Mr. Bright, in the long evening speech in which he
reviewed the conversion of the nation to his own creed, illustrated with great power the distorting effect of the minority representation, in the experimental form in which it is at present embodied, on the representation of national convictions. He referred to the case of Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, and Birmingham, all of which have the minority representation, and pointed out that their population is greater by 80,000 than the collective popula- tion of 142 boroughs which return 176 Members to Parliament. And then he went on :—" The House of Commons had given three seats to each of the big towns, and the House of Lords said, ' No, we will invent a plan which will not only not give them three, but which will deprive them of the influence of two., So they passed the Minority Clause. When an election occurs, two Members are returned in each of the large cities by which- ever party happens to be in the majority, and one Member for each by the minority, making a total of eight against four. Let us now turn to the House of Commons after a great debate and during a critical division, in which an adverse vote must not only change the Government, but must also, in the eye of all the world, change both the home and foreign policy of this country. In such a close division as we had on the passing of the Reform Bill in 1866, or on the Affirmation Bill, or on Irish University Education, and other measures within my recollec- tion, the actual result of a great contested election in these four important boroughs, with nearly two millions of population, is jest this, that, whilst other 142 boroughs return 176 Members, they, in effect, return only four Members ; that is really all the influence they would have in a great division. Now, I ask you, is not that an astounding fact?" That is unanswerable. Only Mr. Bright made the scandal worse than it actually is. At the present moment, these four great towns are represented by nine Liberals and only throe Conservatives, the majority having carried all their Members in Glasgow and Birmingham.
