The house met at the usual hour. When the gallery was opened, the chartist petition, of awful bulk, stood rolled up in front of the table. An unusual number of members were present; several peers occupied the seats allotted to them in the chamber, and the public gallery was filled. Mr. Smith O’Brien was in his place, and he was the object of much observation. After the transaction of private business, Mr. F. O’Connor rose and said—“Sir, I have the honour to present a petition signed by five million seven hundred and six thousand persons, and another signed by thirty thousand persons, praying for annual parliaments, universal suffrage, vote by ballot, equal electoral districts, no property qualification, and the payment of members. As I have already received so much courtesy from the house, I will say nothing further at present, but move that the petition be read at the table.”
The petition having been read by the clerk, Lord Morpeth rose to apologise for the necessary absence of the homesecretary. The noble lord said that the secretary of state would have been in his place, only that he was occupied with the numerous details of his office. It was his opinion, with regard to the matters of the petition, that he would not willingly be wanting in proper respect to a petition so numerously signed.
The petition was then received, and was, with difficulty, rolled down the floor of the house to the bar.
Mr. Lushington gave notice that on Friday night he would ask the first lord of the treasury whether he could hold out a distinct hope that, in the present session, he would introduce himself, or support the introduction of any measure for the extension of the suffrage, the abridgment of the duration of parliaments, the formation of electoral divisions, and the vote by ballot. This motion was hailed with loud cheers.
The strangers’ gallery, and wherever spectators could be accommodated, was full during this scene, and the public desire to hear what notice the lords would take of these events was nearly as great; there also every allowable space was occupied by anxious expectants, to hear the Duke of Wellington and other ministers express their opinions.
The Marquis of Lansdowne, in reply to a question from the Marquis of Northampton, stated that the meeting which had caused so much alarm throughout the metropolis had taken place at Kennington Common that day, and the multitude had been dispersed by the police without requiring the aid of the military, and without any difficulty. The petition had, he believed, been brought to the House of Commons in a cab, and had been presented according to the usual form.—Lord Brougham, who made his first appearance in the house since Christmas, remarked that however high he held the right of petitioning, and of meeting for the purpose of discussing public affairs, he was decidedly of opinion that such a multitudinous meeting as that referred to, as well as the monster meetings of Ireland, could be viewed in no other light but as demonstrations intended to overawe the parliament and the crown by an exhibition of physical force. Although he had condemned the manner in which the Manchester meeting in 1819 was put down, it was his opinion, as well as the opinion of Lord Plunkett and the late Lord Abinger, that such a meeting could not be considered bonâ fide meant for discussion, and that it was illegal.—The Duke of Wellington quite concurred in the law as declared by Lord Brougham, and considered that the metropolis had deep reasons for complaint in having trade interrupted, commerce suspended, the inhabitants kept in a state of alarm and terror for several days, owing to the assemblage of large bodies of people, whose only object could be, by meeting in such multitudes, to overawe the legislature. He sincerely rejoiced that the peace had been preserved without the appearance of a single soldier.—The Marquis of Northampton heard the explanations given with pleasure. He thought the country was greatly indebted to the noble duke, and also to all concerned, for their exertions in maintaining the peace.—The Marquis of Lansdowne declared that it was most gratifying to him and to the government to find the enthusiasm displayed by all the respectable inhabitants of the metropolis, who had come forward to enrol themselves as special constables. The noble marquis said that the exemplary conduct of the police was also deserving of the highest commendation.
Allegations having been made that the names attached to the petition were not nearly so numerous as alleged, and that many of them were forgeries, an inquiry was called for, and the committee on public petitions had the task assigned to it of making the investigation. The report made by the chairman to the house was most singular, showing that in fact the privilege of petition had been abused, and the house trifled with. On the 13th of April Mr. Thornley brought up the report of the committee on public petitions, which stated that upon the 26th of November last, a committee was appointed to report to the house the number of signatures attached to all petitions presented to that house, and that they had felt it their duty to make a special report to the house upon the subject of the national petition, presented on the 10th of April by the honourable member for Nottingham, signed by subjects of the British crown. The committee attached the utmost value to the right of petitioning, and to the exercise of that most important privilege by the subjects of this realm, and felt deeply the necessity of preserving the due exercise of such privilege from abuse, and having also a due regard to the importance of a petition so very numerously signed, had made that petition the subject of their present report. They felt bound, in the discharge of their duty, to represent to the house that with respect to that petition there had been a gross abuse of that privilege. The honourable member for Nottingham, upon presenting the petition, had stated that the petition was signed by upwards of five millions of persons. Upon the most careful examination of the number of signatures in the committee, with the assistance of thirteen law-stationer’s clerks, who acted under the superintendence of the various clerks of the committees, the number of signatures attached to the petition does not, in the opinion of the committee, amount to two millions. It is further found that a large number of the signatures were consecutively written by the same hand. It was likewise observed that a large number of the signatures were those of persons who could not be supposed to have concurred in its prayer; among these were the name of her majesty, signed Victoria Rex, the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, &c., &c. There was also noticed a large number of names which were evidently fictitious, such as “Pugnose,” “Longnose,” “Flatnose,” “Punch,” “Snooks,” “Fubbs,” and also numerous obscene names, which the committee would not offend the house or its dignity by repeating, but which evidently belonged to no human being. Upon the motion that the report do lie upon the table, a somewhat angry and personal discussion arose, in which Mr. Cripps was very severe in his censure of the conduct of Mr. O’Connor, in alleging that upwards of five millions of signatures had been attached to the petition. The motion was eventually agreed to. At the conclusion of the discussion Mr. F. O’Connor left the house; and a hostile meeting between him and Mr. Cripps having been presumed likely, in consequence of the personal nature of what had passed, Mr. O’Connor was, on an order of the house at a late period of the evening, taken into the custody of the sergeant-at-arms, but was subsequently released, and a reconciliation with Mr. Cripps effected.
Throughout the year attempts were made by the Chartists to create disturbances, and many of them were arrested and punished for riot, assault, or sedition. The leaders were very active in disseminating among the working classes opinions adverse to the rights of property and of society at large. These proceedings injured the cause of electoral and parliamentary reform. There were many members in the House of Commons, and many persons of influence throughout the country, who were favourable to some of the principal political opinions put forth in “the people’s Charter,” but there was no sympathy among these classes for the economical and social theories of the party by which the Charter was chiefly upheld. Reform in parliament, which was still desired by the people at large, was thus postponed by the alarm which the extreme views and violent temper of the Chartists created amongst the classes who possessed property, and amongst religious and peaceable citizens.