TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE NEW REFORM BILL
Tau Reform Bill has emerged from the region of hope, fear, and conjecture. Expectation gives way to certainty ; the task of cri- ticism commences ; and unlimited freedom of suggestion is re- placed by definite practical agreement and determined cooperation. Lord John Russell's clear, simple, and businesslike statement on Monday night, could not fail, taken as a whole, to be satisfactory to the Spectator, inasmuch as it confirmed our anticipations, ac- complished many of our wishes, and proposed for practical experi- ment some of our cherished speculations on the wide question to which it referred. It corresponded to the needs of the time and of the topic, as interpreted by the discussion and suggestions of the last few years ; and no less to the character of the Govern- ment from which it emanated. The broad basis of the Govern- ment has given practical foree to the theoretical necessity of consult- ing a variety of interests and opinions, in a measure of representa- tive organization that is to be adapted to a country in which interests and opinions are infinitely various. And the discussions of recent years have tended to widen all men's views of the re- quirements of our representative system, except perhaps those of Mr. Henry Drummond and Colonel Sibthorp. These grotesques still retain their ancient loves. Gatton and Old Sarum are still dear to the memories and ideal to the imaginations of the model Cynic and the model Militia Colonel. Perhaps on the other side may be found a score of Members for peculiar constituencies who tell you, without laughing i your face, that household suffrage and equal electoral districts would improve the character of the House of Commons and the result of its legislation. But it may be safely affirmed that men who have not been cramped by fixed ideas, or rather by stereotyped forms of speech, have been led by all that has been said and written within the last half-dozen years to depart from either extreme, and, while admitting the propriety of periodically revising our representative system, to seek the cure of its defects in variety rather than in simplicity—in bringing it into closer correspondence with the various directions of our social forces, ra- ther than in violently and unnaturally constraining it into tem- porary and spasmodic obedience to one single force. It is this ten- dency of public opinion to which the Government measure responds and does homage; it is that philosophy of politics which guides itself by experience, and not by passion or formula, which finds itself therein embodied. It is not too much to say, that among all the suggestions which public discussion of our Parliamentary system has of late brought to the surface, probably none of im- portance have escaped or been neglected by the Government in preparing their bill. Many certainly of those least favoured by routine or declamatory politicians have been adopted into it, and are proposed with larger or smaller range of applica- tion as experiments for future instruction. No measure, we will be bold to say, has been introduced into the House of Com- mons which bore less the character of a party measure, or one adapted merely for temporary and personal ends ; no measure which has been framed with a more cordial desire to satisfy the wishes of the people and the matured speculations of political theorists ; no measure, therefore, which aimed more simply and singly at the improvement of our institutions according to the best lights of experience and reason. The Coalition has now passed its last and severest ordeal. The measure which was announced at its first formation, to which, therefore, its political character was pledged, but in the composition of which friends feared and foes hoped that measure and Coalition would explode and perish, is now before the public, and on the public alone depends its future fate. To us no trace of compromise or vacillation appears stamped upon its features. It is broad, conciliatory, practical, and pro- gressive. It is indeed a striking fact, that under the present pres- sure of impending or incipient war, the leader of the House of Commons should have calmly proposed such a measure, not with rhetorical magnificence of promise nor with excited appeals to popular passion, but in a simple businesslike speech, as a piece of important but not extraordinary legislation ; a fact that history will remember, and contemporary foreign politicians not fail to set down to the credit of constitutional government and civil liberty. The tone adopted by Lord John Russell was not merely ju- dicious as manifesting his contempt for the affected alarms and his insight into the real motives of those opponents to whom not the time but the substance of his measure was distasteful ; it truly corresponded to the genuine character of the measure. It was no revolution that he was inaugurating, no vast shifting of political power that he was arranging, but simply an extended application of the principle of an act of Parliament he himself had introduced twenty-three years ago, and a remedy for some glaring errors and omissions of that bill. The first Reform Bill recognized and widely applied the principle that such political power as is im- plied in electing Members of Parliament belongs by right and ex- pediency to every grown male in this country, limited only by the counter-right of the state to defer such exercise of political power till the citizen may be presumed capable of using it without detriment to the community. It is not pretended that the prin- ciple was formally embodied—that the limit was accurately drawn, or very rigidly applied. But this was the broad principle that was stamped upon the changes proposed by the bill ; this is the principle whence it drew its overwhelming popularity, and excited the determined opposition of those whose privileges were curtailed. Proposed after a struggle of half a century, dis-
cussed and carried amid the highest excitement of passions and the fiercest agitation of conflicting interests, then was not the time to refine or to indulge a minute criticism. " The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill !" was a necessary watchword and battle-cry against the phalanx which corrupt self-interest, honest conservatism, and senseless panic united to array in opposition to it. And so the first Reform Act left—it may be said to have created—great defects, for wider experience and calmer reflection to rectify. It left paltry Parliamentary boroughs for whose privileges no reason could be alleged that would not have retained the old system unbroken. It left Harwich to counterbalance the West Riding, and Caine to neutralize Liver- pool. It swept away a large variety of objectionable popular fran- chises without replacing them by others equally popular and free from these objections. It took no pains, while bestowing the fran- chise on the small shopkeepers in virtue of a ten-pound occupa- tion, to secure the franchise to other classes not occupiers but in every political qualification superior to the former class It allowed an avowed opponent to introduce a clause that has had, and was certain to have, the effect of handing over the county repre- sentation not to the moral influence but the simple dictation and compulsion of the landowners; and committed the blunder of not neutralizing the insidious amendment by giving county votes to occupiers of less than fifty pounds ren tal in villages and unrepresented boroughs. Increasing the power of the nu- merical majority in Parliamentary boroughs of respectable size, and tying up the counties in the titledeeds of the landlords, it left less ground available than before for that large moderate party that seldom constitutes the local majority, but, ranking every- where among its members the thoughtful and cultivated of all classes, contributes a most valuable element to political discussion, and ought to supply the mediating and reflective portion of the House of Commons. The first Reform Bill lost, too, an oppor- tunity, more largely available with the first great extension of popular power than it ever can be hereafter, of securing to the classes who obtain their living by brain-work a share of that power that would at once have guided, moderated, and strengthened real progress. Such an opportunity should have been seized, not so much for doing justice to the increased importance and fresh de- velopment of that class, as for securing valuable members to the House of Commons—members whose value would increase in pro- portion as times were stormier, factions and interests at fiercer grip ; representing broad national rather than narrow party views of public questions—the permanent and thoughtful rather than the momentary and passionate elements of political action. These are a few marked defects of the Reform Act of 1832; some owing to the pressure of opponents, some to the importunity of sup- porters, some to the excitement amid which the bill was passed, more perhaps to the state of political speculation and experience among the legislating classes. One other defect would have accrued had the bill been perfect at its date ; had it exactly hit the limit of political capacity then, it would have needed expan- sion now, or idle must be our frequent boasts of advancing intel- ligence—of the effects of education and cheap literature—of the re- vived energy and efficiency of the clergy—of the intellectual benefits of locomotive facilities—of all the agencies, material, intellectual, and moral, that have been operating for these twenty years upon the condition of our poorer classes. Even apart from these direct and special instruments of improvement, the political discussions of the period, the experience of the lowest enfranchised class, must have prepared the way for an extension of the franchise to the next stratum.
We have briefly indicated the principal points to which, either from deficiencies acknowledged in the Reform Bill at its first enactment, or detected by our experience since, or from fresh needs arising out of an altered condition of things, the attention of poli- ticians has been latterly directed. We need not enumerate in detail the changes bearing upon these points which Lord John Rus- sell proposed on Monday night to adopt. Referring for these to the report of his speech, we have but to express our conviction that each point has been deliberated with honest desire to accomplish what was right and practicable ; that on some of these points Ministers have boldly laid themselves open to that serious charge against an English statesman of adopting the suggestions of reflecting politicians, rather than the watchwords of vehement declaimers, or the stock phrases of British-Constitution orators, or the limited notions of ordinary House of Commons men of business as to the practical. They have even ventured to expose themselves to be called crotchety! In other words, with a generous trust in the capacity of the class below the ten-pound householders for political action, they have combined a modified application of the principle that minorities have a claim to be heard in the House of Commons, and that learned incorporations may be intrusted with representative pri- vileges, with probable good results to the community. They have moreover, while bestowing additional Members on counties, thrown a large infusion of new elements into the county constitu- encies, that will materially modify the power of great landowners to dictate the county representation, while it will leave their legitimate moral influence full play. Coupling the proposals of Monday night with the improvements in the laws relating to bribery and election petitions, proposed last week, and with the attempt to reduce the complicated and oppressive Parliamentary oaths to one simple oath of allegiance, it would be unjust, from our point of view at least, to withhold from Lord Aberdeen's Govern- ment the praise of having faithfully fulfilled in letter and in spirit , the pledge given by most Of the leading members of that Go-
vernment on taking office. In so acting, we believe they have chosen the path of policy and prudence as well as of honesty. Had they availed themselves of the excuse furnished by the state of our foreign relations for not fulfilling their promise, or for modifying the completeness • of their measure, they would have disappointed and alienated their sincerest and most disinterested supporters; and Mr. Disraeli's speech on the Address is proof sufficient—if any but the character of the man were needed—of the handle he and his followers would have made of such timidity: We have no wish that Mr. Benjamin Disraeli should have another opportunity of renewing his youthful feats as tribune of the people, and should have deeply regretted the opening which a contrary course to the one followed by the Government would have afforded for fresh and more startling displays of political leger- demain and rhetorical quackery. Happily, the country has been spared the spectacle. Lord Derby's chivalry will now be employed in the more congenial task of defying instead of gulling the De- mocracy; and we shall hear nothing in the way of opposition more novel than peril to the Church and the landed interest.
And now the question arises, not for Ministers-, but for Reformers in and out of the House, to settle shall the bill be carried? Are we to defer carrying into execution a . large and ably-planned measure of improvement, long demanded and anxiously ex- pected, because the party opposed to such a measure must not be excited .at a time so demanding unanimity of feeling and heartiness of action as the present? A nice distinction has been taken on this point. So long as war only threat. ens we may, it is said, wisely- and safely proceed with the Reform Bill ; but if actual war break out, then we must by no means press the bill. We argued against this conclusion last week by anticipation. As we have not since heard that Lord John Russell is to supersede Admiral Napier in command of the Baltic fleet, our remarks are still applicable. Our leader remains at his post,: and will be at leisure to perform his appointed task. The only point we omitted to discuss was the possible defeat of Minis- ters, and a consequent dissolution of Parliament. But we say, in this ease too, do not anticipate what may never happen—what is extremely unlikely to happen. Wait, we say,- till Ministers are defeated. Let those who oppose the bill take their course, and let Ministers decide what their course is to be when the supposed contingency has arrived. Discussions on both sides will, under such responsibility, be somewhat more practical ; less scope will be given to mere factious feeling, while no hinderance will be presented to honest endeavours to improve the bilL If Ministers be defeated on the second reading, it will be quite time to settle the course to be followed. But when such a chance is contemplated, and made a ground in professedly Liberal journals for not proceeding with a great measure, it is as well to mention certain considerations which seem to render the chance somewhat of the smallest. It is founded on the sup- posed alarm to the landed interest, supplemented by the indigna- tion of the boroughs to be disfranchised, and perhaps by the indirect alarm of the clergy at any presumed increase of the democratic power. Now, for the first, there seems to lurk a fallacy in the supposition, that because the squires could rouse the counties to support Lord Derby in his attempt to reimpose duties on corn, they can be equally successful in a political agitation in which their tenants and the agricultural class generally will not feel any but a general political interest. The long contest between the commercial and agricultural interests may indeed have induced in the latter the habit of calling themselves Derbyites; but we all know the difference between a political question which concerns a person's income, and one which appeals solely to political sym- pathies and opinions. We should be rather surprised if the squires could succeed in persuading the county voters with any- thing like unanimity, that their interests are in any way con- cerned in resisting an enlargement of the county constituencies, or extending the franchise to 61. occupiers in boroughs. The classes proposed for enfranchisement are those whose interests in no way clash with those of farmers. Indeed, they have the common interest, now that the protective system is swept away, of getting their government as cheap, pure, and effective, as they can—of cheapness and abundance of the necessaries and comforts of life—of low poor-rates—of efficient justice— of the abolition of all class privileges. There are many points, on the other hand, on which landlords and tenants would seem to have conflicting interests, not only as regards rent, but more especially with reference to the powers of county magis- trates, and generally to the relations of the village magnate to his inferiors. Nor should we think it at all improbable, that farm- ers generally would be rather glad of an independent voting- power in the counties, which might tend to check somewhat the domineering propensities of the great men. We do not understand that the Game-laws are upon the whole popular with farmers, at least game-preserving is not; and unquestionably tithes and. church-rates are a crying grievance to the agricultural mind. Upon the whole, we see no reason why the squires should very con- fidently rely upon the support of their farmers in any contest they may please to wage against an extension of the county and borough franchise while we do see many points on which a rapprochement between farmers and reformers in general might not be difficult to develop. Then, again, the passions and fears of the clergy told for something in the last Reform contest. We doubt their exciting themselves much about the present bill, unless it be the more hopeful sort, who see in every fresh development of popular Power a means of developing those manly, self-controlling, and thoughtful , virtues, which in making men good citizens go far to nitikd them good Christians. There is a fund of hopeful popular feeling latent in the more ardent of our clergy. They look to the Church of the future as a -church of the people ; and eveu now the most eutspekert among them 'have signalized themselves by importunate -and-, distasteful reminders to land- owners as well as capitalists that there is a reverse side to the maxim that " property capitalists, its rights." • It is not among politically disposed artisans that an enlightened clergyman feels the dreariest hopelessness : the faculties of these people have been awakened, even though it may -be only to oppose what the clergyman- hai to say to them. We -do not think that the clergy could be roused to enthusiasm in a crusade in which W. B. (acquitted -though. he was last week) and Admiralty Stafford would be fliglemen. For these reasons amongst others, we do not feel the alarm at the threatened opposition that some of our Liberal contemporaries seem to': be afflicted with. And our ex- hortation, to Ministers would bei, to press on their bill, war or no war, Derby-DisraelLopposition or amt. The Emperor of Russia is a formidable opponent; no doubt; but he will not be disarmed of his terrors by- giving up the 'Reform. Bill: However, as we said, this is a question not for Ministers to settle, but for Reformers in and out of the. llouae: Ministers have done their pert, and have produced a good measure: what remains before the second reading comes on is, that popular opinion-should express itself unmistake- ably. -If that be • done, not only will Ministers he encouraged to proceed, but the advice so- kindly 'tendered to them to the con- trary will be more urgently directed in hallooing them on': ':
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