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he would go." Mr. Brougham, while he thought that the duration of parliaments might advantageously be shortened, provided that other measures for removing improper influence were adopted, declared himself both against universal suffrage and against vote by ballot, and he entered into a full statement of the grounds on which he held, that the secrecy of voting, supposed to be attained by the ballot, would produce most mischievous consequences, without securing the object which it had in view. We deem it right to state the learned gentleman's sentiments on this topic more at length, because the ballot now made a principal figure in the shows of the reformers, and because on no other occasion had its merits been minutely examined. Mr. Brougham observed, that a county election could not be managed like an election at a club, where the box was handed round, and the pellet thrown in, and there was an end of it. To go to a contest for a county or extensive city, a man must be constantly amongst the people. His friends and himself should be unremittingly engaged in active canvass ; committees, and subdivisions of committees, must be occupied in parcelling out the several districts, and ascertaining how their strength stood in this part and the other; landlords were to be sought out, and they, of course, would exercise an influence over their tenants. The tenant was then applied to, and he gave his solemn promise,-" I mean to vote for you, sir; you may rely upon me with confidence. God forbid that I should not vote for you, under whom I and my family have thriven." He would suppose that those who advocated this system

would be able to devise some plan by which the voter was to be able to vote in such a manner as that mortal could not discover, except from himself, how he voted; that he was to be placed in some kind of sentry-box, and provided with some kind of stamped pellet, the forgery of which would, no doubt, be made an offence,-it being assumed all this while, that, notwithstanding all his promises to his landlord, and the candidate, and his friends, the elector intended to give his vote against the man to whom he made the promise. The vote was given, and against his promise. Well, he went afterwards to the candidate—congratulated him upon his prospect of success, not failing to add, that his vote was one of the items which contributed to increase the prospect. But then see the moral-see how far the concealment of what was done could be continued-how far the knowledge of it could be kept from the landlord, to secure whose interest in retaining him in his farm he had made the promise. Nobody could see what passed in the sentry-box, or how the stamped pellet was disposed of. But were there no such things as conversation amongst friends going to church, or coming from it, or at the club, or at the alehouse,-for it was barely possible that an elector might visit such a place. Was nothing of the nature of the vote to be allowed to transpire? Was a man to keep such a watch and guard over his words and actions for three years until the next election came-that no mortal could discover what he did? He must not tell it to his wife or his child; he must keep it locked up from his bosom friend-he must not broach it to his pot companion,

but be as dumb as the tankard which
they had emptied between them;
and this state of silence must be
observed for three years. Thus far
for the elector: now how far was
this concealment to be operated
upon by the candidate? He had
already found out that he was un-
successful, that where he had been
promised 500 votes he had not
got 50, the seed giving back one
for ten, instead of yielding ten for
one, as a good husbandman had a
right to expect. Inquiries were
set on foot as to where the defi-
ciency was. It might be a mis-
take of the poll-clerks: the poll-
books were examined, and all was
right still. Then the lord Johns
and sir Roberts, who had promis-
ed their interest, were questioned,
but the lord Johns and sir Ro-
berts insisted that it could not be
amongst their tenants, for they
had all promised, and had all, no
doubt, religiously kept their words.
Each defended his own tallies.
But one had not voted for every
tally promised. Suspicions were
excited, and some of the voters
were questioned. The man so
questioned had only one of three
answers to give: he must say, that
he voted against the candidate,
by which he was sure to lose his
farm; or he must refuse to say
how he voted, by which his loss
of the farm would be equally cer-
tain; for the refusal would natur-
ally enough be construed into an
unwillingness to confess that he
had voted the wrong way; or he
must insist, and solemnly call God
to witness that he had voted as he
had promised-a course which
would not tend much to self-con-
gratulation, or to a comfortable
feeling within himself, if he had
any feeling at all. But even this
would not completely lull suspi-

cions: there would still be the
watchings and questionings of
friends and of agents- for no act
that could be framed could pre-
vent these. In the course of these,
something would turn up to fix
the suspicions on which bad land-
lords would be ready to act against
their tenants; and it was on the
assumption of bad landlords, who
would visit the refusal to vote for
them on their tenants, that the
necessity of vote by ballot was at
all defended. The bad landlord
would act upon suspicion; and
the more so, as there being only
50 votes, where 500 had been
promised, the chance was ten to
one that any one of the 500, who
said he kept his word, was stating
Examples would
a falsehood.
then be made of a few, and what
would be the result?-why, that
at the next election, a vast number
would not vote at all. Some even
of those who had kept their word
would take that as the surest way
to prove that they were not in the
pay of the opposite party. The
landlord would compel others,
whom he strongly suspected, not
to vote, as the only way of pre-
venting their accession to the other
side; or he might persuade some
of those, who, he knew, if they
voted at all, would vote against
him, to pair off with those whom
he suspected, and thus deprive
his adversary of the whole. But
was there no other of disco-
vering-of coming at the fact of
how a voter had kept his word?
If, in voting against his promise,
he acted for his principles, he
would be likely to make it known
for the sake of those principles;
if from friendship, he would pro-
bably tell it to gratify his friend;
or if he gave it from motives of
interest, nothing was less likely

way

than that he should conceal it, for the attainment of the object would render the disclosure useful, and in this way the secret would come out, and the offended landlord at last get at it, and the visitation upon him, which the vote by ballot was intended to avert, would follow. But was this the only evil which resulted from this system? Was there not a far worse remaining behind? Did not all this study at concealment of a solemn promise violated-this long watching and guard over a man's words and actions, so as constantly to appear that which he was not-tend to make him lead the life of a hypocrite-that character of whom it was so justly and eloquently said, that his life was one continued lie. What could be expected from a man who had deceived those who had trusted him, and, from one election to the other, was obliged to keep a constant watch on his words, lest, in an unguarded moment, he should betray the secret, the discovery of which would not be more injurious to his interests than fatal to his character? What must be the opinions of those who could believe, that a man, who was for years, nay, even for months or weeks-habitually false on one subject, which was dear to him, could be true on all others? Such an opinion was founded in utter ignorance of the human mind; false such a man was, and false he must be, until human nature became totally changed, or until men's opinions of each other were totally subverted. Thus the ballot would have but little efficiency, and that little would be most dearly purchased.

The resolutions moved by lord John Russell, after Mr.O'Connell's

motion had been negatived, were to the effect,-1. "That it was expedient the number of representatives in the House should be increased." 2. "That it was expedient to give members to the large and manufacturing towns, and additional members to counties of great wealth and population." Under the latter clause of the resolution, it was meant to divide large and populous counties, such as Yorkshire, into two parts, and give to each of them two members. Among the towns which were proposed to be comprehended were, Macclesfield, Stockport, Cheltenham, Birmingham, Brighton, Whitehaven, Wolverhampton, Sunderland, Manchester, Bury, Bolton, Dudley, Leeds, Halifax, Sheffield, North and South Shields; and it was stated, that the same principle would apply to extend the representation of such large cities as Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Belfast. To obviate the inconvenience which would result from such an addition to the number of members, it was proposed that a certain number of the smaller boroughs, which at present returned two members, should be allowed to return only one,-this curtailment being limited to boroughs where the population did not exceed 2,500. His third resolution accordingly would be"That, to obviate the inconvenience from the increased numbers of members, it is expedient that a number of boroughs, not exceeding 60, and not containing more than 2,500 inhabitants, shall severally return for the future only one member to serve in parliament." The last resolution referred to the compensation to be given to those boroughs for the privilege of which they would

be thus deprived. There was a precedent to be found for that in what was done in a similar case at the time of the Union with Ireland. The fourth resolution, therefore, was to this effect:-"That it is expedient that compensation be granted to those boroughs that have been reduced to one member to serve in parliament, by means of a fixed sum to be paid to them annually for a certain number of years." This last proposal was the only part of the scheme to which Mr. Brougham could not accede. He saw great difficulty in the plan of pecuniary compensation, greater difficulty in discovering whence the money was to be derived, and greater difficulty still in determining to whom the money should be paid. As at present advised, therefore, he differed from this part of the plan; but the other portions of it appeared to him reasonable, desirable, and eminently practicable. The resolutions were negatived by a majority of 213 to 117,-a much larger majority than that which had thrown out the more limited proposal for extending the franchise to three of the manufacturing towns.

The only other measure, affecting the constitution of the legislative body, brought forward during the session, was proposed by Mr. R. Grant, who moved, on the 5th of April, for leave to bring in a bill to repeal the civil disabilities affecting British-born subjects professing the Jewish religion, a bill which seemed to follow naturally enough on the act of last session, for repealing the civil disabilities affecting Britishborn subjects professing the Catholic faith. Mr. Grant narrated to the House the treatment which

the Jews had received from the Conquest down to the last century, when the act for naturalizing foreign Jews was repealed, within a few months after it had been passed, by what he termed "a pusillanimous legislature," in consequence of the public commotions which the measure had excited. From that time nothing had been done respecting the Jews; from all the growing liberality of legislation they had derived no benefit; they alone were still placed beyond the pale of the constitution. They were excluded from holding any offices, civil or military, under the ment. They were excluded from practising law and physic, from holding any corporate office, and from being members of parliament; and they might be prevented from voting for members of parliament, if the oath were tendered to them. Besides these general disabilities, they were subjected to additional local grievances. It was true that, in some large towns, for instance, Liverpool and Exeter, they were allowed to enjoy all civil rights; but in the metropolis, they could not obtain the freedom of any of the companies, nor exercise any retail trade. The number of Jewish subjects in London appeared to be about 18,000 or 20,000, and in the kingdom about 30,000 or 40,000. They formed a community of peaceable and industrious persons; they were less stained with political offences than any other body of men that could be named; by their wealth they added to the opulence of the country; they asked in return to be admitted to the benefits of the constitution; and the House had nothing to do, but follow "the glorious example" presented by the Catholic bill of last year. As that very bill, indeed,

required the declaration which it provided as a qualification for office, to be given "upon the word of a Christian," it seemed to contain a recognition, and a very recent recognition, of a principle fatal to Mr. Grant's intended measure. But this, according to Mr. Grant's logic, was merely a "collateral and fortuitous" incident. There was nothing, he said, in the body of the declaration which the Jews objected to take, but they were deprived, by a collateral and incidental effect, of the advantages which the law had placed within their reach. The law which required the oath of allegiance to be taken upon the Gospel, had been enacted at a time when there were no Jews in the realm, and therefore could not have been directed against them. The oath of abjuration was introduced at a time when the country was divided by political parties; and the obvious intention of the introduction of the words "upon the faith of a Christian" was, not to apply a test to those who were not Christians, but to those who were. The form had been introduced into the declaration now required to be taken by the House of Lords. It had certainly been adopted by the House of Commons, but only for the sake of peace, and not to disturb the great measure then in progress. Under those circumstances, the introduction of the words, "upon the word of a Christian," could not be considered the deliberate act of the legislature.

Sir Robert Inglis and the Chancellor of the Exchequer opposed even the introduction of the bill, as inconsistent with what had been the constant practice of the legislature, viz., to protect Christianity under some of its forms in all their

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enactments. The proposition could stand only upon the principle, that no regard at all should be held to a man's religion it would apply to Turks and Mahometans as well as to Jews; and it would only teach the people that parliament held Christianity a matter of indifference, though Christianity was bound up as part and parcel of the constitution. The Catholic Relief bill was no precedent; there was a broad distinction between admitting to power in a Christian state, those who were the sworn enemies of all Christianity, and those who were merely Christians of different denominations. The Catholic bill had been rested by those who introduced it on the ground of expediency; the numbers and importance of the Catholics were such as to render it justifiable, for the attainment of a great national object, to offend the feelings of another large body of the people. But in a work lately published, under the authority of the Jews themselves, their number was stated to amount to only 28,000; and thus there was not the same inducement to run counter to the religious belief, or even prejudices, of the people. Jews were aliens, not indeed in the legal sense, but in the popular and substantial sense. They had another country, and an interest, not merely distinct from, but hostile to, that of the country which they might happen. to inhabit. In one of the wars of the last century, the Jews had been expelled from Bohemia, because they had assisted an invading army against their lawful sovereign. The Jews, too, materially assisted the retreat of Napoleon's army from Russia. Gentlemen connected with commerce would recollect also, that, while we were

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