THE FRANCHISE BILL AND THE LORDS.
THE Franchise Bill is gone to the Lords, having been read a third time on Thursday without a division ; and now the great question for the country is what the Lords will do with it. We all know what Lord Salisbury wishes and intends the Lords to do with it ; and nothing strikes us as less creditable to the Conservatives in the House of Commons than that they should try to lash themselves into a frenzy because the Prime Minister, having received fair notice from Lord Salisbury him- self, and from those Members of the House of Commons who most deeply sympathise with Lord Salisbury, as to the fate intended for the Franchise Bill, took grave notice of the ostentatious publication of that intention in his last speech on the Bill in the House of Commons. As a statesman desir- ous to do his duty, Mr. Gladstone had no choice in the matter. Lord Salisbury has published to all the world that he does not regard the Dissolution of 1880 as having elicited any such authoritative declaration from the constituencies on the subject of this Bill as would in the least bind the House of Lords, and that to compel an appeal to the country is the first duty of the Tories. A member of the last Conservative Government, speak- ing with the full knowledge of all his chief had been doing, declared in the House of Commons that he regarded the Bill as dead as a door-nail. If this be not a warning to the head of the Government of the deliberate intention of the Conservative party, no such warning can be given. If Mr. Gladstone had permitted the Bill to go up to the House of Lords without a single comment on the ostentatiously declared intentions of the Tory leader in that House, holding the opinion which Mr. Gladstone does hold of the serious significance of the intention announced, he would have failed in
his most obvious duty to the State and the Constitu- tion. Mr. Gladstone believes, as he told the House, that "even the remote probability of a conflict between the two Houses upon such a question as this, I take to be the most serious prospect that has been opened daring my recollection since the crisis of the Corn Laws was opened to the view of Parliament." Holding such a view,—and of course it is the view of nearly every living Liberal in the country, and of a great number of Conservatives as well,—will any one seriously main- tain that Mr. Gladstone should have kept it to himself, and that its open expression is a gratuitous "threatening of the House of Lords I" If the leaders of the majority in the House of Lords de not like to hear the opinions of statesmen concerning their intentions, they should not publish those intentions. Nothing would have been easier than for Lord Salisbury to declare that it would be in the highest degree unconstitutional to forecast the decision of the Peers on a subject not yet before them. Had he done so, no one could have said in the House of Commons that the Bill was doomed, and in fact as dead as a door-nail : and the Prime Minister would then have held it an impertinence to condemn beforehand a course of action which he would have had no right to expect, and still less to assume. But when Conservative leaders discount their resolves, they not only challenge, but almost compel comment on the resolve announced. To refrain from such comment is to take the re- sponsibility of keeping back a solemn protest for which an occa- sion has been deliberately made, and which everybody expects. Under such circumstances, the omission of such a protest is a passive acquiescence in the course announced,—is equivalent, at the very least, to a tacit intimation that there would be no very grave or disastrous result to be expected from taking that course. Mr. Gladstone is of a very different opinion, and is bound to tell the House so. Had he thought lightly of the collision threat- ened between the two Houses, he might have been justified in keeping silence. But as he did not and could not think lightly of it, he was bound to say how earnestly the Government had laboured to avoid any collision between the two Houses, and how full of danger they believed it to be.
Sir Stafford Northcote's attempt to vindicate the right of the House of Lords to throw out this Bill, just because, and, so far as we can judge, only because, it is the Bill of a Liberal Government, was not even straightforward. He knows per- fectly well that the Lords passed, without making any diffi- culty about it, the much more important measure which first gave household franchise, but which had, nevertheless, the great merit that it " dished the Whigs." The present measure, which is a mere corollary to that,—so much of a corollary, that the Tory leaders acquiesce in _its principle, and only dare to criti- cise it because the Redistribution measure is not annexed to it,—the same House is encouraged to throw out, though it has passed the House of Commons by some of the largest majorities ever given to a party Bill. On what does Sir Stafford Northcote found his excuse for so dealing with it? He alleges that the Bill may be good or bad, according as the Redistribution Bill is good or bad ; and that the House has no guarantee against the Redistribution Bill being bad, and carrying out Mr. Chamberlain's views,—namely, universal suffrage, equal electoral districts, payment of Members, and the rest. That Sir Stafford Northcote should take up such a position as that without the House seeing that he is not even pretending to be serious, is hardly possible. In the first place, the Franchise Bill has settled the suffrage ; and to go on to manhood suffrage immediately after a Bill for the extension of household suffrage, would be -impossible, as he well knows. In the next place, the question of the pay- ment of Members has no connection with the question of Redistribution ; and it would be just as rational to raise the subject of the privilege of Members in connection with it, as the subject of their payment. In the third place, Mr. Glad- stone has given his own sketch of Redistribution, with the general assent of his Cabinet, and Sir Stafford Northcote ex- presses satisfaction with the main character of that sketch. This plea of Sir Stafford Northcote's is not serious, is not straightfor- ward, is • hardly honest. He is perfectly aware that this Government could not hope to survive if it proposed a scheme of Redistribution varying very widely, and in the demo- cratic sense, from Mr. Gladstone's preliminary sketch. As regards one subject,—namely, the equalisation 9f electoral districts;—we regret that it should be so, and regret that it should be so in great measure because we believe that the equalisation of electoral districts would have a wholesomely Con- servative, although a genuinely democratic effect, and would not tend in revolutionary direction at all. Still, the Government is
fairly pledged not to propose the equalisation of electoral dis- tricts; and though that pledge does not bind Lord Randolph Churchill, and he may very likely try his hand at forcing some such scheme on the House of Commons, it will be forced on it, if at all, by the Conservatives and not by the Liberals.
Now, Sir Stafford Northcote knows, as well as he can know anything, that neither Conservatives nor Liberals can with- hold household franchise from the counties ; and that whether we include Redistribution with it, or deal separately with Redistribution, the Lords will raise the greatest storm against them which this generation has yet seen, if they embark on the course of obstinate resistance to this policy. Mr. Gladstone did not say, but he might well have said, that the consequence of that resistance will be much more serious to the Conservatives than to the Liberals. The Con- servatives have at present an enormous advantage in the existence of an Upper House which is always ready to pass any measure of theirs, and always anxious to defeat any measure of their opponents. If they are moderate in their use of that advantage, they may retain it for a long time. Englishmen have an odd appreciation of surmountable diffi- culties, and rather like to retain difficulties that can be sur- mounted by a little not unreasonable trouble, better than to do away with them. Even Liberals rather like the House of Lords, which is a standing difficulty to them, and would miss some- thing if that standing difficulty were removed. But they only like a reasonable amount of difficulty, not an unreasonable. Let the House of Lords act imprudently, and the Liberals will lose their sneaking kindness for it in a day. Therefore, we say, let the Conservatives consider well. It is not often that in a free country one party has complete control of one branch of the Legislature, and that no effort is made to dislodge them from that control. At present, they have this advantage in the constitution of the House of Lords. Let the Lords be reasonable, and the Con- servatives will keep that advantage. Let the Lords be unreasonable, and the Conservatives will lose it almost before they know what they have lost. If Mr. Gladstone's warning be accepted, Sir Stafford Northcote may retain his proud and happy confidence that he can defeat at any time any measure of any but the first order of importance by the help of the Lords. If Mr. Gladstone's warning be not accepted, the Franchise Bill will be delayed for another Session ; but the Conservative party's enjoyment of the House of Lords as a special preserve for the destruction of non-important Bills, will be very soon swept away.
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