'Now that Salisbury is going in for electoral districts, it will become a sort of open competition which party can go furthest. I should not be surprised if he were to trump us by proposing to abolish the House of Lords.'
'I had now decided to agree with Lord Salisbury in advance, and divide the counties into single-member districts if Mr. Gladstone would let me; and Trevelyan, to whom I had broached my scheme, wrote: "I very much approve of the scheme of dividing counties. I hope to goodness you will be able to carry it out."'
The original draft, completed on September 18th, followed the lines laid down in consultation with Mr. Gladstone. The object of obtaining fair representation, and doing away with over-representation of vested interests, was thus attacked and began with two great industrial centres.
The scheme for England treated Lancashire and Yorkshire as urban throughout, and divided them into single-member districts; but the remaining 'rural' counties of England were divided into two-member districts. Thus, 'the net increase of county members was 53.' Boroughs which had less than 10,000 inhabitants (53 in all) were merged into the counties; those with a population of between 10,000 and under 40,000, which had two members, lost one. Thus, having added to the under- represented, Sir Charles took from the over-represented, and adds: 'this gave us 33 more seats.' Sir Charles in a secret memorandum added that he thought the fixing of so low a limit as 10,000 showed 'an altogether indefensible tenderness to vested interests.' 'I should carry the loss of one member far higher than the 40,000 line adopted, and should take away one member up to the point at which I began to give two' to a new constituency. Dilke was in favour of carrying merger of small boroughs to a greater extent than was adopted in the Act.
'Summing up, on our English borough scheme,' he said, 'I am struck by its extreme timidity. I do not see how it is to stand the revolutionary criticism of Lord Salisbury.' 'My plan for the Metropolis gave to it its legitimate proportion of members: 55 in all…. These figures should be compared with 22—the previous number.'
As to Ireland, he admitted that 'if you take its population as a whole it was over-represented in our plan; yet the difference in favour of Ireland is very small; moreover, Wales is vastly better treated than Ireland.' Lord Spencer 'thought there would be a howl from Belfast,' and wished for the representation of minorities. 'But the Irish Government made no practical proposal,' and the whole of this intricate business was left almost entirely to Sir Charles.
'On September 29th Mr. Gladstone wrote at length conveying his general approval of my plan, and stating that he did not intend to "handle" the Bill in the House of Commons; and so wished to defer to the opinions of his colleagues. He gave me leave to add 12 members to the House for Scotland, instead of taking the 12 from England; and he congratulated me upon the "wonderful progress" which I had made…. On the same day on which I had received Mr. Gladstone's letter I saw one from Sir Henry Ponsonby to Mr. Gladstone with Mr. Gladstone's reply. Sir Henry Ponsonby made proposals…. Mr. Gladstone had refused both for the present; the former with scorn and the latter with argument. [Footnote: The first was "that the Lords should read the Franchise Bill a second time, and then pass a resolution declaring that they would go into Committee as soon as the Redistribution Bill reached them.">[
'On September 30th further letters were circulated, one from Sir Henry Ponsonby on the 27th, in which he said that the reform of the House of Lords must in any case come, but must come later, and that he would see the leaders of the Opposition about the second suggestion of his previous letter as it had not been absolutely refused (the suggestion being that the Lords should provide in the Franchise Bill that it should come into force on January 1st, 1886, unless the Redistribution Bill were sooner passed).
'On October 4th Hartington made a speech which produced a storm upon this subject of Compromise as to Reform.' (He proposed that the Lords should pass the Franchise Bill 'after seeing the conditions of the Redistribution Bill and satisfying themselves that they were fair.') 'But Mr. Gladstone went with Chamberlain and myself against any compromise.'
Mr. Chamberlain put the point that no bargain could be considered unless the Franchise Bill were first passed without conditions very plainly in a speech on October 7th, and next day at the Cabinet