THE COUNTY FRANCHISE AND THE QUESTION OF
TIME IT is quite evident that, for the hour, political opinion in England is simply stagnant. Last year Mr. Trevelyan's Bill for extending household franchise to the Counties came on on the 13th of May, and there voted for it 173 Members, and against it, 287. This year it did not come on till the 7th of July, and there voted for it 166 Members, and against it, 268. In other words, the numbers fell off on both sides,—just what might be expected in relation to a division which occurred nearly two months later. The Liberal party lost seven votes, and the Conservatives nineteen,—but as a rule, the party of action is apt to be somewhat more tenacious than the party of resistance, particularly when it is perfectly well known that the resistance will in any case be triumphant. As compared, then, with last year, public opinion on the ques- tion of admitting the agricultural labourers to the franchise is precisely where it was, or if there has been a change, it is that the languor with which this, like all other political questions, is regarded, has somewhat increased. Under such circum- stances, it is not surprising that the hinge of the debate on Wednesday in the House of Commons, was the question of time. Very few speakers denied that the household franchise, which the artisans even in the smallest Parliamentary boroughs possess, must within a few years be given to the county labourers. But almost all those who objected to the Bill asked for time ; first, to educate the labourers, and next, to settle the country's mind, as it were, after its last great con- stitutional experiment. Mr. Salt's argument, indeed, went somewhat further. He suggested—perhaps truly—that the House had been already lowered in tone in consequence of Mr. Disraeli's Reform Act ; and he insisted that as this Bill could hardly be accepted without introducing further changes, especially the redistribution of seats, equal electoral districts, triennial Parliaments, and the payment of Members, it must be indefinitely delayed. Perhaps the last two threats may be fairly regarded as mere unreal political bogies, used by Mr. Salt to alarm timid politicians. Certainly, household suffrage has as yet in no degree undermined the sensitiveness of the British elec- tor's pocket, who is just as much alive to the importance of securing gratuitous service as he ever was. Mr. Fawcett has in vain attempted to popularise his very reasonable wish to get the expenses of elections defrayed by a rate on the persons for whose benefit they occur. No proposal at present appears to be more unpopular, and while it remains so, we need hardly fear a movement for the payment of Members. And as for triennial Parliaments, Dr. Kenealy has completely failed to elicit the least spark of enthusiasm for that unnecessary and mischievous proposal. But no doubt there is more reality in Mr. Salt's other two threats. Remove the existing anomaly which excludes the working-man on one side of a borough- boundary from the franchise while it admits one of precisely the same calibre on the other side, and you will inevitably increase the other anomaly, which even now is conspicuous enough, of giving in one part of the country a representative to a constituency of 640 registered electors, and in another part one representative and no more to 10,000 or 15,000 registered electors. No one can deny that this reform of Mr. Trevelyan's, while getting rid of one grievance, will bring another grievance into even greater prominence than it assumes at present, simply because it will add to all the county constituencies, and make the small borough constituencies, which are islands of political privilege already, relatively even more insignificant than they now are, though their monopoly of privilege will not be cur- tailed. This is the objection on which Lord Hartington and the Times lay so much weight. They say it is unstatesman- like and shortsighted to urge the enfranchisement of the county labourer, without sketching out the principles of a further measure for the redistribution of seats.
Now, it is extremely important, in the public interest and as a question of time, to bring the county labourer with- in the limits of the representative Constitution, but it is
not very important,—or if it is, it is so for quite other reasons, for reasons affecting more the opportunities of states-
men than the political condition of the public mind,—to combine the admission of the county labourer within the limits of the representative Constitution with a considerable measure of redistribution of seats, and with such alterations in the mode of voting as should accompany any such redistribution. It seems to us to be a sufficient answer to Lord Hartington and to the Times to say We admit that to give household suffrage to the counties would exaggerate some existing anoma- lies, while it would remove one ; but we do not admit that the anomalies which it would exaggerate would be anomalies press- ing very urgently for removal, while wo do think that the anomaly it would remedy, is an anomaly pressing very urgently for removal. If, however, the Government thinks differently, we are quite willing to accept their view, and give the best consideration to any scheme they may present ; but that is a matter for their responsibility, not for ours. What we cannot agree to do is to leave the agricultural labourer longer quite without political recognition, at a time when his interests are the main subject of many of the most important discussions upon which Parliament enters.' That seems to us to be very strong ground. And Mr. Forster and Mr. Trevelyan took that ground in their powerful speeches. Mr. Forster said with irresistible force that it is in some respects even more unsatis- factory for the agricultural labourer that his fitness for the franchise should be acknowledged,—as it now is even by Mr_ Disraeli and the leading Conservatives,—without anything being done to give effect to this recognition, than it would be to have kept him out on the ground that the Constitution would be endangered by admtting him. To put off a great class with a mere excuse, and that at the very time when as Mr. Trevelyan showed, interests affecting its members most closely are daily under discussion, is really treating them with something like cynical neglect. Parliament dis- cusses questions affecting the education of the labourers one day, questions affecting their houses another day, questions affecting their relations with their employers a third day, and yet at none of these discussions is anybody present who can even affect to speak for them with the authority of a mem- ber returned by their votes. Only a few nights ago, the Member for Cambridgeshire protested against compulsory education in the name of the agricultural labourers, where- upon the leaders of the Agricultural Union protested loudly • against that protest, and affirmed that had they had any power in Parliament, their spokesman would have declared himself peremptorily in favour of compulsion. Again, Mr. Salt called the legislative measures of the present Session suet-pudding legis- lation. And the description is not a bad one. But certainly the agricultural labourers need such suet-pudding more than any class in the country, and yet all the suet-pudding goes to the artisans, and none to the rural labourers. Is it decent to ad- mit that on all these matters the class is as fit to speak for itself as any other class, and yet to go on keeping its members out of the Constitution simply, as Mr. Forster says, because it is " inconvenient " to admit them now, and not a matter of much moment whether it be now or then ? And why is it " incon- venient" now ? Chiefly, no doubt, because the Members for the small boroughs dread anything which shall bring the question of redistribution nearer, and make it seem to be re- quired by "the logic of events." Yet, no doubt the longer this concession to the agricultural labourers is deferred, the more, as Mr. Forster said, will be needed in the way of con- cession, and the more inevitable it will be that a large measure of redistribution shall accompany that concession when it comes. If the agricultural labourer were to be admitted at once, redistribution might be nevertheless deferred, or if ac- corded, might be accorded in a very moderate form. But the longer the payment of the acknowledged debt is delayed, the more will the interest on it accumulate. And, as Mr. Forster remarked, to discuss the Church questions which are daily becoming more urgent, without any representative of the agricultural labourer in the House, is to exclude them from a voice in a matter which, both as Churchmen and as Dissenters, touches their interests more closely than the interests of any other great class in the nation.
And the more otherwise complete our representative system grows, the more invidious is the one remaining class-exclusion, and the more keenly it is felt. While the artisans and many small shopkeepers were also excluded, the rural labourers felt that they were at least treated like those nearest to them in the social scale. Now they find everybody talking of the rights of the artisan ; they find Mr. Cross introducing Bills to relieve him and his Unions from unjust restrictions ; they see the condition of the artisan's dwelling made the subject of
grave deliberation ; they hear much of his feelings in re- lation to education ; and on all these subjects they are
conscious of wishes of their own to which no attention is paid, because these wishes can get no authorised expression. Of course their sense of alienation is far greater than it was before those nearest to them in the social scale received the gift of electoral power.
As regards the plea that delay will secure for the class of agricul- tural labourers time for education, we cannot say that it has for us any'appreciable force. After all that has been already done in the direction of lowering the suffrage, it is impossible to maintain that a certain small increase in the number of those younger electors who would be able to read, write, and cypher, would make any appreciable difference in their political intelligence. As far as purely intellectual education goes, little would be effected without demanding a very long delay,—a delay of a couple of generations,—and in the meantime, the feelings of the class would be excited against the Constitution from the privileges of which they were thus excluded. The only educational test which it is of much importance to insist upon, after what has been done in the Boroughs, is the test of political activity and intelligence. Many a man who signs a petition only with his mask, is the superior in shrewdness, in equanimity, in a cool appreciation of what his class-needs are, of others who can both read and write with tolerable fluency. Now the agricultural labourers seem to us to have shown by their conduct during the long and serious struggles of the last four years, that they have attained a fair average of activity and sobriety of intelligence in relation to the conduct of affairs. What the smaller shopkeepers were twenty or thirty years ago, and many of the artisans were ten or five years ago, that the agricultural labourers may be said to be now, at least as regards the temper and intelligence with which they manage their conflicts with their employers. What we have to con- sider is, whether we will make them loyal electors by giving them the vote, or disloyal non-electors by withholding it from them after we have given it to others who fulfil no more elabo- rate conditions of political capacity than they do. We believe that Lord Hartington and Mr. Lowe have come to a very un- fortunate decision on this matter ; and we think the Liberal party will feel before long the keenest regret that on this question it has not followed with something like unanimity the lead of Mr. Forster.
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