MEETING OF PARLIAMENT—THE REFORM QUESTION RENEWED IN PARLIAMENT.
Parliament met on the 14th of June; being opened by commission till the preliminary forms necessary to be gone through in the house of commons should have been completed. On the 21st. after Mr. Manners Sutton had been re-elected speaker without opposition, and all the members were sworn in, his majesty opened the session in person. In his speech his majesty remarked: “I have availed myself of the earliest opportunity of resorting to your advice and assistance, after the dissolution of the late parliament. Having had recourse to that measure for the purpose of ascertaining the sense of my people on the expediency of a reform in the representation, I have now to recommend that important question to your earliest and most attentive consideration; confident that in any measures which you may propose for its adjustment, you will carefully adhere to the acknowledged principles of the constitution, by which the prerogative of the crown, the authority of both houses of parliament, and the rights and liberties of the people are equally secured.” No amendment was proposed to the address in the upper house. The discussion chiefly turned on the dissolution of parliament, the inattention of government to the security of property during the London illuminations, and the arts used to inflame the public mind during the election. The same topics were also discussed in the commons, and the address was carried there without opposition.
The house of commons having been elected for the purpose of passing a measure of reform, no time was lost in bringing it forward. Lord John Russell moved for leave to bring in a bill to amend the representation of England on the 24th of June. No debate took place on this occasion: Sir R. Peel having stated that he did not wish to divide the house on the first reading, or to have a long debate without a division. At his suggestion the second reading was postponed from the 30th of June to the 4th of July. In the meantime the Irish and Scotch bills were brought in and read the first time: the former on the 30th of June, and the latter on the 1st of July. On the appointed day for the second reading of the English reform bill an animated debate took place. Sir John Walsh moved that the bill should be read that day six months. The debate which followed this amendment continued three nights; and it consisted chiefly of a repetition of the views, arguments, and anticipations which had been brought out at such great length in the former parliament. Ministers and their supporters, however, found new matter for triumph in the evidence with which the general election had furnished them, that the people were generally for reform. All doubt or hesitation was at an end: the voice of the people had decided, not merely that there must be reform, but that it must be that kind of reform contained in the ministerial bill. This voice had been pronounced unanimously, for the returns from close boroughs and particular counties could not be taken into account in estimating the will and the wishes of those who formed the people. The opposition on the other hand contended, that the argument drawn from the mere fact of a popular clamour having been raised in favour of this measure, was fit only for legislators who had been invested with that character on no other terms than those of pledging themselves to discharge the humble duty of delegates, and not to act according to any opinions which they might form on the measures proposed by government. No man, it was said, could deny the violent excitement which had taken place, and few would maintain that large bodies of electors were the fittest persons for deciding on the merits of so complicated and delicate a question; and every man must concede, that least of all could the decision of such assemblages be regarded when made under the influence of agitation, sedulously cherished by false pretexts, and supported by groundless anticipations. Nor could the returns, it was argued, be considered as manifesting the opinion of the country on this plan of reform. They had been influenced, it was said, by considerations not connected with the merits of the proposition; and by identifying it with consequences, to which even its most rational and candid friends admitted that it never would lead. It was asked, Where had been the unanimity in favour of reform before the promulgation of the present measure, and the triumphs of the democracy of France? How little ministers could trust to reason and calmness among the people, and how much they reckoned on everything that was the reverse, was clear from the delicacy and respect with which they treated bodies that ought to have been unknown to them as a government, except for the purpose of checking their pretensions. Ministers had resolved not to intrust ten-pound voters who paid weekly; and this having displeased the Birmingham Political Union, they addressed a letter to the prime-minister on the subject, and that noble lord honoured them with the most friendly recognition. The speech of Mr. Macaulay, a nominee of Lord Lansdowne for the borough of Calne, in favour of the bill, elicited much applause. He remarked:—“The country and their children for ages to come will call this the second bill of rights; the greater charter of the liberties of England. I believe that the year 1831 is destined to exhibit to mankind the first example of a great, complicated, and deeply-rooted system of abuses removed without violence, bloodshed, and rapine; all forms observed, the fruits of industry not destroyed, and the authority of the law not suspended. These are things which may well make Englishmen proud of the age and country in which they live. These are things which may make them look forward to a long series of tranquil and happy years, during which nothing will disturb the concord of a popular government and a loyal people; of years in which, if war should be inevitable, it will find the people a united nation: of years pre-eminently distinguished by the mitigation of public burdens, by the prosperity of industry, by the reformation of jurisprudence, and by all the victories of peace: in which, far more than in military triumphs, consist the true prosperity of states and the glory of statesmen. It is with such feelings and hopes that I give my most cordial assent to this measure of reform, a measure which, in itself, I think desirable, but which in the present temper of the public mind is indispensably necessary to the repose of empire and the stability of government.” The debate was closed by Lord John Russell, who defended his plan: and on a division the second reading of the measure was carried by a majority of three hundred and sixty-seven against two hundred and thirty-one.
It was proposed that the house should go into committee on the 12th of July, when Lord Maitland, one of the members for Appleby, rose to oppose the disfranchisement of that borough, on the score of a mistake in the population returns. He moved that his constituents should be heard at the bar by themselves and their counsel against the bill, in so far as it affected them, and in support of the allegations in their petition. Ministers declared that they would resist such an inquiry. They asked, whether the progress of this great measure was to be stopped to enter into the examination of a particular case of so insignificant a borough as Appleby? Members would be heard in committee in regard to this and every other borough; but if the house was to hear counsel in the case of Appleby, they might likewise be called on to hear them in the case of the other condemned boroughs, and that would be vexatious. The house had the information furnished by the population returns, which ministers deemed sufficient: if witnesses were examined at the bar, they must necessarily, if they had not been engaged in taking the census, be unable to furnish any other evidence; and if they had been so engaged, they would furnish the same evidence. A stormy debate followed, several members maintaining that there never had been an instance of so arbitrary and unconstitutional an attempt as ministers were now making. The second reading had carried the principle of the bill; but these petitioners were not objecting to the principle, but simply maintaining that, adopting this principle, the rule laid down by the bill itself, and founded on matters of fact, could not apply to them. Ministers, however, were deaf to all remonstrances; and the motion was negatived, although several supporters of the bill ventured to vote in the minority, feeling that the petitioners were justly entitled to show cause why they should not be disfranchised, and that justice would not be done if the motion were rejected. This motion being lost, a new discussion arose before the speaker left the chair, on the general principles and tendencies of the bill. As many members wished to express their sentiments, and the majority seemed impatient to cut all argument short, Mr. Gordon moved for an adjournment. The chancellor of the exchequer, however, asserted that he would have no further general argument on the bill after that night; and, notwithstanding the motion was ably defended, it was negatived. Repeated motions for adjournment were made, and were as repeatedly negatived; but as the minority still kept to their point, and seven o’clock in the morning was approaching, the chancellor of the exchequer said, that if the house would allow him to go into committee pro forma, the chairman might report progress, and ask leave to sit again to-morrow, when the discussion might go on as before. This was agreed to, and the house then adjourned. On the 13th, when the motion was made for the speaker leaving the chair, some discussion took place on the general principles of the bill; but it was very brief; and the house then discussed the measure clause by clause. The discussion on the several clauses continued from the 13th of July to the 15th of September, the opposition combating every point foot to foot with ministers. Amendments were moved as to the general principles of the bill, and as regards particular boroughs; but ministers were triumphant in almost every instance of importance. An amendment, moved by the Marquis of Chandos, that the right of voting should belong-to all occupiers of land paying a rent of not less than fifty pounds, was, however, earned by a majority of eighty-four; and it was incorporated with the original clause, which gave a right of voting for counties to leaseholders for a certain period, and a defined rent. The committee finished its labours on the 7th of September; and the bill, as amended, was reported to the house. The third reading was carried without a debate, on the 15th of September, by a majority of fifty-five; but on the motion that the bill do pass, a debate arose, which continued during the 19th, 20th, and 21st of September. Mr. Macaulay, with brilliant eloquence, admonished the peers to look to the deserted halls of France, and take warning not to oppose popular lights. Mr. Croker who seemed to make a point of rising to address the house after Mr. Macaulay, ridiculed the idea of the peers of England being deterred by fear from the performance of their duty, and reminded Mr. Macaulay that if the halls of France were deserted, it was because the French nobility were so foolish as to make any concessions to popular clamour. Mr. Stanley, then in the noon of his reputation, replied with his usual debating power to Mr. Croker, and carried the sympathies, if not the opinions of the house. Useless and angry recrimination entered largely into the remainder of the debate, in which Mr. Wynn and Sir Charles Wetherell especially figured. The personal influence of Lord Althorp and Sir Robert Peel allayed this angry spirit.