THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).
Parliamentary Reform--Mr. Disraeli's Resolutions--Their Text--Mr.
Lowe's Sarcasms--The "Ten Minutes" Bill--Sir John Pakington's
Revelations--Lord John Manners' Letter--Ministerial Resignations--A
New Bill promised--Meeting at Downing Street--Mr. Disraeli's
Statement--The Compound Householder--The Fancy Franchises--Mr.
Gladstone's Exposure--Mr. Lowe and Lord Cranborne--The Spirit of
Concession--Mr. Gladstone on the Second Reading--Mr. Gathorne
Hardy's Speech--Mr. Bright and Mr. Disraeli--The Dual Vote
abandoned--Mr. Coleridge's Instruction--The Tea-Room Cabal--Mr.
Gladstone's Amendment--His other Amendments withdrawn--Continued
Debates and Divisions--Mr. Hodgkinson's Amendment--Mr. Disraeli's
_coup de théâtre_--Mr. Lowe's Philippic--The County Franchise--The
Redistribution Bill--Objections to It--The Boundaries--Lord
Cranborne and Mr. Lowe--Mr Disraeli's Audacity--The Bill in the
Lords--Four Amendments--Lord Cairns's Minorities Amendment--The
Bill becomes Law--The "Leap in the Dark"--_Punch_ on the
Situation--The Scottish Reform Bill--Prolongation of the Habeas
Corpus Suspension Act--Irish Debates--Oaths and Offices Bill--Mr.
Bruce's Education Bill--The "Gang System"--Meetings in Hyde
Park--Mr. Walpole's Proclamation and Resignation--Attempted
Attack on Chester Castle--Collapse of the Enterprise--Attack on
the Police Van at Manchester--Trial of the "Martyrs"--Explosion
at Clerkenwell Prison--Trades Union Outrages at Sheffield--The
Crimes of Broadhead--Tailors and Picketing--The Buckinghamshire
Labourers--Distressing Accidents--Royal Visitors--Foreign
Affairs--The French Evacuation of Mexico--The Luxemburg
Question--The London Conference--Neutralisation of the Duchy--The
Austrian Compromise--Creation of the Dual Monarchy--The Autumn
Session--The Abyssinian Expedition--A Mislaid Letter.
On the 11th of February, 1867, in pursuance of the pledges given by
the new Ministry in their various speeches before the beginning of the
Session, the House of Commons was once more invited to consider the
question of Reform, under the guidance, however, of Mr. Disraeli, instead
of Mr. Gladstone. The Conservative party naturally felt somewhat strange
to the work; they had turned out the Liberal Government upon various
pleas, all of which they were to abandon, more or less completely,
before the close of the Session of 1867; they had no such traditional or
inherited policy to guide them in framing a popular Reform Bill as the
Liberals had; and they had a dread of the Opposition, which, considering
their own conduct towards the defeated Reform Bill of the preceding year,
was, perhaps, not unreasonable. Still the fact that the whole question
had been already fully canvassed and discussed--that the House had become
familiarised with the details as well as the general principles of Reform,
and that its members had, one and all with more or less sincerity, it is
true, pledged themselves to Reform in some shape or other--was in their
favour. When the _pros_ and _cons_ of the situation are considered, the
course adopted by Mr. Disraeli, in introducing the subject, seems, at
first sight, both natural and ingenious. "We desire no longer," said
the Conservatives, "to risk the settlement of the whole question upon a
question of detail; the House is pledged to Reform; let us then, instead
of dictating to it a definite policy, instead of bringing in a Bill of our
own immediately, endeavour to ascertain the general sense of the House
upon disputed points before framing it, that we may not frame it in the
dark, and meet the common fate of those Ministries that have hitherto
dealt with the subject." This was the meaning of Mr. Disraeli's famous
Resolutions, which he explained to the House in his opening speech. In
this speech, throughout ingeniously indefinite, the new Chancellor of
the Exchequer provided such men as Mr. Lowe, possessing a keen sense
of humour, with ample food for ridicule. After the resolutions had
been sufficiently debated, Government promised to bring forward a Bill
embodying the general opinion of the House, so far as the discussions on
the resolutions should have enabled them to ascertain it. Mr. Gladstone,
in answer to Mr. Disraeli, reproached Government with wishing to shift the
whole responsibility in the matter from their own shoulders to those of
the House. The principle of Ministerial responsibility was one sanctioned
by long usage, and was not to be lightly abandoned. With regard to the
resolutions themselves, though at first sight he disliked the plan, he
was willing to give them a fair trial, provided they were not mere vague
preliminary declarations which it would be of no practical advantage to
discuss. The resolutions appeared in the papers next day, and produced
general disappointment. It was felt that Government, in spite of all
their protestations, were really "angling for a policy," and that they
were treating neither the House nor the nation straightforwardly. The
resolutions were as follows:--
1. "That the number of electors for counties and boroughs in England and
Wales ought to be increased.
2. "That such increase may best be effected by both reducing the value
of the qualifying tenement in counties and boroughs, and by adding other
franchises not dependent on such value.
3. "That while it is desirable that a more direct representation should be
given to the labouring class, it is contrary to the Constitution of this
realm to give to any one class or interest a predominating power over the
rest of the community.
4. "That the occupation franchise in counties and boroughs shall be based
upon the principle of rating.
[It will be remembered that it was upon this very question of rating, as
against rental, that the Russell Ministry had been thrown out of office in
the preceding year. After Lord Dunkellin's amendment, the Conservatives
were bound to make the principle of rating a part of any scheme brought
forward by them. How much they were obliged to modify it before the end of
the matter, and how amply justified Mr. Gladstone's arguments against it
were proved to be, will be seen hereafter.]
5. "That the principle of plurality of votes, if adopted by Parliament,
would facilitate the settlement of the borough franchise on an extensive
basis.
6. "That it is expedient to revise the existing distribution of seats.
7. "That in such revision it is not expedient that any borough now
represented in Parliament should be wholly disfranchised.
8. "That in revising the existing distribution of seats, this House will
acknowledge, as its main consideration, the expediency of supplying
representation to places not at present represented, which may be
considered entitled to that privilege.
9. "That it is expedient that provision should be made for the better
prevention of bribery and corruption at elections.
10. "That it is expedient that the system of registration of voters in
counties should be assimilated as far as possible to that which prevails
in boroughs.
11. "That it shall be open to every Parliamentary elector, if he thinks
fit, to record his vote by means of a polling paper, duly signed and
authenticated.
12. "That provision be made for diminishing the distance which voters have
to travel for the purpose of recording their votes, so that no expenditure
for such purpose shall hereafter be legal.
13. "That a humble Address be presented to her Majesty, praying
her Majesty to issue a Royal Commission to form and submit to the
consideration of Parliament a scheme for new and enlarged boundaries
of the existing Parliamentary boroughs where the population extends
beyond the limits now assigned to such boroughs; and to fix, subject to
the decision of Parliament, the boundaries of such other boroughs as
Parliament may deem fit to be represented in this House."
The House and the country were naturally dissatisfied with such vague
statements as these, and between the 11th and the 25th of February, when
Mr. Disraeli promised something more definite, many attempts were made to
induce Government to declare themselves more plainly. "The Resolutions
of the Government," said Mr. Lowe later, borrowing a happy illustration
from the "Vicar of Wakefield," "have no more to do with the plan of the
Government than Squire Thornhill's three famous postulates had to do with
the argument he had with Moses Primrose, when, in order to controvert
the right of the clergy to tithes, he laid down the principles--that a
whole is greater than its part; that whatever is, is; and that three
angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles." However, Mr. Disraeli
kept his secret, in spite of attacks from Mr. Ayrton and arguments from
Mr. Gladstone, till the night of the 25th, when he rose to explain the
resolutions and to suggest certain constructions of them on the part
of Government; a very different thing, it will be understood, from
bringing in a Bill by which the framers of it are bound in the main to
stand or fall. In the first place, then, Government proposed to create
four new franchises--an educational franchise, to include persons who
had taken a university degree, ministers of religion, and others; a
savings bank franchise; a franchise dependent upon the possession of
£50 in the public funds; and a fourth dependent upon the payment of £1
yearly in direct taxation. By these means the Government calculated that
about 82,000 persons would be enfranchised. In boroughs the occupier's
qualification was to be reduced to £6 rateable value, and in counties to
£20 rateable value--reductions which it was supposed would admit about
220,000 new voters. With regard to the redistribution of seats, four
boroughs, convicted of extensive corruption, and returning seven members
between them, were to be wholly disfranchised; and in addition to these
seven members, Mr. Disraeli appealed "to the patriotism of the smaller
boroughs" to provide him with twenty-three more, by means of partial
disfranchisement. The thirty seats thus obtained were to be divided as
follows:--Fifteen new seats were to be given to counties, fourteen to
boroughs (an additional member being given to the Tower Hamlets), and one
member to the London University. The points of likeness and unlikeness
between this scheme and that of the Liberals in 1866 will be easily
perceived by any one who takes the trouble to examine the two plans.
This meagre and unsatisfactory measure, however, was short-lived; and the
secret history of it, as it was afterwards told by various members of
the Government, affords an amusing insight into the mysteries of Cabinet
Councils. The fact was that before the beginning of the Session, and
during the time that the thirteen resolutions were lying on the table of
the House, two Reform schemes were under the consideration of Government,
"one of which," said Lord Derby, "was more extensive than the other." When
it was seen that the House would have nothing to say to the resolutions,
and that a Bill must be brought in without delay, it became necessary
to choose between these two schemes. At a Cabinet meeting on Saturday,
February 23rd, the more extensive one, based upon household suffrage,
guarded by various precautions, was, as it was supposed, unanimously
adopted, and Mr. Disraeli was commissioned to explain it to the House of
Commons on the following Monday, the 25th. The rest of the story may be
told in Sir John Pakington's words. "You all know," he said, addressing
his constituents at Droitwich, "that, on the 23rd of February, a Cabinet
Council decided on the Reform Bill which was to be proposed to Parliament.
On Monday, the 25th, at two o'clock in the afternoon, Lord Derby was to
address the whole Conservative party in Downing Street. At half-past
four in the afternoon of that day--I mention the hour because it is
important--the Chancellor of the Exchequer was to explain the Reform Bill
in the House of Commons. When the Cabinet Council rose on the previous
Saturday, it was my belief that we were a unanimous Cabinet on the Reform
Bill then determined upon. [Lord Derby, however, afterwards stated that
General Peel, one of the three seceding Ministers, had some time before
the Cabinet of the 23rd expressed his strong objections to the Reform Bill
then adopted, but had consented to waive his objections for the sake of
the unity of the Ministry.] As soon as the Council concluded, Lord Derby
went to Windsor to communicate with her Majesty on the Reform Bill, and
I heard no more of the subject till the Monday morning. On the Monday,
between eleven and twelve o'clock, I received an urgent summons to attend
Lord Derby's house at half-past twelve o'clock on important business. At
that hour I reached Lord Derby's house, but found there only three or
four members of the Cabinet. No such summons had been anticipated, and
consequently some of the Ministers were at their private houses, some at
their offices, and it was nearly half-past one before the members of the
Cabinet could be brought together. As each dropped in, the question was
put, 'What is the matter? Why are we convened?' and as they successively
came in, they were informed that Lord Cranborne, Lord Carnarvon, and
General Peel had seceded, objecting to the details of the Bill which we
thought they had adopted on the Saturday. Imagine the difficulty and
embarrassment in which the Ministry found themselves placed. It was then
past two o'clock. Lord Derby was to address the Conservative party at
half-past two; at half-past four Mr. Disraeli was to unfold the Reform
scheme [adopted on the previous Saturday] before the House of Commons.
Literally, we had not half an hour--we had not more than ten minutes--to
make up our minds as to what course the Ministry were to adopt. The public
knows the rest. We determined to propose, not the Bill agreed to on the
Saturday, but an alternative measure, which we had contemplated in the
event of our large and liberal scheme being rejected by the House of
Commons. Whether, if the Ministry had had an hour for consideration, we
should have taken that course was, perhaps, a question. But we had not
that hour, and were driven to decide upon a line of definite action within
the limits of little more than ten minutes."
In Lord Malmesbury's "Recollections" is to be found a letter from Lord
John Manners, which corroborates this ingenuous confession. "I am truly
sorry," he wrote on February 26th, "to hear of the cause of your absence
from our distracted councils, and hope that you will soon be able to bring
a better account of Lady Malmesbury. I really hardly know where we are,
but yesterday we were suddenly brought together to hear that Cranborne and
Carnarvon withdrew unless we gave up household suffrage and duality, upon
which announcement Peel said that, although he had given up his opposition
when he stood alone, now he must be added to the remonstrant Ministers.
Stanley then proposed that to keep us together the £6 and £20 rating
should be adopted, which, after much discussion, was agreed to. We have
decided to abandon the Resolutions altogether, and to issue the Boundary
Commission ourselves. We are in a very broken and disorganised condition."
It was soon felt, however, by the Ministry that this condition of things
was unsound, and could not last. The measure explained on the 25th
satisfied neither Conservatives nor Liberals. A large meeting of Liberals
held at Mr. Gladstone's house decisively condemned it; while from their
own friends and supporters Government received strong and numerous
protests against it. What was to be done? Lord Derby once more called
his Government together, and they agreed to retrace their steps, even at
the cost of the three objecting Ministers. Upon the 4th of March Lord
Derby, in the House of Lords, and Mr. Disraeli, in the Commons, announced
the resignation of Lord Cranborne, Lord Carnarvon, and General Peel (who
were replaced by the Dukes of Richmond and Marlborough and Mr. Corry),
the withdrawal of the measure proposed on the 25th, and the adoption by
Government of a far more liberal policy than that represented. Both in the
House and in the country there were naturally some rather free criticisms
passed upon a Government who, three weeks before the announcement of a
Reform Bill brought forward by them, had not come to an agreement upon its
most essential provisions, and upon a sudden emergency, and to keep their
members together, adopted and introduced a makeshift measure, which their
own sense of expediency, no less than public opinion, afterwards obliged
them to withdraw. In these marchings and counter-marchings of Government
much valuable time had been thrown away. "No less than six weeks of the
Session," said Lord Grey, "have been wasted before any step whatever has
been taken." The Conservative leaders, however, vehemently protested that
it was no fault of theirs; and now that the confession had been made, and
the three refractory colleagues got rid of, affairs did at length assume a
businesslike aspect. "It is our business now," said the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, "to bring forward, as soon as we possibly can, the measure of
Parliamentary Reform which, after such difficulties and such sacrifices,
it will be my duty to introduce to the House. Sir, the House need not fear
that there will be any evasion, any equivocation, any vacillation, or any
hesitation in that measure."
In the interval between these Ministerial explanations and the production
of the real Reform Bill in Parliament meetings of their supporters
were held by the lenders of both parties. At a meeting held in Downing
Street on the 15th of March, Lord Derby explained to 195 members of
the Conservative party the distinctive features of the proposed Bill.
Startling as the contemplated changes in the franchise must have seemed
to every Conservative present, only one dissenting voice was heard--that
of Sir William Heathcote, who declared, in strong terms, that he wholly
disapproved of the measure, and that he believed, if carried out, it
would destroy the influence of rank, property, and education throughout
the country by the mere force of numbers. The scheme, of which only a
few fragments were as yet generally known, was given to the public on
the 18th of March, when Mr. Disraeli described it at much length in the
House. And although the measure at first proposed was so largely altered
in its passage through Parliament that by the time it had become part of
the law of England its original projectors must have had some difficulty
in recognising it as theirs, it is worth while to take careful note of its
various provisions as they were originally drawn up, that the action of
the two great parties engaged throughout the subsequent struggle may be
the more plainly understood.
[Illustration: LORD MALMESBURY.
(_From a Photograph by Elliott & Fry, Baker Street, W._)]
The first quarter of Mr. Disraeli's speech was taken up by a review of
the past history of the question--an old and well-known story, somewhat
impatiently listened to by the House. He picked the various Reform schemes
of his predecessors to pieces, and finally declared that the principle
at the bottom of them all--the principle of value, regulated whether by
rental or rating--had been proved by long experience to be untenable and
unpractical, and Government were now about to abandon it altogether. Nor
was Mr. Disraeli slow to disclose his secret. The very next paragraph
of his speech announced that, in the opinion of Government, any attempt
to unite the principle of value with the principle of rating, any such
solution as a £6 or £5 rating franchise, would be wholly unsatisfactory.
In the boroughs of England and Wales, Mr. Disraeli went on to say, there
were 1,367,000 male householders, of whom 644,000 were qualified to
vote, leaving 723,000 unqualified. Now, if we examined these 723,000, we
should find that 237,000 of them were rated to the poor and paid their
rates. So that if the law were changed in such a manner as to make the
borough franchise dependent upon the payment of rates only, unrestricted
by any standard of value, these 237,000 would be at once qualified to
vote, making, with the 644,000 already qualified, 881,000 persons in the
English and Welsh boroughs in possession of the franchise. There would
still remain 486,000, belonging mostly to the irregular and debatable
class of compound householders--householders paying their rates, not
personally, but through their landlords. Now, since Government thought
that the franchise ought to be based upon a personal payment of rates,
it became a great question as to what was to be done with these 486,000
compound householders. "Ought the compound householders to have a vote?"
As a compound householder Government thought he ought not to have a vote.
But he was not to be left altogether in the cold. Ample opportunities
were to be afforded him for raising himself out of the anomalous position
to which the Small Tenements Acts had consigned him. Let him only enter
his name upon the rate-book, and claim to pay his rates personally; and
having fulfilled the constitutional condition required, he would at once
succeed to the constitutional privilege connected with it. It had been
said that the working classes did not care enough about the suffrage to
take so much trouble to obtain it. "That, however," said Mr. Disraeli,
oracularly, "is not the opinion of her Majesty's Government." Thus 723,000
additional persons might, if they wished, obtain the franchise under the
new Bill. To these were to be added all those who paid 20s. a year in
direct taxes, whether compound householders or not; while, to prevent
the working classes from swamping the constituencies and nullifying the
influence of the middle and upper classes, Government brought forward the
curious expedient of dual voting. "Every person," said the Chancellor of
the Exchequer," who pays £1 direct taxation, and who enjoys the franchise
which depends upon the payment of direct taxation, if he is also a
householder and pays his rates, may exercise his suffrage in respect of
both qualifications."
The dual vote, however, provoked such hot opposition that, as will
shortly be seen, Government eventually withdrew it. The direct taxes
qualification, Mr. Disraeli calculated, would add more than 200,000 to
the constituency; and the three other "fancy franchises," as they were
called--the education franchise, the funded property franchise, and the
savings bank franchise--another 105,000. In all, Government held out
the splendid promise of an addition of more than 1,000,000 voters to
the borough constituency. In counties the franchise would be lowered to
£15 rateable value--a reduction which would enfranchise about 171,000
additional voters; while the four lateral franchises mentioned above
would bring the number of new county voters up to about 330,000. With
regard to the redistribution of seats, Government had substantially the
same proposals to make as those originally described to the House on
the 25th of February. Mr. Disraeli, however, vigorously defended them
from the charge of inadequacy which had been brought against them in
the interval. Neither Government nor the country, he said, was prepared
to go through the agitating labour of constructing a new electoral map
of England; and this being the case, all that would be done would be to
seize opportunities as they arose of remedying grievances and removing
inequalities by some such moderate means as those proposed in the Bill.
Alas! for Mr. Disraeli's figures when they came to be handled by Mr.
Gladstone. Instead of 237,000, it was stoutly maintained by Mr. Gladstone
that scarcely 144,000 would be admitted to the franchise by extending
it to all who personally paid their rates. And as to the facilities to
be offered in such tempting profusion to the compound householder for
obtaining a vote, they amounted to this--that he was to have the privilege
of paying over again that which he had already paid. It was difficult to
believe that he would ever avail himself of this privilege to any great
extent. Practically, the Bill did nothing for the compound householder;
so that, while it would introduce household suffrage--nay, universal
suffrage--into villages and country towns where there was no system of
compounding for rates, in large towns, like Leeds, with a population
of a quarter of a million, where the majority of the inhabitants were
compound householders, its effect would be little or nothing. In fact, the
results of the Bill, had it been passed as it was originally drawn up,
would have been almost grotesque. In Hull, for instance, where the Small
Tenements Act was almost universally enforced, the number of personally
rated occupiers under the £10 rental who would have been enfranchised by
the Bill would have been 64 out of a population of 104,873; while in the
small borough of Thirsk, where the system of compounding for rates was
not in use, 684 would have obtained the franchise as personal ratepayers.
In Brighton, where compound householders abounded, the Bill would have
enfranchised 14 out of every 10,000 occupiers under the £10 line; while in
York it would have enfranchised 100 out of every 1,000. The enfranchising
effect of the Bill would have been between "six and seven times as great
in the boroughs not under Rating Acts as in the others." It is more than
probable that in framing their measure Government foresaw none of these
anomalies, and that they were revealed to them and impressed upon them in
the course of debate. There was, in fact, no adequate knowledge among them
of the working of those complicated details of rating machinery upon which
they made the whole effect of their Bill ultimately depend. With regard
to the secondary franchises--the direct taxes franchise, the education
franchise, etc.,--Mr. Gladstone contended that the figures quoted by Mr.
Disraeli were wholly erroneous and visionary, and that the new voters it
was supposed they would admit were no more substantial than Falstaff's men
in buckram. For himself, he had no belief in the principle of rating as a
bulwark of the Constitution; and to base the possession of the franchise
upon the personal payment of rates, he thought fundamentally wrong. To
the proposition of dual voting as a safeguard of household suffrage, he
declared himself inflexibly opposed. It could only serve as a gigantic
instrument of fraud, and was nothing less than a proclamation of a war
of classes. And where was the lodger franchise, so highly praised by the
Conservatives in 1859, which all the world had expected to find in the
Bill? If that were added, and the so-called safeguards of dual voting and
personal payment of rates done away with, the Liberal party would accept
the Bill as a whole.
A short debate followed, in which Mr. Lowe reappeared, to do battle as
warmly against the Reform Bill of the Conservatives as he had formerly
waged it against that of the Liberals. Mr. Lowe had been duped, but he was
not yet prepared to confess it. Later, when concession after concession
had been made by Government, and a far more Radical measure than any
Liberal Ministry had ever dreamt of was on the point of becoming law,
Mr. Lowe did indeed make ample and public confession of his mistake, and
loud and bitter were the expressions of his wrath and mortification.
But at this stage of the matter the "Cave" had still some confidence in
Conservative principles and time-honoured Conservative traditions, and
refused to believe that the party they had helped to put into power would
ever betray them so completely as was afterwards actually the case. They
disliked the Bill and said so; but for some little time they trusted to
the genuine Conservative influence still existing behind the Ministerial
benches for its modification. Lord Cranborne, a seceder from the Tories,
as Mr. Lowe had been from the Liberals, made a short but energetic attack
upon the Bill on this occasion. "If the Conservative party accept the
Bill," he said, "they will be committing political suicide: household
suffrage, pure and simple, will be the result of it, for no one can put
any faith in the proposed safeguards; and, after their conduct last
year, it is not the Conservatives who should pass a measure of household
suffrage."
During the interval between the introduction of the Bill and the motion
for the second reading, an important meeting of the Liberal party was held
at Mr. Gladstone's house on March 21st, to consider whether opposition
should be offered to the second reading. Mr. Gladstone said, "Since the
printing of the Government Bill, having applied myself day and night
to the study of it, I have not the smallest doubt in my own mind that
the wiser course of the two would be to oppose the Bill on the second
reading." He thought, however, "that the general disposition of the
meeting would not bear him out in that course;" and to maintain the unity
of the party, he was willing to sacrifice his own personal opinion. "If
Ministers were content to abandon the dual voting, and to equalise the
privileges and facilities of the enfranchised in all cases, however the
qualification arose, then the measure might be made acceptable. If they
would not concede these points, then he thought that the Liberals should
not permit the measure to go into committee." It was already evident that
both sides had made up their minds to pass some kind of Reform Bill during
the Session, and that both were prepared to make concessions rather than
offer to the country once more the pitiable spectacle of a great measure
of necessary Reform overthrown by party spirit and party warfare. Still
the Liberals were determined to wrest certain points from Government; and
in his speech on the second reading (March 25th) Mr. Gladstone thus summed
up the defects in the Bill, which must, he said, be amended before the
Liberals could give in their adhesion to it:--
1. Omission of a lodger franchise. 2. Omission of provisions against
traffic in votes of householders of the lowest class, by corrupt payment
of their rates. 3. Disqualifications of compound householders under the
existing law. 4. Additional disqualifications of compound householders
under the proposed law. 5. The franchise founded on direct taxation. 6.
The dual vote. 7. The inadequate distribution of seats. 8. The inadequate
reduction of the franchise in counties. 9. Voting papers. 10. Collateral
or special franchises. Every one of these ten points, except the second,
was finally settled more or less in accordance with the demands of the
Liberals,--an instructive comment on the experiment of "government by
minorities," which Mr. Disraeli was making with such great success.
In contradistinction to Lord Cranborne, Mr. Gladstone maintained that
while the Bill seemed on the face of it to be a measure of household
suffrage, it was in reality nothing of the kind; every concession in it
was balanced by a corresponding restriction, and what it gave with one
hand it took away with the other. For the dual vote he had nothing but
hard words: "At the head of the list stand those favoured children of
fortune--those select human beings made of finer clay than the rest of
their fellow-subjects--who are to be endowed with dual votes. Upon that
dual vote I shall not trouble the House, for I think that my doing so
would be a waste of time." And, indeed, the general opinion of the House
had already pronounced so decidedly against it, that no purpose would have
been served by discussing it at length. Mr. Gladstone went on to declaim
afresh against the fine which the Bill would inflict upon the compound
householder before he could obtain his vote. Then followed an elaborate
and masterly examination of the probable results of the Bill if passed in
its original form. Making use of some important statistics, the return of
which had been lately moved for by Mr. Ward Hunt, he attacked the Bill
as one that would "flood some towns with thousands of voters, and only
add a few in other towns." After reading a long series of these damaging
statistics, Mr. Gladstone might well ask, "Is it possible that any one
on the Treasury benches can get up in his place, and recommend those
clauses respecting the compound householder with all their anomalies?"
Men, however, were not lacking to defend them, and to defend them with
ability and vigour. Mr. Gathorne Hardy, then Commissioner of the Poor
Laws, after a graceful tribute to the power of Mr. Gladstone's speech,
made out, perhaps, the best case for the Ministerial measure that had yet
been attempted. He denied that the Bill was a Household Suffrage Bill; the
proper name for it was a Rating Franchise Bill; and so far from excluding
anybody, as Mr. Gladstone had tried to prove, it opened the franchise to
every one who chose to claim it. And as to the "fine" which it was said
would be imposed upon the compound householder by the Bill, he could
recover whatever rates he paid from the landlord--a statement in support
of which Mr. Hardy quoted an Act of Queen Victoria, allowing "any occupier
paying any rate or rates in respect of any tenement where the owner is
rated to the same, to deduct from his rent or recover from his landlord
the amount so paid." The Act, however, did not really bear out Mr. Hardy's
argument, since it only enabled the tenant to recover the reduced rate,
while the Bill obliged him to pay the full rate before obtaining his vote.
The personal payment, of rates, and the two years' residence clauses,
were, he admitted, meant as safeguards and limitations; but he believed
them to be just and reasonable, and such as would be approved by the
country.
The debate was vigorously kept up--the Ministry being only represented
by Mr. Gathorne Hardy and Mr. Disraeli, and supporters and opponents of
the Bill being found promiscuously on both sides of the House. In truth,
people had not yet got over their surprise, and neither Liberals nor
Conservatives quite knew what to think of a measure so Liberal at heart,
though cased with Conservative safeguards, brought in by a Conservative
Government. It was only towards the end of the debate, when Mr. Bright
spoke, and Mr. Disraeli made answer on the whole case, that the country
began clearly to see which way things were going. Mr. Bright was in a
happy vein; he mixed in an effective way solid criticism on the details
of the Bill with sarcastic descriptions of its framers, and earnest
denunciation of what he called the "deception and disappointment" of which
it bore the marks. He regarded the Bill as really equivalent to a measure
for £8 suffrage, and therefore less thorough than the Bill of the previous
year. It was too much inclined to a "set off"--the enfranchising of
higher class voters to counteract the lower, which, of course, would not
be the removal of the real grievance that the workmen felt. Then, after
protesting that he would be the first person in the House to support a
"fair and honest measure" of Reform, Mr. Bright went on: "I will be no
party to any Bill which would cheat the great body of my countrymen of the
possession of that power in the House on which they have set their hearts;
and which, as I believe, by the Constitution of this country, they may
most justly claim."
[Illustration: TEA-ROOM, HOUSE OF COMMONS.]
When Mr. Disraeli rose to end the debate, the House clearly saw that,
though he was supporting his Bill most strenuously, he was really speaking
in the spirit of his own resolutions. Those, it will be remembered, had
been brought forward early in the Session with the avowed purpose of
"feeling" or "taking the sense of" the House. Mr. Disraeli made no secret
then of his readiness to do as he was bid by the majority; and now,
though he pretended to make a secret of it, the same readiness was to be
detected in his speech. There was a vast amount of epigram directed at
Mr. Gladstone; but Mr. Disraeli, in taking up the amendments indicated by
him, confessed that "if satisfactory arguments were brought forward in
committee," no doubt the House would adopt them; and the House might adopt
them, he implied, without endangering the Government Bill. To the lodger
franchise--of which Mr. Disraeli claimed himself to be the father--he was
not personally opposed; it might be left to the committee. The compound
householder amendment--why was it that Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone,
in schemes of their own, had wished to keep up the distinction between
classes of ratepayers, and now wished to abolish those distinctions? Yet
that amendment might be referred to the committee. In the same way with
the amendment about voting papers, about the qualification of residence,
about the county franchise, about redistribution of seats. On one and all
of these points Mr. Disraeli's watchword was "elasticity." The Bill's
chief merit was that it was elastic, whereas Mr. Gladstone's £5 rating
Bill would have been rigid and hard. This Bill, he said, was so drawn as
to secure the "fitness and variety" that were to become security against
democracy. Then Mr. Disraeli ended, saying that it was the one wish of
Government to co-operate with the House in settling this question once
for all. Till the settlement was arrived at they would not desert their
posts. Any concessions, he implied, any withdrawal of obnoxious clauses,
or substitution of amending clauses, would be consented to. Government,
the House, the country, only asked for one thing--settlement. The Bill
must be passed at any cost; no personal feeling should make Government
either withdraw it or resign until it had been passed. "Pass the Bill," he
concluded, "and then change the Ministry if you please." A speech of which
this was the tone very naturally disarmed the Opposition. The only danger
was lest the Conservative rank and file, irritated by their leader's tone
of concession, should mutiny. There was no mutiny, however, though there
was some murmuring, and the Bill was read a second time on the 26th of
March, without a division.
The committee was fixed for the 8th of April. On the 1st Mr. Disraeli
made the first of his promised concessions; he announced that Government
were prepared to withdraw the clause relating to the dual vote. That
removed one of the bugbears of the Liberal party, and left them to direct
their interest to the interminable and vexatious question of the compound
householder. The enormous number of small occupiers who compounded for
their rates--amounting, it was confidently said, to two-thirds of the
occupiers under £10--showed the importance of the question. The compound
householder rose first into prominence at a large meeting of Liberal
members held at Mr. Gladstone's house on the 5th of April. There it was
agreed that the point in the Government Bill that lay most open to attacks
from the Liberals, now that the dual vote had been withdrawn, was this
point of the personal payment of rates. Without amendment on this head the
Government Bill was illusory; it gave with one hand what it took away with
the other. Mr. Gladstone recurred to what he had himself said earlier in
the Session--that there should properly be a "hard and fast line," below
which occupiers should neither pay rates nor exercise the suffrage. This
was, in fact, a proposal for a £5 rating franchise; for the abolition of
all distinctions between persons who paid their rates directly and those
who paid them through their landlord; and for the relief of all those who
occupied tenements at less than £5 rateable value from the liability to
be rated at all. With a view to carrying his amendment, he proposed that
Mr. John Duke Coleridge, member for Exeter, should move an instruction to
that effect.
At the meeting where this line of action was planned there was some
criticism, but little open dissent from the course. During the three days
that were to elapse before the proposal of Mr. Coleridge's amendment,
however, an ominous change took place in the position of affairs. Mr.
Disraeli had promised he would not resign, and that he would not withdraw
the Bill; but he had not promised that he would not dissolve Parliament,
supposing the conduct of the Opposition were to drive him that way.
Now, the threat of a dissolution is always terrible to many members.
Hence, when the word "dissolution" began to be whispered, the Opposition
began to disunite. A meeting of dissatisfied members took place in the
tea-room of the House of Commons, transformed for the moment into a new
cave of Adullam; and a cabal was formed for breaking up the plans of
the Liberals in reference to Mr. Coleridge's instruction. Forty-eight
members of the Liberal party agreed to vote against the amendment, and a
deputation waited upon Mr. Gladstone to inform him of their decision. In
the face of such a defection it was, of course, impossible to proceed.
Mr. Coleridge practically withdrew his instruction, reserving his right
to proceed on the subject of it in committee; Mr. Gladstone began to feel
that, as concerned really Liberal amendments, his hands were not so free
as he hoped; and Government faced the committee with new strength and
satisfaction.
Mr. Gladstone, however, was not satisfied with the result of the tea-room
cabal; for much of the discontent that had promoted it had been directed
at the "hard and fast line" of the £5 rating franchise. It was resolved,
therefore, to divide upon a different amendment--one which should relieve
the compound householder from the disabling clauses of the Bill, but which
should still keep to the original basis of household rating suffrage.
Mr. Gladstone's amendment inserted in the restrictive clause the words
"whether he in person, or his landlord, be rated to the relief of the
poor;" and the arguments which, with his usual force, he urged upon the
House in its support were, first, that the houses below £10 rental that
compounded for their rates were two-thirds of the whole number of such
houses, and that therefore a Bill that excluded compounding householders
from the franchise was an illusion; and secondly, that the case standing
so, the "settlement" for which Government were clamouring would not be
attained unless the Bill were amended. The debate on Mr. Gladstone's
amendment occupied two nights, and was chiefly valuable as showing the
extraordinary difference of opinion that prevailed among the supporters
of the Bill, and the equally different points of view from which members
were found to oppose it. When the division came, however, Government
triumphed. The numbers were found to be--For the amendment, 289; against,
310--majority for Government, 21. This was an important majority, and,
as the division lists showed, it implied far more unanimity among the
Conservatives (in spite of the defection of Sir W. Heathcote and Lord
Cranborne) than among the Liberals. Twenty-five of the old "Adullamite"
party voted with Mr. Disraeli--a fact sufficiently indicating the opinion
which was held as to the tendency of the amendment. The Adullamites voted
for the original Bill because they wanted the compound householder--the
dangerous being who occupied a house below £10 annual rent--to be kept
without his vote.
The immediate effect of this division was to draw from Mr. Gladstone an
important statement of policy. He wrote a letter to Mr. R. W. Crawford,
member for the City of London, to say that he felt it useless to proceed
personally with the other amendments standing in his name. He was
compelled to own that the Liberals who thought together on the question
of Reform were not a majority, but a minority, "and they have not the
power they were supposed to possess of limiting or directing the action
of the Administration, or of shaping the provisions of the Reform Bill.
Still," Mr. Gladstone went on, "having regard to the support which my
proposal with respect to personal rating received from so large a number
of Liberal members, I am not less willing than heretofore to remain at
the service of the party to which they belong; and when any suitable
occasion shall arise, if it shall be their wish, I shall be prepared
again to attempt concerted action upon this or any other subject for
the public good.... I shall not proceed with the amendments now on the
paper in my name, nor give notice of other amendments such as I had
contemplated; but I shall gladly accompany others in voting against any
attempt, from whatever quarter, to limit still further the scanty modicum
of enfranchisement proposed by the Government, or in improving, when it
may be practicable, the provisions of the Bill." This letter showed that
Mr. Gladstone was disheartened, but his discouragement only increased the
zeal of the reforming party throughout the kingdom. The House broke up
for the Easter holidays immediately after the vote; and during the recess
meetings were held in every important town in England and Scotland, to
express confidence in Mr. Gladstone and to encourage him and his followers
in their attempts to liberalise the Bill. The number, enthusiasm, and
unanimity of these meetings had, in all probability, much to do with Mr.
Disraeli's later concessions.
When the House met again, the first important act of the committee was
to accept Mr. Ayrton's amendment, substituting one year for two years as
the period of residence necessary for borough voters. There seems to have
been a general idea in the House that to require two years' residence
in a borough before a man could be entitled to vote in an election of
members of Parliament was vexatious; and in spite of the strenuous
efforts of Government, Mr. Ayrton's amendment was carried by the large
majority of 81. A majority as large as this is never, however, so much to
be dreaded by a Government as one a fourth of its size. Accordingly Mr.
Disraeli stated on the next day that he and his colleagues "deferred to
the opinion of the House." Then came Mr. Hibbert's notice to amend the
Bill, by allowing all compound householders who chose to pay personally
to pay reduced rates--a proposal that became celebrated, from the conduct
of the Government "whip" with regard to it. It came out in the course
of the debate--Mr. Bernal Osborne revealed it--that the whip, Colonel
Taylor, had undertaken, "as a gentleman and a man of honour, to press
upon the Cabinet the desirability of adopting Mr. Hibbert's amendment;"
and also that Colonel Taylor had stated to Mr. Dillwyn, a Liberal member,
that "he believed Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli to be personally in favour
of accepting it." That is to say, just before a division, the Government
whip entered into negotiations with some of the enemy's forces, and
endeavoured to win them over to his side by a statement--afterwards
disavowed on authority--of the opinions of his chief. The episode afforded
an interesting comment upon the manœuvres of party government.
The debate on Mr. Hibbert's motion turned on the question--Whether,
supposing a compound householder wanted a vote (which, according to
the Bill, would require him to pay his rates personally), he should be
compelled to pay as much as other non-compounding householders, or whether
the same amount should be accepted from him personally as had been
accepted previously from his landlord on his account? Mr. Disraeli aimed
not only at making him pay the full rate, but even at repealing a section
of Sir William Clay's Act (14 and 15 Vict., c. 14) which had defined
certain electoral rights of householders above £10. That Act had allowed
non-rated occupiers--compounders above £10--to claim to be rated, in
order to be put upon the register of voters, and had declared them liable
only for the reduced or commuted rate. Under that Act, according to Mr.
Bright, electoral rights were guaranteed to not less than 94,000 persons;
and Mr. Disraeli's proposal, to say nothing of its immediate effect in
excluding new voters, simply amounted to a proposal either to disfranchise
these 94,000 altogether, or to make them pay higher rates than they had
previously paid. We can understand the spirit in which Mr. Bright spoke of
this as an "audacious proposal." Still, audacious or not, the proposal of
Government for the time succeeded. The division was taken on the question,
whether the borough voter should be rated as an "ordinary occupier,"
always and without exception, and Government had a very great majority
with them, affirming that he should. The numbers were--Ayes, 322; Noes,
256--majority for Government, 66.
Eight days afterwards they had changed their minds. Another amendment
was proposed in the meantime, and Mr. Gathorne Hardy, in the debate
that followed, gave an artless explanation of what Government intended
by their emphatic cry of "personal payment." He said--"The Government
insisted upon the personal payment of rates. But the Bill had not the
phrase, 'personal payment of rates.' That was a description rather of the
Government's intention. The Bill required that a man should be responsible
for his rates. It was necessary, in order to come within the provisions
of the Bill, that a man should have his name upon the rate-book, and
be personally responsible." But Mr. Hardy forgot, in stating this as
the essential principle of the Bill, that he was only stating what was
already law. He forgot that the Small Tenements Act provided that rates
assessed upon the landlord are recoverable, not only by distraint upon
the landlord's goods, but by distraint upon the occupier's, "in the same
way as if the rates were assessed on such occupier." That is to say, the
occupier was, and always had been, responsible for his rates. The compound
householder was as much responsible as the non-compounding householder.
Mr. Disraeli's Bill, if this was its foundation, was founded upon an
illusion. This fact seems to have suddenly dawned upon the minds of the
House of Commons between the 13th and the 17th of May. On the latter day,
Mr. Hodgkinson, member for Newark, moved the insertion of the following
words, which Mr. Disraeli afterwards calmly called, "not an amendment,
but a proviso,"--"Provided always that, except as hereinafter provided,
no person other than the occupier shall, after the passing of this Act,
be rated to parochial rates in respect of premises occupied by him
within the limits of a parliamentary borough, all Acts to the contrary
notwithstanding."
This was to cut the Gordian knot at a stroke, by abolishing the compound
householder altogether. Mr. Hodgkinson brought forward his amendment,
the effect of which would be to make all occupiers of tenements personal
ratepayers, and therefore, according to the Bill, voters. In other words,
household suffrage pure and simple was offered to the acceptance of the
House. Mr. Gladstone saw the importance of the moment; he saw that the
question lay between "an extension of the franchise, limited, unequal,
equivocal, and dangerous," accompanied with certain social and economical
advantages, and "an extension of the franchise which was liberal, which
was perfectly equal," without those social and economical advantages. As
the leader of the Liberal party, he chose the "lesser evil," he preferred
the liberal extension, and he was willing to sacrifice the convenience of
compounding. That was only to be expected from the Liberal leader; but
what was the amazement of the House when Mr. Disraeli, by a sudden _coup
de théâtre_, rose to accept Mr. Hodgkinson's amendment likewise! Nay, he
rose not only to accept the amendment, but to greet it with strong welcome
and approval. It is true that, on the 9th of May, eight days before, Mr.
Disraeli had declared that the advice of those who wished to supersede or
repeal the Rating Acts was "rash counsel." It is true that, on the 13th,
only four days before, Mr. Disraeli had branded with two names, which
immediately became famous--"obsolete incendiaries," and "spouters of stale
sedition"--a deputation of 360 gentlemen, headed by seventeen members of
Parliament, which had waited on Mr. Gladstone, with a view to remove the
disqualification laid by the Bill on the lower class of ratepayers. It
is true that, on the morning of the 17th, the Government "whip" had sent
a circular to the Conservatives, asking their attendance at the House,
plainly with the intention of opposing Mr. Hodgkinson's amendment. These
facts, however, were nothing to Mr. Disraeli. He was bent on a _coup_, and
he made it. The Bill was entirely transformed in a single evening; and
Government, through their Chancellor of the Exchequer, vowed that they had
all along been meaning to produce the transformation scene themselves.
To show the importance of the change, it is enough to say that the total
number of new voters which the original Bill would have made was 118,400,
and that the number of new voters added by the Bill, plus Mr. Hodgkinson's
amendment, was 427,000. Nothing more is needed to show that the compound
householder was a person of importance, and that it was only natural that
his destiny should be a matter of interest to both sides of the House.
[Illustration: MEETING AT THE REFORMERS' TREE, HYDE PARK, LONDON. (_See
p._ 454.)]
The concession made by Mr. Disraeli was not accepted without a protest on
the part of some of his own followers, and a still louder protest on the
part of the consistent anti-reformers, Lord Cranborne and Mr. Lowe. Lord
Cranborne insisted upon at least an adjournment, that the House might not
vote blindfold; and Mr. Lowe spent the three days' recess in preparing a
new philippic. Both sides of the House came in for their share of reproof
from this impartial censor; both alike, he said, were weary of the subject
of Reform, and willing to adopt any solution of the question; both were
afraid of a dissolution; both alike were miserably anxious not to give
offence to the classes about to be enfranchised. He declared that no
great number of members really and honestly either desired or approved
the change about to be made. Which party in the House, save and except a
few of the extreme Liberals below the gangway, really wanted household
suffrage and the enfranchisement of the new voters? The question had
changed since last year. "The question now is not--what is the opinion
of the _élite_ of the working classes? but--what is the opinion of the
unskilled labour class? For instance, in the borough which I represent you
will, I rather think, give us some Wiltshire labourers with 8s. a week
wages. Will any gentleman favour me with a précis of the politics of these
men?" It was like 1866 over again; but Mr. Lowe was powerless to change
the intentions of the House. The amendment was adopted without a division
on May 20th, though Mr. Disraeli attempted, a short time afterwards, to
tone it down and practically to replace what it had abolished, by making
it optional to continue the compounding system. The attempt, doubtless
suggested to him by some timid follower, was unsuccessful; and the law
came to be that "no owner of a dwelling in a parish, either wholly or
partially within a borough, is to be henceforth rated to the poor rate
instead of the occupier." In this way the vexed question of "personal
rating" was solved, and household suffrage in its simple form was
established in the boroughs.
With regard to the county franchise, the history of the Bill was not
so full of incident. The original proposal of Government had been to
give the franchise to "rated occupiers of premises of any tenure within
the county of the rateable value of fifteen pounds and upwards;" the
words "any tenure" referring to the various modes--freehold, copyhold,
leasehold, annual tenancy, etc.--on which premises may be held. There
were also various "fancy franchises" proposed in the counties as in the
boroughs, but these were very soon withdrawn. The substantial proposal
of Government was modified in various ways. On Mr. Colvile's motion, the
franchise was extended to copyhold tenants of premises of the value of
£5 per annum--that is, to such persons as, without being freeholders,
were practically the owners of their dwellings; and very soon afterwards
Government acceded to the proposal of Mr. Hussey Vivian to extend the
franchise to "leaseholders under sixty years' leases of lands worth £5 a
year." Finally Mr. Locke King proposed to substitute £10 for £15 as the
figure down to which county occupiers were to have a vote; and though he
did not press his motion, he obtained from Government the concession of
reducing the figure from £15 to £12.
The part of the Bill that related to the redistribution of seats was very
roughly handled during the early stages of the Bill, and the treatment it
received in committee was equally severe. But when all was done, there
still remained much that failed to satisfy the reforming party in the
country. Government proposed to deal with thirty new seats--namely, with
the seven provided for them by the total disfranchisement of Lancaster,
Reigate, Great Yarmouth, and Totnes, and the twenty-three from the same
number of small boroughs which were to lose one of their two members.
This number was soon enlarged. On May 31st Mr. Laing, member for the
Wick Boroughs, moved that "no borough which had a smaller population
than 10,000 at the census of 1861 shall return more than one member to
Parliament." This motion, which gave thirty-eight seats to the House in
place of twenty-three, was carried by a great majority (306 to 179),
though the Chancellor of the Exchequer opposed it. There, however, the
House paused in the process of disfranchisement. Mr. Serjeant Gaselee's
motion to extend the principle of Mr. Laing's amendment, by wholly
depriving towns of less than 5,000 inhabitants of their member, was not
carried.
Mr. Disraeli's treatment of the delicate task of redistribution was this.
He proposed to give twenty-five seats to the counties, two new members
being given to each of the following: Cheshire, Derbyshire, Devonshire,
Essex, West Kent, North Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Somersetshire,
Staffordshire, East Surrey, and the West Riding of Yorkshire, and one new
seat being given to South Lancashire. A member apiece was to be given to
thirteen large manufacturing or commercial towns, till now unrepresented:
Barnsley, Burnley, Dewsbury, Darlington, Gravesend, Hartlepool, Keighley,
Luton, Middlesborough, St. Helens, Stalybridge, Stockton, and Wednesbury.
Chelsea and Hackney were to be constituted boroughs, each with two
members. Salford and Merthyr Tydvil were each to return two instead of
one. The Universities of London and Durham were to combine to return one
member.
This scheme enfranchised a certain number of new towns, and its county
redistribution in some cases gave a more direct voice to the industrial
population; but it left the great manufacturing towns of Birmingham,
Manchester, and the rest exactly where they were, and it retained what
was thought to be too much power in the hands of the small boroughs. Mr.
Disraeli, however, declined the proposal of Mr. Laing to give a third
member to the six great manufacturing and commercial towns--Liverpool,
Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, and Bristol; and again he
opposed Mr. Hadfield's and Mr. Berkeley's proposals in favour of Sheffield
and Bristol. And when he assented to Mr. Horsfall's motion to give a
third member to Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, it was only on
condition that the members given to them should be taken away from some
of the other towns which Government admitted to have claims for increased
representation.
The remaining time during which the Bill was in committee was occupied
with a discussion of the complicated question of boundaries. It was
necessary, in order to give completeness to the Bill, to examine the
boundaries of existing boroughs and counties, as well as to determine
those of the new boroughs created by the Bill. For this purpose, after
much debating on minute points connected with the rights conferred by
different kinds of ownership in boroughs and counties, a Parliamentary
Commission was appointed "to inquire into the boundaries of all the
boroughs of England and Wales, with a view to ascertain whether the
boundaries were to be enlarged;" to investigate also the local conditions
of the new boroughs, and to ascertain what alterations should be made in
the divisions of counties. The report of the Boundary Commissioners was to
be laid before Parliament, and, till its adoption, provisional regulations
were made on the points in question. At last, at the end of a long and
weary Session, the moment arrived--the "supreme and solemn moment," as
Mr. Beresford Hope described it--when the Reform Bill was to be read a
third time. It was the evening of the 15th of July. Mr. Disraeli's success
was at hand. But, first of all, although no more divisions were to be
faced, and although the passing of the Bill was certain, Government knew
they were not to escape a whipping from exasperated enemies and candid
friends. In the presence of a crowded House Lord Cranborne rose to deliver
his soul. From the day when he had resigned office, and refused to work
with Mr. Disraeli, the rooted antipathy between the late Secretary for
India and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been growing in strength.
In incisive language, and with the slow measured action to which his tall
figure so readily lent itself, he deliberately charged the Tory leaders
with a betrayal of their trust. He ridiculed the idea of the Bill being
called "a Conservative triumph." "The real parent of the Bill, as we are
about to pass it," he said, "is not the Chancellor of the Exchequer [Mr.
Disraeli], but the member for South Lancashire [Mr. Gladstone]." The Bill
that had been offered to the House in March was wholly unlike the Bill
that was now waiting its final approval. The "checks and counterpoises,"
of which Mr. Disraeli had spoken so confidently, were gone. Mr. Gladstone
had demanded ten alterations in the Bill, and had carried nine of
them--the lodger franchise, the abolition of the compound householder,
the provision against traffic in votes, the abolition of the "taxing
franchise," the omission of the dual vote, enlarged redistribution of
seats, reduced county franchise, the omission of voting papers, of the
educational and of the savings bank franchises. "If the omission of these
clauses, and the adoption of the principles of Mr. Bright, be a triumph,
then the Conservative party has never in the whole course of its history
won a triumph so signal as this." Then, in words of profound seriousness,
he went on: "I desire to protest, in the most earnest language which I am
capable of using, against the political morality on which the manœuvres of
this year have been based. If you borrow your political ethics from the
ethics of the political adventurer, you may depend upon it the whole of
your representative institutions will crumble beneath your feet.... Even
if I deemed this measure to be most advantageous, I still should deeply
regret that the position of the Executive should have been so degraded as
it has been in the present Session. I should deeply regret to find that
the House of Commons has applauded a policy of legerdemain; and I should,
above all things, regret that this great gift to the people--if gift you
think it--should have been purchased at the cost of a political betrayal
which has no parallel in our Parliamentary annals."