The feeling attending the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832 (S582)
had passed away; but now a popular agitation began which produced even
greater excitement. Although the act of 1832 had equalized
parliamentary representation and had enlarged the elective franchise
to a very considerable degree, yet the great body of workingmen were
still shut out from the right to vote. A Radical Party called the
"Chartists" now arose, which undertook to secure further measures of
reform.
They embodied their measures in a document called the "People's
Charter," which demanded:
1. Universal male suffrage.
2. That the voting at elections should be by ballot.
3. Annual Parliaments.
4. The payment of memebers of Parliament.
5. The abolition of the property qualification for parliamentary
candidates.[1]
6. The division of the whole country into equal electoral districts.
[1] Property qualification: In 1711 an act was passed requiring
candidates for election to the House of Commons to have an income of
not less than 300 pounds derived from landed property. The object of
this law was to secure members who would be comparatively free from
the temptation of receiving bribes from the Crown, and also to keep
the landed proprietors in power to the exclusion of rich merchants.
This law was repealed in 1858.
The Chartists held public meetings, organized clubs, and published
newpapers to disseminate their principles, but for many years made
very little progress. The French revolution which dethroned King
Louis Philippe (1848) imparted fresh impetus to the Chartist
movement. The leader of that movement was Feargus O'Connor. He
formed the plan of sending a monster petition to Parliament,
containing, it was claimed, nearly five million signatures, praying
for the passage of the People's Charter.
A procession of a million or more signers was to act as an escort to
the document, which made a wagonload in itself. The Government became
alarmed at the threatened demonstration, forbade it, on the ground
that it was an attempt to coerce legislation, and organized a body of
250,000 special policemen to preserve order.
The Duke of Wellington took command of a large body of troops held in
reserve to defend the city; and the Bank of England, the Houses of
Parliament, the British Museum, and other public buildings were made
ready to withstand a siege.
It was now the Chartists' turn to be frightened. When they assembled
(1848) on Kennington Common in south London, they numbered less than
thirty thousand, and the procession of a million which was to march
across Westminster Bridge, to the Houses of Parliament, dwindled to
half a dozen. When the huge petition was unrolled it was found to
contain only about a third of the boasted number of names. Further
examination showed that many of the signatures were spurious, having
been put down in jest, or copied from gravestones and old London
directories. With that discovery the whole movement collapsed, and
the House of Commons rang with "inextinguishable laughter" over the
national scare.
Still the demands of the Chartists had a solid foundation of good
sense, which the blustering bravado of the leaders of the movement
could not wholly destroy. Most, if not all, of the reforms asked for
were needed. Since then, the steady, quiet influence of reason and of
time has compelled Parliament to grant the greater part of them.[1]
[1] Sir Thomas Erskine May, in his "Constitutional History of
England," says: "Not a measure has been forced upon Parliament which
the calm judgment of a later time has not since approved; not an
agitation has failed which posterity has not condemned."
The printed or written ballot has been substituted for the old method
of electing candidates by a show of hands or by shouting yes or no,--
a method by which it was easy to make blunders, and equally easy to
commit frauds. Every voter must now have his name and address
registered in a printed list. Every voter, too, casts a secret ballot
and so safeguards his political independence (S609). The property
qualification has been abolished (S591, note 1), so that the day
laborer may now run for Parliament. He is sure, too, of being well
paid, for Parliament voted (1911) to give 400 pounds a year to every
member of the House of Commons. The right of "manhood suffrage" has
been greatly extended, and before the twentieth century has advanced
much farther every man in England will probably have a voice in the
elections.