much of the Reform Bill of 1867, was at first sight
extremely moderate. In the first place, it advanced the
property qualification for the borough franchise which
Lord Russell's bill had fixed at £6 to £7—a step which
Mr. Gladstone explained as follows: "A £6 rental, cal-
culated upon the most careful investigation, and after
making every allowance and deduction that ought to be
made, would give 242,000 new voters, whom I should
take as all belonging to the working class. I should then
arrive at a gross total of 428,000 persons" (that is, by
adding together old and new electors), "which would, in
fact, probably place the working classes in a clear majority
upon the constituency. Well, that has never been the
intention of any bill proposed in this House. I do not
think it is a proposal that Parliament would ever adopt,
. . I do not think that we are called upon by any
overruling or sufficient consideration, under the circum.
stances, to give over the majority of the town constitu
encies into the hands of the working class. We therefore
propose to take the figure next above that which I have
named-namely, a clear annual value of £7." Under the
£7 qualification, it was calculated that 144,000 voters of
the working class would be admitted to the borough
franchise--enough to give the artisan class its due weight
and share in elections, without swamping the other ele-
ments of the constituency. Mr. Gladstone also proposed―
by means of the abolition of the ratepaying clauses of
the Reform Act of 1832, by registration of compound
householders, and by a lodger franchise applicable to
persons occupying rooms of the annual value of £10—to
further increase the number of borough voters by 60,000,
giving a general increase of 204,000. To this increase
must be added the proposed number of new county
voters, "fourteen-pound tenants," 172,000 in number;
and the depositors in savings-banks, &c., 24,000 more,
In all, the number of new voters to be added by the till
was estimated at 400,000, equally divided, according to
the belief of the framers of the bill, between the middle
class and the artisans.

contention up to the very last stages of the Reform con-
troversy. The fact was, that, as has been truly said,
"the subject was one of which a largo section of the
House of Commons was profoundly ignorant," even in
1866; and it required all the information supplied by Mr.
Lambert's book, and all the debates in which he figured
so prominently, to make the "compound householder"
and his grievances really known to the public and to the
Parliament which was to legislate for him. But, as Mr.
Gladstone very well knew, without a repeal of the rate-
paying clause of the Act of 1832, any further lowering
of the property qualification for the franchise would be
practically ineffectual, since it was the tenants occupying
houses below the annual value of £10, the limit fixed in
1832, who came principally under the head of compound
householders; that is to say, whose rates were compounded.
for by their landlord, and paid by him to the parish, in-
stead of by themselves. The object of this arrangement
between the parish and the landlords was to secure a
more safe and regular payment of rates than it would
have been otherwise possible to obtain; indeed, the parish
was willing to accept a reduced rate from the landlord
in consideration of this greater security of payment and
convenience of collection. The case then stood thus:
Under the Small Tenements Act, landlords were allowed,
if the parish wished it, to compound for their tenants'
rates, paying the rates to the parish, and reimbursing
themselves by a corresponding increase of rent from the
tenant; in consequence of this arrangement it happened
that such tenants did not appear upon the rate books,
which only register personal and actual ratepayers; the
Reform Bill of 1832 refused the franchise to all who
were not ratepayers, and the electoral officers, in most
cases, considered nobody a ratepayer whose name was not
upon the rate books; consequently, hundreds of persons
were disfranchised by no fault or disqualification of theirs,
but simply by "the conflict between the ratepaying clause
(of the first Reform Act) and the local practice of rate
collectors." It would have been well if the House of
Commons had laid these facts accurately to heart before
entering upon the Reform debates of 1866 and 1867; much
blundering and misconception would have been prevented
had they done so. With regard to the proportion of artisans
on the register, the statistics given in Mr. Lambert's book !
gave rise to much debate. According to them, the pro-
portion of artisans to the rest of the electors was 26
per cent.; or, in other words, 128,603 out of 488,920
persons on the borough register of England and Wales
came under the definition of mechanics and artisans. It
was, however, maintained that in many towns the number
of artisans, properly so called, had been much over-
rated-a mistake which seems very possible when one
considers the difficulty of giving an accurate statistical
account of the occupations of the poorer classes in large
towns.

Parliament opened amid general interest and excitement with regard to Reform; and in March Mr. Gladstone brought in his "Bill to extend the Right of Voting at Elections of Members of Parliament in England and Wales." This important bill, upon which was based so

Mr. Gladstone introduced his bill on March 12, 1866, in a speech worthy of the occasion, though the beginning was marked by even more than his usual humility. At the outset he read the passage in the Queen's Speech which bore upon the question::-"When that information (relative to the existing rights of voting) is complete, the attention of Parliament will be called to the result thus obtained, with a view to such improvement in the laws which regulate the rights of voting in the election of members of the House of Commons as may strengthen our free institutions and conduce to the public welfare." Words like this gave Mr. Gladstone a good starting-point. He appealed to them and to the numerous occasions on which the same recommendation had been given from the throne. "By no less than five administrations, in no less than six speeches of the Queen anterior to that of the present year," had the need of Reform been suggested to the House. Such an accumulation of authority, he went on to say, seemed to excuse him from the necessity of arguing the abstract question of the advisability of Reform. He took that for granted. Again, Mr. Lam

A.D. 1866.]

MR. LOWE'S SPEECH ON THE REFORM BILL.

bert's work had been so well and quickly done that the
Government found itself ready to offer the bill at once,
without waiting a year. But-here was the important
point-partly with a view to break up the opposition
to the Government proposals, partly to prevent the bill
becoming unwieldy and its progress too slow, it was to con-
sist really of two bills. The first, with which Mr. Gladstone
proposed now to deal exclusively, was a Bill for the
Extension of the Franchise; the second, to be considered
after the settlement of the first, was to be concerned
with that much more dangerous, much more personal
matter, the Redistribution of Seats. Into Mr. Glad-
stone's details-as clear and as copious in this speech as
they always were with him-we need not follow him, for
we have already sketched the main provisions of his bill.
He commended it to the House, hoping that "if, un-
happily, issue was to be taken adversely upon the bill, it
would be, above all, a plain and direct issue "—that is,
whether or
not there ought to be enfranchisement down-
wards. In other words, Mr. Gladstone, though he had
nearly ignored the general question of the need of Par-
liamentary Reform, courted discussion of that general
question. He brought in his bill, not like a Trojan horse
(he said) "approaching the walls of the sacred city, and
filled with armed men, bent upon ruin, plunder, and con-
flagration," but rather as bringing recruits to the Par-
liamentary army-children to the Parliamentary family.
"Give to these persons," ran his peroration, new inte-
rests in the Constitution; new interests which, by the
beneficent processes of the law of nature and Providence,
shall beget in them new attachment; for the attachment
of the people to the Throne, the institutions, and the laws
under which they live is, after all, more than gold and
silver, and more than fleets and armies; at once the
strength, the glory, and the safety of the land."

The night following the introduction of the bill was marked by the second of Mr. Lowe's famous Reform speeches, and the first of those fierce attacks upon the Russell Ministry which more than anything else contributed to bring in the Conservatives in the following year. Mr. Lowe was then member for Calne. He had held office under Lord Palmerston as Vice-President of the Council from 1859 to 1864, and had long been known in the House as an accomplished man and ready debater; but probably few, in 1866, had any idea of the real greatness of his oratorical gift, and of the splendid displays he was to make of it before the close of the session. In his address to his constituents, in June, 1865, Mr. Lowe had given sufficient warning of the course he meant to take with regard to Reform. So long as tranquillity and content existed unbroken in England, he said, "I see no reason for great organic changes in institutions which, though partaking largely of the imperfection incident to all things human, and susceptible, doubtless, of great improvements as our experience widens and ripens, have combined order and liberty, stability and progress, in a greater degree than the institutions of any other nation." And throughout the Reform debates Mr. Lowe amply redeemed the pledge of action thus given. At the very outset of his speech on March 13, he denied the necessity

161

of Reform altogether. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had, he said, given a clear and elaborate account of the various provisions of the proposed bill; but "although he ably entered into these matters, and with a detail which reminds me more of a speech on the Budget than on Reform, he did not find-he was so pinched for timea moment to say why the Constitution under which we have lived so long might not be left to us a little longer." Mr. Gladstone had taken up the position that Reform was inevitable, and had long been proved inevitable; he had declined to go into the merits of the question, upon the ground of "accumulated authority" on the side of Reform; granted the necessity of Reform, he had such and such propositions to make. Mr. Lowe, on the other hand, argued the question of Reform in the abstract; was it necessary? were the existing institutions of the country really in need of such violent remedies? If it was pleaded that Reform was needed for the working classes, the best of whom, it had been said by Lord Russell in the preceding year, were excluded from the franchise, Mr. Lowe contended that Mr. Lambert's statistics proved the working man was already adequately represented. And even if they were not, there was a natural progress going on among the lower orders, which provided far safer means of enfranchisement than any legislative tinkering. Were not wages rising, and was not wealth spreading farther every year? Every day labour was becoming more and more in demand, and the proportion of men earning high wages was every day becoming greater. The vast extension of trade and commerce, emigration, the discovery of gold in California and Australia, all were so many levers, which would in time lift the working man to the place in the constituency properly belonging to him. The process was a natural one, and would not bear being interfered with. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had not been able to make up his mind to the £6 franchise because it would give the working classes a majority in the constituencies. But that majority would soon be theirs, whether Mr. Gladstone granted it now or not. "Is it not certain that causes are at work which will have a tendency to multiply the franchise

that the £6 houses will become the £7 ones, and the £9 houses will expand to £10? . . . Sooner or later we shall see the working classes in a majority in the constituencies." And then came the famous passage which has made Mr. Lowe the bugbear of the working classes ever since, but which he has always strenuously, and sometimes angrily, defended. "Look at what such a majority implies. I shall speak very frankly on this subject, for-having lost my character by saying that the working man could get the franchise for himself, which has been proved to be true, and for saying which, he and his friends will not hate me one bit the less-I shall say exactly what I think. Let any consider-I have had such unhappy experiences, and many of us have-let any gentleman consider the constituencies he has had the honour to be concerned with. If you want venality, if you want ignorance, if you want drunkenness and facility for being intimidated; or if, on the other hand, you want impulsive, unreflecting, and violent people, where do you

look for them in the constituencies? Do you go to the only with power, but with a sense of power. "They will top or to the bottom?"

"

or demagogues would find a seat, and that the Executive Government would be lowered even below the pitch of "painful weakness" at which, according to Mr. Lowe, it had already arrived. Lastly, Who asked for the bill? Not the people, not the House of Commons, but the Radical leaders, as a salve for a theoretical and not a practical grievance! "All I can say," concluded Mr. Lowe, "is, that if my right honourable friend does succeed in carrying this measure through Parliament, when the passions and interests of the day are gone by, I do not envy him his retrospect. I covet not a single leaf of the laurels that may encircle his brow. I do not envy him his triumph. His be the glory of carrying it; mine of having, to the utmost of my poor ability, resisted it."

The cheers that greeted this speech-and not only the Opposition, but for a moment the Ministerialists, were carried away by its eloquence and wit-were a kind of omen of the difficulties that the Government were to meet with during the progress of the measure. But they were not to fall yet-not till a whole session had been spent in desperate fighting, and till a score of new reputations had been made, and old ones more than maintained in the incessant debates. In this debate on the first reading, Mr. Horsman, the Liberal member for Stroud, took up the same position of hostility to the measure as Mr. Lowe; and it was in answer to him that Mr. Bright threw out his famous nickname for the new party. He has retired into what may be called his political cave of Adullam, and he has called about him every one that was in distress, and every one that was discontented." The name of Adullamites was ever afterwards given to the group of seceding Liberals, and their position was called the Cave.

of the bill, and through the winter of 1866, to be directed mainly against the "renegade Liberals" and their leaders, shows that nothing is so effective in firing a train of explosive feeling as an epithet. Mr. Gladstone's Liverpool speech was of the most uncompromising kind. "We do not desire," he said, "we should be the first to resist, sudden and violent sweeping changes; but the progressive enlargement of the popular franchisewith due regard to the state and circumstances of the country-we do not consider liable to the application of any of these epithets. Having produced this measure, framed in a spirit of moderation, we hope to support it with decision. . . . We stake ourselves, we stake our existence as a Government, and we also stake our political character, on the adoption of the bill in its main provisions. You have a right to expect from us that we should tell you what we mean, and that the trumpet which it is our business to blow shall give forth no uncertain sound. Its sound has not been, and I trust will not be, uncertain. We have passed the Rubicon, we have broken the bridge and burned the boats behind us. . . . The defeat of the bill, what would it procure ? an interval, but not an interval of repose-an interval of fever, an interval of expectation, an interval for the working of those influences which might extend even to the formidable dimensions of political danger."

The great debate on the second reading began on the 12th of April; and never within living memory had a greater display of eloquence, argument, and energy been witnessed within the walls of the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone had seen enough of the spirit of opposition that had been awakened to make it necessary for him to make an elaborate speech on moving the second reading, directed mainly against the amendment of which notion The bill was brought in, and read a first time, and the had been given by Lord Grosvenor, the eldest son of the House adjourned for the Easter Holidays to think over Marquis of Westminster. This amendment, which was the situation. It was evident that a storm was coming, to be seconded by Lord Stanley, was to the effect "that and questions perhaps graver than that of the fate of a it was inexpedient to consider this bill until the House Cabinet or of a measure were dependent on the issue. A had before it the whole scheme of representation;" that great meeting was held at Liverpool, at which Mr. Glad- is to say, that it was inexpedient to break up the Reform stone made a speech in defence of the bill. Mr. Lowe's legislation into two parts, to separate the question of the Liberal constituents at Calne wrote him a strong protest franchise from the question of redistribution. It is not against his conduct, and clearly indicated that he must necessary to go through the points that Mr. Gladstone not ask for a continuance of their confidence. His an- raised; for to do so would be to anticipate the course of swer to them was, in fact, an answer to a perfect chorus the debate, so exhaustive and voluminous was his eloof invective with which he was greeted by every Liberal quence. The former part of the speech was of a more newspaper, and in every meeting of Liberals throughout general kind than that which had introduced the bill the country. He maintained that he had but fulfilled the originally; it was a sort of answer to Mr. Lowe and to announcement which he had made to them at the time of those who had denied the necessity and the demand for his election in 1865, when the words of his address had Reform, and it dwelt with immense force upon the been, “I attach too much importance to the blessings we pledges given in past years by Mr. Disraeli, Mr. already enjoy, to risk them in pursuit of ideal perfection, Horsman, and others, now strenuous opposers of Reform or even of theoretical improvement." And, while with in any shape. Mr. Disraeli, in 1859, had pronounced perfect frankness he affirmed his belief that "ignorant, that he and his colleagues in Lord Derby's Cabinet "were drunken, venal, violent" people were to be found at the perfectly prepared to deal with the question of the bottom of the constituencies, he denied that he had meant borough franchise and of the introduction of the working the words to apply to a whole class of his countrymen. classes by lowering the franchise in boroughs, and by But this disclaimer availed little; the words had been acting in that direction with sincerity." Mr. Horsman. spoken, and they stuck. The popular excitement which in 1851, had been one of the very persons who ha they caused, and which continued after the failure pressed on the Government a measure of "piecemeal