The American Senator

by Anthony Trollope

"I wonder of which house. I do not ask the question that it may be answered, because it is advisable at the present moment that there should be only one speaker. That labour is, unfortunately for me, at present in my hands, and I am sure you will agree with me that it should not be divided. You mean probably that you are proud of your House of Commons,—and that you are so because it speaks with the voice of the people. The voice of the people, in order that it may be heard without unjust preponderance on this side or on that, requires much manipulation. That manipulation has in latter years been effected by your Reform bills, of which during the last half century there have in fact been four or five,—the latter in favour of the ballot having been perhaps the greatest. There have been bills for purity of elections,—very necessary; bills for creating constituencies, bills for abolishing them, bills for dividing them, bills for extending the suffrage, and bills, if I am not mistaken, for curtailing it. And what has been the result? How many men are there in this room who know the respective nature of their votes? And is there a single woman who knows the political worth of her husband's vote? Passing the other day from the Bank of this great metropolis to its suburb called Brentford, journeying as I did the whole way through continuous rows of houses, I found myself at first in a very ancient borough returning four members,—double the usual number,—not because of its population but because it has always been so. Here I was informed that the residents had little or nothing to do with it. I was told, though I did not quite believe what I heard, that there were no residents. The voters however, at any rate the influential voters, never pass a night there, and combine their city franchise with franchises elsewhere. I then went through two enormous boroughs, one so old as to have a great political history of its own, and the other so new as to have none. It did strike me as odd that there should be a new borough, with new voters, and new franchises, not yet ten years old, in the midst of this city of London. But when I came to Brentford, everything was changed. I was not in a town at all though I was surrounded on all sides by houses. Everything around me was grim and dirty enough, but I am supposed to have reached, politically, the rustic beauties of the country. Those around me, who had votes, voted for the County of Middlesex. On the other side of the invisible border I had just past the poor wretch with 3s. a day who lived in a grimy lodging or a half-built hut, but who at any rate possessed the political privilege. Now I had suddenly emerged among the aristocrats, and quite another state of things prevailed. Is that a reasonable manipulation of the votes of the people? Does that arrangement give to any man an equal share in his country? And yet I fancy that the thing is so little thought of that few among you are aware that in this way the largest class of British labour is excluded from the franchise in a country which boasts of equal representation.

"The chief object of your first Reform Bill was that of realising the very fact of representation. Up to that time your members of the House of Commons were in truth deputies of the Lords or of other rich men. Lord A, or Mr. B, or perhaps Lady C, sent whom she pleased to Parliament to represent this or that town, or occasionally this or that county. That absurdity is supposed to be past, and on evils that have been cured no one should dwell. But how is it now? I have a list,—in my memory, for I would not care to make out so black a catalogue in legible letters,—of forty members who have been returned to the present House of Commons by the single voices of influential persons. What will not forty voices do even in your Parliament? And if I can count forty, how many more must there be of which I have not heard?" Then there was a voice calling upon the Senator to name those men, and other voices denying the fact. "I will name no one," said the Senator. "How could I tell what noble friend I might put on a stool of repentance by doing so?" And he looked round on the gentlemen on the platform behind him. "But I defy any member of Parliament here present to get up and say that it is not so." Then he paused a moment. "And if it be so, is that rational? Is that in accordance with the theory of representation as to which you have all been so ardent, and which you profess to be so dear to you? Is the country not over-ridden by the aristocracy when Lord Lambswool not only possesses his own hereditary seat in the House of Lords, but also has a seat for his eldest son in the House of Commons?"

Then a voice from the back called out, "What the deuce is all that to you?"

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE SENATOR'S LECTURE.—NO. II.

"If I see a man hungry in the street," said the Senator, instigated by the question asked him at the end of the last chapter, "and give him a bit of bread, I don't do it for my own sake but for his." Up to this time the Britishers around him on the platform and those in the benches near to him, had received what he said with a good grace. The allusion to Lord Lambswool had not been pleasant to them, but it had not been worse than they had expected. But now they were displeased. They did not like being told that they were taking a bit of bread from him in their own political destitution. They did not like that he, an individual, should presume that he had bread to offer to them as a nation. And yet, had they argued it out in their own minds, they would have seen that the Senator's metaphor was appropriate. His purpose in being there was to give advice, and theirs in coming to listen to it. But it was unfortunate. "When I ventured to come before you here, I made all this my business," continued the Senator. Then he paused and glanced round the hall with a defiant look. "And now about your House of Lords," he went on. "I have not much to say about the House of Lords, because if I understand rightly the feeling of this country it is already condemned." "No such thing." "Who told you that?" "You know nothing about it." These and other words of curt denial came from the distant corners, and a slight murmur of disapprobation was heard even from the seats on the platform. Then Lord Drummond got up and begged that there might be silence. Mr. Gotobed had come there to tell them his views,—and as they had come there expressly to listen to him, they could not without impropriety interrupt him. "That such will be the feeling of the country before long," continued the Senator, "I think no one can doubt who has learned how to look to the signs of the times in such matters. Is it possible that the theory of an hereditary legislature can be defended with reason? For a legislature you want the best and wisest of your people." "You don't get them in America," said a voice which was beginning to be recognised. "We try at any rate," said the Senator. "Now is it possible that an accident of birth should give you excellence and wisdom? What is the result? Not a tenth of your hereditary legislators assemble in the beautiful hall that you have built for them. And of that tenth the greater half consists of counsellors of state who have been placed there in order that the business of the country may not be brought to a standstill. Your hereditary chamber is a fiction supplemented by the element of election,—the election resting generally in the very bosom of the House of Commons." On this subject, although he had promised to be short, he said much more, which was received for the most part in silence. But when he ended by telling them that they could have no right to call themselves a free people till every legislator in the country was elected by the votes of the people, another murmur was heard through the hall.

"I told you," said he waxing more and more energetic, as he felt the opposition which he was bound to overcome, "that what I had to say to you would not be pleasant. If you cannot endure to hear me, let us break up and go away. In that case I must tell my friends at home that the tender ears of a British audience cannot bear rough words from American lips. And yet if you think of it we have borne rough words from you and have borne them with good-humour." Again he paused, but as none rose from their seats he went on, "Proceeding from hereditary legislature I come to hereditary property. It is natural that a man should wish to give to his children after his death the property which he has enjoyed during their life. But let me ask any man here who has not been born an eldest son himself, whether it is natural that he should wish to give it all to one son. Would any man think of doing so, by the light of his own reason,—out of his own head as we say? Would any man be so unjust to those who are equal in his love, were he not constrained by law, and by custom more iron-handed even than the law?" The Senator had here made a mistake very common with Americans, and a great many voices were on him at once. "What law?" "There is no law." "You know nothing about it." "Go back and learn."

"What!" cried the Senator coming forward to the extreme verge of the platform and putting down his foot as though there were strength enough in his leg to crush them all; "Will any one have the hardihood to tell me that property in this country is not affected by primogeniture?" "Go back and learn the law." "I know the law perhaps better than most of you. Do you mean to assert that my Lord Lambswool can leave his land to whom he pleases? I tell you that he has no more than a life-interest in it, and that his son will only have the same." Then an eager Briton on the platform got up and whispered to the Senator for a few minutes, during which the murmuring was continued. "My friend reminds me," said the Senator, "that the matter is one of custom rather than law; and I am obliged to him. But the custom which is damnable and cruel, is backed by law which is equally so. If I have land I can not only give it all to my eldest son, but I can assure the right of primogeniture to his son, though he be not yet born. No one I think will deny that there must be a special law to enable me to commit an injustice so unnatural as that.

"Hence it comes that you still suffer under an aristocracy almost as dominant, and in its essence as irrational, as that which created feudalism." The gentlemen collected on the platform looked at each other and smiled, perhaps failing to catch the exact meaning of the Senator's words. "A lord here has a power, as a lord, which he cannot himself fathom and of which he daily makes an unconscious but most deleterious use. He is brought up to think it natural that he should be a tyrant. The proclivities of his order are generous, and as a rule he gives more than he takes. But he is as injurious in the one process as in the other. Your ordinary Briton in his dealing with a lord expects payment in some shape for every repetition of the absurd title;—and payment is made. The titled aristocrat pays dearer for his horse, dearer for his coat, dearer for his servant than other people. But in return he exacts much which no other person can get. Knowing his own magnanimity he expects that his word shall not be questioned. If I may be allowed I will tell a little story as to one of the most generous gentlemen I have had the happiness of meeting in this country, which will explain my meaning."