MR. BRIGHT AT LEEDS.
MR. BRIGHT magi, we think, have felt something like amusement, when he found himself actually pleading for moderation against more thorough-going Radicals, and declaring himself unable to accept in any way even the term " Radical " as a description of his own political convictions; We had always supposed that a Radical only means a Liberal who wishes to eradicate, and not merely to lop or trim, the evils with which he is asked to deal ; and in that sense we had always heartily accepted for ourselves the epithet " radical," and had even excused our want of sympathy with such
expedients as the Ballot, for instance, on the ground that the Ballot affords a mere palliation of an evil, the only Radical cure for which is political courage and political principle. But be the term "Radical " good or bad, it must have been with some amusement that Mr. Bright found himself obliged to discriminate his views from those of the Ultras of his party, on the ground that he wishes for moderation, while they wish for something which he regards as extreme. During the last Reform agitation, Mr. Bright was spoken of as the one fire- brand who desired to set the working-class against the educated class ; whereas he now appears to think that he is looked upon as retrograde and even benighted in his views, by those who claim for themselves the Radical name. This is a very curious instance of the whirligig of time bringing about its revenges, Nevertheless, we are not surprised to find Mr. Bright looking with a certain wonder, and perhaps even shrinking, at some of the ultra-Liberal proposals of his time, and desoribing his own feel- ing as comparatively Conservative in relation to these proposals. It is-quite true that what got him the reputation of being an extreme politician was much more the power and passion with -which he urged his own views, than the special character of those views ; it was the scorn which he poured on his Tory opponents, not the position which he took up, that gave people
.their 'impression of his political dangerousness and his revolu- tionary ardour. He was full of wrath at those who opposed 'him, and full of contempt for their fears ; but on the positive -side of his creed he was never disposed to play with fire at 'all, rather to restrains anxiously all those who showed any such disposition. People inferred, from the passion with which he pleaded what he thought the cause of justice, that he would 'sweep away much more than he ever desired to sweep 'away. But in reality, he never wished to sweep away more than the resistance which he encountered. There has been. a real Conservatism in all the remedies for popular evils which he has advocated,—a healthy disposition to get rid of grievances without needlessly trampling on the associations of the past. His proposal to abolish the compulsory Church-rate, but to leave the form of a Church-rate untouched for all who like to pay a voluntary Church-rate, was a good example of this. And a still betterone is the proposal with which he concluded his Leeds speech,—namely, to let the House of Lords reject a measure once, but not to let it reject the same measure when sent up again from the House of Commons. There is a good deal of difficulty, we think, about that solution of the matter, both on account of its cumbrousness, and on account of its tendency to lower the self-respect and the intellectual calibre of the House of Lords. But no one can deny that it is of the nature of a Conservative remedy, inasmuch as it aims at leaving our poli- tical institutions without any superficial alteration, and keeping their external appearance at least just what they are. The same Conservatism, we think, appears in Mr. Bright's attack on the principle of Minority representation. We entirely agree with him that the mode in which that principle has been applied to the representation of our great towns is extremely in- convenient ; and further, that there is real injustice in insulated applications of experiments of this kind, the effect of which is to give a more accurate representation of the particular con- dition of opinion in the places to which it is applied, but to distort more seriously than ever the expression of the opinion of the country at large. Of course, if you give the party which is in the minority in Liverpool and Manchester a voice in Parliament, though you thereby give a truer idea of the condition of opinion in Liverpool and Manchester, you give a much falser idea of the condition of opinion in the country at large, because the party which is in the majority in large places is often in the minority in small places, but yet is not in those places accorded any voice at all. Make as accurate a picture as you can of the political wishes of one or two spots on the surface of a country, and at the same time a very rough, inaccurate picture of the vast remainder, and you will find, in all probability, that the accuracy of the repre- sentation of the opinions of these few spots has rendered the picture of the whole much less accurate, instead of more so. If you represent both majority and minority in one place, but only the majority in twenty other places, it is almost sure to turn out that by so greatly diminishing the political influence of the majority in the first place, you have also diminished its just and total influence in the country at large. For the chances certainly are that the views which command a great majority in the large cities will be very prevalent also in the twenty smaller constituencies, though they are ac- corded no voice there at all. If you adopt a rough system of representation, you should adopt it uniformly ; if you adopt an accurate system, you should adopt it uniformly. By being rough here and accurate there, you do much more injustice to the total result than you would by keeping to the name principle everywhere. We, therefore, agree with Mr. Bright that the present mode of representing a minority ought either to disappear, or to be universally applied ; and as, from its inconvenience and the bad effect it has at by-elec- tions, it certainly cannot be universally applied, it ought to disappear. None the less, we maintain that the object of those who first suggested the clause was a strictly and properly democratic object,—namely, to get a truer representation of actual opinion, and not a less true one. We believe that the same result might be obtained by a scheme which has, we believe, the sanction of Mr. Bright, as it had of Mr. Cobden,—namely, the subdivision of constituencies into wards returning but one Member each, so that the acci- dents of the distribution of opinion may, as far as possible, be neutralised by the number of the areas in which that opinion is consulted. By that means it is quite certain that the minority of one constituency will be the majority of another quite often enough to get its voice adequately heard,—at least, if it repre- sents an opinion of sufficient reasonableness, earnestness, and force to convince a considerable number of sane and intelli- gent men. But we do hope, earnestly hope, that if in the next Reform Bill, Mr. Bright's advice is followed as to the discontinuance of the existing minority principle, its place will be taken by the adoption of his other sugges- tion,—that there should be a great subdivision of the) larger constituencies into wards returning only one Member; each. Without that safeguard, we might very easily find that the unrepresented minorities of a great portion of the kingdom were in possession of more general intelligence, more honest conviction, and more political shrewdness, than the represented majorities, which had it easily in their power to overbear all opposition.
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