The Curiosities of Dudley and the Black Country, From 1800 to 1860 / Also an Account of the Trials and Sufferings of Dud Dudley, with His Mettallum Martis: Etc.

by C. F. G. Clark

Lord Newark “Did not suppose at a moment’s warning it would put an end to all corruption, but it was the vainest of all possible expectations to imagine that reformed Parliament would not do more than anything else to abate the evil. He confessed that he had not been prepared for so sweeping a measure, and he hoped that they might be induced to modify it before it was passed.”

Lord Darlington “Thought the rotten Boroughs ought to be carefully observed, and when they were detected, should be deprived of their Charter, but he could never agree with those who sought to demolish the social structure for the purpose of erecting their own temple in its stead.”

Lord Stormont “Would not agree to the Ministerial Budget of Reform. He represented ‘Aldborough’ in Yorkshire. Now that borough happened to be surrounded with walls, and as the place was as fully occupied now as it was formerly, it was evident that no alteration had taken place in the constituency. According to the noble Lord’s statement, 163 members were called upon to pronounce civil death to their constituents; he, however, thought that there were not 168 gentlemen to be found anywhere who would be ready to vote their own damnation.” (Sensation.)

Mr. Macaulay. “For himself he could only say, that so far as he was able to consider the proposition of the noble lord during the last twenty-four hours, he thought it a great, noble, and comprehensive measure, a medicine most skilfully prepared for removing a dangerous distemper, a plan excellently contrived for uniting and permanently knitting together all orders in the State. They had forgot the attempts made to put down emancipation, and how fruitless those attempts had proved. Did they wait for a time when demagogues demanded again to divide the power in the Cabinet of the Government of this country? or did they wait for that worst of all resources in a conflict with public opinion, the fidelity of the military? If they did not, let them concede Reform, while yet concession could be made with advantage to the country. It was yet time to save the property of the country from risk, to save the multitude (who demanded reform) from its own ungovernable power and passion, to save it from that danger, which even a few days might expose them and the country to.”

Mr. Hunt. “The people of England had for many years past been anxious for reform, and in 1816, 1817, and 1819, had loudly expressed their wishes for some measure to amend the state of representation. He did not condemn the ministers for not going the full length (universal suffrage) of his views; on the contrary, if they had only gone for disfranchising one rotten borough, they would have had his support on principle.”

Lord Morpeth said, “If the House was prepared to say that the demand for reform was not proper, that the evil was not manifest, that the corruption was not glaring, that they might with perfect consistency determine not to give up a stone of Gatton, and to die in the ditch at Old Sarum, where there was nothing left now but a ditch to die in. He believed that the House would not so far outrage the sense of the community as to say that they would not so much as entertain the question of reform. Two extreme parties (Tories and Radicals) were now agitating the country; one was opposed to all amelioration, and the other advocated the worst species of reform, with a view of subverting the existing institutions of the country, and all the gradations of rank, society, and order. Between those two extremes the only safe path was the Conservative principle to which the measure led that was now submitted to the House; to that let them hold fast. By conceding what was just, wise, and honest, they would be armed with tenfold power to resist the dangerous principles of some now promulgated, which were unjust, unwise, and unsafe.”

Sir Charles Wetherell said, “It appeared then by this Bill 60 boroughs were to be deprived of their franchise, and the time-honoured right of sending 120 members to Parliament, and that 47 were to lose one member each, and in the whole 168 members were to be ejected from that honourable house. He did not wish to call this by an offensive name, but as a great man (Mr. Locke) said that things should be called by their proper names, he would call it by the name of “Corporation Robbery”—(sensation). The present Cabinet of the noble lord, and his associates, seem to have proceeded upon the precedent in the history of England which had been set by Cromwell, Fairfax, Milbourne, and Co. Those worthy regicides set about reducing the number of members of Parliament in their day, and this plan of cutting off the boroughs, and confining the number of members, had not the merit of originality, for it was almost the same in form, in substance, and in principle, as the Radical system of reform, which has been introduced by regicides when they established a Commonwealth in England. Did gentlemen recollect how many experimental governments were now afloat? Did they recollect that there was a smithy of political blacksmiths, where constitutions were constantly on the anvil which was at work in making new fangled governments for all Europe. Let him be permitted, as he was in extremis, to utter the last expiring expressions of a dying member that Great Britain might not be added to the catalogue of experimental states, and that those visionary projects of His Majesty’s Ministers might not be realised. He had taken the liberty to call this measure a corporation robbery, and as there had lately been special commissions sent down into the country to enquire into the breaking of thrashing machines, he wished there could be a special commission issued from the Crown for preventing the breaking up of ancient and independent Corporations. There being no precedent for this confiscation of corporate property, he should be glad to hear from the Attorney-General upon what principle of law he would justify the present audacious attack upon the corporate rights of so many of those ridiculed places called small ‘rotten boroughs.’ He defied whether even he could lay his finger on a single page of the journals of that house which would at all warrant such an act of wholesale confiscation, aye of civil sacrilege. Then what he asked was the mode by which this amorphous body proposed to carry out their iniquitous measure? Why neither more nor less than a most audacious threat to dissolve Parliament in the event of their failure. The man who would be influenced by this audacious menace on the present momentous occasion would be nothing less than a rebel to his country—the man, he repeated, whom such a threat (uttered by any government) would influence, was a man wholly unworthy the name of a British Senator; was a recreant in morals; wholly deaf to the calls of conscience and English liberty. Within the last three days the house had been promised with a ‘purge,’ to which, as no name had been given to it, he would attach the name of ‘Russell’s Purge.’ Yes, he would call this bill ‘Russell’s Purge of Parliament.’ He held that the principle of the bill was Republican in its basis; it was destructive of all property, of all right, of all privileges; and that the same arbitrary violence which expelled a majority of the members from that house in the time of the Commonwealth, was now, after the lapse of a century from the Revolution, during which time the population had enjoyed greater happiness and security than was ever enjoyed by any population under the heavens, proceeding to expose the House of Commons, and the country again to the nauseous experiment of Pride’s Purge.”

The Attorney-General. “Surely his honoured and learned friend (Sir Chas. Wetherell) did not mean to say that Colonel Pride’s Purge had anything to do with Cromwell’s system of reform, for the periods of time at which they occurred were quite different. He would, however, ask his honourable friend and those who were acting with him, whether there was to be any reform at all? He had said that he was no enemy to representative improvement. When, where, how, and in what shape had his learned friend ever expressed himself a friend to reform? He had never heard such a sentiment proceed from him before. If they were advocates for reform to any extent, would they inform him of the plan, and how far it went? His learned friend had never brought forward a plan of reform, or expressed such a sentiment before that night. Corruptions abundantly had been proved, and the people of England had at length discovered that the evils which gave rise to such corruptions were no longer to be tolerated. The House of Commons was called upon to redress it; and he was satisfied that the members of that House, as English gentlemen, would not hesitate to pursue their enquiries into the practicability of redressing it, by passing the present bill. If hon. gentlemen were inclined to say that no reform ought to be had, or only such reform as could be effected by an ex post facto law, or a detestable bill of pains and penalties, the country knew what it had to expect from them; but, if they said that reform was necessary, but that this plan of reform was not satisfactory, then he would ask them to try their hands at producing a scheme which would give them less annoyance, and would prove more beneficial to the public at large. He had the authority of Burke, Pitt, Fox, and Lord Chatham in his best and proudest days, that reform in the House of Commons was absolutely necessary for the preservation of the internal quiet of the country. Mr. Pitt had said, “that without reform no honest man would be, or could be, an upright minister.” It was the mere accident of Peers having purchased Boroughs, which made it worth while to consult them as to matters which ought to appertain only to members of that House, properly so called. He contended that this measure, far from being unconstitutional, was in strict accordance with the spirit of the constitution; to take the elective franchise from decayed and corrupt Boroughs, and send them to more populated and healthy places. He knew that there were some gentlemen who thought that the Attorney-General ought to be a sort of censor over the press; but let him tell those gentlemen that he could find occupation far more advantageous to the country than proceeding against those whose very violence prevented them from doing mischief, and only disgusted the people whom it was their object to excite and exasperate. There were other violators of the law who were much more dangerous to the public weal. Let them hear no more about vested rights, for now if a Peer chose to interfere, by bargaining and influence, to return members to the House of Commons, that Peer was not only guilty of a gross breach of the privileges of that House, but subjected himself also to indictment at law. The character of the people of England was well known, and it was not their character to approve and applaud acts of spoliation and robbery. It was not consistent with the fact to say that the people of this country had been a happy and contented people for the last century, for, on the contrary, it was true that during that time they had suffered much and severely from unjust measures of that House, which would never have passed into law if the people had been fairly represented in Parliament. Much had been said by hon. members about revolutionary measures, he believed in his conscience that this Bill was strictly within the constitution of the land, and the only measure that is calculated to allay the outside clamour for reform, and prevent revolution. His learned friend might quit this house a martyr to the cause he has espoused, but he would have the satisfaction of reflecting, that on one great question he had been the advocate of intolerance, and on another the last champion of corruption.”

Mr. G. Bankes. “The learned Attorney-General had referred to the plan of reform which had been introduced by Oliver Cromwell in his parliament, and had stated that Lord Clarendon had given it his opinion “that it was well worthy of imitation by other parties.” Now, let them but just see how it had worked. Every thing that was absurd, futile, and ridiculous, it would appear from their debates, had taken place in this reformed parliament. As a test, however, of the merits of that reformed parliament, he should quote to the House the opinion of the parent of the measure after he (Cromwell) had tried it by experiment. On dissolving this reformed parliament the Protector Cromwell said, ‘My Lords and Gentlemen of the House of Commons, I had every comfortable expectation that God would make the meeting of this Parliament a blessing, and the Lord be my witness, I desired the carrying on the affairs of the nation to that end. Having proceeded upon these terms, and finding such a spirit as is too much predominant, everything being too high or too low, where virtue, honesty, piety and justice are omitted, I thought I had been doing my duty, and thought it would have satisfied you. You have not only disjointed yourselves but the whole nation, which is in the likelihood of running into more confusion in these 15 or 16 days that you have sat, than it hath been from the rising of the last Session to this day. And if this be the end of your sitting; and if this be your carriage, I think it high time that an end be put to your sitting, and I do dissolve this Parliament, and let God judge between you and me.’ (Cries of hear, hear.) Cromwell had given that parliament two trials, in the first instance five months, and the second 16 days; at the end of which he was compelled to dissolve it.”

Mr. Hobhouse. “He had listened to all that had been said on both sides on the subject of this debate, and he had not heard one single argument to show that there was any danger whatever that could arise, or was likely to arise, from adopting the project of the noble lord. Mr. Horace Swiss had expressed himself very much alarmed lest the present plan of reform should throw the elective franchise into the hands of shopkeepers and attorneys. He should like to ask where the elective franchise voted now? By the bill of the noble lord, the franchise would be thrown into the hands of that class which ought to possess it—namely, of people of a certain degree of property, and of those who had the greatest hold upon the higher classes. This was as good and proper a basis as could be proposed. It was scarcely possible to believe that any gentleman was sincere, when he expressed an apprehension, that a system of public rectitude and intelligence in electors would give vice and ignorance an ascendancy in the choice of representatives, and that a system of perjury, bribery, and corruption was essential to the attainment of virtue and knowledge. If those with whom he agreed in opinion had been accused of appealing to the fears of the people, he must accuse gentlemen opposite not of appealing to the fears of the people, but of doing what was infinitely worse,—they had appealed, by the worst of artifices, to the fears and selfish passions of those whom they called the aristocracy of the country. Could the gentlemen who now opposed the Ministry so violently make up a Government amongst themselves? A Ministry can only be formed on one of two principles—Anti-Reform or Reform—and so long as Ministers attempted to go on without a majority in the house in their favour, and the people outside against them, it was hopeless to expect tranquillity or security in the State. He asked the right hon. gentlemen and the house in the words of Poet Waller, in his famous speech on Episcopacy, ‘to Reform, that is not to abolish the Parliament.’”