The Reform Act of 1866, against which this speech was directed, was
introduced by Mr. Gladstone on March 12th of that year. Among other
provisions, it proposed to reduce the county franchise from fifty
pounds to fourteen; the borough franchise from ten pounds to seven;
and included a savings-bank franchise and a lodger franchise.
These provisions were not so sweeping as they appeared. It is
stated that the Bill would only have enfranchised a few hundreds
of people. And among its supporters, Mr. Bright was thought to
feel more enthusiasm for its sponsors, Mr. Gladstone and Lord John
Russell, than for the measure itself; while Mr. Mill favored it
largely because Mr. Bright did. Nevertheless, Mr. Gladstone, during
the Easter holidays, stumped the country for it, and at Liverpool
made a famous remark about the Government’s “burning bridges and
crossing the Rubicon.” Mr. McCarthy pertinently says of this, that
it was only true of the speaker; as for the Government, it had to
get back over the river again. In his opposition to the Bill, Lowe
was the spokesman of the reactionary tendencies of the time,--in
which such events as trades unions, strikes, Irish mutterings,
socialistic perorations in London, dislike of American principles,
and genuine sorrow that the Republic had survived the Confederacy
stung to bitter speech the conservatives and the haters of change.
Thus Lowe stood for the Aristocratic Principle incarnate; he
desired an oligarchy of the brightest and best. With Lowe there
stood against this measure of reform not only the rank and file of
the Conservative party, but a group of political independents like
himself, men of various crotchets, united only in their aversion to
change and the encroachments of universal suffrage. This element,
which would now, perhaps, be called “mugwump,” was then wittily
compared to the adherents who rallied to David in the cave Adullam
(1 Samuel xxii., 2): “And every one that was in distress, and every
one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered
themselves unto him.” And yet, by sheer force of eloquence, for the
moment these had their way; and the Bill failed. As has been said,
Lowe’s was the greatest share in the victory. His voice is the
voice of Old England, eloquent with a haughty dignity against the
incoming of the New.