"In respect to details, it has always appeared to me that the first step upon this subject was the most important. We talk of unrepresented great towns! These are towns which have all the benefit of being governed by the system of the British Constitution without the evil of elections. Look at Scotland. Does Scotland suffer because it has not the benefit of riotous elections? I think that reform in Scotland would be, and I am certain would be thought, a grievance by many in that country. I can answer for there being many respectable men in Manchester, and I believe there are some in Birmingham and Leeds, who are adverse to change.
"But how is this change to be made? Either by adding to the number of representatives in parliament from England, or by disfranchising what are called the rotten boroughs! The first cannot be done without a departure from the basis and a breach of the Acts of Union. And, mind, a serious departure and breach of these acts, inasmuch as the limits of the extension could not be less than from fifteen to twenty towns. The last would be, in my opinion, a violation of the first and most important principle of the constitution, for no valid reason, and upon no ground whatever excepting a popular cry, and an apprehension of the consequences of resisting it. But this is not all. I confess that I see in thirty members for rotten boroughs thirty men, I don't care of what party, who would preserve the state of property as it is; who would maintain by their votes the Church of England, its possessions, its churches and universities, all our great institutions and corporations, the union with Scotland and Ireland, the connection of the country with its foreign colonies and possessions, the national honour abroad and its good faith with the king's subjects at home. I see men at the back of the government to enable it to protect individuals and their property against the injustice of the times, which would sacrifice all rights and all property to a description of plunder called general convenience and utility. I think it is the presence of this description of men in parliament with the country gentlemen, and the great merchants, bankers, and manufacturers, which constitute the great difference between the House of Commons and those assemblies abroad called 'Chambers of Deputies.' It is by means of the representatives of the close corporations that the great proprietors of the country participate in political power. I don't think that we could spare thirty or forty of these representatives, or change them with advantage for thirty or forty members elected for the great towns by any new system. I am certain that the country would be injured by depriving men of great property of political power, besides the injury done to it by exposing the House of Commons to a greater degree of popular influence.
"You will observe that I have now considered only the smallest of all reforms—a reform which would satisfy nobody. Yet it cannot be adopted without a serious departure from principle (principle in the maintenance of which the smallest as well as the greatest of us is interested), and by running all the risks of those misfortunes which all wish to avoid.
"I tell you that we must not risk our great institutions and large properties, personal as well as real. If we do, there is not a man of this generation, so young, so old, so rich, so poor, so bold, so timid, as that he will not feel the consequences of this rashness. This opinion is founded not on reasoning only, but on experience, and I shall never cease to declare it."
[LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S SPEECH ON THE FIRST REFORM BILL (1831).][4]
Source.—Molesworthy's History of the Reform Bill, London, 1866, p. 103.
The object of ministers has been to produce a measure with which every reasonable man in the country will be satisfied—we wish to take our stand between the two hostile parties, neither agreeing with the bigotry of those who would reject all Reform, nor with the fanaticism of those who contend that only one plan of Reform would be wholesome or satisfactory, but placing ourselves between both, and between the abuses we intend to amend and the convulsion we hope to avert.
The ancient constitution of our country declares that no man should be taxed for the support of the State, who has not consented, by himself or his representative, to the imposition of these taxes. The well-known statute, de tallagio non concedendo, repeats the same language; and, although some historical doubts have been thrown upon it, its legal meaning has never been disputed. It included "all the freemen of the land," and provided that each county should send to the Commons of the realm, two knights, each city two burgesses, and each borough two members. Thus about a hundred places sent representatives, and some thirty or forty others occasionally enjoyed the privilege, but it was discontinued or revived as they rose or fell in the scale of wealth and importance. Thus, no doubt, at that early period, the House of Commons did represent the people of England; there is no doubt likewise, that the House of Commons, as it now subsists, does not represent the people of England. Therefore, if we look at the question of right, the reformers have right in their favour. Then, if we consider what is reasonable, we shall arrive at a similar result.
A stranger, who was told that this country is unparalleled in wealth and industry, and more civilized, and more enlightened than any country was before it; that it is a country that prides itself on its freedom, and that once in every seven years it elects representatives from its population, to act as the guardians and preservers of that freedom,—would be anxious and curious to see how that representation is formed, and how the people chose those representatives, to whose faith and guardianship they entrust their free and liberal institutions. Such a person would be very much astonished if he were taken to a ruined mound, and told that that mound sent two representatives to Parliament—if he were taken to a stone wall, and told that three niches in it sent two representatives to Parliament—if he were taken to a park, where no houses were to be seen, and told that that park sent two representatives to Parliament; but if he were told all this, and were astonished at hearing it, he would be still more astonished if he were to see large and opulent towns full of enterprise and industry, and intelligence, containing vast magazines of every species of manufactures, and were then told that these towns sent no representatives to Parliament.