REFORM.
[Sidenote: 1830--Brougham and the ministry]
The King had no other course left open to him than to send for Lord
Grey and invite him to form an Administration. Lord Grey was quite
ready for the task, and must, for some time back, have had his mind
constantly occupied with plans for such an arrangement. About some of
the appointments there was no difficulty whatever. It was obvious that
Lord Melbourne, Lord Althorp, and Lord John Russell would be invited to
take office, but there was a certain difficulty about Brougham. The
difficulty, however, was not about offering a place to Brougham; the
only trouble was to find the place which would suit him, and his
acceptance of which would also suit his leaders and his colleagues.
Nothing could be more certain than the fact that Brougham must be
invited to a place in the new Administration. He was a strong man with
the country, and he now had a distinct following of his own.
Among the yet unenfranchised districts, especially in the North of
England, Brougham probably counted for more, so far as the question of
reform was concerned, than all the other reformers in Parliament put
together. It would be idle to think of creating a Reform Ministry just
then without Henry Brougham. The new Administration could not possibly
get on without him. But then it was by no means certain that the new
Administration could get on with him, and no one could understand this
difficulty better than the stately and aristocratic Lord Grey. Grey
had simply to choose between encountering an uncertainty or undertaking
an impossibility, and of course he chose the former alternative. He
had to invite Brougham to take office, but the question was what office
it was {123} most advisable to ask him to take. Brougham was offered
the position of Attorney-General, the acceptance of which allows a man
to retain his seat in the House of Commons, while it puts him directly
on the way to a high promotion to the judicial bench. Brougham flatly
declined the offer, and seemed to be somewhat offended that it should
have been made to him. Then Lord Grey thought of offering him the
dignified position of Master of the Rolls, coupled with the exceptional
arrangement that he was still to retain his seat in the House of
Commons. Lord Grey was naturally very anxious to conciliate Brougham,
and looked with much dread to the prospect of Brougham breaking off
from the negotiations altogether and retaining his seat in the House as
an independent critic of the Ministry. Nothing could well be more
alarming to the head of the new Administration than the thought of
Brougham thus sitting as an independent critic, prepared at any minute
to come down with the force and fury of his eloquence on this or that
section of the new Reform Bill, and to denounce it to the country as
utterly inadequate to satisfy the just demands of the people. The
King, however, suggested, with some good sense, that Brougham as a
dissatisfied Master of the Rolls still sitting in the House of Commons
might prove an inconvenient and dangerous colleague.
Lord Grey thought the matter over once more, and began to see another
way of getting out of the difficulty. Why not give to Brougham the
highest legal appointment in the service of the Crown, and thus promote
him completely out of the House of Commons? Why not make him Lord
Chancellor at once? This offer could not but satisfy even Brougham's
well-known self-conceit, and it would transplant his eloquence to the
quieter atmosphere of the House of Lords, where little harm could be
done to the surrounding vegetation by its too luxuriant growth. In
plain words, it might be taken for granted that the House of Lords
would reject any reform measure, however moderate, when it was first
introduced to the notice of the peers, and therefore no particular harm
could come from Brougham's presence in the hereditary assembly. But
{124} Brougham in the House of Commons might, at any time, be so far
carried away by his own emotions, and his own eloquence, and his own
masterful temperament as to bring his colleagues into many a
difficulty, and force on them the unpleasant alternative of having to
choose between going further than they had intended to go or failing to
keep up with Brougham as the accredited and popular promoter of reform.
[Sidenote: 1830--Brougham as Lord Chancellor]
When Lord Grey next conferred with the King he was not a little
surprised to hear from the sovereign's own lips a suggestion that
Brougham might be offered the position of Lord Chancellor. Grey told
the King that he had been almost afraid to start such a proposition,
inasmuch as William had discouraged the idea of making Brougham Master
of the Rolls; but the King with shrewd good sense directed Grey's
attention to the fact, which had been already an operative force in
Grey's own mind, that to make Brougham Master of the Rolls, and yet
keep him in the House of Commons, might still leave him a very
dangerous colleague, while by making him Lord Chancellor the King and
his Prime Minister could get him practically out of the way altogether.
So it was agreed between the King and his Prime Minister that Lord
Brougham should be made Lord Chancellor, and thus forfeit his right to
sit in the House of Commons. If we speak with literal accuracy it is
not quite correct to say that a man by becoming Lord Chancellor becomes
necessarily, and at once, a member of the House of Lords. The Lord
Chancellor of course presides over the sittings of the House of Lords,
but he is not necessarily, from the first, a member of the hereditary
assembly. He sits on the woolsack, which, though actually in the House
of Lords, is not technically to be described as occupying such a
position. If a Lord Chancellor who is actually a peer desires to take
part in a debate he has to leave the woolsack and stand on some part of
the floor which is technically within the Chamber. On more than one
historic occasion some inconvenience has arisen from the fact that a
newly created Lord Chancellor had not yet been {125} made a peer, and
therefore was not entitled to take part in a debate, or even to speak
for some ceremonial purpose within the Chamber on behalf of the House
of Lords. Brougham as a matter of fact was not made a peer until a
little time after he had become Lord Chancellor.
All this, however, is only mentioned here as a matter of curious and
technical interest to the reader of Parliamentary history. Brougham
was made a peer soon enough for all purposes, and in the mean time he
was removed altogether from the House of Commons. Brougham did not
accept his new position without some grumbling. Probably he had the
idea that Lord Grey and others of his colleagues were glad to have him
safely provided for out of the range of the representative assembly,
where his eloquence might now and then become an inconvenient
influence. He accepted the position, however, and became a member of
the House of Lords. From that time his real influence over the country
may be said to have come to an end. After he ceased to be Lord
Chancellor he remained simply an eloquent, overbearing member of the
House of Lords, often delighting the galleries and the public with his
meteoric flashes of eloquence; but his power as a reformer was gone,
and for the greater part of his remaining career, when one or two
important questions to which he was pledged had been disposed of, he
took little interest in any movement of reform.
Lord Althorp became Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Althorp, who was
leader of the House of Commons as well as Chancellor of the Exchequer,
was an influential person in those days, but is almost forgotten in our
time. He was a model country gentleman, devoted to the duties and the
delights of such a position; had a natural gift for farming and no
natural inclination whatever for politics. Not merely did he make no
pretensions to oratory, but, even for a country gentleman, he could not
be regarded as a particularly good speaker. Yet he undoubtedly was a
man of much weight in the Parliamentary life of his time. He was
thoroughly straightforward and disinterested; he was absolutely
truthful and honorable; his word was his bond, {126} and the House of
Commons and the country in general could always feel sure that any
advice given by Lord Althorp was guided by the light of his own
judgment and his own conscience, and that he was never unduly swayed by
fear, favor, or affection, whether towards sovereign or party. Lord
Melbourne was Home Secretary.
[Sidenote: 1830--The Reform Administration]
If we glance down the list of this Reform Administration to-day we
shall all probably be struck by the fact that the men who were regarded
as juniors and something like beginners have come to occupy, in many
cases, a higher position in political history than their elders and
leaders. Lord John Russell, for instance, was not a member of Lord
Grey's Cabinet; he only held the office of Paymaster of the Forces.
From his first entrance into the House of Commons Lord John Russell had
distinguished himself as a reformer. In 1819 he had brought forward a
motion for a reform in the Parliamentary system, and he had renewed the
motion in almost every succeeding year. He had been a steady supporter
of the movement for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, which
imposed an unjust and utterly irrational disqualification on
Dissenters, and had been a zealous advocate of the measures for the
emancipation of Roman Catholics. All his early life had been a
training for statesmanship. He had been associated with scholars and
thinkers, with poets and historians. He had gone through Spain while
the war with Napoleon was still going on, and had been welcomed by the
Duke of Wellington in his camp. He had visited Napoleon at Elba, and
had talked over politics and war with the fallen Emperor. As Disraeli
said of him many years later, he had sat at the feet of Fox and had
measured swords with Canning. Lord Palmerston became for the first
time Foreign Secretary in the Grey Administration. He had been a
junior Lord of the Admiralty in a former Government, and he had more
lately been Secretary at War; but at the time that he first became
Foreign Secretary under Lord Grey few indeed could have anticipated
that he was destined to become one of the most powerful English
statesmen known to the century. Sir James Graham became First Lord of
the Admiralty, and {127} some of us can still remember him as one of
the foremost debaters in the House of Commons. Lord Durham, Grey's
son-in-law, accepted what may almost be called the nominal office of
Lord Privy Seal.
At that time Durham was regarded as a brilliant, eccentric sort of man,
a perfervid reformer on whose perseverance or consistency no one could
reckon for a moment--perhaps the comet of a season, but if so then
surely a comet of a season only. We now recognize Durham as the man of
statesmanlike foresight and genius who converted, at a great crisis, a
Canada burning with internal hatred between race and sect, and the one
common hatred of Imperial rule, into the Canada which we now know as
one of the most peaceful, prosperous, and loyal parts of the British
Empire. Mr. Stanley, afterwards Lord Derby, the famous "Rupert of
debate," became Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.
Grey appointed Lord Plunket Lord Chancellor for Ireland, and the name
of Lord Plunket will always be remembered as that of one of the
greatest Parliamentary orators known to modern times.
The new Ministry was, therefore, well prepared to carry on the battle
of reform. Lord Grey had made up his mind that Lord John Russell,
although not in the Cabinet, was the most fitting member of the
Administration to conduct the Reform Bill through the House of Commons.
As soon as Grey had completed his arrangements for the construction of
a Ministry, Lord Durham put himself into communication with Lord John
Russell. Durham told Lord John Russell that Lord Grey wished him to
consult with Russell as to the formation of a small private committee
whose task should be to create and put into shape some definite scheme
as the foundation of the great constitutional change which the new
Government had been called into power to establish. Lord John Russell
of course accepted the suggestion, and after some consideration it was
agreed by Lord Durham and himself that Sir James Graham and Lord
Duncannon, then Commissioner of Woods and Forests, should be invited to
join them, and make a committee of four for the purpose of devising a
{128} comprehensive and practicable measure of reform. Durham then
asked Lord John to put on paper at once his own idea with regard to the
outlines of such a plan, so that it might be taken into consideration
by the committee at their earliest meeting.
[Sidenote: 1830--The Reform Bill]
Lord John Russell's book, "The English Government and Constitution,"
tells us all what was the central idea in his mind when he set himself
to construct the groundwork of a Reform Bill. He tells us, alluding to
the task assigned to him, "It was not my duty to cut the body of our
old parent into pieces, and to throw it into a Medea's caldron, with
the hope of reviving the vigor of youth." He thought it his duty not
to turn aside "from the track of the Constitution into the maze of
fancy or the wilderness of abstract rights." "It was desirable, in
short, as it appeared to me, while sweeping away gross abuses, to avail
ourselves, as far as possible, of the existing frame and body of our
Constitution. Thus, if the due weight and influence of property could
be maintained, by preserving the representation of a proportion of the
small boroughs with an improved franchise, it was desirable rather to
build on the old foundations than to indulge our fancy or our conceit
in choosing a new site and erecting on new soil--perhaps on sand--an
edifice entirely different from all that had hitherto existed."
No Reformer who understood the general character of the English people,
and who had studied the development of political growth in England,
could have gone more prudently and wisely about the work of bringing
the existing Constitution into harmony with the altering conditions,
and removing out of its way all difficulties that might interfere with
its gradual and safe development in the future. But Russell was
clearly of opinion, and in this he was entirely in accordance with Lord
Grey, that nothing but a large and comprehensive measure would be of
any real use, and that "to nibble at disfranchisement and cramp reform
by pedantic adherence to existing rights would be to deceive
expectation, to whet appetite, and to bring about that revolution which
it was our object to {129} avert." Russell drew up a sketch of his
proposed Reform Bill, which he submitted to Lord Durham, and on the
draft of the measure thus submitted to him Lord Durham offered some
suggestions and alterations of his own. Russell's speech was written
on a single piece of letter-paper, and is reproduced with Lord Durham's
notes in Russell's book, "The English Government and Constitution."
The opening paragraph proposes that "the fifty boroughs having the
smallest population according to the latest census should be
disfranchised altogether." This proposal had Lord Durham's full
approval, and he noted the fact that according to his calculation it
would disfranchise all boroughs having a population of not more than
1400. The second paragraph proposed that fifty other boroughs of the
least considerable population, above the line already drawn, should be
allowed to send only one member each to the House of Commons. This
proposal also had the approval of Lord Durham, and he notes it would
apply to boroughs not having more than 3000 inhabitants each.
Then came a paragraph which proposed that all persons qualified to
serve on juries should have the right of voting, and to this clause
Lord Durham objected, regarding it probably as an embodiment of the
principle of what were called in later days "fancy franchises." The
fourth paragraph recommended that no person should be entitled to vote
in cities or boroughs, except in the City of London, in Westminster,
and in Southwark, unless he were a householder rated at ten pounds a
year, and unless, moreover, he had paid his parochial taxes for three
years, within three months after they became due, and had lived in the
constituency for six months previous to the election at which he
claimed to vote. The fifth clause proposed that the unrepresented
parts of London should have among them four or six additional members,
that eighteen large towns should have representation--and let the
reader try to realize for himself what the supposed representation of
the country could have been when at least eighteen large towns were, up
to that time, wholly unrepresented--and that twenty counties should
send two additional members {130} each to the House of Commons.
Another paragraph limited the right of voting in the newly enfranchised
towns to householders rated at ten pounds a year or persons qualified
to serve on juries. Lord Durham approved of the rating qualification,
but, consistently with his objection already mentioned, struck out the
words which connected the right to vote with the right to serve on a
jury. It is not necessary to go through the whole list of the
proposals set out in the sketch drawn up by Lord John Russell. Those
which we have already mentioned possess a peculiar historical interest
and illustrate in the most precise and effective manner the whole
nature of the system which, up to that time, had passed off as
constitutional government.
[Sidenote: 1831--Vote by ballot]
It will be seen that, on the whole, Lord Durham was a more advanced
reformer than even Lord John Russell. The entire scheme, as drawn out
by Russell, consisted of ten paragraphs or clauses, and it was at once
submitted to the consideration of the four men who formed the
committee. There was much discussion as to the borough qualification
for voters, and the committee finally agreed to recommend that it
should be uniform, and thus get rid of what were called the freemen and
the scot-and-lot voters, a class of persons endowed with antiquated and
eccentric qualifications which possibly might have had some meaning in
them and some justification under the conditions of a much earlier day,
but which had since grown into a system enabling wealthier men to
create in constituencies a body of thoroughly dependent or positively
corrupt voters. The desire of the committee was to extend the voting
privilege as far as possible consistently with due regard for the
principle that the voters ought to be men of substance enough to insure
their independence. This security they believed they could attain by
establishing the ten-pound franchise. This seems, no doubt, to modern
eyes a somewhat eccentric and haphazard line of demarkation; but it
must be remembered that even until much later days the ten pounds
rating principle in boroughs held its own, and was believed to be
absolutely essential to the {131} maintenance of an independent and
upright body of voters, and to the securing of such a body against the
danger of being "swamped," according to the once familiar word, by the
votes of the dependent and the corrupt.
There were some slight differences of opinion between Lord John Russell
and Lord Durham as to the extent to which the total or partial
disfranchisement of the small boroughs ought to go, but the scheme, as
finally shaped, had on the whole the thorough approval of the
committee. One important proposal, brought forward, it was understood,
by Lord Durham, was agreed to and formally adopted by the committee,
but not without strong opposition on the part of Lord John Russell.
This was the proposal for the introduction of the vote by ballot. When
Lord Grey's Cabinet came to consider the draft scheme the proposal for
the introduction of the vote by ballot was struck out altogether. The
time, in fact, had not come for the adoption of so great a reform.
Forty years had to pass before the mind of the English public could be
brought to recognize the necessity for such a change. Statesmanship
had still to learn how much the value of a popular suffrage was
diminished or disparaged by the system which left the voter at the
absolute mercy of some landlord or some patron who desired that the
vote should be given for the candidate whom he favored. The ballot
even then was demanded by the whole body of the Chartists. Orator
Hunt, one of the most popular heroes of the Chartist agitation, had
only just defeated Mr. Stanley at Preston. Daniel O'Connell was in
favor of the ballot, because he saw that without its protection the
Irish tenant farmer would have to vote for his landlord's candidate or
would be turned out of his farm. But the general feeling among
statesmen, as well as among the outer public, was that there was
something un-English about the ballot system, and it was contended that
the true Englishman ought to have the courage of his opinion and to
vote as his conscience told him, without caring whom he offended.
Edmund Burke in one of his speeches tells us that the system which is
founded on the heroic virtues is sure to have its {132} superstructure
in failure and disappointment, meaning thereby that every system is
doomed to failure which assumes as its principle the idea that all men
can at all times be up to the level of the heroic mood. Some of us can
well remember the days when English statesmen still declared that the
compulsion of education was un-English, and that it ought to be left to
the free choice of the English parent whether he would have his
children taught or leave them untaught.
[Sidenote: 1831--Lord John Russell and the Reform Bill]
Lord Grey's Cabinet would have nothing to do with the ballot. With
this exception the draft scheme as submitted by Lord John Russell was
accepted by Lord Grey and his colleagues. Then it was laid before the
King, and the King, according to Lord John Russell, gave it his ready
and cheerful sanction. There were indeed some observers at the time
who believed that the King had cheerfully sanctioned the whole scheme
of reform as proposed, because he still confidently believed that
nothing but the wreck of the Ministry was to come of it. However that
may have been, it is certain that the King did give his full sanction
to the measure, and the Government prepared to introduce the first
Reform Bill.
It was arranged that the conduct of the Bill in the House of Commons
should be placed in the hands of Lord John Russell. This arrangement
created, when the Bill was actually brought forward, a good deal of
adverse criticism in the House and in the country. Some prominent
members of the Opposition in the House of Commons persuaded themselves,
and tried to persuade their listeners, that Lord Grey's Cabinet, by
adopting such an arrangement, showed that there was no sincerity in the
professed desire for reform. If the members of the Cabinet, it was
argued, are such believers in the virtue of reform, why do they not
select one of their own body to introduce the measure? Lord John
Russell was only Paymaster of the Forces, and had not a seat in the
Cabinet, and if he was taken out of his place and put into the most
prominent position it could only be because no member of the Cabinet
could be found who was willing to undertake the task. {133} The answer
was very clear, even at the time, and it is obvious indeed to the
generations that had an opportunity of knowing how eminently Lord John
Russell was qualified for the work which had been entrusted to his
hands. He was a member of one of the greatest aristocratic families in
the land, and one of the practical dangers threatening the Reform Bill
was the alarm that might spread among the wealthier classes at the
thought of a wild democratic movement upsetting the whole principle of
aristocratic predominance in the English constitutional system. Still
more important was the fact that Lord John Russell, who had
distinguished himself already as the most devoted promoter of
constitutional reform, was a man peculiarly qualified by intellect and
by his skill in exposition to pilot such a measure through the House of
Commons.
Lord John Russell had not yet won reputation as a great Parliamentary
orator; nor did he, during the whole of his long career, succeed in
acquiring such a fame. But he was a master of the art which consists
in making a perfectly clear statement of the most complicated case, and
in defending his measure point by point with never-failing readiness
and skill throughout the most perplexing series of debates. It was
pointed out also, at the time, that if Lord John Russell was selected
to introduce the Reform Bill, although he was only Paymaster of the
Forces and had not a seat in the Cabinet, thus too had Edmund Burke
been selected to introduce the East India Bill, although he, like Lord
John Russell, was only Paymaster of the Forces and had not a seat in
the Cabinet. Indeed, to us, who now look back on the events from a
long distance of time, the impression would rather be that Lord Grey
had little or no choice in the matter. He was not himself a member of
the House of Commons, and therefore could not introduce the Bill there.
Brougham had ceased to be a member of the House of Commons, and was
therefore out of the question. Lord Althorp, who had not yet succeeded
to the peerage, and had a seat in the representative chamber, was, as
we have already said, the poorest of {134} speakers, and utterly
unsuited for the difficult task of steering so important a measure
through the troublous sea of Parliamentary debate. Lord Grey, of
course, was thoroughly well acquainted with Russell's great abilities
and his peculiar fitness for the task assigned to him, and could, under
no circumstances, have made a better choice. But our only possible
difficulty now would be to say what other choice, under the existing
conditions, he could possibly have made.
[Sidenote: 1831--Need for secrecy about the Reform Bill]
Tuesday, March 1, 1831, was the day fixed for the introduction of the
Reform Bill in the House of Commons. In the mean time, as we learn
from all who can be considered authorities on the subject, the nature
and the plan of the proposed reforms were kept a profound secret, not
only from the public at large, but even from members of the House of
Commons itself, with the exception of those who belonged to the
Administration. Ministerial secrets, it is only fair to say, are
generally well kept in England, but instances have undoubtedly occurred
in which the nature of some approaching measure, which ought to have
been held in the profoundest secrecy until the time came for its
official revelation, has leaked out and become fully known to the
public in advance. There is, of course, great difficulty in preventing
some inkling of the truth getting prematurely out. Cabinet Ministers
generally have wives, and there are stories of such wives having caught
stray words from their husbands which put them on a track of discovery,
and not having the grace to keep strictly to themselves the discovery
when made. No such mischance, however, appears to have attended the
preparation of the Reform Bill. It is said that there must have been
more than thirty persons who had official knowledge of the Ministerial
plans, and yet it does not appear that any definite idea as to their
nature was obtained by the public.
It may perhaps be asked whether there was any solid reason for
attaching so much importance to the keeping of a secret which on a
certain fixed and near-approaching day must, as a matter of fact, be a
secret no more. Of course the imperative necessity of secrecy would be
obvious {135} in all cases where some policy was in preparation which
might directly affect the interests of foreign States. In such a case
it is clear that it might be of essential importance to a Government
not to let its plans become known to the world before it had put itself
into a condition to maintain its policy. In measures that had to do
with commercial and financial interests it might often be of paramount
importance that no false alarm or false expectations of any kind should
be allowed to disturb the business of the country before the fitting
time came for a full declaration. But in the case of such a measure as
the Reform Bill it may be asked if any great advantage was to be gained
by keeping the nature of the measure a complete secret until the hour
came for its full and official explanation. With regard to this Reform
Bill there were many good reasons for maintaining the profoundest
possible secrecy. If any premature reports got out at all they would
be sure to be imperfect reports, indiscreet or haphazard revelations of
this or that particular part of the Bill, utterly wanting in balance,
symmetry, and comprehensiveness. The whole thing was new to the
country, and there would have been much danger in fixing public
attention upon some one part of the proposed reform until the public
could be in a position to judge the scheme as a complete measure.
Lord Grey's Government had to deal with two classes of men who were
naturally and almost relentlessly opposed to each other--the more
clamorous reformers and the enemies of all reform. It was of immense
importance that the latter class should, if possible, be prevailed upon
to see--at least the more intelligent and reasonable among them--that
the Government had not gone so far in the direction of reform as to
make it seem a threatened revolution. It was, on the other hand, of
immense importance to prevail upon the former class to see that the
Government had not so stunted and dwarfed its proposed reform as to
render it incapable of anything like a political and constitutional
revolution. Any sudden explosion of feeling on either side brought
about by some premature {136} and imperfect revelation might have
caused the most serious trouble in the country.
[Sidenote: 1831--Introduction of the Reform Bill]
Moreover, none of the ministers could possibly profess to be quite
certain as to the genuine wishes and purposes of his Majesty King
William the Fourth with regard to the Reform Bill. The King was not
always in the same mood on the same subject for any two days in
succession, or indeed for any two hours of the same day. If the
opponents of all reform were to get a knowledge of the clauses in the
Bill least favorable to their own ideas as to their interests, and were
to make a commotion among the owners of the soil, the immediate effect
might be to discourage the King altogether, to fill his mind with a
strong desire for escape from the uncongenial part of a reformer and an
overmastering anxiety to get rid of his reforming Ministry. If, on the
other hand, the Peterloo men, the Chartists generally, and the
populations of the northern towns were to get into their minds through
some imperfect revelation that the Ministerial Bill was not intended to
do half so much for them as they were demanding, and if in consequence
there were to be a stormy agitation throughout the country, then it was
quite possible that the King might take alarm and tell his ministers
that it was hopeless to think of conciliating such agitators, and that
the safety of the State, and especially of the monarchy, could only be
provided for by postponing reform until some more favorable
opportunity. For all these reasons, and many others, the leaders of
the Government had their hearts set on keeping well their secret until
the right hour should come for its official disclosure, and it is a
fact of some historical interest, even to readers of the present day,
that the secret was faithfully kept.
The 1st of March, 1831, was a day of intense excitement and even tumult
in and around the House of Commons. We are told that never before in
that generation had there been so great a crowd of persons struggling
for seats in the galleries of the House of Commons. It is recorded, as
an illustration of this intense eagerness on the part of the public,
that every available seat in the House {137} was occupied for hours
before the business of the day began. This, however, is not a
statement that could fill with surprise any reader of the present day.
We have been accustomed lately to read of occasions when not merely
crowds of strangers anxious to obtain seats, but crowds of members
positively entitled to get seats, have had to take their stand at the
outer gates of the House of Commons hours before daybreak on the
morning of the day when some great measure was to be introduced, that
they might get a reasonable chance of a place, in order to hear a
speech which could not possibly begin before four o'clock in the
afternoon. Certainly the House of Commons did not then consist of
nearly as many members as it has at present, and the reformed House of
Commons has not even yet been so reformed as to impress it with the
idea that there ought to be so many seats for so many members. However
that may be, it is quite certain that there was intense interest
manifested by the public on the day when the Reform Bill was to be
introduced; that immense crowds of people made for the Parliament
buildings, and that the approaches to the House of Commons were
besieged by an excited and tumultuous crowd. There was, in fact, such
a rush made to secure the seats in the galleries available for the
public, so much noisy struggling and quarrelling for seats, that the
Speaker was at last compelled to intervene and to declare that if quiet
was not at once restored it would be his duty to have the House cleared
of all strangers. Order was thus restored after a time, and at last
the moment arrived for Lord John Russell to introduce the Reform Bill.
That was indeed a moment of genuine historical interest.
The descriptions given at the time by listeners tell us that Russell
began his speech in tones which were unusually quiet, low, and reserved
even for him. It may be said at once that throughout his whole career
in Parliament Russell's manner had been peculiarly quiet and repressed,
and that his eloquence seldom had any fervor in it. That he was a man
of deep feeling and warm emotions is certain, but both in public and
private life there {138} was a coldness about him which often led
strangers into the quite erroneous belief that he kept apart from the
crowd because he was filled with a sense of his aristocratic position
and wished to hold himself aloof from contact with ordinary mortals.
As a Parliamentary debater he was singularly clear, concise, and
unaffected. He was a great master of phrases, and some odd
epigrammatic sentences of his still live in our common speech, and are
quoted almost every day by persons who have not the least idea as to
the source from which they come. His speech on the introduction of the
Reform Bill was even for him peculiarly calm, deliberate, and
restrained. It contained some passages which will always live in our
history, and will illustrate to the reader, more effectively than a
mass of statistics or political tracts might do, the nature and
proportions of the absurd anomalies which Russell was endeavoring to
abolish. It may be well to mention the fact that it was this speech
which, for the first time, introduced and adopted the word "Reformer"
as the title of the genuine Whig, and applied the term "Conservative,"
in no unfriendly sense, to the Tory party.
[Sidenote: 1831--Lord John Russell's speech]
Lord John Russell opened his speech by a vindication of the
representative principle as the first condition of the English
constitutional system. He made it clear that in the early days of our
Parliaments this principle had been distinctly acknowledged, and, to a
certain extent, had been carried out in practice. Then he showed how
the principle had come to be less and less recognized in the
arrangement of our constituencies and the allotment of representatives,
until at last there had ceased to be any manner of proportion between
representatives and population or any practical acknowledgment of the
main purpose for which representatives were to be selected. Everything
had tended, in the mean time, to make the owners of the soil also the
owners and masters of the representation. Lord John Russell employed a
series of illustrations, at once simple and striking, to impress upon
his audience a due understanding of the extraordinary manner in which
the whole principle of representation had been diverted. {139} from
its original purpose. He assumed the case of some inquiring and
intelligent foreigner, a stranger to our institutions but anxious to
learn all about them, who had come to England for the purpose of
obtaining information on the spot. The stranger has the nature and the
purpose of our Parliamentary system explained to him, and he is assured
that it rests on the representative principle. He is told that the
House of Commons is assembled for the purpose of enabling the sovereign
to collect the best advice that can be given to him as to the
condition, the wants, and the wishes of his subjects.
The House of Commons is to be in that sense representative; it is to be
the interpreter to the King of all that his people wish him to know.
Then the stranger is naturally anxious to learn how the constituencies
are formed, by whose selection the representatives are sent to
Parliament, in order to render to the King a faithful message from his
people. The stranger is taken to a grassy mound, let us say, in the
midst of an expanse of silent, unpeopled fields, and he is told that
that grassy mound sends two members to the House of Commons. He is
shown a stone wall with three niches in it, and he is informed that
those three niches are privileged to contribute two members to the
representative assembly. Lord John Russell described with force and
masterly humor a variety of such sights which were pointed out to the
stranger, each description being an accurate picture of some place
which long since had lost all population, but still continued to have
the privilege of sending representatives to Parliament. Then Lord John
Russell changed his form of illustration. He took his stranger to some
of the great manufacturing and commercial cities and towns of England,
and described the admiration and the wonder with which the intelligent
foreigner regarded these living evidences of the growth and the
greatness of the nation. Here then, no doubt, the stranger begins at
last to think that he can really understand the practical value of the
representative principle. Thus far he has only been bewildered by what
he has seen and heard of the empty stretches of land which are {140}
endowed with a right to have representatives in the House of Commons,
but now he begins to acknowledge to himself that a people with such
great manufacturing communities can send up to London representatives
enough from their own centres to constitute a Parliament capable of
advising with any monarch. Then, to his utter amazement, the
distracted foreigner learns that these great cities and towns have no
right whatever to representation in the House of Commons, and have
nothing whatever to do with the election of members.
[Sidenote: 1831--The proposed reforms]
The imaginary foreigner who knew nothing about the principle of the
workings of our Constitution before his arrival in the country might
well have been amazed and confounded, and might have fancied, if he had
been a reader of English literature, that he had lost his way somehow,
and instead of arriving in England had stumbled into the State of
Laputa. He might well indeed be excused for such bewilderment, seeing
that an English student of the present day finds it hard to realize in
his mind the possibility and the reality of the condition of things
which existed in this country within the lifetime of men still living.
Lord John Russell then went on to describe the manner in which the
Government proposed to deal with the existing defects of the whole
Parliamentary system. He laid it down as the main principle of the
reforms he was prepared to introduce that a free citizen should not be
compelled to pay taxes in the imposition and levying of which he was
allowed to have no voice. The vast majority of free citizens could in
any case only express their opinions as to this or that financial
impost through their representatives in the House of Commons. This
principle had of late been allowed to fail so grossly and so widely in
its application that the House of Commons had almost entirely ceased to
represent the will of the people.
Lord John Russell explained that the chief evils with which the
Government had to deal were three in number. The first was the
nomination of members of Parliament by individual patrons. The second
was the nomination of members by close corporations. The third was the
{141} enormous expense of elections, which was principally caused by
the open bribery and corruption which had almost become a recognized
accompaniment of every contest. He proposed to deal with the first
evil by abolishing altogether the representation of the nominal
constituencies, the constituencies that had no resident inhabitant, the
boroughs which at some distant time had had houses and inmates, but of
which now only the faintest traces were visible to the eye of the
traveller--like, for instance, the extinct communities of whose
existence some faint memorial evidence might be traced on Salisbury
Plain. The Census last taken, that of 1821, the Government had
resolved to accept as a basis of operations, and Lord John Russell
proposed that every borough which, at that date, had less than 3000
inhabitants should cease any longer to send a member to the House of
Commons. All boroughs that had not more than 4000 inhabitants should
send in future only one member each to Parliament. The principle of
nomination by individuals or by corporations was to come to an end.
The "fancy franchises" were to be got rid of altogether. In the
boroughs every householder paying rates on houses of the yearly value
of ten pounds and upwards was entitled to have a vote.
The Government, however, proposed to deal mercifully, so far as
possible, with the existing interests of voters, although the process
of extinction was summary and complete with regard to the so-called
rights of patrons and of corporations. For instance, resident voters,
under the old qualifications, were to be allowed to retain their right
during their lives, but with the lapse of each life the qualification
expired and the owner of such a vote could have no successor. When
dealing with the counties Lord John Russell announced that copyholders
to the value of ten pounds a year and leaseholders for not less than
twenty-one years at an annual rent of fifty pounds and upwards were to
have the franchise. The abolition of the small boroughs and the
uninhabited constituencies would reduce the number of members in the
House of Commons by 168, and Lord John Russell explained that the
Government did not {142} propose to fill up all these vacancies, being
of opinion that the House was already rather overflowing in its numbers
and had a good deal too many members for the proper discharge of its
business.
[Sidenote: 1831--The principles of the Reform Bill]
Some of the vacant seats were, however, to be assigned to the cities
and towns which were then actually unrepresented in the House of
Commons. Seven of these towns were to have two representatives each,
and twenty smaller but still goodly towns were to have one
representative each. Even at this day it may still come as a matter of
surprise to some readers to learn that the seven towns which in 1831
were wholly unrepresented, and to which the Bill proposed to give two
members each, were Manchester, which was to include Salford;
Birmingham, Leeds, Greenwich, Wolverhampton, Sheffield, and Sunderland.
The Government proposed to give eight additional members to the
metropolis itself--that is to say, two members each to the Tower
Hamlets, Holborn, Finsbury, and Lambeth. The three Ridings of
Yorkshire were to have two members each, and twenty-six counties
already represented, and in each of which there were more than 150,000
inhabitants, were each to have two additional members. It is not
necessary to go more fully into the details of the scheme which Lord
John Russell expounded elaborately to the House of Commons.
In Ireland and in Scotland there were some slight differences as to the
scale of the qualification from those that were proposed for England;
but in the three countries the principle was the same, and the right to
vote was associated with a certain occupation of land or payment of
household rating, and new constituencies were created where towns,
unrepresented before, had grown up into recognized importance. By the
changes that the Bill proposed to make no less than half a million of
new voters were to be created throughout Great Britain and Ireland.
For the purpose of diminishing the enormous expense of elections it was
proposed that the poll should be taken at the same time in separate
districts, so that no voter should have to travel more than fifteen
miles in order to record his vote, and {143} that the time over which
an election contest could be spread should be greatly reduced, and
reduced in proportion to the size of the constituency. It is as well
to say at once that that part of the Reform Bill which aimed at the due
reduction of election expenses to their legitimate and necessary
proportions proved an utter failure. No reduction in the amount of
what may be called working expenses could have diminished, to any
satisfactory degree, the evil from which the country was suffering at
that time, and from which it continued to suffer for more than another
generation. Bribery and corruption were the evils which had to be
dealt with, and the Reform Bill of 1831 left these evils as it had
found them. The Bill, however, did, in its other provisions, do much
to establish a genuine principle of Parliamentary representation.
To begin with, it proclaimed the principle of representation as the
legal basis of the whole Parliamentary system. It abolished the
nomination of members, whether by individual persons or by
corporations. It laid down as law that representation must bear some
proportion to the numbers represented. It made actual, or at least
occasional, residence a qualification for a voter. These were the main
principles of the measure. The attention of readers will presently be
drawn to the manner in which the Bill failed to answer some of the
demands made upon the Government by the spreading intelligence of the
country, and left these demands to be more adequately answered by the
statesmen of a later generation. Enough to say that with all its
defects the Bill, as Lord John Russell explained it, was, for its time,
a bold and broad measure of reform, and that it laid down the lines
along which, as far as human foresight can discern, the movement of
progress in England's political history will make its way.
{144}