 
 sive. 
 
 inclu- 
 
 An Act to amend the Sections one and 
 
 Laws which regu-l five. 
 
 late the. Qualifica-j 
 
 tion and Registra- 
 tion of Parliamen-i 
 
 tary Voters in 
 
 Ireland, and toi 
 i alter the Law fori 
 | rating Immediate: 
 I Lessors of Pre- 
 ! mises to the Poor 
 
 Rate in certain 
 
 Boroughs. 
 
 30 & 31 Viet. c. 102 The Representation 
 of the People Act, 
 1867. 
 
 Section six. 
 
 31 & 32 Viet. c. 48 |The Representation Section six. 
 of the People! 
 (Scotland) Act, 
 1868. 
 
 31 & 32 Viet. c. 49 
 
 The Representation t Section three, 
 of the People (Ire- 
 land) Act, 1868.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ADULLAM, The Cave of, 191 
 
 BAINES, Mr. 186 
 
 Bentham's plan of Reform, 87 
 
 Birmingham Reform Demonstrations, 149, 164, 167 
 
 Bishops and Reform, 148, 153, 154, 157 
 
 Bland ford, Marquis of, 103 
 
 Boroughs, The Rotten, u, 12, 42, 48, 133, 169 
 
 New Parliamentary, 170, 186 
 
 Borough Suffrage in 1832, 173, in 1867, 201 
 Brand's Household Suffrage Scheme, 92 
 Bright, Mr. John, 188, 191 
 Bristol Riots, 152 
 Brougham Lord, 104 5 9 
 Burke on Pitt's Scheme, 50 
 
 CARNARVON, Resignation of, 200 
 Cartwright, Major, 63 
 Castlereagh, Lord, 211 
 Cave of Adullam, 191 
 Chandos Clause, 145, 160 
 Charter, the People's, points of, 176 
 Chatham on Parliamentary Corruption, 5 
 Chatham's Reform Scheme, 13 
 Chesterfield on the Sale of Seats, 5 
 Clay's Educational Franchise Bill, 189 
 County Suffrage in 1832, 172, in 1867, 201 
 Cranbournc, Resignation of, 200
 
 246 Index. 
 
 DARK, The leap in the, 205 
 
 Dashwoocl, Sir F., 2 
 
 Derby, Lord, 196 
 
 Disfranchisement Act of Henry VI. , The, 
 
 Disraeli, 184, 192 
 
 Duncannon, Lord, 112 
 
 Duncombe's Motion, 177 
 
 Dunning, 41 
 
 Durham, Lord, 101, 109, 112 
 
 ELECTIONS, costly, 143 
 
 FLOOD'S Reform Bill, 54 
 Forty shilling freeholders, 9, 103 
 Fox on Pitt's Scheme, 49 
 Franchises, Fancy, 203 
 Franchise, The Lodger, 202 
 Franchise, The Service, 213 
 Friends of the People, The, 6 1 
 Frost, 179 
 
 GASCOYNE, Gen., 141, 144 
 Gatton, 5, u, 117, 130 
 Gladstone's debut ns Reformer, 186 
 
 Bill of 1866, 189, 192, 193 
 
 Bill of 1884. 212 and Appendix 
 
 Graham, Sir J. R., 1 12 
 
 Grampound, Disfranchisement of, 100 
 
 Grey, Lord, 62, 105, 107, 108, 139, 148, 158, 162 
 
 Resignation, 165 
 
 . recalled, 168 
 
 Grosvenor, Earl, Amendment, 191 
 
 HENLEY, Mr., resigns, 185 
 
 Henry VI. 's Disfranchisement Act, 8 
 
 Horsman, Mr., 191
 
 Index. 247 
 
 Householders, ^10, 122 
 
 Scot and lot, 119 
 
 Household Suffrage proposals, 48, 54, 89, 92, IO2 3, 182, 200 
 Hume, 104, 105, 182 
 Hunt, Orator, 97, IOO, 133, 138 
 Hymn of the Unions, 165 
 
 IRELAND, Representation of, 141, 159, 182, 205, 211, and 
 Appendix 
 
 JACK, Finality, 175 
 Jones, Sir W., 39 
 
 KENNINGTON Park Meeting, 180 
 King, Mr. Locke, 182 
 
 LAMBTON, 101 
 
 London, Representation of, 158, 160, 170, 206 
 Lords, House of, and Reform, 147, 165, 203 
 Lowe, Mr., 191, 201 
 
 NEWCASTLE, Duke of, 104, 151 
 Newport, 179 
 North, Lord, 43 
 
 O'CONNELL, 104, 138, 142, 177 
 O'Connor, Feargus, 181 
 Old Sarum, n, 117, 130 
 
 PEEL, Gen., Resignation, 200 
 Peel, Sir Robert, 129, 137 
 Peers, Proposed creation of, 162 
 Peterloo, 97 
 Pitt, 41, 43, 47 
 Place, Francis, 126 
 Pot wallopers, 119 
 
 REDISTRIBUTION, 191, 193, 211 
 
 Reform Hills, 16, 28, 47, 54, 89, 115, 189, 212
 
 248 Index. 
 
 Richmond, Duke of, 19, 25 
 Riots, Reform, 151, 152, 179, 198 
 Rotten Boroughs, 12 
 Russell, Lord John, 63, 70 
 
 Russell, Lord John and Earl, IOO, IO2, 103, 109, 112 115, 126, 
 182, 183 
 
 SACRED month, The, 178, 180 
 
 Sarum, Old, 11, 117, 130 
 
 Scotland, Representation of, 17, 171, 205 and Appendix 
 
 Societies, Reform, 13, 21, 60, 61 
 
 St. Alban's, Disfranchisement of, 1 86 
 
 Sudbury, ,, 1 86 
 
 Suffrage, Woman, 87, 216 
 
 TAXES refused, 167 
 Tea room party, 203 
 Tooke's plan of Reform, 85 
 
 UNIONS, Hymn of the, 165 
 
 Universal Suffrage, Schemes of, 15, 19, 85, 87, 176 
 
 4 
 VINCENT, Henry, 179 
 
 WALES, Representation of, 171 
 Walpole's resignation, 185 
 Waver ers, The, 157 
 Wellington, 105, 107, 168, 180 
 Wetherill, Sir C., 152 
 Whigs. Dishing the, 205 
 Wilkes, II 
 
 his Reform Scheme, 1 6 
 
 William IV., ill, 149 
 
 unpopularity of, 1 66 
 
 DRADBl'RV, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFR1AKS.
 
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