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

Mr. Baring. “He had sat in that House a many years; he had approved of many acts of his hon. friends, but when a question of this magnitude was brought forward he would state his opposition to it without apology. Those who supported this measure said, ‘let the king stand by himself; let the lords stand by themselves; let the people stand by themselves; let there be no mutual connection between them.’ Such was their doctrine, but such was not the constitution of this country. What grievance, he would ask, did any man suffer in this country from the action and conduct of the other House? Did they find those Peers pressing on them in any way? Did they find them making laws which were directed against the popular branch of the legislature? Did they not find that their rights and liberties were as well secured as those of the House of Lords? He knew of no such interference, and he was firmly of opinion that the mixture of different powers and interests in that House had been the great protector and promoter of public liberty. It was certainly right and just that large popular bodies should be represented; but could they, he would ask, allow that principle to be put in force without having something to counter-balance it? His noble friend had gone on a reforming tour, but he had taken care to make no stay at the Borough of Tavistock, (which he represented). By this plan Boroughs containing less than 2000 inhabitants were to be disfranchised, and 47 Boroughs, having 4000 inhabitants, were to retain one member. Would not Tavistock, which was to be retained, belong as much to the Duke of Bedford as before? He would have the same influence that he now possesses. If, however, great changes must be made, he should regret it, and he must say that all the intelligent portion of the country would view its progress with the greatest concern. Much of the excitement was caused by this being announced as coming from the crown, but he felt satisfied that, but for such announcement, the people would be satisfied with a much less sweeping, and much more moderate, plan of reform.”

The Marquis of Tavistock said, “It appeared to him that the government of this country had for years been carried on on principles of most unjustifiable and wasteful extravagance; that patronage had been kept up for the purposes of maintaining the influences of the Crown, and that which was known as Parliamentary influence, for the purpose of carrying on measures against the sense of the country. The people felt now that they had not their just influence in the councils of the nation, and they naturally sought for that change which would give it to them. He sincerely believed that the measure now before the House would give them all they reasonably could desire. He hoped it would curb the monopoly so long maintained by the higher orders, and give a fair expression of the sense of the middle classes. With this view he should give it his cordial support.”

Lord Palmerston. “Fondness for change he must say was not the character of the English people. They had always been remarkable for a tenacious attachment to their national institutions, affording in this respect a striking contrast to their neighbours, the French nation. We well know the difficulty of bringing the people to consent to any change in their laws, how long and difficult was the struggle which brought them to give up first the traffic in human beings, the accursed Slave Trade, and at a later period those laws which condemned a large portion of the people to political degradation—he meant the penal laws against Roman Catholics. He contended that the people of this country sought for a change because the state of the country was such as to require it. The rock which the late government had split upon was their defiance of public opinion. They went on spreading wide the canvas of patronage as they proceeded—but that patronage, and the use they made of it, did not accelerate their progress, or increase their power, but proved to be their ruin. Taunts had been thrown out during the debate against those who like himself were great admirers of the late Mr. Canning. They had been taunted for abandoning the principles which that great man had adopted with respect to the important question of reform. He thought that the events that had taken place in that House since the death of that illustrious man might have taught those who had indulged in such taunts that public men might change their opinions on questions of deep national concernment without being influenced by any but honest and honourable motives. If any man took a great and enlarged view of human affairs—without doubt that eminent statesman did—he would venture to say that had Mr. Canning lived in these days, and stood in the same circumstances as he (Lord Palmerston) did, his great genius would at once have comprehended the necessity of the occasion, and would have stated in that House his well-known convictions of the necessity for a reform of the representation of the people. If any hon. member wanted to learn the opinions of Mr. Canning let him refer to his speech delivered in February, 1826, on the freedom of the silk trade, when he said ‘that those who resisted improvements because it was innovation upon old worn systems, might find themselves compelled to accept innovation when it had ceased to be improvement.’ He believed that the proposition would prove satisfactory to the country; he believed that there did not exist in any country in the world a body of men more entitled to respect and confidence than the middle classes of this country. He would venture to say that there was not a class of men more distinguished for morality and good conduct; for intelligence and love of order; for true loyalty to the king; for affection for the constitution; and in case of need for devotion to the country. To the manufacturing towns it was intended to give thirty-four members, and to preserve the just preponderance of the landed interest, it was proposed to add fifty-five new members to the counties. He would add that it was not talents under the present system that procured a man a seat in that House, but length of purse, the ability to pay agents and post-horses up to the fourteenth day. This was a great and practical evil, and this evil the Bill would do away with, for it would alter the distribution of the different classes, and bring the middle classes into communion with others.”

Sir Robert Peel. “He begged his noble friend to believe that he did not join in the taunts against him. He never could think that public men did not look to higher motives than a desire to retain their places when they were induced to change their opinions, and the character, the views, and the conduct of his noble friend afforded a sufficient guarantee for the purity of his motives. In his anxiety to find cause for blaming the administration which had preceded the last, his noble friend had said, that if in 1828 that Government had consented to transfer the elective franchise from the rotten borough of East Retford to Birmingham, the House would not now be discussing the necessity for a general reform, for that single measure would have quieted the apprehensions of the people. But, if from such small events such mighty results would spring, it was incumbent upon the House to enquire what was the paramount considerations under those circumstances which now rendered it imperative to change the constitution of the country. Why did they not consent to the disfranchisement of East Retford? His noble friend had lamented that the voice of Mr. Canning could not now be heard in that House, and had assumed that his voice would have been raised in favour of this Reform Bill. God grant that voice might now be raised in that House, convinced as he was, that it would be raised to confound the fallacies and sophistries by which the public mind was deceived. He regretted that the name of the King should be obtruded upon the house day by day; and he could not dismiss from his mind doubts and fears as to the justice and expediency of this extreme measure of disfranchisement; but, granting that they did not exist, still it was a harsh measure towards the loyal bodies who were called upon to sacrifice privileges which they had long exercised; and even if it was justly introduced, why should the King be held out as the special author of the plan. Then, the House was threatened with a dissolution; in his opinion the chances of a dissolution were as strong if the measure were carried as if it failed. They did not think that if they rejected that bill it implied an aversion to all measures of reform! Upon the same principle those gentlemen rejected the ballot, and why was he not at liberty to discuss this bill? He had never been the person to excite the people to a pitch of frenzy, to spur their lazy indifference into an emulation of revolutionary clamour. If, therefore, this measure which common prudence would have forborne introducing at such a crisis in our foreign and domestic relations, when fresh causes of excitement ought to be very cautiously avoided; if, he said, this extraordinary measure should be defeated he would never allow that the responsibility of the disappointment could attach to him, or those honourable members who acted with him in that House. Some disparagement had been made upon the middle classes, but he did not participate in that sentiment; on the contrary, he should ever repudiate it from his heart, for he (personally) desired his strength from that order of society; he was one of themselves, and should always be proud of his connexion with the middle classes of this country. He had heard frequent allusions to Burke and Canning, and other authorities whose opinions had been advanced in the course of the debate, but he would quote a passage from a speech of the noble member for Tavistock (Lord John Russell), in the session of 1819, which he considered much more to the purpose, and was, besides being apposite to the question, one of the most beautiful specimens of eloquence ever uttered in that house. The discussion related to the disfranchisement of a corrupt borough in Cornwall. When asked what he would do with the unconvicted boroughs, he replied that he would consider a general disfranchisement of the unconvicted boroughs a reconstruction of the House of Commons altogether. He has therefore the noble lord’s own authority for so designating the present plan of reform. He then observed that ‘Old Sarum’ had existed when Montesquieu pronounced the constitution of England the nearest to perfection of any which the most enlightened States had ever before experienced. When Lord Somers, and the other great legislators who flourished with him, bore attestation to its merits, it was open to the same objections which have since been urged against it, and when Hampden lost his life Rutland returned the same number of members as Yorkshire. Such was the noble lord’s judicious, and at the present moment timely, warning against the danger of rashly departing from the practical wisdom of mankind during the centuries of historic experience, proffered at the critical junction of 1819. With respect to the question before the House, he could not but declare that he saw in it but the instrument of men endeavouring to retain power. It was the inevitable tendency of the Bill to sever every link of connexion between the poorer classes, and that class from whom the representatives were now chosen. Now, this severing of the ties which connected the highest and the lowest classes was opposed to the practical working of the present system of representation, which enabled every class, in some way or other, to have a voice in the election of the members of that House. With regard to the influence of the oligarchy, he would ask hon. members to point out to him any attempt to subject the people of England to the sway of an oligarchy, or to establish any laws of exclusion or distinction among them. Up to this time no practical advantage had been held out to the House, as to the natural consequences of the change now proposed. All the reason that had been urged that it was necessary to conciliate public opinion. No better way of conciliating public opinion had been devised, than that of adding half a million of electors to the constituency of the country; but if that were a good way of conciliating public feeling, then, if another Government, wishing to participate in this popular favour, should add another million of electors to the constituency, would that argument meet with the same favour and success? Look at the question of reform in all its bearings—look at the parliamentary debates, and you will find that whenever the question was agitated some dire misfortune lurked behind. It was brought forward with great pomp of circumstances in the year of the rebellion in 1745; it was brought forward during the American war; it was brought forward at the commencement of the French war; and, to come to our own times, it was prominently brought forward in 1817, 1819, 1822, in a word, at every period in which there was either commercial or great agricultural distress in the country. Then, it was sure to find great favour with the people. It was brought forward also at the periods when the excitements of foreign revolutions misled the judgment of the British public, and, deluding them with a false love of liberty, rendered them discontented with the moderate freedom they enjoyed. Let us therefore be content with the well-tempered freedom that we now enjoy, and which we have the means of securing if we act with ordinary discretion. I lament exceedingly that the Government should have determined to have agitated such a vital question, as that of reform, at this particular crisis; it would have been wiser in my opinion to have avoided these new causes of excitement, for depend upon it by this process throughout the land the first seeds of discontent and disunion are sown. Oh, sir, I lament beyond measure that the Government had not the prudence to adhere to that course of policy, which, if they did think it necessary to propose a plan of reform in this excited state of the public mind, they did not confine it within those narrow limits which are consistent with the safety of the country and the dignity of their own characters. They have sent through the land a firebrand of agitation; and it is easy so far to imitate the giant enemy of the Philistines as to send 300 firebrands carrying danger and dismay in all quarters, but it is not so easy when the mischief is done to find a remedy for it. In the present difficulty you should have the powers of summoning all the energies of life, and should take care that you do not signalize your own destruction by bowing down the pillars of the edifice of your liberty, which, with all its imperfections, still contains the noblest society of freemen known to the habitable world.”

Mr. Calcraft. “Solemnly declared his opinion that this measure must, in the end, convert this country into a Republic; and the trifling difference that existed between his noble friend, the opposition and himself, was this—that he was for reform, and the noble lord was for revolution.”

Mr. Wm. Duncombe. “He had listened to the proposition of the noble Lord, and in taking a retrospect of the whole debate he was compelled to acknowledge that there was much more of declamation in it than of argument, much more of assertion than of fact, and much more of fear than of resolution. He deemed it to be revolutionary with respect to the Constitution and Government of the country, and as it affected the people of England it was tyrannical and unjust. He had never consented to the disfranchisement of the Irish 40s. freeholders, nor would he ever consent to the disfranchisement proposed by this Reform Bill.”

Mr. Stanley. “Had anxiously listened to the discussions that had taken place in that House the last eight years upon the all-absorbing question of Reform, without having ventured to give more than a silent, though cordial vote in favour of the great principles which it involved. He confessed that he had heard the right hon. baronet (Sir R. Peel) with some sorrow, use, he would not say inflammatory language, when speaking of this measure, but declare that it would lead to revolution. It was not a revolutionary measure, no, but it was a new constitution. Now, his idea of revolution was this, that revolution was a great change effected in the constitution of a country by the use of unconstitutional means, and force, called by the extraordinary circumstances of the time into operation, and enabled, in consequence of the operation of those circumstances, to overthrow the constitution. When this was the case, let those who had always on principles of justice and of policy maintained and upheld this great question of Parliamentary Reform,—let them in bringing their proposition forward, without being told that they were endeavouring to overawe and intimidate the House, be allowed to advert to the situation of the country as a collateral argument in favour of the measure they advocated. He regretted as much as any man that the name of the Sovereign had been used in that House. He was sorry that that name had been brought forward in a manner which might be supposed likely to influence their decision. But the name of the Sovereign had been made use of in the public press, and to that he could only answer that the House had no influence over the public press. The hon. Baronet said, ‘Why has Government brought this Bill forward? It is a bad time and ought not to be introduced now.’ In answer to this we would ask, what was the conditional pledge upon which Ministers came in and without which his noble friend (Lord John Russell) would not have accepted office. It was this, that they would bring in a measure of Reform. Now, with this pledge on their lips, with those principles in their hearts, which they had always maintained, they entered office. Now, what is the kind of advice the hon. Baronet gives them, he said, ‘Now, that you are in office, tell the people that the time is not convenient for Reform!’ If the Government acted on such a principle as that, then indeed a fearful responsibility would rest upon their shoulders. Dreadful would be the consequences arising from disappointed hopes, and high expectations blighted and falsified by the mean conduct of those upon whom the people had relied. But let the House look back for the last few years and mark the time, the money, and the talents which had been wasted in discussing useless questions with respect to boroughs charged with malpractices, inquiring, for instance, whether one voter received one guinea and another five, when it was notorious that boroughs were commonly bought and sold in the market by the proprietors. And, after all this labour and enquiry, what had been gained in the shape of any reform, not one great town, not one great district, had been added to those represented in that House. Not one corrupt borough had been deprived of the means of corruption. It was the opinion of Mr. Pitt, when he attempted to effect a reform in Parliament, that a certain line should be fixed to the disfranchisement of rotten and corrupt boroughs, and asserted, that in the earlier periods of the constitution, ‘That as one borough decayed and another arose, the one was abolished, and the other was invested with the right.’ He had been told some curious circumstances connected with the proceedings at Wareham. His hon. friend had informed him that on the occasion of his being chaired as one of the members for Wareham, he heard one elector say to another, ‘Pray, which is the new member.’ Why, answered the other, ‘Calcraft is one, and a friend of his is the other; but I never saw him, and I don’t know who he is.’ Doubtless any person recommended by his hon. friend would be highly respectable but he was elected without being at all known by the electors. For his own part he felt no alarm for the results of the Bill. By that Bill would be upheld the influence of the aristocracy as it was before; he meant that legitimate influence which they ought to possess, not the influence of bribery and corruption, nor the influence of direct nominations, for the only influence which the Bill would remove was that which was notoriously illegal. Ministers had come into office pledged to economy, retrenchment, and reform; these pledges they had redeemed. They had cut off from themselves and their successors for ever that corrupt patronage upon which heretofore so much of the Government depended. With these views of the measure before the House, he earnestly implored hon. members, by their sense of justice to the country, by their respect of what was due to the people, by their regard for the maintenance of that glorious constitution, what had been handed down to them by their ancestors, by their regard for the permanency of our institutions, and the peace and security of the state; he called on them by all these considerations, by their respect for the petitions of the people, for what might be lawfully asked and could not be constitutionally refused, to support His Majesty’s Government in their endeavour to uphold and cement the legitimate rights of the Crown, the aristocracy, and the people, and, by so doing, to fix the whole as well as their own fame on the imperishable basis of the affections of the people.”

Mr. H. Seymour. “This measure proceeded not from fear, but from a desire to court popularity. It was an unjust attempt to reduce the power of the aristocracy, as well as of the lower classes. He contended that if the House was the corrupt body it was represented to be, it was incompetent to settle this great question. It was a measure devoid of principle, or if principle was asserted in some parts of the plan it was violated in others. It was broken through for some portion of the aristocracy to court popularity; if the constitution was to be violated in this manner, he would rather have no constitution at all. The whole measure was, in his opinion, one of deceit; it removed the direct influence which was seen, and left that which was much worse, the influence which it could not see, yet of which it complained. To a measure of that kind he could not give his consent.”

Mr. G. W. Wynn. “The constitution of this country was one of constant innovations and perpetual amendments; but admitting this, he thought such amendments ought to be gradual. Many changes which might be made with great advantage, would, if made at once, be found highly beneficial to the country. It was on this principle that he, from time to time, supported motions for the disfranchisement of boroughs which had been found guilty of gross corruption, and without any personal vanity, he might say, that he it was that drew the transfer clause to give the franchise of the corrupt Borough of Helstone to Yorkshire. He was aware that it had been said that the present measure, if agreed to, would preclude any further change; but if the measure was rejected, demands for greater changes would be made by the people. He had always thought that those great towns ought to have representatives, and he believed their possessing the elective franchise would be beneficial to the country.”