" NO NONSENSE !"
THE Duke of Devonshire's declaration that the Unionists would stand no nonsense on the ques- tion of Parliamentary Reform was not needed to lead opinion, or to suggest a course of action. It was simply the expression of one of the strongest feelings in the mind of the party. If there is one thing upon which Unionists of all shades of opinion agree, it is that the over-representation of Ireland must cease, and that the value of the vote shall not be far less on this than on the other side of St. George's Channel. The resolve of the Unionists not to tolerate an electoral anomaly so gross and so fraught with the possibilities of evil as that which is involved in the fact that, though London and Ireland are about equal in population, London has only 62 members, while Ireland has 103, and to abate so monstrous a wrong at the first possible moment, is one which has been steadily growing during the last two years. Strangely enough, it has been hitherto far more a soldier's than a commander's question. At first, the Unionist leaders were inclined to regard the matter as one which it was useless to bother about, and surrounded with so many difficulties as to make it impracticable. For that reason they would not accept the suggestion, urged upon them in 1892, that the last work of the Parliament elected in 1886 should be the equalisation of representation between the two Kingdoms. Since then, however, the question has advanced by leaps and bounds. The fact that the Home-rule Bill of last year would have been lost in Committee had it not been for the over-representation of Ireland, and that virtually Mr. Gladstone's Government was forced on the country by that over-representation, did wonders to ripen opinion. The Englishman likes an anomaly up to a certain point, but when that point is passed, and his business faculty is revolted, there is no man who is so determined in finding a remedy. Lord Rosebery may not yet have realised it, but a large, and a very large, majority of the electors of England, the persons who are under-represented, and so the persons concerned, have made up their minds that no Reform Bill shall be allowed to pass which does not include this piece of justice. We do not believe that any- thing would be more likely to make the Lords popular in the country, or to win them support, than a determined effort on their part to force the Government to carry out the principle of " One vote, one value."
Fortunately, the Unionist leaders have come to fully understand the change that has come over public feeling. They no longer regard " One vote, one value," as an academic counsel of perfection, but are aware of the earnest feeling which it provokes in the country, and are prepared to make it one of the chief planks in the Opposition programme. In view of its vital importance, the question should no doubt have been made the subject of an amendment to the Address. This course could not, however, have been adopted without lengthening the debate, and so throwing the business of the Session into confusion. Certain fiscal business must be completed before Easter, and this could hardly have been accom- plished if an amendment of such great importance had been moved from the Unionist front bench. But though the flag of " One vote, one value " could not be thus for- mally nailed to the mast, Mr. Balfour's words on the subject left no doubt as to the action of the party. They were cautious in tone, as his words always are, but in reality they meant the same as those of the Duke of Devonshire,—namely, that the Unionists would stand no nonsense. If, said he, you " think it desirable to resurvey, at the present time, your whole electoral machinery, you ought to do it impartially. You ought not to take one anomaly and deal with that, and leave another anomaly untouched. You ought, if your object be to make this House a faithful reflex of public opinion, to deal with the matter all round, in every direction, and with regard to every class and every country. When you do that, then, and not till then, shall I be quite convinced that the party opposite approach this question in the spirit of reformers, and not rather in the spirit of gentlemen with an anxious eye on the next election." Not only is the abstract case for insisting that no electoral reform will be fair and honest that does not include " One vote, one value " extraordinarily strong, and not only is the English voter thoroughly roused in regard to the ill-treatment which he suffers, but the Unionist position is still further strengthened by the fact that the House of Lords has an exact, as well as a modern, precedent for refusing to pass a measure altering the conditions of the suffrage if unaccompanied by an equalisation of the electoral privileges enjoyed by various areas. In 1884, the House of Lords refused to pass the Suffrage Bill until the Government had produced their Redistribution Bill, and in this course of action they were successful. This fact makes it impossible to argue seriously that they would be acting unconstitutionally in refusing to pass a Registration Bill and a Plural Voting Abolition Bill, unless recognition were also given to the principle of " One vote, one value."
Practically, there is only one even apparently valid argument which can be used against the Lords' de- mand for a reduction in the over-representation of Ire- land. It is that of time. It may, and no doubt will, be said by the Government that in the abstract they are quite in favour of the principle " One vote, one value," but they will add that it involves a Redistribution Bill affecting the three Kingdoms, and that though that might be a very proper measure for, say, the Session after next, it could not be taken up on the present occasion. Happily, the Unionists have a complete answer to this. They can say:— "That may be true, but it does not prevent your doing away with the over-representation in Ireland. Act as you intended to act if your Home-rule Bill had become law. You then proposed to reduce the total numbers of the House by the number by which you reduced the Irish representation. If you say you have no time for a regular Redistribution Bill, do the same now. Calculate the number of representatives which Ireland ought to have if she is to have only the same share as England, and take those away from her, reducing the total numbers of the House by that amount." As far as any political argument can be said to answer another, this answers the objection that Redistribution is too big a job, for it confines Redistribution to the cutting away of the twenty-five or twenty-six Members which Ireland has in excess if the English proportion of Members to population is accepted. Such cutting away is by no means a difficult process. The small Irish boroughs could disappear without making the counties in which they are situated too big, and a great many of the counties which now return two Members would only be allowed one. Practically the twenty-six seats could be got away without any alteration of area of a difficult kind, and in such a way that the unfair over-representation of the Celtic element within Ireland which now exists could be remedied at the same time. The facts as to this anomaly within an anomaly are so remarkable that we will quote one or two instances. Galway, Kilkenny, and Newry, with 5,169 electors, send three Members to Parlia- ment, while Belfast, with 35,000 electors, only sends four Members. Kerry, with 21,792 voters, and Antrim, with 36,712, send four each ; Longford, with 10,000 voters, has two Members, while Londonderry, with 20,845 voters, has also two. Donegal has 28,149 voters, and sends four Members, while Down, with 38,982, only sends four.
We have often given in these columns the figures which prove the intolerable over-representation of Ireland, but this must not prevent our touching on them again. It is absolutely necessary that people should be made to realise how things stand in this matter. We cannot do better than quote the following table, which compares the value of a vote in Galway, Kilkenny, or Newry with its value in a London constituency. The figures, it should be said, are not the latest, but those of a year or two ago. That, how- ever, is immaterial ; for since then the Irish boroughs have decreased in population, and Wandsworth has increased REGISTERED
ELEcroas.
Galway ... 1,655 Kilkenny ... 1,639
Newry ... ... 1,875 Represented by three Members.
Total ... 5,169 Wandsworth ... ... 16,283 Represented by one Member.
To employ the formula used by the reformers of the last century, it can be shown that in the Irish boroughs of Galway, Kilkenny, and Newry, a vote has some nine times the value it has in Wandsworth. The Home-rule party may be assured that they will not be allowed to treat as satisfactory a scheme of Parliamentary reform which leaves such grievances as these unredressed.
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