But we shall be asked, what is to become of £10 occupants residing beyond borough boundaries, who are really rated to the income-tax? Are they to remain unrepresented? Our reply is, that they ought to be represented, and can be represented, without sending them to the county-roll. The true, sound, and equitable method is to enlarge the parliamentary boundaries of boroughs, so that persons of this class may be enrolled in the nearest borough to their residence. Such enlargement may be made irrespective of other persons who are entitled to the county franchise, and who would still claim to be placed upon that roll. In this way, no one really entitled to vote would be excluded: both counties and boroughs would be preserved; and the latter would receive a very considerable augmentation of numbers from a class of men who at present do not enjoy the franchise.
There is but one point more to which we shall specially refer, and that is the proposed representation of minorities. We have shown, in a former article, that this is perfectly unworkable, and moreover greatly to be deprecated, as entirely changing the relations of the electors and their representatives. It can only, according to Lord John Russell’s admission, be attempted in constituencies which are to be allowed three representatives; and the simple fact of its being the exception, and not the rule, seems to us sufficient to condemn it. We have already put the case of the death or resignation of one of these minority members, and we cannot see how his place can be supplied, unless it is enacted that the candidate lowest on the poll is to be returned. It is neither sensible nor equitable to challenge the authority of majorities. If you leave a question, whether it relate to men or measures, to be decided by a certain number of people, you must perforce adopt and acquiesce in the verdict of the majority. But it is within our power to render the majorities less oppressive, by multiplying as much as possible the number of the tribunals of appeal.
This brings us to the consideration of a topic which we broached in the last number of the Magazine, and which, we venture to say, is well worthy of the attention of our statesmen. It cannot be denied that in many places, especially large towns, there is an immense degree of apathy on the part of those who are entitled to the franchise. Men who are in the possession or occupation of property far more than sufficient to entitle them to vote, do not even take the pains to place themselves on the roll; and many of those who are on the roll will not give themselves the trouble to vote. It is remarkable also that these are generally men of wealth, station, and intelligence—belonging, in short, to the class most likely to use the franchise with discretion and independence. The reason of this apparent apathy is, that they know quite well that they will be outvoted. In urban constituencies of four thousand or upwards, returning two members each, every one knows beforehand how the election will go, and consequently no effort is made by a desponding minority. We grant that such ought not to be the case; because an elector, though he may not be able to find a candidate of his own way of thinking, can always exercise a wholesome control, by voting for the man who, in his judgment, is the best in the field—but there can be no doubt that the case is as we represent it. For example, at last election, there voted, in round numbers, at London, only 7,500 out of 20,000 electors—at Finsbury, 9,000 out of 20,000—at Lambeth, 8,000 out of 18,000—at Manchester, 9,000 out of 13,000—at Westminster, 800 out of 14,800—at Sheffield, 3,500 out of 5,300—at York, 2,500 out of 4,100—at Edinburgh, 3,500 out of 6,900—at Glasgow, 5,000 out of 16,500. These represent the actual numbers on the register, but not the number of those entitled to be enrolled, but who have not lodged claims. In short, the activity in voting and enrolling seems to decline in proportion to the size of the constituency.
There is but one way of remedying this, and that is by recurring to the simple principle that no man shall be entitled, in one place, to vote for more than a single member. We do not mean by this that large populations should be restricted to a single member—that would be unfair, and even preposterous. We mean that each county, division of a county, city, town, or borough, which has more than one member allotted to it, should be subdivided into parishes, districts, or wards, each to return a member, according to the votes of the majority of the qualified electors within it. Thus London would be divided into four electoral districts; Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, and others into two; and the counties would, in the same way, be partitioned into so many districts as there were members to be returned. This system is at present in partial operation in the counties of England, which are split into divisions, and there undoubtedly the system has worked well and satisfactorily. No man in his senses would propose that each county elector of Yorkshire should have six votes; and we really cannot see why one man, because he happens to live in a large town, should have double the personal political influence of another who resides in a small borough. It does not necessarily follow, by any means, that the members to be returned under the operation of the system which we propose should be antagonistic to one another. It would, we are convinced, materially tend to improve the representation, by infusing fresh energy into the constituencies; it is already recognised, and partially in effect; and it is not liable to any of the objections which it requires no ingenuity to rear against Lord John Russell’s absurd scheme for giving members to minorities.
We might say a great deal more on the subject of the present bill, but we think that further comment is needless. We have shown, by absolute demonstration, that it is not the result of Lord John Russell’s own Parliamentary experience—that, for twenty years of his public life, dating from 1832, he had failed to see the proper method of amending the representation of the people—and that he was at last enlightened by a series of articles, which display as little consistency as wisdom. We have shown also that he has not probed the great question of the relative proportional representation of the three united kingdoms—that he proposes to demolish borough representation, without any necessity for doing so—and that he wishes entirely to change, or rather to abrogate, the ancient distinction between town and county franchise. We have shown that he has not taken at all into consideration the recent fiscal changes, and that he proposes to place those who are heavily and directly taxed on the same footing with those who are allowed to escape that burden. We have shown that other parts of his scheme are either merely fantastical, or dictated by party motives; and having said so much, we are content to abide by the decision of the country.
If this bill is again brought forward on the 27th of April, or a later day in the session, we do not believe that it will ever pass into the statute-book. If it is withdrawn, on the score of inconvenience or otherwise, we are perfectly certain that it will not again appear in its present shape; for, many as are the legislative proposals which we have had occasion to consider, this is, beyond comparison, the worst digested, most incoherent and most rambling measure of them all.
THE BLUE BOOKS AND THE EASTERN QUESTION.
Notwithstanding the imposing aspect of these azure tomes, technically termed Blue Books, we confess we do not look upon them without a feeling of suspicion or incredulity. No doubt the usages of Parliament and the will of the Crown require the production of documents relating to every important transaction connected with our foreign policy, and they are intended to furnish ample and accurate details of our international acts, and to unfold to the public the intricacies of complicated and tedious negotiations. Such is the object of those expensive publications; but, for the attainment of that object, they should be not merely authentic, but complete. And when we say that we do not regard the Blue Books with all the respect that full confidence inspires, it is because we know that the papers they contain are well sifted and culled: those parts which would prove the weakness, the ignorance, and the imprudence of a Minister, are so carefully kept out of sight, and so curtailed, and those in his favour so prominently brought forward, that we have, after all, a very partial, and consequently a very imperfect, view of the manner in which a negotiation has been conducted. Truth, they say, lies at the bottom of a well: the Foreign Office may be that well, but the eye of the public is not always enabled to pierce its depth. Moreover, we have heard it related that some Ministers indulge a vicious habit of communicating instructions to their diplomatic agents in notes or letters marked private, or evidently meant to be so from their familiar style and tone; and that some letters contain hints or instructions sometimes contrary to the official despatches. This is unjust to the public, and unfair to the diplomatic agent himself, who, in case his conduct should become subject of inquiry or censure in Parliament, is thus debarred from defending himself, because the real instructions on which he acted bear the stamp of privacy, which delicacy forbids him to violate; and it is quite certain that the Blue Books contain no trace of those confidential missives. There is one personage in particular whose name has been more connected than any other with our foreign policy, who is said to carry this habit to such a point as to force complaints from his own subordinates.
We are not exempt from human weakness: we confess that we have more than once cast a curious and a longing glance on those plethoric Jacks which daily issue from Downing Street, and the safe conveyance of which to their distant destination costs the country annually a handsome sum of money. We have often desired to dive to the very bottom of these round white leathern envelopes, which are so tenderly handled and so scrupulously guarded. What profound thoughts, what foresight, what eloquence, and what wisdom, must be contained, we have often thought, within that mysterious covering of calf, of more than aldermanic rotundity, tightly closed at the neck with whipcord, and the genius of England protecting the orifice in the form and fashion of a huge red seal. It is true that idle or blabbing clerks, and supercilious or rollicking messengers—the external “gentlemen” of the Foreign Office—are said to indulge occasionally in a laugh, whilst lounging in their waiting-room, at the reverential awe with which the vulgar are wont to look upon the “despatch bags.” Strange stories, too, are said to be current of the miscellanies which sometimes fill them, the curious olla podrida, the several parts of which are so well adapted to the tastes of the youthful employés of our foreign embassies. Packages of pomatum, bottles of hair-dye, pots of varnish, patent-leather boots, and dress-coats, are occasionally conveyed to the capital where we are blessed with a representative who unites in his own person the conflicting tastes of dandyism and parsimony. Gossipping tongues speak of even more important cargoes—not, of course, in the bag, but outside it—that were sometimes conveyed, at her Majesty’s expense, to her “Honourable” or “Right Honourable” representative, under the care of some bustling “gentleman,” whose official character is indicated by the Windsor uniform, and a minute badge with the royal arms, and the effigy (a harmless irony) of a greyhound—the latter symbolical of the speed at which he is presumed to travel.
Taking the present Blue Books at the value set upon them by the Government, we believe that every impartial man who has glanced over their contents, and who has read the debates in Parliament, will be convinced of the blindness, the weakness—we will not say the criminality—of the Cabinet, in all that relates to the Eastern question. It is in vain that we attempt to defend their conduct on the ground of ignorance, for there are abundant proofs in the documents before us, however imperfect they may be, that they were not ignorant, and were not unwarned of what was going on. The evidence is too clear even for audacity to deny, or hypocrisy to diminish. They themselves have been forced to admit that they were outwitted and duped as no men were ever duped before; and however a generous and forgiving people may pardon the fault for the frankness of the confession, such imbecility in the past is but poor encouragement for the future. The noble lord who holds the post of Prime Minister is indeed unfortunate in his general estimate of men and things. When the Revolution of February was on the point of bursting forth, he is said to have declared his conviction that King Louis Philippe and his dynasty were firmer than ever on the throne of France. After a long, and, we presume, conscientious study of the President of the new French republic, the same acute intellect pronounced Louis Napoleon to be little better than an idiot, and in contemptuous terms described him as incapable in thought and action. When the votes of millions approved and confirmed the daring illegality of the act of December 1851, he believed that his rule could not last three months: and in the latest exercise of his discrimination and knowledge of the world, our great statesman laughed to scorn the fear that the Emperor Nicholas ever contemplated any attack against the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, and this at the moment when every post was bringing home news of the hostile attitude of Russia; when the newspapers teemed with accounts of the movements of armies in the south of Russia; when that force was placed on a war footing, and provisioned as if on the eve of a campaign; when a fleet was at Sebastopol ready to weigh anchor; when wood was cut down for the construction of pontoons and bridges for the Pruth and Danube; and when Constantinople itself was menaced with a coup de main;[[8]] when the magazines of Odessa were gorged with military stores for the complete equipment of 150,000 men; when troops had already marched to the Turkish frontier; when Prince Menschikoff was outraging the Sultan in his own capital, and dictating who should, or who should not, be his minister. And with the reports of our own diplomatic and consular agents confirming all those facts, the noble Lord at the head of her Majesty’s Government was smiling complacently at the compliments lavished on him by that great master of irony, Count Nesselrode, who chuckled with his imperial master at the simplicity of the statesman refusing to believe the evidence of his senses. We have seldom witnessed so much prevarication, so much barefaced misstatement, as have been exhibited on this question. It was denied in the most positive manner in the House of Lords that Russia had ever required from the Sultan the dismissal of his minister Fuad Effendi; or that the resignation of that minister was voluntary. The repeated warnings in the public press, the official communications of his own agents in Turkey and Russia, went for nothing. The intentions of the Emperor of Russia were in his eyes moderate and pacific, even so late as the end of April. The arrogant language of the Russian Envoy at Constantinople, the menaced occupation of the Principalities, were, because Count Nesselrode pronounced them to be so, not merely exaggerated, but “destitute of any foundation whatever.” The “beau rôle” which the wily chancellor of the Russian Empire congratulated Lord Aberdeen for having preferred, was in point of fact the meanest subservience; and we are satisfied that it was to the conviction that this “beau rôle”[[9]] was to be played out to the end, that we owe all that has since taken place. The same truckling spirit characterised even those acts of the Government which had the appearance of energy. When our ships entered the Dardanelles, and anchored before Constantinople, the country was made to believe that their presence in the Bosphorus had no reference to the acts of Russia, but to the protection of British subjects and property, and to the defence of the Sultan from the violence of his own subjects at a moment when it was known that not the slightest danger menaced either the one or the other. Abdul Medjid must have felt indignant at the imputation thus cast by his friends on the loyalty of his subjects, and even Lord Aberdeen’s own ambassador declined to accept such an explanation of movement of the fleet without a pretext. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, while expressing his thanks for the interest taken by the British Government in the preservation of British life and property at Constantinople, said, at the same time, that he applied his gratitude also to that part of the instructions which authorised him to consider the presence of her Majesty’s squadron, if he thought proper to require it, as intended to embrace the protection of the Sultan in case of need: from whom the Sultan most needed protection, no man knew better than the English ambassador. The defence set up for the delays, the hesitations, and the inaction of the Aberdeen Cabinet, was, it seems, the doubt entertained of the co-operation of France. Now, nothing is more clearly shown, even in the Blue Books, that the contrary was the fact. It is proved by the despatches of the French Ambassador in London, and of the English Ambassador in Paris. They show, beyond the possibility of doubt, not only that such was not the case, but that every proposition of active measures, from the very beginning when the squadrons appeared in the Bay of Salamis to their entering the Black Sea, originated exclusively with the French Government. The despatch of Lord Cowley of the 28th January confirmed the intelligence published in the London papers, that it was the French Government who had invited the English to join the French fleet in the expedition to the Greek waters, and the fact is corroborated in the despatch of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs to his ambassador in London, dated the 5th June. Again, on the 13th July the French Ambassador proposed to Lord Clarendon that, in the event of Russia not accepting the Vienna note, or showing a disposition to persist in a violent policy, the French and English fleets should forthwith enter the Dardanelles. That proposition was repeated in the beginning of September by the French Government; and once more, on the 23d of the same month, Count Walewski urged the presence of the fleets in the Black Sea as indispensable. On this important point there was not the slightest divergence of opinion between the head of the French Government and his Minister of Foreign Affairs; their views were the same, their opinions identical; and the Blue Books prove no fact to be more indisputable, more certain, than that their conduct throughout the whole of the affair was frank and straightforward. It is not alone in the French despatches that we find this proof. We see it in the correspondence of Lord Aberdeen and Lord Cowley. The latter noble lord, who had the best opportunity of ascertaining the truth, and who is not a person to be easily deceived, repeatedly informs his Government that he invariably received from the Emperor, or from his minister, the same assurances of a desire to act in concert and in cordial alliance with England, and that he never could discover, though he was evidently on the watch, the slightest difference between them. It is all very well to say that the time which has been spent in, as it now appears, useless negotiation, has not been lost, and that the Government has been enabled to prepare the means of resisting the encroachments of Russia, and of wresting from her the territory she has seized. It is a poor defence to allege that fortune has, after all, favoured us, and that we are not in so bad a condition as we might have been. A blunder is not the less a blunder because its results are not so mischievous as they might be. But if we are prepared at this moment, as there can be little doubt, the credit is not due to Ministers, who have exhibited throughout a credulity and a simplicity we believe to be unexampled. We have no reason to believe that if, in the very commencement, a firm and imposing attitude had been assumed by our Government, the Emperor of Russia would not have recoiled before he had yet placed himself in a position, to retire from which, without striking a blow, is shame and dishonour. Had it been announced that the squadrons would enter the Black Sea the moment the Russians crossed the Pruth, we believe that that passage would not have taken place, and in that menace we are confident that France would have joined us.