MR. O’CONNELL’S BILL FOR REFORM BY UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE AND VOTE BY
BALLOT, ETC.
Of all the various plans for altering the representation, whether suggested by an honest desire to obviate the necessity of sweeping innovations, or springing from the designs of restless demagogues, there were none against which so little could be said as the proposition for conferring the elective franchise on populous commercial towns. When, therefore, Lord John Russell failed in transferring the elective franchise of East Retford to Birmingham, he did not hesitate to bring the subject before parliament again, by moving for a bill to confer that privilege, independently of all other considerations, on Leeds, Birmingham, and Manchester. He founded the constitutional nature of the proposed alteration on the known practice of parliament, which extended such rights to unrepresented places, when they had acquired importance by their wealth and population. He remarked:—“It is true the proposal hitherto had been, that the franchise should not be conferred till the house had a forfeiture to dispose of; but it is now plain that if the towns in question are to wait for such a transfer, there is no probability of their obtaining it: so numerous are the difficulties stated in both houses of parliament.” His lordship said that it did not seem very reasonable that the fitness of Leeds or Manchester to be represented should be said to depend on the good or bad conduct of the electors of Penryn or East Retford: their claims must rest on circumstances in their own situation; and if that situation was such as to render it just and desirable that they should be represented, where, he asked, was the sense of saying, that what was just and reasonable ought not to be done, because the electors of some other place had refused to do what was wicked? Lord John Russell then entered into various details demonstrative of the growing greatness of the towns in question. In continuation he remarked that he could not discover any sound reason why so many citizens, and so much wealth, should remain unrepresented, when the principle as well as the practice of the constitution, had pointed out the manner of admitting them into parliament. He knew it would be said that there was no limitation to the principles that if it was held good to admit three towns, it might equally be extended to twenty, thirty, forty, or even indefinitely. He confessed this; and he saw no reason why, if Sheffield, or any other town should at some future period attain the same rank, it should not obtain the same privilege. It was not probable, however, that the principle could ever be applied to more than four or five towns in the whole realm. Parliament, moreover, had not always been so fastidious in regard to the extension of a principle. It had not refused, for instance, the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders. But the present bill would not even add permanently to the members of the house; he proposed that in future cases of disfranchisement, the franchise should be allowed to drop altogether, instead of being transferred. The whole measure seemed to him incapable of alarming the most timid person, and it ought to be received with willingness by the sternest opposers of innovation. When he looked at other countries, the wisdom and policy of the measure was still more imperiously forced on his conviction. We could not shut our eyes to the fact that a collision between royal authority and popular resistance was rapidly approaching in France, though all must regret that some compromise was not contemplated which might save society from its consequences. It was for us, then, to profit by the warning, and awaken in time to a perception of the nice mechanism of our own representative government. It behoved all who were lovers of liberty without disorder, and of peace without slavery, to watch anxiously at such a period; endeavouring so to accommodate our system to altered times and circumstances, as to render it worthy of the respect and affection of the people. The constitution itself supplied us with the means; we had only to use its own renovating principles. Its fabric was not, as some supposed, that of a Grecian temple, perfect and complete in all its parts, which could not suffer alteration without the destruction of its symmetry; it was rather like a Gothic building, susceptible of enlargement, consistently with the integrity of its ornaments and the security of its duration. The views on which this bill was founded were repeated and enforced by Lord Sandon, General Gascoyne, Dr. Lushington, and Messrs. Huskisson, Bright, and Brougham. All of these members did not go to the same lengths as Lord John Russell, but all admitted that it was desirable the towns in question should be represented. Some would give them members only as a sequel of the disfranchisement of corrupt boroughs. Mr. Huskisson, who delivered his last speech on parliamentary reform, said that he would have been better pleased to have been able directly to transfer the franchise of East Retford to Birmingham; but as the late decision of the house had rendered that impracticable, he would support the motion. He observed that the time was fast approaching when ministers would be compelled to come down to the house with some measure, or to resign their situations, and nothing was more unwise than for a government to delay important propositions, till compelled by overwhelming majorities. He did not wish it to be understood, however, that his vote implied he could ever be brought to sanction the substitution of a new system of representation for that which existed. He added:—“To a more extensive parliamentary reform, a measure founded upon the principle of a general revision, reconstruction, and remodelling of our present constitution, I have always been opposed; and while I have a seat in this house I shall give it my most decided opposition. If such an extensive reform were effected, we might go on for two or three sessions in good and easy times, and such a reformed parliament might adapt itself to one mode of government on the ordinary concerns of the country; but if such an extensive change were effected in the constitution of parliament, sure I am that, whenever an occasion shall arise of great popular excitement or reaction, the consequence will be a total subversion of our constitution, followed by anarchy and confusion, and terminating either in the tyranny of a fierce democracy, or a military despotism; these two great calamities maintaining that natural order of succession which they have been always hitherto seen to observe. I am, therefore, opposed to such an extensive change and revision of our representative system.” The motion for leave to bring in the bill was negatived by a majority of one hundred and eighty against forty.
If this bill was the most harmless modification under which reform could be proposed, that which was subsequently brought before parliament by Mr. O’Connell was, on the other hand, the most wild and ruinous. That arch-demagogue moved for leave to bring in a bill to establish triennial parliaments, universal suffrage, and vote by ballot, the foundation of this system being this proposition—simple indeed in its nature, but tending to anarchy—that every man who pays a tax, or is liable to serve in the militia, is entitled to have a voice in the representation. Lord John Russell, who took occasion of the motion to introduce certain resolutions of his own, embracing a more comprehensive scheme of change than his former proposal, said, that he could not consent to any of Mr. O’Connell’s scheme. Triennial parliaments might not be very objectionable; but as to the other propositions, he considered them totally incompatible with the constitution of England. Lord Althorp spoke to the same effect: as any change was an evil, he said, the least change was the limit to which he should go. Mr. Brougham adopted the same course: the duration of parliaments might be shortened, he thought, but he set his face against universal suffrage and vote by ballot. His arguments against them were very cogent and convincing. A county election, he said, 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 contest for a county or extensive city, a man must be constantly among the people. His friends and himself should be unremittingly engaged in active canvas; 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. 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 promises made to his landlord, and the candidate, his friend, the elector intended to give his vote to another. The vote was given, and against a 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 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. No one could see what passed in the sentry-box, or how the pellet was disposed of; but were there no such things as conversation amongst friends in going to or coming from church, or at the club, or at the alehouse? 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 come, 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: how far was the concealment to be operated upon by the candidate? He had found out that he was unsuccessful; that where he had been promised five hundred votes he had not got fifty, the seed giving back one for ten, instead of yielding ten for one, as a good husbandman had a right to expect. Inquiries will be set on foot as to where the deficiency was. It might be a mistake of the poll-clerks: the poll-books were examined and all was right still. Then the Lord Johns and Sir Roberts, who had promised their interests, were questioned; but they 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 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 certain; or he must insist and solemnly call God to witness that he had voted as he had promised. But even this latter alternative would not completely lull suspicions: there would still be the watchings and questionings of friends, and of agents, for no act that could be framed could prevent these. In the course of these something would turn up to fix the suspicions on which bad landlords 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 or their tenants, that the necessity of vote by ballot was at all defended. The bad landlord would act upon suspicion: the more so, as, there being only fifty votes where five hundred had been promised, the chance was ten to one that any one of the five hundred who said he kept his word, was stating a falsehood. Examples would then be made of a few: and what would be the result? Why, that at the 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 preventing 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 way 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 probably tell it to gratify his friend; or if he gave it from motives of interest, nothing was less likely 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 and 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 his 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 purchased at a great price. Mr. O’Connell’s motion was lost by a majority of three hundred and nineteen against thirteen; and the resolutions moved by Lord John Russell were afterwards negatived by two hundred and thirteen against one hundred and seventeen. These resolutions proposed to give members to large and manufacturing towns, and additional members to counties of great wealth and population. They also proposed to decrease the numbers of members for boroughs, giving to such boroughs compensation by means of a fixed sum to be paid annually for a certain number of years. 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 extend to the representation of such large cities as Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Belfast. But the time was not yet come when such an extensive reform as this could be entertained in the British parliament.