THE CONSTITUENCIES OF SCOTLAND.

SIR JAMES GRAHAM seems to have gained nothing by his splutter about the mode of sending the writ to Glasgow, but an opportu- nity of displaying the inherent meanness and spitefulness of his nature. The public attention, however, has not been directed so much as it ought to have been to the anomaly which rendered the despatch, that the spiteful Sir JAMES com- plained of, necessary. There are two terms in the year at which the renters of houses in the Scottish towns are in the habit of entering upon and giving up possession—Martin- mas and Whitsuntide. The Registration Courts are bold only once in every year—at the end of July and beginning of August. The consequence is, that every voter in a Scottish burgh upon an occupancy qualification, if he change his residence at NV hitsuntide, is disqualified for nearly three months, if at Martinmas for eight. Hence, a very considerable proportion of the qualified voters in every Scottish burgh is annually disfranchised for several months. This is grossly unjust, as well as politically inexpedient : it may enable an anti-nanal faction to carry an election at a time when great numbers of voters are unable to exercise their electoral rights. We hear the Conservatives insolently asserting at this moment that they have been ill-used because they have not been allowed to play such a trick in Glasgow. Not a (lay should pass before a bill is introduced to secure the voters in Scottish burghs against this annual suspension of their franchise. Plain JOHN CAMPBELL, surely the burgesses of one town at least may require this act of common justice at your hands. Has Whig-ridden, place-loving Edinburgh, no sympathy with the other town coustituenciea? The registered voters in Scotland are not so numerous as to render this periodical diminution of their amount a matter of no consequence. According to the returns of registration, there are 76,23i voters in Scotland. This, however, is an egregious over- statement. Glasgow is assumed to have 8,733 voters ; whereas, the roll having never been properly revised, there must be de- ducted, for double entries, deaths, and removals, upwards of 2,000. There were not when the election took place last week 6,700 quali- fied voters in Glasgow. The same error must be allowed for in the counties. For example, the constituency of Peeblesshire is given as 690: the actual number of persons legally qualified to vote is 5,576. We must deduct 20 per cent. in order to obtain the effective constituency of Scotland ; which is 57,178. According to this view, Scotland returning 53 Members to the House of Commons, each Scottish Member ought to have an average con- stituency of 1,000. This is little enough. The narrower the constituency, the greater scope for undue influence ; and 1,000 is barely within the limits of what may by possibility be an inde- pendent constituency. The truth is, however, that of the fifty-one electoral districts in Scotland, only twenty-nine have a constitu- ency of 1,000 or upwards. Of these, seven are " districts of burghs," composed of four or five smaller constituencies, having no natural connexion with each other, and each exposed to its own peculiar sinister influences. Some of these fractions of con- stituencies contain as few as 24 or even 13 voters. The constitu- encies under 1,000 are in some instances ludicrously narrow. Ac- cording to the returns, (which are in every case over-stated,) Ork- ney has 476 voters, Bute 345, Caithness 304, and Sutherland 128. It is folly to look for independence in constituencies like these. Sutherland, with its 128 voters, is almost exclusively the property of the Dutchess of SUTHERLAND, (who has given the present Re- presentative notice to quit at next eleciion, to make way fur some noble relation); and how far her Giace's right of property is oc. casionally stretched, may be inferred from a passage in the Second Report of the Inspectors of Prisons— "Smuggling and poaching were stopped chiefly by its being,matle a stipula. tion in all leases of land granted by the Duke of Sutherland, that the lens should be cancelled if the tenant Wil4 couvictcd of either of these offences: and as this estate (now held by the Dutches, of Sutherland) includes the greatest part of the county, such an ejectment is equivalent to banishment. The same power of removal is exercised over tenants at will for gross misconduct of any kind."

It is in the small burghs included in electoral districts, and in the small counties, (but particularly in the latter,) that the ficti- tious vote system has been acted upon. In Cupar, the Tory gentry resident within seven miles have of late been busily Intr. chasing each enough of property to qualify them to vote in that burgh. In the counties, liferents to the exact amount necessary to qualify, have been purchased in considerable quantities, at first by the Tories, latterly by both parties. Many of these transac- tions (upon which the purchasers have been registered) are pal- pably illusory—no money being ever paid, and no real interest in the estate transferred to the nominal purchaser. The exteut to which these transactions have been carried cannot be known: the investigations of the Fictitious Vote Committee (published only in part) are restricted to a few counties. Enough, however, has been revealed to show that even our restricted estimate of the- Scottish constituency ought to be further reduced, by making altos ance fir a number of persons who have acquired votes in three or four counties, and in two or three burghs, to enable them to swell the forces of the faction to which they belong.

Let us exemplify this position. The five Northern county con-- stituencies of Scotland are Orkney and Shetland ......... 476

Caithness 304

Sutherland 128

Ross and Cromarty 652

Inverness 753

We take these numbers from the published registries; which, as we have remarked above, give an exaggerated number of voters; but, for illustration, the above will serve our purpose. In the four mainland counties, the constituencies are almost exclu- sively lairds and farmers. The lairds are divided very unequally into Whig and Tory ; interest leading the majority of a class who have been unable to abandon the expensive habits contracted during the times of high war prices, in these days of short-falling rentals and pressing mortgages, to favour the old system of quar- tering the gentry on the public purse. The tenants hold their farms at rack-rents. This is proved by the fact that a termly re- mission of five, or even more per cent. of their nominal rent, is as regular an occurrence as rent-day. The landlords, leaning on the broken reed of the Corn-laws, keep up their tents although unable to extort them in full, in hope that prices may yet rise. The consequence of such an arrangement is, that the position of every tenant is precarious : he is at the mercy of a landlord, rendered grasping, if not by nature, by the exigency of his own finances. In the small constituencies we have named, the tenant votes as the laird bids him. In Orkney and Shetland, the local jealousies of two widely-separated and differently-circumstanced communi- ties, produce the same near equality of parties that subservience to the lords of the soil effects on the mainland. In all these counties, parties are so nearly balanced that a very few votes one way or the other are sufficient to turn the scale. The temptation to confer qualifications, nominal or real, upon a few stanch partisans, has proved irresistible. We intimated, before the Ross-shire election came on, that that county was lost to the Liberals; and the ground upon which we hazarded that assertion was our knowledge that HORATIO Ross and others had been busy manufacturing votes there. The state of the poll has confirmed our prediction.

There voted on the Liberal side— In 1835

231

In 1837 196 Decrease 35

Again, there voted for the Tory candidate— In 1835

202 In 1837 307 Increase 105

Lastly, there voted in all—

In 1835 433 In 1837

503

Total increase 70

Give back to the Liberals their loss of 35, and deduct it from the 105 which the Tories have gained, and there remain the whole of the 70 additional voters brought to the poll for the first time on this last occasion. What has happened in Ross-shire will happen in Caithness. As the roll at present stands, there is a majority for Mr. TRAILL ; but the new allies of Sir Geoeoz Sirec Lisle have as many fabricated votes ready for the registra- tion as will secure the county to the renegade. Inverness-shire has been already lost, and will not be regained. And as for Sutherland, if no fictitious votea are made there, it is because the noble proprietor of the electors finds a small herd more easily managed than a great one. If Orkney and Shetland are regained by the Liberals, it will be owing to an alliance between Lord DUNDAS and the Dissentera.

These Northern counties are in fact so many packed burghs in the hands of a few great proprietors. Not only are the new con- stituencies scarcely more numerous and little more liberal than than the old—there is no public opinion, except in Orkney and the burghs, to operate upon them from without. Take Ross- shire for an example. In that part of the Second Report of the Inspectors of Prisons which relates to Scotland, we are told-

., A great many of the adult population are unable to read easily, or indeed to read in any way. On the Western side of the county, it is difficult to find a single person forty years old (of course excepting the richer classes) who is able to read." The Abstract of the Education Returra for Scotland in IS34, amply bears out this statement. In the parish of Alness, con- taining 1,437 inhabitants, the Reverend Mr. FLYTER reports that there are upwards of 260 adults who cannot read. In Shieldag, (" partly in Applecross,") the Reverend Mr. COLIN MACKENZIE states, that the parish " contains 2,231 persons of whom 1,528 above six years of age can neither read nor write English or Gaelic." In Barvas, (inhabitants 1,697,) the Reverend WILLIAM MAC RAE states, "There are 390 persons, above fifteen years of age, who aro unable to read." The parish of Cross contains 1314 inhabitants: of these, " there are not in all the parish two score, above twenty years of age, who can read or write English." In Ullapool, (inhabitants 2,500,) the "great bulk of the population of this parish, above fifteen or twenty years of age, are unable to read." In Lochs—" In the year 1820, only one-fiftieth part of the whole population could read; and at the present time, the ma- jority of those above five-and-twenty years of age are unable to do so." The few isolated voters weltering in this sea of ignorance, can catch no healthy public spirit from its influence. We cannot better illustrate the utter non-existence of political opinion in these counties, than by mentioning a circumstance communicated to us some years ago by an intelligent friend. He made an excursion to the lakes of Ross shire and Sutherland, at the time when the fer- ment about the Reform Bill was at its height, and was not a little surprised to find that the natives of these vallies bad never heard of the Reform Bill, and could with difficulty be brought to com- prehend its nature. In one district he was told, that three years before there had been a schoolmaster there, who sometimes had a stray newspaper sent to him; but that, since he left the valley, such a plicenomenon had not been seen. The natives, our friend discovered upon nearer investigation, had something like politics among them—but it was the politics of a century ago. They cor- dially hated the sheep-farmers, and the clergy, (fin. associating with (hem) anti looked for deliverance not to a Reform Bill, but to the return of the STUARTS!

What lessons of tolerance, mutual forbearance, and respect for the rights of others, such of them as listen to the spiritual guides appointed by the State are likely to learn, may be inferred from the following choice morsels selected from the return made to the Education Commissioners by a pastor in the county of Ross- " Nearly one half of the inhabitants are Dissenters ; who have a school of their own, and consequently do not send their children to the parish-school. It is impossible to give accurate answers to all the queries, as the minister never interferes wills the Dissenters' school. Education is at a low ebb in the parish, owing partly to the the poverty of the people, but chiefly to dissent!"

The intellectual advantages to be derived from pastoral super- intendence may be guessed at from the following selections from a return by a Caithness clergy man-

" Bower parish is landward, but flare is an appearance of ancient villages by cross roads. • • By a letter from the Sheriff Substitute, it seems twelve years is accounted the age for catechizing ! By the Homan law, and that of Scotland, females are considered marriageable at twelve. and males at fourteen years of age; so they need religious instruction earlier! Larger church accommodation for parents might increase their seal fur instructing their children at home, improve the contributions for the poor, and lower parish assessments

Need we say more to prove that these remote counties, with their small constituencies, and the gross ignorance of their popu- lation, are only lit to swamp the Reform interest in Scotland, by returning unworthy Representatives to Parliament? It is in vain that Glasgow and other large and intelligent communities do their duty, if these fac-similes of the old rotten burghs send a majority to counteract them.

The nuisance is not confined to the North : there arc consti- tuencies equally objectionable in the South. The constitu- ency of Peebles amounts at present to 576. Of these, 358 are residents, and 218 non-residents. The general mode of con- stituting fictitious qualifications is by granting life.rents for the necessary amount. Among the resident electors of Peebles- shire there are 108 proprietors and 28 life-renters: among the non-resident, there are 31 proprietors and 132 life-renters. In the neighbouring county of Selkirk, the sriginal number of voters enrolled was 280 : these were all bond fide qualifications. The number has since been swelled to upwards of five hundred: and with scarcely a single exception the additions consist entirely of property qualifications acquired for the sake of the vote on down- right illusory qualifications. In this manner, a herd of confiden- tial law agents and even menial servants have been put upon the roll. One case is upon record of a property being purchased by the sitting Member, upon which no fewer than 56 of his personal friends have been enrolled as voters, in the character of joint proprietors. The same system has been acted upon in the counties of Roxburgh, Haddington, Edinburgh, Linlith-

gow, it Stirling. The consequence is, that in these coun- ties t is not the legally-qualified electors who return the Member : the power of returning him is scrambled tor by two parties, consisting of a few great landowners and their creatures. The county of Bute, in the South, is the counterpart of the county of Sutherland in the North ; the constituency amounting to no more than 345, of whom 270 are the tenants and very humble servants of the Marquis of BUTE.

It is evident, that not only is the electoral body of Scotland too limited in numbers to furnish constituencies for fifty-three Mem- bers sufficiently numerous to afford reasonable expectations that they will be able to maintain their independence, but the electors are so distributed as to render the chances infinitely small. Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen, Perthshire, Fifeshire, Ayrshire, and one or two other electoral districts, have constituencies large enough to insure something like independence; but the remainder are either so small, or are so subdivided, (as in the case of the burghs,) that they afford an excellent field for all kinds of ma- noeuvering and chicane. By dint of creating fictitious votes, intimidating tenants, &c. nine counties have been transferred from the Whigs to the Tories since the first general election, and mere are on the eve of being lost. The burghs have hitherto stood firm; but how long they may be able to resist the deleterious effects of subdivision into districts, and that arrangement which deprives about a sixth part of the electors in every burgh in Scot- land of the elective franchise for a quarter of every year, is proble- matical. Unless some preventive measure be speedily adopted, Scotland will soon be reorganized into a rotten system as manage- able as that which used to send forty-five slaves of the Treasury bench to every Parliament ; and more demoralizing, inasmuch as its instruments will be diffused through more classes of society. While more than two-thirds of the population in Scotland are dependent on manufactures for subsistence, more than two-thirds of the representation is in the hands of the landowners.

It is easier to point out the ailment than the remedy. Some means, however, are obvious; of which one may be, the others as- suredly have no chance of being, adopted by the timid politicians whose hour of ascendancy now is. The one is a remedy for the annual disfranchisement of so many good voters within burgh. The others are—first, a redistribution of the electoral districts; second, an extensior of she suffrage so as to increase the number of voters ;* third, C . presupposes a similar stop with regard to the Representatives of England and Ireland,) a ditninution of the number of Members returned. Unless these remedial measures be adopted soon, we shall see the patriotism and intelligence of Scotland swamped by its ignorance and sycophancy.

• At preseut the proportion or voters is something l,ss than ono mlult ma!,' in siz,