SCOTLAND.
THE REFORM MOVEMENT.
Since Mr. Bright's visit his supporters have promoted several meet-
: in Scotland, and Mr. Duncan Miaren has been very busily en- d in pushing the views and designs of his conspicuous brother-in- . In a copy of the Cakdonian Mercury forwarded our attention is • wn to a speech made by Mr. hPLaren last week at Perth. It is an eat for the increase of Scottish Members.
'Taken on population, or on taxation, or on a mean between both, Scot- d is entitled to an increased share of Members. On the two years ending April last—
The taxation of England was £111,742,157 of Scotland 15,365,916
and of Ireland 13,650,000
Ly schoolboy were asked to divide 658 members according to these pro- ms, he would do it in less time than I take to give you the facts. It give to England 522, to Scotland 72, and to Ireland, 64 Members. the population, according to the census of 1851, was as you all England 17,927,609 Scotland 2,888,742 Ireland 6,552,385
If you take population, therefore, England should have 431 Members ; Scot- land 70, and Ireland 1.57. But if you take the mean between taxation and population, England should have 476, Scotland 71, and Ireland ill. Scot- land has only 53, leaving a blank of 18 to be filled up. Ireland has 105, leaving 6 to be added if the matter is to be settled on this basis. There are towns in Scotland, of which Perth is an instance, to which great injustice is done as compared with the measure now meted out to towns in England. Perth, from the Parliamentary returns, has a taxable income under schedules A and D of 203,9681. per annum. The two towns nearest to it in popula- tion are Kilkenny and Gateshead. These two have only 204,0001. of taxable rental ; so that Perth, with its One Member, pays as much as the two. The sum for Dundee amounts to 955,0001. for the Income-tax under the two schedules—rent of houses, Itc. and income from trades, &-c. Aberdeen has a taxable income of 944,000/. I have looked through the whole towns in England, and there are not two of them of the same popula- tion in which the taxable income is so high as in Aberdeen and Dundee. Why, then, should Aberdeen and Dundee have only one member, while towns in England, with far less population and property. should have more. The SaMO remark applies to Arbroath, with a taxable income of 187,0001, while the two towns next it in population, Pembroke and Denbigh, only reach 161,0001., and have Members each. Montrose reaches 172,000/. while Berwick-on-Tweed and Clonmel, the nearest in population have, together,
a smaller taxable rental and three Members. Take the small town of Peter- head, which our English friends treat as a little fishing village, it has a tax- able rental of 96,3801. • while Tiunworth, for which the late Premier sat, has a taxable rental of only 34,3741., and a population of 8655—and has two Members. The same disparity exists all round this coast. Elgin has a higher taxable rental than Melton, which has two Members. Banff is within 3000 of the county town of Buckingham, which sends two Members to Par- liament. Inverness has a greater taxable rental than Fahnouth, of the same population ; and fifty-two towns in England return two Members each, with smaller populations than the town of Inverness. Leith has a popula- tion of thirty thousand odds, and 809,0001. of taxable rental ; while the three towns of Bury, Wigan, and Waterford, each of the same population, have only a taxable rental of 714,0001. put together. Bradford, in York- shire to which Lord John Russell proposed to give a third Member, has 103,000 of population, and a taxable rental of 888,0001., very little above Leith, which has but one Member, and has other two burghs joined with it in electing him." Mr. Moncrieff has paid another visit to his constituents at Leith, in order that he might explain his views to the non-electors. This he did in a long and very clear speech. His great object was to make more plain what he had stated at the previous meeting, that he had been a member of a Government which had proposed a very liberal reform bill nearly seven years ago. "I felt that as regards Scotland, considering the measure introduced under Lord John Russell's Government, and of which I was the hand, that we really had little occasion to learn political opinion on this question on the other aide of the Tweed—that we had been beforehand with them—that in truth if they had followed when Lord John Russell gave the signal in 1852 we might have had much less trouble on the question—much less agi- tation at the present day. And, gentlemen, this bill introduced in 1852 was a bill introduced for the purpose of lowering the franchise, both in the counties and burghs. In counties we proposed to reduce the franchise to 201., and by the subsequent bill introduced in 1854 we proposed to reduce the property and occupancy franchise, I should say, to 101. In regard to property franchise, we proposed in 1852 to reduce it to 51., and that, I think, would have been a very material and very available gain and accession to property constituencies. At the same time it is right to explain, as I ex- plained the other day, that my subsequent study of this question has led me to be of opinion very clearly that it is not so much property qualifi- cation as occupancy qualification of counties that we are to look to for the most available accession to the constituencies. In regard to the towns, in 1852 we proposed a 51. occupancy franchise. I cannot say we had any great encouragement to persevere in that proposi- tion, and, in particular, I do not remember that when Lord John Russell introduced his bill in 1852, we received from those who are now very zeal- ous reformers any very great amount of encouragement or support, or that their proposition, which, I suspect, is about as liberal as any that have hitherto been, or are likely to be made, met with the support and encou- ragement to which it was entitled. We are told that there is now to be a rating franchise. I own I don't quite understand what a rating franchise is — or is to be—but I know this, that in 1852 we were very anxious to find some mode by which, upon a valuation already in existence, the franchise might be determined, in order, if possible, to avoid the necessity of parties giving in claims and proving the value of their subjects, and in order, if we could, to assimilate the mode of registration to that which had been adopted in England, where overseers for the poor both in county and burgh made out the lists of voters. Well, at that time, gentlemen, we considered very carefully whether the poor-rate as then and now levied could be made available for that purpose. Gentlemen, it was found im- possible to do so—because, so far from being like the English poor- rate—where unluckily they have had an able-bodied poor-law for Many years, which I trust is not one of the importations from Scotland into England. I say it was found impossible, because, in the first place, the English poor-rate was universal, in Scotland it was only parti'
— in England it was imperative, in Scotland it was not imperative ; thi' because in England it was confined to a rate upon real property- -a mi. lands and heritages, while in Scotland it was not so confined, but might levied on personal property. Therefore, in 1852, it was found impossible to adopt the poor-rate—to make it the means of valuing the subjects which were to give the franchise, and it was not proposad at that time to do any- thing of the kind." Mr. Monerieff still holds these views. "it is very plain that an extension of the suffrage is an experiment that at all events may be made with perfect safety. It is impossible to deny that outside the pale of the present, franchise there lies a vast amount of intelligence quite as able to wield that political weapon as those in whose hands it if placed at present. About this I can have no doubt at all ; and I go fur- ther, because I say that outside the pale of the present franchise there is a elm; which, for intelligence and independence also, is peculiarly well fitted to wield it. I say the class—the upper class of our working people—the artisans—especially the skilled artisans—all of whom are persons of as mud mental cultivation certainly, and often more, than those who nomit " now are within this magic circle of the franchise."
Mr. Monerieff strongly urged his hearers to educate themselves, describing the present as a clumsy mode of ascertaining who shoule
seas the franchise, pointed to the time when the possession of inf.( tion and intelligence testified in a more direct way, may admit the eos- sessor to the franchise. He was opposed to the ballot, regarding it as entirely chimerical to endeavour, by a mechanical device, to ,.make men honest and do their duty.
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