In replying to Mr. Walpole Mr. Goschen made one of
the most acute of the Government speeches. It was full of points, too rapidly made and too little elaborated to take their proper Parliamentary effect. His best argument told really powerfully against those who maintain that, with 25 per cent. of the borough votes already, the working man can easily get enough representation under the exist- ing 101. franchise. He pointed out how irregularly these votes are distributed, 44,000 out ef the whole 108,000 being absorbed in the metropolitan boroughs, seventeen seaport towns absorbing 21,000 more, Manchester, 6,000, and the remaining 87,000 being distri- bated over 175 seats, and consequently of course giving only an infinitesimal influence in the actual representation. Of course there.. presentation of this class depends not on how many votes they give which produce no influence, but on how many members they can return. On this head Mr. Gosehen was unanswerable, but his argument for the special Reform Bill of the Government was necessarily weak. No ability can put life into a dead body, and Mr. Goschen, though he tried hard to think a principle into the Bill, only succeeded in showing how little there was that an in- genious mind could say for it.
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