A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV

by Justin McCarthy; Justin H. McCarthy

[Sidenote: 1830—The Reform Administration]

If we glance down the list of this Reform Administration to-day we shall all probably be struck by the fact that the men who were regarded as juniors and something like beginners have come to occupy, in many cases, a higher position in political history than their elders and leaders. Lord John Russell, for instance, was not a member of Lord Grey's Cabinet; he only held the office of Paymaster of the Forces. From his first entrance into the House of Commons Lord John Russell had distinguished himself as a reformer. In 1819 he had brought forward a motion for a reform in the Parliamentary system, and he had renewed the motion in almost every succeeding year. He had been a steady supporter of the movement for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, which imposed an unjust and utterly irrational disqualification on Dissenters, and had been a zealous advocate of the measures for the emancipation of Roman Catholics. All his early life had been a training for statesmanship. He had been associated with scholars and thinkers, with poets and historians. He had gone through Spain while the war with Napoleon was still going on, and had been welcomed by the Duke of Wellington in his camp. He had visited Napoleon at Elba, and had talked over politics and war with the fallen Emperor. As Disraeli said of him many years later, he had sat at the feet of Fox and had measured swords with Canning. Lord Palmerston became for the first time Foreign Secretary in the Grey Administration. He had been a junior Lord of the Admiralty in a former Government, and he had more lately been Secretary at War; but at the time that he first became Foreign Secretary under Lord Grey few indeed could have anticipated that he was destined to become one of the most powerful English statesmen known to the century. Sir James Graham became First Lord of the Admiralty, and {127} some of us can still remember him as one of the foremost debaters in the House of Commons. Lord Durham, Grey's son-in-law, accepted what may almost be called the nominal office of Lord Privy Seal.

At that time Durham was regarded as a brilliant, eccentric sort of man, a perfervid reformer on whose perseverance or consistency no one could reckon for a moment—perhaps the comet of a season, but if so then surely a comet of a season only. We now recognize Durham as the man of statesmanlike foresight and genius who converted, at a great crisis, a Canada burning with internal hatred between race and sect, and the one common hatred of Imperial rule, into the Canada which we now know as one of the most peaceful, prosperous, and loyal parts of the British Empire. Mr. Stanley, afterwards Lord Derby, the famous "Rupert of debate," became Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Grey appointed Lord Plunket Lord Chancellor for Ireland, and the name of Lord Plunket will always be remembered as that of one of the greatest Parliamentary orators known to modern times.

The new Ministry was, therefore, well prepared to carry on the battle of reform. Lord Grey had made up his mind that Lord John Russell, although not in the Cabinet, was the most fitting member of the Administration to conduct the Reform Bill through the House of Commons. As soon as Grey had completed his arrangements for the construction of a Ministry, Lord Durham put himself into communication with Lord John Russell. Durham told Lord John Russell that Lord Grey wished him to consult with Russell as to the formation of a small private committee whose task should be to create and put into shape some definite scheme as the foundation of the great constitutional change which the new Government had been called into power to establish. Lord John Russell of course accepted the suggestion, and after some consideration it was agreed by Lord Durham and himself that Sir James Graham and Lord Duncannon, then Commissioner of Woods and Forests, should be invited to join them, and make a committee of four for the purpose of devising a {128} comprehensive and practicable measure of reform. Durham then asked Lord John to put on paper at once his own idea with regard to the outlines of such a plan, so that it might be taken into consideration by the committee at their earliest meeting.

[Sidenote: 1830—The Reform Bill]

Lord John Russell's book, "The English Government and Constitution," tells us all what was the central idea in his mind when he set himself to construct the groundwork of a Reform Bill. He tells us, alluding to the task assigned to him, "It was not my duty to cut the body of our old parent into pieces, and to throw it into a Medea's caldron, with the hope of reviving the vigor of youth." He thought it his duty not to turn aside "from the track of the Constitution into the maze of fancy or the wilderness of abstract rights." "It was desirable, in short, as it appeared to me, while sweeping away gross abuses, to avail ourselves, as far as possible, of the existing frame and body of our Constitution. Thus, if the due weight and influence of property could be maintained, by preserving the representation of a proportion of the small boroughs with an improved franchise, it was desirable rather to build on the old foundations than to indulge our fancy or our conceit in choosing a new site and erecting on new soil—perhaps on sand—an edifice entirely different from all that had hitherto existed."

No Reformer who understood the general character of the English people, and who had studied the development of political growth in England, could have gone more prudently and wisely about the work of bringing the existing Constitution into harmony with the altering conditions, and removing out of its way all difficulties that might interfere with its gradual and safe development in the future. But Russell was clearly of opinion, and in this he was entirely in accordance with Lord Grey, that nothing but a large and comprehensive measure would be of any real use, and that "to nibble at disfranchisement and cramp reform by pedantic adherence to existing rights would be to deceive expectation, to whet appetite, and to bring about that revolution which it was our object to {129} avert." Russell drew up a sketch of his proposed Reform Bill, which he submitted to Lord Durham, and on the draft of the measure thus submitted to him Lord Durham offered some suggestions and alterations of his own. Russell's speech was written on a single piece of letter-paper, and is reproduced with Lord Durham's notes in Russell's book, "The English Government and Constitution." The opening paragraph proposes that "the fifty boroughs having the smallest population according to the latest census should be disfranchised altogether." This proposal had Lord Durham's full approval, and he noted the fact that according to his calculation it would disfranchise all boroughs having a population of not more than 1400. The second paragraph proposed that fifty other boroughs of the least considerable population, above the line already drawn, should be allowed to send only one member each to the House of Commons. This proposal also had the approval of Lord Durham, and he notes it would apply to boroughs not having more than 3000 inhabitants each.

Then came a paragraph which proposed that all persons qualified to serve on juries should have the right of voting, and to this clause Lord Durham objected, regarding it probably as an embodiment of the principle of what were called in later days "fancy franchises." The fourth paragraph recommended that no person should be entitled to vote in cities or boroughs, except in the City of London, in Westminster, and in Southwark, unless he were a householder rated at ten pounds a year, and unless, moreover, he had paid his parochial taxes for three years, within three months after they became due, and had lived in the constituency for six months previous to the election at which he claimed to vote. The fifth clause proposed that the unrepresented parts of London should have among them four or six additional members, that eighteen large towns should have representation—and let the reader try to realize for himself what the supposed representation of the country could have been when at least eighteen large towns were, up to that time, wholly unrepresented—and that twenty counties should send two additional members {130} each to the House of Commons. Another paragraph limited the right of voting in the newly enfranchised towns to householders rated at ten pounds a year or persons qualified to serve on juries. Lord Durham approved of the rating qualification, but, consistently with his objection already mentioned, struck out the words which connected the right to vote with the right to serve on a jury. It is not necessary to go through the whole list of the proposals set out in the sketch drawn up by Lord John Russell. Those which we have already mentioned possess a peculiar historical interest and illustrate in the most precise and effective manner the whole nature of the system which, up to that time, had passed off as constitutional government.

[Sidenote: 1831—Vote by ballot]

It will be seen that, on the whole, Lord Durham was a more advanced reformer than even Lord John Russell. The entire scheme, as drawn out by Russell, consisted of ten paragraphs or clauses, and it was at once submitted to the consideration of the four men who formed the committee. There was much discussion as to the borough qualification for voters, and the committee finally agreed to recommend that it should be uniform, and thus get rid of what were called the freemen and the scot-and-lot voters, a class of persons endowed with antiquated and eccentric qualifications which possibly might have had some meaning in them and some justification under the conditions of a much earlier day, but which had since grown into a system enabling wealthier men to create in constituencies a body of thoroughly dependent or positively corrupt voters. The desire of the committee was to extend the voting privilege as far as possible consistently with due regard for the principle that the voters ought to be men of substance enough to insure their independence. This security they believed they could attain by establishing the ten-pound franchise. This seems, no doubt, to modern eyes a somewhat eccentric and haphazard line of demarkation; but it must be remembered that even until much later days the ten pounds rating principle in boroughs held its own, and was believed to be absolutely essential to the {131} maintenance of an independent and upright body of voters, and to the securing of such a body against the danger of being "swamped," according to the once familiar word, by the votes of the dependent and the corrupt.