STATE OF THE REFORM QUESTION.
NOTWITHSTANDING the comparatively negative disposition of the country in political affairs, it is not at all difficult to collect and interpret the evidence of its true feeling. All the demonstra- tions, wherever they may take place, from whatever class they may originate, have one uniform tendency. Whether we look to a Chartist meeting in Manchester, to a meeting of established re- formers in Westminster, to a Reform Association in London City, to an actual election in Reigate or in Guildford, to a great de- monstration in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, or to the question of choos- ing a candidate for Manchester again—we find that the people are prepared to accept rather a liberal interpretation of political movements, but to repel with something like scorn and indigna- tion any paltering with the subject, or the intrusion of any ma- noeuvre savouring of political sect. We perceive how wide-spread and how deeply-settled this feeling must be, since it is shown in these totally different quarters, and under circumstances of such great variety. We had occasion to notice, lately, that at a meet- ing amongst the working classes of Manchester a proposal was made to declare in favour of no Reform Bill except the Charter— a proposition which the meeting scouted in favour of any bill comprising a residential suffrage and the ballot. In the same town this week the rather sudden death of a Member has called for a new election ; many candidates have been named for Manchester ; amongst them Lord Stanley and Mr. Cob- den ; and Mr. George Willon appeared with a definite nomi- nation of the free-trade leader ; but, while it was expressly proclaimed in the meeting that Mr. Cobden had positively an- nounced his intention of not standing again for the city, there was an evident repugnance to tolerate any thing resembling a re- newal of dictation by the old Free-trade party ; and Manchester seems resolved to be represented simply by a Manchester man, Mr. Bazley, a representative of cotton. But cotton itself seems ready to declare, by his mouth, that it agrees in the growing demand for great extension of the franchise and ballot. Both the very mo- derate Reformers at Guildford and Reigate are for extension of the franchise and ballot. Mr. Ernest Jones appears in West- minster' an advocate not eo nomine of the Charter, but of Man- hood Suffrage and the ballot, some other points of the charter being put forward apparently with an argumentative view. It is un- desirable to overlook the political significance of these facts. Major Monson is obviously a genuine Liberal ; he belongs however to the lordly classes, who have heretofore not been in general favourable to the ballot, but a decided extension of the suffrage and ballot were necessary to place him on a level with his cora- eetitor Wilkinson and with the sentiments of the Surrey con- stiteneY. The gentleman who takes the seat for Guildford as a step towards the Speaker's chair is obliged, in tone at least, to adopt very similar sentiments' obviously because be knows that that part of Surrey, or at least the majority of the electors, would not appoint a member of other views. Many of the manufacturers of Manchester are for great extension of the franchise and for bal- lot; the working-classes of Manchester refuse to be exclusively fledged to the charter, and will go for an instalment involving a arge extension of the franchise and ballot. We regret to find that the demand for vote by ballot, a change at best so question- able in its nature is in so many instances coupled, as it certainly need not be, with the far more justifiable demand for extended
suffrage.
Even the diversity of names which have been applied to the same thing indicates the wide prevalence of the feeling at which such various classes of the country, and the inhabitants of various districts, have arrived by methods as different. The Chartists have long since determined that they will demand "universal suffrage." We have more than once mentioned sound constitutionalists of very high standing who hold that under the British constitution all " burgesses," that is, all residents in boroughs, should possess the vote. This would be nearly every- body whom the rate-collector could find ; and many persons by the force of their own arguments have arrived at the conclusion which Mr. Bright accepts at Birmingham, that the proper franchise would be a "ratepaying franchise." A certain class of Radicals some years since propounded a " household suffi•age "' others de- mand a "Manhood suffrage." An expression of this kind is but an alias for everybody., and, as Mr. W. J. Fox says, is only a neologism for universal suffraee, the idea being almost identical. But when different classes, at different periods, and in different parts of the country, arrive, under these varying names, and by sometimes almost opposite processes, at an identical proposition, it proves that the conviction must be wide-spread, and the feeling deep-seated. Whatever, therefore, systematic politicians in their closets may have been determining that it is expedient to pro- pound in Parliament, the country at large, from the highest ranks to the lowest,—from the retired Speaker to the working man,— from the peer to the peasant,—as far as we can judge from the manifestations that have actually taken place—has come to the conclusion that two essentials in the next Reform Bill must be a large extension of the suffrage, and the adoption of vote by ballot.
It is necessary, however, to remember that there is a numerous, thoughtful, and influential portion of the community which yet holds its opinions in reserve. This reticence does not proceed from timidity ; although we do not deny that that feeling may exercise an influence in some quarters. It is due, in our opinion, to a not unreasonable apprehension of the new and unsounded difficulties which will beset the next movement in the direction of Parliamentary reform. What machinery, we must ask, can be devised and called into action, so as to invest the labouring and the artisan classes with their due influence, and with no more than their due influence in the regulation of the affairs of this very complex community ? On the threshold of such a problem we may be well inclined to pause. For it will mark an sera of no small importance in the development of the English constitn- tution. This political voyage of discovery is not „lightly to be entered upon.
The Newcastle movement is perhaps the first comprehensive and positive attempt to call forth something like a national action on the subject. Heretofore the movement has been confined al- most exclusively to professed politicians. Each Ministry in turn has sought to maintain itself in office by showing that it is as Liberal as Lord John Russell, the man in the governing class who has been most faithful to the idea of a further Reform Bill. The Conservative Government has put forward the same commodity in its shop-window. Practised agitators have taken up the subject, and have ventilated it with something like reviving interest. Amongst those who have been most earnest in maintaining the standard of political freedom must be classed Mr. James Stansfeld, and the gentlemen who have just been visiting Newcastle, and who in conjunction with Mr. Joseph Cowen have established the Northern Reform Union. Mr. P. A. Taylor is a candidate for Newcastle at the next election, and he evidentle, speaks the sentiments of the place. At the meeting on Monday he demanded a vote for every Englishman "because he is an Englishman" ; the ballot because the voter must exercise his right with "absolute independence of any pressure"; • and he asked, though the point is open to debate, we should think, for the payment of members' in order that a few fustian jackets may be seen in the House of Com- mons Newcastle, like other places demands a redistribution of seats, a point on which the places, are said to agree with the working classes. (But the question comes, what redistribution ?) And Mr. Taylor went somewhat farther, in- cluding in his political programme a policy which could not by any possibility be embodied in a clause of the reform bill, though it is the two-fold object at which any Reform Bill must aim : he demanded "A national policy to carry forward progres- sive freedom at home, and consistent action with that freedom abroad." The Times ridicules the conjunction of the two ideas, as the fancy of a vague idealist. It can see no connection between a straitened, narrow, inadequate representation at home, and certain national humiliations in the Tagus and elsewhere. We are compelled to differ from this view. If the flag of Eng- land can be rescued in no other manner, we shall make bold to ask for a few "fustian jackets." And we rather think we shall get them. The people from various causes has not been dis- posed to take the initiative on this subject of reform, but t has not been indifferent, it has accepted the incitement of the politi- cal profession with acquiescence, and has roused icself sufficiently to signify its interest. For the present, although it has not de- manded, it expects. Should the present Ministers, or any Minis- ters who may succeed them, think to satisfy the desires that have been roused by an evasive hypocritical measure, failing to comprise what is reasonable in the popular demand, they will run the risk of experiencing no small amount of honest indignation or COIL- tempt. Their Government would be sneered out of existence.
Previous page
