JOHN BRIGHT.
(From the Portrait by Frank Holl, R.A. By Permission of the Corporation of Birmingham.)
In the end four important amendments were proposed by the Lords, who showed a very different attitude from that which their fathers had shown in 1832. There was throughout the whole of the speeches of the peers a note of sadness and dissatisfaction; but none thought seriously of rejecting the Bill altogether. And the amendments, important in themselves, did not touch the household suffrage, which was the bugbear of the Bill, and did not even attempt to restore the compound householder for the purpose of robbing household suffrage of its sting. The important amendments were:—(1) To raise the qualification for lodgers to £15, instead of £10—proposed by Lord Cairns; (2) To restore £10, instead of £5, as the copyhold qualification in counties—proposed by Lord Harrowby; (3) To secure a representation of minorities in the "three-cornered constituencies"—proposed by Lord Cairns; (4) To allow the employment of voting papers at elections—proposed by the Marquis of Salisbury. Of these, the first was passed by a majority of 121 to 89; the second by a majority of 119 to 56. Both these decisions were, however, finally reversed by the Commons by large majorities; nor was the amendment allowing the use of voting papers any more successful. The Lords, with a good grace, submitted to correction, and the Bill remained, in these respects, the same as it had been when it originally passed the House of Commons.
With regard to Lord Cairns's more successful amendment relating to the rights of minorities, a little more may be said. It was not a new idea; the claims of minorities to a voice in affairs had long been felt to be a serious question by political theorists, especially Mr. Mill and Mr. Thomas Hare; and Mr. Lowe had attempted, earlier in the Session, to get those claims recognised in the Bill by the introduction of some clauses resembling those of Lord Cairns. Lord Cairns proposed, "That at a contested election for any county or borough, no person shall vote for more than two candidates"—adding, a short time afterwards, that in elections for the City of London, where four members are returned, no one should vote for more than three candidates. This amendment, the object of which was to enable the minority in the boroughs of Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham, in the City of London, and in certain counties, to "lump" their votes on one candidate, and so secure his return, was carried by a large majority—142 to 91. When the amendment came down to the Commons, after the amended Bill had been read a third time in the House of Lords, it was warmly debated. Mr. Lowe's previous motion, to allow any elector to have as many votes as there were vacant seats, and to give all his votes to one candidate if he chose, had been rejected by a majority of 141; but now the opinion of many members had changed. The debate was carried on quite independently of the ordinary party divisions; instead, the division seemed to be between those who wished in all cases to follow the outlines of English political precedent, and those who believed that those precedents were sometimes clumsy and inconvenient. For once, the House enjoyed the unusual sight of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Disraeli, and Mr. Bright all taking one side on a contested question; the principal supporters of the other side being Mr. Mill and Mr. Lowe. Strange to say, the accustomed leaders of the House failed to carry their views into effect. The amendment was passed by a majority of 253 to 204.
It is enough to add that, on the Report being presented to the Lords, that House agreed to the corrections of the House of Commons, and was content to have carried one of its four amendments. On August 15th, 1867, the Royal Assent was given to the "Representation of the People Act;" and for a time at least the Reform question was settled.
Lord Derby ushered the Bill out of the House on the third reading with words that immediately became famous: "No doubt we are making a great experiment, and taking a leap in the dark." That, indeed, was the feeling of many of the Conservatives, and even of many of the moderate Liberals; and few of the cartoons of Punch have been more effective than that which, illustrating the Prime Minister's words, represented him as a steeple-chaser, charging with shut eyes at a fence of portentous thickness, beyond which lay an unknown country. But another of Punch's cartoons gave the honour of the Bill to its real author, though there were long afterwards those who asserted, in agreement with Mr. Bright, that it was "Lord Derby's Bill." On the walls of the Royal Academy had hung in that year's exhibition a wonderful picture by a new artist—Mr. Poynter's "Israel in Egypt." It showed the mighty form of the Sphinx, the mysterious Egyptian monster that still remains half buried in sand in the Theban Desert, dragged upon a car to its place by a thousand toiling Israelitish slaves. The spectator, as he gazed upon the picture, could almost hear the crack of the slavedriver's whip, and the groan of the miserable wretch who fell under the wheels; the crowd of bending forms seemed alive, the car seemed moving. This was the picture that Punch parodied. To a place in the Temple of Success and Fame a car was moving, dragged by straining multitudes; the multitudes bore the well-known likeness of the members of the English House of Commons, and the figure on the car wore the mysterious, Sphinx-like, Oriental features of Mr. Disraeli! "Israel in Egypt" became "Disraeli in Triumph;" the slaves bending beneath the weight, and torn by the merciless lash of necessity, were her Majesty's Ministers and the blind, dazed, unwilling, but yet obedient members of the Conservative party.
Parliamentary Reform occupied nearly all the time of the House of Commons during the first of the two Sessions of 1867; but still on the "off days" there were several important discussions and some important legislation. The Reform Bill only applied to England and Wales, and in the unquiet state of Ireland Government did not propose to make any alterations in the electoral law of that country. To Scotland they wished to apply a measure very similar to the English one—only differing from it, in fact, so far as the exigencies of Scottish law required. Household suffrage in its simple form in the boroughs, in the counties a reduction of the qualification like that effected in England, and a moderate redistribution of seats were the main features of the Government measure. It was not, however, carried during this year from want of time.
Although Ireland had not assumed that prominence in the debates of Parliament which she held afterwards, there were "Irish debates" in plenty; and political prophets saw clearly that Ireland was to be the immediate question for the Reformed Parliament to grapple with. First came the proposal of Lord Naas, unfortunately rendered necessary, for the continued suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. The Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant explained that he had hoped to be able to dispense with these extraordinary powers, but that fresh signs of activity had appeared among the disaffected population. When the mysterious "invasion" of Chester happened (an event to be immediately described), a simultaneous attempt at a rising was made at Cahirciveen, in the county of Kerry; and symptoms of revolt made themselves apparent in some of the large towns. He, therefore, with great regret, asked for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act for three months longer; and the gravity of the emergency was shown by the fact that the seconder of the motion was Sir John Grey. The suspension was allowed by the House, and also by the House of Lords; but it was with considerable alarm that, three months later, the country heard that Government had found it necessary to apply again to Parliament for a further suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. The Queen's Speech at the beginning of the Session had "trusted that Parliament might be enabled to dispense with the continuance of any exceptional legislation" for Ireland, and yet the continuance was twice asked for. This was generally felt to be an instance of a want of foresight on the part of the Ministry; though Lord Naas announced that the disturbances in Ireland were caused by the resolutions adopted at a Fenian meeting held at New York in January, when an attempt at insurrection was decreed. The debate that took place on Lord Naas making his second proposal called forth a great deal of that fund of contradictory opinion on Irish questions which was so richly exhibited in the debates of two years later. The request of Government was, however, granted without difficulty. Bills tending to the prevention of discontent, as well as to its cure, were also discussed during the Session, but they only served to show what was afterwards proved by Mr. Gladstone's Ministry, namely, that the question of Irish remedies was far too complicated, far too debateable, to be disposed of in a casual debate or two thrown in amidst a busy Session. No motions of private members, such as was that of Sir Colman O'Loghlen, no Ministerial afterthoughts, like the Bill of Lord Naas for "promoting the improvement of land by tenants," could solve the Land Question; and the House showed its sense of this by allowing these measures to drop after short discussions. In the same way with the Irish Church Question. Sir John Gray brought it forward on the 7th of May, in the thick of the Reform campaign, and, of course, his motion—"That the House would on a future day resolve itself into a committee to consider the temporalities and privileges of the Established Church of Ireland"—had no chance of success at such a time. It drew, however, from Mr. Gladstone another of those emphatic statements of disapproval of the existing Establishment which, begun in 1865, had cost him his seat for Oxford University, and which ended in 1869, when he carried Disestablishment. In the House of Lords, Lord Russell moved for a Royal Commission to inquire into the revenues of the Established Church of Ireland, and his motion was agreed to. The investigations made by the Commissioners appointed in consequence of this motion formed the basis of the action of the Liberal Government two years later.