Cassell's History of England, Vol. 6 (of 8) / From the Death of Sir Robert Peel to the Illness of the Prince of Wales

by Anonymous

5. "That the principle of plurality of votes, if adopted by Parliament, would facilitate the settlement of the borough franchise on an extensive basis.

6. "That it is expedient to revise the existing distribution of seats.

7. "That in such revision it is not expedient that any borough now represented in Parliament should be wholly disfranchised.

8. "That in revising the existing distribution of seats, this House will acknowledge, as its main consideration, the expediency of supplying representation to places not at present represented, which may be considered entitled to that privilege.

9. "That it is expedient that provision should be made for the better prevention of bribery and corruption at elections.

10. "That it is expedient that the system of registration of voters in counties should be assimilated as far as possible to that which prevails in boroughs.

11. "That it shall be open to every Parliamentary elector, if he thinks fit, to record his vote by means of a polling paper, duly signed and authenticated.

12. "That provision be made for diminishing the distance which voters have to travel for the purpose of recording their votes, so that no expenditure for such purpose shall hereafter be legal.

13. "That a humble Address be presented to her Majesty, praying her Majesty to issue a Royal Commission to form and submit to the consideration of Parliament a scheme for new and enlarged boundaries of the existing Parliamentary boroughs where the population extends beyond the limits now assigned to such boroughs; and to fix, subject to the decision of Parliament, the boundaries of such other boroughs as Parliament may deem fit to be represented in this House."

The House and the country were naturally dissatisfied with such vague statements as these, and between the 11th and the 25th of February, when Mr. Disraeli promised something more definite, many attempts were made to induce Government to declare themselves more plainly. "The Resolutions of the Government," said Mr. Lowe later, borrowing a happy illustration from the "Vicar of Wakefield," "have no more to do with the plan of the Government than Squire Thornhill's three famous postulates had to do with the argument he had with Moses Primrose, when, in order to controvert the right of the clergy to tithes, he laid down the principles—that a whole is greater than its part; that whatever is, is; and that three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles." However, Mr. Disraeli kept his secret, in spite of attacks from Mr. Ayrton and arguments from Mr. Gladstone, till the night of the 25th, when he rose to explain the resolutions and to suggest certain constructions of them on the part of Government; a very different thing, it will be understood, from bringing in a Bill by which the framers of it are bound in the main to stand or fall. In the first place, then, Government proposed to create four new franchises—an educational franchise, to include persons who had taken a university degree, ministers of religion, and others; a savings bank franchise; a franchise dependent upon the possession of £50 in the public funds; and a fourth dependent upon the payment of £1 yearly in direct taxation. By these means the Government calculated that about 82,000 persons would be enfranchised. In boroughs the occupier's qualification was to be reduced to £6 rateable value, and in counties to £20 rateable value—reductions which it was supposed would admit about 220,000 new voters. With regard to the redistribution of seats, four boroughs, convicted of extensive corruption, and returning seven members between them, were to be wholly disfranchised; and in addition to these seven members, Mr. Disraeli appealed "to the patriotism of the smaller boroughs" to provide him with twenty-three more, by means of partial disfranchisement. The thirty seats thus obtained were to be divided as follows:—Fifteen new seats were to be given to counties, fourteen to boroughs (an additional member being given to the Tower Hamlets), and one member to the London University. The points of likeness and unlikeness between this scheme and that of the Liberals in 1866 will be easily perceived by any one who takes the trouble to examine the two plans.