Mr. Tennyson said, “That he would support the measure of his noble friend (Lord John Russell), for he believed that it would put the representation upon a permanent and, he hoped, everlasting standing. The sacrifice he should make by losing his seat was nothing to him, but he felt bound to refer to his relative, Mr. Wm. Russell. That hon. member, by this present Bill, would be called upon to make a sacrifice of three of what are termed nomination boroughs; boroughs not purchased by him, but which had descended to him by inheritance; and he was willing to offer this £100,000, the value of these nominations, upon the altar of his country, in order to ransom her from that oligarchy which has too long held her destinies in their merciless and unhallowed power.”
Mr. Daniel O’Connell said, “That he looked upon the plan as large, liberal and wise, and he should give it his most decided and anxious support, for in fact it was an effectual measure of reform. It was well known that he was a Political Reformer, and that he was in favour of Universal Suffrage and shorter Parliaments; yet, though the measure did not embrace these points, it was still very liberal, and would be an experiment to prove whether any further extension was necessary. He was delighted with the mode in which the noble lord had treated the close boroughs; he had applied the pruning knife to the rotten boroughs with a thorough masterly hand. Every part of the constitution was violated by their existence. We could venture to say that the mound of Sarum was a Constitutional Borough? Why should noble lords have the right to send members to sit in that House? Good God, was it to be sounded in their ears that the Lords were to send their members, one after another, in the most open and avowed manner into that House for these rotten and close boroughs; and was he to be told that they were about to commit robbery; that they were guilty of an unjust seizure of franchises? But who were the robbers? He never heard of a grant of a Charter from the Crown, or any Parliament, empowering any individual to send members to Parliament. No, the franchises were granted to them, and it was not that this act seized and destroyed them; but this act was intended to lay hold of the spoliaters of them. That House had no right to question the privileges of the House of Lords, but it had as good a right to do it as the lords had to spoliate the privileges and liberties of the House of Commons. The people out of doors talked good sense, they say, ‘you have got our property, you have spoliated our liberties, but you must disgorge them.’ God help those members who could crawl into that House and then talk of coming in without stooping. He would ask the hon. members for Bowbridge and Aldborough, if they could stand forward and advocate that system, which in the rotten boroughs gave annual debaucheries, and every six years (for 14 days) all that bribery, and corruption, and robbery could inflict,—was it fit that such a system of misrepresentation should stand any longer? Were not the nomination boroughs openly sold, and was not the price of them as well known as cattle in Smithfield? In 1822, the votes against Reform and Retrenchment gave a return of 19 votes out of 20, by members representing places not containing an average population of 500 persons. When they talked of the excellent working of the present Constitution, he would whisper a single word into their ears, ‘Ireland,’ that country, of whose people perennial starvation was the lot; he would call upon them to secure to that country the blessings of good Government, and to give to that House a fair and honourable representation.”
Mr. Coke said, “That he had been a member of that House for more than half-a-century, and during that long time he had watched the proceedings of parties, and the results of great questions, and he must say that every day he was more and more convinced of the necessity for reform. When he had heard that the noble Lord had made a resolution to do away with rotten boroughs he felt great confidence in the measure, and was convinced of the necessity of giving the administration his warmest support.”
Colonel Tidthorp. “Although there were many blemishes in the existing representative system of the country, he could never bring himself to consent to a remedy by the means of taking away the franchise, at one whole sweep, from so many people who had never abused the constitutional trust reposed in them. He could not but pronounce the measure in this respect to be most unjust and tyrannical.”
Mr. R. Grant said, “That they were told that the Reformers entertained the most extravagant expectations, and that the only use that they intended to make of the present concessions was to render them subservient to the attainment of objects, remote, dangerous, and undefined. Had not the history of mankind assured them that the most effectual mode of resisting unreasonable demands was, to concede everything which reason and justice could claim. The people of England were entitled to the whole House of Commons, but in the debate they had been told that they were not to look for any such thing, that the Commons House of Parliament had never existed in the British Constitution, and that the House they had was not the House of Commons, but was something belonging to the Three Estates, it was the House of the King, of the Lords, and the Commons!!! In noting this argument he considered that he gave it its most complete refutation; the House to which he belonged was the Commons House, and nothing else, Peers and Bishops could not sit in it. It was vain to talk of maintaining the doctrines which had been broached in this discussion, in the present diffused state of knowledge throughout England, with the immense number of schools in every part of the kingdom, with the prodigious increase in Mechanics’ Institutions, and with all that could give an impetus to the human mind, it was vain to talk of arresting progress, or of blinding men to what interested them so deeply. The present state of the popular enlightenment demanded an improved legislature, and it would be at once dangerous and absurd, and unjust, to resist such a demand.”
The main features of this great Reform Bill were the disfranchisement of rotten small towns and places which had fallen into insignificance, and confer such franchise upon large towns and populations which hitherto had not any representation. The 40s. freehold vote for counties had existed for upwards of three centuries, but it was supplemented with a £50 occupation clause, and all borough votes were fixed at a £10 rental.
The effect of this sweeping measure was that 56 small towns and places, having a population of less than 2000, were entirely disfranchised. Thirty towns, having a population under 4000, hitherto sending two members to parliament, were reduced to one member; twenty-two large towns, not having had a representative, were supplied with two members each; twenty other smaller towns were allotted one member each. The remainder of the seats were added to the counties, some of which obtained two additional members, and others only one member.
The Reform Bill passed the House of Lords, on June 4th, 1832.
The debate on the Reform Bill in the House of Lords was of a very excited character, considering the usual gravity of the lords, and the following recital may be worth perusal:—
“The death of George IV. occurred on the 26th June, 1830. The question of Parliamentary reform belongs probably to the succeeding reign of William IV., at the opening of which—after the dissolution and general election—public feeling ran so high, in consequence of the declaration of the Duke of Wellington against reform, that the King was warned not to venture into the city to dine with the Lord Mayor. The scene in the House of Lords on the occasion of the King coming down to dissolve parliament is described as being ‘riotous.’ Lord Wharncliffe rose to propose his motion affecting the estimates; the Duke of Richmond was determined to defeat the motion, and interrupted the noble lord by calling attention to the fact—on a point of order—that noble lords were not in their places, and moved that standing Order No. 1 be read, which renders it necessary that noble lords ‘shall sit in their proper places.’ The opportunity seized for this intentional interruption arose out of a noble earl having sat next to one of the junior barons of the House. Lords Londonderry and Clanricarde simultaneously rose to ‘order,’ Lord Wharncliffe protested, and Lord Lyndhurst delivered a violent attack on the Duke of Richmond, to which the latter retorted by threatening that if this ‘tone’ were repeated he would move that Standing Order No. 1 should be read, and further, ‘that the order should also be read which forbids the use of intemperate and offensive language in the House.’ Violent rage and angry gesticulation, it is reported, ensued. Lord Wharncliffe again attempted to resume his address, when the Lord Chancellor cut short his remarks by clutching the seals and darting out of the House. As the King advanced the noise of the altercation became distinctly audible to him, and he asked, ‘What’s that, my Lord Chancellor?’ To which the Chancellor replied, ‘Only, may it please you, sir, the House of Lords amusing themselves.’ The King having ascended the throne, the ‘Commons’ were summoned to the Royal presence. The Usher of the Black Rod (Sir Thomas Tyrwhit) on proceeding to fulfil the Royal command, found the Commons in a ‘state of turbulence and disorder.’ On the presentation of a petition for reform Sir Richard Vyvyan arraigned Ministers in an ‘offensive speech.’ Uproar ensued, amidst which Sir Francis Burdett rose to order. The Speaker declared Sir Richard in order, when Mr. Tennyson disputed the propriety of the Speaker’s decision. The Speaker decided that Sir Richard was in order. The latter then remarked upon the proceeding of any member questioning the decision of the ‘chair.’ What followed is very remarkable. Lord John Russell at once rose ‘to complain that any member should be blamed for so doing,’ and ‘denying that the decision of the chair was necessarily imperative in the House.’ The entrance of the Usher, above mentioned, put a stop to these turbulent proceedings, and the King informed his ‘faithful Commons,’ in a shrill angry voice, that he came down with a view to the ‘instant dissolution’ of Parliament. After all, our Parliamentary ancestors were not the orderly beings now-a-days represented; nor is it deemed desirable that their turbulent example should be imitated. The ancient Borough of Dudley obtained one member by the Reform Bill, but in Charles I.’s time it had two Members of Parliament.”