=Source.=--Leader’s _Life of the Right Hon. J. A. Roebuck, M.P._, pp.
313–315. (By permission.) (London: Edward Arnold, 1897.)
After the Bill, turned inside out by Liberal effort, and presenting
as an Act scarcely any possible resemblance to its original shape,
had established household suffrage, Mr. Roebuck at Sheffield further
explained and justified his course by saying:
“I made a resolution with myself that, having got Lord Derby into
power, we would, if it were possible, screw out of him a real reform of
Parliament. It always appeared to me that the Whigs never could carry
a second Reform Bill. I stated so in 1859. I was hooted and yelled at
in this very town because I so stated. Then came Lord Derby again, and
then I recollected my old determination. ‘If ever a Reform Bill is
carried,’ I said to myself, ‘it will be by those men, and so sure as
they bring it in, I will support them.’ I steadily supported that Bill,
and what has been the result? We have got a more Liberal Bill than
ever Whig proposed. We have got a Bill that has frightened, I believe,
the very persons who proposed it. It has not frightened me. I believe
we shall now find what the people of England really mean. I have great
confidence in the right-heartedness of my own countrymen. I have no
dread of the future.... We have got a great deal more good out of the
Tory administration than out of anybody else. This Reform Bill is
before us. We have now to work it.... I am sure there can be no harm to
England while we have a free Press, a free people; but with that Press
and constant inter-communication of thought, it will render the passing
of the Reform Bill one of the greatest boons ever conferred upon the
people of this country.”
On the question of the three-cornered constituencies, Mr. Roebuck
subsequently explained his course in the following letter: