XXIII. 1831. 72. speech on Parliament. Parliament met on the 21st June, and the speech from CHAP. the throne said: "Having had recourse to the dissolution of Parliament, for the purpose of ascertaining the sense of my people on the expedience of a reform in the repre- King's sentation, I have now to recommend that important opening question to your earliest and most attentive consideration. Great distress exists in Ireland; the most pressing cases have been relieved by temporary measures, and Parliament is invited to consider what measures should be adopted to assist the country, in order to prevent the recurrence of the like evils. Local disturbances, unconnected with political causes, have taken place in various island, indifferent to their interests, ignorant of their circumstances, careless of their welfare. This evil is inherent in all systems of uniform representation, and must to the end of time render it unfit for the representation of a great and varied empire. Being based mainly upon one class in society, it contains no provision for the interest of the other classes, and still less for the welfare of the remote but important parts of the empire. The great majority of electors being possessed of houses rented from £10 to £20 a-year—that is, enjoying an income of from £60 to £120 per annum-the representatives will be persons inclined to support their local and immediate interests. The remote possessions of the empire can have no influence on such men, save by the corrupted channel of actual bribery. The most valuable feature of the British constitution, that of affording an inlet through the close boroughs to all the great and varied interests of the empire, will be destroyed. The Reform Bill should be styled, 'A bill for disfranchising the colonial, commercial, and shipping interests, and vesting the exclusive right of returning members of Parliament in the populace of Great Britain and Ireland. "What the measures are which they will force upon the Government may be judged of by those which have been commenced to conciliate their goodwill confiscation of the Funds, under the name of taxes upon transfers, or a heavy property-tax,—of land, under the name of a duty of succession; the withdrawal of all protecting duties on the produce of the colonies; the sacrifice of every other interest to furnish cheap articles of necessity or convenience to the sovereign multitude in towns, will and must be the future policy of the Government. The landed interest will be sacrificed by a repeal of the Corn Laws, to procure their favour by the purchase of cheap bread; the Canadas will be lost from the throwing open the trade in timber; the West Indies will be ruined in the conflagration consequent on immediate emancipation of the negroes, or in the losses arising from a free trade in sugar; the East India interest, deprived of the monopoly of the China trade, will be reduced to the doubtful military sovereignty of a distant continent. These effects may not all follow at once: considerable periods may elapse between each successive step; but their ultimate establishment under a reformed Parliament is as certain as that night succeeds day."-Blackwood's Magazine, May and June 1831, vol. xxix. pp. 748, 976. The Author is happy to think, after the lapse of twenty-five years, he has no reason to regret, and no cause to retract, predictions uttered during the first heat of the conflict. XXIII. 1831. CHAP. parts of Ireland, especially Clare, Roscommon, and Galway, for the repression of which the constitutional authority of the law has been vigorously and successfully applied, and thus the necessity of enacting laws to strengthen the executive, will, it is hoped, be prevented. To avert such a necessity ever has been my anxious wish; but if it should arise, I do not doubt your firm resolution to maintain the power and order of society, by the adoption of such measures as may be necessary for their more effectual protection.” 1 1 Parl. Deb. iv. 86, 87; Ann. Reg. 1831, 156. 73. Bill is car ried by a majority of 136. The first question brought forward, of course, was the The Reform all-engrossing one of Reform. The bill was read a first time without opposition, the debate being reserved for the second reading, which came on on the 4th July, before which time the Scotch and Irish Reform Bills had also been brought in. The debate lasted three nights, but it was distinguished by no novelty, excepting increased vehemence on both sides; revolution being confidently predicted by the opponents of the measure if the bill passed, and as openly threatened by the other if it should be thrown out. At length, all parties being worn out by the speeches, the division was loudly called for, and the second reading was carried by a majority of 136, in a House of 598 memParl. Deb. bers. This majority, how great and decisive soever, was Ann. Reg. scarcely so large as had been anticipated by those who 1831, 165, had seen the results of the elections, and the universal transports under which they had been conducted.2 iv. 906; 166. 74. on particu The bill now went into committee, when the case of Discussion each individual borough which it was proposed to disfranlar boroughs chise came under consideration. The first which came, -Appleby. from its alphabetical position in Schedule A, was Appleby, and it led to a long and keen debate as to whether the census of 1821, which brought it below two thousand inhabitants, should be taken as the rule, in opposition to the allegation of the inhabitants that their number now exceeded two thousand, and that this had been established by the census of the population just completed. Ministers XXIII. 1831. resisted this to the uttermost, upon the ground that the CHAP. progress of a great national measure could not be arrested by investigation concerning so insignificant a place as Appleby, and so it was carried by a majority of 97, the numbers being 284 to 187. The Opposition, however, was not discouraged, for next day Mr Wynn moved a general resolution, that the consideration of the schedules should be postponed,―avowedly for the purpose of taking advantage of the new census, the report of which might be expected in a few weeks. "After," said Sir Robert Peel," having obtained so large a majority as 136 on the principle of the bill, Government would have acted wisely, even for the interests of the measure itself, to have postponed going into the details of the bill till they were in possession of better documents on which to proceed. They know what is coming, they are aware of the event which is casting its shadow before; namely, that the boroughs will be overtaken by the population returns of 1831. In another fortnight these returns will be laid before the House; and though his Majesty's ministers now proceed expressly on the doctrine of a population of two thousand or four thousand, they are guilty of the inconceivable absurdity of proceeding on the returns of 1821, when they can so soon be in possession of the census of 1831. Before this bill leaves this House, it may be shown that so inapplicable are the returns of 1821, that there are many boroughs so increased since that time in population, as that they are now excluded, while they Parliament, ought to be included in the enjoyment of the franchise." The House, however, by a majority of 118, determined to 118. proceed, making the census of 1821 the rule.1 A protracted and tedious series of debates ensued on the details of the measure and the disfranchisement of particular boroughs, which continued, without interruption, for two months, but in which Ministers uniformly had triumphant majorities. The mind of Mr Croker, forcible and indefatigable, but minute and microscopic, 1 Mirror of Sept. 2, i. 551; Ann. Reg. 1831, XXIII. 1831. 75. Motion to bers to the give mem colonies negatived without a division. Aug. 16. CHAP. shone forth with peculiar lustre in these discussions. Two points of general and lasting interest were, however, determined in the course of these interminable debates. The first was a motion, brought forward by Mr Hume on 16th August, that members should be given to the colonies; and the proposal was of the most moderate kind; for all he asked was, that 19 members should be given to the whole colonies of Great Britain, including four for British India, with its 100,000,000 of inhabitants.* The proposal was supported by the Conservatives, but excited very little attention, and was negatived without a division. When "Australia" was read out as to send a member, there was a loud laugh. Gentlemen," said Mr Hume, may laugh; but it can be shown that Australia already has twenty times the number of inhabitants of many of the boroughs in England which are now to be enfranchised." Within twenty-five years of the time when these words were spoken, Australia had a population of 600,000 souls, took off annually £14,000,000 of British manufactures, and a single province of it (Victoria) yielded the local government a revenue of £3,500,000 a-year! It is a curious and instructive proof of the inherent and universal selfishness and thirst for power in all ranks, that, at the very moment when the Reformers of England were most strenuously contending for and successfully asserting the right of the middle classes at home to a preponderating share in the government, they would not even entertain a proposal for the extension of similar rights, in the smallest degree, to their fellow-countrymen beyond the seas! It may safely be affirmed, that the future destinies of the British empire, and its dissolution at no distant period, were determined on this eventful though unobserved night; for, can it be supposed that the vast and vi. 114, 126. rapidly-growing colonies, destined ere long to outstrip the mother country in wealth, commerce, and population,1 will 1 Parl. Deb. * He proposed to give British India 4, Crown colonies 8, Canada 3, West Indies 3, Channel Islands 1-total, 19. XXIII. remain permanently subject to a legislature exclusively CHAP. elected by the inhabitants of a distant island, ignorant of their circumstances, indifferent to their wants, and actuated by interests adverse to their prosperity? "Cœlum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt." 1831. 76. of Chaudos' carried. If the subject of colonial representation excited no attention in the whirlwind of domestic reform, the same Marquess could not be said of another topic brought forward by motion on Lord Chandos, which was the extension of the elective 50 tenants franchise to tenants-at-will. By the bill as it originally stood, tenants holding leases for twenty-one years or more, and paying £50 rent, were to obtain votes in counties. This clause, however, applied to a very small number of such persons, leases being rare in England. The Marquess of Chandos now moved that tenants-at-will should be enfranchised who paid £50 rent-a great change, for it went to admit the whole body of the English tenantry holding farms to that value. The debate was short, for the minds of nearly all were made *It cannot be said that this decision was come to in ignorance of the circumstances and claims of the colonies; for, in the course of the brief debate on Mr Hume's motion, Mr Keith Douglas observed: "In the present times of sweeping and universal change, the plan of the honourable member for Middlesex is a subject of the very highest importance. The idea of giving due proportion to the commerce and colonies which had raised this country to its present pitch of greatness, was worthy of the most attentive consideration. It appeared, by the returns of 1827, that our colonial imports were then worth £90,000,000 (official value), and our exports £80,000,000; that the ships employed in this trade amounted to 4580, and their tonnage to 900,000, independent of those employed in the colonies themselves. They were now about to localise the representation, and in all probability the various boroughs would in future return gentlemen resident in their immediate vicinity, so that the class of persons connected with the colonies, who had hitherto found their way into Parliament, and who were alone able to give information concerning colonial matters, would be completely excluded. In whatever point of view the great question of our colonial policy and government came to be considered, it was impossible to doubt that the honourable member for Middlesex had done perfectly right in bringing it forward." Hansard's Reports bear, "He (Mr Hume) had begun his speech by expressing a fear that very few members who heard him would give their attention to the subject; but he was now convinced that those who laughed did give their attention to the subject-the late Secretary of the Admiralty might laugh. (Mr Croker, 'I did not laugh at all; I was reading this paper').”—Parl. Deb. vol. vi. pp. 122-126. |